Calgary Herald from Calgary, Alberta, Canada • 35

CALGARY HERALD Saturday, September 1, 2007 C3 Calgary's Top 10 Music Source: SoundScan ENTERTAINMENT Country Ai.thrnativh Currhnt Hard Rock This Last This Last Last This Las, This Last week National Artist week i week National Artist week week National Artist week week Nationa Art)st week i week Nationa Artis, week 1 1 Carrie Underwood 11 1 Bedouin Soundclash i 1 1 High Schcml Musical 2 1 2 As I Lay Dying 1 1 Timbaland 1 Some Hearts Street Gospels sounmracK An Ocean Between Us Timbaland Presents Shock Value 2 2 Taylor Swift 2 2 5 The New Pornographers I 2 2 Bedouin Soundclash 2 1 LlnklnPark 1 2 2 Rihanna 2 Taylor Swift Challengers street bospeis Minutes To Midnight Good Girl Gone Bad 3 3 Brad Paisley 3 3 4 LinkinPark 4 3 3 2 3 3 Daughtry 2 3 4 Amy Winehouse 3 SthGear Minutes To Midnight Timbaland Presents Shock Value Daughtry BackToBlack 4 4 Various Artists 4 14 2 Amy Winehouse 3 4 6 Halrspray The Motion Picture 3 4 4 Finger Eleven 4 4 6 TalibKwel! Country Hits 2007 V.2 BackToBlack Soundtrack Them Vs. You Vs. Me Eardrum 5 5 Dixie Chicks 5 5 8 Matthew Good 1 I 5 5 Various Artists 5 9 Nickelback 65 3 Justin Timberlake 6 Taking The Long Way Hospital Music Nowll2 All The Right Reasons FuturesexLove Sounds 6 9 Keith Urban 7 6 16 2 6 20 The New Pornographers 6 6 Smashing Pumpkins 3 6 7 T.I. 4 Love Pain The Whole Crazy Thing The Con Challengers Zeitgeist T.I. VS Tip 7 10 Johnny Reid 9 7 7 Daughtry 7 7 4 Rihanna 5 7 7 OzzyOsbourne 5 7 5 Sean Kingston 7 Kicking Stones Daughtry Good Girl Gone Bad Black Rain Sean Kingston 8 6 Rascal Flatts 6 8 3 AvrilLavigne 6 8 19 As I Lay Dying 8 6 Korn 7 8 9- Common 5 Me My Gang Best Damn Thing An Ocean Between Us Untitled Finding Forever 9 12 Joe Nichols 9 6 Maroon 5 5 9 16 M.I.A.

9 8 Velvet Revolver 8 9 8 Akon 8 Real Things It Won't Be Soon Before Long Kala Libertad Konvicted 10 14 Big Rich -10 10 Plain White Ts 8 10 14 LinkinRarlc 9 10 14 Rise Against 10 10 12 SwizzBeatz Between Raising Hell Amazing Every Second Counts Minutes To Midnight Sufferer The Witness One Man Band Man CONCERTS MUSIC Youth Brigade keeps marching Why that tune is stuck in your head Music-loving scientist peers into brain function I hi mi ERIC VOLMERS Calgary Herald When the Stern brothers called themselves Youth Brigade back in 1980, it's doubtful the fresh-faced trio figured they'd still be fighting the system 27 years later as greying, 40-something punk rockers. But the expatriate Canucks considered unheralded pioneers of the perennially youthful SoCal movement seem to have settled on a response when it comes to the delicate subject of age. Youth, claims the band's official bio, is an attitude, not a SPOTLIGHT rePresentatin Youth Brigade Ye Plays the Under- "Wehaven ground tonight, changed a whole Edmonton's 'says drummer New City on Mark Stern, who wiU Sunday and Wild Join brothers Shawn Bill's in Banff (on f1 on Monday. cals)andAdam(on bass) at the Underground in Calgary tonight. "We are still doing exactly the same thing.

