music and talk and whaddaya no

May 02, 2005

or something like that





Well, it's been a couple of weeks, so here comes the blah-blah:

I just finished a really great book I thought I'd share. It's called Down to This by Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall. It's a non-fiction, diary-style book that follows Bishop-Stall as he moves into, and over the following eight months, lives in Tent City on Toronto's lakefront, before it was evacuated a couple of years ago. He paints the close friends he makes there more than vividly enough to support the "they are real people too" message that probably will cause many to unfairly, and without even reading so much as a page, dismiss the book as simple leftist drivel. Don't be so quick to judge: what makes this book different is that Bishop-Stall is no armchair leftist. He lived and survived there for nearly a year, and would have probably continued to live there for a while longer had he and his fellow squatters not been forced out. Besides arguing in favour of fair treatment of the poor, he points out many flaws that arise in the shantytown community, not least of which is the rampant crack problem. On both sides of the coin, however, he is not too preachy. By telling it as it happens, he lets the readers see and experience for themselves the frustration, but also hope, he felt daily for his closest friends there. It's fairly clear, however, that part of the reason he moved into Tent City in the first place was to answer some questions about himself, and this makes it a pretty personal story, never straying to far from that. This, along with the fact that the writing style makes it read almost like a work of fiction, makes it an engrossing book, never feeling too much like a typical autobiography. I recommend you check it out.

(By the way, I haven't finished Le Pere... yet, but I'm still on it!)

I finally saw Million Dollar Baby. I liked it a lot: the acting was great, and the story was solid. But I couldn't help but feel like there was something missing. As fairly well as the relationship betwen Frankie (Clint Eastwood) and Maggie (Hilary Swank) was portrayed, I think they could have maybe stretched out the part of the story that followed the rise of Maggie as a prominent female boxer, at the expense of the post-last-fight portion of the story (I won't ruin things for those who still haven't seen it, even though I think I was the last one). This would have helped give more time in the film to more thoroughly develop their relationship, as well as her simple love for boxing. Doing things like turning down other offers to stay with Frankie, is all well and good for implying personal relationships in movies, but when the crux of the entire movie is that relationship, I feel like you need to do a bit more, have much more simple interactions and conversations. Don't get me wrong though. It was a really good movie, and in particular the acting was fantastic. I'm just speculating what might have really nailed it for me. I've always liked Clint Eastwood's movies, and this was no exception.

I've acquired some new music. Some of those are through my exploits in music reviewing, so you'll hear about those soon-ish. Keep checking the "writings by me" links to the right, because more and more reviews are getting posted.

Other than those, I've finally bought the new Bloc Party CD. Hype, you say? Deserved, I say. A solid, solid album. I thought it would be a nice, danceable, British guitar pop album. Wrong. It's a seething, visceral, desperate, yet ridiculously catchy record. The first song stuck out at first, probably cause it was the first song. But among the other awesome tracks here, the one-two-three punch of "This Modern Love", "Pioneers", and "Price of Gas", is a cut above. "Pioneers" is one of the best songs I've heard so far this year.

Sometimes, some bands just escape your clutches. Not much to do about that. So don't hit me, but I finally picked up my very first Guided By Voices album. Well, I guess I don't really count The Grand Hour EP, since it's (a) and EP, and (b) just a handful of really old demo-type sloppiness (albeit with a couple of cool songs all the same). I grabbed Bee Thousand. Sweet Jesus. I haven't really been able to listen to anything else for the past few days. It's fucking brilliant. There. I understand now. I am more than converted now. The effortless-sounding genius of, and pure excitement oozing from these songs is astonishing to me. Pollard and Co. (who are unfortunately no longer a band, go figure, as soon as I hop on the bandwagon) will no doubt be getting more royalties from me.

I also picked up Prefuse 73's Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives. The brilliance that permeates One Word Extinguisher didn't come from nowhere. I look forward to listening to his new one soon as well. I also found Black Foliage by Olivia Tremor Control. It's awesome, but so far, not as amazing as Dusk at Cubist Castle. A hard feat though, to be fair. Some good finds in the used bin all around, I'd say. There were more, lots more, but I am on a budget, you know.

Love As Laughter - Idol Worship and Canal Street   So many of the songs on LAL's newest record, Laughter's Fifth, just seem like so much fun to play, that it brings a smile to my face. There is an honest, "who gives a shit what you think, we like to play these songs" feel throughout this album that I dig large. They take mostly from classic and old garage rock, but stick to the melody, instead of getting carried away with guitar heroics. Here are a couple of my faves from the record. Enjoy, and let me know what you think! (You can purchase it from Sub Pop)
Posted by: Rob / 23:58 2 wonderous examples of witty banter