g'night sweetheart, it's time to go (ba-dum, ba-dum)

One last image of 2006. The year containing the biggest change of my life so far. Moving to Toronto was something I wouldn't have believed myself doing this time a year ago. the heaters in my 90-year old house have conked out. I'm wearing 2 pairs of socks, long underwear, three top layers, scarf and toque, under a blanket in front of the fireplace, where a firelog is burning blue.

This year has been a little crazy, but amazing and fun and sad and happy and thoughtful and daring at the same time. Allow me some sap for a sec. I spent 2006 relearning what it means to fall in love, to trust someone explicitly, and to take great leaps into the dark with that someone. Her name is Leah, and she rocks my world. Check her blog and show her some love.

It was her birthday a couple of days ago, and we drove to Montreal for it, which was nice... (and drunken and mischevious and still somewhat just a little bit disappointing, somehow.) but brief.


Whatever trouble you get up to tonight, let it be safe, controlled, yet complete recklessness.

MUCH Love.

holla/daze

I have been away from Alberta for 75 days, today.



What feels like no time at all has in fact been almost 11 weeks - starting at a point where I wouldn't have thought that the holidays were just around the corner. This has always been a bit of an odd time of year for me; being Jewish always kind of complicates things, having to explain over and over that I don't celebrate Christmas, but rather Hannukah, and furthermore, I prefer to celebrate THE HOLIDAYS, which is what this is, no?

This need to explain has led to a series of funny conversations, one of which went like this:

Context: Leah's staff xmas party. Not many people knew that she's Jewish too.


Wife of Leah's co-worker: "So, I heard you say that you don't celebrate Christmas...what's your ethnic background?"

Me: "Um, Polish? Scottish?"

Leah, better understanding what she means: "Oh, we're Jewish."

Wife: "OH, YOU'RE JEWISH?! WOW! Oh, WOW! How..how...INTERESTING. So, you believe in Jesus though still, right?"

Leah: "Um, not in the Christian sense, no."

Me: "Most Jews think he DID exist, we just don't believe he was the son of God."

Wife: "Oh...so if you don't believe in Jesus, who's your God?"

Me & Leah: "Uhm...God?"

----
Tonight I leave this bustling megalopolis for a slice of cozy rural life in Canmore (pictured above), where my parents have a house. I'm soooo excited. Mostly to spend some quality fam time, but also to breathe Alberta air again, to feel the crunch of snow under my feet. To see friends, who are driving all the way down for a visit. To drink and be merry. For years I resented all the cheer and hyperconsumerist mish-mash that seemed inseperable from this 'season', but I realize now in my old(er) age (cough*cough) that I was mostly just bitter about not feeling INCLUDED in the focus of it all...but now I just think, "meh, who cares?" - it's everyone's season.

I'm happier just thinking that everyone else around me is enjoying their own lives and families and presents and meals. (Which, by my own admission is totally fucking Bourgeoisie of me to celebrate. Ick.)

The point I'm not quite making is that...if you have reason to celebrate, perhaps consider those that don't, or can't by reasons out of their control.
Think about it, Edmonton.
Don't forget the Children.
Hey, Canada. Clicky clicky.

Do the right thing.

If you want something more personal...a hero of mine, J. Robbins of the bands Jawbox, Channels and Burning Airlines is having problems of his own, and could use your help. This is where my holiday donation bucks are going. To this lil'guy:

Dag. So cute.

No matter who you are and where you live - take care of you and yours this holiday season, and throughout the year to come. I likely won't blog again until 2007, so have a SAFE and HAPPY next couple o'weeks. I'll be back after travels east and west, to moutains and Montreal and back to see Diplo on NYE. Stoked? Yes, I sure am, thanks for asking.

Peace, friends.

the lion for real

In the UK they call it "Mobile Clubbing".

In fact, here's Liverpool Station in London, being...well, clubbbed upon:




The idea is that a group of people pick a location, and a time - they spread that word. Just BEFORE that time, a few hundred (or, in the case above, 2000) people show up, all with MP3/CD players of their choice, and at the same time, everyone presses 'play'.

