This morning, The Comedy Channel replayed the uncut version of Saturday Night Live from October 3, 1992. What's so significant about that date? Your host: Tim Robbins (promoting some movie that I can't remember for the life of me). Your musical guest: Sinead O'Connor. Yes, THAT episode. Sinead's actions at the conclusion of her second performance of that evening have become a "Where were you at the time?" moment for anyone born in North America between 1972 and 1976. Sure, it's a paltry legacy for our mini-generation, but it's the closest thing we have to Altamont.

Mike Myers (the pride of Scarborough) announced during the SNL broadcast that the Toronto Blue Jays had won the World Series. The response from the crowd was a healthy chorus of boos. My Canadian pride gravely insulted (this came in the wake of the Canadian-flag-hung-upsidedown Game 1 incident), I turned the channel, and thus, on October 17, 1992, I swore that I would never watch SNL ever again. I have watched it about three times since. I've been told that I haven't missed much.

Two weeks previous, I was watching SNL at home. Sinead O'Connor on the show, performing in support of her new album, "Am I Not Your Girl"? Her second song, was an eerie acappella, a chant perhaps. It seemed to be her usual "children are dying, war is hell" spiel. Most people considered her to be a preachy flake at the time. I was barely paying attention as the camera slowly panned in, until only her face and neck were visible. When a picture of the Pope appeared on my TV screen, my first thought was "I think she's up to no good". My second thought was "no matter what happens here, I doubt this segment will air again on TV". Sinead tore up the picture, proclaimed "Fight the REAL enemy!!", the live audience went deathly silent. She HAD been up to no good, NBC never aired the segment again, and Sinead's career as a mainstream artist/cash cow was finished.

Since that time, Sinead's life has been a real-life soap opera. I won't bother recapping it here. I will say that although "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got" lives in over six million homes, it is hardly spoken of today. It sat untouched in my home for about four years before I rediscovered it in 1995. It is a damn fine album even ten years after it's release. Sinead O'Connor was, and is a, confused person, but no matter what happened in her personal life, she is a supremely talented musical artist. Many people won't appreciate her musical ability because they can't get past their preconceived notion that she is a wacko. Now, female artists like Alanis Morrisette, Gwen Stefani, Fiona Apple, Courtney Love, ....( you get the idea) go to great lengths to publicize themselves as left-of-centre wackos, and everybody thinks that it's normal for a female music star. Oh yes, Chris Farley and Phil Hartman are dead, and Tim Meadows is the only 1992 SNL cast member still on the show. And to think, it only took them eight years to think up a decent gimmick for him (and then he came down with not one, but TWO awesome gimmicks)

Now, eight years later, I watched the show with a far finer eye for detail than I had the first time. In his opening monologue, Tim Robbins speaks about General Electric, and how they don't just make kitchen appliances, they also make triggers for nuclear weapons ... of course, Tim is called to the back to be questioned by Lorne Michaels, and it all turns out to be a dream. So Lorne doesn't have to cut out Tim's monologue after all ... CENSORSHIP JOKE #1.

Much hilarity ensues, much of it courtesy of Dana Carvey with his dead-on Ross Perot and Dennis Miller impressions.

Tim Robbins appears in a skit in which he poses as the guitar-strumming "leader" of a group of white, racist, utlra-conservatives. The group is singing folk songs by a campfire, gleefully burning books all the while. Funny, but the political motive is far from subtle -- censorship = ignorance. CENSORSHIP JOKE #2.

Back from commercial, Sinead sings for the second time. I listen to what she's saying. As the camera pans inward, I notice that she's wearing a Jewish Star of David around her neck. Finally, as the song/chant reaches it's intense climax, as she urges the children of Ireland to fight back, she holds up the picture of the Pope, and I have to stand up and cheer. I'm not sure if I'm cheering due to CC's guts for airing this segment in it's uncensored entirety, or if it's more because I always agreed with Sinead on many of her religious principles. "God's place is the world, but the world is not God's place", was written in the liner notes for "I Do Not Want...", yeah, that works for me.

This episode of SNL was funny, but filled with political overtones in the light of the upcoming presidential election. But after all the jokes, the anti-censorship skits, the digs at Ross Perot and the Reagan-Bush regime, this show is only remembered today for ITSELF being censored. A fine example of modern day irony.

