Last night's crowd at the Lily Allen show might have been up for the title of "most diverse group assembled at the Commodore ever". From my perch I saw the expected endless sea of girls dressed almost exactly like Lily on the Alright Still cover and the plethora of buzz band seeking skinny jean'd dudes... but the frattish/hockey goon looking guys, and the girl in the Tragically Hip concert t-shirt from 1999 (really) was a surprize. With a draw like this, it's hard to believe all the talk about her inability to break into the (North) American market is actually based on any reality.
Anyways, let's dig in:
Lily Allen can sing. Like really fucking belt it out. Which was a pleasant surprize and impressive. She had a 3 piece brass section and a full band backing her... the entire set she kept up and out powered them, and did it with this swagger that made it all look so easy.
Hey... remember all those stories about how she was all drunk and smoking and swearing at her SXSW performance? That didn't happen last night, she was in top (sober/respectful) form. (note: SXSW still sucks)
Cover tune central: I think I counted 4 covers during the set (may of which are floating around on the internets in mp3 form... and I'm sure you could find them if you looked hard enough). I was, however, happily surprized by The Kooks cover. Nice.
Collectively, those in attendance were really happy to be there. There was actually quite a bit of shrieking/screaming coming from the crowd. Like near boy band proportions. I assume that next time she comes through she'll be playing much bigger venues.
Saturday night was Nicola's birthday, all she asked for was that we collectively go out clubbing/dancing/drinking/whatever. Since we're kinda lazy we opted to go one of the only two bars in Kits which actually have a dancefloor. Since we live a couple blocks from that place, we opted to invite everyone over for a pre-booze session.
As we were getting the house prepped for guests, Tk asked me to "create a playlist which would get the girls fired up for the bar"... which to me sounded like a very veiled request for me to download the Fergie album.
Clearly, that wasn't gonna work for me.
So I booted up the DJ machine and quickly put together a mix of dancey anthemy pop stuff for the girls, but also added a bunch of, uhhh, good tunes to keep me sane. Yes, there's Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado but there's also Spank Rock and PM-fucking-Dawn. The result: a 60 minute vodka sipping soundtrack that your non-blog addicted friends (Adio) will sing along to, while your desire to cringe is kept at bay.
In the mix:
01. P.M. Dawn - Set Adrift On Memory Bliss 02. rob vanmega - Signothemona (Slick Rick vs Prince) 03. Digital Underground - Humpty Dance 04. Lily Allen - Smile 05. K-Os - ELEctrik HeaT 06. Justin Timberlake - SexyBack 07. Spank Rock - Backyard Betty 08. Akon - Smack That (Feat. Eminem) 09. Daft Punk - Face to Face 10. Nelly Furtado - Promiscuous Girl 11. Daft Punk - Around The World 12. Jamie Lidell - When I Come Back Around (Freeform Reform) 13. Justin Timberlake - My Love (Diplo Remix) 14. New Kids On The Block - Popsicle (Kopia Smooth Arpeggio Remix) 15. Erik Prydz - Call On Me (TPC Remix) 16. Nelly Furtado - Maneater 17. Teddybears - Yours To Keep (Feat. Neneh Cherry) 18. Scissor Sisters - Comfortably Numb (Tiga Remix)
adventures in fake dj'ing: 100 miles & running edition...
Because aging sucks, over the last year or so I've taken up running.
While I understand there are people out there who love the sport, and love the fact they get to run huge distances and be alone with their thoughts the entire time... I simply can't get behind that. If I'm to run... and I'm to compete and run, I need to cram 2 earphones into my ears and blast myself silly, just to make sure I can't think about my knees or hear myself panting to death.
I'm training for the Sun Run next month (stop laughing), I've logged a few miles and tried to find the right music to listen to while running and have had little luck... single albums are too dynamic, ipod playlists have too many stops & starts... I've even messed around with those Nike commissioned DJ sets... The Crystal Method one has become cheesy over time, the LCD Soundsystem one is too melodic, and the Aseop Rock one is too slow.
So I've decided to homebrew my own running mix. The result: 53 beat-mixed minutes of progressively more spastic electronica, hip hop, and indie rock. If you can't think straight by the end of the mix, then it's working.
This is the set list:
LCD Soundsystem - Get Innocuous Daft Punk - The Brainwasher Ratatat - Seventeen Years Eric B. & Rakim - Let The Rhythm Hit Em (Omega One Remix) Simian Mobile Disco - It's The Beat The Futureheads - Worry About It Later (Switch Remix) Silversun Pickups - Lazy Eye (Curtis Vodka Edit) Nick Catchdubs and DJ Ayres - Tell Me When To Go (Remix) Justin Timberlake - My Love (Diplo Remix) Does It Offend You, Yeah? - Battle Royale Everlast - I Got The Knack Lady Sovereign - Random Justice vs. Simian- We Are Your Friends (Lee Cabrera's Lower East Side Remix) Fancy - What's Your Name Again (Busy P Remix) Justine - Electra Killalady (Surkin Remix) Late of the Pier - Space & the Woods (C90s Remix) Softlightes - The Robots In My Room Were Playing Arena Rock Franz Ferdinand - Do You Want To? (Erols Glam Racket Mix)
You know... after all these years of living in a world that's apparently in the grips of a war on terror, I'm a bit let down to see a weapon of mass destruction look so whimpy. I mean, come on, this thing looks a balsa wood glider powered by a roman candle. Sharks with lazers have more of a wow factor.
