Emily Haines - "Doctor Blind"

YouTube is an evil, evil site...but you can pretty much find any tv clip, live performance or music video ever made on it. Here's Emily Haines' (of Metric) video for "Doctor Blind." Enjoy.

Amy Millan

Not too much new with me besides being busy with school. However, this past Monday April and I were able to check out Amy Millan of Stars and Broken Social Scene fame perform a solo show at the Exchange, showcasing tunes from her recent country-tinged solo album Honey From the Tombs. Backed by an 8 piece band, Millan put on a really great, relaxed show. It definitely wasn't a show to go to if you wanted to jump around and RAWK out but we had a really nice time. Okay, back to the books. Not my most exciting post, I know.

All hail the King of Regina

As I was walking home from Roca Jack's, I bumped into a local legend... the one, the only, King of Regina. Zubazz's best friend Mr. Bastard once had an ongoing log of the continuing adventures of this king among men on his legendary and irreverant website. It's been awhile since I've seen the King, but he was in fine form. As I approached him on the sidewalk, he was muttering something to a bush on someone's lawn. When he saw me coming his way, he uttered "Stick it up your ass you fuckin' Buddhist Nazi!" And then he walked away still muttering assorted racial slurs to no one in particular. Priceless. He totally made my day.

Fark!!!!!!

I don't mind getting the odd forwarded e-mails, as long as people send them in moderation. Some of them are really funny and worth getting. But I absolutely DESPISE it when someone sends me 10 forwarded e-mails at the SAME TIME. Not cool. If everyone did that I would have a million e-mails to sort through every day. Again, not cool. Most people are like me and realize that not every forwarded e-mail is worth sending. However, others are apparently still clueless. The internet's been around for awhile. The novelty of joke e-mails should be done. Only send the truly good ones please. Thank-you.

New Music to Check Out

Even when I am ultra-busy, I still have to find time to listen to music, even if it is mellow background music while I'm reading. So here's what I've been listening to lately...

Memphis - A Little Place in the Wilderness. I am a huge fan of Stars and Metric, and now these two bands are putting out a series of solo and collboration albums, which is great as a fan, but not so great for my pocket book. Amy Millan of Stars put out an excellent country-tinged solo album a few months ago and now Torq Campbell has teamed up with Metric guitarist Chris Dumont, alling themselves Memphis. This album doesn't leap out at you at first, but it has grown into one of my fave albums of the year. Very atmospheric and dream-like.

Emily Haines - Knives Don't Have Your Back. Emily Haines is the singer from Metric and this album is a big departure from Metric's blend of New Wave synths and crunching guitars. Here, Haines' voice and piano are front and centre, with various other instruments and electronic textures in the background. This album just gets better and better every time I hear it.

Bob Dylan - Modern Times. Zubazz has said his dad would rather hear the toilet flush than listen to Bob Dylan and I must admit that his voice can be an acquired taste. I remember my first impressions of Bob Dylan were when I watched David Spade and Dana Carvey parodying Tom Petty and Bob Dylan on Saturday Night Live. However, over the years I got to appreciate what a great songwriter, and yes... singer that Dylan is. People like Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, etc aren't techically great singers per se, but it's the way they can't sing. Their voices are unique. There are lots of R' n 'B divas who have stunning voices... but when you hear their voices on the radio, can you actually differentiate them? I don't think so. But anyways, Dylan's new album continues his decade long career revitalization following Time Out of Mind and Love and Theft. On this album, his band is front and centre, featuring mostly rollicking blues numbers. Plus he name-checks Alicia Keyes, which isn't quite as weird as that sounds.

yada yad yada...

I'm back into the thick of things with school. It is already shaping into one insanely hectic semester so I'll probably be a bit of a hermit for the next three months or so. I'm enjoying all my classes so far but it is going to be a lot of work... TONS of reading as well as writing so I have my work cut out for me. I guess I'll be living on coffee and Red Bull for a little while.