Some shade of mayhem tends to ensue. In the case of Toronto, at 9:09 PM exactly, last Friday, it was about 200 enthusiastic dancers who crowded one end of Union Station and shimmied and shook to their own rhythms. It looked like this:



I really enjoyed being involved involved in some random bit of spatial/visual anarchy - the looks on people's faces who just stumbled across our little impromptu dance party were so...bemused. I loved it. The previous weekend Leah and I had participated in another bit of harmless troublemaking, but she tells it best, so I'll leave that to her. Both events were hosted by Newmindspace, who describe their activities quite simply: Newmindspace is interactive public art, creative cultural interventions and urban bliss dissemination based in New York and Toronto.Peep it.

I think I've talked about my on-again-off-again love affair with cities; that in a big enough population, there is an appeal in anonymity, in disappearing among the masses. On the other hand, standing WAY out of line and embracing your free self is an accepting of your environment (and the judgements within) as superfluous at best. Like dancing in public, or listening to music WAY too loud on your headphones on the streetcar at rush hour.

It makes clear(er) what Fluxus was trying to discuss. Or the the Situationists. That cities, in their rigidity and planning, are inherently organic in their growth and 'nature'. That it's up to the people to create the (lower-case c) city within the (capital-C) City. Y'know, the whole 'breathing life into it' thing.

And so we dance, and throw lights at streetcars, and have parties on the subway.

The City made us do it.

Ginsberg knew what was up.




I'm loving my Toronto life. It hasn't been colder than -10 so far this year, and that was for a day. It was 10 degrees today, even warmer on the weekend. This is December. I don't know whether or not to be thrilled or scared. I think Al Gore might be right.

So, until the near-apocalypse comes closer, I'm making the best of my time. I'm running, believe it or not. Not jogging - that's for losers. Running. Feeling sore legs get sorer. Sweating and breathing in perfect syncopation with the sound of your falling feet. The challenge. I'm eating it up, and I can't explain why, suddenly, now it matters. Maybe I shouldn't seek to.

It's Hanukkah right now, but that OTHER gift-giving thingy is next week. I hope you all get fat on holiday love.

Lechaim.

bring yr harmonica, call yr friend monica...

...'cuz mothafuckas, it's Hannukah.





Happy Holidays, Goys and not.

The top 30, part two.

Before I dig into the second half of my list - allow me to respond to some...responses to my first. Why didn't Clipse make it? Because I haven't heard the record, nor have I tried to. What I did hear was derivative and boring, so I didn't make the effort. C'est la vie. I do acknowledge that there is a serious lack of hip-hop on my list, but I also don't feel like there were many UBER-quality releases this year - Dabrye's follow-up Two-Three was too MC-heavy, DJ Shadow's The Outsider tried too hard to be too many things all at once. Quantic is on there. Hu Vibrational is a hip-hop project...kinda. Deal with it. This all said, here's the rest of the best - the pop/rock/punk/metal/dub/what-have-you section...enjoy.

15. Professor Murder - Professor Murder Rides The Subway - Canine Records
My friend Greg likes to say, "there is much to said for brevity", which IS funny - but here on this record, it's real. Yes, it's an EP, but I think I also mean brevity of ideas, brevity of...daringness. This is dancey dub-rock, leaning heavily on the NY post-punk klingklang (not unlike The Jai-Alai Savant or even early Police) with a hip hop attitude that's unbeatable. "The Mountain" might be my favorite track on the disc...it's got that soaring reggae melodica over their cowbell-driven hot hot pop shuffle. Sure, the effort might be, well, brief, but it's taste of more awesome to come.



14. Chad VanGaalen - Skelliconnection - Flemish Eye/Sub Pop
Oh Chad, yr so fucking weird sometimes. You lure us in with your charming falsettos and spaced out, glitch heavy oddities...then slap us around with three-chord powerpop ear-fucks about riding bikes into the lake and telling on-stage (and off-color) jokes about the legendary 'hobo dildo' (frozen poop in a condom. gross, dude). I wonder if people watching Andy Kaufman for the first time thought what people do when they watch Chad play- like they're witnessing a slice of uncomfortable, ill-fitting genius. I wonder.




