live shows

For those of you who read Jennifer's blog, I'll try to write this so it's not just a rehash. See, we've been spending a lot of time together, which she has documented, both amusingly and well.

Our time as neighbours is drawing to a close. Not any time soon, but it's out there. Eventually I'll get around to posting about one of the reasons. For now, you just have to trust me that it's no bad reason. But I'm sad about it.

++One

Last night we hopped all around the town. First dinner, Adam and J. and me. After, on our walk over to the Aloha, Jennifer said she'd been trying to come up with a team name for us. "I love that you were trying to do that," Adam said. "Yeah," J. said, "but all I came up with was Team Air Freshener Orphanage." And Adam made the sound of the air freshener that has become the metonymic touchpoint for our whole Osheaga trip. It was hilarious to us, but why it was wouldn't make much sense to anyone else. It was that kind of dinner.

After the Aloha was the RocknRoll Pizza Party, with a great band that gave Jennifer hope for a pop/punk scene in Ottawa. Today I ran into Luke Nuclear, RRPP mastermind, and he said the band had so much fun that their other band, music in the same vein, Statues, might just make us a visit. You will likely find us at that show.

This gave me enough time and bars to consume the appropriate amount of beer for seeing one's fairly recent ex-boyfriend; that is to say, enough to take the edge off the nervous, but not enough to hit weepy. I ran into James while the imbibing was taking place. He looked surprised when I mentioned going to a party at Eric's. "Yeah," I said. "I'm not sure if that's crazy or stupid." "A bit of both, maybe," he responded. True dat, but it felt like the right thing to do.

When people split up, it's easy to lose the other person, and all the friends you made through them, permanently. Sometimes, that's the right thing. I have exes I will never talk to again, sometimes because they treated me so badly they don't deserve it, sometimes because the connection was tenuous to begin with. Eric falls into neither of those categories, and I hope that someday we can be actual friends. Maybe not close friends, but real friends.

There was never any way around the fact that our first actual conversation was going to be hard. I figured a party, with lots of distractions, with lots of people I hadn't seen in a while, with the ability to make that beer a quick one, well, it was probably a pretty good start. I figured right. Almost everyone seemed happy to see me, Mark was pleased as punch with his birthday cookies, and Eric liked the map I gave him as much as I thought he would.

When J. and I got home, I did some late-night wind-down tidying in the kitchen. I could hear her doing the same: the cupboard doors opening and closing, some rattling around. The way I can hear the radio on for Shy Dog, the ghost of the CBC playing on my radio too. Or the way the laughter signals that Lesley or Adam or Michael is over for dinner. From anyone else those noises would be wallpaper at best, an annoyance at worst. Coming from Jennifer, they're insanely comforting.

++Two

Wednesday night's reading at Octopus, the inaugural evening of the Female First Fiction reading series, was fucking great.

For one, Jennifer read from her new novel-in-progress, about a 10 year old girl. If the excerpt is anything to go by, I'm gonna like it even more than Grrrl, which is saying something.

For two, Jessica Westhead read from Pulpy & Midge, a novel about a cowed office worker and his bully boss. It was a good reading and sounds like a good book. Even last night Adam and I were pretending to be Dan the Bully, punching our thighs and saying "Boys night!", trying to get the same combination of triumph and ferocity with which Westhead managed to infuse those words.

Afterwards, there was an impromptu panel during which our JWs talked about the process of getting published. It was adorable. So much nerdy girl excitement! Though I must admit, I was a little jealous. Not in a bad way, an eats-away-at-you way, but in an "I want to be up there talking about that, and I am going to have to reorganize my life and get off my ass and make that happen." kind of way. An inspired by wicked awesome ladies sort of way.

++Three

Tonight we're off to Zaphod's to see Immaculate Machine and Ladyhawk. I love the keyboardy pop of IM, and Ladyhawk is the right kind of dark fuzzy rock and roll. I expect it to be loud, I expect it to be fun.

