the2scoops

Loving "The Joy of Books"

2012-01-12T07:30:00.000-05:00

A delightful stop-motion animated ballet of books at Type bookstore in Toronto (883 Queen Street West, (416) 366-8973)

Torontoist has a post on how it took 50 hours of labour to bring this film to life:

Torontoist: Making His Ode to Joy of Books

Down By The Water

2012-01-07T15:18:00.000-05:00

On a leisurely Friday afternoon, I took the opportunity to spend some time in one of my favourite Toronto neighborhoods, Roncesvalles Avenue.It's good to see the street humming with life after the past few years struggling with a lot of street construction that hampered local businesses and contributed to a few closing up. There are plenty of new businesses going up, lots of new restaurant life.

I stopped as I usually do at She Said Boom, a second-hand book and music shop. And sure enough, there was that perfect moment when I walked through the door, and that smell of old books and the sound of Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers playing "Circle I" on the turntable combined to hit me all at once. I left the shop with a copy of the novel "The Amazing Absorbing Boy" by Rabindranath Maharaj, and of course, the record they were playing when I walked in, "Modern 88". That's not the first time that's happned there, and it won't be the last.

I walked down the avenue, an unusually mild winter day. Shops had their flowers and fruit on display. A low rider bike pedaled up the avenue, towing a child carrier behind it. I ducked my head into a few other shops, picked up an outstanding latte from Cherry Bomb Coffee, and made my way down to the lake. If you walk long enough, far enough, you reach water.

Winter took the day off, and I found a bench at Sunnsyside Beach to watch the water and world go by. Joggers ran the boardwalk. Cyclists rode the path. I was met by birds paddling in the lake. A pair of swans seemed out of place in the January sun, but there they were:

I was reminded of something a friend said the other night, on a much colder occasion. She piled up her winter jacket, bag, scarf, and all the things required to endure winter. She observed winter takes up a lot of space. Today, winter took the day off, lifting its burden of all the things that take up so much space.

I had my music turned off, choosing to just sit and indulge in the meditation that comes from listening to the rhythm of waves reaching the shore.

Everything flows, everything breathes. It was a good day.

Jeff Harris: 13 Years of Daily Self-Portraits

2012-01-05T15:06:00.000-05:00

Toronto photographer Jeff Harris has been taking a self-portrait every day for the past 14 years, no matter what the day brings. Time.com has a video about the project. Just warning you, he shares everything of himself including his surgery, but he perseveres. Utterly moving.

"The images range from completely solitary, auto-timed self-portraits to photographs inspired by a collaborative spirit with whomever Harris encounters on a given day. Regardless of the mood, location or activity at the center of any given image in the series, they all show a marvelously open and generous approach to both diaristically recording and sharing everything from intimate moments to athletic adventures with a wider audience. In fact, Harris evokes the full range of physical experiences a body can encounter: from mundane inactivity to joyful dives to his body being open on the operating table."

Jeff Harris: 4,748 Self-Portraits and Counting

This video came to light via the Metro Morning program on CBC Radio One.Visit jeffharris.org to see the project in its entirety. Harris also has an interactive Journal that allows readers to submit writing about a day from their life. Their stories are juxtaposed with his self portrait from that same day.

The year to come, or "Screw you Mayans"

2012-01-01T11:00:00.001-05:00

First post of 2012. And, as it's on my resolutions to try to start posting on here again, the first of many I hope.

I'm going to work on being a bit more productive on here. I've been focusing on my worklife a bit more recently, but I miss this blog. So yeah, I think you'll see me on here more often.

If I had any resolution advice, it would be this:

1) Keep it achievable

Got a goal? Great! How do you plan to get their, wishing? Make a plan, break that goal into achievable small steps.

2) Don't take on too much too soon.

Ever make that resolution to hit the gym, then jump in to 3 sessions a week and give up by March? If you don't have a great track record, start slow and build up. If it's a gym program, start once a week. You'll start to feel good after a few weeks and start going more often. If it's to learn to cook, don't jump straight to stuffing a chicken. Start with the basics. A goal broken down into small parts is more likely to be completed.

3) Blab about it

We feel obligated to reach our goals if you publicize and talk about them. It makes us accountable.

4) Don't do ALL the things at once.

Related to #2, but if you have more than one resolution, who says you need to do them all right from the start of the year. Set a resolution or goal for each month or each quarter of the year. Incremental change can add up and is easier to achieve.

I've never been a self-help book guy, but if there's one book I think I'm going to be using a lot this year to reach goals, it's Nerdist Way, The: How to Reach the Next Level (In Real Life). It's a productivity book for creative nerd brained people. You know that part of you that obsesses about beating a video game or collecting things or obsessing over fantasy leaques? Why can't you apply that to the real world and gamify your life so you can view life-goals as levels, bosses, and achievements? It's written by comedian/podcaster Chris Hardwick (aka Nerdist), who has done a remarkable and inspiring job of getting his shit together from his days as a drunk slovenly former MTV gameshow host to a man doing what he loves, feeling good about himself, and providing a platform, be it book or podcast or Nerdist.com, for others to succeed.

I've chatted about it before, and you don't need to take the whole thing as "a program", but there's some great things in there about dealing with anxiety and panic attacks, ignoring self-doubt, how to map your goals, how to realistically get there, time management and finances. You take away from it the parts you find relevant. There are 3 sections: Mind, Body, and Time, but taking a browse through chapter headings may give you a clearer idea what it's about:

RPG Your Life
Seize Your Inner Monologue
Choo-Choo-Choosing
Body: The Getting Off Your Butt Part
Becoming An Evil Genius

I've come to listen to Chris Hardwick through the Nerdist podcast, and his humour, enthusiasm, and his passionate "life is pretty amazingly phenomenal when you get off the couch and TRY" approach to life comes through his book.

I've got a notepad I'm going to work on this week, figure out what version of myself I want to be in the coming year and how to reach that place. I'll share some of that up here (see #3), some of it I won't.

Let's make it a good year.

Resolutions - I Am Jack's Enduring Legacy.

2011-12-31T13:44:00.000-05:00

I am Jack's beating heart., a photo by the2scoops on Flickr.

If there's one picture of mine that I come back to that made an impression this year, it's this one. And if you make a New Year's Resolution for 2012, even just one, make it this: "love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world." - Jack Layton

Happy New Year.

RADIOHEAD announce new album THE KING OF LIMBS in less than a week

2011-02-14T07:37:00.006-05:00

Nice news to wake up to after watching Arcade Fire win the Best Album at the Grammys: Radiohead are gunning for the 2012 award and have sprung their new album upon us. Titled "THE KING OF LIMBS", you can pre-order either digital or special album packages with a download date of Saturday February 19th. The album hits stores March 28th.

Radiohead have been successful with this quick turnaround before with "IN RAINBOWS", by getting the album out as quickly as possible after completion and limiting the window where it may leak online before the street date.

Links:

RADIOHEAD: THE KING OF LIMBS pre-order website

RADIOHEAD: Official Site DEAD AIR SPACE

Stars at Massey Hall: Introduced by a friend of a friend

2010-10-23T00:56:00.006-04:00

Whooo! Seeing Stars tonight at Massey Hall! It's been a pleasure seeing them play many times in all types of venues, but playing Massey Hall is kind of special.

Settimes.ca:
Saturday, October 23
Massey Hall, Toronto
Doors: 7pm
Young Galaxy: 8pm
Stars: 9:15pm

I tend to get a little photo-happy at Stars shows. I can't help it, they put on a great live show with a deep songbook of emotional, joyous pop. And it's hard to find a better, more charming duo than Torquil Campbell and Amy Milan.

the2scoops: Flickr - Stars photos

Here's a little taste of Stars, with a video I shot back in May at the Mod Club

YouTube: Stars - "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead" live at Mod Club

Nuit Blanche 2010: some final thoughts

2010-10-17T23:12:00.006-04:00

Considering it's only 5 years old, Nuit Blanche has certainly made an impression on Toronto. And just as we always, there's highlights and things to improve.

My Nuit Blanche 2010 blogposts:

Flickr - Nuit Blanche 2010 - the2scoops

Favourite installations:

The Task by Chris Shepherd proves to be one of the most fascinating projects I saw that night. A man stacks and unstacks cement blocks all night. It's not in the effort of building anything, but simply the task. Nothing will be built, nothing destroyed.

Big O by Žilvinas Kempinas. Like The Task, it was beautiful in its simple concept: a loop of magnetic tape precariously balanced between a series of fans. It wavers, it flows, but still remains aloft. It's like some simple game we played as children, growing anxious every time it touches the floor that the game will be over.

So what to improve on for next year? Well, there's the annual complaining about drunks and crowds, but not much can be changed about that: it's a public event. If it can't be changed at homecoming, it won't be changed much here.

For constructive criticism that's actually realistic, I found Torontoist had a good list of ideas to improve the event next year:

I liked their suggestion to close off Queen: closing Yonge was a new change for Nuit Blanche which I hope to see next year, but it's time to consider closing Queen Street to traffic from Church to Dufferin. With so much foot traffic going through, it was impossible for streetcars to get through. Close off Queen, make Dundas and King "streetcar only" and make the TTC free for the night.

It's all night, not late night: as in previous years, I found myself at 4am standing where an installation should have been, only to find they pulled up stakes and left. And some of the installations, such as Koerner Hall, were merely on auto-pilot with pre-recorded music playing on a player piano. If the event is marketed as "until sunrise", we'd count on the installations to still be there until sunrise. I especially admire installations which are designed to reach their climax at dawn.

Nuit Navigating: this was the first time using the Nuit Navigator on my iPhone. I stand by the hope that the Toronto International Film Festival adopt a similar app, but while I found the Navigator handy for planning, I wasn't using it as much that night aside from the occasional GPS check. Part of that was it didn't seem the app was compatible with the new multitasking OS for the iPhone, causing me to restart the app every time I used it - I can understand how that happened, probably not much time to update the program given the new system was a late summer release. But I found in order to access the "My Night" planner, I had to log in each and every time I started the app. If that kink can be worked out, all the better.

Another idea would be to integrate the My Night into the maps - show pins for all the installations, use a different colour for the installations corresponding to the My Night planner, and give us the ability to "check" off installations as we go.

Best advice learned from that night? If you intend to last the 12 hour event, stick to water and coffee, skip the energy drinks and alcohol. The latter two make you crash pretty hard - in previous years, around the 4am mark. Seeing a few installations and then taking a late dinner break also helped too.

Each year Nuit Blanche evolves, and they listen to public feedback. If you have some suggestions, be sure to let them know. Myself, I definitely will be diving into to next year.

Nuit Blanche 2010: Part 3 > Until The Night Is Over

2010-10-12T08:15:00.002-04:00

Feeling re-energized by Daniel Lanois's performance, 3am seemed like a good time to visit the installations along Bloor Street in Zone A. One subway ride later, and we arrived at the Royal Conservatory of Music.

At the RCM and the lush lights of Aurora continues to draw audiences in (a5); calming
by the2scoops via iPhone at 10/3/2010 7:28:28 AM3:28 AM Sunday, October 03, 2010

The atrium of the Royal Conservatory of Music was filled with these remarkable creations, with calm waves of light and sound reacting to the crowds passing underneath. Aurora was created by Philip Beesley Architect Inc. as "a responsive forest of light". The mechanics of it looked fascinating, but what we found ourselves in was a technological Northern Lights as we were washed in strangely calming sounds.

We made our way to the auditorium of the Royal Conservatory of Music, hoping to find some live performance, but only to find a player piano on stage. It was the first of many disappointing installations that seemed to shut down before the sunrise. Some installations closed not by choice, such as Iskootāo, a performance in the heart of Yorkville that was reportedly ended after noise complaints from a neighbourhood condo. Some installations just seemed to pull up stakes early, such as KortuneFookie, which was nowhere to be found at 4:30am.

Finally got a look at Lower Bay Station. Sadly no Starbucks built yet
by the2scoops via iPhone at 10/3/2010 8:14:16 AM4:14 AM Sunday, October 03, 2010

One installation that was open and still drawing an audience was the Interactive landscape Dune set in Lower Bay Subway station. A relic of a 3-line subway plan that was never implemented (Wikipedia - Lower Bay Station), Lower Bay Station is seldom open to the general public. But for Nuit Blanche, it was opened up and turned into "an interactive landscape of light".

The lights resembled a wetland full of glowing bullrushes and flickered with each noise from the audience, but the real show was when the subway trains passed above through Bay Station.

Only our 2nd coffee of the night, the hopping the subway down to the TIFF Lightbox in Zone C
by the2scoops via iPhone at 4:46 AM Sunday, October 03, 2010

By 5am, the streets had taken on the air of post-apocalyptic zombie movie. Survivors staggered the streets, in search of the installations still open. Empty cans of energy drink piled into the gutters. As much as we wanted to check back in to some of the Zone C exhibits like Erik Satie’s Vexations (1893) and The Task, but we likely only had enough energy to take in one more stop. For us, our goal was to check out the brand new Bell Lightbox complex at King and John. By all reports, the new home to the Toronto International Film Festival was a stunning addition to Toronto, and I hadn't had a chance to see it yet.

The building was, as promised, a testament to film. We found ourselves in a beautiful, bright space, warmly greeted by the volunteers. We took a peek at the The Essential Cinema exhibit and grabbed a seat for some stunningly disturbed clips from their Grindbox! trailer screening (Make Them Die Slowly is a very messed up film that surely influenced the Saw series).

Nice to end the night with a singalong to Always Look On The Brightside of Life at c47 Singin' in the Dark, Sunday, October 03, 2010 6:02:24 AM via Twitter for iPhone

Shaking off the Grindbox, we sat down in the cinema that was home to Singin' in the Dark. Early in the night, a host was rowsing the crowd in a singalong to traditional movie musicals, and later more eclectic selections. By 6am, the audience was comfortable just taking in the clips, laughing and cheering the stranger selections. At the start, we had scenes from "Reservoir Dogs" and "Blue Velvet", charming clips from "500 Days of Summer" and "Almost Famous", and then just outright weird clips like "Clockwork Orange". To end the show, and the clip that finally got some singing from the crowd (or at least me), it was Always Look On The Bright Side of Life from "Life of Brian".

As we were leaving the Lightbox, a volunteer asked if we had seen the Atom Egoyan's 8 ½ Screens. It wasn't really on our radar, but was part of the exhibits marking the opening of the Lightbox. We told the volunteer no, and he in turn responded like we needed to catch the last helicopter out of Saigon. "It's your last chance, it closes tonight! Go, run to the elevator!!!!"

And you know, he was right, it was pretty spectacular. The cinema experience is inverted: from a projector mounted on the stage in front of the main screen, a key sequence from Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2 is shown. It flickers out into the cinema seats where various screens in all shapes and forms are hung.

It was something very unique to see, and we would have missed out on something cool if we hadn't listened to the volunteer. We made sure to thank him for his enthusiastic directions on the way out.

Thanks to all for a terrific Nuit Blanche. And with the last notes and the first glow of sunrise, adieu
by the2scoops via iPhone at 6:49 AM Sunday, October 03, 2010

As the sky glowed with the pre-dawn, we passed through Nathan Phillips Square where Daniel Lanois was overseeing the teardown of his installation. Within an hour or so, the city would be restored to its normal state, and bleary eyed, despite a mixed bag of an evening, I absolutely look forward to the next year.

The morning was creeping up on us, and I was looking forward to taking advantage of a late checkout time from the Metropolitan Hotel, and all-day breakfast at a favourite diner.

I'll post a little wrap-up tomorrow with some final thoughts on Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2010.

Nuit Blanche 2010: Part 2 > Here Is What Is or Saved by Lanois

2010-10-08T08:30:00.001-04:00

Part 1 of my Nuit Blanche night here

The hours between 11pm and midnight were not kind to us.

We fought our way north for the better part of an hour, browsing the Atrium on Bay and make it into Ryerson. By now the crowds were thick with drunken partiers, giving the night a bacchanalian flavour. And I don't mean that as a compliment. The streets were noticeably strewn with garbage, discarded samples from the corporate advertisers. The exhibits around Ryerson were, for the most part, underwhelming in scale and our Plan B falls apart when I couldn't find any sign of the shuttle to The Distillery District. All in all, about an hour and a half bogged down in the crowds, nothing "cool" seen, and the wind starting to flag from our sails.

But there's hope yet. We dove straight for two of the installations put on by well-known musicians. Sight Unseen was the more abstract of the two, from Lee Ranado of the band Sonic Youth and Leah Singer creating a fluid musical and visual landscape within the confines of the Old City Hall. Then it was on to Nathan Phillips Square.

Packed in at B1 Later At The Drive-in w/ Daniel Lanois & friends drawing us in by the2scoops via iPhone at 10/3/2010 4:58:59 AM12:58 AM Sunday, October 03, 2010

Daniel Lanois's installation Later That Night At The Drive-In turned Nathan Phillips Square into his personal canvas: screens and speakers of every shape and size filled transformed the square into a forest of sound, abstract video collages playing. We made our way to the small stage set up in the heart of the installation where we found the man himself at work. Every hour or so, Daniel Lanois and friends would play a few songs, their images projected onto the screens. It was like seeing him jam a house party that he invited a few thousand close friends to.

And now the cold quiet hours that tends to thin out the crowd to manageable levels
Sunday, October 03, 2010 2:03:43 AM via Twitter for iPhone

A highlight of the show was a gutsy performance from a brave salsa dancer on a cold night.

B1 Daniel Lanois just wrapped up another set, time to move north to Bloor

by the2scoops via iPhone at 2:48 AM Sunday, October 03, 2010

Nuit Blanche 2010: Part 1 > Fly By Night

2010-10-07T09:15:00.003-04:00

Considering this is only its 5th year, Nuit Blanche has become a Toronto mainstay in a relatively short time. I think it's the romance of the concept: 12 hours from sunset to sunrise when the city is teeming with people until the wee hours, roaming the streets in search of art and spectacle. And like any romance, there's good (witnessing a city at play, seeing the gleam of discovery in people's eyes) and the bad (the drunks, navigating the crowds, not every installation connects with me). But every year, the streets are thriving and alive at 4am and I want to be a part of that.

This year I served as one of the Nuit Narrators for the event, sharing the night as I went. It proved to be a great motivator for staying out for the whole event. Also, it helped piece together the next afternoon after 4 hours sleep.

If you want a few tips for getting through the night: wear good walking shoes, dress in layers, and pack some supplies. On the supply side, packing light is good as you're on the move and need to maneuver through the crowds.

6:51pm all signed in at the Scotiabank Nuit Blanche centre at Yonge and Dundas. One of the changes this year was Yonge Street being closed to traffic from Bloor to Front Street, and it proved to be a highlight, walking down the middle of the road at 7pm. Pedestrians turned out in the thousands to take advantage of the festivities. Woe unto any drivers who didn't get the memo.

By 7:15PM I've met up with my partner in Nuit, Ms Rita, and we're off into the night. It takes a little while to come up with a plan of action: the challenges are 1) don't miss anything cool; and 2) avoid those areas that get clogged with crowds. You'll see later I forget about #2.

We decide to plunge south into Zone C, curated by Christof Migone. When the exhibition is named "SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO", how can I resist.

Auto Lamp, C1 shining into the night. Ms Rita wants to make it into a Lite Brite

by the2scoops via iPhone at Saturday, October 02, 2010 8:00:51 PM

7:45PM we reach Yonge and Queen and the sun's gone down. The twilight is all the better to take in Auto Lamp by Kim Adams.

A van turned into a landlocked lighthouse, it's skin punctured with holes and insides filled with light. It shines out into the night:

"The vehicle's consistency is compromised, it's barely there, it's more holes than whole. "

C2 scape with 6 and 7 sound installation sounds like it's stalking us, the sound of breathing altered into something menacing

by the2scoops via iPhone at Saturday, October 02, 2010 8:31:46 PM

We walk further and find ourselves at the Cloud Gardens on Richmond. We're drawn to the noise of Annie Onyi Cheung's installation "_scape with 6 and 7".

C14 The Task at 8:32pm moving bricks back and forth all night without building anything. An endurance test?

by the2scoops via iPhone at Saturday, October 02, 2010 8:34:25 PM

South of Adelaide we find one of the open call projects selected by the curator. The Task by Chris Shepherd proves to be one of the most fascinating projects I saw that night. A man stacks and unstacks cement blocks all night. It's not in the effort of building anything, but simply the task. Nothing will be built, nothing destroyed.

We talked with the artist, Chris Shepherd, about how the repetition of the task is a meditative thing, as much mental as physical. He found the murmer of the crowds akin to white noise, nice and comforting. Chris wasn't doing the task for a purpose, "I'm just doing it because I want to do it."