13. Fucked Up - Hidden World - Jade Tree
Punk's not dead, it just moved to Toronto. And not just the sound, but it brought its old forgotten friends, LYRICS THAT MATTER and COOL NAMES FOR YOURSELVES; Vocals by Pink Eyes. Guitars by 10,000 Marbles and Concentration Camp. Bass by Mustard Gas. Drums by Mr. Jo. How fucking cool is that? This is the best punk album of the last 5 years, hands down. The comparisons to Black Flag come just a little too easily, so I'd prefer to think of it in terms of what they are NOT: cheesy, fake, stupid, untalented, shouty. This band will matter MUCH more than they already do. Pay attention.



12. Califone - Roots & Crowns - Thrill Jockey
I had nearly forgotten about Califone. They were one of those bands that fights for your attention as a campus radio DJ (as I was for almost 10 years), consistently putting out solid releases, but this one perhaps takes the cake. Moody, densely produced but not hiding anything persay, Roots & Crowns is really a showcase for the SONG part of music - y'know, the kind with intros, outros, choruses and proper bridges. Makeout music, perhaps. Considering that this is only their second non-instrumental record, the vocals come through in hushed, yet confident tones - warm, trustable, kind. It's a winner, all around.



11. Brightblack Morning Light - Brightblack Morning Light - Matador
This album is like the all-time best-of soundtrack to every massive bong hit, ever. Slow, tripped-out echo bass, spooky whispered vocals and long, winding progressive guitar harmonies breathe life (and little spots of death) all over this brilliant, colorful record. Nathan Shineywater and Rachael Hughes live in tents in Northern California, which seems overly appropriate for music that sounds like it was made by the kind of people who chain themselves to trees. And take acid. And *feel* the colors, maaaaan.





10. Our Mercury - From Below - Smallman Records
I was lucky enough to get demos of this record before it was mastered, and I knew then that the O.M. boys had unlocked a crate of gold. Never before has punk rock sounded so HONEST, so SOULFUL, so eager to sex you up...it's drenched in organs, and bleeding the catchiest riffs this side of U2's Boy; the relentlessly precise drumming and the bass...ooh, that bass. It sinks into your skin and shakes you right to your toes. Twitch twitch boogie boogie.





9. Erase Errata - Night Life - Kill Rock Stars
Speaking of twitch n' boogie, Erase Errata dropped THE best dancerock album of the year. It's for the kind of dancing best done drunk. The bass is thicker, the voice more confident; Jenny shouts, plays trumpet, shouts some more - "they've got a law in the desert/they've got a law t'protek yo'children! I love it. I wish The Rapture put out a just-as-good third record...but they didn't. San Fran rules, New York.

Eat it.




8. Destroyer - Rubies - Merge
7. M. Ward - Post-War - Merge
These records are un-fucking-real. I chose to group them because they are both the evidence of two great songwriters at a peak of their own creative genius. Dan Bejar's longtime solo project just gets better and better, sacrificing nothing for accessibility, which is what makes this so appealing - it speaks to your senses about what YOU like to hear...Ted Bois shines on the keys all over the disc, giving a jazzy backing shuffle to Bejar's awkwardly-toned phrasing. Whatever fans he lost in releasing the bizarre, synth-heavy Your Blues, he's won back with Rubies' priceless pop gems, huge orchestrations and cynical-slash- romantic lyricism: "I couldn't stand a chance/ I couldn't stand at all/ You looked OK with the other"

Releasing the best album of his still-short and promising career, M(att) Ward has assembled one of the finest bands in the country, who play so loosely and naturally they sound...gifted. Fronting it with a throaty falsetto, he spins questions and answers about the countryside, the government, family and what it means to be American in this millennium. He is already an important artist, but I have a feeling M. Ward is en route to 'legend songwriter' status'. It's almost now a certainty, since Bruce Springsteen and R.E.M. have both requested his support on recent tours. I got a chance to see him play a mesmerizing solo set in Calgary over the summer, and if his talents aren't enough, it turns out that he's a really really nice dude. Vote Bejar/Ward in '08!

