Ano Jisho

and in the middle of celebrations...

2011-10-24T07:35:00.000-07:00

just some odds and sods from around the city.

buffalo gal won'tcha come out tonight...

2011-10-24T07:32:00.000-07:00

i know that buffalo might not be the first place that springs to mind when your friend says "road trip" but you should have a think about it sometime. there are actually a number of neat things going on in this city (like most cities) but you just have to dig for them a bit. this particular trip was for chicken wings and beer. some of you might be confused that a canadian would be going to the states for beer but you haven't seen the sad state of suds in this country. there are good things here no doubt, but there are a lot of breweries that just don't get north of the 49th parallel or beer from other countries that ship to the states but not canada. it's more than worth the hour and a half drive to pick up some pawel kwak since my only other option is pray a wine distributor here has a case for some reason.

for the record, i did not buy the pint of red stripe or whatever the hell product 19 is. i just thought a stubby pint was odd and calling something "product 19" was both lazy and frightening.

earworm of the day: rusty nails

2011-10-11T08:43:00.000-07:00

moderat just won't let me go. it's a shame they only made one album and i'm not even sure why they split up as soon as they did (as far as i know the album wasn't officially finished before they broke up).

rusty nails features some pretty in your face percussion and a lovely haunting vocal (from sascha aka apparat) draped lovingly over top. gorgeous.

earworm of the day: polaroids of polar bears

2011-10-07T08:43:00.000-07:00

alexisonfire have broken up and i'm not really sad about that. i'm just old enough to have been there near the beginning when they were still just skinny angry little nerds playing pop punk/hardcore. there really weren't many bands doing it at the time but what i loved about alexis was that they were probably the first to combine the two styles well. i can't say i liked anything they did after the self-titled album though.

screamy pop punk bands were difficult for labels to sell. you can't really sing along and most of these bands weren't radio friendly. labels frequently told producers and bands they had to lose the screams or at least tone them down in order to increase sales but how do you do that and stay the same band? the answer is you don't. you may have noticed that george featured less and less in the followup albums then ultimately changed the way he screamed to a more acceptable tim armstrong style of growl/singing. one word; lame.

the self-titled album was brilliant because it captured a moment in musical history perfectly. suddenly indie bands were hot and anything the kids called "emo" was destined to get signed whether the label like them or not. i think a lot of young musicians realized just how awful the industry is as many of them were chewed up and spit out. some got lucky and had a good run, most of them did not. hell, some of them still haven't gotten over it and continue to write songs about how their lawyers screwed them.

i think i'm going off on a tangent here so i'll just close this out now.

reveal themselves one star at a time...

2011-09-07T13:48:00.000-07:00

i don't get to spend a lot of time with my extended family which is a shame because they really are quite wonderful. this cottage has been our refuge from the hustle of our collective lives for forty years now. some of us (like me for example) haven't been alive long enough to reach that mark yet but it's good to know it will be there when i do.

yardbirds

2011-08-31T13:00:00.000-07:00

i saw this bird in the window of a store with another bird just walking around. it was one of the most out of place things i've ever seen. on the less odd side, rob and his brother doug put on their sunday best and reminded the boroughs of toronto just how stupid they were for voting the fords in.

fall creek boys choir

2011-08-25T13:50:00.000-07:00

new music from james blake and bon iver. strange bedfellows for sure but wow what an inspiring colab.

just the other day...

2011-08-18T08:59:00.000-07:00

i'm not sure why it took me so long to realize this but (seemingly) most dubstep is now just trance with a different drum pattern. have a good listen to almost any newish track and you'll hear it too. same crap senseless lyrics about love or parties or whatever (tonight's the night we're going to party. love is in the air...blahblahblah). same build up, plateau, drop, rinse and repeat structure.

pathetic.

butterfly in the sky...

2011-08-15T13:56:00.000-07:00

more random photos for your enjoyment.

all the leaves are brown...

2011-08-05T07:35:00.000-07:00

there has been a lot of talk in the news about top gear "faking" the results of their recent nissan leaf test. what these journalist fail to realize is that in order to fake something you must first tell people the truth then assert that it didn't happen. luckily, top gear did neither of those things.

if you haven't heard, top gear has been accused of running down a battery on the nissan leaf before they road tested it so it would run out of power earlier on in the test. this is true. it's also true that they didn't tell the public they'd done this. where the accusation falls flat however is that no one ever said, "what a piece of junk. i had a full charge when i left and only got 40 miles not the 100 miles it's supposed to."

the point of this test was to show consumers that charging stations are difficult to find because they are spread quite far apart. if you do fill up at a charging station regularly for a "quick charge" then you risk halving the life of your battery. charging at home will take all night. this test drive was meant to highlight the fact that if you're running around town and your battery dies then you'll have to come up with some inventive ways to recharge, kill time or do both.

