The Gazette from Montreal, Quebec, Canada • 37

THE GAZETTE, MONTREAL, THURSDAY, JANUARY 6, 2005 I a lis D3 Murray, Arden join tsunami aid drive Toronto's CHUM, Vision TV, CBC TV and radio also aboard effort to raise funds FROM GAZETTE FILES DAVE SIDAWAY THE GAZETTE Molasses front man Scott Chernoff says more in a breath than Gary Jansz (from left), Alice Cantine some singers do in an album. Local CD releases deserve their own best-of list and here are the highlights of the last year, from Paul Cargnello to Starvin Hungry Haute of homegrown 2004 In an interview on CHUM's CablePulse 24 news Cochrane conceded that in the weeks ahead, donor fatigue will set in but that more money will still be needed. "It's not going to be a problem that's going to go away in two or three weeks," the singer said. "It's a natural disaster but if one person dies because of disease or because of malnutrition be-'. cause of this, then shame on us." CBC Radio was planning a dis- aster relief special for today The network's morning shows were expected to provide news from the sites of-the tsunami disaster as well as updates on how Cana- dians can help.

In addition, discussions are underway for a spe-' cial CBC telecast, possibly on Jan. 13, that might be simulcast 2 on the radio network as well. And CBC Radio One's Definitely (' Not the Opera is putting togeth-' er plans for a live three-hour con-'' cert Saturday afternoon from Winnipeg's West End Cultural Centre, hosted by comic Al Rae and featuring Sean Cullen and the Skydiggers. Donations go to Unicef and the Mennonite Central Committee. Meanwhile, singer Anne Mur-ray has made a "generous" dona-' tion to Care Canada, which bills itself as the country's leading non-sectarian international hu- manitarian organization.

Spokeswoman Melanie Brooks said from Ottawa that the staff was stunned when Murray called. "She was just saying how touched she was and how im- 4 pressed she was by Canadians' 4 generosity and how she was hap-'. py to do whatever she could to help." Brooks said the Canadian singing icon told them to keep up the great work. CANADIAN PRESS Toronto CHUM Limited, CBC and music celebrities from Anne Murray to Jann Arden and Tom Cochrane are stepping forward to help raise money for the tsunami victims of South Asia. The 32 radio and 33 television stations of CHUM partnered with the Canadian Red Cross to designate yesterday as Disaster Relief Day Viewers and listeners were urged to call a toll-free number H800)-810-1408) that will remain open for the next week.

Online donations can be made at www.redcross.cachum The radio stations' daylong drive included hourly public service announcements and interviews with Red Cross staff. There were also radio and TV appearances by Arden, Cochrane, Murray McLauchlan and the Barenaked Ladies' Ed Robertson, among others. "Over the holidays a few of us got together and thought it might be a good idea to put the forces of radio and television together and do what we could," said Paul Ski, CHUM's executive vice-president for radio. CHUM also announced a corporate donation of $100,000 to the Red Cross to kick off the relief initiative. As of noon yesterday, $750,000 had been raised from public donations.

"Our intention (is) really just to let all of our listeners and viewers know this is an easy way to contribute," said CHUM Radio Ottawa vice-president and general manager Chris Gordon, adding that CHUM never thought of setting a financial goal. "We're just hoping people hear the message and respond." and Keith Marchand formed the recorded Like Pistons for Engines. i THE GAZETTE Starvin Hungry's lead singer John Milchem. bly your soul as well. And I know I write about these guys roughly once every three but always with an excuse: Secret Machines are bringing their nuclear-powered space rock to Cabaret Feb.

1. The few dozen who turned out for the trio's last local headlining gig (at El Salon in June) will back me up on this: Few other live acts can make your head spin like this one. No words on tickets yet. Expect an official announcement sometime soon concerning a Montreal date on U2's forthcoming tour. Myriam Vallee of the Gillett Entertainment Group production team says the band will "definitely" be coming to town, probably in March.

"Montreal is one of their favourite places to play," she said. "We just don't have a confirmation yet." Vallee added thank the lord that the concert will be at the Bell Centre, not the Big 0. jzivitzthegazette.canwest.com fi A'. core of the Quinimine lineup that (Les Pages Noires). Having worked on 18 albums in as many years, nobody could accuse anar-chist-about-town Nawrocki of slacking off.

