Wednesday, August 17, 2011

My Head Is A Corkscrew

I was going to write a post out that said "words cannot describe how good this song is". Then I got to thinking about how dumb that statement is. Doesn't saying that then imply that the song is some untouchable level of awesome. So the statement totally would actually be describing how good the song is.

I went to go see the New York Abstract Expressionist show at the AGO today, can you tell I'm back in modern art mode?

Anyways, this is the song I was talking about. This band's been rocking my world since I saw them like two weeks ago:


House Boat put out a new album. First listen I thought "Meh, just sounds like House Boat". Then I had another listen today and realized that I love it lots. And that every other band will have to try pretty hard to top this song for the rest of the year:


"Some fifteen feet away from the child, her dog - a young dachshund, wearing a green leather collar and leash - was sniffing to find her, scurrying in frantic circles, his leash dragging behind him. The anguish of separation was scarcely bearable for him, and when at last he picked up his mistress's scent, it wasn't a second too soon. The joy of reunion, for both, was immense. The dachshund gave a little yelp, then cringed forward, shimmying with ecstasy, till his mistress, shouting something at him, stepped hurriedly over the wire guard surrounding the tree and picked him up. She said a number of words of praise to him, in the private argot of the game, then put him down and picked up his leash, and the two walked gaily west, toward Fifth Avenue and the Park and out of Zooey's sight. Zooey reflexively put his hand on a crosspiece between panes of glass, as if he had a mind to raise the window and watch the two disappear. It was his cigar hand, however, and he hesitated a second too long. He dragged on his cigar. 'God damn it,' he said, 'there are nice things in the world - and I mean nice things. We're all such morons to get so sidetracked. Always, always, always referring every goddamn thing that happens right back to our lousy little egos.' "

Thursday, August 4, 2011

There's Nothing More To Me Than What You See In Me

I realize that it has to have gotten pretty old, but work keeps me busy and shit, so I'm piecing this entry together from a note on my blackberry (holy shit!) titled "blog ideas".

The first part said "story about "chicago"", referencing this song:


I still love the album "How It Goes", but used to listen to it pretty much non-stop. The story I was thinking of was about 5 years ago. I was coming home from my first day at my first job as a swimming instructor at West Hill Pool. I was sent home early because a week or so before that I took an absolutely horrendous bail skating (a story for another time, probably my favourite anecdote) and was completely covered in road rash and scars and bloody bandages. It was pouring rain on the way home and this song started almost as soon as I got off of the bus. I was kind of pissed off that I had gotten screwed for work, but for some reason being absolutely drenched in rain and listening to this song made things seem pretty rad. I still think of that walk every time I hear this song. Also, it's up there as the best track on the record.

The second thing was "the impossibles" because I was really into The Impossibles for a bit at the start of the summer. The band's style of power-pop and ska is fucking great and they've been described as "ska-weezer", which is really an over-generalization, but also pretty apt. They're catchy and almost all the songs are about girls/love. Cool beans yo.


This was followed by "free dls" because there have been a ton of fucking awesome music put out for free recently.

Hold Tight! is an awesome band on Death To False Hope Records and have been described as "Lifetime/Latterman". Works for me. They are a really good band and I would seriously recommend getting their full-length Can't Take This Away. They put out a new EP called Call The Zoo! which is a Billy Madison reference. This makes me happy.

Direct Hit! is another DTFH alum who have put out a ton of awesome music. They recently took all of their best songs of off their five EPs, re-recorded them and put out a barnburner of a ramones-core/rowdy/pop-punk album. It's fucking sweet and fucking free.


Junior Battles are an awesome pop-punk band from Toronto. They are the nicest people on the planet. They signed to Paper and Plastick Records and are going to become huge rock stars. Their first full-length album came out at the start of this summer and they decided to put it out for free. You should download it because it's free and catchy and if you don't learn all the words, you are an idiot.


Lastly, The Swellers put out a new album at the start of the summer. I figured I wouldn't like too too much because I didn't like the direction they took with their last record so much. I was wrong! It's their best material they've put out! It takes everything good about alt-rock in the 90's and mixes it with everything good about poppy skate-punk. So so so good.