C13 Wait Until You See ... I can't spoil what's behind the curtain
by the2scoops via iPhone at Saturday, October 02, 2010 8:46:40 PM

As a perk of my role as Nuit Narrator, I was given a media pass that allowed us to bypass any lines and head straight in to an installation. At "Wait Until You See This", my "skip the line" media pass was my undoing. This installation was based on the idea of lining up, the anticipation. And when you line up for 5, 10, 30 minutes, and finally peek behind the curtain?

Well, I skipped the line and wait straight in, to see what everyone else would eventually see: nothing.

My reaction was amusement, but what would my reaction be if I had waited like the piece intended me to?

Wedged between two buildings, three enormous inflatable clown heads.

Creepy but satisfyingly held at a distance, stuck with no place to go. One of the most popularly photographed installations at Nuit Blanche.

C8 Endgame squishing your fears
by the2scoops via iPhone at Saturday, October 02, 2010 8:55:24 PM

C10 1850 where the waters of Lake Ont reached
by the2scoops via iPhone at Saturday, October 02, 2010 9:08:25 PM

At the southern tip of Zone C, we arrive at the point where Lake Ontario once reached. The water once stretched inland to Front. Those days are gone, but the shimmer of blue lights creates a ghost of that long gone time.

C9 Vexations the cycle continues song, sculpture, song ,sculpture
by the2scoops via iPhone at Saturday, October 02, 2010 9:18:16 PM

I seemed drawn to these installations themed around repetition and time. Vexations was a remarkable project. Built around a composition which instructs the player to play 840 repetitions, this installation had to accomplish the task in 12 hours. 2 pianists, 12 hours, each of the 840 repetitions printed on an individual sheets which, after playing, were taken and transformed into a paper sculpture.

The dancing clock of The Endless Pace (C7)

by the2scoops at Saturday, October 02, 2010 9:34:28 PM

In the Bay Adelaide Centre we found what was one of my favourite installations, Big O by Žilvinas Kempinas. Like The Task, it was beautiful in its simple concept: a loop of magnetic tape precariously balanced between a series of fans. It wavers, it flows, but still remains aloft. It's like some simple game we played as children, growing anxious every time it touches the floor that the game will be over.

Area around Ryerson is crowded, prob a good time to check out The Distillery District by the2scoops via iPhone at 12:16 AM Sunday, October 03, 2010

Greatly pleased by the pieces we found in Zone C, we take a break for food, and that's when we're struck by indecision: it's 10:30pm, either we head back into the main zones where it's likely the crowds are out, or head to one of the outlying areas like Liberty Village or The Distillery District. We decided to check out the exhibits around Ryerson University, which in retrospect was a wrong turn.

Nuit Blanche 2010: Nuit Narrating and Navigating

2010-10-02T09:21:00.003-04:00

It's the 5th Annual Scotiabank Nuit Blanche tonight, with Toronto awash in public art and people from 7pm Saturday until 7am Sunday. As I have done for the 3 previous Nuit Blanche events, I'll be out and about. What's new this year is that I've been selected by the City of Toronto to be one of their Nuit Narrators, providing live updates, tweets, photos and commentary throughout the night. I'm one of 10 narrators, with all our content pulled up under the dedicated Nuit Narrator stream.

To follow the Nuit Narrator stream, either while you're on the streets or from home, go to:

http://www.scotiabanknuitblanche.ca/share

and my content will be streaming through the Nuit Narrators section.

I'll also be tweeting all night http://twitter.com/the2scoops so come check it out.

SHARING

You can be a part of the action to with the Nuit Nation stream. This is the moderated stream where the public provides the content from various avenues:

TWEET: use #snbTO (other Nuit events are happening around the world, so this is the hashtag to identify the Toronto event) and the tweet will enter the moderated stream

EMAIL: send messages and photos to share@scribblelive.com

LINK: share directly at http://www.scotiabanknuitblanche.ca/share

UPLOAD: send photos through the Night Navigator app

FOLLOW

Four ways to follow:

MOBILE: visit http://www.scotiabanknuitblanche.ca/share on your mobile device

APP: download the sweet little Night Navigator app for Blackberry, iPhone, and Android devices

ON SITE: check out the SHARE YOUR NIGHT screens set up at the Scotiabank Information Centres around the city tonight

AT HOME: during the event or the morning after, check out http://www.scotiabanknuitblanche.ca/share

Night Navigator App

I'm looking forward to using the terrific Night Navigator app on my iPhone tonight. It's a wonderful tool to enhance your night:

Scan complete project details and public transit routes
Locate the most active and closest projects
Recommend your favourites with a "thumbs up"
Find out which projects are creating a buzz
Share Your Night and send real-time photos and comments
View the photo gallery submissions
Access My Night, your personal itinerary planner
Vote for Scotiabank People's Choice and enter to win an iPad or pre-paid Visa card

Makes you with some other big Toronto events that have you running all over would get something like this. (Toronto International Film Festival, I'm looking at you.)

You Used To Be Alright, What Happened?

2010-10-02T09:18:00.002-04:00

So a little housekeeping before I dive back into this blog. I know I've been off for a bit, and that's just life getting higher priority for a bit. But I think I'm back for a while here now. I'm going to keep blogging newer things, but also dive back a bit and fill in some blank spots that I missed during my absence. Anyway, for those that stuck around, thanks. For all those newbies, welcome.

Nuit Blanche 2009

2010-10-02T09:14:00.000-04:00

I neglected to put up my pictures on the blog last year, so here's the link to the my Flickr set:

Nuit Blanche 2009

http://www.flickr.com/photos/the2scoops/sets/72157622520445026/

Les Coquettes warm you up with a Love Story this weekend

2010-02-11T23:15:00.006-05:00

It's chilly out there this Valentine's weekend. What better way to warm up with your sweetie this Saturday night then taking in the newest show from Toronto's premiere cabaret burlesque troupe, Les Coquettes, in a show they call Love Story.

With the ladies and gentlemen of Les Coquettes, your guaranteed to be tantalized. I was first swayed by their charms at the Spiegel show at Harbourfront in summer 2007, where I described the troupe as "playful, bawdy, lusty, and glamorous performance; choreographed titillation in beautiful costumes, with the women (and guy) enticing the audience with the old “you give them a little bit, you take it back; you show them a little more, you take it back”. They put the tease in striptease".

Can you think of any group better suited to tell you a Love Story?

On Valentines’ weekend, Toronto’s premiere cabaret burlesque troupe weaves together some of history’s greatest tales of love. Experience the triumph and heartache in an evening of song, dance, striptease and cirque.

One night only! Two spectacular shows! Bring your sweetie! Meet your soul mate! Sit between your wife and... girlfriend and hope they hit it off!

credit Ryan Visima for the above 2 photos

Saturday February 13th
The LOT
100A Ossington Avenue
Early Show - 7:00 pm
Lounge open at 6:00
Late Show – 9:30 pm
Tickets - $25-50*
To order tickets please visit http://www.lescoquettes.com

* $50 VIP tickets for this fundraiser include priority seating at a cabaret table and a complimentary specialty cocktail. Tax receipts for $25 available upon request.

A few tickets remain so hit http://lescoquetteslovestory.eventbrite.com/ quick!

The Andy Kim Christmas Show 2009

2009-12-11T01:04:00.009-05:00

Last Wednesday I was lucky enough to score a ticket to Andy Kim's annual Christmas show at the Mod Club. It's a great event to get that sense of the holidays - musicians giving their time to come together, play some music, all for the sake of charity and friendship. This year, the proceeds were going to the Regent Park School of Music, "one of Toronto's foremost independent non-profit community music school with a mandate to provide a safe and secure environment where inner-city young people can participate in an affordable after-school music program. "

And what a great mix of a line-up. Andy Kim, iconic Canadian singer-songwriter, known best for writing "Sugar Sugar' for The Archies and singing his own hits like "Rock Me Gently". He was joined by a great band, including Derek Downham, a local musican who's immense talent is only surpassed by his willingness to give of himself. Andy Kim hosted and sang all night, and damned if it wasn't fun to sing along with him at the top of your lungs.

Andy Kim's show always manages to draw together a collection of local indie musicians and Canadian musical stalwarts. Among the performers that night were The Beauties, Broken Social Scene, Gentleman Reg, and Kim Mitchell. A lot of talented folks there. Most turned in 2 or 3 song sets, with Andy and the band coming out to play a few songs between sets. A highlight was a moving tribute video to the recently passed Haydain Neale that had the room enraptured and more than a few in tears.

Here are some highlight videos:

The Beauties cover the classic Pogues tune "Fairytale of New York", with Samantha Martin playing Kirsty MacColl to Shawn Creamer's Shane MacGowan.

Broken Social Scene grooving on "Love Is New".

Broken Social Scene opened their 3-song set wanting to give the crowd a holiday tune, so they rolled out the new tune "Sweetest Kill". It was fun to see them rock a room full of CFRB listeners and staffers.

The finale saw Andy Kim leading the crowd in "Rock Me Gently", joined by members of Broken Social Scene and The Beauties. Everyone was just having a blast

Created with flickr slideshow.

Pictures from the night, credit the2scoops.

I usually grumble at this time of year at how slow I seem to gather my holiday spirit, but the Andy Kim show was the tonic for that. The good will, charity, and energy of the musicians and the fans who made it out that night was infectious. Hopefully that'll rub off on the crowd as they go out into their lives, giving a little more of themselves than usual.

No trick, just treat: get theTimber Timbre album free

2009-10-27T23:06:00.004-04:00

Wow! Canadian record label Arts & Crafts is handing out a treat. Until Halloween, you can download Timber Timbre's ridiculously good self-titled album Timber Timbre for free.

From now until midnight on Saturday October 31, 2009, you can download the entire breakthrough, critically acclaimed, self-titled album Timber Timbre for FREE.

We encourage you to listen to the album that KCRW (where you can hear them live this Wednesday October 28) raves, "Timber Timbre takes on the topic of love but presents it in a cloak of macabre beauty that is perfect for the Halloween season. Songs full of eerie sounds, dark imagery and ghoulish lyrics will make for a spellbinding session on Morning Becomes Eclectic."

A long-list nominee for the 2009 Polaris Music Prize, Timber Timbre was heralded by the Canadian press since its release this summer on Arts & Crafts. Playing CMJ last week, Time Out New York wrote that Timber Timbre was "the standout act" describing their set as "powerfully dark, even eerie folk tracks (which) managed to keep the crowd positively awed.” The Village Voice called them a "uniquely creepy beauty".

Click the link above to discover (for free!!) the album Toronto's Eye Weekly has already called, "The Album Of the Year".

Just in time for fall, and definitely an album that serves as a ideal soundtrack for this time of year.

When the Polaris Prize shortlist was announced, one of the most glaring omissions, at least from the folks I talk to, was Timber Timbre's album. Just follow this link to the Timber Timbre's site and download one of the most acclaimed Canadian albums of the past year: FREE Timber Timbre album

Timber Timbre's touring around a bit right now. The next Toronto date is part of the up and coming "Make Some Noise" festival at the North York Central Library, part of a terrific movement to place more Canadian music into public libraries. Timber Timbre and Bruce Peninsula play at North York Central Library, 5120 Yonge St. (North York Centre subway) on Saturday, November 7, at 8 p.m.

The rest of the tour dates are here, with stops in Los Angeles, New York and the Black Sheep Inn in Wakefield QC.

Timber Timbre @ MySpace

Tom Fun tonight

2009-08-05T23:16:00.003-04:00

The Tom Fun Orchestra hit Toronto on Thursday night for a show at the Horseshoe Tavern. Get into the mood for their raucous live show with this charming animated video for "Throw Me To The Rats". If you need more of a Tom Fun fix (or can't manage to part with the $8 cover), you can also see the Tom Fun Orchestra play a game of "how many musicians can we fit on a stage" tomorrow as the band perform at a free in-store gig at Criminal Records on Queen Street West at 6pm.

Tom Fun Orchestra - Throw Me To The Rats from Alasdair Brotherston on Vimeo.

Director - Alasdair Brotherston

Art Director - Jock Mooney

Producer - Shot On Site Media

Compositer - Dylan White

Puppeteers - Jenni Nylander, Natalie Ryde

CONTEST - The Tom Fun Orchestra @ The Horseshoe on August 6, 2009

2009-07-28T01:36:00.012-04:00

"I’ve got my rum & I’ve got my tequila, I’ve got somewhere to be"

If your last name is Fun, you better live up to it. And if you're fronting an eight-piece gang of musicians from Cape Breton, you best know how to get the feet movin' boy. A couple tracks into their debut album You Will Land With A Thud and I knew I wanted to be in any live venue where The Tom Fun Orchestra was holding court.

The Tom Fun Orchestra hail from Canada's east coast, and you can hear the Celtic-Maritimer heart pounding a beat through every song, a mix of camaraderie, pride, and joy. The TFO seems on the brink of a musical riot, with this banjo, trumpet, violin, accordion and guitars. But it just lends itself to this feeling like being at a kitchen party where everyone's brought an instrument. Everything seem nice and civil at first. There's the slow exhale of an accordion, the harmonic pairing of a violin and trumpet. Banjos and guitar join in, picking up locomotive speed, things get more boisterous, and by the time singer Tom Fun's whiskey and sandpaper voice leads the charge, the party's in full swing, you're spinning a dance with your new best friends, and barely notice nor care that your dining room set ended up in the street.

The TFO has developed a bit of a rep for a raucous live show, and you can hear that joyous din on You Will Land With A Thud. The opening track is a slow lament, “When You Were Mine”, but by the second track “Rum & Tequila”, you've turned your back on your troubles and found music to drive the feet and choruses that will have you singing back at the band. It's an album of bold music that's best heard loudly, and in good company. The song lyrics read like poetry scrawled in a yellowed note book, sometimes a rallying shout, sometimes warm comfort against cold regrets.

Mp3 LAST OF THE CURIOUS THIEVES - The Tom Fun Orchestra

The Tom Fun Orchestra is closing out their summer tour with a number of dates in Southern Ontario and Montreal:

31 Jul 2009 - Montreal House - Peterborough, Ontario
1 Aug 2009 - Phog Lounge - Windsor, Ontario
3 Aug 2009 - The Casbah - Hamilton, Ontario
4 Aug 2009 - Vinyl - Guelph, Ontario
6 Aug 2009 - The Horseshoe Tavern - Toronto, Ontario
7 Aug 2009 - Merritt Park - Welland, Ontario
8 Aug 2009 - Divan Orange - Montreal, Quebec

Contest: I have a 2 tickets to The Tom Fun Orchestra at The Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto on Thursday August 6th, plus a CD copy of You Will Land With A Thud.

To enter, email me at the2scoops.contests AT gmail.com with the subject line: “I want some Tom Fun”, along with your full name and email in the body. Deadline is 11:59 pm on Monday, August 3rd. Please be sure you're able to be in Toronto that night. It promises to be a great night of music with Toronto band The Coast opening – I'm always glad for a chance to hear those guys play live.

If you're a fan of kitchen parties, The Pogues, Spirit of The West or The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, or ever wondered what would have happened if Tom Waits grew up as an East Coast Canadian, check out The Tom Fun Orchestra.

Official Website: The Tom Fun Orchestra (check it out, it's pretty snazzy)

MySpace: The Tom Fun Orchestra

Mp3: Last of the Curious Thieves - The Tom Fun Orchestra

Mp3: Highway Siren Song Breakdown - The Tom Fun Orchestra

Official Website: The Coast

MySpace: The Coast

This Music Is Broken - Broken Social Scene at Harbourfront

2009-07-14T23:52:00.008-04:00

Broken Social Scene has always been my Toronto soundtrack. Their music intersects with a lot of positive memories and stories of my life in Toronto. And the band has always shown a little extra love for the place many of them call home. When Broken Social Scene canceled their Toronto Island gig for various logistical reasons, they immediately offered up a free show as compensation. A pretty sweet treat, and the location threw me back to the last time I saw them at Harbourfront in 2004. As covered in The Book Is Broken, that show was rumoured that it was going to be their final gig, even announced as such by the band. Fortunately it was just the moment they needed to take a time-out and, though the future wasn't clear for the band at the end of that 2004 summer show, it's come back into focus in recent years.

Created with flickr slideshow.

The day of the gig, word got out that director, Bruce McDonald (Hard Core Logo, The Tracey Fragments), in collaboration with Arts & Crafts, would be filming the show for a new feature film called THIS MOVIE IS BROKEN starring Broken Social Scene. Written by Don McKellar (Last Night, the series Twitch City) the film looks to be that centers around a couple who attend a Broken Social Scene show, but the heart of the film would appear to be the concert at Harbourfront on Saturday night. I'm picturing the concert and love story playing out simultaneously on screen, with the multiple split screens like McDonald used in The Tracey Fragments. So okay, Bruce McDonald, Don McKellar, and Broken Social Scene are a personal trifecta of Canadian content brilliance. I can't be biased, this was going to be pretty damned good.

By the time I arrived, the venue was already full and I claimed a spot around the perimeter of the Sirius stage. Decent sightlines, and they crowds kept coming. I had found out through the band's Twitter feed that Metric was in town, so I'm thinking "all right, Jimmy Shaw and Emily Haines are likely to play tonight, going to be a good show".

The Rattlesnake Choir warmed up the show, a favourite band of Kevin's who regualrly play The Dakota Tavern. And then the show started, and it was all Broken Social Scene at their best, with the founding line-up on stage.

My first surprise came when Feist came out on the 3rd song, 7/4 Shoreline, and she was pumped to be there. I don't think she stopped the whole show, a whirling dervish of Muppety singing and energy.

Amy Millan (Stars) came out shortly after, and by the time Emily Haines (Metric) came out, we had the 3 original women of Broken Social Scene. And given each of them is in the midst of either touring or prepping a new release, it's a special night to see all 3 singing on stage together like the old days.

So even though I expected Emily Haines to appear, I was still knocked out when she led Broken Social Scene through this slowed down version of Metric's big hit “Give Me Sympathy”

YouTube: Give Me Sympathy - Metric/Broken Social Scene

Finally, Jason Collett, fresh from opening at for Steve Earle at Massey Hall earlier that evening, arrived. Here he was playing one of my favourite summer songs, 5 years after I first heard him play it at Harbourfront 2004.

YouTube: I'll Bring The Sun - Broken Social Scene,

I put the camera down long enough to take it in. This was the full damned line-up of Broken Social Scene out in full force. There was Andrew Whiteman, Brendan Canning, Justin Peroff, Kevin Drew, Jimmy Shaw and Evan Cranley jamming away. Lisa Lobsinger was singing, Julie Penner on violin. Jason, Emily, Feist, Amy were all there. So many others, and brass and drums and guitars, more guitars. This was a pretty special night, and it surely was the largest collection of Broken Social Scene members in one place at one time. And I'd seen a number of Broken Social Scene concerts, but there was something extra out there Saturday night. And then they dog piled onto this classic from their album “You Forgot It In People”, effortlessly passing the ball back and forth through the song with a riotous joy.

YouTube: Almost Crimes - Broken Social Scene, Harbourfront

(I love it when Feist can't stop herself and starts air guitaring. I mean, the bands been playing this song for 7 years, and it still gets them charged up)

Speaking of classics, there is a new rule as suggested by the blog It's Not The Band I Hate, It's The Fans. No offence to any singers in Broken Social Scene, but “Anthems for A Seventeen Year Old Girl” shouldn't be performed without Emily Haines present. I can't imaging anyone but Emily singing this song.

YouTube: Anthems for a 17 Year Old Girl - Broken Social Scene, Harbourfront

And just when you thought we reached the finale, the band continued into the endless encore (Kevin: “We finished 20 minutes early. I owe Brendan $20”). And man, it was moving to hear Brendan Canning dedicate an encore song to Martin Streek, the legendary Toronto DJ who took his own life earlier that week. What followed was a repeating cycle of “Meet Me In The Basement” that saw Broken Social Scene play each refrain louder and louder, celebratory and defiant.

Encore for Martin Streek - Broken Social Scene, Harbourfront

By the end, it seemed like they hit every favourite in the catalogue. Two hours of music, and what struck me was that, seeing up to 19 players on stage at once, many of whom have played together for years and some at least a decade, Broken Social Scene looked like they were having the time of their lives. And the crowd was urged to shout their lungs out and scream apologies and declarations of love into the Toronto summer night. The screams echo into the night, as Broken Social Scene said thank-you and good-night farewell, until we meet again in the streets, in the market, in the bars, in the city.

Broken Social Scene are currently recording their new album in Chicago.

This Movie Is Broken is currently in production. There's a call for submissions of footage of summertime in Toronto, with film credits and invitations to screenings as prizes. Click here to check out the details.

