There's a time and a place, and this may or may not be it. Deal.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
You turn 25, yr all outta escapes!
I have a hoodie that has an all-over print of a puzzle. The pieces interlock over my back, down my arms and over my head. When I wear it, I sometimes feel metaphoric, enveloped in a delicate framework of assembled bits that fit into each other, completing a larger picture.
The larger picture is my life. The pieces are what makes it up. Suddenly they don't seem to fit as well as they used to. Friday will mark my last day of employment at Six Shooter. I know, it seems crazy that I'd move all the way out here, uprooting both Leah and I's life, to work for 4 months and then have it end. It's not my fault, nor theirs. Sometimes circumstance is the boss.
So I have options. Plenty of them. I could travel, work, play, sleep, hang out naked all day, work out till I bleed, anything. Douglas Coupland talks about 'option paralysis', that when faced with a myriad of choice, one loses control of being able to choose fairly and objectively. (Whether objectivity even exists is another question, but I'll leave that up the post-structuralists)
There's a new LCD Soundsystem disc out on March 20 called "Sound of Silver". I got my grubby little hands on an advance copy, and I'll just say this: it's bloody amazing. I'll post a full review once it's released, so it's all...proper and fair-like, but the title of this post is a quote from a song called "Watch the Tapes"...another track, "All My Friends" is stepping into the pantheons of "the best songs ever written"...for reals. There's new music on zee myspace. Check it. Brooklyn Vegan has some neat shots of the video shoot. Check that too.
I'll get my busy mind outta your face for a while. I have a whole week off to do a whole lotta nothing next week. I'll blog your fucking face off.
I'm going to leave you with something that popped up on my iPod this week as I was walking home in a blizzard, traffic whizzing by me and the moon burning a bright light against the street. It was all glittery and warm, like the song Moon, by Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto, from their stunning album "Insen" (emusic). I dunno why it's in m4a format, but you non-iTunes kids will just have to deal. Sorry. Have a good weekend.
The EP is an interesting format. Between releases, it's a teaser, leading fans along an audible path of the attention span of the artist. As a debut, it's but a taste, or a test. Like perfume samples in a magazine, though it would be hard to rub an mp3 all over your neck. Give it a shot anyways.
Becky Stark sings with an earnestness that comes from the depths of sadness, the ecstasy of love and the joy of knowing that life is there for the living. Her band holds her on high, sweetly supporting her lilts and wavers. Steady and plodding, the track builds like a growing parade - quiet and introductory followed by little chimes and hi-hats. A piano shares the rhythm with the percussion, giving it shape and health. This is the kind of song that gets stuck, nay, glued to your head for days. Keep an eye on these guys. They've just been signed to Rough Trade UK, and are set to support Colbert foes The Decemberists on their upcoming UK tour.
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Music crush of the week #2: Beirut - the new, digital-only EP Lon Gisland. (emusic)(Insound).
The song is called Elephant Gun (mp3), and it serves as an appropriate introduction to the follow-up to the first record, Gulag Orkestar. It's big and brassy and eastern and loud and bombastic and GREAT. Lots has been said of Zach Condon and his stealing adopting of Balkan music for modern pop tropes, so I won't dive into it here. Not everyone loves it; the idea, that is.
"Musical Tourism" isn't new though. Look at the popularity of African sounds in some of the best-selling records of the 80s:
It's true what they say, "everything old becomes new again". THEY are sure wise, aren't THEY?
I'd only recently pieced together his massive contribution to the Ghettotech genre (including possibly NAMING the damn thing), so I'm especially saddened by such a loss. It's one thing to be a contributor, but as a leader, an innovator - it's shocking and disturbing.
You may be more familiar with him that you might think.
Fiddy was all over him before anyone.
But I think Sesame Street got him first. Or he got them. I can't tell.
Enjoy the tunes, friends. Maybe this Disco D thing is making me worry too much, but if you know someone who you worry about, make the call; you might save their life.
Last Sunday I shook off my two-day hangover long enough to go to Wavelength, a weekly night at Sneaky Dee's featuring various up-and-coming acts that few people have heard of - in fact, some of the first shows by Broken Social Scene & Peaches were performed at Wavelength. I was there to check out two bands I'd heard steady buzz about - Tyvek, from Detroit and an intricately-titled band from NYC called ca-USE co-MOTION. Opening was a member of Montreal weirdos Think About Life!, in a project called Miracle Fortress.
Tyvek were great! They were all jangly and raw and reminded me a bit of Metamatics (no, not THAT Metamatics, the one on Troubleman.) I dug up some Tyvek doing their 'hit' song "Honda". Peep dis!
ca-USE co-MOTION were also dope, though a little underwhelming after the ass-walloping of Tyvek. At least they knew how to rock AND roll. Check their track "Baby, Don't Do It!" from a S/T 7" EP on What's Your Rupture? Records. FUN!
I've spent the week doing a lot of thinking. About friends, the future, what I'm doing here, where it might take me. Things are feeling...unsteady at the very moment, but not in a bad way - just...up in the air, shall we say.
That said, I'm still totally crushing on Toronto - and thinking lots about that too. I've been meaning to put together a list of things I've noticed about Toronto and moreover, Torontonians, since I've moved here. Here goes, in no order:
1. Torontonians litter. It's true, don't lie. They litter ALL the time, everywhere. And not just like, gum or cigarette butts, but McDonalds bags of styrofoam, cardboard boxes, whatever! And strangely enough, the city remains clean as a whistle...which perhaps explains why people don't care about dropping a thing or two on the ground. Within an hour or two a street cleaner will zip by and clean it up. It's true! They ride these vacuums on wheels like a rider tractor; its so futuristic! Even the mayor helps out! There are those standing up though. Check Bigass Superstar's funny story about litterers vs. citizens to see what I mean.
