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!

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.