Top 20 Singles of 2005

More a highlight of some favorites, it's gotten to the point where I hear too many songs to limit it to just 20, but my patience to create a list like this is limited. On with the show.

20. Aberdeen City - God is Gonna Get Sick of Me
19. Classified - It's Just My Opinion
18. Cut Copy - Saturdays
17. Novillero - The Hypothesist
16. Amerie - 1 Thing
15. The Clerks - Outbreak 1
14. The Chemical Brothers - Believe
13. The Information - A Simple Plan
12. The Ponys - Glass Conversation
11. Roots Manuva - Awfully Deep
10. Final Fantasy - The CN Tower Belongs to the Dead
09. The Subways - At 1AM
08. Fischerspooner - All We Are
07. Architecture in Helsinki - Do the Whirlwind
06. LCD Soundsystem - Yeah (Crass Version)
05. Saul Williams -List of Demands (Reparations)
04. The Decemberists - Engine Driver
03. Common - Testify
02. The Lovely Feathers - Cadillac Back Pack
01. The Russian Futurists - Paul Simon

David Verses Goliath - July 27, 2005

Possibly the last show for a while (details to follow perhaps.) Nevertheless I tried to go out with a bang, and even punted the CanCon, only because I slacked on my listening this week and didn't want to retread older stuff. Let the music speak for itself I say.

Download D vs. G

Pt. 1 (DvsG starts at the 36:00 mark of the mp3)
Pt. 2
Pt. 3

Tracklisting (favorites in bold)

Badly Drawn Boy - The Further I Slide
Final Fantasy - Honour the Dead or Else (live)
Arcade Fire - No Cars Go (CBC Radio 3 Sessions)
José Gonzalez - Crosses
Casino vs. Japan - Aquarium
...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - Will You Smile Again For Me
Saul Williams - Track 02 (Catchdubs mixtape)
Common - Testify
Outkast - Bombs Over Baghdad (luminfire just mash edit)
M.I.A. - Hombre (Xerox Soundsystem re-tug)
Dungen - Panda
Tigers and Monkeys - I'll Ruin Your Thoughts
The Lovely Feathers - Photo Corners
Doves - Almost Forgot Myself
Elastica - Connection
Kidz Bop - Take Me Out (Franz Ferdinand cover)
Aeon Spoke - Emmanuel
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Details of the War
The High Dials - Master of the Clouds
The Pipettes - Judy
Ladytron - Destroy Everything You Touch
The Pictures - Milkshake
More Dogs - March to the Scaffold
Bloc Party - Positive Tension (Jason Clark/Pretty Girls Make Graves remix)
Aberdeen City - God is Gonna Get Sick of Me
Wilderness - Arkless
B.C. Camplight - Blood and Peanut Butter

I Want To Be A Minority

5000 Indians (Goans to be precise) partying in an old airforce hangar can make quite the night. Especially if you're one of the five white people in attendance. It was interesting seeing how the other side lives, they come together around soccer tournaments, dancing, eating & drinking. Meanwhile white people can't find commonalities beyond Desperate Housewives and Harry Potter. Of course that's an oversimplification, we'll always have the social activities like the Kentucky Derby and the Masters to keep us all pacified.

Your Friday Could Be Worse

Picture above, story here.

A temper to match Alex Ferguson

By now most have heard of Dizzee Rascal, Streets, Roots Manuva. Some may even have gotten around to Goldie Lookin Chain, Kano, Rodney P.

One of the next to possibly incur the title of newest U.K. hiphop sensation is 23 year-old Welshman Humurak D'Gritty. D'Gritty blends a mix of new school grime and an unrelenting lyrical thirst that underlines his passion to be the best and nothing but.



Humurak D'Gritty - Rags (mp3)
Humurak D'Gritty (official site)
Humurak D'Gritty Lamacq Live Session

Consumer Philosophy by Tar-zhay

On Target (the store):

"The second thing that bothers me is the disconnect when mixing highbrow and lowbrow culture. At the front of the Mount Kisco store is a Starbucks, where shoppers can pause for a Mint Mocha Chip Frappuccino for $4.90 (for the venti), without tax. Three aisles into the store they can buy a pair of children's sneakers for $3.74. In what other country on the planet would you find a store that sells a cup of coffee for more than a pair of children's shoes?"

