Yesterday I put my Canucks sweater on and made my way down to Soprano’s for the Canucks Fan Video shoot.
Alex, Chika and Jefe organized a bunch of Canucks fans to come together and make a video to put on Youtube. It was good times standing on stage with other fans and cheers to their Canucks song. A parody to the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s “Dani California.” The video will be online tomorrow (in theory) before game 1 of the Canucks and Bruins Stanley Cup final. Have a listen to the song below.
Sean & Brayden Ft. Ryan – “Hey Vancouver (Teach me how to Lu)”
But here is what’s up… I went for a CRAZY bike ride yesterday. And I woke up today at 11AM. I haven’t slept in till 11AM since… 2007? Maybe when I was sick a couple months ago I slept that much.
Its been Daddy (and Nana) Daycare for the better part of a week while Coral is off enjoying rock and roll and freedom in South-Central Washington State. Nana brought Mads home yesterday morning and I asked her what she wanted to do. It being sunny, BEACH PICNIC she screamed.
And yesterday was such a glorious day in Victoria, I thought, we better bike there. I texted Dave Sawchuk to join us, hitched the trailer, filled my cooler full of beer and off we peddled.
Downtown was a bit of a gonger for the Bike Festival. Funny, the bike festival put a crimp into my bike riding? Weird.
I have never rode my bike along Douglas out to Dallas Road before and then along the ocean. Silly. What a most excellent route. So many bikes (and motorcycles) out now that the weather has finally turned.
I met Dave at the beach and Madelyn transformed into beach baby and made for the splashes. Gonzales Beach was ripping with families, skim boarders, sun bathers. Great afternoon. Then back on the bike and across Oak Bay along Foul Bay Road to my brother’s place. Auntie Caitlin and Uncle “JJ” made burgers. Then the LONG uphill up Oak Bay Avenue… down Pandora and back along the Gorge waterway home.
Wow, that second leg KILLED me. Madelyn slept the whole time. Lucky girl.
We both got home after all the sun and peddling and crashed.
Today I woke up late and sore and thought, yeesh, no bike ride to work. Sorry Bike to Work week, maybe tomorrow?
I have more than a couple jammers to share. All very bright, booty-shaking, catchy, poptastical cuts. Almost all these songs were recommended to me by quality folks and now I’m passing them on to you.
Our musical journey begins East of the rockies in a little burgh that maybe you’ve heard of… Cincinnati. This fine metro of 2 million folks straddling the Ohio/Kentucky border is famous for WKRP, Ocho Cinqo and soon to be dance-rockers Walk the Moon.
My girl Scotty Fraser said I HAD to check out the song “Anna Sun.”
Growing up in Coquitlam…me and my friends would play “guns.” Basically we trolled the neighbourhood fighting an epic war between the righteous and the not so righteous.
What if someone took our imagination and made a music video? My friend Paul tracked this music video down from the band Is Tropical and went, SWA? Holy shit right!?! Did those kids just cut another kid’s head off in cartoony gory violence? I think so.
Do these London cats have it dialed in sans rad music video? I was feeling it. I seriously want to make-out with Paul for sharing this song with me. no wait… errrr. You know what I mean. or do you?
Trolling the net I found this poignant prose in regards to Is Tropical’s music video and quotes George Carlin circa 1988:
“It’s a great country, but it’s a strange culture… This has got to be the only country in the world that could ever come up with a disease like bulimia; gotta be the only country in the world where some people have no food at all, and other people eat a nourishing meal and puke it up intentionally. This is a country where tobacco kills four hundred thousand people a year, so they ban artificial sweeteners! Because a rat died! You know what I mean? This is a place where gun store owners are given a list of stolen credit cards, but not a list of criminals and maniacs! And now, they’re thinking about banning toy guns — and they’re gonna keep the fucking real ones!”
… and because France has it figured out right now in electro-pop, I found out Is tropical is on a record/fashion label called Kitsune Maison. Same label as Zone modern rockers Two Door Cinema Club. There I found this glittery remix of the hot single “What You Know.”
Two Doors Cinema Club – “What You Know (Mustang Remix)”
Finished my first little hike with Madelyn today. It went pretty good, considering she is three-years-old and at no time during the journey was there a Treehouse break.
Basically a hike can be summed up as thus:
First 1/4 of the hike, “slow down.”
Last 3/4 of the hike, “hurry the FUCK up.”
We made out way to Mount Douglas Park, but instead of going up the hill, we walked down to the ocean. I dunno what it is with people, but the ocean… rocks… people need to throw them.
Madelyn bee-lines straight for the shoreline and gets hucking. Water spilling over her gumboots, everything soaking wet. I have fantasies of me going all Hasselhoff and Baywatching it into the sea to drag her out. She is a rock throwing machine. When I finally used our picnic food to drag her away some UVic kids wandered down. And they too made a straight line to the shore and started hucking rocks. Funny how that is.