Pictures: the2scoops on Flickr - Broken Social Scene at Harbourfront 07/11/09

Setlist:
Kevy Key Jam/ Fire Eye'd Boy / 7/4 (Shoreline) /Love Is New/Chameleon / Amy's Song / Feist & Kev's Song Medley / Gimme Sympathy / I'll Bring the Sun / Soul Unwind /Almost Crimes / MTV Jam / New Country /Anthems For a 17 Year Old Girl / Bandwitch / Frightening Lives

Encore:
Pacific Theme/ Meet Me In The Basement / KC Accidental / Major Label Debut

Polaris Prize Shortlist picks

2009-07-06T23:20:00.011-04:00

I'm a fan of the Polaris Music Prize. It's Canadian, it rewards musicians for artistic merit regardless of sales numbers, and it draws attention to music that isn't usually regarded as commercial. In addition to the $20,000 prize, nominated bands benefit from the exposure this national contest garners. Tuesday morning, the jury selected long-list of 40 albums will be cut to 10 albums vying for the prize.

Tune in to CBC Radio 3 online or on Sirius 86, as host Grant Lawrence broadcasts Tuesday morning from 7:00am - 9:00am PST/ 10:00am - 12:00pm EST with the shortlist announcement live from the Drake Hotel in Toronto.

This is only the 4th year, but we already have a number of artists who've been nominated previously, like Junior Boys and Metric. And anybody has a shot at this, regardless of genre. Past winners like Final Fantasy and Caribou defy any one classification as it is.

I can only base my picks on what I've heard this year, so just because it's not one of my picks doesn't mean it isn't an amazing artists you should check out. I'm annoyed I haven't gotten to check out the albums from $100 or Hey Rosetta's yet. Here's my best guess picks, based on merit and the impression these artists have made live and on record:

Coeur De Pirate - Coeur De Pirate (Website MySpace)
Great Lake Swimmers - Lost Channels (Website MySpace)
Handsome Furs - Face Control (Website MySpace)
K'NAAN - Troubadour (Website MySpace)
Metric - Fantasies (Website MySpace)
Joel Plaskett - Three (Website MySpace)
Charles Spearin - The Happiness Project (Website MySpace)
Chad VanGaalen - Soft Airplane (Website MySpace)
Patrick Watson - Wooden Arms (Website)
Woodpigeon - Treasury Library Canada C/W Houndstooth Europa (Website MySpace)

Honorary mention: Elliott BROOD - Mountain Meadows (Website MySpace)

This year my money's on K'Naan to win it. His new album is drumming up lots of well-deserved praise, with a stirring performance at NPR's Showcase at the SXSW festival. Feels like it's his year to be critic's choice. My own pick would be Joel Plaskett. Putting out 3 albums worth of music in one shot is an impressive feat, but putting out 3 albums worth of well written songs music is award worthy.

Updated: The list is out

The 2009 Polaris Music Prize Short List.:

Elliott BROOD - Mountain Meadows (Toronto, ON)
Fucked Up - The Chemistry Of Common Life (Toronto, ON)
Great Lake Swimmers - Lost Channels (Toronto, ON)
Hey Rosetta! - Into Your Lungs (and around in your heart and on through your blood) (St. John's, NF)
K'NAAN – Troubadour (Toronto, ON)
Malajube – Labyrinthes (Montréal, QC)
Metric – Fantasies (Toronto, ON)
Joel Plaskett – Three (Halifax, NS)
Chad VanGaalen - Soft Airplane (Calgary, AB)
Patrick Watson - Wooden Arms (Montréal, QC)

I managed to get 6 out of 10, plus my honourary mention in there. Congratulations to all the competitors. More later.

The winner will be voted on by the jury and announced at the Polaris Prize gala on September 21st.

Past winners:
2008 Caribou for "Andorra"

Links: Website MySpace

2007 Patrick Watson for "Close To Paradise"

Links: Website MySpace

2006 Final Fantasy for "Poos Clouds"

Links: MySpace

NXNE 2009 - Saturday Night

2009-06-21T03:52:00.001-04:00

Oh Canada, what a country to have such talent in it. Gone to bed, happy and with new list of bands you should listen to more often. Like these fine folks who make such wonderful music, from the lush harmonies of Woodpigeon's to Novillero's infectious energy to the pop-bomb of awesome that is Said The Whale:

Woodpigeon (Calgary, AB)

Novillero (Winnipeg, MB)

Said The Whale (Vancouver, BC)

NXNE 2009 - Friday Night at The El Mocambo

2009-06-20T14:27:00.000-04:00

Songs From A Room

Burning Brides

Melissa Auf Der Maur

The Sadies

NXNE - Outlaws & Gunslingers Showcase

2009-06-19T03:18:00.001-04:00

Checking in from the NXNE festival - some shots on the go from the Outlaws & Gunslingers Showcase at Lee's Palace. Full write-up and pictures after the fest ends.

Royal Wood

Jim Cuddy & Oh Susanna

Jenn Grant sharing the love

Luke Doucet and Justin Rutledge

2009 NXNE Music Festival - Find the amazing

2009-06-17T01:56:00.004-04:00

There's a moment where your standing in some dimly lit club with no air conditioning, packed in with a crowd, wondering what you're doing there. Then the band shambles onto the stage, hit those first notes, and you know you're going to want to hear this music for the rest of your life. That moment happens again and again at NXNE.

The Coast performing at The Horseshoe NXNE 2008

NXNE is a music festival designed to get bands exposure to audiences and media, with dozens of venues all over Toronto playing host to hundreds of bands. And all you need is one $50 wristband to grant you access to the whole festival, with most venues having event liquor licenses that will keep the drinks flowing until 4am.

Created with flickr slideshow.
My pictures from NXNE 2008 (link to Flickr)

Last year I took in the festival over 3 nights in Toronto. 3 hot, sticky, at times wet nights. And it was all fantastic. I managed to only see 8 bands (I was aiming for at least a dozen), but every band I saw gave a fantastic performances that won me over: The Coast, The Wet Secrets, The Great Lake Swimmers, Laura Barrett, Royal Wood, The Two Koreas, The High Dials, The D'Ubervilles. I've bought albums from every one of these bands after I got hooked at NXNE and I look forward to the next time I get to see them play.

You have a few ways to go with the festival:

Pick out a number of bands spread across town, dashing from venue to venue and hope to avoid any line-ups. Make some back-up choices just in case the venue hits capacity.

Show up at venues without checking out the line-up and get surprised by bands getting by on talent without any expectations.

Pick one of the stellar showcases, go early and plant yourself there for the entire night.

This year I'm going with option 3. Asides from planning to see some great bands, my not-so-secret goal is to work on my concert photography hobby, get some exposure, and build a portfolio for when I start applying for media passes.

Here's what my schedule looks like:

Wednesday is the kick-off, and already I'm pulled in 2 directions.

The Arts & Crafts label is hosting a night one of two night celebration at The Courthouse. The Wednesday night line-up is a launch party for the new book This Book Is Broken: A Broken Social Scene Story. The bands are all some connection to Broken Social Scene:

Apostle of Hustle /Jason Collett /Years / Charles Spearin's Happiness Project

And special guest headliner, which judging from the line-up is most likely Broken Social Scene

Across town, City Sonic is hosting the official NXNE Gala after-party at The Drake. City Sonic is producing short films about musicians and their connections to the places where they first played. They'll be screening 5 of the short films at The Drake that night, with a hot dance music line-up:

WOODHANDS | LIONESS | THE D'URBERVILLES | J.J. IPSEN

The Thursday night Arts & Crafts party is non-Broken Social Scene bands

Most Serene Republic /Still Life Still / Timber Timbre / Zeus

With a surprise guest headliner, which could be anyone from Metric (in town for Edgefest?) to Modest Mouse really. Most likely it's a band on the Arts & Crafts roster.

I'm parking myself at the outstanding Six Shooter Records/Starfish Entertainment Starfish presentations OUTLAWS & GUNSLINGERS SHOWCASE at Lee's Palace on Thursday, June 19 @ 8pm. The line-up has all the makings of a helluva good time, with a roots-rock-country flavour. And beer. And a poster suitable for framing.

8:00 pm: The Swallows
9:00 pm: Jim Cuddy, Royal Wood, Oh Susanna
10:00 pm: Kevin Hearn, Jenn Grant, Jason Plumb
11:00 pm: Luke Doucet, Justin Rutledge, NQ Arbuckle
12:00 am: Skydiggers
1:00 am: Surprise Guests

My Friday plans are loose, but I'm thinking the Paquin Entertainment showcase at The Dakota Tavern has a great line-up that suits the venue.

Couer De Pirate / The Coast / Deep Dark Woods / $100 / Hooded Fang / Mark Berube / The Beauties

Finally, Saturday is a long haul. I'm planning to hit the Six Shooter Back Lot BBQ in the afternoon. It's 2pm - 6pm in the lot behind their store at 1118 Queen Street East. These folks put on a great party every year, this time in cahoots with Steamwhistle Brewing and Damzels in Distress. Music all afternoon with hosts NQ Arbuckle, other guest spots include performances by Rose Cousins, Royal Wood, Jenn Grant, Michael Rault, Jason Plumb, Victoria Hume, Martin Tielli, Luke Doucet, Justin Rutledge, and The Beauties, plus the grand opening of Beth Hamill's photography exhibit, Rock Paper Pixels. Beth's blog and pictures have been a favourite of mine for ages and I can only aspire to be that good one day. It's a good day to celebrate

As the sun goes down, I'll duck in to the ever-popular CBC Radio 3 Showcase at The Horseshoe Tavern will be a hot and sweaty affair with:
Woodpigeon / DD/MM/YYYY / Ruby Coast / Jason Collett /Hot Panda / Lovely Feathers

Let me know some of your picks for the festival or hit me on Twitter while you're out and you have a hot tip.

Joel Plaskett - Through & Through & Through

2009-06-16T14:00:00.003-04:00

"You're a wrecking ball, in a summer dress"

Celebrate Joel Plaskett's inclusion on the Polaris Prize long-list with this new video for Through & Through & Through, off his triple-album "Three". Great summertime music and harmony, travelling through the Nova Scotian scenery with Rose Cousins and Ana Egge. Where do I sign up for that vacation package?

Spring Cleaning

2009-06-15T00:37:00.002-04:00

I've put a new coat of paint on the2scoops and changed the blog layout a bit. Let me know what you think, and I'll keep tinkering when I can.

Still waiting for "Guitar Hero: The Monkees"

2009-06-02T00:08:00.007-04:00

It's the time of year when all the newest games and technology is previewed as part of the E3 Consumer Electronics Expo. One of the biggest pieces announcements today was the presentation for the game "The Beatles: Rock Band. The game was announced with Paul and Ringo in attendance (shame they didn't play the instruments, or better yet swap instruments). The game looks like a lot of fun, and many is the music fan who gets to prove whether they can, in fact, out drum Ringo. On September 9th, they'll get their chance. Check out the trailer below.

The game promises "first-of-its-kind music-based video game offers a revolutionary tour of The Beatles' music, career, and legacy." The selection of venues span from their beginnings in the Cavern Club thru Shea Stadium up to the final rooftop concert. And the instruments replicating the actual instruments The Beatles played look gorgeous.

The first 10 of the 45 -song track listing have been released:

01 "I Saw Her Standing There"
02 "I Want To Hold Your Hand"
03 "I Feel Fine"
04 "Taxman"
05 "Day Tripper"
06 "Back In The USSR"
07 "I Am The Walrus"
08 "Octopus's Garden"
09 "Here Comes The Sun"
10 "Get Back"

Future song and whole album downloads from The Beatles catalogue are a sure bet.

So what song do you think would qualify as The Boss Level tune? "Day in the Life"? "Hard Day's Night"? "Across The Universe"?

Joel Plaskett at Massey Hall: Good things come in Three's

2009-05-26T00:39:00.011-04:00

I assure you, good things come in 3's. Joel Plaskett thinks so too. How else to explain having the confidence to put out a rare 3-disc album that contains something for everyone: a disc of rock and roll break-up songs, one of more down-tempo acoustic songs, and one of smart indie-pop? And how to explain how Joel is a deft hand at all three genres? Or that there were 3 of us going to see his show at Massey Hall on Saturday night?

Okay, that last one was pushing it.

Saturday May 23rd marked Joel Plaskett's debut at Massey Hall. This prolific singer-songwriter from Nova Scotia has been working the music scene for years, from his days in Thrush Hermit back in the 90s through to 7 albums/EPs over the past decade, either solo or fronting The Joel Plaskett Emergency. His most recent album has proven to be his most ambitious, "Three" - three discs, 27 songs of love and youth and toasting friends long gone, of leaving and coming home.

And the good things came in 3's that night. Joel played 3 sets over 3 hours. The opening set pronounced the night as Joel Plaskett and Family and Friends, as Joel opened the show with a 45-minute set with the musicians who he recorded Three with: singers Rose Cousins and Ana Egge, and his dad Bill Plaskett playing guitar.

Playing the historic Massey Hall made it a special night, and Joel shared the stage with his friends. After a couple of his songs, Joel accompanied first Ana Egge then Rose Cousins as they each sang a song from their own releases.

A short intermission (with an insane run on the basement bar and washrooms) and Joel returned, backed by The Joel Plaskett Emergency for a more rocking set of music. By the time he got into Through & Through & Through, I saw something I had seen in ages: the Massey Hall audience, up on their feet and dancing away as The Joel Plaskett Emergency rocked out.

And I got to tell you, Joel is a great performer - in person he demonstrates all the skill that's made him a mainstay in Canadian indie music all these years, jumping from celebratory rock to intimate acoustic numbers. And it's not enough he's a talented singer, songwriter, musician, but damned if he isn't genuinely charming and just a nice guy. Joel just entertains the audience so well, chatting between songs, telling stories about how he got this keyboard for $7 at Value Village, and singing about his cat. And it's not just him, but also the company he keeps: the Joel Plaskett Emergency are all pro's, not letting a busted bass drum phase them. And Rose and Ana just killed holding the long note during "Wishful Thinking" (you'll know the part).

Just before playing a Kelowna-friendly version of "Love This Town", an exuberant young fan who was pogoing like Tigger during the end of the second set kept shouting at Joel. Joel graciously walked up to chat with him:

Joel: "Mandy from Moncton? Of course I know her! She comes and rocks out at every show!"
Dude: "That's my sister!!!!"

As distracting as he was, you could see the guy was doing it out of love for Joel. Well, probably some booze too, but mainly love and boundless joy. Just like everyone else in Massey Hall that night.

The whole show was top to bottom fantastic, easily one of my favourites this year. But it comes down to a couple of moments. The way we shot out of our seats like a shot when "Through & Through & Through" started and we all started dancing. Cheering and pumping fist in the air through "Million Dollars" as Joel sang "Lonely love, gotta leave it behind" followed by Ana and Rose crooning back "Every time they look at us, we'll blow their mind" all velvet smooth.

But the moment that made me feel proud for Joel, like they way you feel for a friend, was during his third set, the encore, when he was singing all 16 verses of the epic length closing song "On & On & On", which also closes Three. It's sounds like a guy drinking to the life he's lived and he continues to live. Around verse 8 he sings:

I'm just like my father
With calloused fingertips

And he casts a look to his right and there's his father, playing with him onstage at Massey Hall. Followed by:

I'm just like my mother
When the red wine's at her lips

And there she is in the front row, best seat in the house, next to his wife.

As Joel played on the whole 12 minutes of the song, eventually leading us in a singalong about his little white cat White Fang. Yes, he really loves that cat.

Finally, after 3 hours, Joel finally took that bow with everyone, and the audience went into the night, beaming smiles of happy happy happy, through and through and through.

If you want a sample of what Joel Plaskett's music is like, head over to CBC Radio 3 where they have a session recorded with Joel Plaskett Live at The Capitol Theatre, Moncton, from 24 Apr 2009 streaming on the website or download the podcast as an MP3.

Joel Plaskett at Massey Hall - the2scoops Flickr set including a pic I snapped of the set list for the 2nd set

Updated with full set list via NXEW:

First Set
1. Happen Now - La De Da (2005)
2. Deny, Deny, Deny - Three (2009)
3. Pine, Pine, Pine - Three
4. In the Blue Moonlight - Three
5. Farmer's Daughter, Ana Egge solo - Road to My Love (2009)
6. Nothing More to Say - Ashtray Rock (2007)
7. Heartless, Heartless, Heartless - Three
8. Rewind, Rewind, Rewind - Three
9. Lost in the Valley, Rose Cousins solo- If You Were Me (2006)
10. Rollin', Rollin', Rollin' - Three

Second Set
1. Work Out Fine - Truthfully Truthfully (2003)
2. Extraordinary - Truthfully Truthfully
3. Through & Through & Through - Three
4. Gone, Gone, Gone - Three
5. Sailors Eyes - Three
6. You Let Me Down - Three
7. Precious, Precious, Precious - Three
8. Ashtray Rock - Ashtray Rock
9. Run, Run, Run - Three
10. True Patriot Love - Down at the Khyber (2001)
11. Spinning for You - website download
12. Nowhere With You - Make A Little Noise EP (2006)
13. Lazy Bones - Three
14. A Million Dollars - Make A Little Noise EP
15. Wishful Thinking - Three

Encore
16. Before You Leave, Thrush Hermit - Clayton Park (1999)
17. Love This Town - La De Da
18. Fashionable People - Ashtray Rock
19. On and On and On - Three

Joel Plaskett official site
Joel Plaskett - MySpace
Ana Egge
Ana Egge-MySpace
Rose Cousins
Rose Couins - MySpace

Neko Case, force of nature

2009-04-22T00:17:00.006-04:00

A great Saturday night last week as some of my favourite peeps came to town to catch one of my favourite singer-songwriters Neko Case, who was playing the second of two sold out shows at Trinity St Paul's Church in Toronto.

First we had dinner at Dessert Trends Bistro on Harbord St, and I was very pleased with my first experience there. Started about 3 years ago as a dessert bakery, they've gone beyond their delicious desserts and introduced a full brunch, lunch, and dinner menu in the past year. Selecting from the $25 prix-fixe menu gave us each plenty of options to chose from. The opening salads and appetizers were brought to our table and presented very nicely. The pastry on the Bak ed Wild Mushroom Phyllo Tart with Goat Cheese was crisp and light. My main was the braised beef short ribs with lemongrass and preserved herb tomato served with French baguette for soaking up the lovely sauce. Everything was delicious to this point, and then came the desserts. True to expectations, absolutely delicious. Overall, great price point for food of excellent quality, variety, and freshness.

Bellies full, we walked up the street to Trinity St Paul's Church on Bloor, or as it's known by it's full name, Trinity-St. Paul's United Church and Centre for Faith, Justice and the Arts. It's a beautiful building, and a very unique venue for seeing the show. I wasn't terribly familiar with the opening band Crooked Fingers - led by Eric Bachmann, the band had some beautiful songs with Eric's voice playing into the rafters of the church. Melodic, reminding me of the Great Lake Swimmers a bit, I'm definitely making a point to pick up a few of their albums.

And then the main event. Neko Case is a force of nature - a mane of fiery red hair, a sharp wit and a voice that is bigger than her body. This singer-songwriter breaks beyond record store categories like alt-country, with songs that are a little more punk, some a little more pop. It was an extraordinairy night. It's one thing to fall in love with her voice on the albums, but to hear her live and realize that her voice is that powerful outside a studio was just stunning. Nikita and I kept looking at each other as if to say "Where the hell is all that voice coming from?"

You could tell Neko was thrilled to play such a unique venue - she even wore a dress for the occasion. Churches tend to have such fantastic acoustics and from first note to last, she killed it. Easily the best show I've seen all year, and will be hard to beat. Neko had a full company of the players she recorded her newest album Middle Cyclone - guitarist Paul Rigby and Vancouver drummer Barry Mirochnick, bassist Tom V. Ray, backing vocalist Kelly Hogan and multi-instrumentalist John Rauhouse. Kelly's pretty charming and talented in her own right, but she was a highlight as she played the role of straight-woman with Neko, entertaining us with some funny dialogue between the songs and allowing Neko to show off her personality, and take her mind off the fact she was in a church, and likely hadn't been in one since, well, probably the last time I'd been in one prior to this Easter.

The crowd greeted her enthusiastically as ever. Despite her being an American performer, most people assume she's Canadian. She may as well be given the time she spends up here as part of the Canadian music scene, either as part of the Vancouver group The New Pornographers, or frequent collaborations with The Sadies, who she credited on several of the songs that night. Fans were suggesting her 2006 album Fox Confessor Brings The Flood should have been a contender for the Polaris Prize that year, which recognizes artistic merit of a Canadian artist. Alas, no rule bending, even for the divine Neko Case.

