Toronto is getting some pretty good acts..



like Sean Lennon! He's coming to Toronto on the 13th. The Toasters is on the 9th, LCD Soundsystem is on the 23rd. Joel Plaskett Emergency, Cat Power and the Philosopher Kings. It's going to be a good holiday.
I really wanted to go see Sean Lennon, but the show is 19+ and you need something ridiculous like 10 pieces of government id and your fingerprints to get in. It would have been a hell of a show. His newest album, Friendly Fire is supposed to be exactly what everyone would expect; just like his father's music. His first album was nothing like this. Completely his own, which i can really respect. But Friendly Fire sounds just like Papa John's music. His voice sounds just like his fathers, as you can tell in this preview to Friendly Fire..



It looks like I'm going to see LCD Soundsystem though. At least I'll catch one good show over the holidays..

Well I haven't blogged in a while, and for a good reason..



..I've had nothing to talk about! I didn't end up going to Jurassic 5 last thursday because tickets were practically sold out and a whopping $37. So I decided against it. So really i have no new music news to report on..
I did however pick up two cds when i went home last weekend. I got Hot Chip 'The Warning' which I was really overdue to buy. It's a really great one. And it is also feeding my growing love for electronica. I also got English Beat 'What Is Beat?'. They're an amazing ska band, one of the well known godfathers of the genre. Surprisingly, I saw them at Call The Office last October on a very small scale tour. God knows why they came to Canada, or better yet, why they came to London (ON) but I was thrilled. It was one hell of a ska show, and one I'm betting I won't ever be able to see again so I'm pretty lucky. I've always had a tough time finding an English Beat cd anywhere, so you can imagine my surprise when I found one in a used cd store under the miscalaneous "E" section. The store clerk was shocked too. Well, he was shocked because be though it was a 'The Beat' cd instead of 'The English Beat'. He had never heard of the English Beat...

How (i heard) the Bob Dylan concert went..



..because i didn't go! I had the chance, but i lost it. The Foo fighters opened though and I heard they were great, but a little amateur (who isn't when you put them before a legend who's been performing for 40+ years). They played a full acoustic set but apparently it really rocked the house. I know a couple of people who bought the ticket just for the foo fighters then left before dylan. Bob himself didn't really impress a lot of people. Apparently he played very little of his classics and mostly off his new cd 'Modern Times'. Everyone I've asked who went to see the concert haven't even listened to the album yet, so that may have explained why they were so disappointed; they were probably all expecting classic dylan. But apparently he did do a couple old ones in a new way, which I have to respect. I hear he doesn't like to play his old stuff so pretty much he's doing it just for a crowd pleaser.
This has sparked a little realization in me. Big time arists like The Who, Elton John and Bob Dylan wouldn't have come to London a couple of years ago. I can explain their appearance in a couple ways: a) we now have the JLC, a really big, really popular venue for big acts b) pirating and c) lack of would-be massive CD sales.
Big time artists who should be living off their enourmous and ongoing record sales aren't anymore because of pirating. OR they haven't sold their music to iTunes yet and so people just don't bother buying their music. No one buys cds anymore. So all these big time acts are forced to go on tour to keep a steady, and sky high income. There just isn't a demand for CD's anymore. Have you noticed that CD stores like HMV have become dominantly a DVD store. The CD section is usually pushed into the back in a significantly smaller section then the dominating DVD's.
So poor Bob, Elton, Roger, Pete, Keith and John have to go on tour. Which is great, for us. We all hear about these classic and legendary performers and their knockout shows and naturally will pay $85 a pop to see them. But these guys are getting pretty up there. Dylan is 65 for pete's sake. I wouldn't want to be on the road at 65.
I'm really speaking for the artists at this point which I shouldn't be. Maybe they want to continue touring, but how long can this continue? Without the liability of record sales they have to tour late into their years.

Today I finally found Regina Spektor's 'Soviet Kitsch'



I've been looking for this silly album for ages! Ever since I heard the quirky song 'Poor Little Rich Boy', I had to have it. Grooves never carried it, and if there's one thing you can learn about Grooves it's that you shouldn't order a CD from there because it'll take a millenium for them to get it in. So I just waited it out, always looking for it when I went in, but never expecting to see it. Well, it payed off, because today they actually had it in. Arielle and I let out a loud gasp that shook the whole store. I'm ecstatic. I've already listened to it once and it's brilliant! I also bought Squarepusher's 'Hello Everything' which I didn't realize was a completely instrumental album, but rocks pretty hard nonetheless.