I picked up two DVDs this Tuesday by my two favourite bands and these DVDs really show how truly different these two bands are. R.E.M. just put out a collection of music videos and live performances from their pre-major label I.R.S. years (1982-1987) before they fully broke into the mainstream. During this time, R.E.M. hardly appeared in their videos at all and when they performed on TV they had a very understated, mysterious, nerdy and slightly awkward aura to them. Even when they finally fluked out and sold a ton of records after releasing Out of Time, R.EM. still had that aura of being that Little Band That Could. U2 on the other hand, always seemed ready to take on the world and always seemed ready for world domination. U2 finally released their 1993 Zoo TV concert film on DVD. This concert really shows U2 at arguably their best... a full-blown, sensory-overflow extravaganza. Both DVDs also give an indication of why R.E.M. and U2 are in different stratospheres in terms of commercial success nowadays. R.E.M. are happy putting out whatever music they feel like, even if it is understated, mellow tunes that lack any break-out hit singles. U2 still goes for the jugular attempts to conquer the world with instantly memorable singles like "Beautiful Day" and "Vertigo."

QCM

On Sunday I ran in the Queen City Marathon. This year I decided to "only" do the half-marathon since I didn't feel like being a cripple for 3 months afterwards, which seemed to be the routine the last few years. There's a tendon on the outside of my left knee that keeps getting aggravated every year at the marathon so I decided that this year I would run the half and focus more on weight training and strengthing my leg muscles. I'm also going to go to a sports doctor to get it properly checked out and rehabilitated if need be. As for the actual run, I finished the 21.1 km in 1 hr and 39 minutes, which place me 69th out of 1142 runners so I was pretty happy. And I can even walk fairly normally today! ll want to qualify for the boston Marathon someday but I don't want to fuck up my knee or ligament so bad that I won't be able to run again. I honestly don't know what I would do if I weren't able to run again. There are very few things I absolutely love in life... music, books, and running. I would snap if I lost any one of those.

Back to school

School is back in session and yesterday I had my first class of my final semester. I'm pretty excited to hit the books again. I'm taking a creative writing class which will keep me ultra-busy. I've never taken a creative writing class before so it may be a bit of a challenge but it will be cool to share my stuff with the rest of class and see what others bring to the table. Unfortunately, I have to revisit a book I hoped I'd seen the last of. A few years ago I took a course on the gothic novel, where we studied Charles Dickens' Bleak House. While Dickens undeniably has some classics, Bleak House is the slowest moving book I have ever read. I would rather watch paint dry than have to drudge through this book again. This is a book that takes 30 pages to describe fog in London, but only takes one sentence to mention that a character spontaneously combusts(???), never to refer to this incident again!!!!! But aside from this book, I am pretty hyped to get back into a routine again. I enjoyed this summer, but I had far too much time off aside from hosting karaoke one night a week and doing the odd odd job here and there.

Pt. 3...

Labour Day Weekend, Pt. 2

Labour Day Weekend Pt. 1

Labour Day Weekend pretty much is the death knell for summer, but I had a lot of fun kissing the summer good-bye. My cousins Sarah and Tino, my parents, April and Autumn, Mark, Corey, Nadine, Zubazz, and the guys from B!LF all helped to make Sunday a great night. B!LF closed off a three band set that also included Men Without Shame (or is it Men Without Jason Gervais????). Anyways, here are some pics of the unofficial last night of summer.

The Pump Hip-Hop House?

