Back to Reality

Upon the conclusion of the OAC jury, I decided to stay in Toronto for a couple of days and catch a few shows. The guys in LSD/City Sweethearts/Dany Laj were nice enough to let me crash at their swinging pad for a couple of days.

On Friday night, I took in the Pick a Piper/the Skeletones Four/Ruby Coast/Green Go show at the Horseshoe Tavern. The fellows from Ruby Coast were nice enough to get me a guest list spot. Ruby Coast now have horns in the their band and they sound terrific. These nice young gentlemen are going places, let me tell you. Once their full length is done in February, they are going to BLOW UP.

On Saturday night, I caught HEALTH at Wrong Bar. I was a little disappointed by the quality of the opening act Torontobeat (who had some good ideas but sounded under-practiced), and the fact that Pictureplace got turned away at the border, but HEALTH was awesome! Wrong Bar is a weird place. It's a little too clean and over-air conditioned. HEALTH played most of the stuff from their first album and a bunch of stuff from the new record, which is super pumpin' to hear live. There were about 200 people there, maybe more. I was right at the front and watched the lead guitarist writhe around in the fetal position for most of the night.

Afterwards, I managed to catch the end of Windom Earle's set at Rancho Relaxo. I managed to catch all of BA Johnston and Horses though. BA's got some new jokes! I missed Orphan Choir and the other opening act (I think they were called Cousins?) unfortunately.

So now I am back at home and I just spent most of today cleaning the garage. It is super tidy. Tomorrow, I will clean the jam room in our basement, which I am very excited about. There's nothing like a clean room to allow you to focus on creating.

Also, tomorrow (Wednesday) there is a house show at mine and Jon's place. If you are reading this, you are invited. I will not post our address on the Internet though. Performing will be Andrew Laviolette, Little Albert and Thunder Bay's JP De Roover. Hope to see you there cool guy.

Toronto's actually pretty sweet

I've been in Toronto for the last two weeks judging on an OAC jury for the popular music program. The government flew me down here, along with some other musicians, to listen to submissions and decide whether they were any good.

As I am extremely judgmental, I have thoroughly enjoyed the last two weeks.

One of the jurors, Morgan Doctor, used to play drums in this band called the Cliks. She is super nice and invited all of the other jury members back to her place last night to play Wii and jam. Her house was recently featured on MTV Cribs.

On Wednesday night, I went down to Sneaky Dee's to catch Ancestors, and lo and behold City Sweethearts were playing. City Sweethearts are a band with some members who recently moved away from Sudbury.

This evening, I went down to Yonge Street and tagged along with Morgan to the Deerhoof concert. I got to go backstage and shake the drummer's hand from Deerhoof. It felt pretty awesome to walk out of a crowd of about 300 people and stroll backstage.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Toronto's not so bad, you guys.