I Predict a Great Show!

A while ago, I blogged about the bands I would love to see. One of them played last night in Toronto, but unfortunately, I couldn't get tickets to see The Killers (but I will get to see them in January, so it's ok).

Things always work out for a reason, in my opinion. Since I couldn't get Killers tickets, I didn't end up having to decide if I would go to see Kaiser Chiefs (who I already had tickets to see and saw last year) or The Killers (who I have never seen). How do two of my favourite bands play in the same city on the same night?

So off to the Mod Club I went last night expecting a great show by the band who won Q Magazine's Best Live Act of 2008.

The commentors on my blog about the bands I would love to see make a good point which is the timing of seeing someone. Ideally you want to see a band at their prime...ideally in a small venue (but sometimes the spectacle of the big shows and the large crowds are great as well).

Often when you go into an event with high expectations, you are disappointed...so with high expectations (after a great show last year and them being named Best Live Act), I wondered if I would be disappointed.

Kaiser Chiefs once again showed why they won Best Live Act. Even though the sold out crowd was small, they didn't care and gave a show like if it was a huge crowd. Sometimes Toronto crowds can be a little laid back, but the crowd was completely into it which added to the enjoyment.

Last year when I saw them at Kool Haus, I was on the floor level. As great as that is, I got to see it from the balcony this time...we had a great view of Ricky's multiple crowd surfing!



Here's a video I took last night...if you only want the best bit fast forward to 2:20 (and don't miss him catching his microphone at 2:45)



If you're interested in reading a "proper" review, you can find the Canoe one here.

The bottom line for me is, if you have the opportunity to see Kaiser Chiefs live...don't hesitate! This concert was part of a short North American trek. They'll be back in 2009 for a proper tour. Don't miss them!

Photo Blog #6: Cassette Tapes

Click on the image for a larger image to zoom into the individual titles

I took this shot this afternoon and now looking at it, it has a lot of history in it. In addition to personal memories, for past roommates and close friends, every tape has the potential to tell a story and recall a special moment in time. For the more pedestrian reader, perhaps the photo marks a moment in time when audio cassettes were common place and a you'd find a collection like this at any friend's apartment. I also have to give a little credit for the composition to a photo collection I saw at the Contact and Luminato festivals this year.

For the record, this collection is of the tapes that were close at hand. I've thrown out a lot of tapes over the years and kept many cassette inserts to remind me of the old content. At one point in time I counted the number of "mixed" tapes I'd made - over 100. I'm pretty sure my entire tape collection was double this number at one point in time. The tapes I've kept are mostly compilations of tracks that perhaps are a little hard to come by these days. Like records, I also feel that these compilations also mark a moment in time, maybe like a "mlog" ! Just handling these tapes this afternoon triggered a nostalgic reflex so I played a few old records for the family, incl. New Order, The Shuffle Demons, Thomas Dolby The (English) Beat. And yes, I do still have a tape player connected to my stereo. You never know when you'll get the urge to hear Men Without Hats.

My Favourite Videos of 2008

A few weeks ago, I blogged about the bands I would love to see. One of those bands was The Killers. Ten days ago, I commented on my frustration at not being able to get tickets to see them play at Massey Hall in November. As an update to that, I found out this week that they will be coming back in January to play the Air Canada Centre. Massey Hall would have been a great venue, but I am now in possession of general admission floor tickets to Air Canada Centre!! So I am pretty excited. I have never been on the floor for a general admission show at ACC (I have for seated concerts). Looking forward to it.

In the weeks to come, I will be starting to look at the songs I loved in 2008. In the past, I have given a CD to friends of my top 20 songs. Since I have been blogging about the songs I have been loving (and have a list on the right), it seems a bit redundant. So I have decided to look at different categories, like best single, best album, best lyrics, best live act, etc.

I will start by sharing some of my favourite videos. I don't watch many videos, so feel free to add your favourite to my list of candidates. Official nominees will be announced in a few weeks.

The first one is by a band called Skint & Demoralised. I have been loving them for a few months now, but their music is not officially released on this side of the Atlantic yet. Here's the video released this week for their upcoming first single (being released in the UK in November).



