Tagged: Music
Fred Penner played a show at the WECC this past weekend
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One of the best things about being born in the late 80's is that it was a really good time for children's programming. I grew up with wicked shows like Under the Umbrella Tree, Lamb Chop's Play-Along, and Fred Penner's Place which was a show that ran for a decade or so on the CBC.
I always wanted to crawl through that goddamn log like he did at the beginning of each episode. What a boss.
What was really cool about growing up with Fred Penner's Place is that he's actually from my city, so pretty much everyone I know has either seen or talked to him at some point, or knows someone who dated one of his kids or something like that.
There's even a small local tumblr that features people taking pictures with him in the background
because people from Winnipeg are sneaky like that and we really, really love Fred Penner.
Anyway in addition to other shows he does throughout the year he always comes back to Winnipeg to do two sing-along shows each year right before Christmas
-one for kids during the day and one for us nerds at night.
Tthe kids show is probably just the same songs, but the evening show must be way more fun because we're all drunk and belting out the words to the songs that we thought we'd forgotten years ago.
Plus it's super cool to have omg Fred Penner play the song you requested
(even if we all know we're all secretly there to hear him play his version of The Cat Came Back, but never mind that)
because there's something about sitting with yr friends drinking beer singing along to songs you learned when you were 5 that just melts yr heart
even when it's -35 outside and everything else is frozen solid.
I remember standing in Nathan Phillips Square
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I’d like to say that it happened just before things fell apart but if I’m being honest they were well over at this point and we were just clinging to some stupid hope that we could pull through even though it was obvious that we couldn’t.
I used to think looking back that we were in Toronto because we were looking at apartments but that isn’t right. This happened after I’d dragged him from Hamilton to Toronto to look at a place because I was lonely and miserable in Hamilton and desperately looking for some sort of familiarity which is how Toronto felt to me –something I knew and understood. He’d played along and we’d already put our names down for an apartment in a month or so by this point.
We were in town for WinterFest which maybe they still do in Toronto or maybe they don’t, I’m not sure since I haven’t been before or since that occasion.
The Weakerthans were playing and I wanted to see them. They weren’t one of my bands the way that they are now but I was sort of grasping for anything that felt like home at the time even though I didn’t realize it then.
I remember that we had a fight because he didn’t want to go so I hopped a Go Train and met him in Toronto as a compromise which didn’t really help because it was cold outside and he didn’t want to stand outside in the cold and see a concert even though that was the point.
He wanted to go and I didn’t because their set wasn’t finished and it was snowing and seeing this concert was the whole reason I’d dragged him to Toronto, dammit.
So he stayed on the edge of the crowd and I weaved my way to the front and felt better surrounded by all the people and a group of guys and two girls started talking in between one of the songs and mentioned that they were from Winnipeg and I said
hey me too
and we all talked about how they were on layover between London and Winnipeg for a few days and were in town to see the show and I said I’m moving to Toronto soon and they said
you’re so brave
and I felt brave for the first time in a long time.
One of them gave me a swig of the rye they were drinking as the next song started playing and I remember closing my eyes and feeling the snow on my face and listening to that song and feeling
so hopeful and excited for the future.
Well.
It didn’t last very long. A few weeks later I found myself on a flight back to Winnipeg to pick up the pieces of my heart and the life I had tried to leave behind.
I couldn’t listen to The Weakerthans for a really long time and especially not that song which I associated with that last perfect moment which of course wasn’t perfect at all.
It’s been a long time since that moment and last week I found myself wandering around The Exchange in the dark humming that same song as I looked up at the big rows of windows
and I realized that it still made me feel hopeful and happy. Just in a different way.
It’s funny how things change.
Boyfriend at the time and I would drive around
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from his place
to mine
to the movies
to dinner somewhere
to the park
to our minimum-wage jobs
wherever
and we'd listen to bands like this
(so emo)
not because we were unhappy
but because we weren't.
Weird listening to it now.
It feels like a lifetime ago.
Les Jupes did a killer Loft Session with Manitoba Music that you should
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Your eyes and ears will thank you.
Wasn't myself on Friday
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but sometimes it's fun to pretend to be someone else
even if it's only for an evening at yr friend's amazing live-music house party.
Johnny Cash died ten years ago today
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so let's take a second and listen to some real, quality music.
Sometimes in the wake of Miley Cyruses and Rebecca Blacks and whatever nonsense is being marketed to us because of it's shock value or horribleness or whatever
which ultimately distracts from anything important or relevant at all and are just tricks to make us feel superior to someone else
(because why else would we care, really, about something like this?)
it's nice to listen to music that gets you right down in your core
and makes you really feel something
right deep down in yr gut.
