Some of the nice people you’ll meet at Kickass Karaoke. Dorian, Carson (the host) and me.
Don’t forget that Kickass Karaoke takes place tonight at the Bovine Sex
Club (542 Queen Street West, just east of Bathurst). To catch a bit of
the flavour, check
out this video of the last Kickass Karaoke at the Bovine [1 MB QuickTime] featuring Johnny O singing The Kinks’ Apeman and the Bovine “regulars” (regular attendees, not “regular” as in “average” or “normal”).
On Saturday night, I was heading to Smokeless Joe to catch up with my friends Liz and Keith when I saw the coolest upright bass ever. It belonged to the bassist of The Matadors, who performed at The Black Bull later that evening. I aksed if I could photograph his bass, and not only did he oblige, he even posed.
Alas, I’d already made arrangements to catch White Cowbell Oklahoma with Meryle at the same time The Matadors were playing, but I’ll have to catch these guys at some point.
Duuuuuuuude.
Today’s User Friendly continues with its storyline on blogging:
In case you were wondering, here are the lyrics for the first part of Lump by The Presidents of the United States of America (their site currently opens with a sound snippet from Lump):
She’s Lump! She’s Lump! She’s Lump!
She’s in my head
She’s Lump! She’s Lump! She’s Lump!
She’s might be dead
Lump lingered last in line for brains
And the one she got was sorta rotten and insane
Small things so sad that birds could land
Is Lump fast asleep or rockin’ out with the band
I think Illiad could’ve done better than assonating “pyjamas” with “parameters”. I’d have written
Lump is part of my accordion repertoire. Maybe I’ll shot a video of me performing the User Friendly parody.
If you’re in Accordion City this coming week, be advised that there are
not one, not two, but three Kickass Karaokes taking place!
The dates and locations are:
I’ve been saying this for years:
In case you hadn’t heard, one of the best radio stations out there is Seattle’s KEXP,
which broadcasts both on regular analog radio and online. They are an
independent, commercial-free radio station with amazing DJs, playlists
to die for, and have shows and guests that nobody else could have
possibly landed (one recent treat was french synthpop duo Air peforming
live in their studios).
Give them a listen, and if you like what you hear, send them some
money. Remember, it’s listener-supported radio, so it’s our bucks (as
opposed to Clear Channel’s) that keeps them going. In the open sewage line that is commercial radio, these guys are like a fresh pint of Guinness.
Here are a couple of videos from last Saturday, a lovely evening spent with some GTABlogger buddies — Jeremy, Graig, Carla, Paul and special guest blogger from LA, Kristine — at the superfabulous and full-of-cute-well-dressed-women Drake Hotel.
The first one features Jeremy enjoying a glass of Couvoisier that Kristine had bought him. I’m the other voice in the video.
Livin’ in a rap video. Jeremy gets the Courvoisier passed to him.
[ Click on the picture to see the video — 1.2 MB Quicktime ]
Jeremy later got to witness the power of the accordion. One of the
group of women (seen at the end of his video) asked me to take their
picture. My birthday senses were tingling, so I asked if one of them
was celebrating a birthday. They pointed out the birthday girl, I
strapped on the squeezebox, played Happy Birthday and won more converts to the Accordion Cause.
There’s nothing like having a hand-powered machine that can turn music into free drinks, let me tell you.
Teeth-clenchingly hip. Graig tells us how much he loves the Drake Hotel.
[ Click on the picture to see the video — 1.0 MB Quicktime ]
Speaking of those turds on toast known as the Unicorns, a little Googling found me an article on the band in the upcoming issue of Macleans magazine. Here’s a snippet that explains everything:
The trio’s antics have only added to their
growing legend. They hired homeless people as fill-ins for a couple of
shows and claim to have eaten magic mushrooms in preparation for an
interview with the New York Times. Topping things off, the
bandmates gave away all of their possessions last August and moved into
an RV (which has since died) to live a transient beatnik-style
existence. They still don’t have a fixed address. “The nights are
cold,” says Diamonds, during a recent 3 a.m. interview in the parking
lot of a 7-Eleven in Toronto, “but you get to walk around a lot.”
Despite inhabiting a twisted fantasy world, the Unicorns have a pretty
good idea why things are going so well. “Girls start with horses, then
get into unicorns, and then nice boys,” says Tambeur. “We like to think
of ourselves as halfway between horses and nice boys.”
Halfway between horses and nice boys — yeah…on the IQ scale or the evolutionary ladder!