After a week of fiddling we finally managed to get a somewhat decent (I hope) banner up for the site. Some of you may recognize my inspiration right away, others may think it is something from a construction zone. While the latter is true to a certain extent, the banner was acutally inspired by the work of Peter Saville, a Manchester-based graphic designer famous for the design of record sleeves and posters for Factory Records artists, most notably for Joy Division and New Order.

‘Fac 1′ is the first poster designed by Peter which arrived late for the opening of the Factory at the Russell Club in Manchester. A simple looking poster for it’s time, Saville found elegantly ordered art more appealing than the anarchic style of punk graphics of the late 70’s. He actually based the Factory poster on an industrial warning sign he had stolen from a door at college.

FAC 1

He went on to design the majority of album covers and posters for Factory Records and always had the amazing ability to take an image from one genre and recontextualize it in another.

If you want to have a look at Peter’s collection and even download fonts he has used on classic posters and albums, head on over to his website.

Toronto - Last week the Horsehoe Tavern celebrated their 60th anniversary. As part of the celebrations, The Joel Plaskett Emergemcy played 6 shows. Each night he featured songs from one of their albums. We went to the Thursday night show, which was La De Da, a Joel Plaskett solo album.

The most important thing to know about a Joel Plaskett Emergency show is that whenever he mentions Nova Scotia, you need to yell like you just shot-gunned your 9th straight can of Keiths. Even if you grew up in Kandahar City, when at a Joel Plaskett show you are allowed to act as if you just got in your first fist fight at pizza corner*.

The show started with some guy saying a little blurb about the Horseshoe and all the legendary acts that have played there. He then brought up the fact that the evening would be filled with ‘special guests’. Next, he held up a picture and announced “Here I have a freshly signed picture of Stompin’ Tom Connors, one of the legends who have graced this stage”

Freshly signed? Special guests? My friend Danielle and I looked at each other and simultaneously mouthed the words “Stompin’ Tom?”. Holy shit, Stompin’ Tom is one of the special guests?!?

Joel took the stage. I would say that La De Da is one of his less rocking/anthem albums, and the show really reflected this. I lost count how many times he started playing a song by saying “We haven’t played this one in a while”. Yah, well there is probably a reason for that Joel.

Then the conveyer belt of special guest started.

Special Guest #1 - Joels’ dad who played some guitar. It was sweet.
Special Guest #2 - The guy from Winnipeg based band Big Sugar. Mehhh.
Special Guest #3 - Gord Downie (The Tragically Hip). Kick ass. He is one sexy man. He sang ‘I Love This Town’. Then he sang some Christmas themed song which totally killed any momentum that the show had going for it.
Special Guest #4 - Danielle and I looked at each other…could it be…Stom…nope, Sarah Harmer. Still pretty awesome.
Special Guest #5 - No special guest #5. The show is over, go home.

No Stompin’ Tom. What the deuce?

Danielle put it all in perspective on our way up Spadina. “Stompin’ Tom is 71 years old. You can’t expect him to show up, unannounced in downtown Toronto at 1:00 in the morning to play one single gig”. Yah, I suppose she has a point.

4/5 - Good show Joel. Thanks for playing ‘Snowed In’. That is a funny song that could have only been written by and pulled off by an east coaster. The special guests were a nice surprise even if Stompin’ Tom wasn’t one of them. Sarah Harmer and Gord Downie are of equal sex-atudes.

*Pizza Corner - 3 different pizza restaurants at corner of Blowers and Grafton in Halifax. Good cheap pizza and donairs (Gyro-type wraps, often overflowing with meat and sauce). However, this area can descend into anarchy when the bars let out, and the restaurants often lock their bathrooms, even to customers.

Toronto - Last week, on a dark and stormy night, I went to the Horsehoe to see ex-Pulp/ex-Longpigs member Richard Hawley perform a set to promote his latest album “Lady’s Bridge”. Now for those of you who are unfamiliar with Mr. Hawley’s stuff, his music is very lush and melodic. I guess you can say he’s a crooner.

