I actually love the Creature.
Creature on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads

not sure about the movie being canadian but yeah MBV is from across the pond, but SIANspheric kind of sounds like them (and IS canadian hehe), it's the closest comparison i can make.

I find it amazing that in four years only one person has mentioned Leonard Cohen and no one has mentioned Skinny Puppy or Kid Koala.

I wonder if people knew they were Canadian! It does seem kinda odd those didn't get mentioned!

personally leonard cohen bores me to tears.

skinny puppy i only heard after ministry and didn't do as much for me.

kid koala is cool, but his label mate amon tobin holds FAR more attention in my ears.

i'm kind of out of the loop now, most of my canadiana stuff is from the 90s.

What about Hayden...he's talented, unique....The Tragically Hip, The Tea Party (sucks)haha..Alexis On Fire "Dallas Green grew up 20min away from me"....so what?......

I love Amon Tobin but he's not Canadian. :p:

You can't go into Skinny Puppy expecting Ministry, it's a totally different animal. In a lot of ways I wouldn't even classify them as the same type of music. Ministry is largely about aggression. Skinny Puppy isn't, they're more about just sounding fucked up and kind of abstract. If you've never heard Last Rights or Too Dark Park I'd recommend checking out one or both of them. I think their noisier, more experimental style of music on those albums might appeal to you.

What can I say about Leonard Cohen? If you don't like him, you don't. But if you've never heard Songs of Love and Hate you may want to give it a listen before you completely rule him out.

yeah i know tobin's brazilian hehe just when i think ninja tunes it's all him hehe

as for skinny puppy i'll give them another chance.

i think i might have a cohen record somewhere i'll have to take a peak through my collection (basically stuff i salvaged from my mom's place before she put the rest up for sale). i understand that lyrically he's fantastic, i, just, can't, get, over, his, incredibly, monotonous, delivery, that, makes, william, shatner, sound, like, he, needs, ritalin.

The Tea Party were a once great Canadian group who almost had a second home in Australia where i used to reside... their first three or four albums are still amongst my most favorite albums... pity they dulled down their own diverse instrumentation formula, got stuck in rock ballad mode half the time and lost the cool bluesy edge of their "The Edges of Twlight" album...

Then they also broke up. Damn I wish they'd reform and get back to their best...

I used to chill with an Australian guy...I remember him telling me that they were pretty big back home....I never cared for them to much.

My cousin said she was in a pub and Jeff Martin from the Tea Party was also at the same place- she said he came across as pretty arrogant and pompous at the time... that was fifteen years ago though, so lord only knows what he'd be like now...

I've heard a bit of Arcade fire and they interested me.

I was into Black Mountain for awhile. That's honestly the only Canadian band that I can think of at the moment.

do make say think
a silver mt zion
godspeed you! black emperor
apostle of hustle
broken social scene

depends on what kind of music u like

that's the impression he gave in every single interview i've ever seen him participate in (again in the 90s). i've known people who claim to have met the band and everyone is cool except for martin.

there was a show on muchmusic back in the day called 'intimate and interactive' where bands would come into the studio and do two short sets with a Q&A period between. martin most definitely lived up to the ego side of things, it was almost painful to watch at times.

every other band i'd ever seen on that program was great, they all had lots of fun and seemed to enjoy the opportunity to connect with their fans. not so with the tea party, it was all about establishing how much better and more of an artiste that jeff martin was above anything you could possibly ever consider achieving.

also gotta agree with the nod for 'the edges of twilight', top notch 90s rock.

Even transmission and Trytych were full of great rock songs, the last two albums seemed to lack something...

Some good Jeff Martin anecdotes there! I always got the impression that the bands demise probably had something to do with a disagreement due to his nature, and considering his status in the band, a major disagreement probably would have always resulted in its end... ahhh, well, a pity, they'll never make something as good as the Edges of Twilight again... that sucks.

Canadian music, a topic near and dear to my heart. I've seen some good bands listed here and some missed entirely. Here's a list off the top of my head.

David Wilcox - I always seem to get frustrated trying to talk to Americans about him because there is apparently some folk artist by the same name, but the man's a great songwriter, guitarist and showman, and he's got one of the smoothest voices I know.

