Weekend Roundup

Are you still sweating over your 2007 resolutions? Yeah, well, the usual grab bag includes:

1. Drinking Less Beer
2. Taking More Photos
3. Being More Awesome

I went to Lake Louise today and - the rumours are true - the snow is incredible. You wouldn't know it from looking outside in Calgary, but, we're talking deep pow pow gnar gnar. I can't wait to hit the slopes.

On the way to the mountains, I found a radio show that was playing a crazy hommage to CBC broadcaster Lister Sinclair, acting as a disco guru. Just check out the setlist. Do The Hustle!

Ever wonder what interpretive dancing to Deerhoof would look like? Look no further than the Dance of the Week:



I read about this here. There are a few more videos for your enjoyment. ♪

God Bless Your Soul Brother No. 1

The world got a little less funky this Christmas. Here's a video to commemorate the passing of James Brown, The Hardest Working Man In Show Business, on December 25, 2006.

Thanks to everyone who sent me their condolences. Many of you knew how much I admired The Godfather of Soul. HOT PANTS! YEEEEOW! TAKE IT TO THE BRIDGE!

It's probably time to send the Mr. Dynamite biographical docudrama manuscript that you've been working on to your nearest screenplay agent. Oscar season is right around the corner. ♪

Top 10 Concerts of 2006 (Revised for CJSW)

My pals at CJSW have asked me to submit a Top 10 (only) list for their website. So, I had to mercilessly revise my picks from yesterday and also add a few explanations. Before it gets published there, I thought you might like to take a look:

1. Wilco – MacEwan Hall – Calgary, AB
For years, cold, hard reality had stoutly prevented me from seeing the phenom that is Wilco. Finally, in June, I witnessed them live. With talent comes hype. With hype comes expectations. Rarely does the experience live up to the thrill. Ladies and Gentlemen, the top concert spot for 2006 was earned by Wilco. They threw down amazing new material, they sounded fantastic, and they were truly awesome performers. For high-quality bootlegs, including the currently unreleased song "Impossible Germany", check out etree.org.

2. Brian Jonestown Massacre – Warehouse – Calgary, AB
Without BJM, there would be no psych-rock revival. Immediately after the show, I picked up Their Satanic Majesties' Second Request. I've been a far mellower individual ever since.

3. The Flaming Lips – Sasquatch Music Festival – The Gorge, WA
After a somewhat miserable afternoon (weather-wise), Wayne and Co. made sure everyone had a great time. The spectacle included Martians. balloons, fog machines, confetti, and lots of carefree fun. They played late into the night (much longer than their allotted 60-70 minute set) including selections from their new At War With The Mystics album.

4. Deerhoof – Hiro @ The Maritime Hotel – New York, NY
Deerhoof puts on an amazingly eclectic show. Seeing them in the Japanese-themed Hiro ballroom, in Manhattan's stylish West Side, really enhanced the experience. Oh, it was also during CMJ, or "Spring Break in November for Hipsters".

5. Islands – Warehouse – Calgary, AB
It was fun to go to a show where everyone knew the lyrics to all the songs. Islands let us in on a couple new songs they have been working on (which were absolutely jaw-dropping). Make sure to keep tabs on them in 2007. They are showing lots of potential.

6. Beck – Sasquatch Music Festival – The Gorge, WA
I think this was the first show that Beck unveiled his bizarre puppet show extravaganza. His affiliation with Scientology be damned, he is a brilliant showman.

7. Ladytron/John Acquaviva – Metro/Smart Bar – Chicago, IL
I went to this show after missing a flight home from O'Hare (and consequently missing my shift at the CJSW bingo). In retrospect, I think it was fate. Industrial and tech-house aren't really my thing anymore, but that night stands out as being among the most fun I've had this year. Metro/Smart Bar is an ideal place to party.

8. Wolf Parade/Frog Eyes/Sunset Rubdown – Various Locations – Calgary, AB
Every Spencer Krug performance I've seen this year has been rock-solid and memorable in an off-beat, off-key, odd-ball sort of way.

9. Final Fantasy – Liberty Lounge – Calgary, AB
SON YOU SHOULD (have been there). Wow, I hadn't heard anything by Final Fantasy (except for the lame title of his album - He Poos Clouds and his arrangements on the Arcade Fire albums) before the show. Man-o-man, is that guy talented though. Not only that, he finished with a rousing cover of Mariah Carey's "Fantasy".