The Smoking Hot Girl may be joining us in our indie rock adventure. Who knows what will happen after the show, but I will keep a neighbourly thought in mind about the ease with which sound travels from one kitchen to another.

Alright, Tuesday night, you've called my bluff.

Sure, I talked a good game - "Oh yeah, after work and yoga and more work and giving a workshop at venus envy, I'll just dash home, slurp up a bit of soup and head back out to babylon for the Xiu Xiu show. I'll totally have enough energy, even after only getting 5 hours sleep. Totally." - talked it all day.

And I think I had you fooled, at least a while. But you knew, didn't you, you knew as soon as I put my hand on the door to my apartment. The look on my face said it all. You hold the cards: warmth, solitude, a warm bed, the little death.

What I will probably not do ever again is go see hip hop in a theatre. Or see Tegan and Sara, period.

Shelley and I scooted over to the Bronson Centre last night to see Northern State open for Tegan and Sara. The sound was awful. Having known a few sound people, I have sympathy - they would have only gotten access to the place that afternoon, and the equipment was probably all rental. You just can't know the quirks of a room or gear on such short notice. And maybe it was where we were standing, right near the speakers at first, and then for T&S, deep in a pocket of bass vibration that drowned nearly everything else out. But while I have sympathy, it also fucking sucked for the purposes of musical enjoyment.

I didn't have a great time, you can probably tell.

Hip hop and cushy-seat theatres do not go well together. The gals of Northern State were putting their hearts into it* and the audience was mostly just standing there. Appreciating the show with only their ears, and not their cans. An audience like that is hard to perform to.

Tegan and Sara are much more enjoyable when they're talking than when they're playing. Musically, there were a couple of interesting things - the drummer pulled out a double kick pedal for a couple of songs, which is unusual in indie rock and was used effectively, they have a couple of songs that are oddly and nicely structured (Walking With a Ghost is my favourite), their voices work really well together and there were some nice keyboard touches. But man, maybe they could slip some of the self-awareness and irony of their banter into their songs. And if three people on stage are playing guitars, maybe they could be playing different parts. Or hey, maybe one of those guitarists could be playing one of the four keyboards on stage.

We were sitting there, shifting around a lot and kind of grumbling back and forth to each other. Then T&S played Walking With a Ghost, a good version of it, and I had heard what I wanted to hear. We stayed a song or two longer and then Shelley leaned over and said "Is it beer time yet?" We cut out early and went home to drink Guinness and watch fish.

*Though they were a bit sulky about the sound, which I cannot abide. I get that mic and monitor problems are a huge deal, but fuck me, it's an occupational hazard. So suck it up and do your best job instead of being a big damn baby.

And both about to bike off again soon. To Andrea's CD release party, in this instance.

It was a fabulously well-organized event, which I always appreciate very much. And man oh man, does Andrea have a beautiful voice. And well-written lyrics. Those are two other things that I appreciate very much.

I agree entirely with Jennifer's prediction that we will be able to say I knew her when. Besides the good musicianship, Andrea knows how to work a crowd, and I mean that in a very nice way. I've been in front of a crowd often enough to know how hard won that apparent ease is.

The funniest part of the evening for me was a conversation I had with J. The singer of the first band* was introducing the other members of his band, one of whom had just come up on stage.

"And if you're wondering who just came up on stage, his name is David Ger[????]."

I did a double take and leaned over to whisper in Jennifer's ear. "Did you hear what that guy's last name was?"

She shrugged.

"'Cause it sounded like 'Gerbilly.'"

She threw her head back and laughed, and then rocked forward again when the mouthful of beer she'd just taken threatened to choke her.

"And on the drums, David's brother..."

We leaned forward expectantly.

"...Paul Ross."

"What?!" Jennifer said, "They don't even have the same last name!"

If my last name were Gerbilly, I might change it too.

