Thursday 26 July 2012
news feeds july 26
The Ontario government is turning down a request, and a petition signed by 112,500 people, to allow retailers to sell alcohol in convenience stores. The provincially run LCBO controls all of the provinces' liquor and beer sales through their LCBO and Beer Store outlets (there are however stores that specialize in wine) and the finance ministry thinks the public is served well by the current system. Progressive leader Tim Hudak questioned these "old solutions from the 30s and 40s" that had the government controlling the alcohol business top to bottom. NDP Rosario Machese said the LCBO was "a good system" that provided a strong revenue stream for the province. "I think our priority should be making the system work better, not new schemes that make it easier for young people to get their hands on alcohol," she added.
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Zellers department stores are almost extinct. They are anchors in small town malls, as well as less prominent urban shopping centres, but were bought out by US based Target, which plans to turn 189 locations into Target stores in late 2012 and early 2013. That leaves 64 locations that aren't included in the deal, most of which will be shut down or re-branded by the parent Hudson Bay Company, but said that keeping these locations going a Zellers is no longer viable. "Zellers is considering options for certain locations, including potentially rebranding some stores, which will result in certain stores remaining open for the foreseeable future," HBC said in a statement. If YouTube/NBC weren't such dingleberries there would be an actual Kristen Wiig Target sketch instead of just a picture… sorry.
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Jerry Seinfeld will be performing stand up in New York for the first time since selling out the Broadhurst Theater in 1998. He will be doing a show each Thursday night between October 4 through November 8, doing a show in each of New York's boroughs (Manhatten, Brooklyn, The Bronx, Queens, Staten Island) spread out over five weeks. "I was born in Brooklyn, went to school in Queens and started out as a comedian in Manhattan. I feel like New York City taught me how to e funny. I'm so excited to perform a special series of shows for my beloved hometown," said Seinfeld. Thursday, of course, was the night his beloved show aired for most of its nine year run. SNL alum Colin Quinn will be opening the shows. Also, you can check out Seinfeld in his new web series "Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee," which has Jerry cruising around with friends in a hot ride searching for a decent cup of coffee. Here's the first webisode with Sein alum and Curb star Larry David called "Larry Eats a Pancake."
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It seems there is finally some movement on the announced fourth season of Arrested Development. It was announced late last year that the show would be returning for a ten episode run, to be streamed on Netflix leading up to a feature film. Executive producer and narrator Ron Howard has tweeted a photo of the first script (taken on his iPad). The episode follows Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) with each episode of the season focusing on a different member of the Bluth family. Really? George Michael (Michael Cera) is going to carry an episode by himself? Can't you make Gob's (Will Arnett) a double episode? Or Tobias' (Davis Cross)? After the ten episodes 'air' (or stream) the cast and crew will be working on a feature film together, which I imagine would be the last hurrah for the show.
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This is not the kind of thing I like to post about but it was too great to not to laugh at least a little bit at. Kristin Stewart is a harlot! The Twilight star has apparently cheated on her undead boyfriend (are they married? don't care) with her "Snow White & the Hunstman" director Rupert Sanders, 20 years her senior. Apparently the tweeting word is losing its mind, at least among 14 year olds, with fans taking sides in the story.. some calling for Pattison to "ditch the bitch," while Stewart supporters blame the director, father of two and married to Vogue model Liberty Ross, saying his wily charms seduced her. The final "Twilight" movie is due out in November and fans are worried that if the couple are not together in real life then the movie wouldn't seem authentic and be unrealistic. The werewolf could not be reached for comment.
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The Olympics opening ceremony is on Friday afternoon in North America. The show is called "Isles Of Wonder." Leading off the show is the sounding of the largest harmonically tuned bell in Europe, then the stadium gets transformed into an English country side setting which will will include farm animals. After the officials of the games are introduced the teams enter. Apparently Greece always enters first, since they are the country where the ancient and modern games were founded. I was not aware of this fact. The countries enter alphabetically, with the exception of the host country, Great Britain, who come in last. There will be over 10,000 athletes competing from 204 nations in 302 events from 26 sports. Looking forward to the handball, where France looks to defend their 2008 Gold medal win. Should be spellbinding!
