Lists! The Best of 09 by A Horse and His Boy!

Happy 2010!!! It's a little tarty, but I finally got a list from the band A Horse And His Boy! Apparently there was a lot of infighting over this, so I'm thankful I got it at all. For those who don't know, A Horse And His Boy are one of London Ontario's most exciting new acts. They're loud, danceable, and a great bunch of guys. Here we go... oh and due to some confusion, it's a top 12 list!

Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest


Tom Waits - Glitter and Doom


Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion


Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca


Atlas Sound - Logos


Washed Out - Life of Leisure


St. Vincent - Actor


Dead Mellotron - Ghost Light Constellation


Timber Timbre - Timber Timbre


Animal Collective - Fall Be Kind


Flying Lotus - L.A. EP 3 X 3


Land of Kush - Against the Day

List! Best of 09 by Nathan Noble

Here is a third entry into the guest top ten albums of 09! A Horse and His Boy is a great dance punk act out of London Ontario, a while back I sent them a request for a band-picked top 10 list. Apparently that is still in the works, but Keyboardist/singer Nathan Noble sent me his personal list AND his 10 ten concerts of 09! I love how diverse the three lists (other 2 by illustrator Andrew Patterson, and singer/songwriter Eddie Orso) are. Here we go!

Photo by Andrew Colvin

Top Ten Albums or EP's of 2009 late 08 (in no particular order)

St. Vincent - Actor



The Most Serene Republic ..And The Ever Expanding Universe



Pick A Piper S/T EP



Dead Mellotron - Ghost Light Constellation



Bruce Peninsula -A Mountain Is A Mouth



Fraser- House on a Hill



Timber Timbre -S/T



Foals - Antidotes



A Lending Library - Halloween



The Riderless- Auction



Nathan's top live acts of recent memory. (in no particular order)

The Winks
Braids
Fond of Tigers
Aleks and The Ramps
Sick Friend
Olenka & The Autumn Lovers
Birds Across Water
Nomo
Exit 2012
The Riderless
Timber Timbre
St. Vincent

Thanks Nathan! Well, folks tomorrow is the day that I finally get my top 10 albums list up!! So make sure you check that shit out. Talk soon.

Lists! Best of 09 by Eddie Orso

So this is a special Sunday edition of Birds, as I have a bunch of year end lists to put up before the year actually ends. Last week I had a top 10 album list from Illustrator Andrew Patterson. Today, we'll be handing the list writing over to musician Eddie Orso. You might remember Eddie from the band Revival Dear. Eddie is off on his own now, and about to release his debut album (I've heard a bit of it, and it should be fantastic!) Here's the list:


1. Joel Plaskett ( 3 )


2. Levon Helm ( Electric Dirt )


3. Elvis Costello ( Secret, Profane, Sugarcane )


4. Black Crowes ( Before The Frost )


5. Ben Kweller ( Changing Horses )


6. Wilco ( The Album )


7. Corin Raymond ( There Will Always Be A Small Time )


8. M Ward ( Hold Time )


9. Camera Obscura (My Mauldin Career)


10. Gomez ( A New Tide )


Nice. Thanks Eddie. Expect more lists this week, including a special Track of the Week tomorrow. It's a Podcast of my favorite tracks of the year! See ya then!

Lists! Best of 09 by Andrew Patterson

I've decided to ask a few friends to make some lists for me! I also wanted to get input from various people in the music industry. Today, I've asked Illustrator Andrew Patterson to give me his top 10. Andrew has done some design work for Metric and the Ascot Royals... so what are illustrator/designers listening to these days? Andrew?


1. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Phoenix have been a favourite band of mine since Alphabetical, and they came through in 2009 with an album that is easily my favourite of the year and the best of their career. Wonderfully catchy songwriting, infectious riffs and keys, soothing synths (and an incredible live show)…perfection.


2. P.O.S. - Never Better
P.O.S. is a young, politically charged emcee based out of Minneapolis. On Never Better, he effortlessly fuses his beautiful word-smithing and flow with conscious lyrics over some truly original beats and instrumentals. Not only is this some of the most aggressively good hip hop you’ll hear this year, but the album artwork gets my vote for best of 09.



3. Cursive - Mama, I'm Swollen
Omaha, Nebraska’s Cursive released their 7th album this year. While definitely more straight-ahead than their previous albums, I found Mama, I’m Swollen to be an immensely enjoyable record, complete with all the little tweaks and quirks that make Cursive…Cursive.


4. Emery - In Shallow Seas We Sail
One of the most pleasant surprises for me this year. I love Emery’s debut album for the raw energy and sheer aggression, which seemed to fade into dancey pop influenced numbers over the last few records. Right at the get go, the first track let me know the old Emery was back. Tons of nice vocal layering and ear-bleeding guitar.


5. Gliss - Devotion Implosion
As a fan of washed out, shoe-gazey, feedback rock, I must say that it’s been far too long since anything decent of the sort has been put out. Enter Gliss… the dirtiest rock I’ve heard in some time. Looks like the genre isn’t dead yet.


