Boring Blog, Let's Watch The Log

First, recap on my so-called "Best of" radio show:
It really didn't feel like a best-of; I don't know what my best-of would be though. The whole way through I just kept thinking what a shitty critic I am and how I need to endlessly categorize things for them to mean anything. There was a lot of stuff that I just never got around to mail-ordering so I never got to hear it. I only mail-ordered stuff from Sweden because everyone else seemed close enough that I felt like I would find stuff in shops and I just never did.
PS. I just noticed that I didn't even play my top release of the year. Well, it's My Teenage Stride's Ears Like Golden Bats in case you're wondering.

I feel pretty good about my Victorian literature exam today however and am going to stay up late to draw some mostly-naked people for a poster. (Metropol is so nice; they're even scanning my hand-drawn messes for me.) I forced my ethically-minded friend to spend more than $20 on shoes today while I dropped cash like candy for a pair of pants. I thought a little bit about what kind of Christmas presents I am going to make. I really do like making things for people, I just never make the time.

The Log is on TV but I am trying to watch the logs in my parents' wood stove while I'm still here.

Oh, and also...

Sunday December 30, 2007
Endless Bummer, Panty Boy, The Desks, Balacade
Camas Bookstore and Infoshop at Quadra and Kings
8:30-11:30pm, doors at 7:30
$7
(Please come...)

A Christmas Gift To You From Phil Spector

Not to be confused with A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector.

The Port City Allstars--later Port City, and now completely broken up (though still making music) and split between St. John and Montreal--posted these recordings for download in 2004. It is still fluttering in the internet breeze here.

I can't wait for all the themed shows for the month of December:

Dec. 16 - "Best of 2007" - I am terrible at making best-of lists, but I will try to play albums that I really liked this year. This show will also include my best thrift store finds and songs related to some of my best memories or momentous occasions this year.
Dec. 23 - Christmas - My family was never big into Christmas (or any other holiday, or birthdays...), but I do really like Christmas songs. Christmas holidays is people home visiting their parents with nothing to do but get drunk or food-high and make sad or geeky songs alone or with their friends and siblings.
Dec. 30 - This week might be a fill-in, it might be a studio session with The Desks, or songs about moving because that's what I'll be doing.

Cadence Weapon 07/12/01

Half an hour past door at what I was convinced was going to be a big show, and I think I was the first one there. Which was great, I mean, that's how I'd wanted it. I'd been late because last minute I decided to change out of my brother's old, pilled sweater vest from when he was 7-10 years old. Did my job tying up the ol' cfuv banner and then went to London Drugs because I had time to kill and I like looking at all the miscellany they manage to pack into a drug store which has somehow morphed into an electronics retailer and photograph developer as well. I also needed some shampoo. (Incidentally, I discovered that only one brand of shampoo is coconut-scented and because someone once told me using the same kind consecutively is bad for your hair, I didn't buy it.) I left empty-handed--they didn't even have packs of watermelon jolly ranchers, my favourite juvenile candy.

Walking to the corner of Yates and Quadra, I peered at the club to see if there were some more people waiting outside. My improved vision (thaaaanks dorko glasses I actually wore for once) told me that no, no one was even smoking out there. I was thirsty, but the idea of sitting in an empty club, alone and sipping a glass of water, didn't appeal. I went to Lotteria to get bubble tea.

I think it was 10:25pm by the time I returned to Sugar. The rest of the cfuv clan was just showing up. As we climbed the stairs and passed coat check, someone from within the club yelled "where is everyone?" There were only 25 people there, maybe. We learnt that only 50 tickets had been sold, that there was no opener, that the whole show would be over by midnight.

How did that happen? Where did the promoter err? Where were all the people who had told me they liked Cadence Weapon, and were going, "of course"? I was embarrassed that this city, who managed to sell out Tool in under ten minutes, couldn't get more than fifty people out to this show. I'm not into any hip-hop scene--I do an indiepop/ twee radio show, forgodsake--but even I've heard what everyone seems to have heard about Cadence Weapon: that he's high energy and knows how to put on a show, that he and Owen Pallett are fans of each other. But Cadence Weapon inhabits this strange in-between ground. He's too hip/ weird for mainstream rap fans, and yet he doesn't go out of his way to market himself as arty or ironically novel to indie rock kids. He doesn't market himself as anything, actually: his merch table was nonexistent. So was it the rain that night that had stopped so many people from coming out? Admittedly, I'd wanted to stay home and bake gingerbread.

Cadence Weapon achieved what bands in Victoria and Montreal spend their whole sets trying to accomplish before his first song. Despite the tables, despite the fact that there were only fifty of us there, he got everyone crowding up against the stage. A strange mix of people in the audience, but I think everyone--the bar crawlers, the b-boys, the hipsters--enjoyed Cadence Weapon's performance. I hadn't really listened to any of his stuff before the show, so I just recognized beats and watched Albertan friends of mine smile at Edmonton references I didn't fully understand. He covered Chad VanGaalen, as well as Weezer's "Pink Triangle" which was received with laughter by some, obliviousness by others. After his rap set, he took over the turntables from his dj and the drunks went nuts. I might have stayed and danced had the crowd been larger, and not so unfamiliar.

How unfortunate that more people didn't come out to enjoy this show (A trend in Victoria? Where was everyone for Collapsing Opposites/ Ok Vancouver Ok?), but if Cadence Weapon was disappointed, he didn't show it through his performance at all.