Burton Cummings - Another smooth voice and a great songwriter, and definitely one of my favourite keyboard artists. As piano-playing singer-songwriters go, I'd put him second only to Billy Joel.

Stompin' Tom - When the CBC determined the top 100 greatest Canadians, he was number 13, just one place ahead of....

Neil Young

and then there's...
Gordon Lightfoot
The Guess Who
BTO
Rush
Headpins
Chilliwack
Harlequin
Red Rider
Helix
Ian Thomas
Anne Murray (yeah, I like Anne Murray)
Prism
April Wine
Triumph
Doug and the Slugs
The Jitters
Trooper
The Barenaked Ladies
Great Big Sea
The Tragically Hip

and that's just what's currently on my MP3 playlist.

As far as I'm concerned, Canada has produced and allowed to survive Nickelback and Justin Bieber. They have nothing to be proud of..

They're huge in the US and other parts of the world who deserve just as much blame as Canada if not more.

Yes because absolutely NO radio stations outside of Canada were playing "How You Remind Me" back in 2001. :rolleyes:

If you want to hate Nickelback and Justin Bieber more power to you, but don't drag down an entire country because of that because you just sound like an immature idiot.

Baldy I think you should post this in the classic rock section this is an indie section. =D

Point taken, but Canada's finest is Canada's finest.:D

Haha, it was more of a comedic statement, I actually love Canada, (I have a trailer near London Ontario for Christ's sake).

You say party from vancouver. They were known as you say party! we say die! but after drummer devon clifford died this year they've officially changed their name to you say party. Theyr'e kind of a dance/electronic indie band, and I love their first three albums. Since clifford died they've remixed their last album with a more heavily electronic sound. They now have a new drummer and it'll be interesting to see where their music goes in the next album.

Die Mannequin is a no nonsense dirty rock band out of Toronto, Canada who are awesome. If you have not checked them out yet...........Do so!

Devin Townsend = one of the reasons to respect Canadian music... :)

heres my list: though most of you will probably not have heard of most of these

Parlour steps
the rural alberta advantage
mother mother
we are the city
dan mangan
jon and roy
elliot brood
sunset rubdown
tokyo police club

You can't forget about Japandroid if you want to talk about Canadian Indie Rock! They are awesome!

Dan Mangan
 

Since moderators closed katzy's thread on Dan Mangan, I'm replying here to her post about his song, "Basket," that she feels is the saddest song ever.

http://www.musicbanter.com/indie-alt...ml#post1245266

Katzy, here is my reply:

I took your dare, because I love music dares and I wondered if I would feel depressed by this song...but I listened and wasn't depressed by it. Here are some of the reasons I didn't find the song depressing:

First of all, the man actually grows old! He doesn't die young! That is so fortunate. Yes, aging is hard...but he isn't in excruciating pain (yet). When someone dies young without having a chance for fulfillment, that makes me sad.

Second, the man actually had a child. There must have been many wonderful memories wrapped up in that. And he hasn't lost all his memories yet. That's a positive.

Third, it sounds as if the person (spouse?) to whom the song is sung actually survived so that they had a long life together, at least for much of it. That is lucky. Much worse would be people who wanted to be together, but couldn't.

I do feel the song shows well what it can be like to grow old and lose your abilities. It also shows the sad feeling of unfulfillment about one's life. But how fortunate to have had a chance for a life full of so many emotions and changing perspectives.

I think the song shows that the marital relationship lacked emotional intimacy or fell apart. I used to feel sad about songs of abandonment...but when you think about it, what would it serve if someone who doesn't want to be with you returned? One relationship lesson I've learned is this: never pine for someone who doesn't want to be with you. Pine for someone who does.

So I feel that the saddest song ever would not be about yearning for someone who doesn't want to be with you, but instead would be about yearning for someone who loved you but was forced to leave, such as due to death, such that you spend the rest of your life longing for a person who will never exist again. That would be the saddest song to me. :)

I actually made the heading --Saddest.Song.Ever.; dare you to listen-- so that someone may actually listen to it. I see so many threads with obscure band/musician names and I just breeze right over-- unless it looks interesting, or I'm bored. So that's what that was about. Also, I do not think the song is about someone not wanting to be with the other. I think it is the exact opposite. I think it is about someone who wants very much to be with their love, but is unable to do so fully.