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Saturday 21 July 2012
news feeds july 21
How can Yahoo be saved? Can it be saved? I don't think so. I remember using Yahoo! in the early days of the internet and it has held up pretty well compared to some other 1990s era web giants Lycos (search engine), Netscape (browser) or The Globe (arguably the first social networking site). Stocks during the salad days of Yahoo, in 2000, went for $118.75 a share while this past week it was trading at $15.42. An outside source working with the company feels that it needs to have a distinct plan as to what kind of company they are, and let go of their lesser products. Yahoo's products include Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Messenger, Yahoo Groups, Yahoo Voice, Yahoo Voices (huh?), Yahoo Sports, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Shopping, the picture site Flickr and rivals.com with none of them working particularly well. In fact, Yahoo's original use, a search engine, has been outsourced to Microsoft. The internet may still be in its infancy but at 17 years old Yahoo looks like it may be dying rapidly. Must be in dog years or something, and if that's the case then you hung in there sport! 
Back to theglobe.com. I remember using the website briefly in the 1990s. I don't really remember what the interface looked like, since to me, all chat rooms from that time look like the one from The Net due to repeated viewings. But I do remember it was slow as hell. One night, I was probably 14 or so, I had a conversation about God knows what, that was a back and forth of about four of five messages. That took about five hours. Sure wasn't instant messaging (remember ICQ?). Nevertheless, it was a hit. Two Cornell students founded the site 1994 and they were among the first dotcom success stories, going public in 1998 (posting the largest first day gain of any IPO to that point), and making Stephan Peternot and Todd Krizelman millionaires overnight. Paternot became the poster boy for internet kids who have more money than brains (they had a lot of both) after he was spotted at an upscale Manhatten nightclub with his girlfriend, model Jennifer Medley wearing leather pants, dancing on a table, then, to CNN cameras, stated "Got the girl. Got the money. Now I'm ready to live a disgusting, frivolous life." The wonder kids were forced out of the company by 2000 and it's market capitalization shrunk from its high of $97 to less than 10 cents by 2001. While not completely dead, it is on life support. In the company's 2011 annual report they claimed $6426 in assets vs $3.2 million in liabilities. Ouch..
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A 26 year old woman was busted stealing diapers in a Pathmark store in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, but fled the scene topless. The woman allegedly went into the store, grabbed a pack of the diapers then was apprehended by the security guards and taken into a holding room. In the room, Aishana Clayton then completely freaked out.. punching, biting and scratching at the 47 year old female security guard. When Ms Clayton started to flee the security guard grabbed her by her shirt, but she managed to wiggle out and ran through the store and parking lot topless (no bras in Pennsylvania?). "Her breasts were swinging as she ran to the car," said Upper Darby police officer Michael Chitwood. She has four prior convictions for retail theft, and well as arrests for aggravated assault and attempted murder. Ms Clayton and her boobs are still on the loose.
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In Nanaimo, British Columbia, a hungry man staying at a hotel near a 7-11, was suffering from late night munchies, decided to steal a couple sandwiches from the nearby shop only to get back to his room and realize they were plastic reproductions for display purposes. Not only that, they are apparently worth $70 apiece! The man ate one of them and noted that they were only slightly harder/more expensive than normal 7-11 sandwiches. Police traced the man back to his hotel room and returned the sandwiches. Since the owner of the store said that the bites taken out of the display models looked more enticing for potential customers.
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A new Tarantino film is almost complete. His movies has always been great, but over the years he has evolved and let all his (diverse) influences seep in. After the crime dramas "Reservoir Dogs," "Pulp Fiction," and "Jackie Brown" he took some time to make the martial arts/Hong Kong influenced Kill Bill films (which had to be made into two films with a running time of over four hours). His next movie was a homage to exploitation and slasher films called "Death Proof" which was kind of a mixed bag, but Kurt Russell sure had fun with his lead role. 2009 saw Quentin do a war film called "Inglourious Basterds" which saw Brad Pitt taking some "Nat-zees." His new film, slated for release this Christmas, is called "Django Unchained." It is a Spaghetti Western set in the American South involving a slave, separated from his wife. He is bought at a slave auction by a dentist turned bounty hunter to help him hunt down and kill a ruthless gang, and in return he will help freeing the slaves wife from an evil plantation owner. The film starts Jaime Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz, Don Johnson, Samuel L Jackson, Anthony LaPaglia with cameos by RZA and Jonah Hill. Trailer below...