The concert was packed, which surprised me. I guess the Horseshoe is not that big, the crowd was definately an older type, and I guess the music kind of plays to that crowd. They arrived on stage shortly after ten, looking very mature and all wearing suits. I guess this was expected. I wish I was in some sort of lounge, so I could sit down, but that’s life.

The band immediately went to the lead track off the latest album, called ‘Valentine’ and played it calmly and coolly. I must say, Richard Hawley has awesome, awesome guitars. They are really shiny. I like shiny things. They also look very, very expensive. Their set consisted of a mostly newer songs with a few from Coles Corner. They were very much the professionals, and displayed the British humor you come to expect from ..British people.

My only complain with the show was that they didn’t play “Baby, You’re my Light” off their late night final album. I guess you can’t have it all..sometimes. The show itself was stellar and professional, as you would expect from someone who’s been around for so long.

4/5

 

 Richard Hawley - Baby, You're My Light [2:56m]: Play Now

Toronto- Do you like movies? Do you like video games? Do you like moives about video games?

King Of Kong - A Fistful Of Quarters follows Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell as they compete for the worlds highest arcade Donkey Kong score. Sounds pretty simple eh? Well, it isn’t. Throughout the film you are taken inside the world of middle age men who devote themselves and compete for classic arcade game high scores and the unofficial organizatin that keeps track of these scores.

This movie has everything. A good guy, a bad guy, suspense, tragedy, humor, and kill screens. The documentary builds and builds until Steve and Billy engage in a cross-country duel to see who can set the high score that will be included in the 2007 Guinness World Records’ Book for Donkey Kong. Its pretty awesome.

5/5 - Go see this movie. In Toronto it is playing at the Bloor until Wednesday, Dec 12th. Soon on DVD.

Vancouver (although I wish it was London), Robert Plant and company shook off the cobwebs and got the Led out in London last night. Sounds like it was an amazing show as well. Not so surprised as I had the privilege to see Plant at the Molson Amphitheatre in 2005 and the dude still had the chops to belt out ‘Way down insiiiiiiiiiide, WOMAN! you neeeeeed love’, making Zeppelins Latter Days sound much like their Early Days.

Below is a clip of ‘Kashmir’ from last nights show and a link to a page that has compiled a Whole Lotta more clips:

More clips

Toronto - This has been quite a year for Factory Records. There were ups, there were downs. However, you could argue this was the year that people started recognizing the importance and impact that Factory Records had in it’s short existence. I guess the death of Tony Wilson this summer put the world on notice. People do get all introspective when other people die. A quick introduction would be that Factory Records is responsible for the bands Joy Division, New Order and Happy Mondays. They also owned the club the Hacienda, which was a club people say were responsible for the rave scene that was popular in the late 80s. They also have the #1 selling single of all time, in the form of New Order’s Blue Monday.

The reason I brought this up was because of the fantastic BBC documentary “FACTORY - Manchester From Joy Division to Happy Mondays”. This documentary is a must watch for any fan of the bands from that generation and it chronicles with great detail how Factory Records got started, the difficult times it went thru, the successes, the stupidity and inevitably, the demise of the company. It features interviews with Tony Wilson, Peter Saville, New Order and the Mondays (Shaun Ryder looks ROUGH) among others. It’s a very interesting documentary and even talks about the inability of Factory Records inability to sign the likes of The Smiths, Stone Roses and The Fall.

I highly recommend this documentary, I don’t know how one would get their hands on it or stuff, its probably on torrents somewhere.

Wiki: Factory Records

Accompanying Pieces to watch:

Movie:

Control, by Anton Corbijn

Movie:

24 Hour Party People

Id recommend the books Touching From a Distance, by Deborah Curtis, but in reality, thats the movie Control and the movie is like 90 minutes or something, but reading it would take more time. So I’m saving you time.