If there is any advice I can bestow after just one little hike it is this; bring snacks. I am pretty sure another Mom told me that, but it works. In my little half sack I packed the trail-mix with the smarties, pepperoni, apple and water. Mads loved the rustic snacking on the shoreline, sitting on a piece of driftwood.
Our day ended with a trip downtown. I have had a mad lust for the Smashing Pumpkins‘ Siamese Dream album. Coral is at the Sasquatch Festival and Madelyn is doing back-to-back sleepovers and during my down time, I actually get to put on a record and just sit for a moment. I had a lot of stress balled up over the past little while, but today during my hike and just now before blogging it evaporated. I could actually feel it unwinding during a few stretches of hide-and-seek in the forest. It was kinda scary actually. Like a reverse panic attack? odd… but ultimately a good feeling.
I can’t wait to free up my Saturday nights (its in the plans for after wedding season) and actually take more than an afternoon to hike and sit.
Back to the grind after an awesome weekend in Vancouver. Coral and I took Mads to Coquitlam to see my sister Andrea, Uncle Matt and Stuphie.
Saturday night, we teamed up with Coral’s sister Alyx and hit the Commodore Ballroom to see Jimmy Eat World.
The concert was my second chance to see JEW. The last time Coral and I went was 2007 when she was pregnant with Madelyn. I remember that show to this day being one of my favourite concert experiences.
This 2011, might go down as even better. Jimmy Eat World were playing songs heavy on classics and also from their album Invented. I love the hits as I do with any journeymen band… but seeing as my favourite JEW records tend to be the later ones, I was happy they leaned on Invented and Chase This Light for some great depth performances.
I loved that Jimmy Eat World brought Courtney Marie Andrews on tour with them to sing the female harmonies. It added a lot to the show and she sounded great on the Invented songs and the older JEW songs. Notably on the Bleed American slow-burn, “Hear You Me.”
All-in-all… such a beautiful concert. Too bad is took so bloody long to get home on the skytrain.
The rest of the weekend was filled with relaxing, hockey, eating and Bridesmaids.
Andrea and I took Madelyn to Dawes Hill Park which is a little playground and urban forest by my folk’s place.
As kids in the 80s… much of the neighbourhood where we grew up was forest. Now its houses. We’d spend hours patrolling our domain, making trails and exploring.
I was very happy that an old trail that we always trekked along in Dawes Hill was still there and that Madelyn was jazzed to wander it.
I wonder how she might take to walking on a trail? Maybe still a bit too young. Even this little adventure required me to pick her up and carry her for a bit when she got “too tired.”
But I was reading my Backpacker magazine and they were talking about kids as young as 5 getting out into the back country and even had some kids packs! O RLY? Kids Pack and a 4 person tent… then I’m gold!
01) The Selecter – “The Selecter”
02) The Specials – “Gangsters”
03) Vivian Girls – “I Heard You Say”
04) Vivian Girls – “I Won’t Be Long”
05) Girls – “Laura”
06) Girls – “Oh Boy”
The first 45 up is 1979’s debut single from 2 Tone records… a split single called “Gangsters vs. The Selecter.”
I began the set with the instrumental cut from The Selecter. I bought this record because I love the Jamaican word for DJ… “selector.”
The record also includes an early recording from The Specials. They’d go on to have a long and storied ska career.
Changing gears and eras, but staying with a lo-fi type vibe, I have the new single from Brooklyn all-girl dream poppers, Vivian Girls.
The a-side is an interesting retro inspired teen melodrama. Lots of harmonies and pretty sounds all recorded to sound olden tyme like.
the flip to “I Heard You Say” is a more uptempo stomper, “I Won’t Be Long.”
Fun fact: Vivian Girls are signed to Champagne, Illinois record label Polyvinyl Record Company. That is groovy to me for two reasons.
1) Japandroids are also on Polyvinyl! awesome.
2) One of my fave records from the olden days is Braid’sFrame and Canvas… the first “big” record to come out on Polyvinyl. neat.
The set ends with San Fran’s Girls. I already have their 2009 record Album so I am familiar with the single I bought. “Laura” is a pretty cool jam. Also has a retro style.
Nice song about wanting to be Laura’s friend. awwww.
“Oh Boy” calms the set right down with a ghostly lo-fi vocal and lullaby guitar. That selector, he always saves the slowest song for last…
This summer I am going to work all the time. Crush some debt, save some money, buy my camping gear…
Next summer (or year… or whenever) I need to go to Hawaii. I am going to camp in the jungle, work on a coffee plantation and jam out Hawaiian versions of pop songs. And yes, there will be giggling the whole time.
On the weekend, the TV showed the classic comedic cinema, Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
I love this movie. And after so many laughs, the credits rolled and some guy singing Hawaiian sang the Prince penned and famously made popular by Sinead O’Conner slow burner “Nothing Compares 2 U.” Amazing. Or at least it was to Coral and I lounging on our couch.
