Articles by Elaine Corden.

Music Features

Emmylou Harris returns to her roots

By Elaine Corden
A gifted songwriter in her own right, Harris is also dazzlingly adept at taking other songwriters’ pieces and effortlessly making them her own, and her latest album, All I Intended to Be, is evocative of all the great people she has worked with, including Dolly Parton.
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Concert Reviews

Frog Eyes mixes zeal with genuine freakiness

By Elaine Corden
How do you solve a problem like Frog Eyes? Critically lauded by all the right publications, adored by the tastemaking armies of bearded cognoscenti, and yet for some people utterly inaccessible.
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Music Previews

Hey Rosetta! is on a roll

By Elaine Corden
When talking to a musician from Newfoundland, there are certain things that, fair or not, a West Coaster can expect: a lightning-fast patois delivered with old-world inflections; a disarming amount of friendliness; and, likely the result of both of those things, a certain amount of what-the-eff-are-you-talking-about?
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Local Motion

Lord Beginner builds a buzz

By Elaine Corden
The indie-rock scene in Vancouver can sometimes seem like an insular little world, constantly cannibalizing its bands to make new ones. Lord Beginner is a classic example of this. Though you might not have heard of it (the group has played just three official shows), you’ve almost certainly heard of some other projects the band’s members have been involved in.
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Concert Reviews

Immersed in Black Mountain's mind-bending psychedelia

By Elaine Corden
Black Mountain. At the Commodore Ballroom on Saturday, April 5
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Local Motion

Elias embraces sensitivity

By Elaine Corden
In the “funny because it’s true” department, Elias singer-guitarist Brian Healy gets big laughs when he announces that “Coldplay are, like, the new Phil Collins.”
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Local Motion

Go Ghetto Tigers aims to be tighter than most

By Elaine Corden
If you fell in love with the songs on 2007’s Go Ghetto Tiger, the eponymous debut from the Vancouver trio composed of MarQuo Blacquiere, Jason “Super J” Urquhart, and Skoty B, you’re out of luck if you want to hear them live anytime soon. In February, the group—which has been drawing fans with its mix of industrial noise, ’80s new wave, and ’90s indie rock—lost guitarist-vocalist Skoty B to time-commitment conflicts.
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Recordings

Chris Smith

By Elaine Corden
Lullabys for Crybabies (Independent)
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Recordings

The Pack A.D.

By Elaine Corden
Tintype (Mint)
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Music Features

Raine Maida strips away Our Lady Peace’s rock trappings

By Elaine Corden
Raine Maida is a man who inspires mixed emotions. On one hand, he and his Toronto-based band, Our Lady Peace, have had million-selling albums both at home and abroad. On the other, those albums were filled with made-for-radio, commercial rock.
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Concert Reviews

Shit-kicking and scary, catch the Pack A.D. when you can

By Elaine Corden
If you’re not familiar with the two-girl group’s music, think the White Stripes minus all the annoying pretensions, but plus one incredibly talented singer and guitarist in came-from-nowhere Becky Black.
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Pop Eye

Boys unclear they are men

By Elaine Corden
A funny thing happened recently on MuchMoreMusic, a channel that occasionally shows music videos betwixt half-hour exposés on the secret life of Pam Anderson's cooter. Following Gene Simmons Family Jewels but before Listed: Top 10 Items Found in the Rectums of '80s Child Stars , viewers were treated to marathon reruns of VH1's Mission: Man Band , a show where former members of Color Me Badd, 98 Degrees, 'N Sync, and LFO come together to form a pop-vocal group.
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Pop Eye

The Spice Girls: feminist saviours

By Elaine Corden
Before you fire off an e-flamer, consider this: the pop starlet of today have no agenda beyond "being famous is fun" and, more dangerously, "be thin and attractive at all costs". It’s not just that there’s a bad message being sent to young fans—it’s that there’s no message
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Pop Eye