10. Thunderbirds Are Now!/You Say Party! We Say Die! – Broken City – Calgary, AB
By the exclamation points alone, you knew what you were getting yourself into. Not only did I get busy on the dance floor, but both bands agreed to be interviewed for CJSW by yours truly. And, since they headed off to Vancouver immediately following the show, guess who scored a ridiculous number of drink tickets. Yeah, you guessed right. ♪

Top Performances of 2006

It’s time to take a hard look at the shows I checked out this year. The full list was pretty extensive, but I think I’ve managed to pare and prune (not pear and prune) it down to a Top 20. My only criterion is that they must all be concerts or performances that I saw with mine own eyes. Therefore, they are not limited by geography, as you might expect from a Hipster’s Guide to Calgary.

Top 20 Performances of 2006

1. Wilco/Elliott Brood – MacEwan Hall – Calgary, AB
2. Brian Jonestown Massacre – Warehouse – Calgary, AB
3. The Flaming Lips – Sasquatch Music Festival – The Gorge, WA
4. Deerhoof – Hiro @ The Maritime Hotel – New York, NY
5. Islands – Warehouse – Calgary, AB
6. Beck – Sasquatch Music Festival – The Gorge, WA
7. Ladytron/John Acquaviva – Metro/Smart Bar – Chicago, IL
8. Wolf Parade/Frog Eyes/Sunset Rubdown – Various Locations – Calgary, AB
9. Final Fantasy – Liberty Lounge – Calgary, AB
10. Thunderbirds Are Now!/You Say Party! We Say Die! – Broken City – Calgary, AB
11. Noam Chomsky – Sun Room, ISU Campus – Ames, IA
12. Shout Out Out Out Out/Holy Fack – The Den – Calgary, AB
13. Blue Cheer – The Knitting Factory – New York, NY
14. Pink Mountaintops – Liberty Lounge – Calgary, AB
15. Enon – Broken City – Calgary, AB
16. The Grates/Tokyo Police Club – Broken City – Calgary, AB
17. Jaime Lidell – Hifi Club – Calgary, AB
18. London Elektricity – Hifi Club – Calgary, AB
19. Ladyhawk/Brother Coyote – Cat’s Eye Vintage – Calgary, AB
20. Forward Russia!/Archie Bronson Outfit – Mercury Lounge – New York, NY

Among the solid shows, I went to some terrible ones. This year, I am brave enough to acknowledge the Bottom 5.

Bottom 5 Performances of 2006

1. Tom Green – The Tequila – Calgary, AB
2. Matisyahu – Sasquatch Music Festival – The Gorge, WA
3. Bengy Ferree – Mercury Lounge – New York, NY
4. Bright Eyes/Gruff Rhys – MacEwan Hall – Calgary, AB
5. Bo Diddley – The Back Alley – Calgary, AB

Other strong contenders or shows that didn’t make either list:

Tool, SIDS, The Incandescence, Strokes, Les Georges Leningrad, Duchess Says, Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals, The Shins, The Tragically Hip, Neko Case, Iron & Wine, Sufjan Stevens, Gomez, Rogue Wave, Sam Roberts, Constantines, Band of Horses,Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks, Death Cab For Cutie, Queens of the Stone Age, The Decemberists, Nada Surf, Arctic Monkeys, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, We Are Scientists, Chad Vangaalen, The OhSees, The Fall, Erase Errata, Malajube, Snowden, Album Leaf, Massey Lecture (U of C), Azeda Booth

Thanks to everyone who came to these shows with me. What a sweet year in music. ♪

Weekend Roundup

Yesterday, I took a trip on a tiny Cessna-type airplane with pilot extraordinaire, Javier. We flew over Okotoks, Black Diamond, Turner Valley, and eventually over the Kananaskis Valley. It was such a blast. Despite some turbulence, we got some nice shots. Zulu Yankee Tango! If I ever buy an airplane, or win one in a Hold ‘Em match, I’ll insist on getting C-GYHF painted on the side, All you Wilco fans will know what I mean.

I didn’t go, but reliable sources indicated that the Suicide Girls burlesque show on Saturday night was a total gothic let down. I guess it wasn’t so much Moulin Rouge, and too much lame vampire go-go dancing.

With that in mind, you might think that the dance of the week would be sultry and scandalous. I hate to disappoint you on that front, but I think I’ve got something better. Check out this security camera footage of a man cutting the rug and creating a diversion in a department store. Just in time for Christmas.



I haven’t seen loose pop-and-lock moves like this since I went to the Kim Mitchell spectacle at the Back Alley, circa 2000. I think I found a review of that show. ♪

Geek out with me

I decided to coin a new word today: gennuis (from a mash up of genius + ennui). It hasn’t been added to common vernacular yet, but maybe someday it’ll be legitimatized by a celebrity – like Mr. Colbert. Anyway, the term comes from a typo I made the other day. It doesn’t describe my current state of being or anything conceited like that, but has a punny ring to it. So, why let it go?

