Blue Peter

Back on October 5, our friend Paul and the rest of Blue Peter played their first public show in something like 2 decades at The Mod Club in Toronto. Everyone had a blast and went home with huge smiles on their faces, especially the band, who showed that while they may have moved on with their careers they can still bring it, and bring it they did. The crowd was largely composed of friends and fans from the era - Blue Peter's last album came out in 1983 - but this wasn't some Police-style money grab: the boys just wanted to see if they could still do it, and exceeded expectations in the process.

The night opened with The Spoons, who led their own hit parade as part of the Canadian New Wave scene in the early 80s. They brought out classics like Those Old Emotions, Romantic Traffic and, of course, Nova Heart.
You got the feeling that The Spoons have been doing this a bit longer, and by that I mean the reunion thing - he was a tad slick, with the shout-outs and sing-a-longs, but they were still quite entertaining, and I think we were all shocked by how many of their songs we still knew. The only disappointment was that Sandy doesn't crimp her hair anymore.

But then Blue Peter took the stage, opening with Falling, the title track from their last album. The crowd was hyped, and just about everyone knew all the words - the band didn't forget a one, but we would have forgiven them if they had - and, I don't know if this happened back in the day or not, but the devil horns came out, too.

Here's a somewhat incomplete set list that I swiped from the facebook page for the show:
Falling, Chinese Graffiti, All Your Time, Unchained Heart, Don't Walk Past, Water On The Moon, Equalizer, Video Verite, Radio Silence, Take Me To War, Same Old Place


The order may be a bit off, but no biggee. They ended their main set, of course, with Don;t Walk Past - i am including the video I shot of that below. Forgive the audio quality, it's not the greatest. I understand that that the show was recorded that night, but have yet to hear what exactly will be done with the recording. I'll keep you posted if I hear anything.



In the short term, enjoy, the video and check out the band's site for updates about future shows, as I suspect there be some.



Oh, and check this out, a new Blue Peter compilation is on its way!

Eat My Shorts

There's a fun thing on the Simpsons Movie website that's going around the net. Click on the Create Avatar button, and you can make your own character. Here's what I've come up with for me - they don't give you options to change your clothes, only their colors, but you have a fair bit of stuff you can do with the face. There's a further link you can use that will supposedly create a Simpsons character based on a submitted photograph, but I have yet to get it to work. I would have done something about the sideburns, too - they're not quite right. The quality, therefore, of the finished image, leads to this terrible pun of a segue:

Badly Drawn Boy - Spitting in the Wind



This being the single of Pissing in the Wind, from the Hour of the Bewilderbeast. I always preferred this single version to the album's, mostly for the saloon style piano and the heavier harmonica. Plus, the video features Joan Collins, in a brilliant set of casting.



You can get the album here. You should have already done so a long, long time ago.

Perfect From Now On

They finally made it - Built to Spill played their first-EVER Toronto shows last week, and it was worth the wait, almost. I say almost because really, would it have been that hard over the years to play the odd show here? If you're going to come to Buffalo, and if you're coming to Rochester, what's a little trip across the border? They have played Vancouver and Victoria, so I have always wondered what the issue was with Toronto. And none of the Toronto papers thought to cover last week's shows, so no one got to ask. I have rather hoped to run into Doug out front before the gig but missed him, otherwise I certainly would've.

Lee's Palace was the perfect venue - decent sound, great sight lines and a small enough space that even at the bar you had a decent view. H and I and the rest of our friends stood near the middle, right behind the sound guy, which also let us have a sneak peak at the set list. Doug didn't veer from the list at all, so the inevitable shouted requests went nowhere; but he was scheduled to play most of them anyway. He covered material from most of the albums - my own prejudice is that I would have preferred to have seen a bit more from Perfect From Now On, but that's just me - and he did most of the bigger ones.

