Category: Music

"Brick remains aloof. He is very handsome, and possibly a homosexual."

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I got home around 8:30 tonight and am rather wiped, so blogging tonight will be terse.

  • I ate two fortune cookies today (Kung Hey Fat Choi!) and the fortunes inside read “A sweet surprise awaits you” and “Goods that are not shared are not goods.” You know what though? Those lines never worked on the girls in my high school, so I don’t know why I should put any faith in them now.
  • I wish I liked The Weakerthans‘ music as much as I liked John Samson’s lyrics.
  • Caitlin: still hot. Stacie Mistysyn: girlfriend du jour.
  • The Onion always make me laugh, but sometimes it’s so brilliantly absurd that I can only marvel and wonder where they buy their wonderful drugs. Today’s article “Ask The Stage Directions To Tennessee Williams’ Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” may set the bar at an all-time high.
  • It’s fully fucking snowtastic out there tonight. It’s been windy and blizzard-y all day, and there was more thundersnow earlier tonight. My walk home tonight, though only a few minutes from subway to lobby, was about seven different kinds of unpleasant. I’m ready for spring now.

[tags]fortune cookies, kung hey fat choi, weakerthans, degrassi, caitlin, the onion, tennessee williams, cat on a hot tin roof, toronto, blizzard, thundersnow[/tags]

Hooray for schadenfreude!

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Today started off pretty crappy. Annoying, puking cats. Broken PVR. Lack of sleep. 2.5 hour meeting. It didn’t get much better either. Bad lunch. Headache. Frustrating day at work. I finally got home excited to watch the Canadiens game (in English for once!) only to find that Sportsnet was blacking the game out* in Toronto. Oh, and more cat puke. Argh.

However, just a few minutes ago events transpired to make my day, despite it having only a few hours of life left: after watching Montreal beat Ottawa 4-3 I flipped over to TSN where I saw…Florida 8, Toronto 0.

If my heart has cockles, they just got warm.

* I’ve never understood the whole local blackout thing. Or rather, I understand why it’s done, but I don’t understand why fans haven’t demanded an end to the archaic practice.

.:.

It’s pretty obvious to me now that music, once the most significant art form in my life, has diminished in importance. I’m still a big fan, but I simply don’t consume as much of it as I used to. In 2003 I bought 64 CDs. In each of the following three years I bought about 40 (some time in 2006, though, it became downloads and not CDs), but in 2007 I bought only 20. That’s still a lot for most people, but it corresponds to a decreased interest in seeking out new music, attending concerts (I go to maybe one a year now), reading music reviews, etc.

Movies, clearly, are my new crack. I was unable to watch as many as I would’ve liked in 2007, but in December I made up for it by watching 26. A friend of mine recently pointed out she probably hasn’t seen that many movies in her entire life. I watched 144 films (watched for the first time, that is…I don’t count re-watches) in 2006, and this year I plan to take a week’s vacation to watch 30 films at the film festival. That’s a lot of time and money spent on films.

I guess old obsessions don’t die, they just shift mediums.

[tags]canadiens, senators, panthers, leafs, music obsession, film obsession[/tags]

Villa Del Refugio

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Turns out I have 1,150 pages of marketing to read by the end of April. Not counting Fridays (which I refuse to sacrifice to school) and vacation days (but including holidays), and assuming I only take five days to complete each of the four assignments I’ll have to read about 25 pages a day, every day, between now and May 3.

199 days to go. Must…warp…time…with…power…of…mind…guh.

.:.

I just listened to the self-titled album by This Will Destroy You. It’s like Mogwai + Explosions In The Sky…which some would say already sound alike, but nuts to them/some. It’s the post-rock social event of the season. Thanks to Jeph Jacques for the tip.

[tags]mba, marketing, this will destroy you, mogwai, explosions in the sky[/tags]

"The blues is when you love someone don't love you"

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

.:.

Last night was a great Toronto night…lots of snow, a (relatively) quiet downtown and some comfort food after a trying week. We took Nellie’s mom to Smokeless Joe which, despite the fairly empty streets, was packed to the ceiling. We finally got three seats together and put down some pasta and some beer before hitting the wall. We’d all had a long day so we just came home and watched some TV (The Wire…so good!!) before crashing.

I have to say, after a week of corporate finance, it did me some good to sit in cozy little Joe’s with my wife, drink a good beer, have some good food, chat with the excellent staff and listen to Leadbelly on the stereo. My recharging has continued today; with the snow now stopped we had some breakfast at Over Easy and I now have the place to myself as Nellie and NellieMom have gone to see Dirty Dancing. Me, I’ll be staying home and watching the Canadiens game on TV…oh, right about now.

.:.

United 93 has been playing on TMN lately, and I’ve watched bits and pieces of it over the past couple of weeks. I thought the film was unsettling and brilliant when I saw it, and thought it was one of the best of 2006, but I simply cannot watch it again. It’s too hard on me. Every time I watch it, even just a few scenes, my guts twist into a knot. It’s probably the most physical reaction I’ve ever had to a film, and it happens every time I see it. I want to watch it — Paul Greengrass is a master at that sort of emotional recreation — but I get apprehensive just thinking about it.