You may be shocked to find out that this isn’t the first expression I’ve submitted to urbandictionary. Check out love tetrahedron. I also know the guy who added sniffles. See first definition only. The rest are dumb.

Right, back on track, the flavour of the day is geeking out. I’ve got the perfect clip for audiophiles and nerds alike. Check this out:



My mate Paul, no relation to the David Holmes song, has decided to build a theremin. Not only that, he’s modeling it in PSPICE first. He scores major geek++ karma points for that. The last time I saw a theremin being used in a musical performance was during an ambitious showing of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Complete with a live organist courtesy of the Cantos Music Foundation. As a matter of fact, Cantos has just released their schedule for Silent Movie Mondays for 2007. It makes for an unusual night out. I strongly recommend it.

If you want to start your own non-commercial MIDI-based music project, may I suggest this? I’ve seen the MIDIbox in action. It’s totally cool, and you can patch it in to professional software like Ableton Live. ♪

Weekend Roundup

Unusual Venue Alert: What's Up Café (325 - 17th Ave SW)
This is the hole-in-the-wall Caribbean bar where Beatroute decided to have their Christmas party on Friday night. They don't have a website. I can't easily locate a phone number. It's dodgy and mysterious. It's perfect for a hipster hangout. To get to the dancefloor, you need to follow a narrow hallway, inch past the kitchen, and go down a flight of stairs. It has a Prohibition-era fire trap charm about it. Kinda like the beatniq, but scuzzier.

This week's dance is from Robot Chicken's spoof of the 80s cartoon Voltron. I guess there's a movie remake of the show currently in pre-production. You got served. ♪

Love it and leave it

Love it:

I’ve been digging on the new Beatles album, Love. It’s a rework of the band’s most groundbreaking material. It’s also the soundtrack to a new Cirque du Soliel spectacle of the same name. All of these things would usually turn my stomach, because it is easily perceived as a mass-marketed, focus-grouped, generation-crossover gimmick. But, you know what? It’s highly listenable. The sound is very polished. The album feels like a musical trip - in the same vein as Smile, without the bad mojo.

Leave it:

This is starting to get out of hand. In the past couple weeks or so, there have been two big indie upsets. First, The Go! Team are forced to sell out. Now, I’ve been informed that Chan Marshall has followed suit (willingly or not, we don’t know yet). In any case, I’ve come up with a formula to lose your artistic credibility in three steps:

1. Write a sappy love song
2. License it out to an ethically questionable industry
3. Hang out and collect royalty cheques as the your grassroots, DIY, hipster fanbase becomes disillusioned

Bah! C'est la vie. I hate to leave you on a Friday afternoon without some levity. Here’s a music video that Andrew made me aware of. ♪

Weekend Roundup

I did see Los Jorges Leningrad on Friday, but have no pictures to prove it. All I will say is that the openers, Duchess Says, received much warmer applause. Probably because they rocked more. Gotta love those zany Quebecers.

Overall, this weekend was light on the hipster and heavy on the socializing. I don’t know what it is about April, but there are tons of birthdays in late November and early December – including mine. Has anyone else noticed?

Before you toast your next Sagittarian, check out the Dance of the Week! ♪

Thunderbirds Are (going to be on the radio) Now! (well, no, tomorrow night at 8PM)

I received word that the Thunderbirds Are Now! interview that I was involved with back in October will be aired again. This time, on a variety show called Reverb. Check it out at 8:00 PM (MST) on Monday, December 4, 2006. If you're not in the vicinity of Calgary, you can tune into CSJW's audio stream. How cool is that? ♪

Decemberists on Notice

So, it’s well documented now that the Decemberists are in Stephen Colbert’s bad books. Heck, they’re even in mine after what they pulled in Vancouver a couple weeks ago. Dirty water be damned! The show must go on! I wasn’t there on Nov 18, 2006, but Patrick, from Beetroot, was.

Seriously though, these antics remind me of when I tried to see Radiohead in Toronto during the famous blackout of 2003. Oh yeah, there was a little thing called the SARS outbreak finishing up too. In that situation, I couldn’t make it back to T.O. for the rescheduled show. My brother had to refund the tickets and I went to Vancouver, ironically enough, to see them. Luckily for Patrick, another fellow named Patrick has come through and hooked him up with a buddy pass around the middle of December. Let’s hope that the show works out this time.

Allow me to have a green moment. Even Thom Yorke has discussed how big ticket live performances are extremely taxing to the environment. Well, I want to take it one step further and say that even shows that don’t happen are a huge waste of natural resources. Shame on Eco-terrorism! Shame on the Decemberists!

I don’t look forward to the day when major concerts are hosted exclusively online. Unfortunately, I too feel like the concept of big concerts is not sustainable. To find out about your own Carbon Footprint, click here. ♪