RIP Mr. Cash.
Dave Stieb
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This morning I listened to this on the bus and started laughing to myself and I scared the Asian lady sitting next to me.
She gave me these weird looks which said
"why are you cackling on mass transit what's happening"
because she didn't realize that back in the day I dated a guy from Ontario who was really into punk rock
and he would always go on about this band
called Sewing With Nancie
that he fucking loved
and Canada is such a small place that one of the dudes from that band is now living in Winnipeg and is one of my best friends
who, over wings and too much food after Connect Festival last weekend
in this awful Chili's in Saskatchewan filled with families and cooing babies trying to have fake Mexican-themed lunches
where we said FUCK and SHIT and talked about drugs
and basically made asses out of ourselves
he talked about how people LOVED Sewing With Nancie back in the day which he thought was great because
"we had two, TWO, fucking songs about the Toronto Blue Jays!"
and I remembered my Ontario boyfriend always going on about one of them when we would drive around in his car
which is what led to me listening to Dave Stieb on the bus this morning
and freaking out that nice Asian lady
because she just didn't get how ridiculous my life is.
On this day 48 years ago The Beatles released "Help"
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Which in addition to being a great and hugely influential album holds a special place in my heart.
As a teenager I went through a really bad breakup. Saying I was a shitshow afterward is putting it lightly and I spent a lot of time sulking in my room and fighting with basically everyone.
I don't remember why my brothers were gone on one particular Saturday but my mum decided to take me out to do errands with her.
We weren't getting along at the time and I don't even remember where we went -maybe we just went for a drive, I don't know- but that drive is one of the few times I actually remember getting along with her during that period of my life.
We came home and my dad and I hung out in the basement and we listened to "Help!" on vinyl and had a really big heart-to-heart about my feels.
I wasn't really into opening up and talking about how I felt, but sitting there having a hot chocolate and a rye n coke (my dad is cool) and listening to The Beatles helped me open up and start to deal with shit.
That night was the first night in a long time where I felt like I had the capacity to be happy and listening to that album is a huge, important part of that memory. That album means a lot to me.
It still does.
HBD "Help!"
Dating was the worst
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Before getting "into a relationship" Tyrone I was single for a few years while I figured my shit out(still working on that)
and even though I didn't really want to start going on dates with anyone I figured I should probably go on a few to keep myself 'in the game' and not be the weird spinster friend who hates on happy couples because they're so lonely, waah.
Not me!
Sometimes they worked out for a little while and cute boys would play Monkey Island and drink beers with me or we'd watch Brazil on laserdisc and listen to vinyl.
But not usually.
After talking to my lady-friends I've confirmed that dates usually go like this:
Pretending to like someone and playing nice over dinner or in a dark theatre or mini golf and the whole time thinking
helphelphelphelp
to nobody except yourself which is stupid because you got yourself into this situation, dummy.
You should have just said 'no thank you' to start but instead you said yes because you're lonely or desperate or maybe both
(likely both)
and dating some idiot is better than being single, right?
(it isn't)
Which inevitably leads to that awkward situation a few dates/weeks in where you wake up and realize
you're a douchecanoe and I don't want your penis near me anymore
at which time you stop texting back and suddenly get "really busy" instead of being up-front like an adult.
(There's also that one time I slammed a guy's car door in his face and ran into my house away from him, but that's another story)
Up until now I'd always assumed that this female tactic was just called "being a bitch" or "wussing out" but today I learned a much more appropriate title:
"The Fadeaway"
Saw Abstract Artform at Le Garage last night
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Which was amazing. Duh.
I had g&ts and a whiskey sour and some beers and sat at a high table with Colin, Nicole, John, Tyrone and Kat (who doesn't do the twitters) and had the pleasure of seeing Kendra and John who I haven't seen in ages.
When I got there I was going to the bathroom and this chick wearing a tank top that said
CUM ON ME
or
LETS MAKE OUT
or
FUCK ME
or something like that was coming out and wiping her face all weird and she was definitely fucked up and it was cray.
I kept my eye on her all night and several times she came out of the bathroom and was wiping her mouth and nose area with both hands like she had just puked or done a boatload of drugs or something.
She was still there when we left n she was getting progressively more wasted the whole time.
I hope she's ok.
Also later while I was in the bathroom this happened:
Anyway Tiffany Ponce was a great opening act (also, nice meeting you in person, finally!) and Abstract Artform killed it.
That guy is so talented it's stupid.
If you weren't there you kinda missed out. Sorry to say.