To me the reason this song is sad and depressing is because it is about dementia and Alzheimer's-- which, like most diseases, is freaking awful. It robs you of your memories and your loved ones.

The song is about aging and losing your memories. I actually heard Mangan explain this: the song "Basket" is about having memories in a basket and you can't keep them in it; they (memories) are spilling out.

"just a bakset full of memories/ and i'm losing more each day it seems" then it goes on, "if I could make it to the street I'd steal a car, or a bike..." The desperation there is just heart wrenching, to me. -- (I've seen my grandmother want to run away from confusion. You're constantly hearing of dementia patients that wander away or get lost)

So the song is about losing everything, but not by your own choice. Your body is turning on you robbing you of your loved ones.

Also, when you age, your family tends to forget about you. Place you in a nursing home, no visits, etc. I believe this song touches on that as well.

The part that always gets me "so i'll brace my self against the wall/ and hope to god that I don't fall..... my hip won't hold/ how did i get so old"

Breaking a hip is, very commonly, a life-ending event in the elderly. It is a hard surgery on the body. It takes a toll, especially for someone with Alzheimer's.
My grandmother, whom I loved like my own mother. I won't go on and on, but she was "it" for me. She passed away recently and suffered from this disease. Also, what sent her over the edge was when she fell and broke her hip.

Dan Mangan wrote this song about his grandparents and well, it hit home.The reason I find it to be so depressing is not only the very personal factor, but it just conveys what it is like to age and lose yourself. While life may have been wonderful and great, you can't remember that. Your scared and just want to remember your grand kids names. Its about lamenting the loss of your youth and your life. Also it's about saying goodbye to your life, your love, etc.

Thanks for listening! I love this song and really wanted to share it.

Neil Young has some indie in him somewhere, right?

Besides that, The Smalls are pretty damn good, and Crystal Castles are great, not only an electronic group i can really stand but a good one at that.

Thank you for explaining more about the song, katsy.

Described as you describe it, I can see more of the sadness in the song. For example, it wasn't clear to me if the man was entirely alone. Also, it wasn't clear to me how many of his memories he had lost, so when I heard the song I was thinking, "Hey! He still knows who his son is! He remembers he had a dog! He isn't screaming in pain, at 9/10 on the pain scale!" I was comparing his end of life with the situations I've known that are even worse.

I agree with you about the sadness of Alzheimer's. In fact, just yesterday I was talking with a young man who said he worked at an Alzheimer's unit but only stayed for two weeks because it was so depressing. The reason is that so many of the people, as they lost their memories and sense of reality, experienced terror and horrible sadness, he said. It was hard for the young man to cope.

I'm sorry about your grandmother's dying, and I'm thinking how fortunate she was to have you.

When you write, "While life may have been wonderful and great, you can't remember that," I relate very much, because I have seen my father going through this. When you are ill and in pain, the happy times you once experienced evaporate (even if they can be remembered). It is as if they never happened. I wrote a song for my dad and gave him the lyrics months ago that include these lines, because I wanted him to know I see and understand his situation: "You call emergency. Your capsized quality of life is sinking, your options shrinking as memories and pleasures cease to release you and bring relief from your present descent. [...] You struggle in the waves. Now all that I can say if I'm sorry you have to live through this. I'm sorry we're both helpless this Mayday when no worship will save you and no spring will renew health and youth as you're drowning."

I'll listen to more of Dan Mangan (I do like robots! ;)). Thank you again for taking the time to describe your connection to his song "Basket."

I was under the impression Burning Down was Canadas finest? ;)

I'll just add some superb artists/bands that haven't been mentioned so far:

Alanis Morissette
NoMeansNo
Delerium
Front Line Assembly
Owen Pallett
Diana Krall

Cheater.

Just a little bit ... no, I'm not :) To me FLA is a stripped down version of Skinny Puppy, whereas Delerium's almost pop music (love their early albums though).

I know they sound different, I'm just saying they're the same people. :)

Yes, Bill Leeb. Another two-faced Canadian musician is Devin Townsend (terrific Strapping Young Lad & then his prog stuff).

This thread lacks Crystal Castles. Why the fuck does it lack Crystal Castles?

:confused: