NXNE Night One - Coasting on a Quick March

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

(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

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

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

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.

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

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

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...

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

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

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