Car was one of the few stripped down songs - Doug played it almost solo, with the drummer - but everything else was, well, big. Carry the Zero, Strange and my all-time favorite Velvet Waltz were each on their own well worth the price of admission. The thing with Doug Martsch is that he will find these great riffs and build on them and build on them, and he likes to find these series of ascending chord patterns that feel so incredibly perfect; so when you get a song that lasts for 8 minutes, well, that sounds just about right.

Someone has very helpfully posted the performance from that show of Velvet Waltz on YouTube. Oh, Internet, what will do you for me next?



Oh, and then he came out for an encore. He only played one song, Broken Chairs, but he played it for over 20 minutes. The only thing missing was the whistling at the end. Over all, I have to say that this show was better than the show we saw in Milwaukee a couple of years ago, mostly due to the sound. Eagles in Milwaukee had a pretty cavernous ceiling, which ate up a lot of the treble and detail. You also can still smoke in clubs in Milwaukee, and I never really noticed how much of a nuisance that was in a club until they stopped letting you do it - it made it more enjoyable certainly. (We bailed during the encore last time when H couldn't take the smoke anymore.) I haven't spoken to anyone who attended the Wednesday night show, but if you heard anything about it let me know. It was pretty much a full house, so I'm hoping that Wednesday was just as good as Tuesday.

And here's the original album version of what is one of my favorite songs ever (listen for the cello on the second verse, it kills me every time):

Built To Spill - Velvet Waltz



Get Perfect From Now On at amazon.com

I in the sky

Recently in my You Tube travels I came across this nugget from my childhood, possibly my all-time favorite Sesame Street bit:

The great thing about this bit is that you learn absolutely nothing about I and what it stands for. I also used to wonder just how they got that ladder inside, and where did they keep it?

Here's a rather obvious, yet strangely unrelated musical link to go with it.

Alan Parsons Project - Eye in the Sky

Happy Canada Day

Well, hi there everyone, and a happy 140th birthday to dear old Canada. I know, if you'd known you'd have baked a cake. Well, you're here, I'm here, Canada is here, let's all sit down together and have a little music party.

I've put together a handful of some very Canadian songs for your listening pleasure.

Stompin' Tom Connors is definitely a legend - let's call him a Canadian Johnny Cash without the drugs and the booze. There's nothing more Canadian than combining Tom with that other Canadian passion - hockey.


Stompin' Tom Connors - The Hockey Song



I don't know much about these guys, but this would definitely qualify as Canadian Classic Rock.


The Kings - Switching To Glide



Great band from the late 80's, early 90's - The Grapes of Wrath. Think they're still out there somewhere - look them up on Google.


The Grapes of Wrath - You May Be Right



The last time I saw these guys was at a movie theater downtown - literally, the lead singer and lead guitarist were going in to see a flick. This is the original of a song ruined by Hootie & the Blowfish. No one sings like Neil Osbourne.


54-40 - I Go Blind



Larry Gowan's Strange Animal album was huge when I was 14. It is worth tracking down a video for this song on You Tube - oh, hell, I'll show it you myself. Check out his earring.



In a very odd development, Larry Gowan is now the lead singer for Styx. No, seriously.


Gowan - Strange Animal



And what would a Canadian musical tribute be without the greatest of Canadians himself?


William Shatner - Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds



ps ... welcome to Canada Alex!

Covers: Different Drum

Okay: who had a favorite Monkee? Come on, it's okay, I won't tell anyone... okay, if you don't pick someone soon, I'm going to pick for you, and then - okay, that's better. No, I'm not going to wait for your answer, you had your chance. Besides, this is my blog, and I can do whatever I damn well please. And it pleases me to share that my favorite Monkee was Mike Nesmith. He wasn't the goofball, he wasn't the ladies' man, he wasn't even the one who danced like Axl Rose. Maybe it was the toque, foreshadowing my soon-to-be move to Canada. Maybe it was his height. Maybe it was the fact that you could tell that he really just wanted to be writing and playing songs, and especially in later episodes didn't seem as keen on the cheeseball "acting" sequences.

