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What’s with all the bands out there with the word “Wolf” in their name? From Montreal alone there are at least three prominent examples: Wolf Parade, We Are Wolves and AIDS Wolf, all arriving on the heels of Michigan’s Wolf Eyes. Is it just that rock n’ roll to be associated with the top carnivore of the Canadian North (polar bear excepted)? Or just those “Who’s Who of the Hinterland”-type shirts so widely available at thrift stores ?
How hot is too hot? Apparently poor Rob Funk of Vancouver is the litmus test. He claims his life has been made unnecessarily difficult on account of his good looks. Not only does the former catalogue model attract an uncomfortable amount of attention any time he walks into a room (”everyone turns to look at me”), but he can’t get a date, because women are “intimidated” to be seen with such an attractive individual.
Fortunately, a Vancouver radio station has taken it upon themselves to help the poor guy get a date, at the same time enabling the rest of us to get a look at the agonized Adonis himself.
Talk about a hottie!
How’s it going to end? The Hollywood North Report is on the case!
Friday, November 18:
LCD Soundsystem and The Juan Maclean
Kool Haus
I totally thought this show was just going to be a series of DJ sets by members of the DFA roster. It was being held as one of the Return to New York events that I sometimes see advertised around town for the old-school partiers. Whatever I had expected, it certainly wasn’t four dudes in hoods playing drum pads, keyboard guitars and synths and making epic, rocked-out techno jams, which is what The Juan Maclean did with its opening slot.
While this year’s Pop Montreal new-music extravagnza may have been an indie-rock music nerd’s wet dream, those of us too overworked or underfunded to take in a week of club-hopping in la belle province could take solace in the fact that Toronto, while unlikely to ever become as much of a hipster hotspot as its erstwhile cultural rival, at least gets a good selection of touring acts coming through on a regular basis. So in the spirit of enterprise, and thanks to a coincidental confluence of interesting shows passing through town at the same time, I decided to have a little festival of my own. My plan was to see five bands on four different nights, dragging my tired self out to some overloud dank watering hole each night and overwhelming myself with a gradual blurring of one faceless indie band after another - just like at a real festival!
Herewith, a summary of my very own Pop Toronto, which, while lacking in hype, depth, buzz and wrist bands, was still full of scenesters, cheap beer and hangovers at the office the next day.
Former SNL cast member and one-time God-loving Catholic Julia Sweeney joins a Bible-studies class at her church, only to wonder if those who would have us live our lives according to the Good Book are hoping for a return to the days of vengeful slaughter and family dysfunction.
An audio link from onegoodmove.com
(you have to scroll down to the June 05, 2005 posting)
C’mon.
The City of Toronto is apparently considering a plan to eliminate graffiti in the city by charging business owners for having it removed from their property, regardless of whether the owners request such a service or not. Which means that if a bunch of kids tag the wall outside your storefront and the city spots it, they’ll come in to whitewash it and then send you the (rather massive) bill.
Seen from the distance of the magazine rack at the grocery store checkout line, Britney Spears and her SoCal chav hubby Kevin Federline resemble a trash-tabloid train wreck destined for disaster, charting a course towards liposuction, alimony and future episodes of the Surreal Life. But surely the moms-and-pops to be (not counting the progeny Mr. Spears has already apparently produced) wouldn’t seem so tawdry if they could just let us in on what it’s really like to be them …
When I heard that Ulrich Schnauss was going to be playing at Toronto’s Lee’s Palace, my reaction was decidedly mixed. On the one hand, a rock club seemed like a poor place to experience the sounds of new age keyboard bliss soaring through the skies (or whatever other hyperbolic description you’d want to apply to someone who sounds, in the most fantastic possible way, like Yanni on a hard drug come down), but on the other hand, Lee’s is literally just down the street from my house, which is nothing short of awesome.
As it turned out, standing rammed into a crowded rock bar to see an act better suited to stoned bliss on the couch was certainly not ideal, and the sound system’s bass threatened to overwhelm almost all of the delicacy of the music, but none of that really ended up mattering; just watching the bookish-looking little German hunched over his bank of synths pounding out some of the most epic and uplifting music imaginable was still a treat (seriously, it was like the first time I listened to “Chariots of Fire” when I was 4 years old).
And to top it off, once he finished, I was able to walk up the street, drop off my jacket and backpack that I still had with me from work, and then saunter back down to catch the headlining M83. How cool is that?
When the first song came to an end and the singer grabbed the mic and started talking on and on during Out Hud’s show at the Horseshoe last night, i cringed at the thought of receiving a self-important monologue from a sanctimonious NYC indie hipster. How wrong I was. Not only did dude smooth over a potentially disastrous technical glitch with funny charm and cute observations about the petty regionalist quirks of canadians, but his band recovered from their equipment setback by delivering a flawless set of rump-shaking disco-punk gold that did nothing but leave smiles on our faces. Aside from the never-delivered encore (apparently they don’t “do” encores, but my recommendation to any band that chooses a similar path is to raise the lights and make that clear when you leave the stage, because it’s a little bit rude to do it after people have been cheering and clapping for you for like five minutes), the party people in Out Hud rocked like it was, um, 2003 and made it seem like dance punk just might have a life beyond last year’s fashion magazines. Good times, indeed.