With that said, I'm tickled pink to see that the unflinching rage-fuelled version Jack Bauer is now making a comeback. There are 10 episodes left, meaning that we're about due for a major plot twist and an increase to a bonkers-esque level of intensity. The last few episodes have been pretty solid, I'm hoping this remains the norm.
It's already started again. SXSW live bloggers: Yes, we get it... you're soooo hungover, and you stood in lines forever, and you saw 17 bands in one night, and so on. Believe-you-me, I'm all for ranging week long party... but it's hard to be indie-rock when you're sponsored by Verizon Wireless.
Apparently, not everyone in the blogamatron is posting about SXSW this week. This is a good thing. Here's some links that caught my eyeballs:
Want to go to that very sold out Lily Allen show at The Commodore on March 27 but didn't get tickets? Lucky you... Cord Mag is giving away a pair. Enter here.
Bob Lefsetz appeared on the The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos: Bob wrote about it here, but you might as well just watch the video clip here. I like how George pushes back on a lot of his arguments. That, and the endless profanity.
At the risk of being a little bit mp3 blog-ish... I received a care package in the mail last week. In it I found a few demo tracks from Wil's not yet released new album, By December. Team vanmega has been following Wil since way back when he used to play pubs on 17th ave in Calgary.
Wil's come along way... and perhaps that's the best thing about these new tracks: they sound unlike any of his previous work. Getting signed and the resulting years of touring appears to be reaching a pay off point. There's a real evolution in his sound and it feels very uncalculated, very natural. Old Wil sounded like a cross between David Gray & Gomez. New Wil sounds like a cross between Wilco & Arcade Fire. And not in a bad way.
The demo CD notes that guests on the new album include members of Feist's band, The Hidden Cameras, Arcade Fire, & FemBots. How indie all-star-ish. By December comes out on May 22. I am very excited.
The publish date might be a few days behind schedule but - I swear (All4One style, no less!) - this month's mix is worth the wait.
March's mix is an abridged version of the playlist I took to Cuba as for my on-beach soundtrack. Yes, it might be a touch on the mellow side, but everything meshes together magically... of course with that said, I was in 33 degree heat and in a rum-haze the entire time I listened to it. I might be biased.
Oh, and I should point out despite the fact this was my beach music... you'll find no Kokomos nor any Margaritavilles in the mix. We keeps it fairly real around here... and the resulting mix is 100% new stuff well worth your time. See for yourself:
The ongoing battle with (new?) blogger continues. This weekend the vanmega front page blog opted to magically disappear from my blogger account. 7 years of content = gone. Awesome.
Anyways, I'm attempting to rebuild things but there may be hiccups. If you notice something's wonky please let me know.
For those to lazy to click: someone checked out the Daft Punk sample source mp3s which Palms Out pulled together and, in turn, was shocked to learn that electronica artists *gasp* loop other artists' beats/vocals/riffs/whatever. Their disgust was then funneled into the small wonder that is YouTube... and actually got a lot of hits.
This kinda lame outcry makes me wanna barf. Like it or not, 20 years into it, sampling is an art... and Daft Punk own it.
Because posting responses (or even worse, video responses) on YouTube is magically nerdy, here's my retort to whoever made that 100% asinine video... in glorious downlable format:
UPDATED: I've gotten rid of the wonky rar file and re-upload this whole set as file as a zip. Download away.
The setlist:
01. Robot Rock 02. Technologic 03. Television Rules The Nation 04. Steam Machine 05. Around The World 06. Too Long 07. Face To Face 08. Interlude 09. One More Time 10. The Brainwashers 11. Alive 12. Da Funk 13. Human After All
This set is BONKERS (yes, all caps are needed). Anyone who listens to this and still holds on to the belief that these dudes are just looping others' work and collecting cheques should throw out their Zune.
I'll keep it quasi-short, 'cause it's late. We just got back from 7+ days in Cuba, and it was phenomenal. We spent most of our time at an all-inclusive, gallivanting around on the beach in +30 degree temperatures, whilst enjoying mild rum-flavoured buzzes - which I guess, you do at any Caribbean resort - however, we also managed to pull off a 22 hour with no sleep trip into Havana. To say that place is surreal would be the understatement of the year... but it really is like being on another planet, everything is a completely different colour from everything back home... and yeah, those 50 year old cars aren't helping things either. Also, for some reason mojitos are cheaper and more accessible the bottled water. Strange.
Either way, we're tanned, relaxed and have a million billion photos to show for it. And no... for those of you expecting me and the Tk to come home engaged or married, that didn't happen. From what I understand, Tk's gonna collect on about $200 in bets from the girls at work. Hahahas!
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