Remember the story about the girl who turned me down and ended up with my lookalike?
Someone mentioned The Karate Kid earlier today, and now I’ve come up with the best line for her:
“You went for Ralph Macchio when you could’ve had Mr. Miyage.”
Thankfully Wendy appreciates my kung-fu.
(I mentioned this on IRC and someone was quick to reply “And then you could ‘wax off’ on her!” Internet people need help, man.)
Also happening this weekend: the Celebrate Toronto Street Festival. All kinds of stuff will be happening — check it out here.
<>My friend Meryle will perform one of her legendary burlesque numbers this Saturday (hmmm…that’s tomorrow already) at the Cadillac Lounge as part of the Tiki Tease show.
If you’re in Accordion City this weekend, you’d do well to catch this…
[ via del.icio.us ] While we’re on the topic of synths, here’s a web page that does a side-by-side comparison of Nena’s 99 Luftballons (the German version) and 99 Red Balloons (the English version).
Apparently the translation is more poetic than literal.
As I mentioned in an entry yesterday, Christine, who writes the Blogware-powered blog PurpleCar,
is in town with her husband. She’d like to meet real live bloggers
(although real live Torontonians should be just as good). We’re meeting
tonight at 6:00 p.m. at Smokeless Joe, so if you’re in the neighbourhood, please drop by and say hi!
I’m involved with a little fundraiser event for Camp Quality, a
non-profit organization that gives kids with cancer a chance to go to
summer camp for a week and support for them and their families
throughout the year. Camp Quality is special in that every camper gets
individual attention: each kid who attends is paired up with a trained
adult companion who helps them throughout the week-long campning period
and also provides support throughout the year.
As you may have guessed, running Camp Quality isn’t cheap. That’s why
we’re helping raise funds for the camp, and we’re doing this by having
an evening called “Thank You”, featuring cocktails, comics, a silent auction and schmoozing…
From the site:
Camp
Quality is hosting its first annual “Camp Quality Evening Extravaganza”
fundraiser on July 21st, 2004 at Shmooze
nightclub.There will be comedians to entertain you, finger
foods to satisfy you and bartenders to soothe you. A silent auction will
be held so you won’t have to go home empty-handed.The festivities will begin at 7:30 and will go as long into the evening
as you can. Tickets are $50 and include 3 drinks and all the entertainment
you can handle. Finger foods will be available.All funds raised will go to fund Camp Quality and their summer camps.
Camp Quality is an international charity that puts on summer camps for
children with cancer.
It’ll be a fun night out, and yes, it’s a good way to meet new single people. And for a good cause too!
If you’d like more information or want to get tickets, drop me a line or leave a note in the comments.
As I mentioned in the previous entry, I wasn’t always an accordion player; I’ve been playing for only just over five years.
Prior to that, I was a synth player. I’ve always loved synthesizers, and back in my high school days in the eighties, Depeche Mode was one of my favourite bands. The first synth I got to play on a regular basis was my friend Anthony Famularo’s Roland Juno 106, a fat-sounding beast of an analog synth. My first live gigs were with a band called A.K.A., which specialized in covering Billy Idol and Platinum Blonde as well as playing our guitarist Nick Catre’s abominable original prog-rock wankfests.
After a performance so disastrous that I no longer have stage fright, I went to Crazy Go Nuts University where I joined a couple of bands, the most notable being Volume, in which my good friend George Scriban played bass. I also met Karl Mohr in an electronic music composition class; we bonded because we were synth guys in a guitar rock town. It was cool to sound like Pavement or Dinosaur Jr, not Nine Inch Nails or the not-yet-existent Ladytron.
After the Great Accordion Saturday of May 1st, 1999, I became an accordion player. I still have my main axe, a Korg Wavestation A/D rack and a Yamaha SHS-200 “keytar” style keyboard to control it, but I’m not much of a synth player anymore.
But I may become one again. Steph has offered me an old Korg Poly-800, and there’s also the release of this baby:
This, my friends, is a Roland FR-7 V-Accordion.
And yes, that’s Roland as in the synth company. This is a digital
accordion — a synth, really — with a built-in battery pack, amplifier
and speakers.
It also comes in red:
Here’s what the Roland site says:
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– PBM (Physical Behavior Modeling) enables true sound reproduction and dynamic expression.
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– Realistic tone and expressive simulations of a wide range of traditional accordions.
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– 22 onboard Orchestral sounds and 7 Orchestral Bass sounds that can be mixed together with traditional accordion sounds.
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– Portable, lightweight and expandable via MIDI.
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– Expand creative possibilities and explore new performance options not achievable using traditional instruments.
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– The FR-7 is a complete, all-in-one model with powered speakers.
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Holy crap. I want one of these for my birthday!