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Filming of a nuclear blast, 55 years ago, July 19, 1957. The eight people who set it off and taped it all got cancer.. Standing under a nuclear test.. Hmmm CLICK HERE
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Tuesday 17 July 2012
best picture
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| Brando in On the Waterfront (1955) |
The Oscars were first awarded in 1927, and there have been 84 films that have won best picture. Some of them are absolutely incredible and some, not so much. I haven't seen all of them, in fact, I've probably only seen around half of them. The earliest one I've ever seen, or that I want to admit I've seen is 1940's Rebecca (I saw Gone With the Wind, 1939, and even though I was just a child I weep I won't get those four dreary hours back). Rebecca was Alfred Hitchcock's first American project, which has a woman who marries a British fellow, and lives in the shadow of his deceased wife. Casablanca, I think everyone has seen at one point or another, is great, sure, but I'm not sure if's it was Best Picture worthy. For Whom the Bell Tolls was nominated for Best Picture in 1942 , the same year Casablanca won, and was a better movie. Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman in an adaptation of a Hemingway novel, portraying the leads (handpicked by Ernest himself) and kicking some serious ass. Good times. The fifties has one of the greatest best pictures of all time, 1954's On the Waterfront. Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy, witnesses a murder that was set-up by the local waterfront union to knock off a potential whistle blower. The union's head Johnny Friendly is a tough S.O.B., and his right hand man, and Terry's brother, is Charlie the Gent, played perfectly by Rod Steiger. Not to mention Karl Malden is positively brilliant as the priest who tries and convince Brando to testify against the union, offering a real sense of morality, all the while smoking, drinking whiskey and beer.
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| Lemmon & Shirley McLaine in The Apartment (1960) |
The sixties, 1960 to be exact, boasted The Apartment as Best Picture, where Jack Lemmon is a low level executive who scores points with the big bosses by renting out his apartment to them for.. extra curricular activties. I'll skip over most of the musicals, that went through a real revival for 1969's Midnight Cowboy, where small town diner dishwasher Jon Voight picks up and heads to New York City with dreams of becoming a male escort for rich old ladies. 1969 also included Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid ("who were those guys?!"), which lost it's nomination for Best Picture, but won four other Oscars.
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| Stallone & Burgess Meredith in Rocky (1976) |
The seventies might have been the greatest decade for Best Picture. Honestly, every one is a beauty. 1970's Patton starred George C Scott (in his only good role ever) as General George Patton who was a brilliant mind when it came to war, found himself in trouble in WWII because of his very VERY short temper. The French Connection, 1971. Best. Car chases. Ever. 1972 - The Godfather.. do I need to say anything about this or its 1974 sequel and also Best Picture winner The Godfather Part II. Wedged between those was The Sting with Robert Redford and Paul Newman as small time Chicago hustler who try to take a rich schmuck from NYC who killed one of their pals. My favorite three year stretch in Best Picture history is definitely 1975-77. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest swept the 1975 Oscars taking home all five major awards (Picture, Screenplay, Best Director - Milos Forman, Best Actor - Jack Nicholson, Best Actress - Louise Fletcher). Jack is brilliant as a con who think going to a mental hospital will be better than jail. He was wrong. Other members of Jack's (or R.P. MacMurphy) psych ward include Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd, and that guy from the original The Hills Have Eyes movie. ROCKY! ROCKY! ROCKY! Everyone loves the Cinderella story of the Philadelphia club fighter given his chance to take on the champion of the world. Sylvester Stallone wrote the script in a week, working day and night. The studio loved it, wanted it, and offered Stallone big money for the script so they could cast Ryan O'Neal or some 70s bankable tough guy to play the lead. Stallone refused, and wound up making himself a house hold name in the lead role. Stallone was even nominated for Best Actor (doesn't quite seem right does it), with one critic making comparisons of his performance to that of Marlon Brando's in On the Waterfront. There are definite similarities between the two roles, but let's face it, as much as I enjoy his movies, the first Rocky is the only movie where he's ever shown any actual acting talent. 1977's Annie Hall ranks up there with my favorite movies of all time. The scary part is, it's arguably Woody Allen's second best movie of the 70s (how good is Manhatten?). It follows (not in a linear fashion) the relationship of Woody's Alvy Singer and Diane Keaton's Annie. Sweet, bittersweet, funny, sad, intelligent.. just a great movie start to finish. And about the acting, this is a movie geek fact, but whatevs. The average shot in Annie Hall is 14.5 seconds, whereas other films from 1977 averaged about 4-7 seconds, and how much lower do you think it is nowadays? The average shot feels like 1 second now.