But he only got around to releasing his solo debut in 2004. He compensated by cramming a career's worth of ideas into the frantic disc, raging against the machine while veering from the alehouse to the dance floor. (www.nothingness.orgmusic rhythm) Tim Rideout and the Ride: Ambient Pastiche (Electric Salmon). A classically trained jazz drummer with a jones for electronica, Rideout made the most of his musical identity crisis by fashioning a Frankenstein album of hypnotic ambiences, stitched together from jam sessions. (www.timrideout.com) Poxy: Poxy (Dusty Tracks).

Xavier Cafeine's brassy attitude would be grating if his band didn't have such irresistible glam-punk hooks to go with the poses. In a better world, rock radio would have overdosed on this album. (www.poxy-music.com) It Ht ft Sixteen hopefuls in the Rock Open battle-of-the-bands have hit the mat, and 16 have advanced to me quarter finals. Pacer, Missing Bells, Scarlet Stone and Beryllium are up first, Wednesday at 8 p.m. at Petit Campus, 57 Prince Arthur St.

E. The weekday, time and venue holds for subsequent instalments as well. Semi-finals are scheduled for Feb. 9 and 16, and the last combat happens Feb. 23.

Visit www.kayproductions.ca for more information. fa fa fa Just a reminder that tickets for Motley Criie's April 24 Bell Centre show go on sale Saturday at 10 a.m. An evening spent in the unrepentant Neanderthals' company costs $35 to $65 and proba- Hall Maisonneuve's a great dance venue Every year, critics put their CD collections under the microscope to compile their annual top-10 lists. And every year some first-rate local albums get lost in the selection process, overlooked amid all those Wilcos and Franz Ferdinands. Trumpeting homegrown creativity is always a worthwhile pursuit, so please allow me to remind you of some superb Montreal-made CDs from 2004.

What follows is a sampling of some of the best, not an encyclopedia. First, two qualifiers: The lack of French representation in this article has nothing to do with a lack of noteworthy releases (on the contrary, 2004 was a great year for francophone music), and everything to do with colleague Juan Rodriguez having covered that ground last week. Second, one Montreal band made its way onto so many year-end lists that mentioning it here would be redundant. So consider this a slightly random roundup (in no particular order) of great local albums that weren't recorded by the Arcade Fire. Paul Cargnello: Between Evils (La Tribu); The Vendettas: Say No to the Vendettas (Skeleton).

Reggae-rock master Cargnello started the year with a sophomore solo album, and ended the year in a short-term reunion with his incendiary trio. Between Evils is a breezy delight, Say No is a breathless half-hour thrill ride, and both albums weave love and revolution into something greater than romance or politics alone. (www.paulcargnello.com; www.thevendettas.qc.ca) Quinimine: Like Pistons for Engines (Grey Flat). Gary Jansz took a look at the changing urban landscape, frowned, and used his reverence for vintage buildings as the basis for a loose concept album. You don't need an architecture degree to get lost in "Quinimine's glacial beauty, though; the band finds depth in every note, and lets its music unfold at a far slower pace than that of the quick-fix disposable culture Jansz decries.

(www.greyflat.com) Molasses: Trouble at Jinx Hotel (Aliens). Speaking of slow, Scott Chernoff 's very appropriately named cast continued walking the long road from hell to the Appalachians on its fourth CD, drawing from traditional Americana and the avant-garde in equal measure. Chernoff is a world-class chronicler of down- JORDAN ZIVIT7 and-out longing, and says more in a breath than some singers do in an album. (www.alien8recordings.com) Starvin Hungry: Damnesty (Grenadine). The blues-punk quartet's pulverizing torpedo of a debut comes as close as possible to capturing the raw glory of their live sweat-fests.

