Elvis Costello is back in town at the Hummingbird Centre on July 2. A little pricey and I saw him last year – albeit a fantastic show – so I will probably pass.

I will NOT be passing on Wilco at the Kool Haus on June 20, though. Booyaka.

So long bloody show last night. My legs and back are killing me – standing for four and a half hours will topple even the sturdiest of punters. I don’t feel like getting too in-depth, so I’ll keep the reviews sorta brief.

Daniel Johnston is a strange, strange man. He’s a mentally ill folksinger with a devoted cult following including Sonic Youth, Nirvana and Sparklehorse. People seemed pretty excited that he was in town, and I was mostly just curious. Picture a fat, disheveled man pounding frenetically on a classical guitar and singing simple little songs about love in an erratic voice. He displayed a little more prowess on the keyboards, but overall, it was a curious spectacle. He played for about a half hour.

Portastatic plugged in impressed. Mac McCaughan is a helluva guitar player – I’ve never seen Superchunk live, but his “quieter” (a very relative term) act still rocks out pretty hard. I liked them well enough to want to find their non-soundtrack stuff. I would have bought one of the CDs at the show, but I was already out of cash from buying a YLT t-shirt and a copy of The Sounds Of The Sounds Of Science (purchased from Ira, again. Any band at their level that still sells their own merch deserves your respect).

Yo La Tengo. I think I have to be in the proper mood to appreciate them live. There’s no question they’re exceptional musicians, but the long drawn-out jams get tiresome, especially if you’ve been standing for hours already. Since they drew mainly from Summer Sun, the straight-ahead tunes were at a minumum to begin with. They trotted out some of the chestnuts in the encore, but the main set – all two hours of it – was dominated by jams and noisefests. The set time also came from the fact that no one played the same instrument in consecutive songs, and I do have to say, wandering around the stage wondering what to play next looks like fun. Their extended four-drummer version of Sun Ra’s “Nuclear War” (It’s a motherfucker!) was fun, but much of it crossed the line into self-indulgence. And, of course, they did an encore of “Speeding Motorcycle” with Daniel Johnston on vocals. But when the second encore ended and the house lights came on, I was more than happy to boot it out the door and home to bed. Love the band, but they may have worked themselves off of my “must-see-whenever-in-town-always” list.

np – Yo La Tengo / The Sounds Of The Sounds Of Science

I promised a pic of my monitor-top Buddha, so here he is. I’m still not entirely sure where he came from. I belive Derek had something to do with it, but what exactly, I do not know. Click for a larger pic.

Go here. Sign the petition. These people must be stopped AND made examples of. Someone get my sack of doorknobs.

Look at this. I know I am. And thinking. Contemplating. Wheels are turning. Hmmmmm.

I don’t really know anything about golf, but I do know that winning the Masters is a big deal, so congratulations to Mike Weir, first Canadian to wear that oh-so stylin’ green jacket.

No band practice tonight, as both Brad and I are at Yo La Tengo. However – that doesn’t mean there’s not news! We may have found some tenants to replace the Biters in the rehearsal space, good news – I was getting a little nervous that we’d have to split rent two ways instead of three. This should all be confirmed in the next few days. Clay is out of commission because he apparently drank dirty well water? Where the hell does someone find well water – dirty or otherwise – in Toronto? Drummers. What are you gonna do. And some summer shows are slowly taking some shape. Or we’re being proactive about it, at least. Anything confirmed will be reported here first, since 517 is being molasses-slow on getting the proper Lake Holiday site artwork done. MOLASSES.

np – Ivy / Guestroom

They do the craziest things in the land of the rising sun.

There are not the words to describe the ordeals of the man named Nasubi.

Why can’t North American politicians be this much fun?

In memory of Oolong, the head performance rabbit.

And there’s more where this comes from.

np – Doug Martsch / Now You Know

Another lovely sunny day, another day of wandering around the city. Today, I met up with Sudeep, Kevin, Vic and Liz for no real reason except to get out and get some air. We ended up at Cafe Dimplimatico in Little Italy, and got what might have been the worst service ever. I’m sorry, but it does not take an hour to make a calzone. It just doesn’t. Chumps. Thanks to them, I was a little late to the Portastatic instore at Soundscapes, but not too much. Still caught most of Mac’s set, which was alright. I’ll be interested to hear him with a full band before deciding if I need Portastatic stuff to supplement my Superchunk collection.

I am apparently signed up to participate in the Becel Ride For Heart in June. For which I will need a bike. I’ve meant to get a bike for a while. I should get on that.

I’m probably last one on the boat for these, but Animatrix cartoons here. Cool stuff. New movie will be butt-kicking for goodness.

I hope it’s not a sign of old age that I’m attending shows by artists who are touring to support a best-of compilation. Case in point – Ride. It’s been seven years since they released a note of new music (last year’s one-off 30-minute reunion jam notwithstanding) and since then they’ve been the subjects of a box set and magazine covers as the early 90s shoegaze scene undergoes a critical reapprisal 10 years after the fact. Mark, who has been pretty much off the scene for the last few years, undertook this solo acoustic tour to promote the North American release of OX4 – The Best Of Ride and to road-test some of the material from his new solo album, out late this year or early next. Toronto has always been kind to bands with British passports, and a crowd of a few hundred punters showed up to cheer him on and relive their halcyon days from a decade ago. The man himself is pretty much unrecgnizable from his last appearance in the Big Smoke – gone is the long shaggy hair in favor of a close cropped do, and most were uncertain it was him who walked out onstage until he said hello.

The voice, however, is the same. Strong and soft, faintly lisping and note-on. Obviously the best response came for the classic material like “Vapour Trail” and “Twisterella”, and while the audience listened politely to his new material (pleasant but unremarkable), they were there to hear the hits (relatively speaking). Drawing mainly from the Smile EPs, Nowhere and Going Blank Again, Carnival Of Light got only a single sample and Tarantula was, thankfully, completely ignored. Not surprising since it was mostly Andy Bell’s album, but also because it was utter shit.

All in all, the next best thing to seeing Ride live, something I never got to do. And while it may have just been a single man up there with a 12-string acoustic, in my head I heard the walls of guitars and it was glorious. A few pics here.

Afterwards, I met up with Kate and went to the Honeybunch show at Jonny Dovercourt’s living room. Honeybunch is the current project of Jeffery Underhill, who played guitar on the first few Velvet Crush records, as well as sang on the first 6ths record and played guitar on the last Pernice Brothers album. In this instance, they were a VERY quiet duo, classical guitar and keyboards, nothing miced. They played some very pretty pop tunes, but I was pretty beat by that point and it damn near put me to sleep.

They had switched slots with Brad and Clay (it’s a little weird for me to refer to Lake Holiday in the third person!) so it was up to the boyz to wake me up, and they did rock the house in a very quiet/loud kinda way. You can only generate so much volume using a cardboard guitar case for a kick drum, but it was alright. They ran through a half-dozen of our songs, and I have to say, I was impressed how good they sounded. I guess in rehearsals I’m concentrating too much on what I’m playing to really listen, but being in the audience on this instance was pretty eye-opening. The enthusiastic response from everyone else, and I’ll assume it was sincere since we didn’t know everyone there, was heartening. No question, we have to line up some gigs. The fact that the performance was in the living room of the guy who runs Wavelength won’t hurt.

Another beautiful day out today. Going to go to the Portastatic instore at Soundscapes at 5. Maybe I should sit down and do some practicing… I’m feeling sort of inspired, for some reason.

np – Spoon / Kill The Moonlight