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| Woody Allen & Diane Keaton in Annie Hall (1977) |
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| Berenger in Platoon (1986) |
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| Clint & his kids in Unforgiven (1992) |
Silence Of the Lambs was great in 1991, but never really felt like a Best Picture type film, despite how good Sir Anthony was. But in 1992, my favorite western of all time, Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven took home the trophy. It follows a long since retired gun slinger, who now runs a small farm with the help of his young son and daughter. Two cowboys go rolling through a Wyoming town and hook up with some prostitutes. One of them laughs at the size of the cowboy's package so he slashes her with a knife, scarring her permanently. When the towns ruthless sheriff Gene Hackman plays off the incident, so the girls take all their money and put a bounty on the cowboys head. Yup, Clint comes out of retirement. And his good pal Morgan Freeman is going along with him on one last kill. Amazing. 1994 was a super year for movies. Pulp Fiction maybe should have won Best Picture but I like Forrest Gump just fine, so no big deal. It was a damn shame Ed Wood didn't get a nomination (though it did pull in an Oscar for Martin Landau's portrayal of Bela Lugosi), as I think it is everywhere as good as Pulp Fiction and Forrest Gump.. No big deal, but it is my favorite Tim Burton movie. The nineties had some great movies but none of them won, with the Academy opting for Titanic over LA Confidential, The English Patient over Fargo, etc. The 2000s weren't much better though. Yea, No Country For Old Men deserved the Oscar, so did The Departed, but did Million Dollar Baby or Lord Of the Rings (Lost In Translation was the same year.. wtf?) really deserve Best Pictures? Nope. They have redeemed themselves with last years mostly silent masterpiece The Artist, the reigning Best Picture. Who will win next February?
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| The Artist... reigning Best Picture. |
Tuesday 10 July 2012
news feeds july 10
No global warming, huh? The US has experienced the hottest year its ever had since 1895 when weather stats were first recorded. Crazily enough, that didn't include the heatwave that has engulfed most of the mainland during the month of July. Communities have been smashing heat records since the first 2012 heatwave in March (warmest March ever recorded), causing severe droughts in Colorado, Arizona, Indiana and Georgia which created an outbreak of large, almost uncontainable, wildfires. St. Louis residents breathed a sigh of relief on Monday when the thermometer only hit 91 degrees (32.7 celsius) after ten straight days of +100 degree (37.7 celsius) temperatures. And there has been many casualties all over the country due to the extreme heat, with Maryland (13) and Virginia (10) leading the league in that category. Moral of the story? Air conditioners (I know.. that's bad, but so good sometimes - now being one of those times) Oh, and Yuma, Arizona (home of Nick Papageorgio) had a forecast of 115 yesterday. Dry heat. Ouch. Anyways, don't cut down trees, waste water, and all other stuff that destroys this planet that is rapidly becoming a frog on a hotplate.
