Zero Suck Music

Welcome to the Canadiana free-for-all. Both calystarose and I will be posting 3 times this week. We never could do things in moderation.

Let's get started.




This is J Englishman, a wonderful artist from Toronto. His album, Poor Li'l Rock Star has pretty much been my soundtrack for the last ten years. I'm going to take the lazy way out and plagiarize myself for a minute. I reviewed the album last year at my music blog (which I have, sadly, neglected the last six months or so. I need to get back to it). I don't see the need to do a completely different intro, especially when there isn't much information to be had.

So, the following is cribbed from my review of the album:

J Englishman is a Canadian artist who released a really stellar album in 2000. It was probably the first album I bought after hearing only one single, and it was way before I started downloading and doing the "try before you buy" type of thing, which goes to show how sure I was of the purchase. This was his only release, unfortunately. When last I heard, he was tending bar at The Tap in Toronto, though his Wiki article says that over the years, he's been working as a freelance music writer for Chart magazine, Production Manager for a John Legend tour, Festival Programmer and Production Manager for "Rock the Wake" festival, and is currently working as an audio engineer. He also has album producer credits (two of them) for the band G-13. He's also done sound engineering at a lounge in Toronto.

This is a lot of info for someone so obscure, so I'm guessing that someone connected to him or his sister (Canadian singer Esthero*) has edited the article. I don't know if that makes it more or less trustworthy, but I'm just happy to know that the man might still be somewhere in the music industry, just waiting for a chance to put out more music.

I'm pretty attached to this album, and I'm always up for trying to tempt someone else into listening to J's stuff. The problem is... it's really hard to find. It's not available at iTunes, and J's website is woefully out of date. The last listed tour dates were in 2004. There are some free MP3s available in the Sounds section, though. Download Breaking Down, Flowers For Ophelia (my favourite!), and Tripwires. To hear the album in its entirety, click the cut below. I cannot tell you how shocked I am that Grooveshark has the files streaming. I've included a playlist.

( Click to listen! )

Four songs hit the Top 40 and one went as far as the Top 10 (Abused, Staring at the Sun, The One Thing, and More). I've been able to find a couple of videos on YouTube that use his music, but only one actual music video. It's below. Kind of silly that it was banned by Much Music.

He has a MySpace, which indicates that he (or someone else) logged into the account in March 2010, but the last blog post is dated 2009. I've friended it anyway just in case.

If this ends up being his only album it'll be a damn shame, but at least he put out a good one.




*Fun Fact, J's sister helped to co-write Love Lockdown with Kanye West


Links:
- LastFM

This lovely man is Anthony Green. (He's also in my icon.)



He sings in a band called Circa Survive. He also supports breast cancer research, and foundations like Keep-A-Breast. Here he is, making a plaster cast of his rack. Or rather, of the rack he no doubt wishes he had.



Anthony's side project is the whole reason I pushed for this week's theme. In 2008, he put out a solo album called Avalon. I heard about it via an e-mail update from My Chemical Romance and I kind of scoffed. Why the hell would I go and buy your friend's album? Also, it's pretty lame to use your fan base like that. Well, I was a fucking idiot because the love I have for this man knows no bounds.

I don't even remember how I ended up hearing a song from Avalon, but I suspect that I came to Circa Survive first. I'm pretty attached to Act Appalled (Juturna) and The Difference Between Medicine and Poison is the Dose (On Letting Go). Chiodos was playing Warped Tour the last time I went and since I'd gotten a magazine with both Craig Owens and Anthony Green on the cover, I decided to check out some of his stuff, too. I like Circa Survive well enough, but Anthony's solo stuff is golden, in my opinion.

His voice isn't for everyone, which is something that drives me nuts because people are way too quick to brush him off. If you give him a chance, you'll probably really enjoy his music. While Circa Survive is pretty loud, Avalon is full of slower, calmer, songs - though that's not to say that it's all a bunch of ballads. It really isn't. I can't really compare it (or him) to anyone in particular because I have no clue who he might sound like. Now that I've said that, someone will no doubt school me with a list as long as I am tall, but I don't really care.

To record the album (and later to support it), he played with Good Old War, another favourite of mine. (He later returned the favour on Weak Man, off GOW's Only Way to Be Alone.)

The best song on Avalon also happens to be the shortest. Slowing Down (Long Time Coming) clocks in at 1:44, but it's an amazing little song.

It also has lovely ( lyrics. ).

Along with Avalon, you get the High and Driving EP, which includes several demos of Avalon songs. It's always interesting to see how songs may have changed from that starting point. Between the demo and the album versions, I've listened to Slowing Down (Long Time Coming) 150 times. I'm still not bored of it. I'm still not 100% sold on the Colin Frangicetto remix album, particularly on my favourite song, but I'll give him another listen and try to be objective.

There's another Circa Survive album coming soon, but after that Anthony plans to work on his next solo effort, Beautiful Things. I'm pretty excited for that.

Links:
- Last FM (with performance video)
- MySpace (LOL, username used to be moshtradamus)
- Twitter
- Facebook