6. Mates of State - Bring it Back - Barsuk
1 cup keyboards.
3 heaping tablespoons drums.
1/2 cup harmonies to make your heart melt.
Bake at 325 for 10 minutes.
I've spent too long in other blogs yakking about how Mates of State have written what is perhaps the recipe for a perfect pop record. Production-wise, this release is miles ahead of where they were in the chaotic, treble-heavy Team Boo days; fuller sounds, choice uses of stereo and gorgeous Queen-style harmony layers of voice on voice all contribute to the overall...flavor of the disc. And it doesn't need salt.

5. Converge - No Heroes - Epitaph
A stark contrast from most other releases on this list, Converge's SIXTH full-length shows them at the very top of their metal game. I really do contend that Ben Koller is one of the best drummers in modern music - the guy is just so...sharp. What could have been a more 'natural' progression into more hard, fast chug-heavy hardcore, the band has a wee flash of revisionism, and starts to sound a bit like...themselves, 10 years ago. Still malevolent and brutal as always, Jacob Bannon howls pure poetry on the stunning opener "Heartache": "Every word that you pray makes another slave/ every idol that you build brings another plague/ every cross that you bear grows another grave" Whoah. Chilling.

4. Yo La Tengo - I am not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass - Matador
How fitting that Yo La Tengo's violently-titled music sounds nothing like Converge. Ira Kaplan & Crew join the many on this list who have made the best albums of their careers (so far) with a disc that hits it's stride on "Mr Tough" and keeps rolling. From the first, 11-minute opus to the last string strummed, Yo La Tengo charms us nearly to death on this near-perfect album. After 26 years as band seeking the inner paradigms of pop music (and The Velvet Underground, for that matter), at the end of the day they make music that will make you seek out something warm to drink and someone cuddle with.



3. TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain - 4AD
I can't say anything here that hasn't been said on a billion other blogs. Indie rock has rediscovered its' soul, praise jebus.










2. Pink Mountaintops - Axis of Evol - Jagjaguar
Also chock full o'soul was this sophmore release from Vancouver's gospel-choir-on-acid, led by the devastatingly talented Stephen McBean. Spooky diatribes about sex, drugs and uh, sex are strung together through a mish-mash of whisky-soaked Americana, Miami booty bass and psychedelic rock. A short album overall, it packs a punch while getting you all hot n'bothered. Nothing wrong with that, now is there?





1. The Golden Dogs - Big Eye Little Eye - True North
I had never heard of this band two months ago, and somehow they've captured my mind and my heart and my feet and my ears, holding them all hostage to their completely addictive and ridiculously catchy pop n' rock n ' roll. Check "Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five", perhaps the standout track on the disc, with it's spiraling psychedelia and gorgeous harmonies, shouting with earnestness that almost makes your heart sing. There is a true craft to constructing the perfect pop song, and The Golden Dogs have an album brimming with effort towards that very end. On one hand, their exuberance reminds me of early Supergrass, but with an honesty that's 100% Canadian. Lets all raise our glass to unexpected brillance.

Honorable mentions:
-Sonic Youth: Rather Ripped
-Belle & Sebastien: The Life Pursuit
-Islands: Return to the Sea
-Justin Rutledge: The Devil on a Bench in Stanley Park
-Andre Ethier: Pickles & Price
-From Fiction: Bloodwork


And that's that. What I've heard from the first sneak peeks of 2007 are stunners in their own right. Run, don't walk to buy the new Of Montreal, LCD Soundsystem & Bloc Party (when they come out). All are sure to make you love your fuckin' life.

The top 30, part one.

