Scenes from (former) home.

This is the view today from my friend Alona's apartment in Edmonton:



Here, in Toronto, it's 10 above, going to 15 degrees tomorrow.

I'll feel like an elephant in the womb.


less sticky though. the above image is from here. Neat, huh?


It's Friday again, but I don't have much to say. Maybe I'll let some music speak for me.


I've been thinking lots about my forthcoming top-10 (more like 17-20) of 2006. Some assured spots in the ranks will be held by Hot Chip, The Knife, Yo La Tengo and Converge...but there will be wee gems too.

One of which is The Golden Dogs.


I simply CANNOT get enough of their album "Big Eye Little Eye".(Click to buy!)

Have a wee listen to their gigantic slice of amazing, "1985". Thanks to I (heart) Music for the file host.

I'm also having trouble concealing my raging hard-on for the mighty mighty Hu Vibrational.

Buy/Listen at Souljazz.co.uk, yo!

They play what they call Boonghee Music, and they describe it like this:

Boonghee music is dance. The feeling of the dance
is how the butterfly desires the flower. A thousand crickets give the rhythm.
Birds and wind offer melodies of call and response. The dance is your
imagination. Your movements are freedom.

Check out this video of the band in studio.

That shit gives me chills. So amazing.

Y'know, I could always use some last-minute additions to the list. Has anyone heard anything so mind-blowingly awesome that it's skyrocketed to the top of their list this year? HUH? HUH?

Holla friends. Have a great weekend.

oh, PS: Since moving here, I've developed a new addiction: Aloe Juice.

I know, it sounds gross, but it's fucking amazing. Edmonton - I bet you could find this at T&T or Lucky 97. Seek. Consume. Enjoy.

Don't be shy.

This is gonna be another one of them RANDOM-type blogs. I'm not feeling too...wordy today.

Spektrum RULES.



That video might be the sexiest thing I've seen in months.

Well, Shortbus came close. Hot. Movie. Whoah.


Alas, this is totally not sexy:


That's right. You're looking at a "Scare-d-Cat", courtesy of the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists. Well, to be specific, the cat is made by this fine lady. The things people do with their time, huh?

I mean, you could just write poetry about a fictional redneck trapped on an island. I'm seriously obsessing over LOST lately. I don't know what it is about the show that keeps me so hooked. The degree of that hooked-ness is irrelevant now; the show is on hiatus until February.

What else am I doing with MY time? Well, this Saturday I hope to do some mad dubsteppin' at the Subtrac party. I've been L.O.V.I.N.G. dubstep this year, and so I'm particularly stoked to go hear it like it's meant to be heard. Loud & heavy, stomach-churning basslines that make you wiggle from the inside out. The motto of Subtrac is, "...devoted to paying homage to a frequency register of 100hz and below.
Dead set on transforming the GTA and southern Ontario area into a North American hotbed for Dubstep music."

Yeah, I'm down.

lern 2 reed.

There's reading to be done, and YOU are just the person to do it.

Archie Archibald's top 5 most painful things ever. Gold.

Michelle the awesome says "fuck Blogger." Wordpress looks pretty nice, I must say.

Derelict is mad about shit, too.

I have two Connors in my life.
One takes pictures.
One listens to music.

Leah really likes this blog.

W.
T.
F.
Palmsout is opening a fuckin' STORE? Rad.

Y'know who's got the best podcast/radio show, perhaps ever? Guess. Sheri spent a long time in NYC bragging about how amazing it was, and how everyone is an instant fan. A brief spat of ego sent me seeking out the Halloween edition where JR & I got interviewed on the patio of Cafe Mogador, and I've been listening to her show all day. It's so fucking good.

I kinda forgot how Sheri escaped to NYC on a bus with nothing but a bag of clothes and $5 and survived in NYC for almost 3 years. She had good stories. Peep her shit if you know what's good.

Y'know what's also good?
The weekend.
Have a good one, friends.

Store Day!

Despite being tied to a desk for the last 5 or so years, I've held a soft spot in my heart for...brace yourselves...

RETAIL.

It's true. Over the years of my personal work history, I've made lattes and sandwiches, sold t-shirts & ugly accessories, worked as a 'travel expert' in a store selling backpacks and travel guides...and now, inexplicably, I find myself working in another store.