Personally I've never been to a Target. Not exactly the target (no pun intended) demographic. It's nice to hear they're marginally better employers than Wal-Mart, but nowhere close to Costco in treating employees well. Read the full article here.

David Verses Goliath - July 20, 2005

When in doubt, blame the equipment. In the studio, the mix and the levels sound just right, even though every week I come in they're never calibrated the same way. Of course it's a different matter when you download it and the voice gets swallowed by the intro of the track. Oh well, nobody listens for the DJ anyways. Enjoy.

Download D vs. G

Pt. 1 (Show starts at the 34:45 mark)
Pt. 2
Pt. 3

Tracklisting (favorites in bold)

Bloc Party - Plans (Acoustic Version)
Elliott Smith - Needle in the Hay
The Stills - Fevered
The Lovely Feathers - Cadillac Back Pack
Maximo Park - The Coast is Always Changing (live)
This Microwave World - The Hours
Death From Above 1979 - Black History Month
Hellacopters - By the Grace of God
Longwave - There's a Fire
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood
Eisley - Plenty of Paper
Wolf Parade - It's a Curse
Badly Drawn Boy - The Further I Slide
Interpol vs. Dizzee Rascal - Live Stand Up
Cee-Lo - Closet Freak
Huxley - The Struggle
Death Cab For Cutie - Soul Meets Body
The Clerks - Outbreak 1
Kula Shaker - Tattva
Apostle of Hustle - Gleaming
Caribou - Hello Hammerheads
Richard Cheese - Creep
Stereophonics - Superman (live)
As the Poets Affirm - A Lie Told Before Breakfast
Irving - I Can't Fall In Love
Say Hi To Your Mom - Dimensions and Verticals
Islands - Abominable Snow
Audiobullys - We Don't Care

An expert on the experts of the history of psychiatry

"It's no coincidence that in the last two weeks, there have been two huge FDA warnings," says Kelly (Preston). "We wouldn't have these warnings without Tom and others speaking out."

Do you ever really get the feeling that Kelly Preston's career is nothing more than a token gesture by movie studios out of deference to her husband's ability to occasionally star in a blockbuster movie? Really, how far off is she from starring in Maroon 5 videos ALL the time?

Scientologists: We're just misunderstood

Tuesday's Social Networking Question

Hey all you hipsters, punks, goth freaks, scenesters (is there a difference between hipsters and scenesters?) and all other forms on disenfranchised youth roaming the net: what are you going to do now that Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. (ie. Fox) have bought out the company that owns MySpace.com? I mean if you keep putting up new content over there aren't you just a big part of the corporate right wing conspiracy now? Haven't you sold out? What happened to your independence? Back to Friendster? Enquiring minds want to know...

News Corp. to pay $580M for Intermix (MarketWatch)

Monday's Fun Science Facts

"But researchers at Cornell University and the University of California-Berkeley say it takes 29 percent more fossil energy to turn corn into ethanol than the amount of fuel the process produces. For switch grass, a warm weather perennial grass found in the Great Plains and eastern North America United States, it takes 45 percent more energy and for wood, 57 percent."

"It takes 27 percent more energy to turn soybeans into biodiesel fuel and more than double the energy produced is needed to do the same to sunflower plants, the study found."

Back to the drawing board.

Study Says Ethanol Not Worth the Energy (Yahoo)

What happens in the D stays in Windsor

I went to the All Star Home Run Derby and Fanfest in Detroit on Monday. It was great. Here are some pictures I took. Enjoy them, posted in reverse chronological order.

"Jesus loves you. Everyone else thinks you're an asshole"

I was watching Saved last week, and while it was a pretty good movie with an effective message, there was one part that I thought was glossed over somewhat to make the story seem nicer. The main character, played by Jena Malone has a boyfriend who thinks that he might be gay, and only plays along in the boyfriend role to validate the Christian ideals of those surrounding him. Of course, once his parents discover his issue of Honcho under his mattress it's game over. They send him away to be spiritually cleansed of his gayness, and refilled with Christ's love.

