Disaster!

In what I would call a great marketing move, Love Ends Disaster! recently released an (obviously) internet-only three-song EP, available for download from their site. For their CD-based debut, Stories For The Dislocated, the band went for the big-name hot-right-now producer, with Warren Bassett behind the mixing board. It paid off. The music sounds excellent, and they gain an instant reaction when they drop the names of other bands he's worked with (The Fall, Bloc Party).

They've been building buzz over in the UK, so I can only assume they'll hit North American shores soon enough, brought in - no doubt - on a label by the likes of Vice Recordings, Dim Mak, or Kemado.

Here is the free EP in it's entirety -- the Electric Cafe rework will make it onto my next mix. I'm not a fan of Electric Cafe's usual output (which includes some big-name remix jobs), but he had a great starting point here. Search the archives for another Love Ends Disaster! MP3 from a few weeks ago:

Love Ends Disaster! - Ginko Disco
Love Ends Disaster! - John Majors Megadrive
Love Ends Disaster! - Ginko Disco (Electric Cafe Remix)

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About six months ago I was working as a producer on a music video for a fairly well-known band. I co-ordinated a series of meetings, along with a few proof of concept shoots, which were sent back and forth as we nailed down the look. I then left the rest up to the director, his production guy (a good friend of mine, who I was doing this as a favour for), and the musicians. Guess what? The whole thing turned into a huge mess, with the band hitting overblown-ego mode, and sending comical emails about who's in charge and how seriously they take their carefully manicured image. They displayed an absolute lack of understanding for the creative process; you gotta work together. This had the potential to be a stunning piece, but they were too busy playing rockstar to figure that out.

Bottom line is the video was never done, and my take on these guys - which wasn't super hot before the bullshit - was irreparably damaged. Really, who wants to work with people like that? Artists are difficult to begin with; throw in a messiah complex, and you have the makings of a real collaborative nightmare (unless you're in, you know? Like... in).

Creative projects are good fun -- working with others should result in an end-product borne out of a mutual respect and understanding (of course, with some disagreements thrown in for excitement). Never again will I subject myself to a blind date like that.

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On a related note, what is it about me and some of my straight, 30-ish male friends that seems to draw out the early-20-year-old girls? God, don't answer that. I'm just saying...

NO FORMAT Toronto: August 3rd

This coming Wednesday is the second NO FORMAT show in Toronto (at The Social on Queen West at Dovercourt).

The Hank Collective (www.weepingtruckers.com)
Cab Williamson and his collective of girls play quirky dancey indie-rock. 20 Jazz Funk Greats likes them a lot, and check out what Pitchfork has to say about their last album, How To Prosper In The Coming Bad Years.

Vitaminsforyou (http://www.sfeericle-records.com/vitaminsforyou/)
Treading similar ground to The Notwist, The Postal Service, and Manitoba, Bryce is producing some great indie-electro. You can listen on his Myspace site.

DJ guests will be:
Pammm (Lipstick Cherry)
Jaime Sin (Shack Up)

They WILL play Annie. They'll also play lots of other songs to dance to -- from behind the new DJ booth.

Resident DJ NNY will once again unashamedly plug in his iPod along side the decks.

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More updates when I'm not so hung over. Shout out to the Cock Party girls for the good time last night.

Riff

Thanks to Catchdubs for the link. His site is always worth a read (so go there and read it).

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Nick Sylvester has been busy lately.

First, there was the controversy he stirred up by posting a satirical take on the vicious NYPD takedown of a couple Arts & Crafts guys as they tried to buy pot. In a park. In Manhattan. I ran into George Vale at The Beaconsfield last week and he was slightly bruised; Dave Newfeld (pictured in the Pitchfork article) obviously got the worse end of that deal. Just to clear things up, neither of these guys actually plays in Broken Social Scene.

Then he got his hands on a copy of Gus Van Sant's cinematic ode to Kurt Cobian. More satire. I can't wait to see what Nick says about the Ian Curtis film. (As an aside, Van Sant is also working on The Timetraveler's Wife, which is based on the book by the same name; a book which was once recommended to me by a girl in a bar, and was actually quite good.)

Anyway, as if that weren't enough, he's been posting some decent music--

Something about a barn:
Harlem Shakes - A Night

Compared to The Strokes (and The Walkmen):
The Head Set - Bonnie & Clyde
The Head Set - Pure Convenience

Appropriation

Big shout to OneLouder for linking up the Familiar Audio Stream. He also happens to completely disagree with my Brakes review -- as do a few others. Disagreements are fun.