6. Phoenix - Kitsune Tabloid
This is without a doubt, my favourite compilation ever made. Assembled by the afore-mentioned Phoenix for Kitsune Maison, it’s an incredibly eclectic mix that includes everything from Elvis Costello and the Dirty Projectors to Kiss and D’Angelo. And it WORKS together. Crazy.


7. Mew - No More Stories Are Told Today, I'm Sorry, They Washed Away...
I was turned onto Mew fairly recently by a friend, just before this album came out, and boy am I grateful. No More Stories is one of the most cheerful, playful, and deceptively complex records I’ve had the pleasure of listening to this year. Definitely worth checking out, especially if you love weird foreign pop-rock.


8. Metric – Fantasies
Great album by a great band. Just enough darkness injected since Live it Out to keep things fresh, catchy melodies and lyrics that get stuck in your head in that good old-fashioned way.


9. Bibio – Ambivalence Avenue
Sneaky electronic whiz combines like 80 genres to create the best electronic album this year. Incredibly original, and makes you feel good. Sounds like a combination of Boards of Canada, Stars, Prefuse 73, Nickodemus, Elliott Lipp, and old funk. Brilliant.


10. Brand New – Daisy
This one snuck in here. With all the surprises I’ve come to expect from the band who re-invents themselves each album, Brand New’s Daisy is their heaviest album to date. When it’s not bashing your head in, it’s sending shivers down your spine with anticipation.



Runners Up: The Used, TBS, Dirty Projectors, Jay-Z, Say Anything

Stuart Thompson on William Shatner

A couple weeks back Stuart Thompson asked me to contribute something to his blog Listenlistenlisten. A great little blog based out of my 2nd favorite place in Ontario, London. I wrote a small little piece about Holy Fucks song Lovely Allen, and promptly asked Stuart to return the favor. So here's an album review all the way from London!..... Ontario!! Oh, and I couldn't agree more, I love this album too.

William Shatner - Has Been





You have to experience William Shatner's spoken-word album Has Been to understand why Shatner is a bit of a hidden gem. Produced by Ben Folds in 2004, it's actually an overflowing bucket of emotion from Shatner's tormented life. In the wrong state of mind, his talky, rhyming ramblings are so bad they're good. In the right state of mind, they're sincere and painful soliloquies about love, suicide and a roller-coastering career.

Like when he describes finding his wife dead after she committed suicide on "What Have You Done," a moving spoken-word masterpiece featuring a muted organ that barely drones behind his narrative: "And there she was: smaller and more vulnerable than she was in real life... Her finger in her throat sounded a click... Is this what death looks like?"

But mostly it's tongue-in-cheek bitterness about the man Shatner appears to be. The shouty rock harangue "I Can't Get Behind That" is a laundry list of gripes with the modern world. And this song, "Real," is a countryish confession about how much Shatner's image is misunderstood by those who love and hate him.

In a way, it's addressing all the people who won't give the album a chance. They hear that Shatner's made a spoken-word album and they assume so much. But "Real" is just that — a sincere glimpse at the man behind the image. A man with an incredible legacy — first as an actor, then as a joke, then as a renewed comedian and now, if you'll allow it, as a new age poet.

WALK THE PLANCK: Lifting heavy things, putting them back down …

Here is the next installment of writer Matt Lennox's Walk the Planck:

I dig travelling. I like getting to a new place where I don’t know the language or at least not the custom of the land. Where signs by the side of the road look a little strange from what I’m used to – if I can read them at all – and the way traffic works is enigmatic and perhaps a little frightening. I like the different food and I like the beer, even if after I’ve gone home I find the same beer as a unique import and when I drink it there is something irrevocably lost and uninteresting about it. I like being out of my element. I like putting music on my iPod in the same way that I like packing my backpack ahead of time: identifying what seems to be critical to survival and secondarily as comfort while on the road. I like figuring out how the different currency works. I dig everything about travelling. I even dig how it feels to come home, because at the end of a good adventure it feels as if you’ve sort of earned the right to do so.

People who travel will probably agree that it’s akin to a drug, that it’s hard to go without once you’ve started. Going to a place you inevitably find out about other places, fractionally similar to where you are, maybe part of the same country, whatever it is. Sometimes these other places are fabled in their revelation to you. Mentioned speculatively by other travellers you meet – even more so if it’s a place they’ve never been to but of course know someone who has been there. And so you might find yourself rearranging your itinerary to get to wherever this new place is. You might even fall in with other travellers trying to find it. You pool your resources and you have company for what might turn out to be a strange and uncertain journey within a journey.

