B
beaconer
Guest
This is hilarious. I got to get this song..
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National Post May 9 - A developer in sheeps clothing
Condo developer Brad J. Lamb's name and bald pate are familiar to most Torontonians thanks to his ubiquitous advertisements, particularly the billboards that feature his face Photoshopped onto a lamb with the slogan: This Lamb Sells Condos. That signature boast is now becoming famous worldwide thanks to a violinist named Owen Pallett, who records under the band name Final Fantasy. Pallett, who has worked with a who's who of the Canadian indie rock scene from the Arcade Fire to The Hidden Cameras to Les Mouches, has just released a song called This Lamb Sells Condos on his new album, He Poos Clouds.
But This Lamb Sells Condos is not a cheerful tribute to one of the most prominent faces of Toronto's construction boom. Rather, it is a vicious wolf attack on Lamb and his flock: "There's a merchant in our midst and with a barrel fist / He's coloured every surface, he's slapped up a portrait / And yes, it is his own! He's going to take your home!"
The song, which has no direct references to Toronto's king of condo sales outside of its title, also concerns the unhappy personal life of its nameless developer: "Now his massive genitals refuse to co-operate / And no amount of therapy can hope to save his marriage." The lyrics also include snippets of an argument between the developer and his wife that are heard if you "listen through the wall."
In real life, Pallett is a sometimes neighbour of Lamb's -- the violin virtuoso's boyfriend, Patrick, lives one floor below the developer's posh penthouse suite at 32 Stewart St. in Toronto's King West area.
On the Cleveland-based music blog Good Hodgkins, Pallett, currently on a European tour, elaborated on This Lamb Sells Condos' origins, noting that the impotent real-estate maven of the song is a fictional character, albeit inspired by Brad Lamb. "The issue is less with Brad in particular and more with the abstract notion of a condo developer," he wrote. "My boyfriend's apartment is right below his, however, and I used some ... overheard yellings in the song, which is brutal, yes, but these condos make me wickedly mad. It is turning Toronto into the architectural equivalent of a Glade Plug-In."
Reached yesterday at his office, Lamb said he had read the lyrics to This Lamb Sells Condos and listened to part of it; he was struck by how "personal" the song was, but noted that much of it was untrue. "I was married in the 1980s; I've never been married living at 32 Stewart," Lamb said. "I had a girlfriend that lived with me, two different girlfriends lived with me, and I can honestly say I've never had arguments about the kind of thing that he's talking about."
"I'd also like to think I've never raised my voice to the point where someone would hear our conversation, but I guess in apartment living, there's always points where noise can freely flow."
Lamb has no plans to respond to Pallett's song, legally or otherwise. "It's anyone's right to write what they want if it's not libellous," he said. "It's just words. ... I've developed a thick skin over the past 20 years. It will not be the last time someone says something unkind."
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National Post May 9 - A developer in sheeps clothing
Condo developer Brad J. Lamb's name and bald pate are familiar to most Torontonians thanks to his ubiquitous advertisements, particularly the billboards that feature his face Photoshopped onto a lamb with the slogan: This Lamb Sells Condos. That signature boast is now becoming famous worldwide thanks to a violinist named Owen Pallett, who records under the band name Final Fantasy. Pallett, who has worked with a who's who of the Canadian indie rock scene from the Arcade Fire to The Hidden Cameras to Les Mouches, has just released a song called This Lamb Sells Condos on his new album, He Poos Clouds.
But This Lamb Sells Condos is not a cheerful tribute to one of the most prominent faces of Toronto's construction boom. Rather, it is a vicious wolf attack on Lamb and his flock: "There's a merchant in our midst and with a barrel fist / He's coloured every surface, he's slapped up a portrait / And yes, it is his own! He's going to take your home!"
The song, which has no direct references to Toronto's king of condo sales outside of its title, also concerns the unhappy personal life of its nameless developer: "Now his massive genitals refuse to co-operate / And no amount of therapy can hope to save his marriage." The lyrics also include snippets of an argument between the developer and his wife that are heard if you "listen through the wall."
In real life, Pallett is a sometimes neighbour of Lamb's -- the violin virtuoso's boyfriend, Patrick, lives one floor below the developer's posh penthouse suite at 32 Stewart St. in Toronto's King West area.
On the Cleveland-based music blog Good Hodgkins, Pallett, currently on a European tour, elaborated on This Lamb Sells Condos' origins, noting that the impotent real-estate maven of the song is a fictional character, albeit inspired by Brad Lamb. "The issue is less with Brad in particular and more with the abstract notion of a condo developer," he wrote. "My boyfriend's apartment is right below his, however, and I used some ... overheard yellings in the song, which is brutal, yes, but these condos make me wickedly mad. It is turning Toronto into the architectural equivalent of a Glade Plug-In."
Reached yesterday at his office, Lamb said he had read the lyrics to This Lamb Sells Condos and listened to part of it; he was struck by how "personal" the song was, but noted that much of it was untrue. "I was married in the 1980s; I've never been married living at 32 Stewart," Lamb said. "I had a girlfriend that lived with me, two different girlfriends lived with me, and I can honestly say I've never had arguments about the kind of thing that he's talking about."
"I'd also like to think I've never raised my voice to the point where someone would hear our conversation, but I guess in apartment living, there's always points where noise can freely flow."
Lamb has no plans to respond to Pallett's song, legally or otherwise. "It's anyone's right to write what they want if it's not libellous," he said. "It's just words. ... I've developed a thick skin over the past 20 years. It will not be the last time someone says something unkind."
). It's a pretty poor person who can't laugh at himself sometimes. However, I think these lyrics go over the line to tasteless and very personal comment.