Thank You!

Soundscapes will be closing permanently on September 30th, 2021.

Open every day between Spetember 22nd-30th

We'd like to thank all of our loyal customers over the years, you have made it all worthwhile! The last 20 years have seen a golden age in access to the world's recorded music history both in physical media and online. We were happy to be a part of sharing our knowledge of some of that great music with you. We hope you enjoyed most of what we sold & recommended to you over the years and hope you will continue to seek out the music that matters.

In the meantime we'll be selling our remaining inventory, including thousands of play copies, many of which are rare and/or out-of-print, never to be seen again. Over the next few weeks the discounts will increase and the price of play copies will decrease. Here are the details:

New CDs, LPs, DVDs, Blu-ray, Books 60% off 15% off

Rare & out-of-print new CDs 60% off 50% off

Rare/Premium/Out-of-print play copies $4.99 $14.99

Other play copies $2.99 $8.99

Magazine back issues $1 $2/each or 10 for $5 $15

Adjusted Hours & Ticket Refunds

We will be resuming our closing sale beginning Friday, June 11. Our hours will be as follows:

Wednesday-Saturday 12pm-7pm
Sunday 11am-6pm

Open every day between September 22nd-30th

We will no longer be providing ticket refunds for tickets purchased from the shop, however, you will be able to obtain refunds directly from the promoters of the shows. Please refer to the top of your ticket to determine the promoter. Here is the contact info for the promoters:

Collective Concerts/Horseshoe Tavern Presents/Lee's Palace Presents: shows@collectiveconcerts.com
Embrace Presents: info@embracepresents.com
MRG Concerts: ticketing@themrggroup.com
Live Nation: infotoronto@livenation.com
Venus Fest: venusfesttoronto@gmail.com

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Thank you for your understanding.

Twitter
Other Music
Last Month's Top Sellers

1. TAME IMPALA - The Slow Rush
2. SARAH HARMER - Are We Gone
3. YOLA - Walk Through Fire
4. DESTROYER - Have We Met
5. DRIVE BY TRUCKERS - Unravelling

Click here for full list.

Search
« FAMOUS L. RENFROE AS THE FLYING SWEET ANGEL OF JOY - Children | Main | TODOR KOBAKOV - Pop Music »
Wednesday
Nov182009

THEM CROOKED VULTURES - S/T

Two questions: 1. Why do so many rock supergroups suck?

Honestly. After all, from short-lived moments in time like The Quintet at Massey Hall to modern-age combos like John Zorn's Masada, nearly every second great jazz band is a "supergroup" of some kind—a union of highly respected and talented stars thrown together into a band because, well, it seems like a good idea. But jazz is a style of music wherein its best players uniformly require the ability to truly listen to each other and collaborate to be successful. You could argue that in rock n' roll, some of the biggest stars succeed because of an entirely opposite trait—that being a rampaging ego that trumps all others in the room. Take three or four of those personalities and shove them in a room, and the end result is sadly inevitable.

2. Why do Them Crooked Vultures not suck?

The short answer? As much as all the parties involved would balk at the suggestion, this is really just another Queens Of The Stone Age album. It's guitarist/singer Josh Homme's ship to sail or wreck, but that's okay, because the man has made his name on collaboration. And as usual, he has chosen well. Nearly every QOTSA album relies on a heavily rotating lineup of guest musicians orbiting around Homme, and that's not even getting into his highly eclectic Desert Sessions albums. In this case, the unit is tight and perfectly well-balanced. Grohl is hardly a new face, of course, being the man behind the skins on QOTSA's most punishing and satisfying album to date, 2002's Songs For The Deaf—in short, Homme and Grohl have already proved that they click.

That makes some dude named John Paul Jones the only real wild card, and it does take some time to pick up how he fits in here. At first listen, TCV is all Homme and Grohl's show, and they are absolutely locked; it's a visceral thrill to hear these two in a studio again. But Jones was always the least conspicuous member of Led Zeppelin—surrounded by three of rock's most outsized personalities of all time, he understood his role perfectly. And so it is here. Jones' playing is not only the ideal foil to Homme's fiery axework, it's also an understanding companion to his often gentle singing voice.

Them Crooked Vultures have caught a little flak for being unoriginal/sounding too much like QOTSA/underusing Jones, etc. Forget that. These are simply three extremely talented men who enjoy playing hard rock together. And they definitely don't suck at doing it.

Reader Comments

There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.

PostPost a New Comment

Enter your information below to add a new comment.

My response is on my own website »
Author Email (optional):
Author URL (optional):
Post:
 
All HTML will be escaped. Hyperlinks will be created for URLs automatically.