Election day yesterday, and I’m gratified to see the right man (in my opinion) won. I love this city and have been increasingly frustrated over the past years watching an incompetent city hall continually squander Toronto’s potential with half-assed schemes and questionable ethics, to say the least. The new guy, David Miller, is someone I’m genuinely excited about – it’s not often that I feel like I’m voting FOR someone as opposed to voting against someone else. Congratulations, Mr. Miller. Here’s to the future.

The actual process of voting was kinda frustrating – for no reason other than there was a very pretty girl in line right in front of me, and for 20 minutes I couldn’t think of a goddamn thing to say. “So, who’re you voting for,” didn’t seem appropriate, and so… And if this story sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because it is. Yeah, what we have here is a chronic inability to speak to women. All hail me. If you want to make me feel like more of a dork, feel free to post what you would have said in that situation.

Listened to Ryan Adams’ Gold again for the first time in a very long time. Time hasn’t changed my initial opinion – too long, too overproduced. And it’s a shame, cause there’s some good tunes on there. And then I listened to Whiskeytown’s debut Faithless Street… I hate to sound like one of those mooks who’s all, “man the early stuff was so much better”, but the artists don’t have to make it so damn easy. But I think Love Is Hell is good, and is hopefully a return to form and not an aberration.

Some additional tour news – opening for Adams will be The Stills who SOOO impressed me this Fall opening for Interpol (if you’re not catching the sarcasm, read this). Lame-o opener plus $25 ticket plus Wednesday night show in my least favorite venue equals me not going to go.

Belle & Sebastian fans are urged to pick up the latest issue of Magnet. There’s a very illuminating and forthright interview with the band about their early days, the ones that were, at the time, shrouded in secrecy. They talk about the chaos and politics that plagued the band for most of its existance. Of particular interest is some insight into the famously cancelled Toronto concert in Fall 1998 – the one that was supposed to be at the Opera House but was cancelled at the last minute with a hand-scrawled note taped to the front door of the venue due to ‘food poisoning’ or something. Turns out, that was a righteous bit of spin… And you get more dirt on Stuart and Isobel than you thought would ever be revealed. It’s amazing how little I knew about a band I’ve been following for over five years now.

While on the subject, Chart has a review of Saturday night’s show.

Another reason to get the new Magnet is this quote from a deliberately snarky review of the new Peaches by Andrew Earles:

“According to Peaches, I want to fuck her. According to Peaches, everyone wants to fuck her. If her image and lyrics are to be believed, fucking Peaches would be like throwing a hot dog down a hallway.”

Man, that’s good.

Record Store Review is a neat site that lets you rate and review your local independent music merchants. There’s quite a few for Toronto, though it appears some people out there don’t like Rotate This’ attitude. I’m aghast. Really, I am.

Ok, not really.

np – Spoon / Kill The Moonlight

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