One day, I praise The Offspring -- whose music I loathe -- for their smart internet marketing tactics. The very next day, Barenaked Ladies -- yet another band that I hate -- announce their own internet "marketing" strategy, and it may be the stupidest music-related thing that I've heard this year. Well, it serves me right on a few counts, 1) for saying so many nice things about a crap band (The Offspring), 2) for forgetting to include BNL on the "Stooopid 2001" compilation ("Enid" would have been a cinch), 3) for writing about music for more than two years and until this moment, NEVER written anything about BNL, despite the fact that when I was a hardcore CFNY fan in 1989-1990, I was forced to hear songs from their 1990 indie cassette for what seemed like an hourly basis, and being too shy and unopinionated back then to stand on a table in the cafeteria in my high school at the peak of lunch hour and scream in my loudest voice (which is pretty damn loud, let me tell you) "Barenaked Ladies SUUUUUCKKKK!!!!!!" back in the days when people thought that "If I Had $1000000" was the funniest thing since Monty Python, oh but I could have stopped their meteoric rise back then because I KNEW that BNL belonged in the Supreme Hall of Fame of Universal Suckdom and I didn't tell everyone about it, oh the guilt.

So here it is. BNL are posting songs from their new album on the internet. Except that you can't actually download a complete song, you get a snippet of a song followed by the voices of Stephen Page and Tyler Stewart engaging in some light comedy banter about how what you are hearing is actually NOT a complete song but merely an advertisement for their new album, complete with silly jokes about trying to get their songs onto Napster and how tricky we Canadians are. These "Trojan Files", presumably, are intended as statements against widespread sharing of mp3 files across the internet, a process known to some greedy industry types as "piracy".

However, the band and their management believe that the Trojan files will also serve as dangling carrots, giving their fans a snippet of what to expect when they flock to the closest music shop to buy the actual CD. Except that these files are likely to PISS OFF THEIR FAN BASE more than anything else, which can't be an effective ad campaign, methinks. At the very worst, this can be viewed as the opposite of file-swapping -- BNL are holding their songs hostage, and are antagonizing their fans into paying a ransom at the closest HMV. Imagine watching the season opener of "Friends" and after the first five minutes, it cuts away to Jennifer Aniston in the NBC studios wearing a low cut top and she says "We hope you've enjoyed the first five minutes of 'Friends'. If you'd like to see the remainder of our exciting season opener, please call your local cable company. Oh yes, have your credit cards ready because that will be $15.99". No matter how much cleavage she was showing, or how many times she tossed her long tresses, it would ANNOY THE HELL OUT OF ME. Similarly, if I was a BNL fan I wouldn't need to be goaded into buying their album and if I were a potential new fan I'd think they were a bunch of Canuck arseholes and wouldn't think twice about buying their new CD, particularly when every band and their monkey's uncle, from Smashing Pumpkins to Blur ,is giving away entire songs and albums for free. No matter -- if BNL want to humiliate themselves in front of a potential internet audience of millions then I'm not going to stop them.

If someone were to compile a CD entitled "The Stupidest Songs of the Last Ten Years", around half of it would be songs by The Offspring. Yeah, I know, nobody in their right mind would use that title to sell a compilation CD. How about "Stooopid 2001"? Yeah, that would work (featuring "classics" such as "Come Out and Play", "The Thong Song" by Sisqo and "Gettin' Jiggy With It" by Will Smith, "Stooopid 2001" would probably sell by the cartload, proving once again that good music, like crime, just doesn't pay). Part of the irony is The Offspring themselves -- they are not stupid people. They are college educated, and in particular, singer Dexter Holland has a Ph.D. from Cornell in molecular biology. But dumbass music aside, The Offspring have come up with one of the cleverest marketing strategies I've ever seen. Their upcoming album "Conspiracy of One" will be available for downloading FREE on their website. Thus, it will be on the internet for several weeks prior to the album's official release. As if that weren't reward enough for Offspring fans, everyone who downloads the album will be entered in a draw for one million dollars. The draw will be held live on MTV when the album is released in stores.

The Offspring are exploiting the powers of the internet to garner FREE PUBLICITY. True, it's not exactly free (it will cost them a million dollars) but the band is smart enough to know that their actions will create a buzz amongst their fans, the internet community and the music community that defies pricetags. Most people will hear about this through a broadcast medium, not from an ad campaign spurred on by a publicist hired by their record company, and in that sense, the publicity is free indeed. This is not rocket science, in fact, all The Offspring are doing is sticking out their tongue toward the hand that has fed them. Two years ago, they pre-released "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)" on the internet and it was downloaded 22 MILLION times in ten weeks. The hype they generated clearly worked -- "Americana" sold 10.5 million copies worldwide, about two or three times the total of their previous album, 1995's "Ixnay on the Hombre". You might question the majority of those increased sales being directly attributable to the internet, but why would you? -- the BAND clearly believes it, or they wouldn't be giving away a million dollars this time.