Nesmith always was a songwriter. The other guys all chipped in, and later on even wrote some of their own original material. But Nesmith had more of a gift - my favorite Monkees song, period, has always been You Just May Be The One. Here it is on YouTube, and notice that the audio is slightly different from the version that usually surfaces on Monkees recordings:





Anyway, that's where my appreciation for Michael Nesmith started. Now we move on.

Like everybody else in the history of the world, my musical interests were molded somewhat by what my parents were listening to when I was a child. This explains Meat Loaf, ELO, and the soundtrack to Jesus Christ Superstar, as well as The Beatles, Billy Joel and the Rolling Stones. It also is my explanation (excuse?) for Linda Ronstadt. (As an aside: yes, I promised both here and in a comment on Armagideon Time that I'd be posting about her soon, and am only now getting to it. Better late than never.) So, here goes.

My parents had Linda Ronstadt's Greatest Hits album, which played a lot in that house on Long Island. There's a bunch of covers in there to begin with, like Desperado and That'll Be The Day, but my favorite was Different Drum, which it turned out was written by, you guessed it, Michael Nesmith. I didn't learn this until I was much older, but maybe this too had something to do with the choosing of my favorite Monkee.

And look at her back then: such a cutie. Damn. I know that for the Living In the USA album, they did a photo shoot with her in short shorts and roller skates, which seemed a natural fit as I keep going on about roller derby lately, but I can't for the life of me find the image I recall. Not that this isn't a marvelous picture to begin with. Taken around 1970, I think, which would be around the time she recorded Different Drum with the Stone Poneys. I've dug up a couple of other reverential covers of the song by appropriate people, who get it.

Michael Nesmith - Different Drum



Linda Ronstadt (Stone Poneys) - Different Drum



Matthew Sweet with Susannah Hoffs - Different Drum



Evan Dando - Different Drum (Live)



You can get Linda Ronstadt's Greatest Hits here.
You can get Michael Nesmith's early hits "The Older Stuff" here.
Matthew Sweet and Susannah Hoffs' track comes from Under the Covers, available here:
The Evan Dando track was apparently on the Lemonheads' Favorite Spanish Dishes EP, which appears to be out of print. Not sure if this was a separate recording or the original.
As usual, enjoy them while they're here, and if you really enjoy them, go out and buy them.

Heh-heh. Heh-heh.

Oh yeah. So, there was a roller derby event last weekend - I'm not kidding when I tell you that this was absolutely the coolest thing ever. Three hours of full-tilt skating, and wipe-outs, and screaming and yelling - it was a right blast. I know that the D-VAS defeated the Smoke City Betties, but I can't for the life of me recall the score, nor can I find it anywhere. I suppose I could just ask H, but that somehow seems too easy. In the above picture, she's more or less dead center about to start a round. I haven't used this camera for much more than taking pictures of the cats around the house, so I wasn't prepared for the complete inability to take action shots that are decipherable. I was hoping for some action shots, but what I kept getting was blurred all to hell. Next time I'll probably bring along the Pentax and do it the old-fashioned way.
Andrew from work came with me, and he's posted a couple of video clips from the night on You Tube. Have a look:


I'm hoping to organize a bit of a posse for the next event - July 14th at George Bell Arena, I believe between the Chicks Ahoy! and the Bay Street Bruisers. Tickets again appear to be $10 in advance - through Soundscapes or Rotate This. Other venues for tickets are on the Derby home site - there's also links to all 6 teams, so you can have a look and decide if one squad is more deserving of your support than another. Or let me know, and maybe Penny Whistler can hook you up. (No word on the intermission entertainment - this time around it was the Pillow Fight League, which is exactly what you think it is.)

I think as time goes on, you'll see more animosity creep in to the matches, as at this point I think many of them are still pretty friendly and haven't made their enemies yet. Don't get me wrong, there's definitely a competitiveness there and passions and tempers flare a bit. But you're not going to get the flat-out fist fights that no doubt 50% of the male audience is there to see - so if that's you, don't get your hopes up. And, as with Nascar, the main reason for some people to watch roller derby is for the accidents and injuries. Nothing too serious happened last week - I think one woman sprained an ankle.

