Toronto – OK, so first things first, this 3 song EP is only slightly over 5 minutes long, which means it took me less time to listen to it than to write this review. But it’s awesome. For those who don’t know, Melt Banana is a Japanese noise rock band that has been described (on Wikipedia anyways) as “new wave grindcore.” Their songs are short and fun blasts of high pitched vocals, blasting drums and crazy guitar noises, sounding a bit like what might happen if you teamed up a bunch of hyperactive kids on a sugar rush with a technical metal band and got them to create a soundtrack for the most amazing yet freaky kids cartoon ever. Sadly, that cartoon will only ever exist in my head.
Toronto – Even though I was pretty stoked about catching the last ever Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, I opted to go out and catch this show instead. It turned out to be a pretty good call. Besides, I’m sure all the best parts of Conan will make it onto Youtube or something anyways.
The Lonesome Ace Stringband is made up of guys who I’ve seen playing the regular Wednesday bluegrass nights at the Silver Dollar and they offered up what you would expect: old timey bluegrass tunes full of tons of picking and some high lonesome harmonies. Their stage banter consisted of asking the audience question like “Any fans of old time gospel?” (to which the crowd responded surpisingly with loud cheering) or “Any fans of old time banjo tunes?” (to which I wanted to respond, “No, I only enjoy modern banjo tunes” but I didn’t) One of them also threw out a sales pitch for their CD with a tongue in cheek attempt to convince us that CDs were better than mp3s and cooler than vinyl. Hopefully they sold a few.
One Hundred Dollars took to the stage as some intro music played and a smoke machine filled the room … kind of like the Chicago Bulls if they were a country band. The Toronto band were playing a release show for their new 7” entitled My Father’s House, so of course they played the title track midway through their set as well as a whole load of other songs, the highlights for me being “14 Hour Day, ” “Careless Love” and a cover of Little Feat’s “Willin.” Singer Simone Schmidt has one hell of a powerful voice and the rest of the band (featuring several former members of Jon Rae and the River) were equally impressive, especially organist Jonathan Adjemian.
If you enjoy country-ish stuff that absolutely doesn’t suck, then One Hundred Dollars is the band for you.
Hong Kong – Everyone who knows me knows that I am HK born and raise, my love for this city is endless and I am completely bias towards this place. Every time I visit, I contemplate moving here. Despite my love affair with Toronto, I think I could pretty easily pick up and leave if the right opportunity (money) came up. I could even start up an indie night and a poutinte street stand to bring a little bit of Canada to HK. Anyways, here are some notes from the best city on Earth.
HK is so fricken clean. There is no eating or drinking allowed on any public transportation system. You can’t even eat or drink in paid areas. So good.
No one pushes or shoves to get onto the subway, not even during rush hour. Far cry from Beijing or even Toronto, where you pretty much have to lower your shoulder to bowl someone over sometimes. Well, that’s what I do anyways
The Octopus card is amazing
Public transit system works on a variable pricing system where you pay for how far you travel. So if you go from say, Queen to Union, it’d cost about 50 cents, but if it’s Finch to Union..4 bucks. Makes perfect sense.
Clothes here are so cheap. so so cheap. I picked up like three sweaters, a hoodie, seven pairs of socks, 3 ties and some underwear for like 120 bucks cad. I don’t even know why I bought 3 ties. Thanks, Uniqlo!
The food here is exceptional..sushi that melts in your mouth. mmmm.
Gotta love the view, and the weather
You can buy alcohol at 7-11. I don’t even think there’s a last call here.
Hong Kong – Happy New Years to you! I figure someone woulda posted it by now. Anyways, as some of you may know, I went to Beijing on December 28 for a wedding and then went to Hong Kong on Jan 2 for the rest of my vacation (til the 17th), so, since I have no music to write about, here is some random notes from my trip to Beijing.
The Flight Over
It just so happens I left about two days after that dude tried to blow up a plane going to Detroit. Why bother even blowing up a plane in Detroit? No one even cares about that city, you can’t possibly do more damage to it. Idiot. Anyways, as a result, the security was boosted even higher.
Luck
I’m so lucky. Originally my flight was a 10 AM flight to Chicago. My parents, before they moved here to Canada, both worked in China Airlines for awhile, as a result, they know airline people. One of their friends works on United. He told them to tell me to go to the 8am flight due to possible delays, and he was working that day so all I had to do was find him.
I leave my house around 4 am to get to the airport, halfway to the airport, I realize I forgot my suit. FML. When I get there, the lineup is insane. Everyone realized they need to go early apparently. Luckily for me, I didn’t need lineup, I just walked up to my parents friend, and he hooked me up with the flight. Haha, I was probably hated by the people in line. Don’t care. I later find out that my original flight was canceled.
The security check blows. It took forever, I’m sure you read news reports about it. This is one of those times when I wish they did racial profiling. I know that sounds so wrong, but really, we all know a majority of the attacks (successful or not) have been done by certain types of people. Put them through a harder test. Obviously, in this scenario, I would be more then willing to have someone put me through tough security measures should I board a bus, for fear I decapitate someone. Just a thought. Took about 3 hours for the security. Everyone was super miserable. I think the terrorist have won.
– read the Skymall shopping catalog if you are ever on United. It’s hilarious
Notes about Beijing
– It is a lot cleaner here then it used to be, still kinda ghetto in some areas, but overall, a hella lot cleaner
– clubbing here is insane. they have no fire regulations I think, so they just let everyone in. I went on NYE so it was probably why it was so packed. They played Dizzee Rascal – Holiday!!! The Dj’s were black. Clubbing here is kinda cool because theres so many people from so many countries at the same time, and lemme tell you, repressed Asians know how to party.
– the food here is so cheap for foreigners. you could eat like gods and still it will come down to less then 20 bucks CAD a person. Peking duck twice in three days is a bit excessive though.
– I’ll never get used to pissing into a hole in the ground.
– It’s way too cold in Beijing.
– rush hour is always an interesting experience when a city has 18 million people.
– I could get used to 1 hour full body massages for around 22$ Canadian. So good.
– I love how all the domestic flights are in another airport..hides all the other mainlanders from more ghetto places from the foreigners.
That’s about it for now. I’m pretty lucky in that I escaped the snow storm and am now in sunny Hong Kong, where it is suppose to be 20 degrees today.
