The Completely Ignored Podcast

Cam and Sammy stick around the early 1980s and profusely gush over R.E.M. and its first full-length, 1983's Murmur. In this episode, we go deep on the first five R.E.M. albums, I.R.S. Records, hidden gems from the band's later years and why R.E.M. is so accessible... yet so hard to categorize. Cam also attemps to defend "Shiny Happy People", fairly unsuccessfully. We wrap by talking about some new stuff from Alvvays and some slightly less-new stuff from that guy Bob Dylan. 

It's a gnarly, noisy debut from an dour, angry band. It's Psychocandy, the 1985 first full-length from the Jesus and Mary Chain. Cam and Sammy talk about noise and melodies and why JAMC weren't shoegaze, New Wave, goth... but were kind of all of those things (but not reall)! We also talk about the Reid brothers and their hair, the Reid brothers and their fist fights, and how film, commerce can rebirth a band. To close things out, we revisit the Beautiful South (and how they totally were NOT Britpop) plus talk a bit about random YouTube covers of "Maggot Brain".

The Completely Ignored Podcast is back and (slightly) better than ever. New season, New topic. Debut albums! To start, we go back 40 years. Summer of 1977 and the first full-length from Elvis Costello, My Aim is True. The audio on this episode is a bit weak, unlike the audio on this album which is STRONG. We talk Elvis, that other Elvis, both Doug & the Slugs AND the Jitters, and why even Costello's not great moments are still not all that bad. 

Season Two wraps with a chat about iconic Canadian classic rock heroes the Tragically Hip and their 1989 debut full-length Up to Here. Where to even start with this band? Well, we try to compare them to R.E.M., the Black Crowes, Pearl Jam and the Dave Matthews Band. It kinda works. It kinda doesn't. We also ponder what it meant when Gord Downie started strumming an accoustic guitar in 1996 and whether those two "other guys" in the Jeff Healey Band were twins. We also discuss how music and media worlds collided in a sad but fairly touching way during the Tragically Hip's victory lap in the summer of 2016. The episode wraps with a quick chat about Gorillaz, the varied brilliance of Damon Albarn and finally, Canadian cartoon rockers Prozzäk.

The fellas go back to late, late 20th century Toronto for this episode as they talk up the Bourbon Tabernacle Choir and their stellar 1992 full-length Superior Cackling Hen. Why didn’t this band become more of "a thing" beyond the GTA? We don’t know and we never will!!! They were talented and fun AF yet this amazing album got stuck in the murky middle between major labels and independence. Good times! The episode also labels Bran Van 3000 as a “connective tissue” outfit, talks quite a bit about both Change of Heart and Little Feat plus features a random discussion about Dusty Springfield. Enjoy!

In the sphere of "one-and-done" artists, few approach the mastery and mystique of Toronto's Mary Margaret O'Hara. Her sole studio full-length, 1988's Miss America, is the subject of this episode as Cam and Sammy dissect this enigmatic classic. They talk about late 1980s CanCon (again), why artists like MMO are far rarer in the digital age and the career arch of the Cowboy Junkies. The episode ends in a super namedrop-y fashion with mentions of This Mortal Coil, Tim Buckley and the Cocteau Twins. Note: Apologies on the audio. It improves within the first 10 minutes.  

In the sphere of "one-and-done" artists, few approach the mastery and mystique of Toronto's Mary Margaret O'Hara. Her sole studio full-length, 1988's Miss America, is the subject of this episode as Cam and Sammy dissect this enigmatic classic. They talk about late 1980s CanCon (again), why artists like MMO are far rarer in the digital age and the career arch of the Cowboy Junkies. The episode ends in a super namedrop-y fashion with mentions of This Mortal Coil, Tim Buckley and the Cocteau Twins. Note: Apologies on the audio. It improves within the first 10 minutes.  

Cam and Sammy are total Art critics for this episode as they (mentally) visit BC for a chat about Art Bergmann and his 1988's solo debut Crawl with Me. We love this album and we love both Art and art so brace yourself for lots of gushing. We discuss the merits of John Cale (as a producer), debunk suggestions that Bergmann is Canada's answer to Keith Richards (he is Canada's answer to Paul Westerberg, obviously) and we ponder long and hard why Bergmann isn't often in the conversation with Neil, Leonard and Joni RE: Canadian songwriting royalty We wrap things with a bonus chat about Joy Division and New Order as we try to figure out if Peter Hook is really that bad of a dude. This episode also contains a random Cecil Seaskull mention. 

Cam and Sammy move into the 2010s for their latest Canadian album chat, shining a spotlight squarely at folk weirdo Mac DeMarco and his stellar 2014 full-length Salad Days. This episode goes deep on why even accessible music can be sometimes be hard to categorize plus other important topics such as easy listening music of the 1970s, Beck and incongruency between stage personas and recorded outputs. Bonus: We somehow end this episode with 8-10 minutes of chatter about Aphex Twin.

 Rush is just Rush and their 1982 full-length Moving Pictures is an absolute CanCon classic. Cam and Sammy geek out to "Tom Sawyer" (both the song and the music video), try to classify Rush (hint: they can't) and shoot the (breeze) on New Wave, North York, rock documentaries, Quebec, drum kits and more.