I tried, I really did, to cram this into a top 10. It just didn't happen. As I did last year, I've broken this into electronic and pop/rock/heavy/whatever. I'll work on the latter soon. This took me a week to assemble and write, so you better enjoy it, dammit.


15. Ratatat - Classics - XL
"Montanita" sweeps into your ears like a twang-heavy Hawaiian cowboy troupe, organs and accordians at a slow n' steady boil. It's a kind and romantic sound, setting the stage for steady funk-hop, guitars squealing in harmony, in reverse. The addictive pop shuffle of "Wildcat" is what sealed this one for me. Another genius album from well, geniuses. Who knew?




14. Girl Talk - Night Ripper - Illegal Art
When I was in New York for CMJ, I had coffee with the publicist for Girl Talk AKA Gregg Gillis, and he told me just how he does it. Dude wrote a PROGRAM that, for every song picked, produces 3 or 4 tracks that his computer 'knows' will jam the fuck out. That blows my mind. Sure, it's like DJing-by-numbers, but who plays the Pixies AND Clipse? Gillis and ONLY Gillis. This record made me smile the most in 2006, easy.




13. Quantic - An Announcement to an Answer - Tru Thoughts/Ubiquity
Chinese strings. Dirty trumpets. Crooners. Divas. Perhaps the most soul a white guy has ever poured onto wax, save perhaps Jamie Lidell. I love how there's no masking Will Holland's influences in a year where people seemed desperate to obscure them. He loves, in this order: the world...women...late-90s hip-hop-heavy jazz breaks. Funk strings bleed all over the dancefloor in "Meet me at the Pomegranete Tree"; it's like a broken beat wet dream. This could be the best record Herbaliser and Up, Bustle & Out never got to make...or had the balls to.




12. Herbert - Scale - !K7
Pardon my french, but this is music for fucking. Seriously, there isn't a sexier album this entire year. Dani Siciliano is back on the vocals, hotting you out with every word that leaves her lips...in fact, I've heard this record called a "true weapon of mass seduction". On the subject of weaponry, Herbert's own politics are front and centre: "I just don't know how to bring about/your downfall, damn fool go figure out/how those christian bones can orchestrate/shock and awe", Sicilliano coos. This is the thinking person's audiophilia, get it while it's hot.




11. Copy - Mobius Beard - Audio Dregs
Among the most abused terms of 2006: Emo. I won't get into my age-old defense of the word, of the genre that started when Panic!At The BlahBlah was still in diapers...but I'll say that the word has loaned itself well to an emerging, lets say, sensitivity, in music this year, especially in electronic music. Copy seems to embody that very sensitivity - this is thoughtful, dense, driving tech-house with a songwriters' touch - bridges, choruses, hooks (OMG A HOOK IN A TECHNO SONG WHATWHAT). This disc hooked me from the first listen, and kept me rockin' all summer and fall. A must-have of 2006.



10. MSTRKRFT - The Looks - Last Gang
So it's NOT all hype after all. On one hand, I could gush about the sheer quality of the production on this, the gorgeous Seripop album art, but what this comes down to is dancing. Clap, sing, shout, boogie, shuffle bob, weave - do whatcha gotta, but you cannot sit still listening to this record. On the other hand, I've seen them live now...4 times in '06, and its, well, boring. C'est la vie.




9. Hu Vibrational - Boonghee Music 2: Universal Mother - Soul Jazz
If there are two things I'm a sucker for, it's album art and Soul Jazz Records. This one caught my eye when I was in NYC, but I didn't pick it up until I was back in Toronto. What a fascinating album. It has one leg firmly planted in the NYC hippy jam world, the other deep in the Konono N°1 camp, playing really rudimentary instruments, live off the floor, while digging deep into the 'vibes of the tribe' (a'la Phil Ranelin) sound of steady rumbles and shoulder-bouncing tranced-out rhythms heard noplace else than in African music.