I'm digging the rockabilly aesthetic with derby, and I'm still digging the Detroit Cobras.

Detroit Cobras - Bad Girl

End of another era

So on Monday I was downtown getting my haircut. (This woman took an hour to cut my hair, showered me with baby powder at one point, and even cut her fingers on the scissors. But this is not that story.)

Anyway. Afterwards, I walked in to Sam the Record Man, which is, alas, closing its doors for good at the end of the month. I've been going there as long as I can remember going downtown, and have bought probably most of the cassettes that are sitting in a box somewhere, because after the advent of CDs you realized that listening to tapes is such a pain in the ass, so you don't do it anymore. Now CDs are the new pain in the ass - everything's online now anyway.

So I walked in, likely for the last time, and poked around. They've thinned stuff out a bit, but there's the makings of a great sale there. There's a bunch of 99 cent bins - if you need a copy of The Button Down Mind of Bob Newhart they've got about 50 of them - but it was an interesting piece of nostalgia to walk around in there. I miss the smell of the vinyl. Once record shops ceased being, well, record shops, they lost a lot of their charm. The sound that those plastic security cases that held tapes or CDs slapping against each other wasn't the same, either.

Sam's was also more of a Canadian institution. Once upon a time there were a couple hundred locations across the country. When I was younger there was one in my neighborhood, near Bloor and Jane. A friend of mine worked there at the time, in an era when the top 30 singles would still be represented by an ordered stack of 45s. There was a community feel to Sam's too - at this location, Trevor was generally the one who got the task of hand lettering little signs for the Top 30, usually with really awful, like Evil Dead awful, puns. One in particular that has always stayed in my mind was for a Paula Abdul song. Trevor drew a little sketch of the CN Tower, and the caption, "The CN Tower goes Straight Up". With any luck, this will be the only mention of Paula Abdul ever in this blog.

There will still be 2 independent Sam's locations left, holdovers from the old franchise days, in Sarnia and Belleville, I think. But losing the flagship store on Yonge Street will be a loss for Toronto, certainly. Those neon records were one of my earliest memories of Toronto, from a 1980 vacation with my parents the year before we moved here. We Stayed at a hotel a couple of blocks away, and our hotel room faced that way. At night I'd sit by the window for ages and watch the flashing lights simulate spinning. They were awesome. A note on the Spacing wire suggests that the sign will not be saved with the building, but will instead be auctioned off with the rest of the leftovers.

So. I browsed around for a while, but there wasn't much that was screaming out at me to liberate it from the shop, but I did pick up this:

Blue Peter's old albums have been remastered and are finally available on CD for the first time. Sam's is selling them for $5.99 each, or all 3 releases for $14.99, I think. I picked up Radio Silence, which comes with the ep Test Patterns For Living and a live track from 1983. It's incredible how well this stuff has held up. Video Verite in paticular kicks, and the title song as well. One of the pre-eminent Canadian New Wave bands of the late 70's early 80's, Blue Peter reassembled for a reunion gig in November that I was fortunate enough to attend, and rumor has it that there will be another in Toronto, maybe later this summer, or in the autumn. If hear anything definitive, I will pass it on asap.


In the meantime, you can get your Blue Peter fix at their site or their MySpace page. The former includes some video and a whole bunch of audio clips from back in the day.

And, to get you started, I'll pass this on to you:



Don't Walk Past was probably their biggest hit back in the day, and this is unfortunately a poor recording of it's video. Watch it more clearly on the band's site. And go down to Sam's before it closes for good - and while you're at pick up some Blue Peter why don't you.

Coming soon: the threatened Linda Ronstadt post.

Femme Fatality!

Hey. I don't make this shit up.