2. Torontonians love to stand in line. Everywhere! They line up to get ON the bus, OFF the bus, at the bank, in restaurants, outside of clubs, everywhere. It's a totally acceptable circumstance of being SO GADDAM 'URBAN', and people never whine or get fed up about it. It's odd!
3. Torontonians are hot. I don't know if it's the water or the air or the once-a-week-sushi, but Torontonians are a bunch of HOT people. Seriously, I don't think I've been to a better looking city. I know that people rave about Paris and Montreal and Berlin and Barcelona as having a good looking population, and they may have, but I think it's Toronto's internationalism that has the rest of the world beat.
4. Torontonians smoke. This is somewhat related to littering, but I sometimes think that there are more smokers than not in this place...everyone smokes, even just a bit. If you're saying "not me", you're probably lying to yourself. Seek help.
5. Torontonians have things you don't. Like peameal bacon. Corner stores on EVERY corner that all have sign outside that says "Milk - Eggs - Sundries". WTF are sundries? Apparently Torontonians know, and you don't.
They also have BRUNCH, not breakfast.
And you can't buy booze in a store later than 9 PM, unless you look REALLY hard, and then it's only till 11 PM at the very latest.
And they drive stupidly fast, all the time.
And they drink, a lot.
They also tend to appreciate 'the little guy' when it comes to Starbucks VS. Steve's Espresso Stand...there are much fewer franchise locations here than I expected to see, which is nice.
Its been interesting seeing Toronto through western eyes. My cousin and roomie Caitlin is also from Edmonton and has lived here for almost four years, and laughs when I talk about these little differences because she saw them too when she moved eastwards...which makes me think of the ideas I had about Ontario culture before I came out here myself. As an Albertan, we're highly conscious of the "BC Ethic" that exists to the west, where hippies hug trees and people vote left, and to think that in EACH PROVINCE (and by extension, state - hello neighbors!) has its OWN set of words and practices and habitus is kind of mind-boggling.
Just like that. Before I go, I'll leave you with something that rocked my ears all morning, first during my run (RUNNERS! GET THIS! SRSLY!) and then on my way to work (COMMUTERS! GET THIS! SRSLY!). A two-hour mix from Optimo, Glasgow's finest and perhaps the BEST WORKING DJs TODAY. Yep, I said it. The best. The tracklist for this bad boy is right here. Dig it, and take care. I'll do my best to do the same.
Whoah, how did 9 days disappear? It seems as though we're well into our new year. Neat!
I've heard that many people's New Years parties/happenings were disappointing. Sorry to hear that, friends!
Mine was fucking awesome. Starting off with some deelish eats at Wish with our best boyfriends Keith & Richard, Leah and I headed off to The Social to see Diplo. Wow wow wow wow wow. He was incredible. The bomb of the night: a Scotty B & King Tut remix of Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al". It was stunning to hear that synth line blast through the room and have every person born in the 80s cheer with recognition. He even dropped out the chorus so we all could sing along. What a showman; he dropped Windowlicker, Percolator,and SOOOO much baile funk. It was awe-inspiring, really. We shook it steady till 3 AM then meandered (as we tend to when incapacitated) to an after party simply called "NYE! FUCK YEAH!"(Flyer), where the Dip-meister was to make an appearance on the decks around 6 AM. We waited it out in the parking lot to try to get in, but to no avail. No biggie - we ended up meeting some colorful characters, and some NEW FRIENDS! This was maybe the best part of the evening...being outside, sweaty but warm in the cool air, chatting with strangers about their nights. It reminded me of being a 16-year old raver, doing exactly the same thing...and here I was 10 years later.
Some things never change.
In fact, maybe that'll be a theme for early 2007. The year change becomes...repetitive.
Like...I'm running again. The last time I ran with any level of regularity was when I was 12. Or...uh...there's NO WINTER HERE. Or at least no snow, and the last time that happened was 1986 when I was in Mexico!!
See! See?
Ok, I'm grasping at straws. Fine.
---- I'm reading Leonard Cohen's "The Favorite Game" right now. What an amazing book. Back when I was much more 'up' on my literature, I would marvel at some writers ability to load SO much emotion such few words. My friend Laura used to say of poetry, "Minimum words, maximum impact." She's right. This is the first line in the book: Breavman knows a girl named Shell whose ears were pierced so she could wear the long filigree earrings.
Of course, context counts - but it's this kind of language that HOOKS you from the get-go, making you itch for more. I like that I'm reading fiction again - it seems like University, with it's big ol'textbooks and mandatory-reading lists turned me off of THE NOVEL, for some reason...whatever it was, it wasn't good enough. I'm back at it, and loving it.
--- Speaking of games (kinda)...Leah bought me the game of Go for Hannukah, and we finally cracked it open the other night. First off, the game is ancient - like, maybe the first real GAME that still exists today. Second, they say that no two games of Go have ever been alike - that every game is completely unique in its opening and closing, and games have been known to continue for days, weeks even. It took us a while to get it rolling, but the game seems like a cross between checkers, chess, backgammon and Risk, where board space is land, and your pieces are guardians, protecting it. I like that idea.
I hope this finds you warm and happy, friends-o-mine.
Oh geez, I almost forgot. Edmonton - I'm coming for a visit. April 5. Get ready.
