Tea and figs

After three crazy nights, my NXNE trip is over for another year. But I am pretty pleased by this year's adventure. Only a few misses. Nights two and three went as follows:

FRIDAY:
UltraMagnus
Spiral Beach
Dance Yourself to Death
Five Hot Bitches

Had to leave the last one, I'm afraid. I like Peaches (and some of her derivatives), but at the end of night #2, just couldn't get into the headspace necessary to tolerate a band who were screaming at me.

SATURDAY:

Always be prepared, and when it's a hot ticket show like Saturday's lineup at the Horseshoe, go ridiculously early. We were there at 8, had a table, and were laughing and drinking beer while the throngs lined up around the block to get in. Lineup was:

The United Steelworkers of Montreal
Oh Bijou
Sebastien Grainger
We Say Party, You Say Die

Good times, good music, and good to have seats with the place packed. Oh Bijou was my favourite. After hearing Casey play the NP acoustic set a few weeks ago, I thought the band would be like a bunch of balloons blowing around the backyard in the sunlight. And while the band was heavier than I thought they would be (maybe balloons filled with water?), the result was just as delightful as I had hoped.

Last year I gave up mid-festival, tired of lines, and only seeing bands that I already knew and liked. This year was great: saw some fantastic shows, ran into friends, only waited in one line, and got some nice story ideas out of the mix.

Labels: music, NXNE

Last night I explored the grungy, uneven depths of NXNE, managing to get to three venues and more than one decent show. Which, given past years, is an accomplishment.

Started off with Jer & Dani at The Gladstone to see Hey Ocean!, a Vancouver band that continues to impress. The music is an unusual mix of jazz, funk, r&b, pop, and fantastic performance. Very high energy, fun, inventive and musically rich -- they could play Massey Hall with such a professional set, I'm convinced. There are some songs kicking around on their myspace, I think, but the live set blows away the recorded stuff completely.

From there, we rushed to Reverb to see Spookey Ruben -- which was maybe more of an exercise in musical nostalgia than anything else. Haven't seen Spookey perform in something like seven or eight years, but his style remains distinctive. I had a very happy moment watching the show, remembering getting into music in high school and going around to see local bands. Seriously, if anyone has any Dig Circus or Leslie Spit Tree-o kicking around, I'll be set in adolescent memory. It was gratifying to remember that we liked good music back in the day. Spookey's style hasn't changed much, but that's kind of gratifying.

We hung around after with Spookey (who knows Danielle through an incredibly complex tangle involving exes). Watched Jason Faulkner (the man + guitar thing is pretty flat with an electric guitar and not too interesting). Met Dave Foley (cool) and his creepy lawyer-producer friend (who kept commenting on how girls' looks were working for them and talking about L.A.).

A slight tangent. I do not understand the appeal of L.A. I have a beautiful image of California, constructed of wisps of Joni Mitchell songs, Joan Didion prose and Lawrence Ferlinghetti and his dog. Why anyone would move to a town where young stars imagine themselves as bohemian in vapidly self-referential "art" movies like Don's Plum is beyond me.

I escaped at around 1 and cabbed it to Lee's where I hung out with Jason, caught the end of Ron Sexsmith and the whole sexy Melissa McClelland and Luke Doucet show at 2. Amazing. Great show. Perfection. Skipped out on Blue Rodeo.

Surprisingly good times for NXNE. More tonight.

Labels: music, NXNE

Hey,

Little article written about me in the National Post a few weeks ago [link].

Kind of happy about it, though the last question still strikes me as incredibly bizarre. And I was flattered that they wanted to write about me, but I do find it funny that they managed to label me both "activist" and "radical" in the display copy.

Labels: media, navel-gazing