*Okay, singer of first band, some hard love. Back off the mic. Just an inch. When you make love to the mic with your lips, your quite nice voice distorts and isn't quite so nice as when you are teasing the microphone by being two fingers away from it.

For the first couple of days after Eric arrived in the 'fax, he and I had a running conversation about which one of us was on vacation and which one was on holiday. It went a little something like this:

"Nice to be on vacation, eh?"
"Or holiday."
"True." I paused to absorb the possible thesauratic implications of this. "Wait. Holiday?"
"Yeah. We're on different kinds of trips."
"Ah. Gotcha."

But you know, I didn't gotcha. I mulled it over. The next day:

"So okay. Which one of us is on holiday and which one of us is on vacation, then?"
"Well, you can't have a working holiday, but you can have a working vacation. You did the pride booth and you're doing a reading. So you're on vacation and I'm on holiday, because I'm not doing anything at all like work."

Right.

Conversations like that are one of the many reasons I feel unbelievably lucky to have found Eric.

Another couple days later, about 10 hours into our 36 Hours of Food Poisoning No Fun, I wandered into our bedroom from the living room, where I had been alternately reading the shittiest mystery ever, passing out, worrying that I might puke again, and feeling very very sorry for myself. Exhausted from the 15 foot trip, I sat heavily on the side of the bed. He woke up.

"Hi baby. How are you."
He blinked an owly gravol blink at me. It wasn't a real question anyway.
"So. Is this a holiday or a vacation?"
That got me a smile.
"This is a vacation from our holiday."

Neither of us had ever had food poisoning before. And even now, we're not sure. We spent a lot of time walking around out in the sun without hats and not drinking very much water. Because we're, you know, bright like that.

The trip actually ended up being quite a few firsts, the big ones being our first long trip together and the first sick together. Considering the fact that I miss him terribly after spending 6 nights and days with him in a fairly small room, I think we did alright.

The start of our Romantic Food Poisoning was Wednesday. Wednesday night was going to be a really fun night for Eric, Shelley, Steve, Aurèle and A's brother Phil. We were gonna see rock and roll on the high seas. Or, more precisely, the Maynards on the tall ship Silva.

Early in the evening, Shelley made us a delicious dinner of tofu and greens and rice, and then Eric and I wandered downtown for drinks with A. and P. We ended up at the Split Crow for power hour - a buck a beer from 9 to 10.

(This picture is the closest I will ever get to looking like a beer commercial girl. That is A. to my left, looking blurrily bemused.)

Ah! I can hear you saying, Megan! Sweetie! When you drink too much buck-a-beer beer, you don't get *food* poisoning.

But my response is ready: I was about to go on a boat and take gravol. So I drank only about a third of a glass to be polite, and then sat there, waiting to get anxious about being late for the ship.

We weren't late. In fact, we spent quite a bit of time waiting on the pier, where to pass the time I took a few picture of the stomach ache that was starting to get quite poky.

Apparently, the show was quite good. Nausea felled me early on and I missed it all. I did spend about 10 minutes of one band above deck, but I was shaking so badly that Steve lent me his hoodie to put on top of the sexy little t-shirt, 2 sweaters, jacket number I was already sporting, and A. gave me a fistful of ice. I stared stupidly at my fingers gripping it as my arm went numb. "It always makes me feel better," A. said, shrugging. The fact that it didn't totally give me the creeps meant that it felt pretty good.

Then I ran downstairs because I thought I was going to throw up. Eric came down not long after and stroked my hair and showed me the pictures he was taking of the actual party. I could hear the bands really well, so it was almost like being on deck. Shelley and Steve kept coming down for very nice visits too, taking care of me and keeping me company, even though the gravol had taken away most of my sentences. Though I do believe it is one of the few times in my life I have muttered "Yes, I would like to put my head in your lap," without the slightest whiff of salaciousness.