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The saga of Hot Coffee continues. An 85-year-old grandmother from New York is now suing Rockstar Games on the grounds that her 14-year-old grandson could've been exposed to sexually explicit scenes locked within Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. I just don't get it anymore -- does she not understand that this kid has probably already witnessed shit that goes WAY beyond sexually explicit? I guess I'm going to hell.

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Some of these tracks were sourced from OneLouder, Music For Robots, and Fluxblog.

The best thing Music For Robots have posted in ages:
The Jacksons - Rock On

One of my favorite electro tracks from 2002:
Cursor Miner - U Want to Want

Warp will release a new Broadcast album soon:
Broadcast - I Found The F
Broadcast - Goodbye Girls

Another from The Long Blondes:
The Long Blondes - Appropriation (By Any Other Name)

Familiar Audio Stream

There is now an audio stream from Areyoufamiliar. You can access it by clicking on the link under the radio.blog heading in the right hand column.

You may also access it via this update:
Familiar - Audio Stream (opens in a new window)

I encoded the Unfamiliar Compilation 1 mix CD, which I created between December 2004 and April 2005. More streams will follow.

Tracklisting:

PART 1 (MONO)

1. Tom Vek - If You Want (Playgroup Mix)
2. This Microwave World - In Hospital
3. Out Hud - Dad There's A Little Thing Called Too Much Information
4. Junior Boys - Birthday
5. The Fatales - Cosmonaut
6. Interpol - Untitled (Velapene Screen Mix)

PART 2 (SPRING)

7. The Chap - I Am Oozing Emotion
8. Man Man - Tear of Octopus (Adam Sparkles Remix)
9. Spoon - Was It You
10. Out Hud - This Just In (intro)
11. Hank - Ferox
-- Liars Live Noise --
12. Supersystem - Everybody Sings
13. Tom Vek - C-C (You Set The Fire In Me)
14. Mahjongg - The Stubborn Horse

PART 3 (CHRISTMAS)

15. Annie - Heartbeat
16. Volga Select - Almost Disciplined The Bastard Prince (edit)
-- Mechanik Mechanikal Breakdown Intro --
17. Mr Mixel Pixel - Fake Violin Solo
18. Tribeca - Happy New Year
19. Khonnor - Phone Calls From You
20. The Walkmen - Christmas Party
21. Wolf Parade - Dear Sons And Daughters Of Hungry Ghosts

Interview and Show - No Dynamics

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The Bagel is in Toronto at 285 College St.

FRIDAY AUGUST 19TH
No Dynamics
Panzram's Ghost
Tradition
+ a special 7-minute set by 10,000 Watt Head
Comedy by Nick Flanagan
DJ Wes Allen

SATURDAY AUGUST 20TH
No Dynamics
Pony da Look
Awesome
+ a special 7-minute set by Broken Tree Fort
Comedy by Nick Flanagan
DJ Wes Allen

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I was kind of joking when I suggested having the members of No Dynamics build something out of Popsicle sticks for this article – sounds like a stupid idea, right? Then I figured it’d be good, because I could use it as an excuse to get this cute girl at the art store to show me where to find everything. I must’ve had no game that day, ‘cause she didn’t seem to give a shit about anything I had to say, and she gave me a blank “whatever” look when I tried to drop the “it’s for Vice” trump card. Beat down, I went to meet the guys from the band, and convince them to go along with my shitty concept.

After a couple hours, they decided to create a miniature Burning Man. Weird, coming from a band that blows your head off with death-dance-prog-psych-metal-with-no-bass-and-female-vocals. They mentioned starting off as a no-wave act without Vanessa singing – but this struck me as useless trivia, since most people don’t really know what no-wave is. Come on, name someone other than James Chance who is no-wave. Nobody, right? And you only know about James Chance because everyone was into Contort Yourself a few years ago. No, ESG weren’t no-wave.

Dan talked about a bunch of other stuff I can’t print. Jeremy had already got drunk and embarrassed himself when we hung out earlier in the week, and made me swear I wouldn’t publish was he said – so basically they neutered my entire article.

No Dynamics are from Toronto, they have a 12” vinyl-only EP coming out in August on Rob Gordon's new label, and they’re really good. Here is what they have to say for themselves:

VICE: Did you have fun? Was this a shitty idea?

JEREMY: I had fun with a shitty idea. Maybe it’s not that shitty.