Falling in with other travellers when you’re on the road is part of the drug. You’re brought together by unique circumstances, and that engenders a certain camaraderie that is hard to develop otherwise. Maybe impossible. Camaraderie needs unique stressors to strengthen its foundation. So the companions you gain along the road may be completely different from people you’d ordinarily go about with. And road companionship has a built-in expiry date to it, but at the time that doesn’t matter much. One time I was trying to make my way from The Corn Islands to Granada. I had to take a number of different boats, varying in size, and then trust my luck to get the last bus going inwards from the outermost town on the mainland. Otherwise I would be stuck for a few days at least – it was the Thursday before Easter Weekend and everything was shutting down. That was a very long day. I fell in with a number of people going in the same direction. A few groups, a few couples, a ragged band of individual travellers like me. I spent much of the time with a Brit and an Aussie. The closer we got to Granada, the more people we lost to their destinations along the way. Altogether it took seventeen hours to get there, and along the way there was a great deal of doubt. At least by then I knew if I ended up marooned for Easter Weekend in some shithole frontier town, I would have a few companions to play cards with. But we did make it to Granada. It was one oclock in the morning. We found a hostel and ditched our bags and made straightaway for a place to get some beers and some food. Sitting out on a patio in Granada, even that time of night there were streetside musicians. I was still with the Brit and the Aussie. We’d covered the whole distance together and were getting on very well. Rounds of beers helped. It was around then that I realized none of the three of us had any idea what the others’ names were. But it worked. We were effective drinking buddies for a few more days.

I can’t recommend travelling enough. All the plebeians will give you a thousand reasons why you shouldn’t do it, but I think it’s just because it’s not a normal thing to do. The plebeians get nervous when confronted when things that are out of the ordinary, so they’ll do their best to discourage you. They are ignorant and they’ve gotten fat on reality TV – ignore their foolishness. Put a little bit of money aside, pack up your hobo bindle, and hit the road. On that note, resorts don’t count. Resorts are nice but that’s exactly what they are. Nice. You take a nice slice of North America and you supplant it in the developing world, somewhere hot and beachy, and you surround your nice slice of North America with walls and maybe armed guards, and you go their to have a nice vacation. Your daytrip to the local village or market is a well-entrenched routine for the locals and they’ve gotten used to currying tips from the awestruck foreigners. I am not condemning resorts. If you’ve been slugging through your nine-to-five for a few months, and it’s the witch’s tit depth of February, and you only have a week, and all you want to do is shut your brain off and drink on a beach and count how many European speedos go by in an hour – and most certainly if you want to watch a bunch of sunburned white people try to learn how to salsa dance, while screaming Ole! until their larynxes break – then by all means go to a resort, and God speed you. But now hear this: resorts are not really travelling. Resorts are for vacation and not stimulation. You will gain no wisdom or experience points at a resort. One final exhortation on the subject of resort vacationing: six thousand close-up photographs of all the toes on both of your feet against the opal backdrop of the resort pool, or six thousand photographs of poolside chairs, or six thousand photographs of the same umbrella at the beach, or six thousand photographs of the lizard on your balcony … These things do you no credit, friendo.

You are really travelling if you’ve jumped in with both feet. If your method of road-bound problem solving consists of saying, Fuck it, we’ll figure it out when we get there. You are really travelling if you come home and you can’t really explain any of it. You can tell the individual stories, yes, but you have no lexicon to explain the whole. Something remains in your head and heart about the whole experience that defies any words you know.

My latent voyeur has prominently come forth in some of the different places I’ve been to. Which is to say travelling has afforded me a lot of outstanding people-watching opportunities. And as is my wont to do, I have noticed and attempted to classify some patterns amongst foreigners. I am not talking about the well-known stereotypes: All European dudes wear speedos in Thailand, or, American girls in Panama like to party hard, or, At some point the food in India is going to rob you of all dignity. I am not dwelling on these stereotypes. I am thinking more of three main types that the wandering foreigner can be classified according to.

The Tourist. Easily identifiable. Crocs on the feet, or Teva sandals with socks. Pleated cargo shorts, quite likely a fanny pack, a tee shirt boldly proclaiming the name of the country they’re visiting – or that country’s national beer, and some kind of full-brim hat to help them withstand the merciless sun of a savage land. Am I judging too much by appearance? The Tourist is just as easily identifiable by how they interact with the locals. They adhere to that ancient rule of language barriers, by which, if the person you are speaking to doesn’t understand the language in which you are speaking, simply slow down your speech and yell it in their face. Sheer acoustic volume should be enough to transmit your meaning, right? The Tourist is the one who gets loudly aggravated when the food in some local restaurant takes too long to arrive, or the order is incorrect. The Tourist not only expects but demands the same standard of service you would find on a resort or back home, and the overriding justification for this is always, Well my goddamn tourist dollars are supporting this economy, don’t these people understand that? That being said, the Tourist will at least tip fairly extravagantly. You’ll seldom encounter a lone Tourist. They move in Croc- and Tilley- and fanny pack-bound groups. Probably because they inherently understand what kind of a target they would be if they wandered alone.

