March 25, 2006 Archives

I like One Evening the best, alongside Mushaboom and Inside And Out. Makes you want to swing to the music, and for the time being leave your petty worries behind.

Feist - Mushaboom
Feist - One Evening
Feist - Inside And Out

It's spring! Officially it is, and also it's been feeling like it alright, especially when you don't have to go out in full winter gear. The scarf, yes, but it's only ornamental.

On Thursday, as the first of at least a few days of temperatures above 4C, I went out for a walk in suburbia. Got myself a sandwich at Dagwood's, and then looked for a cafe to finish my book (the one I remembered being close to home seems to have closed down sometime in the past few months and replaced with a dollar shop...) but instead found that the seasonally open ice cream shop was now open, and has also replaced its Nestle ice cream counter with a real selection of gelato made in the shop! I usually choose not to mix fruity flavours with creamy ones, so went with a triple selection of amaretto, cream cappucino, and white chocolate (with the chocolate not exactly homogeneous with the ice base of the gelato).

It smells like spring. Last year, today in fact, I left for Japan and skipped the transition from winter to spring. It has its experimental value, I guess, although I can't really put it in words. When I came back from Asia, it was already summertime. I will always remember walking between the small houses on the hillsides of Nagasaki, at the exact moment when summery spring stroke (when you actually don't need a coat, think you're better off in t-shirt, and are starting to look for your sunglass clips). In the morning of that same day, I was travelling in Kyushu on the rapid train from Fukuoka, and passed fresh green rice fields. The only picture I thought of taking was on the way back - a blurry pic at sunset which gave the same rice fields a sort of cold blueish tinge.

Petronia has review with links to my photos. I take photos - she writes review. -end-

I thought of Annie as a relatively notorious artist - at least in specialized genres - and for anyone to experience half-empty venue on a world tour must give a kinda meh feeling. I knew the main hits, Chewing Gum and Heartbeat (ha-ha, knowing, b/c I keep on calling it "Heartbreak") and knew what it was about - but it wasn't quite like knowing the Belle And Sebastian. I don't know. If I lived downtown, I'd be a poorer man, but then I wouldn't be so selective about the gigs I actually decide to see.

Bande à part used to be a show on Radio-Canada's Radio One, once a week on Fridays, for quite a while, until they went once a day (recorded version) last year, I think, and then went to become a full-fledged satellite radio station alongside CBC's Radio Three.

So tonight, to celebrate their 5th, they reunited some of the most hyped performers of Quebec's indie scene... a strange mistake I make is to put them all (except aKido, 'cause it's electronica - and I keep being dissapointed that he uses this same trademark musical "twist" in each and every song - but a trademark is a trademark, what can you do?) in the same mental basket, that of "whatever Quebec rock bands". So now, after spending four hours of my life with them right under my nose, I can say that Karkwa is a depressing (in the vein-cutting sense) alternative rock band with a lead singer who sounds like Marc Déry of Zébulon (an equally notorious band of my teen years), the Dales Hawerchuk (having really negociated their band's name with the former NHL star of same name) are very very loud, and Malajube was the act many people came to see.

Malajube says they're "Progressive, Emo and Jam", but I could've said it sounds familiar, like reggae, like surf punk... but not quite - I probably mean this sort of happy upbeat instrumental sound. I don't know. I'm not a music critic. On the other hand, I think that having a single entitled Montréal -40 (music video) helps selling. *g*

Unfortunately, anything the performers sang went down the drain of poor elocution. The crowd was incredibly young (such that Danica and myself felt like old farts). So those are the other people listening to bandeapart.fm? Anyways, they reminded me of the hipster kids who hung out at the newspaper office during cegep. In time, just everything makes sense.

Those bands are unfortunately not close to being favourite bands. They're just quite okay, making quite good music I wouldn't rush out to buy. I might be bored with the rock scene. What I tend to listen to on bandeapart.fm anyways is their electronica selection, which also sometimes comes up with this weird experimental 15-minute track from artist with 10-word name.