Friday, May 16th, 2003

Headphone Recorder

Spent last night holed up in Lake Holiday HQ laying down tracks for the new album… Okay, one track. For one song. But I have managed to reduce my recording time to track time ratio from one hour per minute to half an hour per minute. And I only needed four takes this time. No punch-ins. Huzzah.

Afterwards, I went to see Fruit Bats at B-Side. I now remember why I don’t drive anywhere… finding parking was beyond a pain in the ass. Anywawy, I was so beat that I was thinking I’d just go home but I found a spot and got to the show with about 10 minutes to spare. Immediately dozed off. Well, not immediately, but quickly. Dark + tired + warm = dozy. Anyway, I did stay awake through most of the set. While some might complain about the abbreviated set (45 minutes), it was perfect for me since I was ready to go home anyway. It was a good show – they sound like the quieter side of The Shins (new website!), John Vanderslice and Honeybunch. Wonderful 60s-ish folky pop music, dead-on male/female harmonies and bloopy synths. Good stuff – I also picked up their new album, Mouthfuls.

Spoon are releasing a 7-track mini-LP for That’s The Way We Get By in August on 12XU Records. In addition to the title track, there’ll be 6 live tracks and scads of videos from Kill The Moonlight. Okay, maybe not scads, but more than one. Maybe.

Free music. A clip of “Stacy’s Mom”, the first single from Welcome Interstate Managers is available for curious ears on the Fountains Of Wayne website. I wonder if Ric Ocasek’s lawyers have been mobilized yet?

Mogwai have put “Hunted By A Freak”, the leadoff track from Happy Songs For Happy People up in the Audio section of their site, along with five other rare tracks. Go get em.

Welcome Interstate Managers is out June 10. Happy Songs For Happy People is out June 17.

np – Fruit Bats / Mouthfuls

Thursday, May 15th, 2003

Gimme Shelter

They may be bloated, over-the-hill undead with guitars, but if The Rolling Stones play a free show in Toronto to encourage post-SARS tourism, they’re okay with me. Though Keef is still scary.

I’m going through a Future Shop flyer this morning, and I see an ad for The Essential Shawn Mullins. Essential? Didn’t this guy only have one album in the first place? An odd inclusion alongside Dylan, Gershwin and The Clash. Hell, even Kenny Loggins. Oh, but it’s been digitally remastered, so that’s okay I guess.

np – Steve Earle / El Corazon

Sunday, May 11th, 2003

The High Party

There is a dog in the house! My cousin Annie is visiting from Cleveland, and she brought her dog, Pumpkin. Pumpkin is a nice puppy – not the smartest thing in the world, but very friendly and playful. I took her for a walk in Queen’s Park this afternoon and she nearly had a fit trying to chase the dozens of squirrels around the park. Wore me right out, at least.

Bought Ted Leo & The Pharmacists’ Hearts Of Oak as a birthday present to me. Yeah, that’s the rationale I used for the bike too, but since I haven’t gotten any gifts from anyone else, I feel justified in spoiling myself a little.

So Scott got married yesterday, and my day was spent traipsing around Woodbridge with the folks from work. The ceremony was short and sweet – not even ten minutes long! Way to smash the record for shortest wedding ever. Fantastic. Of course, this meant that we had four hours or so to kill before the reception… Time spent walking around Kleinburg (little little town!), sitting around a restaurant serving pre-reception refreshments and chatting with the limo driver, wandering around Woodbine Centre mall and capped off with my first game ever of Dance Dance Revolution, nattily attaired in my suit. That game is hard! And then the reception, which was quite tasty if not as voluminous in quantity as I’d been led to expect. Mark got pretty drunk and was quite the dancing machine – probably all primed from Dance Dance Revolution… It was a good time had by all. And I have two more weddings in the next six weeks. I better get my suit dry cleaned.

np – Ted Leo & The Pharmacists / Hearts Of Oak

Wednesday, May 7th, 2003

Fifteen Keys

This is for the hardcore geeks. Someone has already compiled a list of the names on Stryker’s computer in X2 and paired them off with their comic book references. Check it out here.

Neko Case has won the Playboy’s Sexiest Woman In Indie Rock poll. I voted for a winner!

Feel like playing video games? Of course you do. Domo-Kun Vs The Powerpuff Girls. I didn’t need a reminder that I suck at video games, but I got one anyway.

I think it was just a couple weeks ago I commented to someone how minimalist my keychain was. No longer – in the last 24 hours I’ve added a bike lock key, a bike room key and a freaking garage door opener remote control. It’s now one bulky keychain.

I have registered for Blogshares and my lil ol’ site is already worth a bling-worthy $102, yo. That means a whopping 0.0021% of the market is mine. Oh yeah.

And no, I have no idea what any of that means.

np – Sigur Ros / ( )

Sunday, May 4th, 2003

Hanging Around

Uhh… okay. Totally busy weekend. Summary forthcoming in point form.

1) Saw X2 last night. Overall impression, good stuff. Felt much quicker than it’s 2-1/4 hour running length, mostly cause it’s one long action sequence. They weren’t kidding about ratcheting up Halle Berry and Famke Janssen’s parts. And Cyclops got to be utterly useless. Xavier too, for the most part. Some nice Easter eggs for the long-time X-geeks, though, and while the plot thread seemed a little tacked on, they’ve set up X-Men 3 quite handily.

2) Free Comic Day – Picked up a big stack of stuff I’ve never read or even heard of. The Slave Labor special edition is really good. I haven’t gotten through much of the other stuff yet.

3) Picked up the DVD of High Fidelity for a measly $12. I’m not usually one for buying movies, but at that price you can’t go wrong.

4) Found Gemma Hayes’ Night On My Side. This made me very happy.

5) Got my Wilco ticket because, after I refund the Bright Eyes tickets, my big pile o’ tix would have been empty, and that simply won’t do.

6) There will be a tribute album to Hedwig & The Angry Inch coming out on Off Records in October. Some of the acts appearing on Wig in a Box: Songs From “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”? Yoko Ono fronting Yo La Tengo. Fred Schneider with Sleater-Kinney. The Breeders. Cyndi Lauper. I am actually looking forward to this. I thought some of the songs in Hedwig were top-notch. Read about it here.

7) And oh yeah, the guy in the pic up top. He’s a one-man band from Boston whose name I’ve forgotten. Bloody impressive set-up, though. The man had a banjo, lap-steel, kick-drum pedal (thumping on something for the beat), and acoustic bass and acoustic guitar being played by foot levers which raised and lowered capos to change pitch. It looked totally nutty, but sounded absolutely right – if you closed your eyes, you would have thought there was a proper band in front of you. Wacky.

np – Gemma Hayes / Night On My Side