I shouldn't say inexplicable. It's rather easy. Six Shooter has a store. It looks like this:



It's a cozy little place where we sell CDs, vinyl, gifty things like jewelry and Six Shooter whisky flasks, purses and...BOOKS. Music books. Lots of them. I love poking through the biographies of people like Woody Guthrie and Nick Cave, or trying to stuff my feet into these custom-painted cowboy boots we sell here. I don't quite know what it is about helping customers that I find the appeal in this type of work. Maybe it's just that it's a nice break, once a week, to ditch my desk (even though I'm still technically at one, in the store, writing this) and listen to music and feel the sunlight as it pours in through the bay window.

We even have a gallery here. Right now there's a show up by Beverly Hawksley.Yep, the very same Hawksley. Well, it's Momma Hawksley. Look! Look!




Nice, no? The gallery is gonna be radtastic in the coming months. In December we're hosting a show called "Wax & Wood", a collection of art ON vinyl, guitars, egg shakers, whatever makes music of one kind or another. In February I get to curate a photo show! WHOAH! STOKED!

I guess yr looking for some kind of update on my life, perhaps? Well, I've been a little under the weather, to be honest. Comme ca:


But I did shake it off long enough to go to see Jamie Lidell last night. SNAX opened...he's AKA Captain Comatose (Kitsune Records, anyone?)...he was interesting. It was like watching karaoke, but live. Well, the kind of karaoke sang by a dude looking like this:


Except the 'fro was way way way bigger.

I sometimes wish I could have megacurly hair like my Dad, or like Leah.

Hers is really nice. She's really nice. I've really been enjoying living with a girlfriend for the first time ever. Sure, like anything it has it's ups and downs, but the ups have been pouring in lately. We're discovering a warm, healthy middle-ground of patience, love, good food, hang outs, coffee and Scrabble. I don't know if YOU know, but we actually met playing Scrabble back at the ye olde Sugarbowl in Edmonton. That first game we played, when I totally whooped her ass, set a funny precedent for a fierce level of competition between us now, whenever we play...so the other night when we cracked the box for the first time in over a month, both of us were feeling a little wary of the others' skills.

I lost. I'm ok with that. Toronto is making me feel at home, and I'm ok with that too. I think it's been the steady stream of good friends making their way towards our new home, seeing what we've made of ourselves. I think they like it. My comrade from E-town, Kent was recently in town. So was Leah's ever-totally-awesome-and-extremely-fashionable-friend Kim...we had a fun weekend of drinking, dancing, drinking, shopping and er...drinking.

Maybe I'm seeing a connection suddenly. I'm ill. I spent the last 5 nights out, rocking out.

hrmmmmmmmmmmm.

Sherlock (Glen)Holmes POSSE REPRAZENT!

phloggin' the grande pomme

So exhausted, trying to look Laguardia-level-excited.


Helen assumed the position called "The Blackberry", and didn't break the pose for 5 days. I was impressed.


Skylines. Skyscrapes.



Andre the Giant has a bicycle posse.


I once spent Halloween in Prague. That was nothing. NYC was fucking insane. I saw a parade of Borats. Then the Ghostbusters came running through the streets with a steaming box of ectoplasm.


Then a zombie had to make a call.


Then I was attacked by a gay, 6 foot spider wearing ass floss (not pictured).


Times Square, duurrrrrhhhh.


Just incase there was any concern,

Harry Houdini has a posse.


It's illegal to dance in NYC. We broke the law.


Check the gigantic styro gun hanging from the sign.


Shout out out out out played a neat bar called The Annex. Matt fuckin' Webb showed up!


Free beer. Free Vodka. Street with S&M Shops. Add one found aligator head. Stir in a grumpy jack wolfskin:


Hungover. Stuck in traffic. I'd better don a sequined frankenstein mask before I catch a cold.


Fuck traffic. Take the subway.


Even if it's crowded.


And gives John a gasface.


There's always a Sheri Barclay on the other side (COMPLETELY RANDOM MEETING, BTW)


OK fine - Since Sheri interviewed us for her radio show, she gets another pic:


I took a day to myself to see some sights. Sights were saw.