He came up with the idea and it's his friend's first professional production. I love the angles, the lighting and the mystery of the paper. Part of me would love to know what was written on it, but I know that it's so much better for it to remain a mystery. Only a couple of the meetings were staged, but the best reactions were genuine. Love it. Since I first heard this song, I had such a vivid image in my mind of the song. It's interesting to see a different perspective (it's interesting to see a video of a song you have loved for a while as opposed to hearing a song the first time with the video).

Here's a video that is beautiful, breathtaking and heartbreaking (the album was released in 2007, but the video in 2008). James Blunt's Carry You Home. Again, this gives a completely different meaning to the song for me:



Here's the video for possibly my favourite song of 2008...Viva La Vida by Coldplay. Love the lighting, the colours and the fact that it's just the band and the song. I think this song is complete enough without a lot of stuff to distract from it.



Just to show that I'm not only showing artists I love, here's Madonna's 4 minutes...great dancing, great effects, great video:



A beautiful video for Adele's Chasing Pavement. Great song...Beautiful scene...love the shadows.



The Kooks' Always Where I Need to Be...fun and as a Canadian loves scenes of bands playing when they're cold...great jacket!!



Oasis - The Shock of the Lightning...very artistic...very busy...takes lots of viewings to catch everything...Beatles-like if I imagined the Beatles making a modern video.



Proof that I'm getting old. I have been reading about the Ting Tings for months and haven't been able to appreciate the music. Click here for the video (viewed over 6 million times - they have disabled embedding so I can't embed it into my blog)...cool video, but I can't get into the music.


I Will Possess Your Heart by Death Cab For Cutie
I confess, I haven't watched the whole thing yet, but I will - it's over 8 minutes long but the cinematography is gorgeous.




I will end with The Killers' new video, Human. Most of The Killers' videos for Human were disabled. This one has a Maroon 5 video tagged at the end, it's a great video but not sure if it's from 2008 or 2007. I'll look into it before I announce my nominees.





What's your favourite video of 2008?

Favourite Dream Lyrics ... part 2

A couple of weekends ago, I was listening to the new Keane CD on a drive up to Ottawa. I was struck by how many dream lyrics there were...sounded like a CD written just for me (not that I could relate to all the dream lyrics, but I do love references to dreams and they had many references to memories and photographs that I also loved).

Then, after having listened to this CD a few times, I decided to listen to an old CD I hadn't listened to in a long time entitled "Pop Favourites". I was again surprised by how many dream lyrics there were (that I hadn't remembered when I posted my favourite dream lyrics back in June).

So in honour of Perfect Symmetry...I present you with my favourite dream lyrics...part 2.

Because now I only see my dreams in everything I touch
Feel their cold hands on everything that I love
Cold like some magnificant skyline
Out of my reach but always in my eye line
(Spiralling by Keane)

I dreamed I was drowning in the River Thames
I dreamed I had nothing at all
Nothing but my own skin
I dreamed I was drifting on the howling wind
I dreamed I had nothing at all
Nothing but my own skin
(The Lovers Are Losing by Keane)

You take the pieces of the dreams that you have
Because you don't like the way they seem to be going
You cut them up and spread them out on the floor
You're full of hope as you begin rearranging
(The Lovers Are Losing by Keane)

Is this what you meant?
Is this what you dreamed of
When you were making your plans
Shaking the dirt off?
(Better Than This by Keane)

I dream in emails, worn-out phrases
Mile after mile of just empty pages
(Perfect Symmetry by Keane)

Well was it just a dream, just a dream?
Because it was real to me
(Again and Again by Keane)

believe it or not...all those lyrics are from their latest album. Now from my Pop Favourites CD...

Hey now, hey now
Don't dream it's over
Hey now, hey now
When the world comes in
They come, they come
To build a wall between us
We know they won't win
(Don't Dream it's Over by Crowded House)

Dream about us together again
(Together again by Janet Jackson)

But the years went by and the rock just died
Suzie went and left us for some foreign guy
Long nights crying by the record machine
Dreaming of my chevy and my old blue jeans
(Crocodile Rock by Elton John)

and finally a duplicate from my first favourite dream lyrics
You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
and the world will be as one.
(Imagine by John Lennon)

Investing in your passions

Who needs or deserves your money more - Purnomo the meatball vendor in Indonesia or Sexy Marvin, the indy rock band from Mexico ?