Nikki Sixx is high on being sober

By Elaine Corden
One Crüe member stands out as the most ridiculously extreme of them all: bassist Nikki Sixx. Famously pronounced dead after an overdose in December 1987, then brought back to life by a paramedic who happened to be a fan, the former Frank Carlton Serafina Feranna Jr. is rock's most unlikely survivor–a junkie, cokehead, and all-around bad man, bent on self-destruction. Yet on a recent Friday afternoon, the rock icon passed through town alive and well, promoting a book that decries the life of indulgence he once symbolized
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Recordings

Blackout by Britney Spears

By Elaine Corden
Good Lord, Britney Jean Spears. At what point in the tale of our Cheetos-chomping, baby-losing, vag-flashing, drugged-up anti-heroine do we turn our eyes away and admit our culpability in her undoing? From all the forwarded YouTube videos, cheap newspaper headlines, and gossipy Web site updates, the public hasn't quite finished watching this 25-year-old mother-of-two fall to pieces. It's easy to laugh and condemn such a colossal fuck-up of a star, especially when you overlook that she was sexualized by sleazy record execs, milked for all the jism-covered cash her teenage haunches could generate, and then left for dead on the side of the pop-cultural highway. Is it any wonder she's splaying her legs for us?
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Music Features

Being nice doesn't always suit an evasive Vanderslice

By Elaine Corden
John Vanderslice is a nice guy. Nearly every feature on the San Francisco–based singer, songwriter, and producer describes how affable he is, so it must be true. Chatting with him on a lazy Sunday afternoon will be a breeze, right? Not so much. While Vanderslice may enjoy a reputation for sweetness, nobody ever mentions how impenetrable the 40-year-old former MK Ultra singer is.
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Music Features

Selfishness no longer suits an admittedly lucky Lowe

By Elaine Corden
Toward the end of Nick Lowe's new album, At My Age, there's a lovely little tune called "Rome Wasn't Built in a Day". In the first verse, Lowe announces his plans to win over a prospective lover, crooning in an easy tenor, "First I have to break down your resistance to my charms." As if that's ever been a problem. There is little resisting the considerable charisma of Lowe, the elder statesman of punk, who, at 58, is cooler and more winsome than most rock stars half his age.
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Recordings

Super Furry Animals

By Elaine Corden
Hey Venus! (Rough Trade)
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Concert Reviews

The Academy Is…

By Elaine Corden
At the Croatian Cultural Centre on Friday, September 14
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Local Motion

Maturing McNarland carries no regrets

By Elaine Corden
The Holly McNarland whose latest record, Chin Up Buttercup, was released this past June is about as far from the Holly McNarland you might remember from her hit-making days in the late '90s as can be. The woman who delivered the caustic "Mr. 5 Minutes", an ode to the shortcomings in her lover's stamina, in 1996 has just put her 11-month-old daughter, Coco Belle, down for a nap. Out in the back yard, her ex-husband, Jay Mirus, is keeping her seven-year-old son, Nege, busy while mommy talks rock.
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Recordings

Pender

By Elaine Corden
hey man don't bring yourself down (Copperspine)
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Recordings

Hey Ocean!

By Elaine Corden
Stop Looking Like Music (Independent)
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Concert Reviews

The Fray

By Elaine Corden
At Deer Lake Park on Sunday, July 29
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Local Motion

Daggermouth flies punk flag

By Elaine Corden
For those who grew up in the '90s and spent any time trekking in from the suburbs to see bands at Selynn Hall, the New York Theatre, or the Hastings Community Centre, Vancouver's Daggermouth will immediately return you to the halcyon days of smelly punkers, broken curfews, and budding teenage rebellion.
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Local Motion