I worried for quite a while that I was wrecking people's fun, because E. and S. and S. kept having to come downstairs to visit me. But then, even in the haze, I realized that if I had said no I can't go, none of us likely would have been anywhere near the music. So this, really, was a happy medium.

That everyone was so nice to me is one of the many reasons I feel unbelievably lucky to have found my friends.

Okay, so a lot more went on in Halifax than sickness and sentiment. But it's late and I'm still a little dragged out from being sick. Tomorrow, more.

Eric, who I've mentioned here a few times, is playing a show this weekend. I've never seen The Solid Senders live, but I have heard them on Myspace and seen them on YouTube and read about them in the news.

That's just like real, right?

MySpace
YouTube the First
YouTube the Second
Article

Tattoos

Am I fucking crazy? Who thought these giant tattoos on my ribs would be a good idea? I got most of the whale coloured in today. I had to stop Julian when my legs started twitching and I though might barf. Only two hours in. Fuck. Me. But it's too late to stop the whole process now.

This time I was not so shy with the boobs. You know, there are a lot of people who wander in and out of that tattoo shop, neighbours, old clients, friends. But everyone seems nice, and moreover, they all pretended not to notice that my tit was hanging out. But I wasn't wearing my glasses, so I wouldn't have known if they were ogling anyway.

After we stopped for the day, I lay there for a few seconds, dumbstruck and leaking tears: I knew, just knew, that what I had coming up was not a patient few tears, but a flood. "Julian," I said "Could you hand me a kleenex? I'm sorry, I need to bawl."

He grabbed a paper towel and handed it over. "Weep away." And I did. It was cathartic sad bawling, not ouchie pain bawling. They understood that, have seen it a million times.

It is doubtful that there will be pictures in the near future. Before I wrapped my ribs up in tensor strips to hopefully keep the swelling down, the blood had almost soaked through the bandages.

Bob Dylan

The GD and I had seats 1 & 2 in the 40th row on the floor. The last row on the floor. It was dark when we went in, and there was row 40, though I practically had to crawl to find the number chalked on the floor. There were two empty seats at the end, so we didn't pay much attention and sat down. A half hour or so into the Foo Fighters, security came over. "Could I see your tickets?" We pulled them out, and she directed us down to the other end of the row - the beginning of the row. That started at Seat 3. There was no C40 1 or 2.

A kerfuffle ensued, requiring the getting of the supervisor. "Don't worry, we'll Take Care of It," he said to us.

Take Care of It? I thought, Do you have to have a conference call to ask for two more folding chairs?

As the supervisor walked away, presumably to just find the conference room where the big guns would dole out our chairs, the Great Dater grabbed his sleeve. "Well, I guess you'll have to put us up at the front now, eh?"

"Sorry to make you stand. It'll just be a few moments." The baby security guard was very apologetic. Who the fuck do they normally deal with here? I thought. Are the people who normally come to scotiabank place particularly weak of leg? Particularly bitchy?

Supervisor came back, no chairs in sight, and crooked a finger for us to follow him. We did, closer and closer to the stage. And indeed, there we were, being taken up to the front. To row 10, as a matter of fact. I think I enjoyed the concert more from row 10 than row 40.

There was one particularly entertaining man who would pop up every 3 or 4 minutes and pump his fist in the air, and then just as suddenly melt into the crowd again. And there was another crazy dancing man, one who just could not be kept down, instead keeping up a herky-jerky Elaine-dance for almost all of Dylan's set.

Highly entertaining, all in all.

On the Way Home from Bob Dylan

I borrowed the Grs car, affectionately known as the Polecat. GD and I were speeding home along the highway in said Polecat, talking about the high points of the show. "One of my favourites," he says to me, "was the penultimate song. But I can't remember the name."

"Did you just say penultimate?" I goggled.

"Yes. It means second to last. Doesn't it?"

"Well, yeah, it does." A moment of silence. "Now all you need to do is toss 'nonplussed' casually and correctly into conversation and you will have well and truly swept me off my feet."