I'm not a great economist, money manager, investor, cash flow maximizer or accountant, so digest this post with a generous sprinkling of salt.

I've recently heard of two financial products that allow you to invest your money in some new ways. These new financial products touch on two interesting facets of everyday life, but are on opposite ends of the responsibility spectrum. Charity and music.

My cousin, and like-minded music fan, pointed me to a financial "product" a few weeks ago called Bandstocks. The idea is that you make small (or large) investments in an unsigned musical talent. It could be considered an easy way to truly put your money where your mouth is with respect to "good" music. If you really think band XYZ is going to be the next big thing, then invest your money. It doesn't have to be much, but it can pay dividends, long term returns and provide non-financial benefits as well.

My wife told me about an interesting concept tonight about investing in individual businesses in developing countries. The investment is made easy by kiva.org and was mentioned in Bill Clinton's book Giving.

I simply like the idea that you're not just donating your money to a charity or a hard up musician. Instead, your making a conscious decision to say, I believe in something strongly enough and something that I'm passionate about, and I believe it will be a success. But rather investing in Apple or pork bellies that you may not really care too much about, you can perhaps say to yourself...great, if my bet works out, everyone's a winner, but if not, I've made a pseudo donation (I'm not certain if these investments are also tax deductible) and given someone else in the world a chance to make it. Or you could simply cozy up to the karma gods and embrace a no-strings-attached, pay it forward doctrine (but that's a whole other topic).

Almost Genius

I've been experimenting a little with iTunes' 8 new feature Genius. Specifically the Genius playlist feature that creates a playlist in your music collection based on one seed track. I don't think the smarts have been revealed yet, but the gist is that it's matching based on the complete iTunes library, mixed with ratings and playlists from other listeners and then comparing with your tracks and preferences. I did one with Viva la Vida and got quite a predictable but refreshing auto playlist of more unusual tracks from bands like Spoon and Radiohead. The one I'm listening to now was based on a Life Stories from Just Jack and it's picked up tracks from Babyshambles & Cat Power - interesting, but also mixed in Jamie Lidell (odd).

The one thing that made me a little uncomfortable was that you to share your library with Apple when you switch on Genius. As I said in Mark Evans' blog:

I’m just beginning to play with Genius, but I definitely have some reservations about sharing my library, especially since many of my downloads are from gray area sources and they “kindly” embed an MP3 tag showing the source that I’m now sharing. In the big picture, I’m pretty comfortable with the big boys keeping my info private, but the dark side possibilities are there !

What I actually did was clear the references to legalsounds and allofmp3 from the comment meta data tags before switching on Genius.

So, Genius isn't really a genius, but it does make some interesting choices and, if nothing else, provides a new way to automatically create pseudo random, but focused playlists. And I'm amazed how fast it works. I like it.

Favourite Rain Lyrics

Have I posted twice in one day before?

Well, with the rain storm that we are expecting in Southwestern Ontario tonight, I thought it was worth a second post so I am sharing my favourite rain lyrics:

Why does it always rain on me?
Even when the sun is shining
I can't avoid the lightning
Why does it Always Rain on Me? by Travis



Many's the time I ran with you down
The rainy roads of our old town
Bedshaped by Keane

Sunday afternoon
Running down the avenue
Young and free, stealing town
Then the rain came pouring down
Rain, how we’ll always have the rain
We'll Always Have the Rain by Roz Bell

All pleasure's the same: it just keeps me from trouble.
It's more than just words: it's just tears and rain.
Tears and Rain by James Blunt

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield
(the whole song is so much better than just the small bit we hear on the commercial)



A little bit of rain I think is fair
But when it starts to thunder they all stare
Goodnight Goodnight by Hot Hot Heat

Under this national rain cloud 
 I'm getting soaked to the skin 
 Trying to find my umbrella 
 But I don't know where to begin 
And it's simply irrational weather 
 I can't even hear myself think 
 Constantly bailing out water 
 But still feel like I'm gonna sink 
Under The Weather KT Tunstall

I can't believe how many songs have rain lyrics in them. I left a lot of them out there (with these being my favourite lyrics or my favourite artists). Did I omit (or forget) one of your favourites?