VICE: Did any of you argue about the sculpture? About other stuff?

DANIEL: I argued with Carl because he automatically thinks every idea Jeremy or I come up with is a bad one. He usually sees the error of his disapproval shortly after. Thus, while he didn’t initially see the awesomeness of a shitty tribute to the shittiest festival ever, Burning Man, he eventually saw the light and all was good. Every song we’ve ever played has gone through the same process of disapproval/approval. It is always initially crippling to my ego, but the eventual payoff of acceptance is greater than if Carl had thought any idea I had to be a good one to begin with. It’s like that notion of object appreciation through loss and eventual rediscovery. You never appreciated your wallet so much than after finding it under that movie theatre seat after a couple of days of shitting your pants.

VICE: What does the sculpture mean?

DANIEL: The sculpture means that No Dynamics is a huge fan of eccentric jocks and free blowjobs as art. It is an homage to the ethos of Burning Man, in miniature.

VICE: Is your sculpture ugly?

DANIEL: Yes. Our sculpture is ugly like all men are ugly.
JEREMY: All fuckin Popsicle structures are ugly. Except my cock.

VICE: Do you ever imagine yourself as a sculpture when you’re on stage? Does your imaginary sculpture look like the one you created?

JEREMY: All I imagine when I’m onstage is what my life is not. Sculptures are only a means to get laid… maybe. My imaginary sculpture is always the last girlfriend that left me. Hi Laura, you look good.

VICE: Will you keep it?

DANIEL: I will use the burnt Popsicle sticks as an anti-lubricant like they do in Africa because they are against wet vaginas there.

No Dynamics are Vanessa Fischer on vocals, Daniel Vila on guitars, Carl Didur on keys, and Jeremy Finkelstein on Jews.

(I'll be doing a second interview with the band which will be in the September issue of Vice. This one never made it due to logistics.)

Photo: http://www.areyoufamiliar.com/nd1_small.jpg -- Vanessa wasn't there so we dressed Dan's girlfriend up in a sweater turban and pretended her skin was darker.

Band Website: http://www.geocities.com/nononodynamics/

Dunce Cap

There have been no updates for a few days because I've been so busy. I finally got a date nailed down for the No Dynamics article to find it's way into Vice -- the September issue. Of course, this means I have to re-write it. I'll post the old one here.

No Dynamics will be having their 12" EP release party on August 19th and 20th at The Bagel in Toronto. I'm putting a poster together for them over the weekend; additional information next week.

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If you are a writer, remember: Always do some serious fact-checking when you dissect and slam someone (be it a band or an artist, or whatever). I'm not gonna get too deep into this (because it's embarrassing), but I made a stupid factual error in a recent article, and, while it didn't impact anything beyond my ego, it was still a lame thing to deal with. I hate being wrong.

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Working in the video game industry, I can't help but follow the latest news involving the hidden sex mini-game (hot coffee) in Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Politicians are up in arms. Parents are freaking out. Everyone can't believe there are pathetically lame-looking sex scenes in a video game available to kids -- kids who, I suppose, are better served by driving over polygonal pedestrians, watching the blood squirt out of them, and taking their money. Oh yeah, you gotta know how to hack the software to get to this sex; you don't have to do anything special to the game in order to run around killing people. I guess these parents haven't discovered how easily accessible porn is over newsgroups yet.

A well-written editorial - Grand Theft Auto: DC

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The Paper Cranes are moving forward with the recording of a debut EP late this summer. Turns out I will be managing and promoting the band, so expect to hear new music from them as soon as it's available. A website and concert dates are also on the way.

I've had a chance to hear a lot of the material in it's early stages, and it is (objectively) quite amazing.

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Today, the guys from A Trillion Barnacle Lapse sent me their new album in it's entirety. I wrote about them a few months ago when I first heard their new material, and gave them some very positive feedback. My opinion hasn't changed; the band has come a long way over their past few albums, which themselves have had some great tracks.

Leaving their dark, goth-tinged, post-punk roots behind, the new ATBL is something almost indescribeable. Long-time fans may be thrown for a serious loop when they hear the big pianos, the stuttering, danceable beats, and the distinct guitar hooks. And what about those falsetto vocals? It's like indie-rock-R&B funnelled through a John Hughes film and touched lightly by Gang of Four or Josef K.

What really strikes me are the abrupt tempo and stylistic changes within some of the songs. Check it out 2min 05sec into Dunce Cap.