8. Burnt Friedman & Jaki Liebezeit - Secret Rhythms vol.2 - Nonplace
I was first attracted to the idea of this pairing. I've been a fan of B.Friedman's epic pop soundscapes for a while now, and was curious to see what he and Liebezeit (formerly the drummer for uber-influentialCan) would come up with...in essence, this is a fantastic jazz record, steeped in dub, broken beat and glitch-hop, pushing basslines deeper and IQs higher. I honestly feel smarter after listening to this record, like I've been taught a lesson about life or something.




7. Motor - Klunk - Mute
2006 seemed to be the year of relentless techno. Digitalism tore new assholes. MSTRKRFT cut you wide open on the dancefloor. Motor is like a slow torture (the best kind, right?) of HARD,808 bass in your face, acid-soaked woomph-woomph fatness. Get it? Good. Naming your tracks things like "Botox", "Yak" and "MDXT-A" would normally evoke a clean, clinical feel...which is so far from reality. This is dirty, mean, angry, in-your-face dance music, not for the faint of heart, but SO SO SO good.




6. The Knife - Silent Shout - Mute/Rabid
This one takes the cake for most INTERESTING album of the year. Olof Dreijer and Karin Dreijer Andersson have been blowing minds for several years now, but it took until this past year for them to release anything in the states, let alone tour. I got to see them in NYC, and was mesmerized by their stage/light show, their deep deep bass, their take on vocal electro and whether or not it's HER REAL VOICE. Apparently, it is. The single "We Share our Mother's Health" has been remixed to death this fall, but the original stands strong as their ticket into the hearts, minds and dancefloors of North America. The Knife, we welcome you with open arms.




5. Shout Out Out Out Out -Not Saying/Just Saying - NRMLS WLCM
Call me bias, whatever. This record destroys. Falling under the 'relentless' category is S04, but it's waaaay more...funky. My personal favorite on the record is "Do I Stutter?", a choppy, thoughtful number most DEFINITELY written in tribute to Delia & Gavin; though the only non-danceable track on the record, it's a perfect sealant to a disc full of clicks, pops, beeps, bass shreds, sick keyboard lines, mr.roboto vocoder attack, and of course, sad & mad lyrics about gentrification, debt and missing your loved one. THAT is what dance music should be about: honesty. SO4 pull it off in spades.




4. Tiga - Sexor - Last Gang
Chalk another one up on the 'sensitive' chart. Tiga has assembled a masterpiece of an album with Sexor, his first full-length record. "Far From Home" might be my favorite single of 2006, if not for its oh-so-catchy chorus, "as far as I go/as far as I know/I've always got/a place called home". Sigh. What a romantic, in the literary sense of the word. The well-placed cover of "Burnin' Down the House" is also a choice cut...his vocals seem so natural and effortless, like he's just chillin on his couch as he makes you dance, step, hop & leap. What I think I love most about this record, and Booka Shade's (below) is the tendency of new dancefloor techno to have a really...trancey element to it, minus all the cheese and horns and lame builds/drops. It's the chugging momentum that feels just right when it's 2 AM, way too much vodka and Red Bull are coursing through your system, and your feet ache...but you gotta keep dancing.




3. Booka Shade - Movements - Get Physical
The trancey element of which I speak is on full display on this BRILLIANT album from Frankfurt's Booka Shade. Don't misread me, this is not a trance record, but it IS an exploration of the same repetitive tendencies, re-shaped around nearly every genre in the book, from funky breaks to hard techno. Walter Merziger and Arno Kammermeier have truly embraced what it means to be 'progressive' without any of the pitfalls of being labelled a 'progressive' act. It means, evolving & growing & changing & moving FORWARD. 'Future thinking' is what I like to call it. Booka is doing plenty of just that. "Body Language" might be the best track on the disc, with it's half-step break just one beat behind it's housier side. It's...lovely, is what it is.