On tour for her latest album Middle Cyclone (buy it buy it buy it), Neko hit so many bright spots in her catalog, from new songs like the urgently passionate "This Tornado Loves You" and the upbeat pop "Maneater" to older favourites like "Deep Red Bells". I know I'm gushing, but to hear Neko's weary lament on "Wish I Was The Moon" with it's refrain of "I'm so tired/I'm so tired" was just a highlight of my music-going life. And anyone who was there, don't tell me you weren't moved by her cover of "Don't Forget Me" by Harry Nilsson, with special guest Garth Hudson of The Band brought out for some accordion work. Hearing Neko sing it live, such a beautiful lyrics, means every time it comes on the headphones it gets a little lump in the throat. But I think I can live with that.

Neko is coming back to town to Massey Hall in July. Go and thank me later.

More pictures from me: the2scoops @ Neko Case flickr set
Official Site: Neko Case

Some links via Chromewaves:

Chromewave's Photos: Neko Case, Crooked Fingers @ Trinity-St. Paul’s - April 18, 2009
MP3: Neko Case - “Middle Cyclone”
MP3: Neko Case - “People Got A Lotta Nerve”
MP3: Neko Case - “Hold On, Hold On”
MP3: Neko Case - “Star Witness”
MP3: Neko Case - “If You Knew”
MP3: Crooked Fingers - “Phony Revolutions”
MP3: Crooked Fingers - “Call To Love”
MP3: Crooked Fingers - “Big Darkness”
MP3: Crooked Fingers - “Devil’s Train”
MP3: Crooked Fingers - “New Drink For The Old Drunk”
Video: Neko Case - “People Got A Lotta Nerve”
Video: Neko Case - “Maybe Sparrow”
Video: Neko Case - “Furnace Room Lullabye”
MySpace: Neko Case
MySpace: Crooked Fingers

Oscar 2009 Live Blog "I can't wait for the upcoming montage of montages."

2009-02-22T18:20:00.005-05:00

It's that magical night of too-high expectations: Oscar night is here. I'll be live-blogging on this site tonight, so come on by and add your 2-cents. I'll be on around 8pm EST.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php?option=com_mobile&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;task=viewaltcast&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;altcast_code=6ca744be20" &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;the2scoops 2009 Oscar Live-Blog&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

No need to sign up an account or anything. Just plug in a user name and away you go.

"F-ing Sponge Cake!?" - Worlds Best Commercials 2008

2009-02-16T23:20:00.008-05:00

Had a nice treat this weekend as I hit The Princess Cinema's in KW with Ms Rita at my side to check out the screening of "World's Best Commercials 2008", a showcase of the best international commercials as recognized by the London International Awards for advertising. The Princess is a classic little repertory cinema, with the real popcorn (not the glowing yellow kind) and butter. Settled in to the bucket seats, we laughed and marveled at some of the most creative and funniest commercials of the year, some tearingly funny, some moving and effective enough to take your breath away. Each commercial felt like a short film, some of them 30-seconds, some more ambitious like the 10 minute spot by director Martin Scorsese. For short attention spans and if you could use a laugh, do yourself a favor and check out a screening at a local cinema near you, or spend some time cruising the LIA site which has the award winning spots available for viewing in Quicktime format. You'll lose productivity today, guaranteed.

Be warned though: I don't let advertising influence my decisions, but the first thing I did today was to drink Schweppe's Ginger Ale while buying my VW Golf, which I drove to McDonald's, all funded by the profits I made from investing my Ladbrokes winnings into my E-Trade account. And then I will buy a drum playing gorilla as my sidekick. On E-Bay.

Here's a selection of some standouts:

McDonald's "Boombox" - Silver Winner, Best Use of Music. Try not to smile while watching this spot, with a young boy who is too fly for the dinner table. Rita started doing the electric slide in her chair to this, and you will too.
Agency: Leo Burnett, Chicago

E-gaming "Climb", "Parachute"," Shark" - Silver Winner, Campaign. These character feel like they lept out of a Wes Anderson movie. Crazy goofy bastards.
Agency: M&C Saatchi, London

Schweppes "Burst" - Gold Winner, Cinematography. Beautiful in motion and image, with a soundtrack from Cinematic Orchestra. In the words of Ms Rita, "their music will burst your heart". The song is "To Build a Home".
Agency: George Patterson Y&R, Melbourne

Cadbury Dairy Milk - "Gorilla" Grand Prize, and Gold Winner, Confectionary. Love the serious look on his face, a slight head nod of commitment and BAM.
Agency: Fallon London, London

Volkswagen GTI "Dreams" - Nicely captures that transcendence between dreams and the real world. Gold Winner for Best Use of Music.
Agency: Ogilvy, Cape Town

Herringbone "Henri's Hands" - The Gold Winner in the Apparel category swerved us, posing as a poignant PSA before we started cracking up at a very inappropriate moment.
Agency: M&C Saatchi, Sydney

Louis Vuitton - "A Journey" - A gorgeous spot that will have you yearning to go beyond the places you know. Gold Winner for Cinematography
Agency: Ogilvy, Paris

Human Trafficking - "Radiohead" - Not shown in the collection I saw but worth watching is this Silver Winner for Cinematography. The band Radiohead committed their song "All I Need" to this spot for MTV's Campaign Against Human Trafficking, a music video that tells two stories in parallel, one child in a Western country, one in the Third World. It draws you in and gives you pause, successfully marrying music and message to shine a light on the shame that in this day there is still legitimized slavery and exploitation.
Agency: Colman Rasic Carrasco, Sydney

Volkswagen International Cinema "Toy Story" - Gold Winner, Corporate. Funny, but I don't think I can watch this Pixar classic the same way anymore.
Agency: DDB London, London

Coca Cola "It's Mine" - Silver Winner for Animation -A charming balloon battle for supremecy.
Agency: Wieden & Kennedy, Portland

Orange TV On Demand - "Rewind City" - Silver Winner, Editing. Sweetly romantic spot.
Agency: Publicis Conseil, Paris

Nintendo Jam Sessions - "Sponge" - Silver Winner, Low Budget. NSFW, a cheeky Australian ad.
Agency: Colenso BBDO, Auckland

AMP Energy- "Walk of No Shame" - Silver Winner, Humour. No, I am not familiar with this concept.
Agency: GREYnyc, New York

E*Trade - "Baby Banking - Gold Winner, Humour "I underestimated the creepiness."
Agency: GREYnyc, New York

FedEx - "Carrier Pigeons" - Gold Winner, Humour
Agency: BBDO New York, New York

Glade AutoSport - "Trash" - Silver Winner, Automotive Products
Agency: Draftfcb, Buenos Aires

Grammys - live blogging from the2scoops

2009-02-08T21:38:00.007-05:00

With the use of CoverItLive, let's give this a whirl, shall we? It's going on at ALOTT5MA too.

Twitter feeds I pulled into the liveblog:

diplo DJ, collaborator with M.I.A.
stereogum online outlet for indie and alternative music
postrock - Washington Post music columnist
qoolquest Ahmir, ?uestlove, Drummer supreme for The Roots. Da' Man himself.

(Quest twitters like mad, including this from the night before:
"haaaaaaaa! thom yorke is jammin! he dancin like a muppet on acid. i love it. how he got more soul than 10 of post modern rnb artists?"

- On Saturday night, the Roots' Questo tweets about the Radiohead lead singer busting moves at an LA Grammy party.

And you can find me on Twitter at the2scoops. Now on with the show.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php?option=com_mobile&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;task=viewaltcast&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;altcast_code=94b1dcf74b" &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;the2scoops Grammys 2009&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Neil Gaiman wins Newbery Medal

2009-01-26T21:42:00.008-05:00

Neil Gaiman, English author of comic books and fantasy novels ( The Sandman comic series, Stardust, and American Gods) has won the prestigious Newbery Medal for the most distinguished contribution to children's literature for "The Graveyard Book," illustrated by frequent collaborator Dave McKean. It's a big month for Neil as one of his previous books, "Coraline", has been adapted to film and is due in theatres shortly.

The Newbery is awarded by the American Library Association, and the list of previous Newbery winners reads like the canon of children's literature, including Madeleine L'Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time", William H. Armstrong's "Sounder" and Katherine Paterson's "Bridge to Terabithia". Now, Neil Gaiman rightfully takes his place in that company. His works have shown limitless imagination and interpretations of dreams, myths and fables from all parts of the world fills many a bookshelf.

Neil got the news this morning and celebrated in exuberant style, as shown in this Twitter feed chain of events (http://twitter.com/neilhimself):

woken up by assistant at 5.30 in the morning. Not quite sure why. All rather bleary, to do with someone trying to call. argh. about 3 hours ago from web
oh. forget about it. about 3 hours ago from web
About to drink second cup of tea without Marmalade this morning. Also, I just won the Newbury Medal for THE GRAVEYARD BOOK. 42 minutes
Newbery, not Newbury. Also FUCK!!!! I won the FUCKING NEWBERY THIS IS SO FUCKING AWESOME. I thank you. 41 minutes ago from web

Updated: Neil blogs about the experience on his blog in an entry called Insert Amazed and Delighted Swearing Here, which includes this excerpt:

You are on a speakerphone with at least 14 teachers and librarians and suchlike great, wise and good people, I thought. Do not start swearing like you did when you got the Hugo. This was a wise thing to think because otherwise huge, mighty and fourletter swears were gathering. I mean, that’s what they’re for. I think I said, You mean it’s Monday?
(quote pointed out to me by Newsarama blog; Neil's post pointed out to me by Nikita)

LOST: Return to Craphole Island

2009-01-21T17:25:00.003-05:00

LOST returns tonight for Season 5, it’s looking like a good ‘un. Unfortunately if you’re not watching it already, it’s going to be hard to get into with it’s rich narrative mythology, but if you’ve put in the work to catch-up you will be oh so rewarded, Jack’s tattoo origin aside. Lost is an excellent show to catch on DVD - I heard the Blu-Ray Season 4 set is gorgeous, and they’ll be releasing the first few seasons on Blu-Ray as well.

For a summary of the past 4 years on Craphole Island, you can’t beat the write-up by Isaac_Spaceman over at ALOTT5MA. It’s as funny as it is accurate. Here’s an excerpt:

PILOT: Is this a joke?
HURLEY: No, all of the jokes around here are mine.
PILOT: Oh, great, tell me a good one.
HURLEY: What has two thumbs and is dead?
PILOT: I give up.
HURLEY: My girlfriend and my best friend and the French paramilitary lady and her daughter and Arzt. Wait, that’s eight-to-ten thumbs.
PILOT: Ouch.

For the full write-up, click this link to ALOTT5MA - Previously on LOST

Come On Up For The Rising - Inauguration Day

2009-01-19T23:04:00.009-05:00

It's a big day in Washington tomorrow as Barrack Obama swears the oath and becomes President of the United States of America. Once he cleans that old man smell out of the furniture in the Oval Office ("What the hell smells like Cheney in here?"), and changes the locks (Hilary probably still has a copy of the key) President Obama will some heavy lifting to do - Bush left the place a mess. But for the first time in a long time, the majority of Americans, and most of the world, seem to believe that things can get better. The air of optimism is almost tangible, you'd think this presidency is going to be scripted by Aaron Sorkin.

I'll have the radio tuned in tomorrow and plan to watch the highlights when I get home. I loved how some of my co-workers were looking forwards to "Obama Day". And why not, because this day is a big one. It proves change can happen if enough voices cry out. This is a day that's bigger than politics.

While you wait for the show to get underway in D.C., kill some time with the Obamicon.me site, where you can upload a picture and have it re-touched in the style of of Shepard Fairey’s iconic work shown above. You can't avoid it: I saw CBS network promos down in this style today. My contribution:

While we march into this new age, take one last, long lingering look at the clusterf*ck that was the Bush years, and no better narrative exists than The Story Of Bush, as told through the headlines from The Onion catalogued by Teresa Nielsen Hayden, As Teresa said:

There will be histories written about the Bush administration. They’ll be privy to information we don’t have yet, because the future is like that. On the other hand, we have our own privileged knowledge: We know how the story looked like to people who didn’t know how it was going to come out.

Now, in this moment before a changing world overwrites our memories of the era, let us pause to salute our constant companion of those years: The Onion. Other histories of the Bush years will doubtless be more factual, but none will ever be truer.

(via Accordion Guy, who also pointed out the brilliant someecards has out for the election).

This one's also a favourite.

Bye bye Bush. Hello hope.

Scrubs resuscitated on ABC

2009-01-06T00:13:00.009-05:00

After years spent likes some neglected step-child on NBC, Scrubs is back for another season, but this time on ABC. And from all accounts, this last-minute extension has revitalized the show, with less trying-too-hard weirdness that's been around the past few seasons, and more of the type of show that captured a fanbase in the first few seasons that stuck with them through 9 timeslot changes over 7 years on NBC.

Alan Sepinwall's had a look at the first 2 new episodes and the prognosis is good. He proclaims the second of the two episodes on tonight is one of the best Scrubs episodes in its entire run, on far and in tone with the classic "My Old Lady" from Season 1 where a young JD (Zach Braff) takes the death of patient hard. I've loved this show from the start, but I found the past few seasons I had started to watch out of habit more than anything else. JD had turned into a man-child who despite 7 years of talking about what he was learning, never seemed to actually grow-up. But I stuck it through and there are gems in there, and now things are looking up since last time I checked in on the crew at Sacred Heart Hospital:

The past season has seen great work from the actors, but some lousy plotting. "Scrubs" has slipped down from my #1 TV comedy spot, as it is now bring up the rear behind "The Office" and "How I Met Your Mother". If "30 Rock" comes strong next season, it's going to slip further. I've got faith that the "Scrubs" can turn it around in the home stretch, now that a firm end is in sight.

By all accounts, the new season of Scrubs which starts Tuesday January 6th shouldn't exist. When the writer's strike came about last year, NBC denied Scrubs the opportunity to produce a small number of episodes to effectively end the series. In fact they outright said that was it for them. But in came ABC to offer an 18-episode eighth season. An ABC has been promoting the move heavily - I don't think I've seen more commercials for Scrubs on ABC in the past month then in all the years on NBC. They even have a slick new website set up with video clips, interviews with the cast and primers on the show:
Scrubs operating at ABC

It's likely the last season of Scrubs in it's current form. Producer Bill Lawrence and actor Zach Braff are both moving on after this season. But if ratings are decent, ABC may bring the show back in some incarnation or another next year. The show is in syndication, DVD sales are good, and once you remove Braff and Lawrence's salaries it's cheaper to continue the show then to produce new pilots. We'll see how it goes.

ABC (and City TV in Canada) is running back-to-back new episodes tonight. But really, what it comes down to, is any excuse to run Turk's dancing to Bell Biv DeVoe's "Poison" (updated: oh well, looks like Uncle Walt pulled the clip):

Boxing Day - Zunior.com 2 for 1 Albums

2008-12-26T11:17:00.004-05:00

I'm not a big Boxing Day guy, but here's a great sale from the Zunior.com music store website:

Zunior.com Boxing Day Sale!
2-for-1 On Selected Albums
Hundreds of selected albums only $4.44

For the fifth year running, we are proud to present the Zunior Boxing Day Sale. Stop by on December 26 for a blowout 2-for-1 sale on selected albums from all of your favourite Zunior labels/artists. The sale just keeps getting bigger every year and we guarantee you will not be disappointed.
Load up that new MP3 player you got for Christmas at Zunior.com on December 26!

I've been enjoying using Zunior.com this year, where I tend to find many of my favourite Canadian bands and labels. It's well laid out, easy to use, and the downloads don't have any Digital Rights Management encoding you find on other sites that makes you feel like you don't own the music.

A number of my favourite albums from 2007 and 2008 are on sale including:

Ohbijou - Swift Feet for Troubling Times
Elliott Brood - Mountain Meadows
Two Hours Traffic - Little Jabs
Royal Wood - A Good Enough Day
Wintersleep - Welcome to the Night Sky
Great Lake Swimmers - Ongiara

I'm buying a few albums I've been meaning to pick up and have heard nothing but good things about:
Jenny Omnichord - Charlotte or Otis: Duets for Children, Their Parents and Other People Too
The High Dials - Moon Country
Luke Doucet and the White Falcon - Blood's Too Rich
Justin Rutledge - Man Descending
The Bicycles - Oh No, It's Love

You can pay safely by credit card or Paypal, so swing by and check out the sale.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-25T03:11:00.002-05:00

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and all the best spirits of the season, whatever you celebrate. My gift to you is a little peace, love, and understanding. Pass it on.

We are Stars and so are you

2008-12-16T01:05:00.002-05:00

The band Stars have this ability to reach beyond the limits of the stage and connect with the audience. It's almost tangible the way they seem like they're singing to each person in the room as an individual, as if to say "we know your joy, we know your sadness, we know the life that beats within you and yearns to burst from your chest". They connect with the collective emotional narrative within their audience and unite us.

One of the best bands going in Canada's indie music scene, Stars delivered a show that felt like a gift to their fans. I caught them last Thursday on the 1st of a 3 night stand. Toronto loves Stars, and Stars love us in return. It's a homecoming for this band, formed in Toronto. It seems like every time they're here they play multiple nights at mid-size venues. They could sell-out larger venues, but that would remove them farther from their audience. This is the 3rd time I've seen them this year, and Stars played their hearts out just like every other time.

Opener Gentleman Reg warmed up the crowd with his sweet soaring vocals and charming the audience with laments like "no one should be broke and alone during the holidays." Here he is covering Wicked Game, originally by Chris Isaak. Or at least, that's what I always thought until Reg informed us with tongue firmly planted in cheek that he wrote it for Chris, you know, to help him out. He may have sent an email or something. I saw Reg play this version in the Dakota Tavern days earlier, and it was just as sparse and haunting there as it was in that theater. It's like Chris Isaak by way of Massive Attack:

Stars took to the stage strewn with flowers, launching into the opening declaration The Night Starts Here, with Amy and Torq's vocals playing off each other perfectly, Chris Seligman on keyboards providing the twinkling pulse. As they tore into the rallying Take Me To The Riot Torq motioned for everyone in the seated theatre to come forward and get up close to the band.

That whole night, it seemed like every song they played was someone's favourite. My friend was dancing to Elevator Love Letter, the happiness so apparent as she sang along that the girl standing next to her asked her later "That song, the one you looked like you loved? Which album is that on?" (The answer is "Heart".) Every once in a while I'd look back into the audience watching the band, their faces captured in "beautifully frozen intensity", all of us connecting in shared experience of the love of the music.

For me it's two ends of the spectrum. I never get tired of the wild youthful abandon that comes with the anthemic guitar chords of Ageless Beauty, with Amy Millan's voice leading you through the ups and downs of the song.

And at the other end, there's the indomitable emotional resolve of Your Ex-Lover is Dead declaring softly "live through this, and you won't look back...", then the punch of last words picking up speed:

there's one thing i want to say, so i'll be brave
you were what i wanted
i gave what i gave
i'm not sorry i met you
i'm not sorry it's over
i'm not sorry there's nothing to say

...leading into the final refrain as you rise up, the music beating like your heart when you have to walk away and never look back.

Stars performing Your Ex-Lover is Dead at Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Toronto

At times, the bands gets caught up in the emotion of their songs. There was an intensity to the closing of Calendar Girl as Torquil Campbell poured everything into the ending refrain of "I'm alive!" shouting it over and over and over into the night, even after the music stopped, until Amy tapped him on the shoulder to snap him out of it so they could do the next number.

You'd think a band like Stars could take themselves too seriously with so many songs seeming to be born straight from their own hearts, but I point to this photo of Torq, Amy and Evan having a laugh:

The show ended with their heartfelt gratitude to us, as we walked into the chilled night, and it sounded like everyone was singing or humming their favourite Stars tune. Stars look to be heading back to the studio to follow-up on the critical success of their last full album In Our Bedrooms After The War, leaving us to go back to our albums and CDs, to listen to the songs we love, and to go out into the world feeling that much more alive.

Do yourself a favour and watch the band's video for Your Ex-Lover Is Dead, a favourite of mine that reminds me of the movie Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind.

A Broken Social Night at The Basement Revue, starring Kevin Drew as Jason Collett

2008-12-15T00:06:00.015-05:00

What started out as an invite to check out Kevin Drew play at The Dakota Tavern turned into a remarkable night where I'm bumping elbows with some incredible musicians, drinking beer with Kevin's science teacher and parents, sharing the love of music with other fans, and generally carousing in a bar that took on the intimate feel of a kitchen party or a social. I suppose the band's called Broken Social Scene for a reason.

