CHARTattack

Gravity Wave are firmly resolved about something: high school girls are sluts. They're so sure of this they've written a song about it, and it can be found on their recently released Gambol album. The folky ditty closes the disc... and don't worry, they're just kidding.

CHARTattack contributor Adam Kovac attempted to defend the honour of young ladies everywhere when he interviewed Gravity Wave. You can read that piece here.

Yesterday, Kanye West revealed that his new album will not be titled Good Ass Job when it hits stores this September. I'm sure the majority of us shared a collective sigh of relief, since that's got to be one of the worst titles (working or actual) in recent memory.

Given that Kanye has jumped on the social media bandwagon, and spent Tuesday and Wednesday performing new songs at the Facebook and Twitter offices, we have to wonder if he's going to extend his love for the Internets to his album title. (We think it's especially funny he's been doing this since Kanye had such a hate-on for Twitter last year.)

So, what do you think Kanye West should call his new album?

Born Ruffians released their second full-length, Say It, on June 1. The band will support the album with a big North American tour.

CHARTattack recently checked in with lead singer Luke LaLonde to discuss Say It, his fondness for gin and Bill Murray.

CHARTattack: How did Say It come together?
Luke LaLonde: It was a two-year writing process for this record, which was kind of the same as [Red, Yellow & Blue]. Most of 2009 was downtime for us, we had an Australian tour with Franz Ferdinand, but after that we just worked on songs.

This new album was all written while we were jamming in rehearsals. I'd bring an idea or sometimes Mitch [Derosier] would write a bass line and we'd build on that, sort of from the ground up. It was a very organic, collaborative effort.

"Sole Brother" was released as the first single from the album. Do you have any siblings?
Yup, I have a sister. That song is sort of about her. But the part about me being angry with her for not helping with chores is fictional. That song is our oldest one on the record.

We were working on it in the summer of 2007 and Steve [Hamelin, drums] mentioned how he couldn't get this one refrain out of his head. He sang it and I said he should add it to the song. It was based on the idea that he wanted to be friends with his favourite rapper, a soul brother.

My part was written around my mom telling me to do chores and I thought if I could skew that towards wishing I was an only child, a sole brother, than we could do a cheesy play on words. So I had to fictionalize my anger towards my sister not helping me. She always gets this weird smile on her face when that song comes on.

The video for "What To Say" features some weird laser technology. What is that thing?
It's called a oscilloscope. It's a really old piece of equipment used for measuring sound. It's one line typically, but this guy, Rob Bairos, invented some software that can basically translate video signals into audio.

So we shot a video in black and white and that was transferred through the oscilloscope and then they filmed the oscilloscope. It turned out really cool.

"What To Say" features the lyric, "When I get drunk, I'm speaking more." Is there a particular liquor that loosens your tongue more than others?
Ha. I think gin, actually. Gin gives me the most clear-headed drunkenness or buzz or whatever. I can have more than a few gin and tonics and feel good, but not get super-drunk where you want to go to bed.

Were there any songs that didn't make the album that will be released in the future?
Yeah. We recorded 13 songs for this album. One of them was a completely live-off-the-floor — really, really rough take of a song that I don't think will get to see the light of day. But there's two that were really hard to cut from the record that I still think could have replaced other songs. It was so hard to choose.

One will be released as the B-side on the "What To Say" single and the other one will be released as another B-side at sometime.

Completing your second album is likely going to be the band's highlight of 2010, but a close second would have to be Bill Murray at your SXSW show, right?
Yeah. Although I'm not sure he saw our set. We saw him after we played in the crowd. So we don't know what he was there for, but he was there. I stood very close to him and just kept looking over at him, but I didn't want to bother him.

As soon as the band we were watching finished, he got totally swarmed and then he left. I really admire Bill Murray. I think he's a really cool dude. I read an article about him and I really admire the guy and his attitude towards life and his art in general.

Born Ruffians already have a great following outside of Canada. How did you achieve this with only one full-length album released?
I think since day one we've had a business model, aside from "let's make music and tour," it was "let's tour outside of Canada as much as we can." We're proud of where we're from, but we knew we wanted to be successful elsewhere, too. We had our eyes on the U.K. and America, and we were lucky enough to get some tours there; it was a bit of luck and a bit of initiative.

It's kind of that old rule that the more you tour somewhere the more fans you have there, which is totally accurate and tried, tested and true. We're still working on a lot on America. There's shows we'll play to 15 people and then there's shows where we'll play to a few hundred people. We want to even that out; it's one of the goals of this new record.

Tegan And Sara's video for "On Directing" suits its lyrics; it's steady and perfectly choreographed, except the Quins don't seem to be losing any kind of focus whatsoever.

"On Directing" appears on the Polaris Music Prize short listed Sainthood.

Check out these other Tegan And Sara videos on CHARTattack:

"Hell"
"Alligator"

Javelin's "Off My Mind" is the perfect kind of electronica for the summer. It's full of synthesized melodies, breezy vocals and instrumentation that makes it sound like it'd be just as perfect played in a nightclub as it would while you're relaxing with a cold one on a Caribbean beach.

"Off My Mind" appears on No Mas, which is out now. 

Coldplay and U2 are probably the world's two biggest bands. They have plenty in common, like their anthemic songs, chiming guitars, flamboyant and outspoken frontmen and the capacity to sell out tours in a matter of minutes.

Some say Coldplay are just trying to be U2, though, and others say U2 aren't at the level of greatness they were in the '80s. Others like both.

But if you had to choose, which would you rather listen to?

New Haven, Conn. duo Procedure Club sound like what would happen if The Jesus And Mary Chain got in a fight with Vivian Girls over who was more rock 'n' roll. "Vermont" is from Procedure Club's Doomed Forever debut album, and it's filled with a bouncy beat, guitars that sound like they were acid-wased and barely audible vocals. 

Beards kind of come with the territory in rock 'n' roll: if you spend a lot of time on the road, you might not have that many chances to shave, since a rock star's life usually involves gigging at night, getting home or to their hotel or bus really late, getting up late the next day and travelling to their next show, only to do it all again the next day. Shaving's kind of an afterthought in that kind of environment.

Granted, Matisyahu has a beard for an entirely different reason: he's an Orthodox Jew. But he does, nonetheless, have one of the most epic beards in music today, rivalled by only a select few similarly hirsuite individuals. C'mon's Ian Blurton is one of them, since he's also got a massive beard.

But whose is better? Whose do you look at and go, "That beard is incredible," or think, "I wish I had that beard"? Whose beard makes you think, "Dear God, shave!" more? Let us know by voting in today's daily poll.

Paul McCartney was honoured with the Library Of Congress Gershwin Prize for songwriting last month at the White House. Jack White was there, and gave what may have been the most nerve wracking performance of his life, right in front of U.S. president Barack Obama, playing The Beatles' "Mother Nature's Son." He did a pretty great job, no?

Elvis Costello, Stevie Wonder, Dave Grohl, Emmylou Harris, Jerry Seinfeld and others were there, and all participated in a "Hey Jude" singalong.