The Totaller. This foreigner stands at the extreme opposite end of the spectrum as does The Tourist. The Totaller has not only jumped in with both feet, but with all parts of the body and mind and heart. The Totaller has taken a year off in the middle of their Master’s Degree in International Diplomacy to go traipsing barefoot about the developing world in a pair of ragged hemp pants, reading the Motorcycle Diaries, learning yoga, and generally stinking of patchouli. The Totaller never tips, ever, because: Well, that’s an economic trapping of capitalism, and I don’t want to introduce that to these people. Yet, curiously, there is always money for beer. I find it difficult to openly revile the Totaller as much as I do the Tourist, until I think of how, sure, the Totaller can come down and wander the earth like Cain, getting into adventures and shit, shaving neither leg nor beard, raising his or her fist in league with the other downtrodden and meek of the earth. But then when the money runs out, which it inevitably will, the Totaller makes that call home to get a plane ticket from mom and dad.

That leaves one more type.

The Traveller.

The Traveller is a foreigner and accepts it, which is the critical first step. The Traveller accepts that he or she will never be able to understand what it’s like to be a fisherman out of Puerto Sandino or a beggar in Chennai but is not ashamed to exchange a word and maybe a few moments. The Traveller has learned how to haggle over a price with mutual respect and not condescension. The Traveller does not bitch when the food at the restaurant comes late, but nor does the Traveller insist on loving the food (though he or she may very well love the food), just because that’s what the locals eat. In some ways, maybe, the Traveller is the truest iteration of self, because the Traveller has neither the sense of entitlement of the Tourist nor the grating and ludicrous pretension of the Totaller. The Traveller is just going from place to place, stopping to check out interesting things along the way. The Traveller simply is. I guess the question is, then, does the road demand the Traveller or does the Traveller demand the road? Because if we were all Travellers no matter where we were – if we all went about with that mindset by which you can wander all day with the other and watch out for the other and finally share a beer, only then to realize you don’t even know the other’s name, but all is well because you’re in it together – maybe we’d get along better.

Until next time, comrades: down the road is where I’ll always be, or else I’ll be walking the Planck with the other sybarites.

WALK THE PLANCK: Lifting heavy things, putting them back down …

When I originally conceived of this blog, I wanted it to be the full spectrum of arts in Toronto. The problem was, that I really only know about the music scene (and a little bit about film). To remedy that, I've opened up the floor to other artists. Hopefully in what will be come a recurring segment, I give you the very gifted writer Matt Lennox. Tomorrow I'll be back with This Week in Toronto.

Matt Lennox

I have a membership at a gym. It’s a franchise gym, it’s one you’ve seen. Maybe you’re a member there too. I’ve been going to the gym for a long time. I’m a relentless creature of habit and going to the gym is a critical part of the routine. It’s almost a ritual. It’s like some kind of act of contrition, some physical mortification of the flesh in order to atone for the pizza I ate past eleven oclock the other night, the potato chips, the beer. I genuflect by way of the bench press or the deadlift, the minutes spent on the elliptical trainer. Motion without forward movement. Now that’s a funny thing. I’m aware that the whole thing is kind of absurd. Everything in our society is geared to cradle and foster the inactive among us, so why try to be otherwise? But ultimately I like it, so that’s why I go. I like the way it makes me feel. I like lifting heavier objects than the fellow next to me. It appeals to my inner hunter-gatherer. It helps prepare me for the physical demands of survival in the post-apocalyptic wasteland I am certain we are moving towards.

I also like the observational opportunities presented to me when I go to the gym. I’m not talking about the female of the species clad in tight-fitting lycra or spandex, the way the female of the species has beads of sweat on her forehead or on her chest, and how if you’re working out close to her, you might just hear the quiet groans and grunts of exertion. Okay. That’s not so bad. But it’s not the observational opportunities I’m really talking about. I’m talking about the microcosm at work in the weight room. The snapshot of who we are. If I accept that I am a relentless voyeur – which I do – then I allow that the gym is an unparalleled chance for people-watching. There are patterns and tropes common to gymgoers that edge into absurdity. These fascinate me. But whilst lifting heavy objects, sometimes over my head, I must be vigilant not to become too engaged in the people-watching, lest I become distracted and drop subject heavy object onto some unfortunate and altogether vulnerable part of my person. Perhaps that would be a kind of cosmic justice, though: he was killed when the bench press crushed his trachea – he appeared to be laughing.

Tropes and patterns common to gymgoers. I’d like to itemize some of my favourites.