so what was the real problem people had with this piece? where were the falsehoods? what trickery was really attempted? clarkson said he actually liked the car and that it was comfortable and came with a number of good options. he even commented on the ample trunk space, a feature he hasn't mentioned since the 80s. all and all he said it was a really good car. it seems that people took offence to the truth. electric cars are overly expensive at the moment, are mostly made of non-recyclable materials, have poor range compared to other cars and require hours to re-fuel. the fact that they're the "green" alternative is hogwash. what's green about a car that's being charged by a nuclear or coal plant? where do these people think all that power is coming from?

this entire ordeal smacks of nissan looking for free publicity and they've achieved that. the review wasn't negative in regards to the leaf and wasn't really negative to electric cars in general. the truth is they aren't ready for prime time and won't be till battery technology gets much much more efficient. you shouldn't have to pack close to 7000 lithium ion batteries in a car to give it range and power but that didn't stop tesla from doing it. (the car manufacturer, not the genius.)

i would love to hear someone else's take on this story so please comment or email me if you disagree. it's refreshing to see that someone had the sense to remind people that top gear is an entertainment program designed to make you laugh and enjoy the antics of a bunch of middle aged men acting like children.

earworm of the day: kill the poor

2011-07-27T07:29:00.000-07:00

last night i was in a rather tiny little bar with terrible lighting and only one other patron which i kind of enjoyed. i like small quiet places to drink especially when all they're playing is misfits, dead kennedys, sex pistols and the germs.

good times.

earworm of the day: there will be tears

2011-07-26T08:04:00.000-07:00

yes mr. hudson released this first but frank put a pretty cool spin on his version by making it about the loss of two father figures. it's not easy growing up with a missing parent and it's even worse when you start considering a new person a replacement for that parent only to lose them too.

i'm not sure if there's anything that can hurt you or make you feel wonderful like family can.

earworm of the day: change is gonna come

2011-07-06T11:42:00.000-07:00

pretty lights is known to some as derek vincent smith. his music jumps back and forth between genres but is rooted in instrumental hip hop. i've been hearing a bit of dubstep influence creeping in to his stuff in the last year or so and it will be interesting to see if he develops it further or leaves it at just an influence.

change is gonna come is the first track off his 2008 double album filling up the city skies. it starts out with a sam cooke sample where it gets it's name from. it took a while to grow on me because pretty lights version is a lot more up beat than i was expecting but it's hard not to love sam's voice as he reassures us that no matter what, things will get better if we work for it.

earworm of the day: city of angels

2011-07-04T13:55:00.000-07:00

the distillers were pretty great for about two albums then they were much less great. c'est la guerre.

earworm of the day: no reason why

2011-06-29T11:23:00.000-07:00

we lie to ourselves or anyone else. i wasn't a big pennywise fan when i was younger but every once in a while one of their songs pops in my head. this was kind of a neat song because of the intro. good show trying to do something a little different.

that's about it for this rather self explanatory post.

earworm of the day: everything in it's place

2011-06-28T12:58:00.000-07:00

radiohead (and more specifically everything in it's place) took up residence in my head yesterday. i can't say that's a bad thing. maybe my brain is gearing up for king of limbs: from the basement.

who knows what's happening right now?

2011-06-23T14:08:00.000-07:00

i'm a few weeks late here but i wanted to mention just how great a time i had for movement 2011 in detroit.

the line up was a little less diverse this year than last which was a shame for two reasons, first it meant that every stage but one played house with a few techno djs thrown in from time to time. the stage that wasn't playing house had a high brostep factor. this brings us to the second problem i had with this years festival; douchebags. the high "bro" factor as my friend's called it was hard to miss. while i may have made fun at the expense of some people with seriously odd senses of individuality last year this year was the complete opposite. hipsters and frat boys were everywhere trying to mosh to jungle and dubstep sets. goldie played one of the best dj sets i've heard in years and several kids behind me kept chanting for skrillex. i've mentioned before that i'm not really a fan of his stuff and he seems like a good guy plus he's making people happy which is fantastic i just wish that acts like his weren't signed because it took a fun interesting weekend and turned it into a saturday night in the club district of toronto. idiots hung from the stage scaffolding and threw beer cans at people while more idiots ran around hi-fiving and chest bumping trying to start mosh pits. that's not the fault of the musicians, don't get me wrong, somehow they've just managed to connect with a fan base full of pricks.

i'm hoping next year goes back to a wider range of music styles because this festival is a lot more fun when people are just there to have a good time and dance or appreciate different types of music. for the most part dubstep in north america gathers the type of audience that you would normally find drunk in a corner at a mainstream metal show or hip hop club night. dudes that drink too much, get angry then fall over puking or try to start fights. that's not what this festival needs.

bring back the love movement.

i'll be there...

2011-06-21T13:40:00.000-07:00

it's been a while since i've posted photos but here's another quadtych from my travels in detroit. i didn't write about movement this year yet because i'm still trying to find the words to express how the weekend was. all and all i had a good time but it wasn't as good as the trip last year. the line up just didn't do as much for me this year. anywho you can follow me on instagram as "anojisho" if you'd like to see more or just keep checking back here.

all you need is love...