Jason Collett has been hosting his second annual The Basement Revue series on Tuesday nights in December at the Dakota Tavern, a gem of a downstairs bar tucked into the Dundas and Ossington neighborhood of Toronto. The shows feature Jason hosting and performing in the bar, with many friends and performers contributing. The only date he couldn't make was December 9^th, due to a previous engagement on the west coast. So for the night, hosting and performing would be Jason's bandmate in Broken Social Scene, Kevin Drew. I was given the heads-up to check out the show, as the plan sounded like it would be Kevin Drew playing with The Beauties, covering some Pavement tunes.

I made my way to the bar to take up a nice position to the left of the stage. As I sipped on my pint, I struck up a conversation with a woman who turned out to be Kevin Drew's science teacher from high school. She had come down with her co-worker to see her former student on her birthday. Her friend Lesley gave me some of the scoop on this remarkable woman, a teacher for 35 years and now the head of the Association for Canadian Educational Resources, a volunteer organization that monitors ecology and measures the impact of climate change on biodiversity. Check out the site and it's Measure Up program, which goes beyond tree planting as a “dig, plant, and walk away” activity. Retired from teaching and she's out there digging in the dirt planting trees. Brilliant.

"Kevin always was able to draw people to him, even back then."
- Alice Casselman, Kevin Drew's high school teacher.

You know how in high school, if you're luck enough, you get one of those teachers who connects with you, motivates you, has that knack for relating to students? You know, one of The Good Ones? I could immediately tell Alice was one of the good ones from the way Kevin lit up when he saw her there in the line-up. I could tell from the way she asked about what brought me to see the band tonight, and how she asked me if my love of music was something that was part of my work. She still is one of The Good Ones, because when I told her that my job didn't involve music, it left me pondering a bit afterwards.

As the bar filled up, I started recognizing a few faces in the crowd, as it seemed like there were as many musicians as fans in the Dakota that night. And I started to suspect that things would get interesting. I'm in a 200-capacity bar and I'm bumping into members of Stars, Metric, a few other musicians from the Arts and Crafts record label. Brendan Canning and Charlie Spearin and others from members Broken Social Scene were in the house. Shawn from The Beauties came by and tipped me that this would be a hell of a night. No doubt my friend. I didn't have my camera on me when I got the call about the show, so all I had was my cellphone camera to capture the night in all it's "you had to be there" glory. record label. Squeezing by to say hi to Kevin was K-OS and over there was Darcy Yates from Flash Lighting with his mighty rock and roll beard.

Kevin Drew took the stage, informed/warned us it would be a bit of a fast and loose night. First up was Kevin teamed up with a Derek Downham on drums, Charlie Spearin on guitar (I'm blanking on the second guitarist) and proceeded to pick a chord and jam for a bit - “This is a C jam”. When asked for an impromptu name for the band, the shout came back “The Jason Collett Band”. I think I would have gone with Alice's Birthday. Kevin played a couple bars of a Smashing Pumpkins, lamenting the fact that he used to love them and now Billy Corgan just harrasses the crowd at his shows, only playing the new material that's a shallow imitation of the band Kevin and many of us loved.

I was introduced to Kevin Drew's parents at one point, very friendly people. His dad said that at some point his name was changed to “Kevin Drew's Dad”. I didn't get the chance to ask anyone if the were looking forwards to seeing David Drew's Son play that night. I chatted with new friends about that first time we heard Broken Social Scene's 2002 album “You Forgot It In People”, one of those album you hear and nothing is quite the same after that.

From there, things started to pick up steam as an indie rock variety revue developed. Gentleman Reg took the stage and played a lingering cover of Wicked Games by Chris Isaak. Jimmy Shaw from Metric got on the stand-up piano tucked into the side of the stage and played Nobody Home from Pink Floyd's "The Wall". Musicians would be called to the stage, only for Kevin to discover they'd snuck out to The Communist Daughter, another well-loved little bar just across the street. It happened so often, I pronounced the Commie as the unofficial Green Room for the night.

Kevin Drew and Amy Millan

Amy Millan from Stars was found and did a few numbers, and oh Lord what a voice. Derek Downham kept getting called back to the stage to drum with one musician or another he used to play with. Poet Mark Goldstein of Bookthug publishers read a poem or two. Jimmy Shaw teamed up with Torq Campbell from Stars for a number. Here before us were musicians playing for the love of music, no albums being pushed, no merchandise table in sight.

A Broken Social Scene erupts

Inevitably, it was time for a game of “how many indie musicians can you fit on a stage” as Broken Social Scene formed on stage for a few songs with Torq on trumpet, Justin Peroff on drums, Lisa Lobsinger singing. The beauty of a collective like Broken Social Scene is it can form with whomever is at hand. The crowd, mesmerized by the intimacy of the first half of the night, were dancing and singing along as Broken Social Scene played Shoreline and Love is New.

The Beauties

Things got euphoric, things got hazy at that point. I remember Kevin teamed up with The Beauties for a cover of Pavement's Gold Soundz that had me grinning and whooping. The Beauties proceeded to knock out the crowd with a few songs of their own like Die Die Die before killing with a version of the Velvet Underground's I'm Waiting For The Man that drove the energy in the bar up until you thought it would explode.

As the night wound down, I remember Bill Priddle jamming with Kevin. I remember Bill from Treble Charger (he wrote Red among other songs and left in 2003), Broken Social Scene and now in The Bill Priddle Concern. The night closed out with Kevin noodling on drums, and then he came by, shaking hands and, thanking us for sticking around for the whole show. I thanked him, because I can't conceive how you could duplicate that sort of night.

Torq Campbell and Jimmy Shaw

I left that bar after last call, walked into the night thinking about what I learned that night and thinking about some potential that's waiting for me. Like I said earlier, nothing was really the same after I heard Broken Social Scene's album "You Forgot It In People" back in 2002. I dug out my worn and loved CD today and noticed the album was dedicated "for our friends, families and loves." That Tuesday night at The Dakota Tavern, I got to see exactly where that dedication came from, whether it was meeting teachers and parents that influenced these musicians, seeing old bandmates get together again, or hearing these performers cover songs that they love enough to honor in tribute. Know what you love, remember where you came from, and acknowledge the people you draw strength from. All that and some good music will get you through the night.

Jason Collett returns to host The Basement Revue this Tuesday. The shows are sold out but if you can wrangle a ticket, I strongly encourage you to go: you never know who's going to drop in. Stars have just finished a 3 night stand in Toronto and are looking to go back to the studio. Kevin Drew and the rest of Broken Social Scene is making the trip to New York City to play The Late Show with David Letterman on Wednesday night (reminding me of seeing them on Conan O'Brien a few years back, where Conan came on stage after to cry out “I think we need more guitars!”). Gentleman Reg just put out a single for the first time on vinyl, and look for his new album in the new year, along with Metric's next disc. The Beauties play Sunday nights at The Dakota Tavern and have a 4-track EP “Die Die Die” out now.

All pictures copyright the2scoops - Flickr here

My city, she sings and surprises - Kevin Drew at The Dakota Tavern

2008-12-11T12:04:00.007-05:00

As some of you may have heard, I had myself an interesting night when I was invited to The Dakota Tavern in Toronto to check out the the Basement Revue. It's the second annual installment of shows every Tuesday in the month of December with musician Jason Collett hosting and performing. The only Tuesday Jason couldn't make it was the December 9th show, which was hosted by Jason's bandmate in Broken Social Scene, Kevin Drew.

What started out as "come by and check out Kevin play Pavement cover-tunes with The Beauties" turned into one incredible night of performers. Among the people I met that night was a writer from the National Post, and our conversation, fuelled by beer and a love of Canadian indie music, turned into his review on the National Post website yesterday. I only had my cellphone camera with me (I am never leaving home without a proper camera again. Ever.) but some of the shots are on the Post's site, and the camera-phone pictures sort of work with a "you had to be there" feel of the night.

I'm seeing Stars tonight, so I'll post my own version of events tomorrow afternoon.

A beautifully Broken Modest Social Metric Mouse Scene show

2008-12-09T00:32:00.005-05:00

It seemed like Rita's Broken Social Birthday Party as Broken Social Scene took over the Sound Academy for the second of a two-night hometown stint on Friday November 28. Broken Social Scene came on to play for about 3 hours, with Scene-sters Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw of Metric making a welcome return. A jaw-dropping surprise came as Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse took the lead for a few tunes with BSS. The celebratory feeling in the air coincided with my friend's birthday that night, making us feel like it was just one big indie-rock birthday party for Ms. Rita, with a balloon drop at the show, drinks at The Dakota and a stop in Chinatown for food at 4am.

The Beauties opened the night with the crowds pouring in, wailing away on tunes like "Wastin' Time" and feel good rockers like "Die Die Die" and "Baby Outta Jail. They looked to be having a blast, celebrating the release of their 4-track EP, playing that wild bar-frenzy of bluegrass/rock/rockabilly/punk. A brilliant cover of the Velvet Underground's "I'm Waiting for The Man" led to a closing jam with guests Serena Ryder and Lisa Lobsinger joining trumpet player Michael Louis Johnson for "Do What You Do". For more of The Beauties, be sure to drop in at The Dakota Tavern for their weekly Sunday night barn burner.

As the opening bars of the Top Gun theme played (yes really), Broken Social Scene took to the stage, and didn't stop for about 3 hours. Broken Social Scene is a beautiful, shambling beast with upwards of 20 musicians, each with their own bands and solo albums, coming together to make something wonderful. Members of Metric, Stars, Do Make Think Say, as well as artists like Apostle of Hustle, Feist, Kevin Drew, Jason Collett, and Brendan Canning are all part of the group, and the live shows are always a treat as whomever isn't in the studio or touring themselves tends to show up. One of my favourite "everything is different once I've heard it" albums is Broken Social Scene's "You Forgot it In People"(2002), like nothing I'd heard of at the time. Seeing them play those songs live just gets me every time.

The set roamed through K/C Accidental and Fire Eye'd Boy, then we started detouring as different members of BSS took turns playing one of their songs. I love that each artist has their own sound, but manage to come together in Broken Social Scene to make something completely different. The air was charged with the sense that it was a special night, with balloons suspended from the ceiling. We were lead in cathartic screams to release all that we held inside, Kevin Drew was funny as he picked on the chatterboxes in the crowd and the VIP deck. And it was a celebration that night, as the band was playing without necessarily plugging any one current project or album. Everyone was just having a good time.

At times upwards of 20 musicians were on stage, with 5 guitars and full brass blazing away in frenetic anthemic rock. And then Kevin introduces a guest. It's Issac freaking Brock from Modest Mouse. He comes on and they all play "The Good Times Are Killing Me", which makes a pretty good theme to the night.

A few songs later and the next surprise as Emily Haines of Metric appeared! She's been part of BSS for years, but has been on the road and in the studio with her own band Metric. Her vocals paired with Julie Penners violin made "Anthem for a Seventeen-Year Old Girl" a highlight of the night.

A quick costume change, and then Brendan Canning came back out bedazzling in gold sequin gym shorts for a grooving disco-rific "Love is New".

We were encourage to scream - take everything that holds you back, holds you down, makes you anything less than you, and scream that shit out.

The night culminated in a balloon drop during "Ibi Dreams of Pavement". I've seen Broken Social Scene play a number of times, and this was one of their best nights.

An appreciative band wrapped up the night, followed by Brendan Canning and a few others came out after most of the crowd cleared out to thank those of us who stuck around. Rita told him "It's my birthday" to which he answered with a kiss of the hand. Class act that guy.

We left the club elated, alive, and ready for whatever happens next.

My photo sets:
The Beauties at Sound Academy

Broken Social Scene at Sound Academy

Setlist: Broken Social Scene Setlist Sound Academy, Toronto, Canada 2008 setlist.fm

And a good video collage of the show:

The Sound of Canada with The Acorn, The RAA and Ohbijou

2008-12-08T20:31:00.001-05:00

There are times you should be proud of Canada and the music we're putting out into the world. A couple of weeks ago, I got to see a solid sold-out triple-bill of some of the rising stars of the indie-music scene as The Acorn, Ohbijou, and The Rural Alberta Advantage rolled into Lee's Palace and put on a solid show from start to finish. Best $10 ticket I ever bought, and it will seem like a bargain when these bands all start to headline their own seperate gigs.

The opening set from Edmonton's The Rural Alberta Advantage had just started up when we got into Lee's Palace, and the Edmonton-based trio's indie folk-rock got the night of to a strong start with their upbeat energetic percussion and narratives that took me back to the long drives across the prairies of my youth. My interest in them came about from picking up their well-reviewed debut album Hometowns (2008) as part of my eMusic subscription, and that live show got the crowd happy and moving right from the start.

The RAA Don't Haunt this place (mp3)
The RAA Frank, AB (mp3)

Next up was the hometown lovefest for Toronto's Ohbijou, who've been touring with The Acorn in support of a collaborative 12" EP, with The Acorn covering 2 Ohbijou tracks and vice-versa (the entire album can be heard streaming on the Kelp Records site). I'd heard good things about Ohbijou following both a strong debut album Swift Feet for Troubled Times (2006) and a performance I missed at Harbourfront. I had no idea what I was in as guitars, cello, violin, drums and keyboards took the stage. From the first rapturous notes sung by guitarist/composer/singer Casey Mecija, I was hooked on this band, probably for life. Their songs were full of urgent strings and soaring harmonies that bring to mind walking through Toronto's downtown neighbourhoods during that first snowfall of the year. Casey looked pleased to see the crowd, calling out to her and her sister/violinist Jenny's parents out in the crowd. They played a song or two that Casey said would be on their new album, due in the spring. No idea which label is distributing, but they should jump at the chance to release such a band that's bound for glory.

By the time Ottawa's The Acorn hit the stage, I was thinking the night couldn't get any better. The Acorn's critically acclaimed Hope Glory Mountain was a highlight of my listening year. The album is named after it's subject, Gloria Esperanza Montoya, mother of lead singer Rolf Klausener, and it lovingly, beautifully, tells her life story from Honduras to Canada. The songs run over rivers and mountains with layered percussion rhythms and passionate vocals that give a global taste to the music. The live show was passionate and charming, culminating with an encore that saw Ohbijou and The Acorn collaborate on some of the songs from their EP. The look of joy on their faces let you know these musicians love the music, and love doing it together.

Video for one of my favourite songs, The Acorn's "Crooked Legs" (h/t to Stereogum)

I think about some shows I've been to before, those ones that you keep telling people "I was there before they really got big". This show will be one of those stories as each one of these bands made a lifetime fan out of me and many people in that crowd.

the2scoops gets shaken and stirred

2008-12-02T23:13:00.008-05:00

Got invited to a marketing event/tasting for Ketel One Vodka, so J and K headed down to Czehoski on Queen. My only real experience with vodka has been casual, mixed in cocktails or drinks with the syllables "-tini" in it, so I was looking forwards to expanding my appreciation a fair bit.

Once we settled in to Czehoski, we had an informative little session with our Ketel One educator Beth-Anne: half-Irish, half-Maritimer, in her own words, marketing alcohol is a dream job. She covered the history of the brand, the process involved, and led us into the tasting.

Our vodka tasting contenders: Ketel One, Grey Goose, Absolut. That's two premium brands, one bar-rail brand.

A little whiff, a little taste, and damned if my first impression didn't stick. Grey Goose and Absolut met my previous expectations - tastes like booze and I need to mix it with something. The Ketel One was smooth enough to enjoy straight up. No word of a lie, I was sold on first sip. All that talk of filtering and distilling paid off.

After the tasting, we were treated to a cocktail. I swear, that was the best and smoothest martini I've had. The Ultimate Martini, just Ketel One vodka and two olive. That's it, simply delicious.

It's pretty smart to market a premium vodka like Ketel One (couple bucks more than Absolut, but cheaper than high end) at a time when the economy is nose-diving like it is and belts are tightening. You're going to see entertaining at home is a cheaper option that going out for drinks and dinner, and springing for a bottle of premium, like Ketel One, may soften the sense that you're "cheaping out" by staying in with a bottle of No Frills Vodka. If I'm entertaining at home, mixing up a few cocktails and tunes is my preferred way to go.

I've actually taken to ordering martinis since the event, and call it the "Don Draper/Mad Men" effect if you will, but it certainly makes an impression.

Kudos to Matchstick Promotions and Diageo for hosting a great event: food from Czehoski's was delicious, a couple of martini's, a gift bag, and a taxi slip to get home. That's a smart little promotion. Thanks to Beth-Anne for the hosting as well.

Damn those were good martinis.

Broken Modest Social Mouse

2008-11-29T12:12:00.005-05:00

Been a big week and I've put aside Sunday as my blogging and picture sorting day:

I found my ultimate martini at a Vodka Tasting sponsored by Ketel One
Thursday night was a brilliant triple-bill concert with The Rural Alberta Advantage, The Acorn, and Ohbijou. It's sure to go down as an "I saw them when..." show, like seeing The Arcade Fire at the Horseshoe or Feist at Harbourfront.
Friday night was one of the best shows I've seen Broken Social Scene play. The Beauties opened with lively set, surely pumped by a huge crowd and the debut of their EP. Broken Social Scene came on to play for over 2 hours, with Scenesters Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw of Metric making a welcome return, and a jaw-dropping surprise as Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse took the lead for a few Modest Mouse tunes with the band. It was just one big indie-rock party of love.

I have a couple hundred photos to cull to find the dozen or so I like. In the meantime, for those of you who caught the show "How I Met Your Mother" on Monday, here's the complete copy of Lily's list of 50 Reasons To Have Sex. A couple of them, like reason #39, are a funny callback to old episodes and character history, and #41 is amusingly disturbing but plausible.

Couple Math

2008-11-06T22:56:00.001-05:00

As I walk to the train, a couple is talking heatedly behind me.
Estimate expiry date of relationship based on the quote "you are
there as MY girlfriend!"

Change and Hope

2008-11-05T00:28:00.003-05:00

Sketches of American Presidents, via Accordion Guy

Congratulations to our American friends on the election of President Barrack Obama. On the TV, Reverend Jesse Jackson is in the crowd in Chicago, tears rolling down his cheeks, this man who stood with Dr Martin Luther King witnessing a moment when a nation lives a dream. America is a nation that gave us The Ramones, Iggy Pop, Chuck Berry, Johnny Cash and James Brown. Tonight, I saw a glimpse of THAT America.

I saw the pronouncement at 11pm on the BBC, and then caught The Daily Show pronounce. Jon Stewart looked choked up saying those words "Barrack Obama is President of the United States". A flash-mob gathered outside the White House, spurned by a text messaging wave at a nearby university.

I was impressed by John McCain's concession speech, where he spoke from his heart, geniunely, and urging that fractured nation to pull together. I wish we were seeing more of McCain in the future and less of Palin, but I suspect it shall be reveresed.

I stayed up to watch President Elect Barrack Obama's speech. He spoke of gratitude, of the immensity of this moment, and of the challenges that America faces. He's inheriting a role that finds so many things broken, "the climb will be steep". I'm Canadian, and I know that a great deal of what America does affects the world I live in. Barrack Obama isn't my president, he doesn't lead my country, but he has me believing, "Yes We Can." Change and hope it is then.

Ron Howard's Call To Action

2008-10-23T23:47:00.001-04:00

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

The funniest thing I've seen all week, and reminding me how funny Ron was as the narrator on "Arrested Development"

Nuit Blanche 2008 Heart of a Saturday Night

2008-10-07T22:16:00.004-04:00

Nuit Blanche Toronto 2008

Heart of a Saturday Night

(all photos by the2scoops/Jason Carlin - see something you like, drop a line)

6:45pm - Finished an 8 hour shift at work that dragged into 10 hours, leave the office and immediately hit Shopper's Drug Mart for supplies: Red Bull, trail mix, water, spare batteries for the camera. I'm determined to go as late as I can.

6:46pm - Curses! Left the flask of good rum at home. Now I have to rely on my scarf and gloves to keep me warm.

7:45pm - My companion for the night is The Doctor, who meets me for dinner. I applaud my common sense as I fully predict downing several Red Bulls, so makes sense to bring my own physician.

7:53pm - The Doc downs a drink. Looks like I'm looking after my own well being...

9:05pm - Finish dinner and hit the streets. Already the intersection at Queen and University is packed with people going everywhere. We follow the strategy to stick to the bigger public pieces until the crowds die down around midnight. The downtown core exhibits will be jammed.