I give you The Noisemaker. Typically male. This is the gymgoer who feels it necessary to broadcast to all and sundry just how hard he is working, how focused on his task he is. He verbalizes his exertion. He does not do so quietly. You may not even be paying attention to him at first. You may be going about your own exercises, thinking about your groceries, thinking about your rent, and suddenly your reverie is fractured by a holler. Not beside you, but from across the weight room. You are quite certain that someone has been horribly injured and you look. There he is, perhaps on the shoulder press, not injured at all, but bellowing out with each repetition. Sometimes the shouts actually take the form of words – I remember one fellow in particular who used to shout Yep! with each repetition. One … Yep! Two … Yep! He’d shout it in a clipped, drill square fashion, and when he’d finish the set he’d follow his series of Yeps with a kind of high-pitched Whooo! I could never get any work done when he was around. I should add that somewhat rarer but equally as precious is a pairing of Noisemakers. One who hollers with exertion and one who hollers encouragement. Noisemaker One, lifting: Yeaaaaah! Noisemaker Two, spotting: Come on bro! Push it! Yeaaaah! Push it! I suppose the premise is, the louder you are, the more you’re accomplishing, but I don’t have the fortitude to put it to the test, myself.

I give you The Advisor. As with The Noisemaker, The Advisor is typically male. The Advisor is an authority on all things pertaining to physical training, and his creed, apparently, is to go forth amid his fellow gymgoers and spread the gospel of how to do this better or what’s wrong with your form. You do a set of exercises and you take your well-earned rest before repeating. Time to catch your breath, have a sip of water, daub the sweat off your face, and … who is this standing beside you, smiling affably, expectantly, also looking just a little concerned – the concern is for you, mind – waiting to get a word in? This is not someone you know. No. This is The Advisor, and almost without fail, The Advisor will give his preamble: Can I just give you some advice. Note that I have not employed a question mark in The Advisor’s preamble, for much as the preamble bears the assembly of an interrogative, it is not, in fact, an interrogative. The preamble is a concrete assumption on The Advisor’s part. It’s something in his solicitous, helpful nature, he’s likely not even thinking about, for as soon as he has finished Can I just give you some advice, he’s launching forth with his gospel. This is what you’re doing wrong with your squats. You should do them like this. I’ve yet to know an Advisor who cited his sources, but perhaps I underestimate. If The Advisor is true to his creed, he will then stand back and observe you judiciously whilst you carry out the exercise according to the form he has so helpfully described to you. And thus when you really see your gains start to skyrocket, as he has prophesied that you shall, you are forever indebted to this stranger. A word of caution – there are phoney Advisors out there, so beware. The easiest way to spot a phoney Advisor is to watch to whom he gives his advice. The phoney Advisor will restrict his advice-giving usually to a female gymgoer, and perhaps he will illustrate his advice with the maximum amount of physical contact the nature of the advice might demand. Hands on her shoulders, perhaps, or his loins closely tracking hers in the up and down motion as he spots her in the squat he has just helped her improve upon. That’s almost certainly a phoney Advisor. A true Advisor makes no distinction in who he ministers to. No distinction.

I give you The Contemplator. Whenever I should have the good fortune to spot a Contemplator at the gym, I am envious of the great mind at work. Surely The Contemplator is contemplating the great mysteries well beyond you or me: the nature of morality, the relativistic consequences of time, pure reason, theories to unify physics. These subjects are so awesome and almost deified in their reckoning that the mind of The Contemplator is in itself a thing to behold. For what other thoughts could possibly be at work when The Contemplator sits upon the machine or the bench you are waiting for, utterly unmoving, transfixed by some point on the wall, for fifteen minutes at a time? What but the greatest of mysteries could The Contemplator be trying to unravel? Certainly not the prosaic and mortal concern of exercising, for whilst The Contemplator may occupy the machine or bench you are waiting for, you may never actually witness The Contemplator using the piece of equipment in its intended function, or using it as anything other than a place to sit whilst casting his or her considerable intellect upon such enigmas as would reduce you or me to gibbering idiocy. Certainly not to lift heavy things and put them back down again. Don’t be fooled by that blank stare at the wall or the unmoving body – that is brilliance at work. You dare not – I say again, you dare not –interrupt The Contemplator to ask him or her how long they might be sitting there. Show some respect for genius, you lowly ignoramus.

I give you The Socialite. If I’ve been so bold as to make stereotypical the gender of The Noisemaker and The Advisor, I will continue to be so bold and posit that the majority of The Socialites I’ve observed in the gym are female. Not every case, but most. Her social activities may include her fellow gymgoers, but the scope of her socializing goes well beyond the mirrored walls. For she has been sure to bring her mobile telephone into the gym with her. We may conclude, through observation of The Socialite, that the demands put upon her schedule are of such primacy that she may not be divorced of communication with the world outside of the gym for even an instant. I can only speculate how exhausting it must be to be in such high demand, but The Socialite bears her burden with bright garrulousness and aplomb. Exercise will not prevent her from taking the call when it comes – often heralded with a custom ringtone she has downloaded, perhaps the latest musical offering from the likes of Lady Ga Ga or one of her contemporaries. No, The Socialite is sure to bring to a dead halt whatever she is doing to answer the call and excitedly finalize the details for what they are doing that night, ohmigod ohmigod ohmigod. Her dedication is so fixed that she will ensure she has never raised her breathing to a threshold in which she cannot form words and sentences. Even if she is on the exercise bike when the call comes, The Socialite can immediately speak with the easy respiration and verbal pacing of one who has exerting nothing more than a languorous stretch on the couch. As I suck breath into my own burning lungs, I wonder how The Socialite has evolved to achieve that.

