Great Canadian Songquest

If you regularly listen to CBC Radio2 you will have heard the show 'Drive' with Rich Terfry (aka Buck 65).
Over the past couple months they set up this contest where you could nominate and then vote on the top nominations for a place and the artist to write a song about it.
Well today those songs were revealed. I wasn't able to catch all of them but most of the ones I did catch were quite good. You can go here for the complete list.
Joel Plaskett's was a typically rough around the edges (he said he wanted to rerecord it with his band) and Hawksley Workman's was both clear and wild,
Of the songs I heard, the one about Tofino by Oh Susanna! was one of my favs. Martha Wainwright's song about the Black Sheep Inn was quite dark but I think it at least caught some of the secluded feel of Wakefield.

The coolest thing about this is hearing how the songs were written and how they came about. Makes you want to travel around checking out some places. As someone commenting on the CBC blog said "the list seems to include two bars, 7 parks or "natural wonders," three kind-of-obscure towns, and one road to nowhere. I think this list is representative of what I love about Canada"

Anyway, there is apparently a concert in the works and all the songs are available on Itunes if you want to give them a listen. I know I do.

Snake vs Wood Pecker

Here is a great battle in nature caught on camera. It isn't quite as good as the Battle at Kruger.

Let's just say you may not want to watch it if you don't like snakes or you love wood peckers.

Pretty good footage though. I just keep shouting 'Go for the head!' If only he went for the head or the eyes this may have ended differently and maybe the eggs could have been saved.

FYI: The attack is over by the 3:00 mark.

More Good News for the Skeptics

Thanks to my connections I am hearing about this. You know you can't rely on the regular media for these kinds of stories.

Apparently some hacker got into the servers of the Hadley Climate Research Centre and copied 62mb of emails and research data of some of the most prominent Global Warming alarmists in the world. It was posted on a Russian server and by now has spread all over the web. I'm not going to get into posting the stuff because I'm not sure how our police-state would respond and I also probably would not be able to understand most of it.

Here is a review of much of the data though.

Basically much of the data and emails have been confirmed by people in the know that they are real. If this ends up getting broadcast in the general media it could be huge. Already it has been posted by BBC and the Guardian albeit with no mention of the contents. It remains to be seen if the mainstream media (especially in North America) picks up on this and how. We all know they are intrinsically tied to the Global Warming propaganda that they have been pumping out for years now because catastrophe sells. But then again so does scandal.

Hyundai Canada tries it's hand at Viral Marketing

You probably have seen the completely unbelievable video where a driver of a BMW SUV drives over two cars while trying to park and then backs up and instead of sticking around just drives away.
Here it is:


Well it turned out that the driver got caught after the video was aired on the news all over the world. One of the workers at the fitness centre (who's car was ruined) recognized the vehicle and called the cops.
The lady had returned to the scene of the crime!

Anyway, Hyundai Canada decided to replace one of the victim's cars with a brand new Hyundai Elantra. Pretty cool!


They must have had to do this pretty quick to try and capitalize on the viral marketing aspect. Kudos to them.

Sufjan Part Deux

For anybody who is interested you can find a good review of the aforementioned Montreal Sufjan Stevens show here.

And here is the setlist:

01The Mistress Witch From McClure (Or, the Mind That Knows Itself)
02 Impossible Souls
03 Jacksonville
04 Holland
05 All Delighted People
06 Casimir Pulaski Day
07 To Be Alone With You
08 The Dress Looks Nice On You
09 Age of Adz

Pause - when girl faints right behind me and concert stops.

10 Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head! (Rebuild! Restore! Reconsider!)
11 Majesty Snowbird
12 Chicago

Encore
13 John Wayne Gacy, Jr

Unplanned Encore #2
14 There’s Too Much Love

Sufjan Stevens in Montreal

This show was just so amazing I can't believe I haven't blogged about it. Possibly because I am so insanely busy. Kindof maybe.
I ended up getting the last ticket to the show (long story) and having to go by myself. It turned out I could not sell the ticket because it was set up to prevent scalpers which is cool I guess.
Anyway, I get there and it was this cool venue that is basically a huge cavernous basement. It was a pretty tight venue. I am horrible at guessing sizes of crowds but it couldn't have been much more than 500 people. No wonder it sold out so insanely fast.I joined the tight group of crazy Sufjan fans at the front of the stage. I met some cool people and swapped Sufjan stories. It was cool just feeling the vibe.I have never been the type of person who would get excited about seeing a famous person. The only time was when I wanted to kick Micheal Moore off the ramparts when we saw him in the south of France. But there was definitly something going on when he walked out on the stage and started to help set up instruments for the opener's opening band. I had to keep reminding myself that this is kind of crap that Sufjan himself would despise. Why are we worshipping him? So that was pretty much going through my mind in endless circles the first several minutes of seeing him. Am I a messed up indie-boy or what? I could have reached through the crowd and grabbed his ankle, I was that close to him. Weirdest. Feeling. Ever.

Anyway, it was a sweet show. The openers where Montreal band Shapes and Sizes who where a last minute add-on. Interesting but they need a bit of work live. Possibly because they were doing it at the last minute and where missing someone. The second band was Cryptacize who where pretty much awesome. I definitely want to check out more of them....When Sufjan started up you could have heard a pin drop in the epic quiet parts and the sound of everyone whisper-singing along for Casimir Pulaski Day was something I will never forget.The trumpets where a super nice touch that I wasn't really expecting. The trumpets simply "make" Chicago.And two crazy things happened at this show. Right in the middle of one of the super intense new songs a girl behind me fainted. The whole concert stopped. The lights came on, Sufjan and the band started asking questions, someone told Sufjan that he was too intense and eventually the girl woke up and was escorted out. Sufjan decided to skip the rest of that song and the show continued.The second thing was the encore. First the band went off and after the obligatory cheering some came back and they did a few more songs. But then the lights came on, the radio came on and it was pretty clear that the concert was over. But no one (and seriously NO ONE) was leaving. Everyone kept cheering at chanting 'One More Song'. This went on for probably 20 or 25 minutes and I had decided that since I was so close to the front and the venue was so small I was not going to leave. But sure enough Sufjan came back on (looked reluctant) and did another song. Everybody was going crazy but of course it quieted right down when he started to play. Gotta love indie folk-rock shows.Anyway, it was a fantastic time and I can now cross that off my list of Life Goals. Next is to do the El Camino de Santiago.

Something to Smile About

A few days ago while going through my podcast subscriptions I came across this awesome Radio3 Session from a live show featuring Jenn Grant and her east coast buddies Hey Rosetta!
Since I always love listening to Jenn and I have seen her live I gave it a listen. It really was a classic and I highly recommend everyone to give this a listen.

She is just so amazing live and she has these awesome little in between song rambles. So funny!
Here is a taste of what she is all about. This is a live session she did for Verge Radio.