2. Spank Rock - YoYoYoYo - Big Dada
Dirty. Sexy. Hard. Funky. Booty-shaking. Funny? Yes, funny. Those are all perfect words to describe this stunning debut from B-More's finest. Not only does it contain one of the best lyrics of the year ("behind my gameboy/I got game, girl"), but the beats are so ridiculously tight that I almost FEAR watching XXXChange and MC Spank Rock evolve as musicians, for fear that they'll blow everyone else out of the water, raising the bar while at the same time heightening the standard so that all the crap rises to the middle (post-OK Computer brit rock, anyone?). Whatever, I got my dancin' tunes for now.




1. Hot Chip - The Warning - DFA/Astralwerks
There was simply no better record released this year than Hot Chip's The Warning; an almost flawless album from start to finish, they have captured what it means to make ORIGINAL music, by definition. Having had the luck to see them twice this year, in both a supporting (w/ Stereolab) and headlining (w/ GangGang Dance) capacity, it was amazing to see how much they've matured as performers, taking risks and challenging themselves to BE BETTER than they already are. Sing it with me now, "Hot Chip will break your legs/snap off your head/Hot Chip will put you down/into the ground". Brilliant. This is the pinnacle of the sensitive stuff I was on about earlier - thoughtful, intelligent music made by and for booties and brains alike. I can't wait to hear what they'll come up with next.


Compilations/DJ mixes, in no order:

-DFA Remixes Volume 2
-Four Tet: DJ kicks
-Cut Copy: FabricLive28
-Dubstep Allstars Volume 4 (DJs Youngsta & Hatcha)



And that's it. For now. The rest is yet to come.

mondays are for RIDDIM

chop-chop.

The lists are being born. Have patience, grasshoppers.

whenceforth the sky, distaster

Holy fuck does the weather suck today.

I have lots on my mind, lots to talk about.

Where did I leave you? Oh, a week ago.

Friday we saw Bassnectar. It was good in that womp-womp-womp- wooooooob-wooooooob kinda way. Similar to the dubstep party on Saturday. That was also kinda wohwohwohWMMMMMPH-dingding-wooobwoob wompwomp kinda way. I hope you understand. It was interesting being at an event, featuring a 'new' music that nobody really knows *how* to dance to. Mary Anne Hobbs, the infamous BBC Radio 1 host of The Breezeblock has referred to 2006 as 'the flashpoint' for dubstep; what does that mean for 2007? Blackdown has a clue. Do some reading, it's good for you.

All this thinking about 'new music' has forced some ideas to flood into my head this week...not 'new' ideas about projects or music, but just thoughts. I miss being in school, and feeling my brain being prodded daily to identify with my surroundings, politics and community on a totally different level. I'm glad that suddenly I'm feeling like that again. Let me explain.

I like to read a blog, linked on the right, called Zoilus, written by Globe & Mail contributor Carl Wilson. He was recently mourning the recent death of Ellen Willis, American culture critic, feminist, self-conscious leftist and writer.

Wilson's passion for her work inspired a search for her book "Beginning to See the Light: Sex, Hope, and Rock-and-Roll"(Amazon link). What a profound piece of work, which I'm kind of ashamed has slipped by me, despite 5 years of schooling in and around her subjects. I'm just starting the book, so I haven't fully flushed out my responses to her critiques, but I feel like it could be one of those books that changes your life. How I see the world, my place in it, my political direction...I feel like I'm shifting, somewhat. Anyways, if anyone feels like bantering about her/this, read up, friends.

I also just learned that Murray Bookchin died this past summer.

Bummer. Back in my...headier days, when I was identifying as anarchist (or more specifically, anarcho-syndicalist), I really enjoyed his early work. He later committed more to the idea of "communalism", but he was an environmental visionary, and it's a loss to the academic community nonetheless.

***


I'm still working on my top-20 list. I'll likely post it next week. And a list of the 10 things I've observed about Toronto/nians since I moved here 6 weeks ago.

6 weeks. How time flies.

Dress warm, take care, have a fun weekend.

Oh, sorry. What's that? You're needing some jams to get your weekend started?

Ok fine. Try this one one for size. The almighty Justice, live at "And Did We Mention Our Disco?". Many many many more killer sets can be found...here.