The Noisemaker. The Advisor. The Contemplator. The Socialite. These are but a few of those archetypes that add variety to the milieu of the gym. There are others. God, there are others. There is The Relic: that ancient man or woman, wizened and bent, who despite the sweatpants pulled chest-high and despite the physical delicacy foisted upon them by advanced age, persevere in their exercises nevertheless – that is something that truly demands respect. There is The Dangler. There is The Frowner. There is The Across-The-Room-Nodder: that person you may have spoken to or spotted once – you scarcely remember it – and now who you infrequently spy across the gym, looking straight back at you, and when eye contact is made, The Across-The-Room-Nodder gives you a very solemn and possibly mysterious dip of the chin to the chest, as if to say, Carry on, comrade, we’re in this together. There is the poor awkward person who is always two or more steps behind everybody else in the aerobics classes.

The most interesting aspect of the gym is how almost everybody seems to sequester themselves from everybody else. Social observation is a major part of going to the gym – and I believe that everybody is watching everybody else very carefully – but social interaction itself remains for the most part limited. We hide between our headphones and yet we posture to each other, we express. The Noisemaker is expressing something that underlies his bellows. The Advisor is expressing something more complex than his advice. What underthing is at work in the gym? What subvocal language? Who are all these people, and how did I get here?

Until next time, comrades: I’ll be lifting heavy things and putting them back down, or I’ll be walking the Planck with the other philistines.

Guest Writer: Kaya Fraser (Juno's part 2)

Part two of Kaya Fraser's Juno experience (including one of the most beautiful paragraphs I've read in a long time... second last). Read part 1 here


So day two: surprisingly unhungover, I was nevertheless rather jaded about all this. I spent the day doing other things: having brunch twice, seeing some family, enjoying that rare phenomenon, Vancouver sunshine. I could have gone to see a songwriters circle or some such thing, but I decided not to--I might not have gotten in, anyway, since it was a limited-space event. Same deal with the "red carpet" event, which I couldn't get into. But it was just as well, since I didn't feel like hurrying around the way I had the day before. So I took my time getting my outfit on and applying eye-makeup, and hopped the Sky Train again (my very favourite public transit system, by the way. It sounds so futuristic!) and headed down to GM Place, usual home of the Vancouver Canucks, but tonight, home of many overdressed industry types.

Even more than the previous night, I was actively shepherded as soon as I arrived. I guess this was for security's sake, but when I got to the media entrance, I was individually escorted by a be-headsetted young woman, who reported to someone on the other end of the line that she was "moving with media." I really wish she'd said, "over" or "roger that" or something, but it was still pretty cool. I joked with her in the elevator that I felt flattered, having a personal escort. She smiled back, "well, we don't want you wandering around." True, I thought. Who knows what kind of scrapes I could get into. I might even go tell Nickelback what I really think of them.

Arriving at the upper chambers in some mysterious part of the building, I was again deposited in a sort of media pit. Another room much like the last, except with even more lights and cameras. Luckily I sat down beside someone who, I learned, was another freelancer, and who had an appropriate sense of irony about this whole thing. He told me right away where to get the free food and drink. This was good, as I hadn't eaten since brunch number two, and was quite peckish. I collected a boxed meal that they had put together for us (no trough this time), and a bottle of Big Rock traditional ale, grateful that the event wasn't being sponsored by Molson or Labatt. I sat down beside my freelance buddy and munched on a ham sandwich while we watched Russell Peters perform his "comedy" in the opening minutes of the show.

It was the same routine as the night before, but at a quicker clip this time. The winners were paraded in, questioned, and paraded to the next-door room for photo ops. It was rather a thrill to see Sarah McLachlan in the flesh--she who was a great heroine of mine during my teens, when I picked out the chords to the songs on "Fumbling Towards Ecstasy" on my guitar. She was both luminous and humble, an entirely Canadian star, swathed in the gorgeous gown she wore on the cover of her most recent CD. I haven't listened to her lately, I'm rather sad to say--I didn't even know the song she performed a few minutes before on the broadcast--but I still admire her. Not to the point where I begged a photo and autograph from her, as some of the reporters did after her Q&A; I really do find that a cheapening practice. It was just good to see her and hear her speak with such dignity.

A moment I loved came later on. Sam Roberts and his band, who had performed a noticeably excellent song on the broadcast, came up after winning Artist of the Year. He and his cohort were funny, modest, and articulate. Questions were given actually interesting answers, thoughtful answers. Roberts even used some words that were longer than two syllables, I noticed. And then, when questioned by someone from Radio Canada, answered in French without missing a beat, with (I thought) equal eloquence. Impressive. It made my Montreal heart glow with pride.