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There is a lot of 'activities' that pass as sports these days. Poker requires skill, no doubt, but it isn't a sport. Yet it's on all afternoon on the sports channels. And what about that ridiculous Coney Island Hot Dog eating contest. Dude crammed like 50 hotdogs in his mouth in ten minutes. Apparently the trick is to soak the buns in water. Sick. Winner gets ten thousand however, so, if you are good at eating hot dogs, well, run - do not walk and I wish you well. This just shouldn't be a thing though: the International Cherry Pit Spitting Championship (it's EXACTLY what it sounds like), which started over FOUR decades ago, has contestants from all over the US/world, and has six divisions. Two families, the Krauses' and the Lessards', have dominated the event with a member of one of the families taking home the trophy (or whatever the hell the prize is) every year since 1992. In comes a 46 year old Chicago native Ronn Matt, who was probably was on his way to get some of those delicious Michigan cherries, decided to enter the contest at the urging of his wife. He walked in and won the championship on his initial try, hurtling the cherry pit a whopping 69 feet. First time. He, like most other normal people, didn't realize he had this skill, unlike the Krause and Lessard families who no doubt have a cherry pit shooting range in their backyard.
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Not sure if this is a really nice story or a scary one. Guinness Book of World Records Largest woman, Pauline Potter (643 pounds last year) has dropped almost 100 pounds due to her new workout routine. She's been having sex and lots of it. Her and her ex-husband, a 140 pound tomcat named Alex have been getting hot and heavy for a while now. She says she can't move much in bed, no surprise, but says she burns about 500 calories each time; "It's great exercise just jiggling around." It isn't without it dangers though, Alex noted. "It's really dangerous for us to have sex because at any moment the bed could collapse and one or both of us could be seriously injured or even killed from the impact." The physics of it all is pretty crazy to wrap your head around. But using sex as a weight loss tool is more common than you think. "Shagging can make you slimmer, if you do it enough. It can also help the two of you fall for each other all over again. Requiring no monthly fee - dress code optional - you can 'sexercise' yourself into shape. This is one gym membership you'll never want to drop," says Dr. Yvonne Kristin Fulbright. Fun times!
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A man in Albuquerque, New Mexico was busted breaking into the Central New Mexico Community College after the police received a call about a break in. Thomas Molina, 38, tried to make a quick getaway though a window but found himself caught up in the blinds, which was where the police found him. If they were the horizontal venetian blinds I could see it happening, those can be tricky. But if they are the vertical kind, found in most community colleges, there is no excuses! Molina told police he was looking for computer hardware and has been charged with burglary and breaking and entering. He didn't post his 10,000 bail.
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I watched Sleepaway Camp last night. I remember seeing it in the video store when I was a kid and thought it looked pretty bad-ass just based on the cover. But I never watched it (even though it's possible I claimed otherwise) but after having it on my computer for about five years I went for it at about midnight. I usually don't like slasher-type movies that were popular in the 1980s (one or two of the tons of movies in each the Friday the 13th and Nightmare On Elm St series, not to mention the low-budget cult imitations they inspired). Well, Sleepaway Camp is held at a…. camp, so immediately you think of Friday the 13th. All the cliches at the camp were present; the slut, the bitch, the geek, the jock councillors, surly camp owner, and I thought for the most part it was a pretty decent 80s movie about goings-on (and bullying) at a summer camp. The violence is actually pretty minimal, or at least is until the last 15 minutes, with only a few casualties. But my God, the ending was super-sick. The girl is creepy, but you start to like her once she starts talking (and she's actually married to Deron Miller, member of cKy 1998-2011 in real life - nice!) and the aunt is super creepy. Acting was pretty bad, and the special effects were terrible. Exactly what I was looking for in a slasher film from 1983. It was followed by a couple sequels with Bruce Springsteen's sister in the lead role, then they were disregarded for a sequel picking up where the first film left off, with Felissa Rose reprising her role as Angela. |
| Judy (being a jerk) and Angela |
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Baseball's first half (or unofficial first half since most team are a couple games beyond the halfway point) is over. It's been a great season so far… very entertaining.