Jurassic 5

Mitch and Steve and I went to see J5 last night. It was a capacity crowd at the Capital Music Hall. 650 people screaming their heads off any time someone in the band called out a sing-song "Ottawa!" Only for the longest time, I thought he was shouting "I dunno!" and I couldn't figure out why we were supposed to scream our support out for him not knowing whatever it was he was not knowing. I waved my arms in the air like I just didn't care for quite a long time and enjoyed myself thoroughly.

The band seemed genuinely surprised by the sustained enthusiasm of the crowd. It was fun to watch just that. Ottawa fans obviously don't get as much hip hop as they'd like.

Mitch bailed early, and as Steve and I were walking home, he stopped. I kept going for a few steps, then realized Steve wasn't with me and stopped dead too, waiting for him to catch up. And then backed up, wanting to see what he was staring so perplexedly at. A barefoot and shirtless man, either scaling or climbing down the side of a house, wrapping the ropy wires covering the house like ivy around his hands. Electrical wires? We didn't wait to find out. "What the fuck are you looking at?" he said to us. "A guy," Steve responded "who seems to be climing the side of a house." And we moved on.

Only a few steps later, someone shouted our names. Thankfully, it was not our shirtless Spidey, but the Great Dater, who was just getting dropped off after a hot tub soiree. The GD invited me home with him, so we scooted across the street and watched some Monty Python before I attacked him. He was really drunk and really high - the first time I've seen him be either of those things - and really fucking adorable. "How so?" he asked me this morning, when I told him that, and I had no good answer. Just 'cause.

Tonight

Since I feel like shit, I'm staying in. The GD is coming over and we're going to watch a movie. I will actually suggest starting the first season of the Wire. He's never seen it, and it is my favourite television show, hands down. And since I already know what happens, I won't have to pay that much attention.

In honour of Carruthers MacLaughlin, I am currently listening to The Smiths.

It has been a debaucherous weekend so far. I'm not generally more than a 2 pint/3 bottle gal on any given night, but my jesus, I've been packing it back. Enough last night that I agreed to do Paul Revere at kareoke if Jennifer would do Manic Monday. She had to go first, which gave me time to get through my 4th (or 5th?) beer of the evening. I actually pointed my finger at the ceiling when I rapped "pulled out the jammy, aimed it at the sky". Fuck me. Jennifer managed with much more aplomb, no fake jammies in site. Though that would have been pretty funny: "Wish it were a Sunday/That's my fun day." Stick 'em up.

It was okay to drink that much, though, because we'd gone for a run. 1 point for virtue, 4 beers for debauch.

We went on after Carruthers MacLaughlin, who I just wanted to tie up with string and put in my pocket. My god. He charmingly, endearingly and enthusiastically butchered the three songs that he sang, the first being How Soon is Now. He had mussy blond hair and thick rimmed glasses. Tight jeans with big white sneakers. And I was probably old enough to be his, well, his older cousin.

Friday night was the Wolf Parade show. Openers Holy Fuck were not what I expected at all. With a swear in their name, I thought it would be more punk, less Madchester. Frog Eyes were really good, though as my companion pointed out, all of the songs had the same sort of quiet start, build up, crescendo, abrupt ending structure. And they kinda sounded like the soundtrack to something uplifting, where the herione overcomes terrible odds to succeed in her lifelong passion. Wolf Parade were great, and they more than made up for the Sunset Rubdown disappointment. Besides which, that Klug fellow is very handsome without his terrible mustache.

After that, the bat came back. Or more precisely, came out of the basement once more. Two bits of good timing: first, I was still awake at 3.30 am; second, I had a gentleman caller at the time (of course, just about the only good reason to still be up in the wee smas). I saw the bat and thought, brilliant, perfect timing, he knows how to deal with bats. Turns out he was more proficient at distracting me from the presence of the bat than of getting rid of the bat.