So they were shuffled off, and then who came in next, but that behemoth of mediocrity, Nickelback. Now, I don't know Chad Kroeger or his bandmates. They seem like decent guys, and one had to feel some sympathy for them, as they addressed the hate-on that the critics have had for them, explaining that they were just a mainstream band, that's all, and that they played for their fans. But oh, the darkly hilarious contrast, after the clever Sam Roberts. Kroeger marvelled that even their fans in Detroit, having to sell their houses for $100 in this economic crisis, still found the money to come to the Nickelback concerts and to buy their records. Honest, grateful amazement on his part: but one sensed there was a more cynical sense of amazement pervading the room on the other side of the podium. My friend beside me whispered his theory of the band's success: "the only reason they sell so many records," he quipped, "is that their fans can't figure out how to download it for free." Was it a teasing play on words when one reporter asked whether Kroeger was "dumbfounded" by their winning the Fan Choice award? I will not speculate. But it was kind of endearing, watching them answer the questions, and although I will never buy one of their records, I have to hand it to them: they're doing what they love, and a lot of people are digging it. Is that so wrong, really?

A few other people came through, ending with Peters, who, although his popularity is undeniable, I just can't find that funny, when his "jokes" consist of repeating the question of an Asian reporter in a "me ruv you rongtime" caricature accent. What the?... This country has produced how many brilliant comic minds, and this is what we've resorted to? So I took some pictures and packed up my notebook. There were some murmurs that Elvis Costello would come up for a chat--which would have been very, very cool--but he seemed to have gotten waylaid, so I eventually gave up and headed downstairs.

Hoping I might get to meet some more people, I wandered into a darkened space that seemed to hold a lot of them--turns out this was the CTV E-talk Lounge or something. It was rather... carnivalesque. I got my free wine from the open bar and waded through the crowd, which consisted mostly of girls who, I gradually figured out, weren't actually media people or musician-dates, but were just... fans, I guess? They were young, dressed in cheap-looking lycra dresses, and looked far too excited to be anyone important (this is how my brain started thinking by the end of this whole thing. Sick, eh?). There was a sort of a stage in the middle of the room, where a skinny woman with a demonic hairdo was interviewing a little guy in a hat. Cameras were filming them. There was a smoke machine somewhere, sending out puffs of aromatic fog that I guess were supposed to create atmosphere, but it wasn't really working. I saw Jian Gomeshi again, and then the loathsome Ben Mulroney, but that was about it for recognizable faces. I guessed that the musicians were in some other dungeon of the arena, drinking champagne--either that, or they had been ushered off to their afterparties. So I gulped back my free wine as a matter or principle, and left. No attempts at going out this time: I'd learned my lesson the night before. So I headed back to my base, surprising my host by arriving so early, and wrote my 200 words on a legal pad.

I tried to mention the bands who made an impression with their real-ness, the ones who had their history of hard work written on their faces. Credit where credit is due. This is not a country of overnight sensations. It's too damn big for that. This is a country of road warriors, seasoned veterans of the Trans-Canada highway. This is a country where musicians have to reach out to find eachother, meeting and playing and recording together again and again and again for years before anyone even notices. Long, cold winter nights spent in basements, learning the craft. Hot summer nights spent in situations that beget great songs. All of it happens over long spans of time, over long distances.

I left the next morning, taking the ferry back to the island where I live now, thinking about long time and long distance. Am I in this for the long haul? Because that's what it's going to take. You don't even think about a destination, you just keep going. I think I am, but I realize now that I'm only just starting out. At least others are on the road, too, and lord knows we better all stick together.

Guest Writer: Kaya Fraser

My friend musician Kaya Fraser had the oppurtunity to see the Juno's first hand. She originally posted this to a few friends on Facebook, but I thought it would be something you guys would dig, and she graciously alowed my to re-print it. Thanks Kaya!

KAYA FRASER
So I've been meaning to write a li'l blog about my experiences this past weekend, for the benefit of those who wanted the run-down and my REAL opinions. Here's the backstory: I got a surprise opportunity, thanks to a friend of mine, to cover the Juno Awards as a freelance reporter for a fine publication which shall remain unnamed. It was a small assignment--just 200 words and some pictures--and unpaid, but it would get me a media pass, so I said, yes please! And ferried over to the big city to catch the excitement.

