Month: August 2002

According to this post on MetaFilter (which in turn is a comment on this article in The Economist about the rising American population and all that implies), the average American produces as much carbon emissions as 20 average Nigerians.

However, judging by the evidence contained in my e-mail inbox, one average Nigerian produces as much scam spam as 20 average Americans.

(Of course, “average people” are complete freaks of nature. As my statistics professor used to say: “The average person has one tit and one ball.”)

Straight up: all us AZNs talk like dis alla time, yo. It be jus’ like kickin’ wit’ my Moms and Pops at their crib from Sunday dinner, dawg.

(Note: Heavy use of the “N-word” in the hip-hop context by a salaryman and his family. It’s a 13 megabyte video in .asf format, which means you’ll need Windows Media Player to see it.)

This one goes out to Wes, who loves the White Stripes (and even my accordion cover of Fell In Love With a Girl).

You’ve probably heard of the White Stripes — the two person lo-fi band with the garage-rock sound and catchy tune with the Lego video — and their latest album, White Blood Cells. The band is made up of two members, Jack and Meg White, whose relationship to each other has been purposely kept secret to add to the bands mystique — are they brother and sister, or husband and wife, and estranged ones at that?

(The latter option is correct: Jack and Meg were married — “White” is actually Meg’s family name, Jack’s is “Gillis”. You can take a look at their marriage licence and divorce certificate if you don’t believe me.)

You might not have heard of Redd Kross, a much-loved but not-quite-heard-of alt-guitar-rock band who’ve been at it for over twenty years. I first encountered them in 1993 when they released Phaseshifter (which opens with the damn near-perfect track Jimmy’s Fantasy) during the Great Grunge Era, when I was a DJ at the engineering pub at Queen’s University.

The White Stripes have a slightly different sound from most rock bands because something’s missing from the sonic space: the bass guitar. Jack plays power chords on lead guitar and Meg drums; the lack of bass gives the band an interestingly sparse sound. Prince did the same thing with When Doves Cry — there’s no bass in it either — and Peter Gabriel made his album Security (the one with Shock the Monkey) sound interesting by not using cymbals.

While the White Stripes sound good on their own, Steve McDonald, leader of Redd Kross wondered what White Blood Cells would sound like if they had a bassist. The end result of this pondering is Redd Blood Cells, in which he took the original tracks off the album and added a track with his bass playing. The Stripes have given this project their blessing, and you can download the MP3s for your legal listening pleasure (hurry — they’ll only be available at the site until August 26th).

I tip my hat to McDonald for his excellent bass playing and restraint (his playing complements the original tracks, rather than relegating them to the background) and Jack and Meg for letting him go ahead with the project. In the current climate of the recording industry, this is a nice little spot of sunshine.

If you’ve been reading this weblog lately, you’ve probably noticed that the page loads rather s-l-o-w-l-y. The blame can be laid squarely at the comments system; I’m using enetation’s system. I’ve been very unhappy with its glacial pace, the regular unavailability of comments and the fact that you can’t format your comments with HTML. I think it’s time to switch to another system. Anyone out there know of a better system? (As of this writing, comments are off-line — again — so you might be better off just e-mailing me instead.

The other technical problem I’ve had is with Blogger, the service that I use to create and maintain this weblog. A number of old entries have simply vanished. If you were to go to the archives page or look one up, all you’d see is a blank entry with a timestamp (here’s an example, and it was a really good entry, too). I back up my site regularly, which means that it’s very unlikely I’ve lost any entry permanently, but it’ll still take some time and effort to get those lost stories back online.

enetation is a free service, and I can hardly be expected to raise much of a fuss whenever it doesn’t work. However, I’m a Blogger Pro paid subscriber, and I was expecting better.

Perhaps it’s time to move to Movable Type, the blogging software to which a large number of A- and B-listers have migrated. Unlike Blogger, you run Movable Type on your server, which means that you have considerably more control over it and can also back up the database. Movable Type also has a comments system built-in, along with many other goodies. I just wonder what kind of work I’ll have to do to move my existing Blogger-based entires over if I do make the switch.

I’d just like to put in a good word for “Smokeless” Joe Sacco, owner of the fine oyster and beer bar known Smokeless Joe (125 John Street, just a little bit south of Chapters and the big downtown Paramount Theatre, phone 416-591-2221). When I was feeling like crap a couple of Fridays ago, he gave me a couple of free pints of stout. Joe, you’re a prince.

Thursday, August 22

Pan con Queso at the Lava Lounge (507 College Street West). A Latin band worth checking out.

Friday, August 23

Rooftop party. Someone named Carol — a friend of my friends at the Promise party crew — is organizing this one. It’s on the rooftop of the Queen Street West clothing store called XOXO, near the corner of Queen and Soho, which is acroos the street from the Black Bull tavern (the one with the large patio across the street from the parking lot beside the BamBoo club). I don’t know who’ll be DJing this one, but I’ve been to an earlier rooftop party at this venue and the DJs were fantastic. You’ll also be treated to an amazing view of the city. The party starts at 11:00 p.m. and runs until the wee hours; you enter the party by going down the alleyway beside XOXO and up the fire escape (I love parties where you have to enter via the fire escape).

Sunday, August 25

Cherry Beach Sound System. The nice folks at promise are hosting yet another free dance party at Cherry Beach this Sunday, from 2 p.m. until 10 p.m.. They’ve been holding these all summer, and they’ve been a lot of fun.

This week’s featured DJ is Blissom, a.k.a. Steph Lefrancois, who’s come to Toronto for the week from France. A veteran DJ from a number of Promise parties over the past couple of years, he makes percussive jazzy breakbeat-ish house music for Spot Recordings. His DJ sets cover a lot of musical territory, from african rhythms to jazz to latin to house to techno. This is expected to be his final performance in Toronto for a good long while.

Getting there by car:

Go east on Lakeshore Boulevard until you’re just past Parliament Street. Turn south down Cherry Street all the way to the parking lot at the end. The beach is west of the parking lot; just follow the music.

Getting there by bike:

Just follow the Martin Goodman bike trail east of downtown until you hit Cherry Street and turn south. Follow Cherry Street to the parking lot at the end, then turn west and follow the music.

Other stuff:

• Bring lunch, kites, frisbees, beach balls, your friends, dogs and — if you have them — accordions.
• Please don’t bring more than you plan to take back out with you – leave no trace.
• It gets chilly later in the evening down by the lake. Bring something warm that you can throw on if you’re staying late.
• This is just a beach, not a dance club — bring sunscreen, bug spray if you’re staying into the evening and if you want something to sit on, you’ll have to bring it.
• This is a word-of-mouth event. If you know someone who will like this type of free outdoor event, please let them know.

The bad weather backup plan: If the sky’s looking grey that day, call the emergency update line at (416) 323-0361.

In response to the story about the Houston mass arrest incident, Cory Doctorow wrote in with these lyrics from Leadbelly’s Midnight Special:

If you ever go to Houston

You better walk right

You’d better not stagger

And you’d better not fight

‘Cause Sherriff Benson will arrest you

And carry you on down

And if the jury finds you guilty

You’re penitentiary bound.

Thanks, Cory!