9:17pm - Make it to the Stereoscope exhibition at Metro City Hall. The installation is by the German group Project Blinkenlights, who've placed lamps behind every window in the twin buildings of City Hall, wired into it, and turned the iconic building into a pixelated computer screen. The public gets to use controllers and cell phones to manipulate the screen. It's the type of large scale exhibit that I hope to see more of around Nuit Blanche - huge in ambition and the public can participate.

9:26pm - Oh look, they're using this miraculous contraption to play Pong.

9:46pm - Walk up University to see "Waterfall" by Katherine Harvey. Recyclable plastic waterbottles are woven into a net quilt to form a suspended waterfall.

While crowds pack the front of the exhibit, we check out the view from behind the falls.

10:00pm - We make our way across University of Toronto. Disappointed there isn't any big projects making use of all that space at the centre of campus. We make our way up to the Gardiner Ceramics Museum to browse a bit.

11:30 pm Hollander York Gallery in Yorkville is hosting Painting to The Beat with live music and artists at work.

Tucked at the back of the Hollander Gallery, we found this painting by Toronto's Bev Rodin. It's part of a Forest Light series, and she captures it beautifully. We take a few minutes and just take it in.

11:45pm - Circus of Dreams at the Metro Reference Library.

12:20am - Everyone seemed to get a shot of Into The Blue at the Eaton Centre.

1:20am - The Doc calls it a night, so I set out for Liberty Village at King St. and Dufferin Ave. I'm looking forward to exploring the neighborhood, a new area to Nuit Blanche. The area's exhibit is Beginning to See The Light, the title from a 1969 Velvet Underground song.

In addition to the clear connotation of daybreak, the phrase implies anticipation, hope, expectation, enlightenment and a gradual epiphany. The works in the show embody these ideas, employing a variety of strategies such as play, protest, agitation and resistance.

1:25am Imagine Peace by Yoko Ono.
Make a wish, tie it to a branch. So many wishes shining like cherry blossoms in the night.

1:39am I Promise It Will Always Be This Way, 2008
Jon Sasaki - Toronto, Canada

In a stadium, rock music plays and mascots entertain a crowd for a game that never comes. Fun and oddly energizing.

2:00am - I follow a crowd and stumble onto the 2am show for SMASH! Droppin' Stuff by The Custodians of Destruction. We're going to see trash getting trashed. Computer monitors, a Nintendo, office furniture, a microwave, a TV. You know the saying that goes "I don't know art, but I know what I like"? Well I liked this.

2:20am - Warm up with a coffee at Balzac's, or as Amy says phonetically, "Ball Sack".

2:36am Purified by Fire - Video loops of fire are rear projected onto the windows. Hypnotic and a sense that something is amiss, that we're seeing fire but no destruction, no sound, no smoke.

2:45am Overflow by Michel de Broin. In a former prison chapel in Liberty Village Park, Michel de Broin summons a waterfall to flow from a 3rd story window, with all the appropriate detritus and debris. Would have been stunning up close...

...but this was as close as we could get. Someone didn't get the memo on this being a public art event as the park was entirely fenced off and no one was allowed near the exhibit. Stupid stupid stupid decisions that make me angry. Left a bad taste in my mouth.

4:25 am - I've been at St James Cathedral at King and Church Street for about an hour now. I had really hoped to catch some of the performance aspects of Don Coyote & Quixotic, but I've hit the wall, nothing left in the tank. I've been sitting here, listening to organ music blasting and watching video installations. I'd hoped to make it to the next stage of the live performance around 5am, but I'm bagged. I get the subway and a cab, and get to bed by 5:30am

Should have managed one more Red Bull, because here's what I missed as around 5am, Quixotic built up to "a phantasmagoric roaming ritual" as "'La momma morta', (The Dead Mother), reveals herself in protest as a spectral divine" (video from Dear Toronto):

Count me in for next year - I just have to make sure I clear my day ahead of the night. We staggered out that night, in search of a city brought to life from dusk til dawn and teeming with art. We found that people really like things getting smashed, wishing, and finding beauty in the strangest places.

Rush's Next Album Title: This is Bullshit

2008-09-24T11:41:00.001-04:00

It's that time of year where the leaves change, a chill in the air, and I get cranky about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees. Your Rock and Roll Hall of Fame finalists for potential induction in 2009:

Metallica, Run-DMC, Little Anthony and the Imperials, Chic, Iggy and the Stooges, Jeff Beck, War, Wanda Jackson, and Bobby Womack.

We see here acknowledgment of the rise of heavy metal and rap, and it's great to see punk godfathers The Stooges getting another shot. Chic, The Stooges, and Wanda Jackson all have been on previous ballots but not inducted.

Artists are eligible for nomination 25 years after their first album released. First-time eligible artists not nominated included Bon Jovi, the Smiths, Billy Bragg, Cyndi Lauper, Queensrÿche, and Howard Jones; artists eligible for a while now but not on their way to the hall include: Rush (who didn't get the call this year despite the "Colbert Bump"), Genesis/Peter Gabriel/Phil Collins, the Beastie Boys (who I wouldn't expect in their ahead of Run DMC), Duran Duran, the Replacements, John Cougar Mellancamp, The Cure/Depeche Mode/New Order, Cheap Trick, Journey, KISS, and on and on. (via ALOTT5MA)

Updated: other artists passed over Stevie Ray Vaughan

Eligible in 2009: Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nick Cave, Pet Shop Boys
Eligible in 2010: Stone Roses, Whitney Houston, L.L. Cool J, The Flaming Lips
Eligible in 2011: Crowded House, Guns N’ Roses, Yo La Tengo, Poison
Eligible in 2012: Pixies, Public Enemy, N.W.A., Soundgarden, Sinead O’Conner, Jane’s Addiction
Eligible in 2013: De La Soul, Massive Attack, Fugazi
Eligible in 2014: Green Day, Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana, Pavement
Eligible in 2015: Smashing Pumpkins, Moby, Mariah Carey, Blur, A Tribe Called Quest
Eligible in 2016: Pearl Jam, Tori Amos, PJ Harvey
Eligible in 2017: Beck, Radiohead, Dr. Dre, TLC, Rage Against the Machine
(source: FutureRockHall.com)

"Let's read these funny lines they wrote for us" - 2008 Emmy Awards

2008-09-23T10:18:00.007-04:00

The 60th Annual Emmy Awards sure spent a lot of time dwelling on the past, not enough time showcasing just why the current crop of nominees were nominated, and too much time with our 5 painfully unfunny hosts. The show drew the wrong type of attention on Monday morning, as the accomplishments of some deserving Emmy winners like Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Bryan Cranston, and shows like “Mad Men” and “30 Rock” were overshadowed by the deluge of criticism: winner’s speeches cut very short, especially when they got even vaguely political; not enough clips showcasing this year’s nominated performances, many of which could use more viewers; too much time showing clip packages of the past; and yes, the poor performance of the hosts. Reality, in fact, bites.

Somewhere up the ABC food chain, someone had the idea to have the Emmy hosting duties shared by the inaugural Outstanding Reality Show Host nominees: Jeff Probst (who won that category), Tom Bergeron, Howie Mandel, Ryan Seacrest, and Heidi Klum. Like a group project in high school, they were assigned to come up with a way to work together and to do what they were nominated for: entertain the crowd while keeping the show moving. And just like high school, when presentation time came around, it became apparent that they hadn’t prepared, and were in fact, winging it. They claimed they couldn’t sort out who would do what, which isn’t really surprising given egos and the fact that they all tend to work best as individuals.

After the drubbing the Fatal Five of Hosting took this morning, they’ll be lucky if next year’s Outstanding Reality Show Host Emmy doesn’t get moved to the non-televised Technical Awards presentation. Their opening bit was an attempt at Seinfeldian humour with “The Nothing Bit”, which was 15 minutes of them talking over each other about how they had nothing prepared. It was awkwardly bad, like when you were watching those Muppet sketches where Fozzie Bear would do stand-up. And like those sketches on “The Muppet Show”, the humour came from the hecklers, as many of the celebrity presenters started using the opening as a punchline by presenters throughout the night:

"What if I just kept talking for 12 minutes, what would happen?" Jeremy Piven asked while accepting an Emmy for playing the "Entourage" agent, Ari. "That was the opening."

Neil Patrick Harris: “Thanks To Howie Mandel's Prattling, Our Bit Has Been Cut”
Kristin Chenowith: “Bitter, party of two.”

And remember, those hosts drew a salary for that. It's their day-job.

Probst and Seacrest looked embarrassed, Mandel came off like a blowhard who couldn’t let anyone get a word in, leaving Klum and Bergeron to flounder out there.

The bit where Tom Begeron and William Shatner stripped down Heidi Klum, pulling her tearaway tux to reveal hotpants and a halter top, was just as uncomfortable and tasteless as it sounds. It left a bad aftertaste, and still lingered there two hours later when Brooke Shields and the usually reliably funny Craig Ferguson did a bit about how much Craig respected Brooke’s body of work, which ended with Brooke’s “punchline” of “Is that your hand on my ass?” Nothing says comedy like sexual harassment? Just awful, especially on a night when Glenn Close commended the smart funny women she was nominated with, or when the accomplishments of remarkable women like Tina Fey, Christina Applegate, Chandra Wilson, and Laura Linney should be lauded.

It took 30 minutes before anything remotely funny or entertaining happened, as Tina Fey and Amy Poehler kicked of the presentations and demonstrated how to BE PREPARED AND BE FUNNY. On accepting the Emmy for Best Supporting Comedy Actor, Jeremy Piven kissed Tina and Amy, and then kissed Amy’s baby belly, a funny moment which distracted me from the fact Neil Patrick Harris from “How I Met Your Mother” and Rainn Wilson from “The Office” were both robbed, in a season where these second bananas each got to show some humanity and nuance from these characters this season, and 3-time winner Piven’s show “Entourage” had a pretty bland season last year. At least Piven seems genuinely appreciative when he wins.

Now the job of a host is to keep the show moving, and as Jeff Probst admitted in his acceptance speech for Best Reality Show Host, the show was running long because of them. It snowballed all night, as sometime around the second hour it seemed like they stopped showing clips of the nominated shows and performances, and most of the presenters cut there introductions to allow the winners more time to speak.

Add in that the Emmys were really playing off the winners quickly, even cutting luminaries like Glenn Close short, and especially when anyone got vaguely political.

Amidst this blackhole of freedom of speech and comedy, there actually were some genuinely wonderful moments:

The night took an absurdly funny twist when presenter Ricky Gervais, upon seeing the clip where Steve Carrell picked up Gervais’s Emmy last year, said “Look at his stupid face”. He then turned to Steve Carrell in the audience, haranguing him until he relinquished the Emmy back to Gervais “I sat through Evan Almighty: give me my Emmy!” When Gervais went into the audience and threatened to tickle Steve Carell into giving him his Emmy, the director should have jumped on Gervais’s ear piece and said “Mr. Gervais, this is great. Would you actually mind taking the hosting duties from here?”

Many shows got awards that were disproportionate to the ratings they received. My beloved “30 Rock” was the big winner last night. Alec Baldwin won Best Comedy Actor, and the submitted clip was the classic Therapy Session which, when Randy and I first saw we proclaimed “That’s the Emmy for him”. Tina Fey cleaned house, winning awards for both acting and writing, as well as winning Best Comedy:

Fey actually won three awards, for producing, writing and starring in "30 Rock," and she gave three perfect speeches. For the writing trophy, she said "It's great to be a writer, because if you're at a wedding or something and you tell people you're a writer, they're less interested in talking to you than if you tell them you're an actor -- which is great." For the acting trophy, she thanked her parents "for somehow raising me to have confidence that is disproportionate to my looks and abilities. Well done, that is what all parents should do!" For the third and final speech after "30 Rock" won for best comedy, she plugged the show's premiere date and all the platforms where you can watch it. – Alan Sepinwall, NJ.com

And I did let out a cheer when Bryan Cranston took the Best Drama Actor trophy, for his starring role on “Breaking Bad” (AMC) as a science teacher with terminal cancer, who becomes a crystal meth dealer in order to provide for his family after his death. He’d been nominated 3 previous times in the comedy category for playing Dad on “Malcolm in the Middle” with no wins, so it was sweet to see “the restraining order has been lifted” as he got near his golden friend.

With the exception of “30 Rock” (NBC), none of the major networks made much of a showing in the trophies last night, as basic cable ruled the night. HBO’s John Adams mini-series made off with a 13 trophy haul, AMC’s “Breaking Bad” and “Mad Men”, HBO’s “In Treatment”, and FX’s “Damages” were the big winners. ABC took a beating: they spent 3 hours showcasing shows on the other networks, and the only trophy to go to a show on their network was Jean Smart’s Best Supporting Actress win for “Samantha Who?” and Best Direction to Barry Sonnenfeld, for the first episode of “Pushing Daisies”, a show which ABC studio execs bounced him from directing due to the costs he ran up. Karma sucks, don’t it?

And yet another Emmy mis-step, as the show jammed in as many 60th Anniversary clip packages as possible, but couldn’t find time to show clips of “Mad Men”, “Breaking Bad”, or “30 Rock”, all shows that while critically acclaimed, could really use the exposure and ratings boost that could come from the Emmys showing why these performances deserved awards. I say move the retrospectives to a separate one-hour special and highlight the current crop of shows.

Two of the biggest highlights came from the old school. Steve Martin, who got his start as a writer on “The Smothers Brothers Variety Show” in the 60s, was on hand to present a commemorative Emmy for writing to Tommy Smothers. The story goes that the show was so volatile politically that CBS cancelled it, essentially blackballing Smothers. Tom elected to leave his name off the writers list when they submitted to the Emmys that year and the show won the award. So 40 years later, he got the award he should have been a part of, giving an excellent speech that gave showed the 71 year old hadn’t lost touch with the world:

“There's nothing more scary than watching ignorance in action, so I dedicate this Emmy to all people who feel compelled to speak out, and not afraid to speak to power, and won't shut up, and refuse to be silenced'' - Tom Smothers

Another truly stirring moment occurred when self-professed D-List celebrity Kathy Griffin and 82 year old comedy legend Don Rickles came out to present. “GEETTTT UPPPPPPPPP!!!” Kathy Griffin commanded, as the shell-shocked audience smartened up and showed Rickles the proper respect with a standing ovation. And Don Rickles, 80-plus years old, hasn’t lost a step, first moved by the outpouring of appreciation, then doing what he does best, showing his disdain for the material the Emmys had been handing out and adlibbing his way into the biggest laughs of the night. Eventually Kathy urged him to get back to the script, to which he replied sarcastically "Yes, let's read these funny lines they wrote for us”, cackling at a scripted joke from Griffin that fell flat. At that point the wheels came off the show and I don’t recall any other presenters really making an effort to follow the teleprompter. And it was a brilliant reward for saving the night (yes really) when Rickles won an Emmy for Best Performance in a Variety or Music Program for “Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project”.

Josh Groban’s performance of a medley of 30 famous TV theme songs was goofy and fun, with Josh doing a very convincing Cartman during the South Park theme.

Just reading various articles on the post-Emmy fall out, here are some popular suggestions for future hosts, most based on who was actually funny and charming on the show:

Steve Carell and Ricky Gervais
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert
Kristin Chenowith and Neil Patrick Harris
5 Late Night Guys – Conan, Stewart, Ferguson, Kimmel, Colbert
Don Rickles and Kathy Griffin
a block of wood

And the ever popular write-in vote for Hugh Laurie, an engaging performer who Fox decided not to use last year, as they didn’t think the audience would “get” Hugh Laurie being naturally British when they were used to his American accent on his show “House”.

At any rate, at least consider bringing Conan O’Brien back, who last brought the funny by hosting in 2006. One of my favourite bits involved Don Rickles best friend, the equally legendary Bob Newhart. To encourage winners to keep the speeches short and to keep the show moving, Conan brought out Bob Newhart in a Plexiglas box, claiming that there was only 2 and a half hours of oxygen in the box, so if the show ran long, “Bob Newhart will die”. Cut to the expression on Bob’s face of “um, pardon me?”

And with that, we cut to your regularly scheduled programming.

Full list of winners of the 2008 Emmy Awards

Backstage coverage from Entertainment Weekly including some funny stuff from Tina Fey and Jeremy Piven

Two weeks until Nuit Blanche

2008-09-15T23:23:00.006-04:00

It's that magical time of year when Nuit Blanche is upon us. The annual sunset to sunrise all night culture, arts, performance, and general cool stuff to see while vibrating on Red Bull festival is happening Saturday October 4th. It's all night, and all over the city from east to west, north to south. And did I mention free?

I had a blast last year, as evidenced by my bloggie photo essay The Night Starts Here - the2scoops . I managed to go from 10pm till 4:30am, so this year I'm going later and longer. Some of the more popular exhibits were pretty crowded during "tourist" hours from 9pm til 1am, but there's so much to see, it's easy to find something else to check out. Yorkville and Queen West got crowded, so I spent time in The Distillery District and University of Toronto until the crowds died down. TTC subway runs until 4am that night, so getting around is no problem. Transit day passes last all night, but sell out on the evening of the event (2 adults ride on one pass). Buy one ahead of time.

I suppose it's too much to hope that some of the exhibition streets are being closed to car traffic, more frequent TTC shuttles between sites, or Starbucks is offering free coffee from 1am - 4am (okay that last one isn't so plausible)

Official Nuit Blanche website with schedules

Kickstart My Heart Will Go On

2008-08-28T21:00:00.003-04:00

After work I walked over to the pub, a path that takes me along Front Street in Toronto. Along the way I saw an interesting cross-section as people were heading to the two big shows in town: Celine Dion at the Air Canada Centre, and Motley Crue heading a bill at the Molson Amphitheatre.

Here's the kicker: only one of those shows is going to be serving alcohol to patrons. And it's Celine Dion.

Due to a liquor infraction last year, the Molson Amphitheatre's liquor license is suspended for tonight's Motley Crue concert. The last time something like this happened to a big show was at the Air Canada Centre for a Nine Inch Nails/Queens of the Stone Age show back in 2005.

The liquor store near the ACC looked like they sold out of pocket size bottles of booze that night.

For those service charges, the least you could do is remember my name

2008-08-27T22:26:00.003-04:00

Something to ponder - everytime I put my ATM debit card in and type my pin code, the first thing i enter is what language I want. How come my account doesn't remember what i pick EVERY time and default to that language?

Made 2 Good Movies and 1 Bad Movie

2008-08-15T11:33:00.002-04:00

Chris Sims calls this "the single greatest origin recap in the history of comics", in 6 little words:

That would have eliminated an hour out of that first Spider-Man movie.

via Caleb at Everyday is Like Wednesday

Radiohead in Montreal: Everything In Its Right Place

2008-08-12T22:32:00.007-04:00

I've been trying to see Radiohead for 13 years, but every time something would come up to interfere, but circumstances always stopped me from being able to go. This time I made it happen, and had all the elements to make my first Radiohead concert a memorable experience. The beautiful outdoor setting of Parc Jean Drapeau; a rain storm that let up before Radiohead took the stage; I got to meet up with one of my oldest friends to see the show; they played a nice long show with 25 songs over 2 hours including the entirety of In Rainbows; fireworks exploded in the sky and we ended up spending most of the night watching the show with Montreal band The Arcade Fire. That's a good night in my book.

A few factors influenced me to see the show in Montreal rather than Toronto, first of which was the fact the Toronto show soldout in a few minutes and now scalpers were getting $200 for lawns. The Montreal show still had tickets, so that plus a bus ticket and I was ahead of the deal.

After 8 hours on the bus, I arrived in Montreal and met up with Nicole, her hubby Trevor, and friends. The show was outdoors at Parc Jean Drapeau, so of course it rained for hours before the show. Being seasoned pros, we brought raingear. Being more seasoned then I am, Nicole brought her custom made Radiohead poncho and her rubber boots, a very popular fashion accessory that day.

The rain had been pouring as we came out of the subway. As we made out way in, the rain slowed. As we waited for Radiohead to take the stage, the rain slowed to a light drizzle, and a double rainbow could be seen. It seemed we were truly In Rainbows.

As the sun went down, Radiohead takes the stage and everything from start to finish was a favourite - great sound out there in the field and mud, and a fantastic light show. To the left and right of the stage were screens showing feeds from cameras all over the stage.

Radiohead are: (left to right) Ed O'Brien (guitar, backing vocals), Thom Yorke (lead vocals, rhythm guitar, piano, electronics), Colin Greenwood (bass guitar, synthesisers), Jonny Greenwood (lead guitar, other instruments), Phil Selway (drums, percussion).