But this coming Saturday, the 16th, I'm going to see my first roller derby match. Does one cheer for referees? I'm gonna give it whirl. Full info is available over at ToRD. You can get tickets at Rotate This and Soundscapes, or from me - I've got a couple of H's, and the friends I thought would want to come are otherwise engaged - apparently the Ultimate Fighting match takes precedence, in one of those my-form-of-violence in better than your-form-of-violence sort of things. Anyway, it'll be a gas, and I will have full report next week some time. Apparently there was a feature on MTV Canada this week in which H (Penny Whistler) makes an appearance. I'll figure out a link for it at some point, too.

Here's yet another in my series of not-trying-hard-enough mp3 links:

Call and Response - Rollerskate



I have no idea how I came by this song. It's been in my collection for a few years, though. Anyone who knows anything is welcome to volunteer.

Hell yeah

Evil Dead: The Musical (yes, I'm serious) has announced it is extending its Toronto run through August 4th - if you haven't already gone to see this, you must do it now. You can order online at their website, here. We've seen it a couple of times, in its earlier ghetto incarnation, and the current production. It's more than worth the price of admission. I earlier wrote about it here.

I'm feeling a little lazy right now, so here's a couple of obviously-themed pieces of musical enjoyment:

The Zombies She's Not There



The Zombies Time of the Season



You can pick up their Greatest Hits on amazon.com.

Too Young To Move On

When H and I first started dating, like most guys, I had a phase of trying to make myself seem more interesting than I actually am. (HA! It worked!) And looking for something different to do on a date one night, because "You wanna go grab a couple of pints" doesn't seem all that alluring, I noticed that a club downtown was holding a Jeff Buckley tribute night. When I suggested it, H balked a little, and we wound up... going to the pub to grab a couple of pints instead. Turned out that her co-worker (and my friend who had introduced us) had said "Jeff Buckley's who guys use to get women in bed." I guess she thought I might have been showing my cards a little soon. My friend was right, though; Buckley's music was a bit of a panty-remover. Such a talented singer, writer, guitarist. It's too easy to say the usual bits about tragedy and such-a-waste and gone-too-soon... I mean, really, you think so?

Like everyone else I head heard Last Goodbye on the radio - CFNY (now: "The Edge") had it in medium rotation, I think. And when I heard that he'd died, and in such an odd way, it really struck me, somehow, and I wound up heading to Sam's and picked up Grace the same day. It quickly became one of my favorite albums of all time - if I don't play it as often these days, it's not because I don't love it anymore. I think now I just bring it out more for somewhat special occasions, when I can really give it a good listen.

There's a must-read great post on I AM FUEL, YOU ARE FRIENDS. She's assembled a great series of rarities, as well as a wonderful list of tribute songs to Buckley by other artists. I especially loved the Aimee Mann story. Read it here.

My favorite song of his, after all this time, remains Lover, You Should've Come Over. I have a few different versions of it, as it showed up on a couple of EPs. This, version, however, would be my favorite, Live @ WNEW-FM in 1995. It's a song that can still break your heart into a million little pieces, and you don't mind at all.

Jeff Buckley Lover, You Should've Come Over (Live)

Or, if you prefer, here's a You Tube video of a different performance:




This will be a good week to give it a good listen.

And if you still don't have a copy of Grace, what the hell is wrong with you? Go buy it right now.

You do know how to whistle, don't ya?

Well, to my continual amazement and glee, H has followed through on her intention to get involved with roller derby. The skates she got don't look as I has hoped (see here) but they're pretty rockin' all the same. Toronto Roller Derby kicks off the summer 2007 season this coming weekend, and H has joined up as a referee for this season - I'm told that the referees pages will get put up eventually. It seems like this has come together pretty quickly, and given that it appears there was tremendous interest in the first place, I'm surprised it wasn't established sooner. By an odd coincidence, the rink the league secured is in my parents' neighborhood. Pretty much any kid I knew growing up who played minor hockey played out of George Bell Arena, not to be confused with this other George Bell:


One of the best outfielders The Toronto Blue Jays had in the 80's, George Bell is perhaps best remembered as:

a) the first (and so far only) Jay to be AL MVP

b) telling reporters that Jays fans could kiss his big, purple ass.