I guess I’ll just have to lot it from a distance.

[tags]berczy park, smokeless joe, leadbelly, united 93[/tags]

"I want no part of a world that refuses to congratulate itself."

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Exciting news: I’m going to go for a run tomorrow. It’s the first time since my killer cold last week that I’ve felt up to it (and didn’t have an early meeting to get to). Sad that the idea of a 3 mile run is attractive to me at this point.

.:.

While I’ve quite enjoyed the television writer’s strike — network is for shit anyway — I had to laugh at Conan O’Brien’s strike diary.

With little to sustain me, I am forced to subsist entirely on Reality Television. I gorge myself on marathons of The Real Housewives of Orange County and Flavor of Love, then collapse in a wretched heap. If this is living, I welcome death.

It’s short. Go read.

.:.

I hear a lot of complaints about Starbucks & music…exclusive sales agreements and such. This week, as I walked by the Starbucks every day on my walk to work (actually I walk by three, but there’s one I pay particular attention to) I heard Sia, James Brown and Radiohead. I don’t recall Monday, so either I wasn’t paying attention or it was bad/generic enough not to grab me. In any case, if a Starbucks wants to push decent music to coffee junkies, I’m not going to criticize them. Maybe it’ll counter the Wal-Mart influence.

Speaking of music…what in the sweaty hell happened to Bob Mould? I have no problem if someone mellows out in their old age, I don’t. That’s not my problem. My problem is that the music is (to steal a line from High Fidelity) generic pappy crap, and the man’s used more voice modulation  on his last few albums than Cher. This morning “Jesus Cradle” from the Sugar album Beaster came up on my Zen, and I was momentarily stunned by how good it was. Compared to what I’m listening to right now — a leaked copy of Mould’s latest, District Line — it’s just tragic. Genre differences or not, they’re still worlds apart.

.:.

My brother sent me this link yesterday in an email titled “There goes your day.” He wasn’t lying.

[tags]conan o’brien, starbucks, bob mould, cher, tony-b[/tags]

Is there anyone "old, grey-haired, hard-drinking Scottish geezers" can't inspire?

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

No time for fancy bloggin’ tonight, kids. Too much work to do. It’s link-dump time:

It could be like this all week, so have some other reading material on hand with which to occupy yourselves.

[tags]triumph, toronto, road tolls, gentrification, wall street journal[/tags]

These two things have nothing to do with each other

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Money woes add to Saskatoon Symphony’s troubles

The Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra is in debt to the tune of about $300,000, a musicians union official said Thursday.

“It’s effectively bankrupt,” Cam McConnell, vice president of American Federation of Musicians Local 553, told the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix.

Premier outraged Idol skipping Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall is calling on fans of Canadian Idol to lodge a protest after Saskatchewan was left off the list of audition locations this year.

Wall said he was outraged when he learned the reality TV talent competition would schedule auditions in 10 major Canadian cities, but leave out both Regina and Saskatoon.

[tags]saskatoon symphony, canadian idol[/tags]

My favourite songs of 2007

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment
  1. The National . “Fake Empire”
  2. Arcade Fire . “Intervention”
  3. The Besnard Lakes . “Devastation”
  4. Rogue Wave . “Harmonium”
  5. Grinderman . “No Pussy Blues”
  6. Vampire Weekend . “Walcott”
  7. Matt Pond PA . “Reading”
  8. Matt Pond PA . “Last Light”
  9. Okkervil River . “Our Life Is Not a Movie or Maybe”
  10. LCD Soundsystem . “All My Friends”
  11. Kissaway Trail . “61”
  12. Rebekah Higgs . “Parables”
  13. Kings Of Leon . “The Runner”
  14. Raising The Fawn . “Cliffdivers”
  15. Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip . “Thou Shalt Always Kill”
  16. The Office . “Oh My!”
  17. Radiohead . “House Of Cards”
  18. Datarock . “I Used To Dance With My Daddy”
  19. Band of Horses . “Lamb on the Lam (In The City)”
  20. LCD Soundsystem . “North American Scum”

Before you ask, I meant to put those two Matt Pond PA songs back-to-back. In fact, I couldn’t even rank one above the other; it’s essentially a tie. LCD Soundsystem is the only other double-entry, but had I gone a few songs further I think “Own Your Own Home” by Rogue Wave or the Arcade Fire‘s “Keep The Car Running” would’ve made an appearance.

I highly recommend making these into a playlist and plugging it in at whatever festivities you attend this evening. If the party were attended by 300 of me, I’m sure it’d be a big hit.

By the way, it could be a while before I can comment on my favourite films of 2007 since I still haven’t seen 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Atonement, Away From Her, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Charlie Wilson’s War, I’m Not There, Inland Empire, Iraq In Fragments, Juno, Lars And The Real Girl, Letters From Iwo Jima, Ratatouille, Terror’s Advocate, The Diving Bell And The Butterfly, The Lookout, The Savages or We Own The Night.

[tags]best songs of 2007[/tags]