Claudine, let's call her.

She tried to get on my good side by perching on top of some boxes on the top shelf in my kitchen. All I could see on the top of this wooden box was a furry brown half-moon bat head bracketed by black exclamation mark ears. Pretty damn cute, and it did soften me up some.

And she did me a big favour last night. Came upstairs at - surprise! - 3.43 this morning, and flapped around my bedroom a bit. I woke up, shoved on my glasses, turned on the light in the kitchen, opened the door to the vestibule, turned on the light out there. And this is where I realized I'd made a tactical error. Glasses? Check. Clothes? Oh dear. Claudine flew into the vestibule before I could get clothed and open the door to the outside. I shut my apartment door, and when I came back and opened it, she flew into the apartment again. Got the front door open, waited, checked the living room, bedroom, kitchen. I'm not sure if she flew out when my back was turned, or back into the basement to reappear tonight. What's your guess? I pick reappearace: 3.36 am.

At any rate, I realized at 4 that if I didn't get some water into me, I'd feel fucking awful in the morning. So thanks to Claudine, preventer of wicked hangovers.

I don't think she's eating the spiders in my basement, judging from their legion numbers, so she must be getting pretty damn hungry. Makes me a little nervous.

Today, virtue will reign, and once I finish writing the longest post ever, I'm going to spend the rest of the day doing other writing and cleaning my clothes.

And not drinking beer.

Note: People who have small babies should read this post knowing I understand that there are at least two tiers of tired, one the result of being responsible for tiny humans and one the result of being too irresponsible to go to bed at a decent time.

As predicted, it’s taken the better part of the week to recover from last weekend. Except I’ve only partially recovered.

Last night I felt *old*. Went to the Sunset Rubdown show and had just a terrible time. Even with a nap, I was a little worn out before I went, but I’d already bought the ticket and wasn’t going to waste it. Especially since I didn’t manage to get tickets to Wolf Parade, and am relying on my wiles to convince a certain person that he should get me in.

Anyway, Sunset Rubdown. As the Poets Affirm opened up, and they were good. Busy, kaleidoscopic, but engaging. The guys behind me had a very funny and lengthy debate about whether ATPA had played 3 long songs or 6 short ones. I felt like turning around and saying “Depends on your definition of song.” The sound was okay but not great. I was uncomfortable because I was over-dressed, and the intermediate yoga of the day before was catching up with me. Nothing like sore hips to make you feel ancient.

Things went downhill from there. I got more and more sore, more and more overheated. Sunset Rubdown didn’t go on till 10:20, about 40 minutes after ATPA finished. Too long. And then the sound was shitty. Really shitty. It is the first time I have ever thought “The vocals are too loud in the mix” at a rock show. But that was only when the bass wasn’t making everything sound like porridge. The singer of SR was visibly frustrated and the band didn’t seem to be having a good time.

They played well. It might have been a good show. I left after 5 songs.

The good thing about leaving early is that I got home early and to sleep by 11.30. And then woke up at 3.30 to the echolocationary squeaks of a bat in my house. I listened to those squeaks for a long time, wondering why the bat outside my open window didn’t just go away and stop annoying me.

From now on, I am leaving my glasses on my bedside table. And I may start wearing pyjamas. Because pawing around your house sightless and naked gives the bat a definite advantage.

What does not give the bat a definite advantage: killer cat. By the time I’d gotten my robe and specs on, Freya was standing victorious over the wee mammal, sniffing it hungrily. Poor bat. Poor Freya when I took her prize away from her.

I got back to bed, with racing heart, around 3:50 am, calmed down enough to sleep around 4:30 and woke up several times at very small sounds for the next 3 hours.

The purple smudges under my eyes have become streaks.

Right now I’m sitting in my office with the dead bat in a tupperware container beside my desk, waiting for a doctor from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to come and take the bat away for rabies testing. I suppose bats are food for something.