And that's not all -- to encourage fans to buy the CD in November, it will come encoded with a key that will unlock a special "fans only" portion of their web site, allowing ... *consumers* ... to access interviews, videos, chat rooms, etc. More kudos to The Offspring -- a marketing strategy for the Napster generation. This type of marketing approach may be the future of music sales, and if so, The Offspring are helping to lead the way. Now if only they could do something about their music ... [thanks to nme.com for the news story and providing the facts and figures included in this piece].

You can't argue with the pedigree of Snowpony. Featuring ex-MBV bassist Deb Googe, ex-Stereolab keyboardist Katherine Gifford, not to mention Tortoise mainman John McEnitire as producer for their debut album "The Slowmotion World of Snowpony". I finally got the opportunity to hear the album today, and what a waste of talent. I can't recall hearing a pop album by anybody, ANYBODY (except, perhaps for Stone Temple Pilots' "Purple" {shudder}) that was completely lacking anything resembling a decent tune, even for ten seconds. It was as stale as last summer's fruit crop, flat production, piss-poor vocal melodies that were close in spirit to a faked orgasm in a third rate porn flick -- a total wasteland of musical merit. Katherine has complained that Tim and Laetitia wouldn't let anybody else write the songs for Stereolab. No kidding, the forward-thinking first couple of caramel-coated futuristic Krautpop were concerned that her songs would scar their unborn child for life.

I have nothing against Maclean's magazine, but to paraphrase Public Enemy, "Maclean's is a great read for most, but it's never done $h!t for me ...". Until their article on the 25 coolest web sites introduced me to insound.com. Insound is based in New York City specializes in hard-to-find indie music. It reminded me of Other Music, an ultra-cool music shop with similar cred which I visited while in NYC a few years ago (OM is still the only shop I have ever seen with a "Krautrock" section). I checked out insound.com and put it to the test. You see, music snobs like me have our ways of determining if a music store is up to snuff. We look up a few "ultra-credible" bands (credible in our humble opinion) and observe the selection. I usually look up bands such as Joy Division, Velvet Underground and My Bloody Valentine.

Now for the true purpose of this article -- the CD I found while searching under MBV.

Clairecords has released a compo titled "Several Bands Galore Volume 2". It features the "sounds of the bands of the MBV mailing list" -- it says so right on the cover. That nine word sentence in quotations was all the convincing I needed. I ordered the CD. I didn't care if all the bands were unsigned. They love MBV, and have figured out 17 different methods of carrying on their legacy, therefore they are my brothers and sisters. Upon receiving the disc, the phrase "MBV Lovefest" became buzzwords in my house.

The diversity of the music on this CD is testament to the growing consensus that MBV's influence, like Bob Dylan's, is so widespread that it's almost invisible. There are Slint/Mogwai grinding dirges, FX-laden ambience a la early Labradford, and volume-power pop that MBV patented with "Isn't Anything". Taken as a whole, this 17-track collection is as patchy as you might expect, but the best bits are truly phenomenal. Some of them: * "Affect" by Lisa Johnson. One of the most gorgeous songs I've heard in the last couple of years, melting the rustic beauty of the Sundays with the aura from MBV's "Sometimes". This song was an instant addition to my shortlist of Songs That I Have To Hear More Than Once In A Row, along with (for example) "Laid" by James and "Here She Comes" by Slowdive. ** "This Feeling" by snowmobile. In which one Kevin Wood creates the lo-fi atmosphere to end all lo-fi atmospheres. Much like Flying Saucer Attack's "My Dreaming Hill" played through an improperly tuned AM radio. All the while, an eerie "whooshing" permeates the entire song, much like the guitar track during the bridge of MBV's "When You Sleep". Either Kevin Wood spent many an hour trying to create these sounds or he discovered it by accident while recording on the worst possible equipment. Either way, "This Feeling" is genius. *** "Epic" by Wail. A slow building instrumental propelled by an insistent acoustic guitar riff. The way the percussion and effects appear to drift in and out of the mix recall Fleetwood Mac's "Sara", oddly enough. Any track that starts soft and builds up to maximum volume is likely to be OK in my book. **** Other favourites include "Again" by Widescreen (say goodbye to Morcheeba), "Ends of Forever" by Fortean Halo (Faust/Spacemen 3 drone-fest), and "Moments In Space" by Rachel Goldstar (Labradford meet Pornography-era Cure in the planetarium). I eagerly await "Several Bands Galore" vols. 3-382.