We still promote our own shows, release our own records. It's in our blood, I think." That said, Stern admits very few of the principal bands involved in L.A.'s early punk scene entertained thoughts of longevity back in the day. The fact that Youth Brigade, Social Distortion and Bad Religion are still toiling away on the punk circuit is a minor miracle given the volatile nature of the scene in the early 1980s, he says. "Back then you had to sneak into halls to put on shows," Stern says. "It was new and more dangerous.

People didn't know what to make of it. There were a lot of riots. If you wanted to put a record out, you had to do it on your own. If you wanted to put on a show, you wouldn't be allowed in the clubs. If you wanted to book tours, you had to make it happen yourself." pense of their own band's career.

In fact, Youth Brigade has a fairly sparse discography compared to its peers. Its last release was in 1998. A planned album in 2005 never materialized. "We got real busy with the label," Stern says. "It's tough, we run the label and the other bands become the priority." As record company brass, the boys never forgot their ties to their homeland.

They were early champions of a number of innovative Canadian punk bands. Montreal's The Nils and Winnipeg's The Unwanted got some early recognition south of the border thanks to BYO compilations. Alberta bands SNFU and Jr. Gone Wild both had albums under the BYO banner. Edmonton's Wednesday Night Heroes are currently signed to the label Next year, the Sterns will release a boxed set and documentary chronicling the history of BYO.

"We never had a business plan," says Stern. "We still don't. We just put out what we like. We never compromise out tastes. The 25-year history of the label mirrors the whole punk scene of the past 25 years." It's not the first documentary that will feature the insights of the Stern brothers.

Youth Brigade is front-and-centre along with dozens of other bands in the US. film Punk's Not Dead, released earlier this year. In 1982, a raucous tour with fellow punk pioneers Social Distortion was captured in the film Another State of Mind. The movie includes footage from an Calgary's burgeoning punk scene in the early 1980s, Stern says. "We played the Calgarian Hotel," says Stern.

"It was in 1982 and you had to stay at the hotel if you played there. But we had to enter through the back door. You'd get your a- kicked if you went through the bar. It was rough." Courtesy, BYO Shawn Stern of Youth Brigade, an influential SoCal punk rock band. As preteens, the Stern brothers travelled from Toronto to Beverly Hills with father Sandor Stern, who was hoping to cash in on his growing reputation in Hollywood after penning the screenplay to the 1979 horror classic The Amityville Horror.

After graduating from high school, the three brothers latched onto both the music and politics of the fledgling punk scene in 1980. "We were in die Reagan years, so you had to think about politics at that time," Stern says. "Back then, if you were an outcast you had a lot to talk about. Having the Republicans in power always gave you something to sing about." This is not to say the Stern brothers are stuck in the past. In 1982, the band founded landmark BYO Records as a way to release their own work.

Twenty-five years later, the label continues to crank out releases from punk bands new and old. BYO originally known as Better Youth Organization has turned the Stern brothers into accidental historians, peer boosters and torch bearers of the punk movement, often at the ex HIS IHTILLIGiHT -Korvn OKI MAOAX1H1 USATOMT- i BEEN WAITING FORT o( CHARMING AND WITTY ROMANCE Anne Hoihawoy terrific Jane Austen. James McAvoy is perfectly aofcii9 -togar Fnadmat, FOIMIWf.COM -Mian CM-TV ft' SCARIETT JOHANSSON LAURA UMNEY CHRIS EVANS AUQA SEC0MING JANE IS A TRIUMPH tor Anne Hathaway, who brings to the young Jane the same jittery wide-eyed intensity she displayed in 'The Devil Wears Prada." 'Stoptan Holdsn KEYS Afresh view of jane austen, with a terrific performance by anne hathaway." MONICA HESSE The Washington Post As a record producer turned neuro-scientist on a first-name basis with Stevie Wonder and Carlos Santana Daniel Levitin holds the title of Most Righteous College Professor. (At least until recent astrophysics PhD Brian May of Queen gets a teaching gig.) We caught up with the author of This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, whose rocking out is now confined to a sax and guitar gig with McGill University's Diminished Faculties. Q.