Flash forward to an article in today's New York Times, where Alex Williams tells of a 16 year old gay kid from Tennessee who comes out to his parents and immediately ship him off for degayification. Not only do centres like this actually exist (talk about the naive Canadian), but there are 120 'programs' nationwide devoted to this kind of nonsensical deprogramming/reprogramming.

The whole notion that gayness is something that can be changed through behaviour modification borders on contempt for humanity. The fact that parents can forcibly put their kids in places like this against their will should be seen as child abuse. How states tolerated this and not stepped in as of yet is reprehensible.

How the rich get richer

"It finally voted 96 to 1 to adopt a $31.9 billion spending plan for Homeland Security in the 2006 fiscal year that appropriates $100 million for transit security, which is $50 million less than in this year's budget."
...
"Over the last four years, Homeland Security has allotted $250 million to transit security grants, compared with about $15 billion for aviation security."
...
"The truth of the matter is, a fully loaded airplane with jet fuel, a commercial airliner, has the capacity to kill 3,000 people," Mr. Chertoff said in an interview Thursday with The Associated Press. "A bomb in a subway car may kill 30 people. When you start to think about your priorities, you're going to think about making sure you don't have a catastrophic thing first. But it doesn't mean that we only focus on aviation. We do aviation, we do other things as well, but we scale our response based on the nature of the architecture."

But that's where the problem with the argument lies. If you want to chose to confront the problem from a proportional standpoint, then you can't also go about dividing up the money evenly to each and every state. If you're going to say you need to protect the greatest catastrophe from happening, then you can't spend more on security per person in North Dakota than you do in New York City. Anything other really amounts to nothing more than pork barreling.

David Verses Goliath - July 13, 2005

After an unceremonious week away from the microphone, I returned with a vengeance to conquer the Windsor/Detroit airwaves with such a reckless abandon.

Download the Show

Pt. 1 (David verses Goliath starts 31:00 into this first file)
Pt. 2
Pt. 3

Tracklisting (favorites in bold)

Shout Out Louds - The Comeback (Big Slippy Ratatat Remix)
Cut Copy - Saturdays
Royksopp - Boys
Bell X1 - Like I Love You/Slow (Justin Timberlake/Kylie Minogue cover)
Nouvelle Vague - Guns in Brixton
Smoosh - Massive Cure
Feist - When I Was A Young Girl
The Clerks - The Dissidents
The Clerks - Outbreak 1
The Chalets - Michael Kelly
Saul Williams - List of Demands (Reparations)
Tegan & Sara vs. Mylo - Walking With A Ghost In Paris
Wolf Parade - I'll Believe in Anything, You'll Believe in Anything
The Salteens - Time You Have Been Wasting
The Long Blondes - Giddy Stratospheres
The Deathray Davies - Plan to Stay Awake
Supersystem - Born Into The World
Aqueduct - Frantic (Roman Polanski Version)
Thunderbirds Are Now! - From: Skulls
The Magic Numbers - Hymn for Her
LCD Soundsystem - Yeah (Crass Version)
Bloc Party - Price of Gas
The National - Daughters of the Soho Riots
Andrew Bird - A Nervous Tic Motion to the Left of the Head
Architecture in Helsinki - Do the Whirlwind
The Clerks - Car Tired

Danny did China

Skateboarding legend Danny Way has successfully jumped the Great Wall of China on a skateboard. I found out through random blog skipping, not ideal but after you watch the videos and check out the pictures on the site, I would think you'd be impressed as well.

The only surprise here to me is that the Chinese government actually went along with this and in fact help facilitate the whole thing. I wouldn't quite say I'd see it as a desecration or disrespectful if I was Chinese, but then again I'm not the one trying to protect my culture from Western influence either.

Danny Does China

Bulls 3, People 0

Apparently some Canadian woman got trampled as well. Always nice to hear about the local connection.

The Height of Selfishness

Can you imagine being a publicist, and then on top of being employed to fluff the lives of a star being told to release statements like this:

"Omarion was in London during the tragic bombings that struck this morning," a statement by the singer's publicist AR PR Marketing, released hours after the bombings, said.

Making no mention of the fatalities or casualties of the blasts, the singer's statement concluded, "He would like his fans to pray that he has a safe trip and a safe return home. He appreciates your support."