I can't say that I recall why he said this, but we do have a tradition of athletes in this city telling people to kiss their asses. Todd Stottlemyre - another Blue Jay, natch - once told the mayor of Philadelphia to kiss his ass in front of 50,000 people, at a victory rally after the 1993 World Series. I have no doubt whatsoever that the advent of roller derby will lead to additional requests for ass-kissing, although I suspect that the press coverage will be less significant. And I really have no idea about the George Bell for whom the arena is named, nor do I know anything about the color of his ass, purple or no.

But back to the matter at hand...

H has adopted the derby handle of "Penny Whistler". ('cause referees have whistles, don't cha know.) Seeing as all of my suggestions featured the words Boobs, Knockers, Hoo-Hah, or some combination thereof, it's probably just as well that she went her own way on this one. If next time around she joins a team, maybe I'll run a contest for the naming rights.

Here's a couple of tracks which for different reasons seemed appropriate to mark today's theme. See if you can guess why.

Detroit Cobras Hey Sailor

Bright Eyes Pull My Hair

Listen. (part 1)

A happy byproduct of having been home sick this week - I believe today will be the last day off, but we'll see if the fever returns - is that I've had plenty of time to spend online and listen to music. I thought today I would share a few of the things I'm finding I cannot stop listening to. Maybe you'll like them too.

I first stumbled upon Maia Hirasawa a while ago, and she's got to be the best thing to come out of Sweden since IKEA. Well, maybe that's a cheap reference. She's got this wonderful breathy thing going on. Well, here, you decide how you want to categorize it. It's fantastic:




I think all videos from now on should be filmed in dingy bathrooms. Dig the giant drumming rat, too.

This is my other favorite track by her right now:

Maia Hirasawa You and Me and Everyone We Know

Maia Hirasawa is also part of Hello Saferide, who I suppose would be the other best thing to come out of Sweden since IKEA. (I should really stop that.) Slightly different sound. There's a drum in this song that I keep hearing even when it's not playing:

Hello Saferide The Quiz

You can learn more about both acts, and buy their music, at their label, Razzia Records.

Going in another direction, you can't seem to go anywhere without coming across a reference to The National. (SIXEYES has posted a lot of stuff lately.) Right now, I can't seem to get enough, either. Here's what YouTube has to offer:



Check out "Fake Empire" on their Myspace page. This one's an older track, but killer (forgive the heinous pun):

The National Murder Me Rachel

The National's new album Boxer (the one that everyone is raving about) is available at Insound. Get it.

Finally, if you were at all like me a few years ago and couldn't stop listening to the Elephant 6 stuff (Olivia Tremor Control, Neutral Milk, etc.) you might find a fix with The Decemberists. It may just be that voice, as I don't recall Jeff Mangum ever using a saloon piano:

The Decemberists Bandit Queen

You can buy The Decemberists at krs records. You should.

Where have you gone, Jason Chayka?

When I was a kid I lived on Long Island, in a town called Bethpage. It was pretty much the place between the two malls, or at least that's how I remember it. We lived at the halfway point on a county bus route that literally went from the mall in Hicksville (no, really, that's what it was called. yeah, I know.) and the one in Massapequa (got no smart-ass comment for that one, do you?). I don't really have much of a specific point in raising that tidbit of info, but let's see if I can link it in somehow.

I'm sick today. Leave it to me to get sick on what is normally my day off anyway, and on top of that, it's a holiday too. (Happy May 2-4 everyone.) Well, I'll show them - I'm gonna take tomorrow off. Hang out on the couch watching old Family Guy episodes and maybe some old movies. Daytime TV sucks. Anyway, feeling this cold? infection? syndrome? develop over the weekend I tried to ward it off with meat fest - next time I'll take pictures and post it, H had gone away to Milwaukee for the weekend and took the camera - but that didn't work out so well. I did however decide to watch Star Wars for the first time in years. (One of the many assets that H came with was an extensive collection of Star Wars paraphernalia, including an R2D2 collection.) After not seeing this film for like 20 years or more I'm surprised at how ell it stood up, considering how crap the "prequels" were.