2011-06-08T08:02:00.000-07:00

i've managed to draw a lot more traffic to this page completely by accident with that sarah silverman pic. who knew that all you had to do was post pictures of pretty ladies and suddenly your page hits will increase. has anyone capitalised on this yet? have i invented something new? pictures of attractive women on the internet will be bigger than anything you've ever seen. seriously. i think i'm on to something here. i wonder what would happen if i posted naked pictures of women...is there even a market for that kind of stuff? sigh, i guess i'll never know.

blog hey

2011-05-21T06:34:00.001-07:00

yup. i got hacked.

balls.

"hey blog now you can start saving for a new home http://xxxfinancial.comedirect.php?to=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jbmJjNy5jb20vP3BpZD03Njg0Njg="

good luck saving for that home blog. you've only got a few hours till the world ends so get out there and shake a leg.

who dat is?

2011-05-17T11:26:00.000-07:00

lokid released his latest ep fear of heights on march 30th and it's a shame that it's taken me this long to hear about it. the new ep is great and i hope he'll start touring  a little closer to north america. paris seems like a long way to walk to see him perform at the moment.

the only way i can think to describe his sound is what if justice made chopped and screwed instrumental hip hop. if that makes any sense to you then you should download all his stuff because this wonderful young man is giving it all away for free on the link above.

kill the orcs, slay the orcs, destroy the orcs...

2011-05-16T08:28:00.000-07:00

tyler, wolf gang, odd future, golf wang and so on. you've probably heard of or heard at least a few of the offerings from the odd future crew by now and if you haven't then i'm not sure if i should recommend them to you. goblin came out about a week ago and i've been sitting on this review for about as long. shame on me.

tyler seems to be an intelligent, thoughtful, sarcastic slightly twisted young man like most young folks these days. there aren't many surprises on goblin for two reasons, one, tyler is a teenager so i would expect the album to be about girls, self esteem, daddy issues and fictitious murder. two, hip hop has been pretty boring for over a decade now so the bar of expectation has been set pretty low.

the strange thing about this album is that it took this long for american hip hop to do what rock did in the mid/late 70s and by that i mean turn "punk". not in a bad way but in a grimy, dirty d.i.y. way like punk rock did for rock and roll. sure there are tens of millions (if not more) basement producers all over the world that have been making tracks on their own but most of them are trying to live up to an ideal that professionals and record labels have said is the standard. if you don't use this synth sound or this type of beat with these plug-ins then no one wanted to listen to it because it didn't have the "professional" sound.

sonically, goblin is terrible. it's muddy, garbled and has trouble finding any kind of rhythm from time to time. tyler's flow is either a monotone growl or a monotone voice over that jumps around his off kilter beats. sometimes it's hard to tell what's keeping a track rooted to anything at all but all of that is actually kind of charming.

i'm glad to see a group of people trying something different and that's what this album is about. trying something different through established and accepted means of communication. it's a rap album that sounds like it could be a really bizarre prince tune or dark new wave electro thing. it's all over the map but it's all in the context of having fun and enjoying yourself instead of hoping that people will buy it and changing to accommodate people's tastes.

this is exactly how grime started and i hope more people embrace the idea. i can't be the only person that's bored as hell of fake ass punks talking about how they shoot people, sell drugs and pimp when everyone knows they're just acting. if people aren't talking about how dangerous they're pretending to be they're talking about partying or just have no message at all. let's have less frat boy rap and more artistic stuff happening here can we people?

earworm of the day: beautiful

2011-05-11T12:04:00.000-07:00

yup, that photo has no connection to this post other than the fact that it was the first image that popped up when i googled the word beautiful.

i've never been a snoop or pharrell fan but sometimes people just write a song that's so damn catchy it's almost impossible for me to not like it. beautiful is one of those songs.

kinda jazzy, kinda funky, kinda too much snoop but whatever.

it's the new style...

2011-05-06T12:16:00.000-07:00

new stuff from david vangel for your listening pleasure. equinox records recently posted the first single off david's new album breadth control and you can get it here.

sandpaper script sets the tone nicely for what should be a mind blowing album. i was lucky enough to hear bits and pieces throughout the making of the album and it was a pleasure to hear it come together even if i only got a tiny taste.

i've always enjoyed david's music whether he was performing live or building bed tracks in his basement. david has a musical sensibility that i don't find often enough in instrumental music. his tracks bend and breathe, contract and expand, whisper and yell but i love how they always keep me guessing and wondering where he'll take us next.

the album will be available for sale on may 20th on vinyl, cd and dto.

breathe with me...

2011-05-03T13:08:00.000-07:00

my trip to riverdale park last saturday was my first day out that felt like spring. how sad is it that it's been raining ever since?