Asked why anyone should pray for him, Gilmore said, "He wasn't hurt or anything, but just the fact that he was there and all that."

Of course this is coming from a guy whose latest hit is basically a covert anti-abortion message trying to guilt poor single mothers into keeping children they can't afford to look after, so perhaps it isn't much of a surprise he puts the spotlight on himself while in the midst of a catastrophe.

(Update: the video I was actually referring to was from Nick Cannon. I guess I need to pay more attention to BET.)

Healing Olympic Wounds

Unfortunately, only one city can win the right to host the Olympics at a time. In the case yesterday, London trumps Paris, who have now lost three consecutive bid attempts. You'd think there would be some bitterness amongst the two and yet when combined they make beautiful music together.

Allow that lame introduction to segue into learning more about The Clerks. Formed in Paris but now splitting time between the city of lights and the lovely city of Manchester, The Clerks are a four piece that show off a wide array of influences currently being driven into the ground by many of the leading indie groups around. Featuring touches of new wave, garage, dance-pop at the least, The Clerks escape the current thirst for categorization if only by diversifying their pallet and opening themselves to a variety of sounds.

Despite being unsigned and without any official releases yet, they have already arrived at the point of opening for the likes of Mercury Rev just over a year from their point of formation. With plans to tour the UK this summer, hopefully they gain the support needed to eventually cross the Atlantic on the strength of their talent and potential.

Read a review at Pop News (en français)
The Clerks Official Site

Quick Hits

CBC details the only African-born performer on the Canadian Live 8 show, rapper K'naan. The article goes into his beef with k-os, who if anyone hadn't noticed has a cameo in Death From Above 1979's new video for Black History Month.

Listen to a live Wolf Parade performance (last mention until the LP comes out I promise) recorded last November for CBC's Just Concerts series in Vancouver featuring two songs off their newly released EP.

I couldn't be any more excited to see Final Fantasy's July 15 show in Windsor at Phog after hearing Owen's show in Toronto sounded fantastic. Download it here while it lasts. Apparently he's debuting an album's worth of new material on top of playing most of 2005 top 20 candidate Has A Good Home.

Noah Feldman in the Times' Magazine on the Church vs. State issue and how to satisfy both ends. Really interesting piece if you have some time on your hands.

CMJ 2005 Revealed

For those five people who haven't heard of the Arcade Fire by this point (I'm guessing you couldn't possibly have found your way to this site without knowing about them from somewhere else), their buzz really began picking up steam last year with a performance at the CMJ Music Marathon in New York City.

The lineup for the 2005 CMJ event was unveiled the other day, and does it ever promise to be something special in its 25th year. You don't know music industry buzz 'til you pour through this lineup (I'm just picking my favorites as of now, by the time September rolls around expect me to be liking the other half of the bill):

• The Arcade Fire (CAN)
• !!! (US)
• Dungen (SWE)
• The Hold Steady (US)
• Athlete (UK)
• Supersystem (US)
• Arctic Monkeys (UK)
• Wolf Parade (CAN)
• Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (US)
• Youth Group (AUS)
• Saturday Looks Good To Me (US)
• Pony Up! (CAN)
• Head of Femur (US)
• B.C. Camplight (US)
• Man Man (I think US)
• Tsar (US)
• Annie (NOR)
• Hot Chip (UK)

...amongst others. If any music industry type wants to hook up a free plane/train/bus ticket and some passes to shows I'll gladly find a dumpster to sleep in for a few days to check out these shows.

July Playlist

Obviously I'd have a new Wolf Parade track thrown in, the new Missy Elliot track with M.I.A. & Vybez Cartel is redonkulous too. In fact there's an even sicker track the Neptunes produced, On & On, but I figure everyone else will be soon hitting you with it so I'll let them kill it. This Long Blondes track will be one people start hearing more and more over the course of the summer too I think. Click on the list to enlarge.

International Intrigue

I've put up a bunch of pictures over at Flickr taken from recent travails around the city, you can check them out here. In the meantime check out this guy. I've lived next to him for about 10 months now, and have been trying to sneakily take pictures of him without getting caught for a while. There's always someone around or he's watching me watching him, but I finally got him yesterday. Usually he just yells at the dogs to stop humping each other or barking, but I think I hit the jackpot with this one yesterday.