Underworld's career thus far can be summarized by a delicious irony. They were boundary breakers in 1993-4 when they incorporated rock into their techno, at a time when everyone else produced pure, "banging" techno. Now, everybody else wants to incorporate rock elements into their dance music, and Underworld are producing pure, banging techno. The recent departure of Darren Emerson, the only member who had dance music credentials from the inception of Underworld Mark II, merely adds to the irony. Thus, with the live release "Everything, Everything", the band had a golden opportunity to introduce newer fans to older tracks like "Dirty Epic", "Spikee" and "Mmm Skyscraper". To rehash those relics from the days when their live sets were as predictable as the stock market. The days when they were known as renegades (or traitors, depending on the viewpoint) by triggering samples with guitars. Instead we have been treated to a set consisting almost entirely of (still excellent) tracks from their third, and least original album "Beaucoup Fish". "Rez" seems to be the lone survivor from the old days, indeed, omitting it from the live Underworld experience would be nothing short of criminal. But "Everything, Everything" could have been much more.

File under:supposed truisms "proved" wrong. In 1994, I was stuck in a peculiar mindset which can be summarized thus -- techno = value for money. Oh yes, techno was and is bloody fantastic music in it's own right, but it was also nice that most rock artists were constraining themselves to 45-50 minute LP's while techno artists preferred the more bloated 2xLP format stretching over 70-75 minutes. And a 70-minute album meant LONG SONGS, which are obsessions of mine, and have been since I first lost my mind listening to the Orb's "A Huge Ever-Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From the Centre of the Ultraworld" in 1990. But I couldn't very well buy every CD with a 10-plus minute song, so I had to establish some guidelines. My one step guideline was simple: when listening to a long song, ask yourself -- does it NEED to be this long? Suppose it's fifteen minutes long. Could it have been edited down to twelve minutes, or even ten? Would it have been better had it been extended to eighteen or twenty minutes? I was so proud of myself when I sampled a Bedoin Ascent album and applied my principle for the first time. The album's final track was twenty something minutes long -- the mere thought of that huge number was making me salivate. The track had it's moments, but it seemed to meander. A fine melody soon gave way to a wibbly, directionless coda which twiddled on and on and on. Around the fourteen minute mark they'd run out of ideas. They were just coasting over the final minutes, and I'd had enough. On the other hand, tracks like Inspiral Carpets' "Further Away" (16 minutes) and The Orb's "Blue Room" (38 minutes) were chock full of ideas. Every second mattered. Editing either track would chop parts of the music that were absolutely necessary. It would be like cutting out portions of Beethoven's 9th (often lasting 70 minutes). "Hey, let's chop out some of the repeated phrases in the second movement. We can cut it from 15 minutes to nine and a half"! No!! Sacrilege!!!

BC-05, Cyrus: Inversion/Presence was released in 1994. The two tracks total 38 minutes. The tracks don't run short on ideas -- they ONLY HAVE ONE IDEA. And it would be a stretch to say that either track has a melody. "Presence" repeats four "notes" over the entire 20 minute side. Let's see, at 128 bpm, four "notes" = two beats, so that's 1280 repetitions. Erik Satie would be hard pressed not to keel over and pass out. "Inversion" has a bassline ... beats ... 18 minutes later ...

Minimalism falls outside my principle's jurisdiction. The length of time that a track runs is immaterial. The third minute of the track could be nearly indistinguishable from the fourteenth minute, I don't care. And often it is. I often wonder why Hallucinator's "Red Angel" doesn't continue for another ten minutes. Why Monolake's "Gobi" e.p. was 36 minutes long and not 24, 48 or 381. Hell, why did Brian Eno cut off "Thursday Afternoon" at 60 minutes? He composed the piece for CD, so he surely knew that he had at least another 15 minutes of space.

