13 hours from now, i’ll be boarding a plane for barbados. some suggestions for anyone reading this (as if anyone ever does…):

• if you or your friends get married, convince them to go to barbados.
• it may sound hot, but really, this is no hotter than toronto in july.
• don’t book the trip for you and your girlfriend and then break up with her. change penalties = hernia-quality pain. the travel agent joked that it’ll be nearly as expensive for me to dump her as it will be for my friend to get married.
• just because you saved a bunch of money by shopping at the bay instead of harry rosen for your clothes, does not mean you should then go to cole-haan and buy these.

i’m listening to mp3s from modulate by bob mould. bob! what’re you doing, man? c’mon! you’re brilliant, you helped completely change punk and you nearly invented ‘alternative’ music…so what the hell are you doing? black sheets of rain? now that was brilliant. last dog and pony show? brilliant. workbook? brilliant. every sugar cd? brilliant. your self-titled cd from a few years ago? ummm, not bad. but this?

i can’t do it. i can’t go see you at the phoenix next month. sorry, dude. i saw you last time, it was tremendous, a concert to end all concerts, but…i just can’t stomach the idea of watching you roll this big hunk of manure off the stage and onto the crowd. i can’t.

sorry.

get well soon.

hold me.

the two funniest scenes in moviedom, i have decided, both feature john cusack and jeremy piven.

1. say anything: when jeremy piven tackles john cusack after the party, demanding his keys, and cusack grabs him by the collar and yells “you must chill! you must chill! i have hidden your keys!”, it kills me every time.
2. grosse pointe blank: again, it’s these two in a car, when in the middle of a conversation – with no warning – jeremy piven just smashes his hand down on the horn and yells, “ten years!”. i watch it, i laugh, i back it up, i watch it, i laugh. repeat ad nauseum.

it’s almost enough to make me watch serendipity, just to see if another scene like that occurs. the fact that kate beckinsdale is in it, though, just puts me right off the idea.

10. mobilize by grant lee phillips
yes, this guy used to be the singer of grant lee buffalo. yes, you can tell by the name. yes, you can also tell by the music. you my have heard “spring release” pop up on the radio once or twice, but you won’t hear the better songs like “mobilize” unless you get the cd. alternative rock lite. michael stipe loved glb (he sang backup on their last release, jubilee, also definitely worth picking up), and they sound a lot like rem would if they’d never gotten greedy and recorded “stand”.

9. girlology by the kim band
a canadian entry! actually, you needn’t get too excited, there’s another one up the list a bit. ever seen the video for david usher’s “alone in the universe”? notice the hottie guitarist? this is her. kim bingham used to be in a toronto band called mudgirls, now she’s doing her own thing when she’s not in usher’s oxymoronic solo band. imagine matthew sweet with (ironically) more balls…smart lyrics and a good crunch make this unique and almost interestingly boring.

8. love and theft by bob dylan
i don’t know how he keeps doing it. his last disc, time out of mind, was one of the best he ever did, 40 years after he started out. the album switches between old-style folk jazz/blues and the darker, harder stuff that made time out of mind so great (although this one doesn’t compare to time out of mind…that’s one the three best he’s ever done, along with bringing it all back home and oh mercy). the banjo on “highwater” kicked my ass. not the best dylan, but bob at 60% is still better than most musicians can ever hope to be. see ‘tom waits’ under songwriting for more details.

7. brmc by black rebel motorcycle club
i hated the big 70s arena-rock revival you saw in the last year or two, bands like supergrass and sloan and thrush hermit trying to impress on us that the bay city rollers pushed through a fuzzier amp is worth a listen. bullshit. listen to this, or the dandy warhols. it strays into the land of cheesy sometimes, but the dark stuff (“love burns”, “spread your love”, “salvation”) is worth it.
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/b/black-rebel-motorcycle-club/brmc.shtml

6. hot shots ii by the beta band
i can’t tell if their lyrics are supposed to be cleverly intelligent or just clever. all in all, the music isn’t something i’d call brilliant, but rather so solidly good that the whole cd (with the possible exception of an odd last track) becomes a big 8 out of 10 the whole way through…which actually makes it quite exceptional.
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/b/beta-band/hot-shots-ii.shtml

5. dilate by bardo pond
one of the leading members of the psychedelphia music style, these guys are trippy with a capital t. the singer sounds like hope sandoval after taking a handful of the red ones and being punched in the throat. one of their earlier cds, lapsed, is terrific as well, but this one has “inside”, which floored me. if you like instrumental-ish, psychedelic-type stuff, you’ll love this.
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/b/bardo-pond/dilate.shtml

