touch me i'm sick...

really, that should be don't touch me. i've been sick since early saturday morning. or late friday night. whatever one wishes to call it. a touch of the stomach flu i believe. but enough about that.

i have declared tuesdays new music tuesdays. i am going to see if i can post one song from each album i own. this should take about five years. :)

i thought long and hard about what song should be the first one. this is a song i've been listening to a lot lately. and singing over and over again in the car. it's by one of my all time favourite artists, mr. johnny cash. among the many things i love about johnny cash, is the fact that once he records a song, it's his. i remember once driving home, listening to the local 'alternative' radio station and thinking, this song, it sounds so familiar yet different. i finally realized it was soundgarden's 'rusty cage'. which i now think of as a johnny cash song.

here he covers a steve earle song. an artist i've recently rediscovered thru my project of listening to every cd i own. i got into a heated discussion with a friend of mine about steve earle vs bruce springsteen. i said the problem for me was that i didn't believe when springsteen sings. but when steve earle sings about hard times, i know he's lived them.

here it is. the inaugural track in new music tuesdays. it's from the 'unearthed' box set.

johnny cash - devil's right hand.

my fave line is

"loads a mite slow and i soon found out
it can get you into trouble but it can't get you out"

(ps... i'm not sure how long i am going to leave these tracks up for. i'm thinking of deleting them in a week. so get 'em while they last!)

summertime, an' the livin' is easy ...

gershwin lied.

summertime livin' is damn hard. i was checking my calendar this week and i am busy every weekend until september! birthdays, bbqs, picnics, gigs and trips are eating up my free time. where is the me time? and more importantly, when do i do laundry?

plus, there is the always the lawn.

i think 'goober' is sabotaging my lawn mower. i was mowing the lawn yesterday, and every time i came back outside, after taking a break, he suspiciously ran away from the general direction of the lawn mower.

i woke up this morning, and not only had 'goober' snuck up onto the bed last nite, he had maneuvered himself so that he had his head on the pillow next to me, he was stretched out and his paw was on the remote control. if he was snoring, he could have been a bad date. :)

time for friday random top ten.

1. fake friends - joan jett & the blackhearts
2. modern music – black mountain
3. thrills and sensations – the quakes
4. earth intruders – björk
5. e-pro – beck
6. hey, i'm gonna be your girl – the donnas
7. pop queen – ben lee
8. good times roll – the cars
9. beautiful ones – suede
10. gold digger (featuring jamie foxx) – kanye west
    

happy weekend everyone!

music, music, music...

***EDITED POST***

one of the things i like to do when i travel, is buy cds from local bands. for me, it's way better than a t-shirt.

my first local purchase was the latest cd by the now defunct band, fake cops. it's called "thundertheft". their first ep also qualifies as one of my all time favourite cd titles... "absolutely your credit is excellent but in a certain way we also need cash" (you can download a track here). i bought that cd on another trip to calgary a few years back when i went into sloth and basically said, sell me some good local stuff. i was saddened to hear of their demise a few months back, and even considered coming out for the show at broken city. plus they were playing with the neckers who i've been wanted to catch for awhile (more on them down below). i don't really consider them punk rock but everyone else seems to so i guess maybe they are. anyways, i knew i wanted to buy this cd from the opening seconds of the cd. you can go to their myspace page and download a bunch of songs. including my favourite, the opener 'better call a priest'.

next up, was a trip to sloth and a purchase of the neckers first ep "a whole mess o' trouble" (you can download stuff here.) one of my many musical weaknesses is garage/punk so the neckers fit right in. apparently billy hopeless from the black halos have declared them his favourite calgary band. it's ok, but i prefer their next cd, their first full length much better. if you like this kinda of stuff, go to their site and download 'don't wanna worry' from that album. i need to see this band live!

one of the many things i love about sloth, is that every time i go there, i get a free cd. they always seem to have some label sampler and unlike the majority of samplers i have received in my lifetime, they are actually really good. the one i got this time was a vice recordings sampler. i haven't listened to it yet, but it looks good. bloc party and the boredoms are a couple of the bands on it. (ps i am listening to it now and i am totally digging it. you can learn about it here).