I had to get there a little late--Saturday afternoon, to be exact--because of my choir concert the previous night. That stressed me out a little, since I had never dealt with anything like this before. The first task was picking up my media pass, and my info kit had warned ominously that if the passes weren't picked up by 3 PM, you weren't going to get into the awards the next night. Well, I had only noticed this once I was on the 1:00 ferry, and nearly had a stroke. There was no way I'd be there by 3--it would be 4 if I was lucky. So I hightailed it when I hit the city, getting ready to prostrate myself, shuffling into the fancy-schmancy hotel, backpack on back and feeling hilariously underdressed in jeans and running shoes, compared to the media types who were already there in their pointy shoes and powersuits. Perhaps based on my outfit, the young usher who directed me to the media desk (he might have been 20) asked if I was a volunteer. "No, I'm a REPORTER," I curtly replied, feeling indignant despite how hilarious that sounded to my own ears. It felt a bit like saying "no, I'm an ASTRONAUT." But for the purposes of the weekend, this was my role, so I thought I'd better try to get into character.

I got the media pass without a problem (turns out the ominous warnings were just a ruse for newbies like me) and quickly fled the hotel, in order to get back to my kind host's place, so I could change. I returned to the hotel dressed in little black dress and nylons, and was directed to the "Q and A" room above the ballroom where the banquet and early awards were happening. Now, I had been hopeful about the banquet, considering I was on a budget of about zero dollars per day, and some good food was a nice thought. I should have gotten there earlier. The food for the media was set up outside the "Q and A" room, buffet-style, on a long table. Kind of like a trough, now that I think of it. It seems the livestock had already been through, because the trough was very nearly empty. I scraped up some salmon-in-porcini-infused-

sauce and a bit of risotto or something, and had my dinner (it tasted pretty good, at least, even if it was a scanty portion). At least there was WINE. And plenty of it, on a table nearby, free for the pouring. It was even pretty good-tasting wine--some kind of BC variety. I poured a generous glass and set myself up in the Q&A room.

These rooms are just rows of seats in front of a podium; some people had desks to plug their laptops into. Behind the seats are all the cameras and the big lights. At the front, beside the podium, was a big screen which showed us a simulcast of what was going on downstairs. The drill was, we would sit there, drinking our free booze and typing on our laptops or whatever, until some award winner was shepherded up to the media room for questions. During the Q&A, the TV was muted (although we were provided with headsets in case we wanted to ignore the person being questioned and keep tabs on the show instead). Then the award winner would leave, and we'd watch the TV some more until the next person showed up.

That's it. Fairly straightforward. The Saturday night winners had their own charm, since they were the unfamous ones for the most part, and so seemed more humbly pleased by it all. One answered questions about his dayjob at a software company. Another had clearly been hitting the open bar pretty hard, and livened things up with some half-funny, half-embarrassing antics for the cameras (one journalist asked her, "So would you say you're feeling drunk with success?").

The appearances I most appreciated that night: first of all, The Stills, a band that features an old highschool friend of mine, so I was a pleased partisan for them. It was an amusing moment when, after winning New Group of the Year, they joked about having been together only six months (when really it's been maybe ten years). "New" is a very relative term in the music industry. I also got a kick out of Serena Ryder--another "new" act who's been at it for about a decade. She is charming but unaffected. No bullshitty hipster vibes from her. She's just good at what she does, that's all, and it's starting to pay off. She announced that she was donating the $2000 prize money to the music education charity Music Counts, which I thought was pretty decent, since I'm sure she's by no means filthy rich.

The whole thing wrapped up fairly speedily (everything felt early because of course we were all catering to the Eastern time zone) and so I just drifted downstairs to see what I could see. The lobby was full of fancy people, schmoozing and drinking and wandering through the crowd looking like they were seeking someone. There was another open bar (more wine? yes, thanks) and a tower of cupcakes, a tower of sushi, and big bowls of variously coloured melon balls. I didn't really know anyone, with a couple of exceptions. I ran into my friend from the Stills and congratulated him before he was swept off to the afterparties. I then saw another musician I know, not Famous but further along the trajectory than me, and hoped to say hi. However, he apparently didn't recognize me, or was too busy cuddling up to a pretty female singer-songwriter whom you've probably heard of. So I wandered in another direction, feeling exactly like a kid on the first day of a new school.

Finally, when people were getting in their limos, I figured I'd head out and get to a club to hear some of the Junofest bands I wanted to hear. One was Matthew Barber, who is great, but whom I'd never heard live before. Arriving at the pub where he was slated to play, I discovered a lineup, which I bypassed with my magical media badge. The pub was FULL. And NO ONE was listening to the opening act, who was valiantly strumming away and singing into a crappy PA in the corner. I thought, this is ridiculous, but grabbed a beer (yeah, it was a bit of a woozy walk home) hoping at least to stay long enough to hear Matt. I met him, as he waded through the crowd with his manager, probably wondering how the hell he was going to win over this completely oblivious audience. He was nice, as was his manager, but after talking to them, I decided that I didn't want to hear a good musician drowned out by this crowd of half-drunk partiers, so I left. Some "fest." I didn't even bother trying the other venues. I was suddenly really tired, and kind of depressed. I grabbed a slice of cheap pizza en route back to the Sky Train station, passed lots of dressed-up kids and homeless people, and eventually found my way back to my host's place, wondering how many years of shitty gigs it will take before I qualify as a new artist...