4. mass romantic by the new pornographers
the other canadian contribution on the list. this is sort of a supergroup, for lack of a better term, made up of members from other bands like limblifter and destroyer, and with neko case singing on a few songs. while there are one or two skippable songs, there are some really great ones as well: “mass romantic”, “the slow descent into alcoholism”, “centre for holy wars”, etc. it’ll probably take you a few listens to really get into it, but believe me, you will. “letter from an occupant” is one of those songs i listen to over and over again when i’m having a bad day. with the possible exception of the rheostatics (i’m biased; saw them live again last weekend), this is the best canadian band going.
http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/n/new-pornographers/mass-romantic.shtml

3. amnesiac by radiohead
no doubt i’ll take some flack for depositing this one at #3, just as i did for leaving kid a midway down last year’s list. i actually think amnesiac is a better disc…they’re pretty comparable as far as number of really good songs and throw-aways, but “pyramid song” is the reach advantage that amnesiac has over kid a. as i said, the guys do their usual thing here with spots of brilliance (“Packt Like Sardines In A Crushd Tin Box”, “You & Whose Army?”, “Knives Out”, “Dollars And Cents”, “Spinning Plates”) and some rot (“Morning Bell / Amnesiac” — the destruction of a perfectly good song, “Hunting Bears”), but the good is *so* good that they get away with more. see bob-dylan-60% rule for more details.
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/r/radiohead/amnesiac.shtml

2. asleep in the back by elbow
take radiohead. extract thom yorke and replace him with rob dickinson from catherine wheel. add jordon zadorozny from blinker the star to do some guitar canoodling and maybe even a little bit of gomez‘s pseudo-latin influence, mix well with a bunch of anti-rockstar pixie dust and you have elbow. this was another cd i bought blind, just on a recommendation on some website (hmv.com’s magazine, i think) and manoman, was i impressed. when the first song (“any day now”) started playing, it was as if i was hearing what would’ve happened if radiohead had kept the weird-meter on 4 after ok computer instead of putting it to 9 and producing kid a. if you’re looking for creativity and long, loud rock songs in the same box, get this. now.

1. agaetis byrjun by sigur ros
i don’t know what i can say about this cd that i haven’t said already. most of you have read my review of the concert. it’s the most brilliant band i’ve come across in…well, maybe ever. i check the website every day for news about the next cd. i’ve downloaded every song i can find from their earlier albums which aren’t available here. i’ve used the words ‘brilliant’ and ‘miraculous’ more than once when describing them. this disc still crushes me every time i listen to it, and it’s surely one of the greatest arguments for rock music to be held up as a true art form.
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/s/sigur-ros/agaetis-byrjun.shtml

***should be on the list, but didn’t really qualify***

madonna by and you will know us by the trail of dead
it came out last year and i didn’t get it until a few months ago, dammit. it’d be at #2 for sure.
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/a/and-you-will-know-us-by-the-trail-of-dead/madonna.shtml

my father my king by mogwai
an ep, so i didn’t feel right including it, especially since it’s just one song (albeit 20 minutes worth). it’s far better than mogwai’s full-length offering earlier in the year, rock action. the song, or at least the central theme, is based on an old jewish hymn. classic mogwai: no lyrics, whispered, savage, rambling, more than we deserve.
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/m/mogwai/my-father-my-king.shtml

***honourable mentions***

a silver mt. zion (born into trouble as sparks fly upward)
eels (souljacker)
perry farrell (song yet to be sung)
the matthew good band (audio of being)
tool (lateralus)
explosions in the sky (those who tell the truth will die…)
guided by voices (isolation drills)
varnaline (songs in a northern key)
buddy guy (sweet tea)
crystal method (tweekend)

(update: I can’t believe I left Explosions In The Sky down in the “honorable mention” category. If I’d done this list over again after I’d really gotten into the CD I’m sure it would be 4th or 5th. Mass Romantic would likely move up as well.)

i wish i could explain to you what happened to me 12 hours ago. i’m still not fully recovered from the two-hour rite that occurred on-stage at massey hall last night; to borrow a phrase from a friend, i’m emotionally hung over. i apologize for how long this e-mail will undoubtedly be.

first of all, rumours that they play nothing from agaetis byrjun during their shows were false; they played 3. they also played another song that i recognized (“nyjalagia” from the svefn-g-englar ep, i think); the rest were songs i didn’t know.