last of the local cds i bought was greg (name witheld) "passage". this one is in the singer/songwriter vein. it's a bit more rockin' than his first cd, but i have the same issue that i had with his first one. the vocals. i've seen him live and vocally, he's quite strong. but on cd, they come off really weak and tinny. i didn't really get the first cd until i saw him live and heard what the songs really sounded like. so, this only gets a so-so rating. "dissolve" would be my favourite song off the cd. you can listen to it on his myspace page if you are interested.

i also finally made it up to melodiya records. i've been meaning to check out them out for awhile now. it's a very cool little indie store. i was first introduced to them as a label. a label which they have recently re-activated for the vinyl version of chad vangaalen's skelliconnection.

we were walking near stampede and some stampede yahoos say to us... there's a hoedown going on. whatever. then we get to the station and oh, there is a hoedown going on! i don't know who they were or if they were a real band or what, but they were pretty cool to watch. especially from high up.

i did manage to catch a couple of bands this time out. as mentioned, we went to the castle pub. it was 'fuck the stampede' night. total hardcore night. we caught a band called 'epidemic' whose bass player totally fascinated me. he'd obviously trained on an upright bass or cello, because all of his finger and hand work was based on that. he even had the neck up a little. the next band was calledy 'dry fisted' . more hard core. here's the deal tho', the show cost us 8 bucks. for four bands. we only saw two, but that's four bucks per band. i felt that since neither band sucked, i got my money's worth. i also wanted to pick up a 'fuck the stampede' button but the kiosk people left super early. i can't understand why as it seemed like they had tons of stuff left over.

for the second stampede in a row, i tried to see the smokin' 45s. for the second year in a row, i failed. however, they are coming here in august and i will attempt to see them once again.

i wanted to go see this band called 'cowpuncher'. but my friend took me to the wildwood instead of the ironwood. totally different areas of town. so sadly i missed them as well.



next up, stampede!

the little old lady from pasadena...

i saw the coolest thing yesterday. i was driving back from the garage, and i looked into my rearview mirrors and i saw what looked like a granny riding a motorcycle. which is pretty cool on it's own. however, she had a sidecar. wicked. but inside the sidecar... a big ole' dog. with goggles on. way too freakin' cool. and the dog looked like he was having the best time ever.

anyways, it's friday and it's random top ten time.

1. jolene – dolly parton
2. home for a rest – spirit of the west
3. i wanna jump your bones – launderettes
4. attack me – the parkades
5. just another day – serena ryder
6. colorful - rocco deluca & the burden
7. broken face – pixies
8. one way ticket – the darkness
9. spin the bottle (lp version) - the juliana hatfield three
10. rosalie come and go – ryan adams

happy friday the 13th everyone! whooo hoooo!

eat the rich...

***EDITED POST****

i will return to my toronto adventure but i've decided to blog calgary first as there isn't as much to tell.

i'm going to attempt theme posts. let's start with food. did i mention i ate in calgary? here are some highlights.

first off, the airport. i nearly missed my flight. seriously. my luggage barely made it on. however, i was rewarded by cookies on the flight. let's see, no food all the way to toronto. on a five hour flight. cookies on a flight from abbotsford to calgary that's barely an hour long. yah, that makes sense. i did get row 13 again tho. not planned either. whoo hooo!

i left my jacket on the plane. i realized before i got off, so i stopped and had to wait until everyone got off. but i was reward by a sighting of nuns! whoo hoo again! remind me one day to tell you my pope/spanish nuns story.

first food event in calgary. a trip to inglewood (even tho i kept calling it kensington in error) and a visit to spolumbo's. mmmm, i had the spicy italian sausage.














in the plastic containers are limes that i had to go into boston pizza and ask them for. because the store we bought the beer in was sold out of limes.

we had to go back to the store to get a bottle opener. the opener we bought turned out to be a piece of crap plastic that opened four bottles before dying. it was also a wine opener but i can not believe that it would have even opened one bottle without breaking in half.

dinner that night was at the awesome drum and monkey. i have raved about their mac and cheese before. and it's just as good as before.

we had just sat down when this large party came in. i offered to move down to the next table and you would have thought i had offered to buy them a round of drinks the way they went on and on. really, it's no big deal. it's one table over.

later on, in the castle pub, i saw the best thing in the bathroom. sure, condoms are handy, but what about before that? what about getting to that stage? what happens when i want to make out?

oh, thank god, i can buy gum in the bathroom now! kissable breath for everyone!









