In our quest to cover all things geeky, your humble West Coast correspondent will be attending this year’s Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle for a much needed video game fix. For any of you hardcore gamers, stay tuned for as much gaming news I can cram between playing Gears of War 2 and drooling over Halo figurines, for everyone else, keep checking the Gallery section for pics of me drooling over booth babes.
Canadian Twee (Cantwee?). A genre that seems to be as elusive as the Samsquanch. I was hard pressed to think of a good Canadian indie pop act off the top of their head, so I took it upon myself to try and find one. I figured the best place to start would be Myspace as every band and their mom seem to have a site there, but it proved to be way to daunting. Next step, which should have been the most obvious was CBC Radio 3. After about an hour of searching using every twee related genre I could think of, I typed in Belle & Sebastian and up popped perhaps Canada’s best kept tweecret - You & Me, an acoustic quartet hailing from Montreal.
With only a single album their belt (The Romantic and the Realist), You and Me already have a sound of a well polished band. Shawn Donnelly’s lone vocals are reminiscent of Elliott Smith, combined with Sandra J’s sweet harmonies, which gives you the feeling equivalent to sinking into a comfy chair with a warm cup of tea on a rainy Sunday. With it’s downtempo acoustic plucks and strums, boy/girl vocals and clever lyrics The Romantic perfect addition to your indie pop collection, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that You and Me inspire more Canadian indie pop acts to peep a little further out of their Anoraks knowing there is still hope amongst the Arcade Fire’s and Tokyo Police Club’s.
You and Me will be playing at the Yellow Door in Montreal on September 26th.
Toronto - The camera world is abuzz this week, as Nikon has announced their new D90. Now seeing how Nikon releases a new body every few months, what is the big deal here?
It has a bloody movie function.
That’s right, now you can take your slick SLR’s and record up to 5 minutes of super clear video with it. No more grainy videos of you and your friends doing something stupid, now you will be able to see with crisp details of exploits. That is pretty sick. Check out the video here:
http://chsvimg.nikon.com/products/imaging/lineup/d90/en/d-movie/
For more details, click on any of these articles
Adorama News Desk
DPreview’s Hands On Preview
That is some sweet sugar, supposedly, retails for 1 G.
Toronto - Last night, I watched Walk Hard, The Dewey Cox story. I can review it with two scenes.
The worse joke I have ever seen in a movie. Seriously, me and my roommate had to pause the film just so we could recover. That was just awful. Although this was hilarious:
This is pretty much the movie. Awful jokes, then funny ones, then repeat. It was silly but had it’s moments and its a good satire of music biopics. The Dylan part was great too.
So is it worth watching? if you are a music fan, yes. Jack White as Elvis, Frankie Muniz as Buddy Holly, Jack Black as Paul McCartney. But be prepared for some bad jokes.. Actually, here’s the beatles scene. Now you don’t even need to watch the movie.
When I heard that Pas/Cal was releasing a full length this year, I was excited. Based on their previous singles I was anticipating getting my inde twee pop quota for the year. Now I know that Vik really liked I Was Raised On Matthew, Luke and Laura, but for me, I would say that after a couple of listens, there really isn’t much there for me to go back to. Needless to say, I have spent my days since it’s release in a hopeless trance, roaming the streets aimlessly without that one undeniably catchy melody or harmony banging around in my head that just won’t go away.
Then I found Holiday.
Shit, this album is good. Ready, Steady, Go! is the second album released by this pop quartet. Since the internet was only invented in 2001, I have had a hard time tracking down much history on these guys. Aside from their Wiki page which tells me that Holiday was an indie pop band of Yalies (yale graduates) active on the East Coast of the United States between 1992 and 1997, and a select few album reviews, there isn’t much more I can tell you.
There are no real surprises here with this historic, inde twee release. It’s just solid. I even hear a bit of Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci in the sweet vocal department. Any Gorky fans out there? Heh, heh.
Here is my favourite track from the album, Everything You Say. “Lets do something fun for once…” is now banging around in my head all day, and it isn’t all too bad.
(Toronto) The Tranzac Club. A make shift venue with lots of character and some good beer on tap. Yes, after a Mill Street Wit and finding a seat at the back amongst the cute, trendy Annex couples, I was ready for the show. As some of you may know I am a fan of Sandro Perri. I recently wrote about how he got snubbed for this years Polaris Music Prize HERE, but I digress.
Sandro came out, started to tune his guitar and then busted right into Family Tree to the surprise of the chatty crowd, who quickly shut up. He stood behind a drum pedal and played his guitar while his homemade orchestra accompanied him. To his right was a metal kitchen rack with homemade chimes hanging from it. A wrench, some forks, bells, and other random pieces of scrap metal which Peace, as he was introduced as, would thoughtfully rattle at the appropriate time. To his left were more chimes, a spinning bicycle wheel and Love, who was on percussion/scratching sound duty. Although very different, the supporting soundscapes were not as distracting to Sandros’ music as I had first anticipated.
On this night, Sandro reminded me of M. Ward, but with good songs. It was a quiet show, periodically interrupted by the sound of the cash register at the bar. Although very much acoustic, Sandro surprisingly had me toe tapping with his ability to rock out even the quietest of tunes.
Up next was Friendly Rich and The Lollypop People. I didn’t stay but they are worth checking out. I just didin’t have a Friendly Rich experience in me last night.