Man, these decongestants and antihistamines are wiping me out. And the tylenols.

Oh, right. The link - and this will all become clear in a moment - is that watching the movie made me think of my childhood. I was old enough to see it in the theater when it came out (I'll bet Grandma took me to RKO Keith's in Flushing, which is no longer there, alas.) Man, when that movie came out, it was, I imagine, bigger than Harry Potter today. Every kid at school had to see that movie as soon, and as many times as possible. I would have been in the first grade, I guess. And I was friends with this kid named Jason. Jason could do (for a six-year-old) a pretty decent imitation of R2D2. He'd walk around the school yard at lunch time whistling and chirping in the company of this other kid, Tim, who would do the best attempt at an English accent a kid from Long Island could do while walking around in a stiff-armed posture as C3PO. I suppose I'm painting these kids as total dorks, but come on, we were all of 6 years old. Or so. Hell, the amount of drugs I've taken today it could have been last week for all I know.

Anyway, Jason and I became friends, and when I moved to Canada at 9, he was one of a couple of kids I stayed in touch with. Every couple of years when I would go down to visit family I would go out o the Island and see him. We shared an affinity for cats and cartoons, The Monkees and Dr Who (although I wasn't the one who made his own Tardis out of a box a refrigerator came in. Again, I guess that was pretty dorky. Somewhere I have the picture he sent me of it. If I get it scanned, I'll let you judge for yourselves.) Anyway, this long distance friendship carried into our twenties, and the dawn of emailing, and somewhere around that time we lost touch. And watching Star Wars the other night all smashed on Neo Citran made me think about Jason again and wonder what became of him. I'm pretty sure that at some point I tried mailing something to his old address and never heard back, but that may be another hallucination. I do know that online searching has turned up exactly nothing about him or, as near as I can tell, his folks. He had a sister named Rachel, and I don't recall his parents' names. I think his father had worked for Grumman. So, if you know Jason, or are Jason, by all means drop me a line.

For anyone else who waded through this, as a little reward, here's a piece of All Time Quarterback, one of Ben Gbbard's many side projects from Death Cab. I first heard this song online a few years ago, and I liked it so much I bought the album, and you should too. You can get the album here. I see they also have another song linked there too.

All Time Quarterback! Plans Get Complex

A cold start

It's Monday, and it's cold in Toronto today, and I'm still figuring out what I'm doing here. In a few weeks I'm hoping that this will evolve into something meaningful. Maybe I'll share some music with you, maybe pictures, maybe complaints about the streetcar driver, or the cats which still don't get along after 6 months, or the people downstairs who apparently couldn't be bothered with birth control. They can, however, be bothered with incense and a didgeridoo... but this isn't about them. This is me, I guess. Maybe the goal is to find out what I have this is worth saying, and sharing. I guess the real reason I'm starting this - at least the short answer - is that it was swell to actually have 2 days off in a row, and not wanting to go outside today (it's amazing how cold 1 stupid degree can feel after recently experiencing double digits) I found myself in front of the screen, contemplating what would keep me busy today. And after the first 36 hours of not working, well, creating this was about it. I've taken to even procrastinating from my procrastination: there's about 5 cds I've been meaning to burn for people, a wedding speech to write (I've still got 5 months to work on it) and I guess I really ought to return to that novel I was trying to write... I've actually gotten a lot further tonight with this (for a neophyte) than I thought I would, but pretty soon the key will go in the lock, and then I'll have to create some magic for H with the leftovers in the fridge...

So, anyway. Welcome. It'll take me a while to fill in the blanks, as it were, so be patient. This is going to be a gas.

In the meantime, I'm ghoing to see if this part works, and try posting an mp3:

Art Brut - Modern Art

It makes me want to rock out too.