Without a Yard

Another beautiful night at the Cameron House. Apologies for not filling everyone in one the Wednesday farewell gig for Delta & Emily Weedon - a good audience-participation time was had by all. Amanda has had an especially spectacular run of scoring favourites as cover songs in this venue….There was the usual (personal fav) ‘9-5′ jaunt, (& I posted some brutal clips to YouTube & realize that I really need to get around to learning how to use this camera now that it’s been a coupla years & I’m getting darker & blurrier.), but the highlight was the Cars’ ‘Just What I Needed’

Anyway, I couldn’t be bothered lugging a camera with me tonight, but when William Delray launched into a Hayden cover, I cringed with regret. The cover song isn’t on the record, but it is still a gem of a CD-R that is worthy of your discovering. Hopefully Soundscapes (who finally have a website - hurrah!) is stocking this self-titled album, I’m listening to it, uploading it to iTunes, transferring it to my iPod as I type. It as if you jumped into a time machine & caught Ron Sexsmith back in his bike delivery guy days. Just seek it out already or see him in show.
The headliners, Major Grange, were pretty impressive, too, not tingly-goose-bumpy-good like W.D., but good nonetheless…Like Sloan 2.0: same quirky guitar fills, off-kilter rapid-fire drumming, sugary-sweet three-part harmonies…what to add, erm, a great night was had by all.

This past week has been a combo of performance anxiety and aw-shucks-iness - work stuff did suck me away from blog updates, but - like the workout wagon - I will return triumphiantly and post some more content as the days progress. I hope.

Peace
Meegs

I guess if I’d been up on my Torontoist readings I’d have a better idea of how kickass last night’s openers’d be. But I’m not. And it was a beautiful amazing highlight-able surprise to have an opening act come charging out of the gates with all the fury of Buck65+LeTigre+LCDSoundsystem having a naught joke fest. I am talking about Project Jenny, Project Jan. One of most surprisingly great live acts I’ve seen - probably since sxsw….

As for the headliners, Fujiya & Miyagi, well, um, they were groovy and beepy and boopy. They did the low-fi bass-plunky’n'funky indie rock shimmy with a series of vocal/percussion skits and skats a la Futureheads without being abrasive or louder than a Maroon5 jam. The encore was pretty brutal, descending into a wankery blase instrumental plonk de plonk.

I will stop proselytising for F&M and switch over to PJ, PJ, me thinks. They’re back in TO for a headlining show at Social in September sometime…so long as it doesn’t coincide w/ Girl Talk (Phoenix - September 12th - $15 - buy tickets ASAP…)we’re good to go (& by go I mean dance), riiight?

Anyway, I’ll be away in for a brief vacation south of the border (NYC & Philly - holla), but back in time for St. Vincent at the Horseshoe on the 20th. To all my Torontonian buds - please do come. I promise you an enchanting show.

Peace
Meegs

Now I know that I was pumped about how close our seats were last night…but…um…Waubber takes the cake in the ‘peg. wow. What an amazing tour by an incredibly creative and generous band - this pic is going to prompt a vivid grandpa Waub-worthy story someday:

I’ve been thinking about the fall alot lately - especially as we’re approaching a stickily gross weekend in the city…Awesome shows are rolling through in the fall and I am freaking out about some time-management issues that will definitely occur due to the October election…

Yesterday Spoon released to MySpace their new Underdog video from Ga Ga Ga - Give Gorrilla vs. Bear some love & check it out on his site here.

Although I’m very excited for the trip to NYC - the TO time bookending the vacation is filled with amazing shows. Next Wednesday is the gorgeous Fujiya and Miyagi & the Friday I return brings the breathtaking St. Vincent to the Horseshoe. Her intelligent and wacky and varied record FINALLY comes out on Tuesday….hurrah.

Weekend reading recommendation - if you want to stay inside w/ your A/C is Slate’s slide show on YouTube ruining hip hop feuds….& their last foray into hip hoppery on the Aunt Jackie tip.

Peace
Meegs

Happy belated C-day, Canuck peeps!

Had a loverly long weekend & finding it tough to get back into work-mode….

Saturday’s Going Steady’s 2-year anniversary party was divine – the Under the Sea theme wasn’t completely maxed out to its full cheese potential, but there were indeed some tastefully scantily clad 50s throwback babes rockin’ amazing vintage swimwear that made me feel over/underdressed in my June Cleaver housewife getup.

The rest of the weekend is a blur – Martha Stewart central in our Lil’Portugal apt. baking, cooking, errands & cleaning – oh my! It was long overdue, but time consuming. Managed to sneak off & scoop some great used books at the new favourite bargoon palace – BMV books.

We marked C-day with the now-traditional trek down to Harbourfront Centre for Do Make Say Think & Final Fantasy. What a great double feature – for free, no less! Both sets made me wish for ‘real’ concerts in the near future….but neither site has any Toronto dates on the horizon – argh! Some of the new DMST tracks reminded me of twangy, atmospheric Calexico tunes & the ‘& yet & yet’ tunes are amazing live – that is still my favourite DMST album of all time…

Owen’s set was accompanied by a beautiful series of projections - & all I could think was this was a perfect full circle from checking out Hidden Cameras gigs w/ the lyrics being lit-up & enlared on either side of the Lee’s Palace stage….sigh. These displays were far less instructive than the days of yore – beautiful, simple and perfectly matched vignettes by Stephanie Comilang. You can see Stephanie’s work set to FF’s song ‘this lamb sells condos’ below:

Although it was a little chilly down by the Lake, I am very grateful for the milk weather we’ve been having in TO – cause I know that the sweaty’n’stinky days are just around the corner….This Wendi Aarons post reminded me about how brutal is was watching ACL Fest in the schweaty outdoors down south….

Listening to more & more Of Montreal (great baking music!)& pumped to see that fav mashup artist Girl Talk will be pumpin’ out some remixes soon….

Lots of GoogleReads to catch up on in the next coupla days. Printed off the NY Times arts/review sections & hopefully it’ll sustain me for some transit trips this week…some outstanding articles have been Geist’s Ottawa Citizen/Blog piece on the importance of updating our country’s cultural policy for the online age…& Paul Bonanos’ Huffington Post piece about buy’n’download options……& along the same lines of the Geist piece – setting realistic expectations for people sharing art w/out blatantly pirating or profiting from others’ work….

Anywhoo, that’s all the random bits that’re fit to print….any music-geek tourist tips for Philly & NYC would be greatly appreciated. Summer vacation on a small, manageable & friend-filled scale is creeping up on the 12th, & runs til the 19th. Off to break bread w/ family at a fantastic Portuguese resto. Life is good.

Peace
meegs