A Trillion Barnacle Lapse - Campfire Stories
A Trillion Barnacle Lapse - The Fabulous One
A Trillion Barnacle Lapse - Eternally A Tree
A Trillion Barnacle Lapse - Dunce Cap

Getting Old

What the hell is going on with me? Last Saturday night I was sitting - by myself - on some stairs in front of a store, eating pizza on a lonely stretch of Queen Street West. It was 2:30am, and I had been drinking since about ten. My friends were on their way to a loft party, and I was supposed to head down there, but I couldn't -- I physically could not bring myself to do it. Another drink was sounding like a trip to hell, and I was as tired as I feel at 9am on any given weekday. Am I getting old? Is this was happens after 30?

Fuck.

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I have a couple more exclusive band write-ups to drop over the next week (along with MP3s, of course). In the meantime here are some of my top picks from plowing through the internet over the last few days:

An excellent slice of indie-pop:
The Ebb And Flow - Firefly

These guys hit the radar a little while ago, and I've been listening to their debut EP a lot over the last few weeks. More music if you click-through to their site (where they cover The Zombies -- cool):
Snowden - Black Eyes
Snowden - Victim Card

Their EP titled, "The Ouch. The Touch." sounds something like early Yeah Yeah Yeahs recordings if you added more instrumental complexity. An Artrocker find:
The Grates - Sukkafish

Two interesting electro tracks. Jonathan Vance I have very little information on; his press-release bio seems to portray him as intentionally enigmatic. Whatever, the song is good. Vitaminsforyou is a Toronto local who here remixes The Arcade Fire to great effect:
Jonathan Vance - Lycanthrope
The Arcade Fire - No Cars Go (Vitaminsforyou Remix)

Review: Brakes - Give Blood

As much as they’ve been heralded as one, Brakes are not a supergroup. I looked this up, and there was no mention of them anywhere amongst the company of other genuine supergroups. Listed were Audioslave, CSNY, Cream, The Faces, Mike & The Mechanics, and the mighty Velvet Revolver, but no Brakes. Love the hype-mongering press, eh?

A side-project of British Sea Power’s Eamon Hamilton, along with Tom and Alex White of Electric Soft Parade, and Marc Beatty of The Tenderfoot, Brakes aren’t terribly bad; they just aren’t terribly great either. Of course, I will admit to being a big fan of British Sea Power’s first album, which set my expectations high.

I put off writing this for a couple weeks because I was trying to give the album enough time to make an impact and grow on me. Being less than 30 minutes in length, it comes across as a spastic affair of psych-country freak-outs, art-pop irony and self-aware lyricism – a description which actually sounds pretty good, but in practice here, seems to lack sincerity. With a couple singles already released since 2004, the band has been on a slow boil -- the guys getting together for gigs on-and-off when their primary projects have allowed. They have a cult following already, and are poised to gain at least some popular success.

Unfortunately, the songs about being drunk in New York, dancing in clubs, doing coke, and getting “high to forget,” fall flat. It’s the stripped down, cleaner tracks like “You’re So Pretty,” which stand out amongst the mess – sounding something like Pavement meets '60s psych. The throw away sub-30-second interludes are just that. They add very little to the cohesiveness of the record. Sure the whole thing was recorded live to tape, and yeah they might be trying to capture the feel of their in-studio chemistry, but it simply doesn’t work in this recorded context.

There are two covers here – Johnny Cash via Duke Spirit’s “Jackson,” which makes me smile simply because this rendition sounds so ridiculous coming from these guys, and an attempt to capture the brilliance of The Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Sometimes Always.” Without Hope Sandoval, and with subtle (but ultimately damaging) changes to the lyrics and construction, it fails to convey the pop hook of the original.

The well-done cartoon video for the very right-now “All Night Disco Party” might well afford the band some airtime, and give their sets a Modest Mouse dance disco crowd pleaser, but the lack of substance is going to help it fade pretty quick. “Pick Up The Phone” is cute in a Violent Femmes on crack kind of way, and it takes some balls – or a sense of humour - to release a 30 second song as a single. But novelty is novelty and it doesn’t last, which seems to be the underlying problem here; this is a scattered album which relies heavily on quirk and humor… but lacks the wit to pull it off.

