on sunday, the cinnamon toast brunch was held at birdland. i know
everyone was having trouble with venues and all but it was really hard to
feel like eating much in the dirty dark old birdland. there was a lot of
food, scrambled eggs, blueberry pancakes, bagels, homefries, and of
course, lots n' lots of cinnamon toast!! colin and shawn and the kids
from cinnamon toast kept busy all morning and afternoon making the food,
so hooray for them. :)
by the time roderick and i arrived, we had missed broken girl's set. i
heard later on that people weren't as quiet or polite and it bothered
julie a bit. birdland has a tendency to bring out the moron in most
people, i'm finding.
i walked around and asked various people what they thought of the food
and atmosphere and music. derek from hip club groove said it all...
"sweaty". mary from impact magazine seemed to think it was odd eating
breakfast/brunch in the club that only 10 hours earlier everyone was
jumping around and being drunk and crazy. dave from cfny hadn't eaten
when i ran into him with the exception of a fry which he seemed to think
was good. ok, dave, food critic. marc from len said "yeah its fuckin
awesome, whatever." he hates me. :)
plumtree was playing a rather stripped down set while we ate and it was
nice, not too loud at all. however, i'm not the hugest plumtree fan so i
can't tell you what songs they played, although rod pointed out when they
began their new hit from the 7'' "sodium chloride". it sounded like
plumtree so if you like that sort of thing, it was good. if not, well,
you probably wouldn't have been won over. they sure smile a lot. :)
next up, one of the best things ever, it was piggy! people have already
described the madness that is piggy, but i couldn't believe it! they are
not like anything else in halifax, no sirree. violin, standup bass, a
horn section, acoustic guitar, and it was all music of a different time.
i really really enjoyed it, they were very talented and entertaining and
wonderful. perfect for a rainy (did i mention the HURRICANE that was
currently beating the hell out of halifax??????? it was umbrella
destroying weather, i tell you) sunday afternoon.
they have a cassette out called "calypso avalanche" and i don't know
where to buy it if you don't live in halifax, maybe someone could post an
address. i stupidly didn't buy a copy when i meant to, i just plain old
forgot. argh.
they also staged one of the only things resembling a protest against the
corporate sponsorship of Export `A'. in case you were in halifax, those
little slips of paper protesting it were created by CKCU music director
Shawn Scallen - he put his address on some of them so he doesn't care if
people know in case anyone is worried. he's no coward. :)
but anyway, piggy also staged their protest. they brought a cotton candy
machine out into the dance floor and i guess the idea was for it to spray
clouds of cotton candy everywhere but it kind of didn't do that but it
was funny to watch anyway. esp. when one of the plumtree girls went up
and started taking pieces of it back to eat, causing ian mcgettigan to
giggle a lot. it's true.
they hacked up stuffed animals, defaced the export a sign, and smoked on
stage. they had an export a mascot come out and hand out anti smoking
literature and stickers. it must have taken a lot of work to do that. i'm
not sure what sort of impact it left on people but at least they said
something. it's too bad that the pop x is broke and i know cigarette and
alcohol companies always sponsor the arts and sporting events, but that
doesn't mean we have to sit there and smile politely at them. :) so fuck
ya, export a! woo hoo!
they also ended their set with a song called "murder at the pop
explosion" and it was all about export a, but really, considering the
name of one of the labels in halifax and all, it was kind of funny for
other reasons, too. :) it almost sounded like a new jingle or something
if you only heard the chorus! "murder murder, i cry MURDER murder at the
pop explosion!"
we ran through the rain just in time to catch al tuck's set at
wormwood's. al tuck and his new band. i asked him on monday who the new
players were, but all i can remember is the drummer is from uisce beatha
and um... well they were quite good. he's moving into a more jazz
influenced sound it would seem, not so much the country-blues thing. i
guess lil orton has ruined country music forever... :)
he played my favourite track from _arhoolie_, "good and ready" and one of
my favourites from _brave last days_ "i can't pretend" and they were so
nice. you couldn't have asked for nicer music on a rainy sunday
afternoon. i'm sorry i missed moonsocket and snailhouse before, but
seeing piggy was worth it. i also missed radioblaster (sorry derek) and
leonard conan, curb, and smoother over at the gravitee club cause i had
to sit at our table at the symposium. oh and do a little shopping, too. i
only had 25 bucks but i managed to trade a state champs 7'' for a
snailhouse 7'' with julie, since jim and james had all the sappy
releases. i had actually purchased the snailhouse 7'' earlier on saturday
but since i'm sooooo nice (it's true!) i gave it, GAVE IT, to mike
catano, since he was whining :) about me staying at his house too long
this summer. oh come on mike, i know you miss me now...blah blah...
it was kind of sad to watch them tear everything down at the end, it was
the coolest part of the pop x, participating in it. i managed to buy the
new eric's trip 7'' from sonic unyon, the patti christ superstar 7'' from
derivative, the moonsocket subpop and ratfish singles, plus about a
billion stickers. it was just nice to meet the faces behind the names,
you know? if you missed this part of the pop x, you missed out big. it
had a nice feeling to it.
afterwards, the daydream crew (all FOUR of us) went over to jimcee's for
kraft dinner (mmmMMMMmmm!!) and to get throroughly drenched. blah. we got
back to birdland just in time to catch most of elevator to hell (the
first band up for the all ages show that night)....
--
"A lot of people think Matt's Kato Kaelin."
- Drew Yamada, the Super Friendz
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