This is the DeutcheBank, across from the WTC. They're DE-Constructing it, floor by floor. it's taken 5 years to take off 10 floors. 40 to go.


Oh yeah, this crazy bitch. She's way smaller than I imagined.


Then I met up with the Shouties again. They tore the Fader party a new asshole. Check it.



They played with a fuckin' AMAZING band from Ohio called This Moment In Black History. They were...sick. Seek, destroy, consume.



What else can I tell you? Shout out played on the smallest stage known to man. They barely fit, but Jacie still had room to pump a fist or several.


Did I mention that we stayed in the asshole of the world AKA North Bergen, New Jersey? Look at the pristine view from my room.


Oh yeah, we also ran into Bryan Kulba's older twin. He turned out to be Michael Hollett, publisher of NOW Magazine, and founder of NXNE. Whoah.


For reals, look at Michael, then look at Bryan:



Then we kidnapped Rollie and tried to find the Justice party. Turns out that John is bad at navigating, awesome at uplighting with a maglight.


Spooky, nes pas?

and that was my trip.

x's and o's from Toronto, friends.

violent playground - NYC pt. 2/3

Ok I'm back...but I started a blog, which I'm gonna finish sooner or later, with pics. Here's where I left off last Friay:


NYC day 3. Whoah.

The recap: I'm in New York for CMJ with Shout Out Out Out Out, who are playing a bunch o'showcases and parties. It's been hellamadfun. We walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and then walked some more. The day was long, but fun. We went to see Holy Fuck with Beans, and then capped the night off at Webster Hall where The Knife were making their 2-show North American debut. It was, in short, fucking stunning. I'll be posting pics when I get back to T.dizzo. Try this one on for now:


I'm learning, as Johnny has pointed out, that CMJ is basically a networking orgy. Today was just that. Lunch with a publicist. Beers with our US distributor. Hobnobbin' and the like.

But it's adding up to radness. People are eating it up. The band is, in short, the talk of the fest. Which is rad. Again, it feels amazing and indescribable to be part of a growing project that is not only earning accolades, but has such potential for MORE MORE MORE. JR and I were talking about being the 'support staff'; I like that. A lot.

Who else did I get to see?

Oh yeah, HOT CHIP. Wanna know more? Hit it. It was a deadly show...I was pretty impressed by Gang Gang Dance - they sounded like an East Indian Tortoise or something of the like. I was also blown away by the mid-song cover of New Order's "Temptation" that the HC dropped halfway through "No Fit State"...I almost shed a tear. Just one, though.

We went from there to this REALLY NICE CLUB called The Hiro Ballroom. Check this shit out:


There's where we saw MSTRKRFT (yawn), DIGITALISM (audio orgasm), Mr. Juan Maclean (dancedancedance!) and Lazaro Casanova. Save for MSTRKFTDNNR (or MSTRKRFTTHTR as Snarfy and I started to call them), the show was off the chain. I really like their record, but live, it's just too hard, too much the same, too...boring.

After getting back to the hotel at 6 in the fuckin' morning ($75 cab ride later, ouch), we hit the sack.

---
and then it was Friday. Back to where this blog began. The weekend was a blast too, but I don't wanna get into that yet. I want to post pics from the whole week, so take whatcha got here and HOLLA, DAMMIT.

xo, friends. x frickin o.

NYC Day 1.5

My good friend Greg really has a thing against 'car culture'. New York/Jersey would drive him fucking crazy.

The honking never stops. Ever. 24 hours a day. Everywhere. Cars, everywhere. Sidewalks, limited. I haven't been to a major US city since I went to LA in 2003, so excuse the wee bit of culture shock. New York is pretty damn rad, I must say - people are interesting, buildings are massive, the advertising is overwhelming, and I'm feeling like this place is exactly what I expected it to be - no big surprises yet.

Perhaps they are yet to come. I was hoping to get into the city early this morning to do some exploring, but group inertia has me grounded in the hotel in North Bergen, NJ waiting for los S04 to get off zee hineys and get a move on. I'm loving being here, feeling like I'm on tour again, even if it's in the same city. I like tour vans. I like loading gear. I like feeling like a part of something...happening.

I don't have much time, so I'm hoping to hear from some of you about your favorite places in en y cee - holla, yes?

More to come tomorrow.