American League Notes:
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| Alexei Ramirez shows some love for Humber's perfect game |
Craziest thing about how the AL started off the year was when perennial contenders New York, Boston, Los Angeles and the newly stacked Detroit Tigers got off to terrible starts, some due to injuries, some due to incompetence. The Yankees have righted their ship, finding themselves with a 7 game lead in the AL East. Derek Jeter and Robinson Cano have been putting together great seasons and Curtis Granderson has been hitting home runs at the same clip he has last year where he finished second in the AL. The Boston Red Sox (along with Toronto Blue Jays) find themselves sitting in the cellar of the AL East with an even 43-43 record, with Big Papi David Ortiz being the only consistent hitter on the team. It also appears that Adrian Gonzalez has forgotten how to hit the long ball, even though he is crushing the doubles and his average is decent at .283. The Blue Jays looked great in spring training, but too often follow up a great game with a terrible one and have found no consistency in their bullpen, and now they have a serious starting pitching problem, especially the way ace Ricky Romero has been pitching this season. Just down the road from Toronto in Detroit, things have been looking up lately, after finally catching fire, but are still only keeping pace with the surprising Chicago White Sox who are crippling every team in the league with their clutch hitting and effective (not over powering) pitching staff. In the first month of the season White Sox pitcher Philip Humber threw a perfect game as the Sox beat the Seattle Mariners 4-0. The White Sox currently lead the Cleveland Indians by 3 games and the Tigers by 3.5 games. The Angels took a long time to get going due to Albert Pujols' learning how to hit American League pitching that he hasn't seen other than in the video room. He has been crushing the ball of late and has his Angels, and along with ace starters Jared Weaver (who had a no hitter of his own on May 2 vs the Minnesota Twins), Dan Haren and CJ Wilson, not to mention the emergence of young all-stars Mark Trumbo and Mike Trout make the Angels a team to watch in the second half. L.A. finds themselves 4 games behind the Texas Rangers in the AL West. Seattle Mariners starter Kevin Millwood pitched a no-no for a few innings before he had to leave with an injury, but his bullpen picked him up and the Mariners used five other pitchers to pick up the no hitter.
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| L.A. Angels' Mike Trout |
National League Notes:
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| The Nats' Bryce Harper |
Clown question, bro. Two years ago, if you said the leaders of the NL East and Central were who are leading now you'd be laughed out of the room. That's right folks, the Washington Nationals lead the NL East. They have been the doormat of the National League (them and the Cubs) for years now, ever since the team moved from Montreal. But it shows you if you get enough high picks, don't trade them away and develop them you can field a great team. We all know Bryce Harper, rookie all-star centre/left fielder, and Steven Strasburg, the fire balling ace starter, and the teams first first round pick in Washington, third baseman Ryan Zimmerman but lost in the shuffle sometimes are some great young players like Danny Espinosa, a young guy with some power (knocked out 21 HR in his first full season last year), Steve Lombardozzi, versatile player starting in left field now but can play any infield position and catcher Jesus Flores doing a great job of calling the young staff, which includes Gio Gonzalez, picked up from Oakland over the offseason and currently is tied with the Mets R.A. Dickey for the league lead in wins with 12. Speaking of the Mets, they find themselves in third place (Atlanta is in second) only 4.5 games back of the first place Nationals, surprising many who thought the Mets could be basement dwellers. The first no-hitter in Mets history was thrown by Johan Santana, who mowed down the defending World Series champion St Louis Cardinals all game long, as the Mets won easily 9-0. And he has been the Mets second best starter. R.A. Dickey has been baffling National League hitters with his knuckleball all season long.. he really is a great story (article HERE) and it's a shame he didn't start the All-Star game. The newly-branded (and a new park!) Miami Marlins have failed to live up to the hype of their new signings and new digs, but even more shocking is that the Phillies, the powerhouse Phillies are in last place in the division.. Are they finally too old? Great team for years. In the NL Central, the Pittsburgh Pirates are leading the division, vying for their first divisional title since the were in the Eastern Division in 1992. Leading the charge is centre fielder Andrew McCutchen who has knocked out 18 homers at the break to go along with his .362 average. Hot on the Pirates heels though are the Cincinnati Reds, led by Etobicoke's own Joey Votto, who is making a strong case to win the NL MVP again, hitting .348 with 14 homers and 48 RBIs. The defending champion Cardinals find themselves in third place, just 2.5 games back. The top of the NL West looks fairly familiar to anyone who follows said division with the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants battling it out for top spot. San Francisco's Matt Cain was the second pitcher to reach perfection against the dismal Houston Astros on June 13, the first perfect game in Giants history. Lurking quietly behind the California powerhouses are the Arizona Diamonbancks, lurking at 4 games off the pace. The Diamondbacks have been playing decent, not great ball, but good enough to still be in the mix in the West. Their season highlight so far has to be Aaron Hill hitting the cycle not once but twice 11 days apart. The former Blue Jay becomes the fourth player to hit for the cycle twice in the same season, and the second player to do so in the same month since John Reilly (Not John C. Reilly unfortunately) did it in 1883.