Nicole and I got separated looking for a good spot to view the show. She calls me on the cell to say she had a good spot farther back. A paradox, I know, but when I got there, there's Nicole and friends, standing next to Montreal's own The Arcade Fire, one of our favourite bands. They were keeping a low profile and were watching the show with the rest of us. We decided not to hassle them by fawning over them, praising how great their music is and how cool it is that musicians like Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, U2, Radiohead and Coldplay are fans of theirs. It’s the Canadian in me, I don’t hassle celebrities if they’re not drawing attention to themselves (drunkenly accosting Richard E Grant on Queen Street aside: "Ohmygod you're Withnail!").

I love every song on In Rainbows, and I whooped every time they dove into their back catalogue, playing a few unexpected tunes like "My Iron Lung" from The Bends. "My Iron Lung" is their answer to the over-exposure they experienced from "Creep", their first hit. It became an anchor around their necks. You’d get a bit sick of everyone demanding you “play the hit”, feeling defined by just the one song. According to Nicole they don't dip into their first album Pablo Honey much anymore. Shame, as I have a lot of affection for tunes like "Stop Whispering" and "You".

Some point around the 9th song of the set, a fireworks display started going off on the other side of the park (some international competion we think), as in "not part of the show". I remember at one point Thom said something along the lines of "They spent so much money on fireworks, the least they could do is put them at the fucking end darlings... and in time."

So at the start of the encore Colin and Thom played "Faust Arp" from In Rainbows. The fireworks were still going off every few minutes. This time they went off and Thom missed some lyrics while having what may have been a giggle fit. Nicole has the video up here.

I have to order one of their Tour t-shirts. There were a number of black t-shirts with faded multi-coloured lettering with different sayings. Two stand-outs were:

'/_ YOU'LL GO TO HELL /FOR WHAT YOUR DIRTY_MIND I/S THINKING'

and

'YOU/USED TO _BE A_LRIGHT WHAT /HA_PPENED ?'

They played classics like "Paranoid Android", "Fake Plastic Trees" and "Lucky", they played "National Anthem". By the time they got to "Karma Police", I was in heaven.

One of my favourite images from the screen, near the end of the concert a black and white Thom Yorke sings to us from the night.

Radiohead closed the show with "Everything In Its Right Place". And at the end of the night, it was, as we wandered off with smiles on our faces and humming songs all the way.

Links:
All videos and photos are under a creative commons license… attribution, no derivitives, noncommercial. Any other uses, drop me a line and we'll talk. Thanks!

Flickr Photoset of my Radiohead in Montreal pictures

YouTube links for some videos I took, plus the one Nicole got:

Faust Arp - Thom gets the giggles - Radiohead - Live in Montreal 08-06-08 (Nicole's):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_1c62M0Fq4

Paranoid Android - Radiohead - Live in Montreal 08-06-08:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFALQrYZ-1w

Lucky - Radiohead - Live in Montreal 08-06-08:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUVW71ETnsk

National Anthem - Radiohead - Live in Montreal 08-06-08:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKw9hC54Od8

Fake Plastic Trees - Radiohead - Live in Montreal 08-06-08:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ju84aF8BaI

Amnesiac

2008-08-07T08:46:00.004-04:00

I'm home and sleepy after the Radiohead show - such a fantastic, funny night. I go to the show, wondering if Radiohead's friends, Montreal's own The Arcade Fire would make an appearance, and they did of a sort. Nicole, hubby, Allie and I were standing amongst Win Butler and most of the band all night, out in the middle of the crowd. They looked like they were there to enjoy the show and keep a low profile, so we didn't compare notes with them or anything. It's the Canadian in me, we don't tend to harass folks. Add in some ill-timed fireworks that caused Thom to have a bit of a giggle fit mid-tune and it was an amusing night.

I'll do a full write-up later, but for now care of ateaseweb here's the set list. It was so good, with some gems from each album (except for Pablo Honey - Nicole mentioned they don't dip into that first disc too much anymore) provoking many "Is that... it is! Whoo hoo!" moments.

http://www.ateaseweb.com/2008/08/06/radiohead-live-in-montreal-live-report/

Setlist:
01. 15 Step
02. There There (Thom “Sorry about the rain it follows us around”)
03. Morning Bell
04. All I Need
05. My Iron Lung
06. Nude
07. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
08. The Gloaming
09. The National Anthem (Fireworks going off at nearby festival)
10. Fake Plastic Trees
11. Reckoner
12. Like Spinning Plates
13. Jigsaw (Thom :If you’re feeling cold you can always grab someone next to you. Then Phil went to hug Colin)
14. Lucky
15. Optimistic
16. Idioteque
17. Bodysnatchers

Encore 1
18. Faust Arp
19. Videotape (Thom: “”There’s always money for fireworks, the least they could do is put them at the fucking end”)
20. Paranoid Android
21. Bangers and Mash
22. Karma Police

Encore 2
23. House of Cards
24. You And Whose Army?
25. Everything In Its Right Place

Kid A

2008-08-06T15:54:00.000-04:00

As the bus passes the area where i was born, the beautifully
melancholy Tom Waits song "House Where Nobody Lives" plays. Ever feel
like you had a soundtrack?
(Note: maybe not. Next song was Summer of 69. That's pretty jarring.)

In Rainbows

2008-08-06T15:40:00.002-04:00

We're pulling into Montreal as Radiohead's Reckoner comes on my
headphones. Just a few hour til the show. I'm a long time Radiohead
fan, but this is my first concert. Something always came up. Hope this
much effort makes up for all the other times.

O.K. Commuter

2008-08-06T12:48:00.000-04:00

Bus makes a pit stop in Kingston. Timbits and iced tea to get me through the other half. Remembered that on any road trip, never pass a chance to stretch the legs. Last 2 songs on ipod are Nada Surf - Hi Speed Soul, Black Flag - Rise Above

Radiohead in Montreal

2008-08-06T10:06:00.001-04:00

Why am i going to see Radiohead in Montreal? Toronto sold out quick,
and with scalpers charging $200 for lawns, a bus ticket and my show
ticket still keep me ahead of the deal. Bonus is a meet up with my
good friend Nikita. More later- sent from phone.

"Organic Firewood for sale"

2008-07-29T11:53:00.003-04:00

I'm back from Hillside Festival, dry and happy. I can't begin to tell you how much fun it was - great performances, delicious variety of food, a community atmosphere. I'm tied up for today, but I've got the pictures and words all sorted out and will have the write-up going tomorrow. I may divide it 3-fold

Hillside - The Music, where I see some great bands and get blown away by a couple of performances, notably a video of Thunderheist putting on a clinic on how to hype a crowd into a dancing booty shaking mass.
Hillside - The Festival Experience, where we see get the ideal experience of how a festival is run, and I rave about how f'n clever the organizers are.
Hillside - Lessons Learned for Next Year, where I jot some notes down about what worked for me this year and what I would do differently next year - and you're all coming with me.

Off to Hillside Festival

2008-07-25T10:08:00.002-04:00

I'm off to Hillside Festival for the weekend - I'll post all about it on Monday, and then I'll be working on getting posts up with more regularity. Have a great weekend!

Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog

2008-07-18T10:31:00.003-04:00

What's a writer, like say Buffy the Vampire/Angel/firefly creator Joss Whedon, to do with spare time during a writer's strike? Why, you put on a musical comic book video thingie. Presenting Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, starring Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion, and Felicia Day. It's over the top and wonderfully funny - NPH makes a villain the hero of his own story, and Nathan Fillion is great as the brash and oblivious hero Captain Hammer. If they ever made a Futurama movie, Nathan Fillion is Zap Brannigan.

Joss's Master Plan

ONE WEEK ONLY! AN INTERNET MINISERIES EVENT!

"Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog" will be streamed, LIVE (that part’s not true), FREE (sadly, that part is) right on Drhorrible.com, in mid-July. Specifically:

ACT ONE (Wheee!) will go up Tuesday July 15th.

ACT TWO (OMG!) will go up Thursday July 17th.

ACT THREE (Denouement!) will go up Saturday July 19th.

All acts will stay up until midnight Sunday July 20th. Then they will vanish into the night, like a phantom (but not THE Phantom – that’s still playing. Like, everywhere.)

The videos are available on iTunes for a nominal fee for keepsies.

Feist on Sesame Street

2008-07-14T22:17:00.003-04:00

Take kittens, roll them in fluffy bunnies and let them loose in a cupcake store, and it wouldn't be half as adorable as this appearance by Feist on Sesame Street. She looks like she's having a ball, and check out the expression on her face at the end of the clip after the song ends.

Feist announced at Canada's Juno awards earlier this year that the day she spent taping the segment was the best of her life.
"I mean, c'mon please, it's the Muppets we're talking about," she said.
"('1234') brought me two days ago to Sesame Street and it was the Muppets and it was the best day of my life. I'm sorry Junos, but the Muppets trump everything!"

With a whiff of nostalgia and a hint of vanilla perfume...

2008-07-08T11:38:00.003-04:00

IT WAS 20 YEARS AGO TODAY: The top ten singles from July, 1988:

"Pour Some Sugar on Me" -- Def Leppard
"The Flame" -- Cheap Trick
"New Sensation" -- INXS (causing flashbacks to my Grade 7 trip to Quebec City)
"Hold On To the Nights" -- Richard Marx
"Mercedes Boy" -- Pebbles
"Roll With It" -- Steve Winwood
"Hands to Heaven" -- Breathe
"Make Me Lose Control" -- Eric Carmen
"Nite and Day" -- Al B. Sure
"Dirty Diana" -- Michael Jackson

Comment which you can't really disagree with:

In Diablo Cody's "Candy Girl," the memoir of the time she spent in the exotic dancing industry, she refers to "Pour Some Sugar On Me" as the greatest song for those purposes ever.- Matt

via ALOTT5MA

Pass on Gas

2008-06-27T09:16:00.002-04:00

An always pleasant topic of conversation these days is the rising cost of gas. These days $20 barely gets a VW Golf a quarter tank. I'm getting nostalgic for the days when I paid less the a buck a litre.

But with all your money sucked into the gas tank, what are you cutting out of your budget? This was prompted by a comic reviewer I read mentioning that with it costing $70 to fill his tank, he's cutting back on comic book purchases and being more selective in the quality of the ones he does pay for. And I imagine it's the same for other "entertainment" purchases - music, books, games, movies. I'm going to be more likely to dish out $12 to see Iron Man than The Love Guru if we're talking value for the buck.

Maybe these gas hikes may have a domino effect and consumers will demand more bang for the buck, be unwilling to risk their diminished dollar on entertainment that may not deliver, and create a demand for higher quality products.

So how are you coping with the cost of gas? Cutting back on magazines? Doing more downloading of music to "try before you buy"? Taking public transit more? Or is the thought of moving closer to your workplace a lot more tempting these days?

Comedic Icon George Carlin passes away

2008-06-23T02:32:00.006-04:00

Shame to be the bearer of bad news, but apparently George Carlin, one of the true icons of stand-up comedy has passed away from heart failure. He was 71.

We were supposed to celebrate his legacy while he was still with us, as it was announced earlier this week that the 2008 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, a lifetime achievement award presented to an outstanding comedian, would be awarded to George Carlin, in a ceremony to be held on November 10, 2008.

Here are some favourite Carlin clips (via ALOTT5MA), as George talks about stuff, or the difference between baseball and football, the hippie-dippy weatherman, and in his most famous bit the seven words. George Carlin was a wonderful observer of life, and a master of social commentary whose influence can been seen on comedy clubs around the world and on TV in shows like "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report". His legacy stretches over 50 years, and managed to remain relevant and insightful and most of all, funny as all hell over every one of those years up until today.

Some numbers of note from a recent Washington Post article:

George Carlin was the first host ever of "Saturday Night Live"
He appeared on "The Tonight Show" more than 130 times?
He released 22 albums, and won four Grammy Awards, between 1973 to 2002
George Carlin starred in 14 specials on HBO.
His three books have been bestsellers
His TV shows have been nominated for five Emmy

Frequently when I introduce myself, the reply is often "Carlin? Oh, like George Carlin? Any relation?" None that I ever found, but I would have been proud to be.

RIP George, thanks for the laughs that will go on forever.

NXNE Night One - Coasting on a Quick March

2008-06-20T00:47:00.008-04:00

There's this feeling - it's when you wander a song or a band for the first time, and you somehow know you're going to be a fan of that band for the rest of your life (or at least until they get full of themselves, make a pretentious half-assed album, and in-fighting pulls them apart). That feeling is a rush, euphoric and empowering all at once. And I love that at the NXNE music festival, I get a shot at feeling that sensation more than once.

NXNE is one of my favourite festivals of the year. It's not as big as SXSW, but it's a great time in Toronto - hit as many bars and see as many bands you can see in 3 days. Throw in some sleep deprivation, unpredictable weather, a 4am last call at some venues thanks to event licensing, and the fact that apparently no concert venue in Toronto has air conditioning, and it makes for some fun times.

You have a couple hundred bands in town at dozens of venues in the city. Each band has about 40 minutes to play, and if you start late, you don't usually get to make up the time. Most of these bands are looking to make a name for themselves - either on independant labels or looking to get picked up. You pick some must see bands and take a chance on some you've never heard of. You decide to camp at one venue or you hop cabs and streetcars to hit several stops in one night. And all this excitement available with the purchase of a $29 NXNE wristband for 3-days (or $19 for a one day pass).

My Thursday night stop was the always reliable Legendary Horseshoe Tavern on Queen Street. A bottle of 50 and fresh batteries in the camera, and I was set.

The Coast @ The Horseshoe Tavern
NXNE Festival
Thursday, June 12, 2008

First up from Toronto - The Coast (myspace). I hadn't really heard of them, but they were really impressive. They had a relatively early 9pm slot, but after the first couple songs, the room was starting to get packed and the screaming and cheering started. The songs were catchy pop-rocks of hooks and harmonies, love lost and found. Singer Ben Spurr worked up a sweat, much to the pleasure of the girls in the front of the stage, and 3 guitars worked together to put a smile on your face - call it joy rock if you will. They had that infectious stage presence that makes you want to root for them to succeed. With this much energy and some really good songs, I can easily say I look forward to seeing more from them as they build a fanbase - I'm already hoping a Lee's Palace gig is in their future. "Tightrope" in particular had a great sing along chorus that you could pump your fists in the air to.

The Coast @ The Horseshoe Tavern (credit by the2scoops)

The Wet Secrets @ The Horseshoe Tavern
NXNE Festival
Thursday, June 12, 2008

How could I pass on a garage rock-party band dressed in marching band uniforms? It's The Wet Secrets (myspace) from Edmonton with a killer set of tunes composed of one part sly lyrics, and another part kick-ass rock with a side of brass. This is one bad-ass marching band with a thumping bass guitar/drum beat with big brass.

The Wet Secrets are from Edmonton and everyone seems to have another gigs - Lyle Bell (lead singer, bass) plays in Whitey Houston and Shout Out Out Out, drummer Trevor Anderson's a filmmaker and festival producer; trumpet and tuba player Kim Rackel and trombonist Donna Ball run Capital City Burlesque; and keyboardist Doug Organ runs a record label and plays in jazz bands. With busy schedules and logistics (you ever try to fly a marching band on Air Canada?), that makes The Wet Secrets appearance a rare live show.

The Wet Secrets @ The Horseshoe Tavern (credit - the2scoops)

And damned if they didn't deliver. They took to the stage in band uniforms, but one couldn't help notice the hint of rock and roll flirtation - maybe it was the red lighting giving a sense of danger and menace to the atmosphere. Maybe it was the 6-inch platform boots the ladies in the brass section were wearing. Guess I'll never know.

Now just because they wear band uniforms that you're seeing some novelty band - these players are no joke. Not even with a keyboardist with the last name Organ. Which is like a boy named Jeeves - you're sort of pre-dispositioned to a calling. But these guys rocked out with some loud fuzz guitar and a some clever song tunes like "Grow Your Own F*cking Mustache You Asshole" and "It's Hard to Meet Somebody (Living As A Disembodied Head"). The tunes had an aggressive surf-rock vibe in places, and the crowd was grooving to the beat.

Pictures -
NXNE Night 1 by the2scoops @ Flickr

Recommended Listening:
The Wet Secrets "Rock Fantasy" - available at Zunior Digital Music Store -MP3s/No DRM
The Coast "Expatriate" - available at Zunior - MP3s/No DRM and iTunes

Links:
The Coast - Official Band Site
MySpace - The Coast
CBC Radio 3/New Music Canada - The Coast

The Wet Secrets - Official Band Site
MySpace - The Wet Secrets
CBC Radio 3/New Music Canada - The Wet Secrets
NOW Magazine // Music // Music Feature // The Wet Secrets

NXNE Music Festival - Fun For All Ages

2008-06-16T23:59:00.003-04:00

(picture by Rock//Paper//Pixels)

Six Shooter Records
NXNE Backlot BBQ
Toronto
June 14, 2008

That would be Sal, son of Suzie Ungerleider aka Oh Susanna, jamming on his white fender strat.

I'll start posting my NXNE weekend reviews Tuesday morning.

Lessons To Help You Live Longer # 82

2008-06-05T13:27:00.003-04:00

While getting staff to clean their desks at work and remove any non-standard items from their workstation, I was warned of an important piece of advice from a manager:

Never try to take away a fan from a woman in her late 40s or early 50s.

So much depends on so many words

2008-05-30T11:14:00.004-04:00

Spend some time for some great spectator sport as the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee is underway. Grey's Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes is blogging the Spelling Bee, sharing her spelling bee obsession at the great A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago blog. Scroll down and look for all items with "Posted by Shonda."

"Hierurgical" caused Canadian Cody Wang to suffer the first of what I fear will be many nervous breakdowns in his life. He grabbed his head, made several gasping shocked noises, a single pained whimper and then disappeared from Bee world forever.

Update:

11:36 am: The Canadians fall, the Canadians fall, the Canadians fall like trees. It's a Spelling Bee Battle Field -- these poor Canadians rushing to the microphone only to be beaten back with a horrifying ding. Were they not prepared for the rigors of TV? The joy of ESPN? Because these words did not seem particularly hard to me. But just like that, we have lost SIX CANADIANS IN A ROW. ALL THE CANADIANS ARE GONE. It's tragic. Oh, Canada..." - Shonda

Washington Post's Don Steinberg talks to the eliminated Canadian spellers, "a septet of softspoken sadness".

long distance

2008-05-28T15:42:00.002-04:00

This is a note to Uncle John - I've received your email through the blog, but every time Dad or I use it, we get the mail sent back. If you contact Joe, Pat or Peter, they have Dad's email address. Ta

#4 - The Complicated Order Guy Who Needs his Coffee Right The F*&k Now.

2008-05-28T11:42:00.003-04:00

Let me take your order and recommend “8 Types Of Annoying People You’ll Find Inside Starbucks”, including Overly Happy Greeter, Intern Buying For The Whole Office, and Study Groups:

2. Study Groups
"Hey, screw the library with all it’s “room” and “group space.” It makes way more sense to go to an incredibly busy and crowded Starbucks with tables that have insufficient space to lay your books. Everyone knows you have a poli-sci midterm, mostly because they can hear every fucking thing you’re saying because you’re yelling so that you can be heard over a frappucino being made. If you could, would you hold a study group session in a Turkish prison? Because Starbucks is basically the same thing, except with less gay sex, and a little bit better coffee.

Any missing from that list? And who hasn't wanted to slap the bluetooth earpiece off #4?

via ALOTT5MA - THESE ARE THE PEOPLE AT YOUR STARBUCKS...THEY'RE THE PEOPLE THAT YOU MEET EACH DAY

Hitting Hillside Festival

2008-05-26T22:38:00.007-04:00

One of my highlights of the summer will be my first trip to the Hillside Festival in Guelph, ON. Hillside takes place July 25, 26, and 27, and offers a unique festival experience with a fantastic line-up, gorgeous setting, and environmentally responsible practices. Remember all the footage from the chaos that was Woodstock 1999? This is the complete opposite of that.

Hillside has a lot going for it that makes it stand out amongst all the other music festivals:

attendance is limited to about 6,000 - 7,000, spread between 5 stages, so if you want tickets, you need to move fast - they tend to sell out the weekend passes on the day of sale.
the venue is the gorgeous Guelph Lake Conservation Area
the line-up is heavy on Canadian talent
there's an emphasis on environmental responsibility - there's wet/dry recycling on site, you're encouraged to bring your own plates with many wash stations set up, and beer is served in a re-usable Hillside mug. Ever seen a field full of plastic beer cup empties after a concert?
tickets go on sale before the full line-up is announced, so the emphasis is on the event rather than one or two headliners.
speaking of tickets - no Ticketmaster involved! Tickets are sold through their own website, phone, and outlets like The Bookshelf in Guelph and Soundscapes in Toronto.
the price for a full weekend pass is only $95.00, compared with twice the amount for festivals like Virgin Music Festival.
you're encouraged to bring reusable water bottle as they offering free drinking water (take that 4 dollar bottles of water at the Rogers Picnic!)
the Festival depends alot on volunteers and the local community - many of the food vendors are from the area offering a multi-cultural selection of food.
camping is available at the Conservation area, but sells out every year well in advance. Might I recommend looking up the University of Guelph summer hostel accommodations for a low-cost alternative to a hotel

Performer Line-Up
A complete list won't be settled until July, but here's what's been announced so far. Bands I'm looking forward especially to seeing are marked with an (*).