As bad as this sounds so far, Brakes are not without merit. The aforementioned “You’re So Pretty,” along with “Fell In Love With A Girl,” “I Can’t Stand To Stand Beside You,” and “The Most Fun,” while not singles material, are engaging tunes. Indeed, it’s in their attempt to write the hits where the album loses itself. The grating “Heard About Your Band,” an Art Brut-esque diatribe on music industry name-droppers, is itself filled with some wickedly obvious self-referential statements. We know OK? And Art Brut does it better.

Perhaps as these guys continue to work together, they will give us something that appears to be more than what this is – a half-time side-project realized over a couple pints. In the meantime, Rough Trade will make a few dollars, a couple choruses will be sung at the bar, and some sad fuck who name-dropped Sleater Kinney and Karen O will be immortalized in relative obscurity.

Seoul

I've covered The Two Koreas a couple times before. Well, I've mentioned them at least. Who says friends don't get favours? These guys deserve it, though -- they've just released their first full-length, from which I've been allowed to source a couple MP3s.

Keywords: post-punk, music critic, external ties to other popular indie bands, Toronto, Stuart Berman is Brandon Flowers, The Fall.

The Two Koreas - Borrowing From Petra To Pay Pauline
The Two Koreas - Retarded Architect

Nick Sylvester now has his own blog over at The Village Voice called Riff Raff. Nice name, man.

I'll be DJing in Vancouver (Canada) on August 13th with The Paper Cranes and Death of a Party.

Here's a new track from The Paper Cranes, who have been receiving a ton of hits here, and yeah this is just as good as the rest of their stuff:

The Paper Cranes - Rabbit In A Snare (rough bootleg)

Working Music

While at my 9-5, I try and find time at lunch and during slow periods to scan some sites and download music. No, not via P2P, Dave and Cord. Don't worry -- I'm not squandering company bandwidth.

Anyway, there are a few tracks I found on my machine at work which hadn't filtered over to my house via my iPod. Yeah, there I said it -- iPod. But I don't have the gay white headphones, OK?

For my usual sources, check the links section.

New York via London; top-notch producers now releasing their own music:
Mutronium - Connected
Mutronium - I'm All Over You

The boys at Artrocker were right, The Long Blondes are good:
The Long Blondes - Giddy Stratospheres

I always missed Spacemen 3:
Working for a Nuclear Free City - Over

Somewhat generic, but pleasant enough for now:
Foreign Born - The Entryway

OK, computer, the bends:
Flotation Toy Warning - Popstar Reaching Oblivion

Pigeonhole

My pre-occupation with the '80s and '90s Manchester music scene has resulted in an appreciation for all kinds of shit bands. Real shit. The Farm, Northside, Flowered Up, Paris Angels, and a host of other artists people hardly heard outside the UK back then, and certainly don't hear about now. Out of this flood of sub-par, bassline-driven, e-inspired, coke-fuelled, and alcohol drenched crap came a couple of standouts.

OK, maybe not a couple.

After The Stone Roses destroyed their reputation, and their ex-label, Silvertone, milked their back catalogue for all it was worth, all we had left were The Charlatans doing their best impersonation of The Rolling Stones. Sad. Depressing.

One of the few releases from the Madchester revolution that remains listenable comes from New Fast Automatic Daffodils (New FADs). Differentiating themselves from spiritual contemporaries The Happy Mondays by throwing more punk, soul and funk into the mix, New FADs turned out Pigeonhole, their phenomenal debut album (released: 1990). In some ways it sounds a bit like what the Mondays might have been going for with Yes, Please (a record you should NEVER purchase, no matter how cheap it may be). Unfortunately, The Daffodils never lived up to their first release with their subsequent LPs (sound familiar?), but at that point, there weren't many fans of the genre left to buy their stuff, anyway. It was all grunge, and Nirvana and Pearl Jam, and me sobbing in a corner wondering where it all went wrong. Oh yeah, U2 released The Fly around then too, and started doing all those multimedia broadcast gigs, and I briefly thought the Pet Shop Boys were OK. What the hell was I thinking??

Let's live in the past tonight:
New Fast Automatic Daffodils - Amplifier
New Fast Automatic Daffodils - Big
New Fast Automatic Daffodils - Fishes Eyes
New Fast Automatic Daffodils - Partial

These are high bit-rate MP3 files; file sizes are larger than usual.
New Fast Automatic Daffodils aren't for everyone. This ain't no CYHSY.

The state of things

I have a review of Brakes new album (released July 4th) that I've been sitting on for some time; it'll be published over at Artrocker as soon as I finish it up and send it to them.