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| Cain & Buster Posey after Cain's perfect game |
Second half starts back up on Friday!
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Monday 9 July 2012
tunes
Well, it's summertime so you'd expect a decent concert or two to come through. And there is.. here's what's coming up in Toronto:
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The show that's going to be about the best is up first, Swedish legends the Refused playing in Canada for the first time since probably 1997? Anyways, two shows in Toronto with Keith Morris from Circle Jerks' new band OFF! playing the opening slot on July 22 and 23.
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So-Cal punk vets Strung Out will be stopping off in Toronto on July 27 for a show with Such Gold and Handguns on a tour dubbed "Twisted In a Suburban Wasteland" where each show on the tour the band will play two of their classic releases, "Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues" and "Twisted By Design" in their entirety. Opening track from "Suburban.." called "Firecracker" and it is. It is.
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| Cattle Decapitation |
Metal fans will be stoked for the two festivals with decent acts popping up this summer. First up, July 15 at Downsview fans will be entertained by the likes of Fear Factory (they're still alive?), San Diego's craziest vegetarians Cattle Decapitation and the always heavy Misery Index. If a one day festival doesn't give you all you can handle then you may be looking forward to Heavy TO who brings some serious heavy weights to the table. If you listen to anything heavy these days then I'm sure Lamb Of God, Suicidal Tendencies, Slipknot, Killswitch Engage, Kataklysm, Job For a Cowboy, and a personal favourite, Between the Buried & Me, is nothing new. But do yourself a favour and check out Between the Buried & Me's set, even just that, and you won't be disappointed. BTBAM's "Sun of Nothing":
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| Sebadoh |
August is a pretty mellow month.. lot of shows at the ACC and such, but as for decent shows you'll have to wait until August 20 when seminal indie band Sebadoh play a show at the Horseshoe Tavern with a new album freshly recorded. Check it. The next night at Lee's Palace, Chicago's three-piece instrumental metal heads Russian Circles will be kicking out the jams. Local favourites Silverstein will be bring their post-hardcore/hardcore-ish swagger to the Annex Wreckroom on August 26 and legendary California punkers Guttermouth will be blowing the roof off the aforementioned Horseshoe Tavern on August 30. Hopefully they get across the border. Oh, Mark Adkins, you crazy man. Here's Guttermouth losing it live:
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| NOFX |
Talk about a great punk show except for the venue. Don't know if Fort York is the best call for Riot Fest.. since the bands are all so stellar, especially live, stuff might get real! So look out for NOFX, Descendents, Hot Water Music, Fucked Up, Less Than Jake, Lawrence Arms plus other on September 9. Descendents' "Good, Good Things" :
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| City & Colour's Dallas Green |
Two days in a row the Molson Amphitheater will be hosting a couple decent jams. City & Colour play a lawn show on September 12, didn't say if it was just Dallas or the full band, lawn show makes me wonder, but half the songs he does by himself anyways. The next day's gig, this summers winner of hairiest show (both chest and head), features KISS and Motley Crue. There's sure to be more than a few guys vomiting wearing jean jackets with Ratt patches. Here's KISS' Strutter (classic!)
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Rock and/or Roll!
Friday 6 July 2012
things from up here
Rayce from Crimes In Paris is not only a great lyricist/musician/ songwriter (Check them here) but he is also the creator of a set of comics that are hysterically funny or completely bittersweet, but either way, you love every one of them...
Check out his ebook, a compilation of "Things From Up Here" comics in a PDF right HERE!
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