the next day, we decided to hit the palomino club for lunch before stampede. now, i raved about this place as well. however, this time, it was so disappointing. i have been going on and on about this to my bbq "posse" back home and they can't wait to come out to taste it. i was already to text them when i got there about how good it was. but alas, they were not serving the full menu. only three items, and no choices in sides. just beans (blech!) and coleslaw (which was ok). and the service kinda sucked. plus they played friggin' john cougar! what happened to hank III and merle and johnny?

the idea behind going to lunch before stampede was so we wouldn't be that hungry. oh well, more room for bad food. first stop...

mmmmm, bannock. this picture is actually from last year because the stand was so packed, i couldn't even see the sign. i love bannock. my pne "posse" mourn the fact the bannock left the pne years ago and has never returned. i ordered two helpings in their honour. but i only ate one on the fairgrounds!

this is the most bizarre thing i saw. the picklestickle was odd, deep fried cheese cake was odd, but deep fried coke? i was too afraid to try it, and i couldn't see anyone else trying it either at this point. the girl making it was so not happy to be in the glass booth, being stared at constantly. here's a recipe for it.

a bucket of mini doughnuts?!

i also saw a woman eating a huge slab of fudge. like it was a sandwich. i almost threw up. but then again, i don't really like fudge.

we also ate some salt water taffy. chocolate got the thumbs down as it was not very chocolatey. my friend said the same for the vanilla. i gave a thumbs up on the butter rum. and my friend did the same for the mint.

we ended up driving around looking for a place to eat dinner. at ten to midnight. luckily it was stampede and everything was open still. we ended up at the 1410 which we thought was just going to be pub grub, but it was actually really good. i had a little bitty steak with awesome mashed potatoes. we are going to go back next time for brunch.

some of you may remember my quest for pancakes in calgary. so you can imagine my excitement on going to my first ever stampede breakfast.

oooooh, i'm so excited i could do a happy pancake dance right now. where is the breakfast? who is putting it on? what company is sponsoring my first ever stampede breakfast? and whose bright idea was it to break in the new bottle opener at two in the morning?




get out! they have free breakfasts at the funeral home?! how happy is my inner goth child now?!







mmmmmm... pancakes.








well, it's been a couple of hours since we ate. better get a little snack to keep us going. chocolate? ok. and what's this? oh, it's bernard callebaut. i choose two truffles, an expresso and a irish creme. oh yah, and a dark bar for later.

oh, is it lunch time already? time to hit the ship and anchor pub. and because one breakfast isn't enough for me, let's have breakfast again. but this time, on the patio. mmmmm, yummy toast.

i have no desire to discuss dinner that night. let's just say it was standard pub grub. but i did eat my second piece of bannock when i got back to my calgary abode.

for breakfast, i went to peter's drive-in. (if you go to their website, you can read what hugh jackman says about them). i choose the cheeseburger but no shake. i was saving room for a little treat.

i love drive-in's and diners. it makes me happy when i find one. i have to remember to find a good diner for my next trip to calgary.




wow, i heard the wages were high in calgary. here's the proof. this is better pay than a lot of skilled jobs out here.







off to kensington, and i had to treat myself at crave. my photo of my cupcake didn't turn out because i was so excited to eat it. i had the crave-o-licious which is chocolate cup cake with blue vanilla icing. perfection!


later on i saw this sign. now, i misread things a lot. i've decided it's because i'm a speed reader and my brain is faster than my eyes. or is it the other way around? anyways, i thought this sign said no potstickers. i nearly dropped my cupcake when i snorted with laughter.


well, that's the end of my food tour of calgary. join me next time for.... music.

i melt with you...

good lord, i'm back from calgary and we are in the middle of a heat wave. if there is one thing (and we all know there is not just one thing) that i can not handle, it is heat.

i've missed all of you and thank you very much for all your messages.

calgary was fun but not fun. if toronto's theme was "fabulous getaway", calgary's would be "if it can go wrong, it did."

i ate (lord, did i eat!), bought a bunch of cds, ogled bmx bikers, petted many a cute pig and questioned why people think bandannas should be worn in public if you are not a dog,

i am very glad to be home. i am especially glad to see 'goober'. i seemed to especially miss him this trip.

if i don't melt in this heat, i will be back soon.

mr. cab driver...