You're the expert, but doesn't the B.B. King riff playing in this lobby seem kind of weird for a Westin? A. When I came down for breakfast they were blasting a Steely Dan song about a drug dealer who made acid in an A-frame out in Oregon. It was really bizarre. Especially since music today is becoming the new architecture.

Kids under 20 are using music very differently They don't have favourite bands; half the stuff they have on their LPods, they don't care who it is or where it came from. It's more about creating an atmosphere. It's sonic wallpaper. Q. In your book you say music might be an evolutionary asset.

A. Darwin thought the function of music was to attract members of the opposite sex. A man who can dance for hours on end, always varying the steps that shows great physical stamina and mental flexibility. Women could be subliminally thinking, "This guy is clever. This guy could bring home a bison." Q.

And now, in our bison-free era? A. Look at Mick Jagger. There's an ancient genetic echo that musicians are attractive. In one study women were asked to rate various fictional potential mates. The guys were either creative or not creative, rich or not rich.

When women were at their most fertile, they wanted to hook up with the creative guy. Other times, they wanted the rich guy. So, if you're passing on genes, you want the creative guy. Q. What if the creative guy is a tuba player? Are tuba players hot? A.

Tuba players are hidden in an ensemble if there was a tuba soloist, there would be tuba groupies. Q. I have Stars and Stripes Forever stuck in my head. Explain that to me. A.

Scientists call songs that get stuck in your head "earworms" after the German Ohrwurm. We don't know a lot about how or why they happen but we know a little. Like, it tends not to be a whole song that gets stuck in your head, just 15-20 seconds of one, and it tends to be a simple song even non-singers can hum without effort. Q. Is there a cure? A.

Some people get earworms so bad it interferes with their ability to sleep or work. For those people, anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs can help. Then again, some people become musicians because they have ear-worms. Neil Young told me he started writing songs because he couldn't get rid of the tunes in his head. Q.

Doesn't learning everything about how our brains interact with music ruin the magic of the listening experience? A. Like that famous Oz scene where the Wizard is revealed as a nebbish little man behind the curtain? For me it's been the opposite. Every time I get a modicum of insight into mystery I'm overwhelmed by the intricacy and the beauty. Q. Where will you go next with your research? A.

My lab recently completed a study in which we found an area of the brain that responds to the silence in between symphony movements. It's really a study about memory and event segmentation, and how we define beginnings and endings. Leonard Motei, ET mrvvrrn 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 NOW PLAYING! CHECK THEATRE DIRECTORY FOR LOCATIONS SHOWTIMES CINFDIEY NTEfiTWNMENT- DNEPlEX ENTERTAINMENT CINEPlEX ENTERTAINMENT EMPIRE THEATRES Tocl SUNRIDGESPtirmUM CROWFOOT ctosswg STUDIO touhtbt is ENTER7AJNMFNT 1 HlfyFPl FX FNTPHTAINMFNT I I CINFPLEX ENTEflTAlNMENT omoksitre SUNRIDGE SPECTRUM CROWFOOT awssw STUDI0 11 axmnwHEis PARAMOUNT WGTTA1 SOUND LANDMARK CINEMAS ROXT wow EMPIRE THEATRES STUDIO 10 MKUOOTMl LANDMARK CINEMAS GLOBE CINEMA OW LAY I CHECK THEATRE DIRECTORY FOR SHOWTIMES p'i 4 HAIRSPRAY "FUNIVY, FULL OF ACTION." SUiiAiASfct if "LA LI OH- OUT-LOUD FLflMIMY." "A BLAST!" 1 -X JAUUE U1ATJ 1 rrcrir HAIRSPRAY i teem cxiice mm wixxEiKBTSsEX CHECK THEATRE DIRECTORY FOR fJJ PLWHJG! tC DIRECTDRtS FOR LOCATIONS I LOCATIONS SHOWTMES 'Fil JTP IN THEATRES tmm See the Red Bond frailer at J-ll-1 JJl (J((efjj A.