Anyone between the age of 25 and 30 remembers the first incarnation of the Manic Street Preachers. The "first incarnation" means the Richey James years, when the Manics were an exciting, confrontational band, not sweater-wearing AOR junk. Those very Manics released the 1991 single "Motorcycle Emptiness". It was almost instantly hailed as a classic. Perfect Smithsian melancholy. A depressing masterpiece. The song debunked the stereotypical rock and roll lifestyle. The fame, women, drugs, all of it collected into a single metaphor -- a motorcycle -- and passed off as meaningless and emotionally empty. Taking nothing away from the Manics, who composed an excellent single, but Yo La Tengo beat them to the punch when they released "Speeding Motorcycle" the year before, in 1990. And THAT was a cover version in itself -- a version of West Virginian singer/songwriter Daniel Johnston's 1983 tune. The two songs are almost identical in sentiment. Both songs take the motorcycle -- a symbol of speed and wild living -- and deglamourise it completely. The motorcycle may be fun but it is also extremely dangerous. The solution, somewhat predictably, is love life without taking unnecessary chances. Long time Manics fans are advised to seek out the "Motorcycle Emptiness"'s older brother.

The Great Napster Debate continues as the MP3-sharing program has received a reprieve and will stay active at least until the case comes to trial. The core issue -- consumers obtaining music without paying proceeds to the artists that made the recording -- is not new, as it's just a variation on the home taping "scare" of the 70's and '80's and the never-to-be-settled "problem" of bootlegging. Yes, MP3 files are digital recordings, which means they can be copied over and over without any loss in sound quality. Yes, it is not difficult to envision ALL music being traded digitally, because after all, it IS digital, so what's the point of spending $1.70 to get on the subway and physically bring myself to HMV if I can download the same product while sitting at home in front of my computer? This merely shows that copying MP3 files is easier and of better quality than the tried and true methods of home taping and bootlegging. However, the driving force behind all three is FREE PUBLICITY. Collectors have based an entire counterculture around tracking down hard-to-find concert bootlegs. Artists don't receive a cent for them, but bootlegs pad their fan base, spawn a cult of mythology around the artist and generally raise their profile amongst fans and critics alike. What's to complain about there? Similarly, home taping is a complete non-issue if NOBODY WANTS THE RECORD. Metallica might bitch and complain about kids downloading their albums for free, but they're only doing so because Metallica's music is in demand. Metallica must be doing SOMETHING right if so many people want their music. If people want their music, then they'll want to attend gigs, buy merchandise, etc.

On a different, but related topic, word-of-mouth popularity, or "coolness" if you will, correlates little with actual popularity, or "sales". Just because bootleg albums CAN be found, doesn't mean everybody WILL buy them instead of trekking to the closest music outlet. Just because my FRIEND bought the Britney Spears album doesn't mean I am going to tape it off her rather than buy my own copy. And just because I can sample tracks from the upcoming Madonna album using Napster doesn't mean I'll never buy that or any other Madonna CD. The Velvet Underground are one of the most namedropped bands ever. Musicians love them, critics purr over them and fans revere them. From all that has been written about them, you'd think the whole world must have heard their music by now. You'd think the band would be bathing in royalties. Surprise -- "The Velvet Underground and Nico" has sold in the neighbourhood of one million copies. Yeah, that's a lot of records, but it means that the VU are roughly 1/50th as popular as the Backstreet Boys.

Sometime this week, the Toronto city council will finally come to a decision regarding raves being held on city property. No matter what they decide, raves will still go down each and every weekend. They'll just move further underground, away from the Better Living Centre and back into basements and warehouses. Every Queen Street store will carry dozens of rave flyers and promoters will continue bust their asses to promote their parties no matter what a bunch of politicians have to say about it. If all this is true, then why should we care about the city council vote? The answer, Watson, is PRECISELY. Why should we care? When a DJ is spinning in the city, and you really want to hear that person, WHO CARES if it's on city property or in a promoter's backyard? Similarly, if a band I love plays in town, if I want to see them badly enough, the concert could be anywhere from Sneaky Dee's to Skydome -- I couldn't really care less.

The issue is drugs. Ravers want to do them. At the same time, they want raves to be safe. This requires responsible event security, which is assured on city property but a dicey issue on private property. However, a rave is only as safe as it's ravers. If there were no drugs present, then the need for security would not be as stringent and first aid concerns would also be at a minimum. With drugs comes the preventative babysitting -- from the security to search for them to the first aid personnel to care for the casualties. Thus, the push to continue to hold raves on city properly is (at least partly) based, albeit indirectly, on the want to have the city chaperone the parties, rather than the promoters. Then, if anybody dies from a drug overdose during a city-approved rave, guess who gets the blame? That's right, the net effect is a transfer of blame from the ravers and promoters to the city of Toronto.

I've read countless newspaper comments from people in the scene that read "Kids come to raves for the music, they don't come for the drugs. Raves are safe, and drugs are not widely used". But if this were true, then the impending city council vote would be anti-climatic -- a minor issue. But it is not, is it?