we pick up the story after the taping of 'the hour' (i'm going to come back to that)



here is a close up of the glen gould statue/bench outside the cbc.




i liked this statue as well. i'm not sure what it's supposed to be of. rabbits maybe? there were a whole bunch of them





i headed back to my friend's place. oh, i forgot to mention something. i have no keys to my friend's place. so i can't come and go as i please. which means i am forever rushing about with very little time to do anything at my friend's place. which leads us to the first catchphrase of the trip. it's something my brother once said to me. we were going to run some errand together and he expected me to be ready like that. he says to me.. i keep forgetting you're a girl. meaning i need at least five minutes to get ready before leaving the house. just because i look dressed, does not mean i am dressed. anyways, i had to say to my buddy "remember, i'm a girl". although he shouldn't have needed a hint because his dog went into my suitcase and proceeded to pull out and chew on my "feminine" products.

the next task at hand is to figure out where i can buy a nxne wristband. all i really wanted to know was if i could buy one at my first gig. but we had massive issues with the advertising, the website and even the people at the nxne headquarters. we went all the way down there, to find out no, we couldn't buy the wristband at the headquarters, only at the gigs. well, that was a big waste of time.

next we went to this bar/restaurant and met "l" there. our server reminded us of mariah carey and was called something like sweetie. it wasn't sweetie but i can't post what it was. i was warned about her breasts, but even with the warning, they were still a distraction. honestly, i do not know how straight men function in the world sometimes. even i had trouble ordering with her breasts in my face.

next, "l" and i ditch my t.o. buddy and hop into a cab. the driver is yakking away on his cell phone. i say "lee's palace's" and off he drives. i am thinking to myself, that he doesn't seem to be driving the right direction but maybe he knows a different route. a few minutes later, he gets off the phone and says, "where are you going". you idiot, you mean you've been driving us around and you don't even know where we are going? i say again "lee's palace" and he says, i don't know where that is. what do you mean, you don't know where lee's palace is? meanwhile, he keeps driving, with the meter running, as we are frantically trying to look up lee's palace in this mini guide we have. finally we give him an address and he acts like he vaguely knows where we are going.

we get up near the vague area of the club and traffic is pretty bad. we finally jump out and our cab driver has the nerve to try and keep our change! yah, no i don't think so. i make sure i take every penny that he is so unwilling to give to me.

anyways, we make our way down to lee's palace. the reason we are heading there is to see kathleen edwards. i love her. thanks to our idiot cab driver, we got there late. i don't know if she played my favourite song ('hockey skates').

the only half decent shot i got of kathleen edwards. the show was good, but the sound was bad. or at least it was near the bar which was as far as we could get in. all banter was lost to us.

i enjoyed the bartender at club as he told everyone to move out of the way when i went to order drinks.

we watched part of jim bryson's set. he's part of kathleen edwards' band. it was ok. not great, but ok.

we leave lee's palace and end up going to some bar for some girl talk. second phrase of the trip is coined. "suck it up". which is what you say when something doesn't work out. you had to pay for a cab? oh well, suck it up.
ooooh... pretty. ha ha.


'l' and i depart and head our separate ways. i head back to the bar where toronto buddy is dj'ing and proceed to amuse myself by annoying this guy at the bar who is talking to my friend. this guy so does not like me. i find this highly entertaining. he tried to play the " i know way more about music than you do' card with me. yah, i don't think so buddy.

we head home. day one is done.

oh canada...

we interrupt the toronto saga for friday random top ten. my internet connection has sucked all week but it seems to be good today, so i'll try and finish up this weekend. i'm leaving saturday for calgary so i'd like to be finished by then. :)

i went all canadian this week in honour of canada day.

1. (manifest) – the weakerthans (winnipeg)
2. when the night feels my song – bedouin soundclash (kingston)
3. sir, you're not blowing – fake cops (calgary)
4. the future hangs –cuff the duke (oshawa)
5. hockey skates – kathleen edwards (ottawa)
6. tigers not daughters – controller.controller (toronto)
7. what do you want me to do? – pointed sticks (vancouver)
8. the constant lover – magneta lane (toronto)
9. marijuana motherfucker – d.o.a. (vancouver)
10. lost in the plot – the dears (montreal)

i wish sloan or something would have come up to represent the east coast.

happy canada day!