I am calling next week “Crazy string of shows week”. Here’s a preview:

It starts Sunday night at the Rivoli with Sea Ray. I’m tingly in anticipation of this show, but am concerned that there’s not going to be much of a turnout – there’s no press on the band in either eye or NOW, I don’t think you can get the album locally and I’m not hearing anyone (except me) in the city talk about them. So I’m going to formally plea with any Torontonians reading this and who don’t have plans for Sunday night to come down and see the show – it’s $8 at the door and I guarantee you a great show. Not a money-back guarantee, that’d just be silly, but a guarantee with absolutely no real value whatsoever. But if you don’t like it, you can… I dunno, yell at me or something. Need a taste? Here’s some sample MP3s from their Stars At Noon album – “Revelry” and “Quiver”.

Then after a Monday off, I’ve got Iron & Wine at the Horseshoe Tuesday night. Advance tickets are all sold out though you’ll be able to get some at the door. And don’t forget the in-store at Soundscapes that evening at 7pm. If you need a Sam Beam fix before then, NOW has an interview and you can check out the lovely video for “Naked As We Came”. From Pop77.

Then the night after that I’m going to see Nellie McKay at Lee’s on Wednesday. Local songstress Jill Barber will be opening.

Next Thursday is Canada Day and thus a holiday and I’m also getting Friday off, making it a four-day weekend. Which is good because it gives me a whole day to prepare for The Magnetic Fields’ show at Trinity-St Paul’s that evening. And by “prepare”, I mean sit around all day eating Fritos and reading comic books.

Four shows in six days. That’s pretty hardcore, ain’t it?

The Black Table lists off what they consider to be the defining moments of humour for our generation. I confess I haven’t seen most of these, or even heard of a lot of them. I guess that’s why I don’t understand you damned kids these days.

Last night’s Lake Holiday show went pretty smoothly – there’s something to be said for intense regular gigging to polish out the performance. Of course, we’ll now probably take a couple months off before the next show, but whatever. Curious lineup with us, a five-piece with a slew of instruments, sandwiched between two solo performers. Dan Gorman was on first and impressed me with his soul-folk material. A shame his electric guitar was giving him technical difficulties after one song and he had to go acoustic as it gave his material a distinctive dimension. His vocals were really strong and soulful and the material quite strong. And he’s a really nice guy. Wax Mannequin, I didn’t really know what to make of. A guy with a guitar and a drum machine playing prog-arena rock anthems in leather pants and a wig. His fans ate it up though – it was like the most earnest joke act I’ve ever seen. Whatever floats your boat.

A nice touch on the evening was the number of unsolicited compliments we got on our set from people we don’t know. That’s rarely happened. A not-so-nice touch was some guy stoned on an unwise combination of chemicals going backstage during Wax’s set and stealing my camera and guitar strap from my gig bag. Thankfully, he had made a bit of a spectacle of himself earlier in the evening, so I had a pretty good idea of who the culprit was. Didn’t help his case that he was standing in the middle of the Rivoli fondling my guitar strap when I came looking for him. I browbeat him into giving me back my camera and he came by a little later and apologized, which was fine, and then he hugged me, which was a little weird, and then he tried to lick my ear, which was simply NOT on. Yeesh. Anyway, no harm done overall. No pictures from last night, which is a shame because we were all looking dead sexy, but we do have an mp3 of our cover of New Order’s “Love Vigilantes” if you want to hear it. I think the recording sounds pretty good and it’s as tight and clean as we’ve ever played it. Really freaking fast, though.

Also sad was that this was possibly/probably Five Seventeen’s last show with us, on account of him moving out west at the end of the Summer. It’s possible we’ll schedule more shows before he goes, but we’re already working on getting a replacement so we’ll have to cut the cord sometime. Sniff.

And now, once again, I am tired at work from having been up far too late the night before. I’m telling you – rock’n’roll is killing me.

np – Lambchop / Aw, C’Mon

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