Bison charges ahead with bygone metal

By Elaine Corden
Alongside a sense of occasion, decent transit, and the ability of people to discern yogawear from streetwear, something Vancouver has conspicuously lacked in the past few years is a thriving metal scene. Yeah, there's hair metal (Crystal Pistol; sorry, dudes, you're hair farmers), Darkness-inspired irony metal (the fun-but-forgettable Rock'N), and metal for people who never realized metal died (any given night at the Cobalt will turn up a good number of these acts).
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Music Features

Looking for a connection

By Elaine Corden
On Our Earthly Pleasures, Maxïmo Park aims for universality, as well as a more aggressive sound.
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Concert Reviews

Vans Warped Tour

By Elaine Corden
At Thunderbird Stadium on Tuesday, July 3
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Recordings

Marilyn Manson

By Elaine Corden
Eat Me, Drink Me (Interscope)
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Pop Eye

Love ain’t all Sir Paul needs

By Elaine Corden
Billionaire Beatle can’t stop himself from trolling for the public’s affection.
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Music Features

Vietnam rocker is eager for his tour of duty

By Elaine Corden
When the lead singer of a band called Vietnam (a beardier-than-thou outfit that makes anti-establishment retro-psych) starts talking about signing up for a United Service Organization tour in Iraq, you can't help but feel that maybe, just maybe, he's winding you up. But Michael Gerner, speaking in a southern drawl on the line from New York's notorious Williamsburg neighbourhood, seems deadly serious.
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Music Features

Joe Sumner's Fiction Plane flies with fatherly help

By Elaine Corden
If you've got any knowledge of Freudian psychology, you'll probably be intrigued by Left Side of the Brain , the second album from London's Fiction Plane. That a British group has made a record that could quite easily be mistaken for a '90s American rock album is surprising, but consider this: alongside guitarist Seton Daunt and drummer Pete Wilhoit, Fiction Plane contains one Joe Sumner on bass and lead vocals. That's the son of Gordon Sumner, better known as Sting.
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Recordings

Miracle Fortress

By Elaine Corden
Five Roses (Secret City)
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Music Features

The Swedish touch

By Elaine Corden
Peter Bjorn and John weren’t prepared for the avalanche of hype that greeted Writer’s Block.
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Music Features

!!! gives fans permission to shake a tail feather

By Elaine Corden
Vancouver, take solace. If Allan Wilson, percussionist and sax player for dance-punk mavericks !!! is to believed, we are not the only city with a Footloose-like aversion to cutting a rug.
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Local Motion

Ambitious Elizabeth aims for edgy art

By Elaine Corden
Perhaps because of their intense stage demeanour, gloomy lyrics, and stylized looks, the members of Elizabeth don't always get credit for the fact that they're actually funny. When the quartet plays live, it's all business, with barely a word between songs; off-stage, however, the four are a riot, cracking wildly inappropriate jokes that, unfortunately, don't translate well to the printed page.
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Music Features

Found sounds boost the utopian-minded Books

By Elaine Corden
If there's one thing that's been underscored these past few weeks by the nonstop media circus surrounding both Don Imus's attack of foot-in-mouth disease and Anna Nicole's babydaddy, it's that, just as the industrial revolution ran on a stream of belching smokestacks, the information age is driven by a constant spew of sound bites.
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Concert Reviews

Taking Back Sunday

By Elaine Corden
At the Forum on Sunday, March 18
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Pop Eye

Who will police the Police?

By Elaine Corden
This weekend, that most antimusic of musical institutions, the Grammy Awards, will bear witness to an extraordinary event. After over 20 years apart, the Police, beloved English trio of the ’80s, will reunite its full lineup, kicking off the evening’s festivities and then, rumours abound, possibly heading out on a world tour.
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Recordings

Love

By Elaine Corden
The Beatles (EMI)
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Recordings

Short cut reviews

By Adrian Mack, Elaine Corden, John Lucas, Mike Usinger, Shawn Conner, and Steve Newton
Ginsberg’s Inkling
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Recordings

Ghost House / Departures (Ghost House Music)

By Elaine Corden
Departures (Ghost House Music)
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