Drenched in sex and desire, and bombarded with some of the dirtiest guitar work of the year. (www.grenadinerecords.com) The Blue Seeds: The Blue Seeds (Sale Cabot). Somehow, five Montrealers tapped into the soul of the dusty West. Like an imaginary film-noir soundtrack, the five-song debut EP conjures moonlit roads, desolate late-night bars and tumbleweed-strewn landscapes. Amelie Laflamme's tender vocals make the band's lonesome heart more friendly than it could have been.

(theblueseeds.com) The Dears Thank You Good Mght Sold Out (MapleMusic). I getting almost as much notice as Ihe Arcade Fire, so what's the pointof point is this devastating live album drifted into stores without fanfare, and it needs to be heard. The 22-minute Pinned Together, Falling Apartmparticularbeggarsbelief (www.thedears.org) Stars: Set Yourself on Fire (Arts Crafts). Cut from the same epic cloth as the Dears and the Arcade Fire, Stars aren't afraid to say their album is about love and death. It would be a maddeningly pretentious claim from most bands; from this one, it's truth in advertising.

Grandiose pop that takes itself just seriously enough. (www.arts-crafts.ca) Sixtoo: Chewing on Glass and Other Miracle Cures (Ninja Tune). Rather than scrounge around in a warehouse of LPs for his samples, Sixtoo made his own with live instrumentation. Labelling him a hip-hop artist seems absurdly reductive; this is an out-there producer making out-there sounds that draw from imagination more than any particular genre. (www.ninjatune.net) Norman Nawrocki: Duckwork CONTINUED FROM Dl "And that would go against our mandate, which is to present quality contemporary dance at affordable prices," Danse Danse co-director Clothilde Cardinal said.

Cardinal and Des Marais are preparing a letter to send to the culture and communications minister and to the Treasury Board, underlining the importance of retaining Theatre Maisonneuve as a midsize dance venue. "It's considered to be one of the best contemporary dance venues in North America," Cardinal said. The rumour leaked to the press at the end of December had Theatre Maisonneuve being transformed into a concert hall at an estimated cost of $64 million. "We believe the MSO should have its own concert hall, but not on the backs of others," Des Marais said. "We do not want to comment on any particular proposal for our concert hall," MSO director of communications marketing Marie-Josee Desrochers said yesterday.

"Our priority is to give the Montreal Symphony Or-' chestra a world-class concert I hall." kgreenaway thegazette.canwest.com I MAX8 Matinee price for all shows until 6 pm. Advanced Ticketing available at MovieWatcner.com. DES SCIENCES DE MONTREAL 1 I 1 rrJ-' 11 i 1 A 4rt ''J'- 'r yhr- (G) Wet. 1:00,2:00,3:45,4:45, 6:45, 7:30, 9:30, 10:15 Tltir. 1:00,2:00,3:45,4:45, 6:45, 9:30, 10:15 NATIONAL TREASURE (G) 1:05,4:00,7:00,10:00 KINSEY (13) 1:40,4:25,7:20,10:05 RAY(G) 12:25,3:45,7:05,10:20 SIDEWAYS (13) 1:45,4:40,7:35,10:25 STAGE BEAUTY (NR) 12:05,2:40,5:20,7:55,10:25 THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES (G) 1:25,4:15 WHAT THE DO WE 5:15 LIFE IS A MIRACLE (13) 4:05 MA VIE EN CINEMASCOPE (NR) 12:50,3:05,5:20,7:40,9:55 SPANGLISH (G) 1:05,5:10,7:30,8:15,10:25 SWADES (NR) 1:15,5:15,9:15 CLOSER (13) 12:30,2:10,3:00,4:40,5:30,7:15,8:00, 9:45,10:30 ALEXANDER (13) 12:45,4:30,8:10 CHRISTMAS WITH THE KRANKS (G) 12:20,2:45 FINDING NEVERLAND (G) 12:10,2:30,4:55,7:25,9:50 BRIDGET JONES 2(G) 12:05,2:40,7:50,10:20 THE AVIATOR (G) 12:00,1:00,3:30,4:30,8:00, 10:30 A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT (UN LONG DIMANCHEDE FIANCAILLES) (NR) 12:30,3:30,6:30,7:15,9:30,10:15 FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX (G) 12:15,3:05,5:45,8:30 SB1- 1.