I interviewed Owen Pallett (aka Final Fantasy) last week, and will be trying my best to convince the guys and girls at HoBO to forgive me for taking so long putting the resulting article together. For those who don't know of Owen, he is responsible for The Arcade Fire's string arrangements, as well as having artistic input into early Hidden Cameras releases, and some of Jim Guthrie's material. As usual, the interview will be published on this site after it hits print.

The first No Format event in Toronto was last night, and it went extremely well. We had a packed club; The Diableros and The Empires both played great sets, and things stayed wound up all the way 'til closing. Big huge thanks to Kim Hardy for helping organize the sound at the last minute after other plans never materialized. Go check out Arts & Crafts and support Kim and everyone else involved in the label -- Broken Social Scene, Stars, The Most Serene Republic, etc.

Later tonight I'm going to post a few tracks in appreciation of an album that, while borne out of the early-90s English alternative scene, still holds up today: New Fast Automatic Daffodils' Pigeonhole.

No Format: 07/06/2005 POSTER

Storage

Big shout out to Catbirdseat who linked to this site; specifically to the Paper Cranes entry. Batteria Ricaricabile (Rechargeable Battery), which is entirely in Italian, also sent me a few hits. Thanks.

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I witnessed some bizarre theatrics tonight. Ian coerced me into taking a cab over to Sneaky Dee's to see Ari Up. Formerly of The Slits (known by most people under 25 for their pulsing, bass-heavy rendition of, "I Heard It Through The Grapevine") she was performing her version of English-white-girl-living-in-Jamaica-spiritual-reggae. It wasn't bad, although the highlight was the physically imposing, long-haired rocker who would NOT stop getting onto the stage and trying to do his rap-metal thing. Granted, Ari invited the audience to participate, but I'm not sure she was too fond of this particular guy. Or the sweaty, drunken 40-something who occupied the opposite side of the stage and screamed into the microphone every so often between wild arm gestures. It was fantastic; like a train-wreck. When the pink-fauxhawked punk-rock revivalist girl made it onto the stage, put a lei around Ari's neck, and kept gazing at her with love/lust in her eyes (she was her "hero"), the realization struck me that this was one of the strangest shows I'd ever seen.

Elsewhere, a guy - white, mid 20's - was wearing a Sun City concert shirt. Sun City was - prior to the dissolution of apartheid - a whites-only holiday getaway for all the wealthy South Africans, which featured gambling, and all the big international stars -- even the occasional non-white concert performer (because, you know, those people might make a good song or two every so often). I'm not sure if the person wearing the shirt was aware of this, or if he thought it was ironic or what. Surely if we were at a club in Capetown he would've been smacked up pretty quick.

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I keep a directory on my machine called /storage. It's more interesting than my /music_incoming folder because, rather than known entities downloaded via Slsk, /storage contains all the weird shit I pick up from other websites. The following tracks have been sourced online, although I can't remember from where anymore. If from another blog, chances are they came from:

20 Jazz Funk Greats
Just For A Day
Music For Robots
Onelouder

Great straight-ahead indie rock:
Pontiak - Aztec Blood
Pontiak - It Takes One
Pontiak - Ophelia
Pontiak - The Letter Said

Two more tracks from the English art-rockers:
Elle Milano - Girl Scout Up Late Doing Her Homework
Elle Milano - Swearing's For Art Students

80's tinged electro R&B:
Skeletons and The Girl Faced Boys - Git

File next to Hood and The Post:
The Cars Are The Stars - True

Drums, two cellos, a bass, and one low-quality recording:
Matson Jones - Mr Audio Technica

Goodnight, that was weird

It's been a hectic couple days, so this is a quick update before I post something of substance tomorrow.

I ended up at the Toronto harbourfront this evening, watching Feist and The Apostle of Hustle. It was completely slammed full of families wanting to enjoy Canada day, fans wanting to hear some adult-contemporary-indie-rock (thanks for that Jaime), and a few of us who weren't entirely sure why we were there, except for wanting to be out. Given my initial lack of enthusiasm, it was a pleasant experience -- completely non-threatening, and at times even interesting. Granted, I spent the majority of my time in the beer garden.

Later, at a club, I heard someone play House Of Jealous Lovers without an ounce of irony in their intent. Wait, is it ironic yet? What is it? Sure it's a great song, I don't deny it, but following it up with Blue Monday, and then Rock The Casbah left me in awe. Stunned silence. Sipping my beer. Waiting for something to happen.