The Acorn (*)- looking forward to seeing them live after Nicole at Ranting and Raving has spent so much time, well, raving about the band and their live show. Their album Hope Glory Mountain is a lush celebration of life set to guitars, marimbas, and a river of rhythm. So yeah, I'm looking forward to them.
The Sadies (*) speaking of kick-ass live shows, I'm so glad I'm finally going to see these guys who I consider to be the Canadian bar band. Crack open a beer and go listen to their live album The Sadies: In Concert Volume 1 (Disc One and Disc Two) and tell me otherwise. They toss garage rock, country, surf guitar all in a blender, and then turn that sucker out loud and fast.
Joseph Arthur
Akron/Family
Bell Orchestre (Sunday)
Black Cabbage
Elliott Brood (*) - always love seeing this band
Jason Collett (*)
Born Ruffians
The Bourbon Tabernacle Choir (Saturday Evening)
The Burning Hell
Cowboy Junkies (Friday) (*)
Jaymay
Jenn Grant
Hayden (Sunday Evening) (*)
Land of Talk
Harry Manx
Moshav
Po'Girl
Plants & Animals (*)
Kelly Joe Phelps
Justin Rutledge (*)
The Vinyl Cafe with Stuart McLean (*)
Hawksley Workman (Friday) (*)

Aside from the musicians involved, Hillside also offers workshops, spoken word artists, all sorts of art and craft vendors. Obviously I won't be able to see everything - 5 stages means there'll be a couple of scheduling conflicts for me, but that's part of the fun. I'll be sure to blog and take as many pictures as I can.

Wikipedia - Hillside Festival

Now with authentic Tauntaun smell, inside and out

2008-05-24T07:18:00.003-04:00

File Under: Awesome Toys I Didn't Know About

I just had the regular "non-gutted" version when I was a kid

Still waiting for my cheque from Nigerian royalty...

2008-03-25T20:29:00.002-04:00

Browsing my email this morning, I came across some spam, passing itself off as a warning from a bank and asking the ~~sucker~~ reader to click on the link and confirm my information.

Two signs this was spam:
1) I don't have an account with that particular bank
2) Major banks don't tend to mis-spell "security" in their subject lines. (secuity?)

Bright lights dim - Jeff Healey 1966-2008

2008-03-03T10:06:00.005-05:00

Let's take a moment to mark the passing of a Canadian giant as Jeff Healey has died of cancer at the young age of 41. Jeff's been battling cancer for a long time, blind since he was just 1-year old. He was known for his distinct guitar-on-the-lap style of playing and was a world class blues guitarist, not to mention playing jazz clarinet and trumpet. Jeff Healey was also a huge fan of jazz, and owned one hell of a record collection of 35,000 rare and obscure albums, which formed the basis of his radio show, My Kinda Jazz. He was a constant presence in his contributions for charitable foundations, the accomplishments of the Jeff Healey Band, and he also ran the popular Toronto jazz/rock/blues bar Jeff Healey's Roadhouse where he frequently could be found playing.

Jeff has been battling a resurgence of cancerous tissue for the past year, but still managed to perform, booked a tour through Canada and Europe, and was planning to release his first rock/blues album in eight years, Mess of Blues, recorded in studios in Toronto, in concert in London, England, and at the bar that bears his name, Jeff Healey's Roadhouse. It goes on sale in Europe March 20, and in Canada and the U.S. April 22.

Toronto Star: Jeff Healey obituary

Official website of award-winning artist Jeff Healey.

In his memory, I'm reprinting a funny excerpt i originally published in August 2006 "I need to learn Braille". Here's to you Jeff:

A few years ago, Grant invited me to meet him and Glenn at Jeff Healey's bar in downtown Toronto. Glenn is a blind co-worker of Grant's, a real stand-up guy. Well, apparently Glenn went to a blind school with Jeff Healey.

I go to the bar, meet the guys, sit through a set by Jeff and then meet him after the show. Hell of a nice guy, reputed to have one of the best vintage jazz album collections in the country, just great to be around him. I'm having the time of my life, Jeff is buying a round. Jeff and Glen are telling school stories. You assume when you're blind, that you act a little more carefully, like when you're sighted and the lights go out, you move slow so you don't stub a toe. Not Jeff and Glenn: "Remember when you fell off that roof that time?" "Yeah, how about when you jumped off that bridge?"

It's all good. I get up to go to the washroom. There's a step-up to reach the bathrooms and I trip on it as I go in. I return to the table and mention to Jeff how I almost tripped on the ledge. He laughs and tells me that the banister (the railing on the staircase) on the way down to the club has Braille written under it, so when if you read Braille and feel it under the rails you walk down, it will read: "Don't tell the sighted guys, but there's a step up to reach the washrooms. They'll trip and we'll have a laugh." Glenn laughed and said "Oh yeah, you didn't notice."

I believed that story for 3 f$#&ing years. I'm told Glenn still laughs about it.

*sigh* good thing i'm so pretty, 'cause stupid don't pay the bills.

Jeff Healey: world class blues-rock guitarist. Funny guy.

PS If anyone remembers me telling a story about how Jeff Healey showed up at a gig and jammed on trumpet, email me. I can't remember the damned details, but I remember him joining a band onstage and playing horns at either Montreal Bistro or The Rex. I know I saw him do this, I just can't remember for the life of me where.

Jeff Healey - Wikipedia

A Nation In Temporary Withdrawal

2008-02-26T15:24:00.002-05:00

It's going to be short fuses and jangled nerves in the United States tonight folks: coffee conglomerate Starbucks is shutting down all of their outlets between 5:30pm and 9pm tonight for in-store training. All 7,100 outlets will be closed as part of a co-ordinated training blitz as they put 135,00 baristas through a session called "Perfect the Art of Espresso".

Picture it - for 3.5 hours, an entire country can't get their venti latte with double shot and soy substitute. That's a twitchy (and rather well-armed) nation. It would be cold turkey, but it looks like several competitors are taking advantage of the closure, such as Dunkin Donuts, who are offering 99-cent beverages.

I can't picture the ramifications if every Tim Horton's in Canada shut down for a couple hours.

via ALOTT5MA

the2scoops 2008 Oscar Wrap-Up

2008-02-24T23:53:00.006-05:00

Like many parties around town and in Hollywood, the end of the writer's strike came too late to plan any proper Oscar get-together. The party I usually go to was cancelled, leading to my first Oscars spent at home in years. The two-weeks notice may have contributed to what felt like, to me, a leaner meaner Oscars. The production numbers were few and host Jon Stewart didn't stray from the stage to perform any "bits" like Ellen DeGeneres did.

Some thoughts on the show and some moments:

No Country For Old Men came in as the frontrunner and claimed a number of prizes, including taking both Best Director for Joel and Ethan Coen (the first co-winners of the award) and Best Picture. I can't recall the last time a picture won both top categories. Javier Bardem and Daniel Day Lewis were the favourites in the Actor categories, while the surprises came from the Actress side with Marion Cotillard winning Best Actress for her portrayal of singer Édith Piaf in the French language film La Vie En Rose, and Tilda Swinton winning Best Supporting Actress for her role in Michael Clayton. Cate Blanchett went home empty-handed, but that happens when you're nominated in both Best Lead and Best Supporting - it splits the votes. It was an Oscar sweep as all four acting awards went to non-American actors - two from Britain, one French and one Spanish. Kind of funny in a year when a lot of the talk was bout exclusion in the Foreign Film categories saw foreign actors taking top acting honours.

I love that Glen Hansard (from the Irish rock band The Frames) and Czech musician Markéta Irglová won for Best Song from the film Once. A truly sweet moment as they took the stage, and a really classy act was to follow: Glenn spoke first and the band played the duo off before Markéta could speak. After the commercial, the show director had Jon Stewart bring Markéta back out to speak. Don't think I've ever seen that before, so really class act there. Story and speech linked here to AP:

"The fact that we're standing here tonight, the fact that we're able to hold this, it's just proof that no matter how far out your dreams are, it's possible," Irglova said during take two. "And, you know, fair play to those who dare to dream, and don't give up. This song was written from the perspective of hope, and hope, at the end of the day, connects us all, no matter how different we are." - Markéta Irglová

This is a really sweet reward for this little film. You're all urged to go rent it now. Once is a 2006 Irish musical film set in Dublin, but it's not musical comedy like Hairspray. It takes a naturalistic approach to storytelling with musicians Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová telling the story of two struggling performers, set against song composed and performed by them. And there's something nice about a pair of indie musicians beating Disney's film Enchanted.

Speaking of Enchanted, while I enjoyed the performance of Amy Adams, I was surprised the production for "Happy Work Song" was so low-key, with only Amy singing on stage - where are all the happy helping animals and interpretive dancers? But that song from August Rush was well done.

A couple of great moments came in the acting categories: Best Supporting Actor winner Javier Bardem (No Country For Old Men) giving most of his speech in Spanish to his mother, and in one of the few surprises of the night, Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose) won Best Actress and gave a speech she thanked life and love and seemed truly blown away by the moment. If Wikipedia is to be believed, Marion Cotillard's win marks the first time an Academy Award has been given to a French-language performance.

Terrific that Daniel Day Lewis won Best Actor, but his speech just reminded how deeply he disappears into his roles. There was no trace of Daniel Plainsview (There Will Be Blood.) or Bill The Butcher (Gangs of New York) as this sweet man thanked his father, grandfather, and sons. He is scary good.3

Despite some rumours, there was no tribute singling out Heath Ledger career as he was included in the annual necrology collage.

Bourne Ultimatum won a number of technical awards: Film Editing, Sound Mixing and Sound Editing.

The Academy awarded Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody with Best Original Screenplay, which was pretty cool of them. Best Original Screenplay tends to be the "cool award", typically seen as the "you did something cool, your film won't win any big awards, but you earned/deserve something" award. See previous winners: Almost Famous - Cameron Crowe, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Charlie Kaufman and Little Miss Sunshine - Michael Arndt. No, literally go see them, there all favourites of mine. I'll wait here until you're done.

ALOTT5MA has their annual Academy Awards wrap-up here. They had some good ideas for improving the show, such as dropping some of the technical award presentations off the broadcast and introducing some viewer friendly categories like Best Debut (actor) and Best First Film (director). Might I re-new my plea for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture like they have at several awards including the Screen Actors Guild? I also agree with Adam that we could have used fewer clips from past awards and more exposure for the nominated Best Pictures.

And that's about it until next year. It was a pleasantly low-key show with no real risk-taking but some amusing moments. Maybe two-weeks notice is all we should give Oscar producers from now on? Drop any thoughts in the comments.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

2008 Oscar Winners and Nominees

Notes from a happy guy with rest of the week off

2008-02-22T02:30:00.006-05:00

Observations, lessons learned, and odd things I've picked up during my week of leisure:

Daniel Day Lewis is my Best Actor pick in the Oscar pools this year. Hell, any year. The man is terrifyingly good in There Will Be Blood - he starts off obsessively ruthless, then he really loses it. Love or hate the movie, the performance is otherworldly - and so is that soundtrack. Composed by Jonny Greenwood (Radiohead), it provokes an ever-present unsettling sense of dread - you know the poem "The Second Coming" by W.B. Yeats, and how he describes a beast slouching towards Bethlehem to be born? I imagine the noise the beast would make would sound alot like Greenwood's movie score.

My plans to see U2 in 3D in IMAX were thwarted when someone in programming thought that it made sense to have The Spiderwick Chronicles 3D Experience booked this week. I can understand daytime showings, but who the hell went to see a kid's fantasy film at the 10:15pm showing? You couldn't drop one concert film that appeals to those who can stay up past 10pm?

Carlin Rule #103: if my dining companion spends more than 3 minutes describing her lingerie, I am legally entitled to see it.

Remember the 90s band Tripping Daisy? They had that one hit "I've Got A Girl" - I had no idea that they eventually went on to form the choral symphonic rock band The Polyphonic Spree.

I'm pretty damned happy with my new Sony w810i Walkman phone - i just got it through Rogers Wireless and it is sweet - great music player, clear call quality, sharp design, surprisingly good 2mp camera, and an easy to use interface. My only complaint, minor as it is: I can't seem to access any info in my contacts lists aside from names and phone numbers. I can add and edit the info, but can't view it easily. Otherwise, very happy with the upgrade.

I am definitely in the market for an indie-music loving girlfriend. Tell your friends.

That trailer for Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull has me hooked - I'm in. And how excellent is this summer movie season shaping up? Hellboy 2, Iron Man, Batman - The Dark Knight, Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay, even freaking Speed Racer (way to stick to the original material Wachowskis!) all look like they're going to deliver great entertaining films that are faithful to the source material. I can't recall being so optimistically into a slate of movies.

And finally, just how much ass is the new season of Lost kicking? Four solid episodes that have been delivering exciting revelations, great character moments, and a quick breathless pace.

bye-bye le boyfriend

2008-02-22T02:21:00.003-05:00

Definition of The Boyfriend Yank:

This is a phenomenom noticed at concerts, usually in club venues, wherein a boy has taken the ill-concieved move of bringing a date/girlfriend to a concert, and 3 songs into the set he gets the tap on the shoulder as the date/girlfriend has tired of indulging his musical tastes and asks to leave. And they do. Such a phenomenom is very fulfilling if it happens to the guy who cuts in and stands directly in front of you at a concert.

This was first pointed out to me by K., who recognized a die-hard fan at the final Rheostatics show. The guy apparently had brought his date to share the magical experience of seeing the last Rheostatics gig ever, only to find 3 songs in that she had grown bored and asked that they leave - and the schmuck did.

Teeth on the Dial: WGA Writer's Strike Ends

2008-02-12T22:56:00.004-05:00

The WGA Writer's Strike is officially over after 3 months. Production staff, writers and stars are expected to get back to work as soon as tomorrow. So where does this leave your favourite show?

Late night shows ("Daily Show", "Colbert", "Conan", "Leno") are expected to have their writer's back Wednesday cranking out new material.
The next big return after that is "Saturday Night Live", which should air it's first 2008 episode on February 23rd (no host or musical guest announced yet). They have a quick turn-around time over there, and I wonder if we'll see any of the material the cast used a live SNL performance they put on during the strike.
Generally, expect most 30 minute comedies to be able to crank out between 6-10 new episodes before the end of the season. First new episodes should appear in April.
Most of the dramas like "Smallville", "House", "CSI", and "ER" are aiming for between 4 - 8 new episodes before year end.
"24" won't be back until 2009.

To find out the latest news on your shows, I encourage you to check out Michael Ausiello on TV Guide, who is keeping the page updated regularly as he hears from various shows:

After The WGA Strike, When Will Your Favourite T.V. Shows Return?

On to my favourites:

In addition to 6 completed episodes, in addition to the 2 that aired, the producers of Lost are expecting to be able to do 5 more episodes, for a total of 13 out of the previously planned 16 episode season. Look for about a 4 week gap between the pre-strike and post-strike episodes, as mentioned in this interview with "Lost" executive producer Carlton Cuse.
"30 Rock" is expected to shoot 5 to 10 new episodes to air in April/May. NBC must be eager to capitalize on recent Golden Globe wins for the show. "The Office", "How I Met Your Mother", and "My Name is Earl" are expected to be back with the same amount of episodes.
My two favourite 2007 rookie shows "Chuck" and "Pushing Daisies" won't be making any new episodes, but both will be back for full seasons in the fall. This is great news for "Pushing Daisies", which has the full season pick-up, and thanks to the shortened season will not have to compete against "American Idol".
Looks like "Reaper" caught a lucky break with 5-10 new episodes planned. I hope they can capitalize on the potential I saw in the first episode and only in a few spots here and there after that, like the episodes with Patton Oswalt and Curtis Armstrong. They really need to avoid the "Catch-the-Demon-of-the-Week" formula that was bogging them down like bad Scooby-Doo episodes (aka any ones with Scrappy Doo).
While some ABC shows won't see new episodes during the remainder of the 2007-2008 season, ABC gave some sense of security by announcing fall 2008 pick-ups for a bunch of their shows: "Brothers & Sisters," “Desperate Housewives," "Dirty Sexy Money," "Grey's Anatomy," "Lost," "Private Practice," "Pushing Daisies," "Samantha Who?" and "Ugly Betty."
"Heroes" won't see any new episodes, but may be getting a jump on the next season, perhaps airing in late summer. Producer Tim Kring is reportedly working on a "show bible" that will outline where the show is headed over the next few years.
Big question marks over the fate of "Scrubs", who were slated to wrap up the series this year. There were still seven episodes left to go, and producer/creator Bill Lawrence has said in an interview with Ausiello "that he can wrap up all the storylines in four episodes if he needs to". But NBC hasn't been very enthused about giving the show a proper farewell, as it is the bastard stepchild (ABC/Disney owns the show). Worst case scenario would see Lawrence getting the budget from ABC/Disney presumably to produce the final episodes for the final season DVD if NBC won't air them.

sources: What's Alan Watching? and Michael Ausiello at TV Guide

looking out the window, thinking of throttling that groundhog...

2008-02-12T10:32:00.000-05:00

Having a busy day at work, but tonight I promise updates on:

The TV Writer's Strike is being settled as we speak - I'll let you know which shows are coming back this season, which are on hold until September, and how my favourite new show has been picked up for next year and managed to avoid being stomped on by American Idol
It's Oscar season and I embark on my usual round of Oscar Nominee Marathon catch-up

* please note that "Throttling a Groundhog" is not a euphenism for any particular act that you are thinking of accusing me of. Now, if I said "Throttling a Haggis", you could draw your own conclusions.

The Cupcake Experiment

2008-02-03T11:25:00.000-05:00

I was the willing guinea pig in an experiment on cupcake shipping - my friend Nikita baked a batch of Pina Colada cupcakes and wanted to see if her shipping method would work. As you can see from the photos, her cupcakes arrived from Ottawa safe and sound and delicious.

The Package arrived safe and sound. Once the box was open I discover a secure interior with foam and newspapers. It's either cupcakes or a brick of ... wait, was "cupcakes" a code word? Let's just open the foil and find out.

They're alive - through the outer casing, it appears the cupcakes are unharmed. Nikita advised me she froze them prior to shipping. Piercing the outer shell... it's cupcake kevlar!

... the cupcakes are whole and un-smooshed.

I've just finished an 16 hour day at work - needless to say, I'm looking forward to this.

First bite, no ice or freezer burn - deeelicious! It's a basic vanilla cupcake and filled each one with a thick and gooey pineapple filling made from ripe pineapple, and topped off with coconut buttercream frosting.

And it's a thumbs up from the judges - the2scoops seal of approval! Thanks Nikita! Cupcakes were delicious and undamaged after one day in transit. Now the next experiment should be to see if you can do it just as safe, but cheaper shipping costs.

In the name of sweet delicious science

2008-01-29T22:09:00.000-05:00

The experiment has commenced and the package is on the way... I am the frosting craving guinea pig in a test of what's the best way to package cupcakes for shipping via snail mail. The mad cupcake scientist is Nikita over at Ranting & Raving. See her side of the cupcake equation and I'll let you know what condition her Pina Colada cupcakes arrive.

Welcome to the stage.... Pray for Mojo!

2008-01-28T11:03:00.000-05:00

So, what's the name of your next band?

(Real life band, Guitar Hero, Rock Band or otherwise)

[Notion grabbed from ALOTT5MA, who in turn stole it from John Scalzi. It's the blog circle of life.]

"Jack, I swear... "

2008-01-28T10:05:00.000-05:00

Class:

Daniel Day-Lewis, accepting his SAG Award as Best Actor for "There Will Be Blood" last night:

“It has always been the work of my fellow actors, including my fellow nominees, who have given me a sense of regeneration. Heath Ledger gave it to me. We wanted to follow him and yet we were afraid to follow him. In Brokeback Mountain, he was unique. He was perfect. The scene in the trailer at the end of the movie was as moving as anything we have ever seen. I ‘d like to dedicate this award to him.”

No Class:

The Heath Ledger speculator market is in full effect. Wizard Magazine sells their Heath Ledger Joker-covered magazine for $31 on eBay. (via Blog at Newsarama))