Last night I hosted karaoke at The Pump. Normally Saturdays aren't too horribly busy but with all the people in from Winnipeg for the Labour Day Classic it was pretty nuts. My cousin Sarah and a couple of her friends were in from Winnipeg so them, my parents and April came out to see me in action. Since I was working I never had a chance to socialize with them a whole lot, but I did manage to almost get into a fight. This one guy kept pestering me to get his buddy up to do some freestyle open mic hip-hop/rapping. I'm not a huge rap fan obviously but I thought if this guy was even half-assed decent it might be quasi-entertaining. Plus I didn't have a whole lot of songs up so I took a chance and let the guy have the mic He got up and he started mumbling some drunken gibberish and then started his "act." The Pump isn't exactly the proper venue for a hip-hop open mic night and I saw that the crowd were not overly impressed to say the least so I cut the guy off and told him that I had to get on with the show. Well that just pissed him off and his handful of friends started flipping out and were acting like the biggest injustice ever just occurred. They were calling me every name in the book and "threatened" that last night would be the last night I ever worked at The Pump again. So I told them to go ahead and plead their case to the owners and managers and see what they would do about it. I wasn't too worried because I doubt that The Poverty Plainsmen would want a "rapper" to open up for them or play at The Pump. Finally a member of J-Roc's posse came up onstage and started telling me that he was "this" close to punching me for disrespecting his friend. At that point I called for the bouncers to come down and kindly escort them upstairs, which they did. Good times, good times.

Pt. 6...

After looking at all these pics I've come to the conclusion that my friends and I should all seek some professional help. Oh well. When in Rome...

Pt. 5...

Pt. 4...

Pt. 3... more shenanigans

Some of these pics really don't need further explanation. But I will anyways cuz that's just how I am. In this set, April is doing her best vampire impersonation on Shades while Mr. Ruda is in udder disbelief of my impersonation of a preacher getting a blow job.

Pt 2.

The classic pic in this set is the one where April and Shades are grabbing each other's bags of sand. Kevy gives it the two thumbs up.

Picture time Pt. 1... Tongue Action

Here are a few of the pics from last Tues when Tina and Gianni were down. There were a ton of pics I had to sort through so I'll try to limit them to the most entertaining ones. In this set I'll include the ones that showcased everyone's willingness to lick each other's tongues. Yes, it was an interesting night.

"We made out like the plane was going down"

It's been a hectic week so I haven't had a chance to update, so here it goes. April and I have been busy moving into the new apartment, but we're almost settled now. Even though we still have a lot of work to do, it already feels like home. I love the set up. It has a total '70s feel to it, complete with a wooden finished wall that wouldn't be out of place on a 70's porn.... not that I'd know.

Last week Tina and Gianni were in town for a couple days so the whole gang went out to McNally's for a rowdy night of karaoke. I got some pics from Tina and Shades which I'll post some time in the near future. Everyone was in a bizarre mood so it made for some errr... interesting pics.

I don't think I've mentioned anything on this blog about this, but I am addicted to Rockstar: Supernova. I never really watched the INXS season, but I am utterly and completely hooked to this show. I read an article about the show it it stated that the show was made for people like myself that don't really watch TV. This is the first show in years that I feel compelled to watch every night it's on. For those that care, Lukas HAS to win it. He has tons of charisma and swagger for a frontman. Dilana is entertaining, but Lukas just fits better with the band. With Butch Walker producing and helping with the songwriting process the album might even be half decent.

You're probably wondering where I got the title for this entry from. Well last Friday, Scarth Street was closed down for a charity event that featured live bands and stand-up comedy and bar service at O'Hanlon's courtesy of the cast of Corner Gas. Well my one buddy Mark and I decided to eat at Michi, which is a kickass sushi restaurant beside O'Hanlon's. After a bottle of sake, we were both feeling pretty corked and he preceded to make out with my other friend Mark's ex-girlfriend. I guess they put on quite the public spectacle. I just talked to him today and he said that they were "making out like the plane was going down." Classic. I wish I would've thought of that. Dammit.

On a related note. I've only had sake about three times before last Friday. I don't know what it is about sake, but it seriously knocked me on my ass. Apparently it doesn't hit you as bad when it's not heated. After Mark and I finished a bottle, we were both flying. And for such a small bottle it seemed like it was bottomless. I walked out of the restaurant and felt really hyper and extremely alert, but drunker than a skunk at the same time. And of course I bumped into my parents shortly thereafter. Perfect timing.