secondly, the details: they didn’t go on until 9:00, they finished at 11:00, no encores (short of a few bashful bows), and they didn’t say a word the entire time (for all i know they don’t even speak english). the bassist, drummer and guitarist switched instruments frequently, using synths, pianos, flutes, glockenspiels. one song involved the drummer and guitarist playing a keyboard each while the bass player played an 8-note pattern on the glock, and the singer (who normally plays his guitar with a violin bow) sat cross-legged with his back to the audience, almost hidden behind a monitor. i swear, i thought at that point that they were scared of us. that didn’t last.

i went from being thrown backward in my chair near the beginning (during “olsen olsen”, i think) to lapsing into something approximating sleep. there were songs that lulled you into a suspended awareness of what was going on. i had to remind myself a few times that what was happening on the stage is what was doing this to me. and then…the ping.

let me just say this: the laws of physics may not have been broken last night, or even bent, but they were leaned on awfully hard. sounds like that (i won’t say “sounds that beautiful” or “notes that clear” because trying to assign adjectives to the sounds does them a disservice) simply should not be able to come out of one so small without signs of effort. i realize people say the same about fellow icelander bjork, but bjork has never realized this emotive quality, and any power she manages is by dint of physical exertion. no, this sound caused disbelief. i was convinced at times that it was coming from a sampler, but then you’d see the throat move or hear his thought coming through the note. this band is not made up of people who are experts with their instruments. instead, they do whatever they can to drag you to the 40th floor of your conception of how music is supposed to happen to you, and rather than kicking you off the top, the voice, this phenomenon that sets them apart from whatever else you know, picks you up and drops you over the edge, and all you can think about on the way down is how lucky you are to be seeing this. the voice stops, you hit the ground. another song. you’re being dragged up again.

anyway, the ping. anyone who has heard svefn-g-englar (the first song on agaetis byrjun) knows what “the ping” is. it was programmed into a sampler on his keyboard, and it sounded once as a test. a lot of us in the audience recognized it, and knew what was coming. i was nervous. i was dead fucking nervous. all night i’d been praying they’d play that song (since it’s quite possibly the most gorgeous thing i’ve ever encountered); meanwhile i’d been silently pleading with them not to. i had several reasons for not wanting to hear it, not the least of which was because i couldn’t fathom how they could expect to pull it off live. the voice had to have been done with effects. the bow work had to have been done with more than one person. those words couldn’t possibly come when standing in front of thousands of dubious onlookers lying prostrate at the feet of one singing a language we couldn’t understand, all of us dreading a substandard offering of a song we had accepted as pristine. the ping grabbed me by the waist and fixed me to the chair. i leaned forward to put my head in my hands. support. they started playing it, and i felt sick. the long intro, the first verse…then the chorus. he hit it. he hit the notes, and it sounded more beautiful than ever, because you could see this heroin-addict-skinny kid making it. his mouth hardly moved. his body remained completely still, slightly bent to accommodate the bow on the strings, and his eyes closed. he sang upwards, as if he expected someone walking by outside massey hall to hear it and wonder what on earth that sound could be. whales. aliens. a children’s choir. anything but him. my body shivered, as it would later during the second chorus. i fell backward in my seat and stared. he lifted the guitar to his mouth and started singing into it, far back form the mic. the voice sounded like it was coming from a cave, echoing through the guitar and over the microphone. my mouth fell open. my hands were freezing for some reason. the song ended with the fading organ notes, ping after ping, and that voice. i wanted so badly to know what he was saying, but it can’t possibly be as numbing as the sound. it can’t matter.

the next two songs were their revenge. i honestly think they were mad at us for having to play svefn-g-englar, and the next two songs were their way of giving some back and making sure we didn’t forget it. i didn’t recognize either song, but both involved some serious aggression. i won’t even try to describe them. we’ll just say that i jumped more than once, as did the girl next to me. the closing measures of the show left bruises. standing ovation. curtain calls, two of them. no more songs. we couldn’t have handled it. i think they were showing us mercy. what sweet young boys.

ohmigod, it’s 11:00. i’ve been writing this on and off for 2 hours.

this wasn’t a concert, it was an upheaval. to me, the sign of a good concert is that i leave feeling as though i’d had my ass kicked. last night, i didn’t get my ass kicked. last night a siren made me crash on her shores, and i fell down and thanked her for it. this changes everything. i’m sure it’s unrelated, but last night i got more sleep than i’ve had in weeks. i fell asleep with svefn-g-englar traipsing through my head, and woke up with it still there. in the shower, on the subway, even listening to the new pornographers…it’s all i can hear. i’m not sure what to do.

i’ll be in my room if anyone needs me.