JBlog

Yes, I know it is not August. In fact it’s significantly not August, being actually mid-way through September. And I know some of you have probably just assumed, “Jon’s lazy and he’s not posting his Band-o-Month for August. Hopefully he’s still alive!” Or maybe you’re not really concerned with my current state of mortality. But in the spirit of better late then never, here’s my Band-o-Month pick for August!

There’s something about the summer roadtrip that’s pure zen. Hitting the open country road, with the windows down blasting music through the countryside. I especially love to stay off major highways and take back roads, always trying to take a new route that I’ve never been down before. Plus, there’s no better way to spend the hours in the car than popping in a brand new CD and checking it out.

On one of my frequent trips between Haliburton and Waterloo this summer, I popped in Mother Mother’s debut CD Touch Up and was enthralled. The band started out as an acoustic outfit focusing on vocal harmonies, but later added a bassist and a drummer to become a full five piece band. But there’s still a glimmer of their early acousto-harmony mix that makes the songs so interesting. The Vancouver based band managed to create a unique sound, what they call post-modern pop but what I think should be called dirty folk music on speed. The songs are fast, the lyrics are quirky and the harmonies are haunting. The result is a CD that you can pop in your car, crank that stereo up to 11 and slam on that gas pedal till you can feel that cool summer breeze in your face. Just make sure to keep your eyes peeled for cops. Nothing ruins a good road trip like a moving violation!

Here are some links that may help you out:

• Mother Mother Website
• Mother Mother on MySpace
• Mother Mother on New Music Canada
• Mother Mother on Last.fm

Everybody has their pet peeves. For some people, it’s nails being scratched along a chalkboard. For others, it’s people who are just generally stupid. For me, it’s moving (…although that last option isn’t bad either).

After four long years (and after having lived in two separate rooms in the place), I’ve given up the old Waterloo pad at 255 Keats Way (a.k.a. “Unit 701″, and for some reason even after he moved out for two years, “Tim’s Place”) and made the 10 minute drive to my new swinging love-nest at 45 Caroline Street North, pictured below.

The apartment’s great, walking distance to all amenities as well as the University, and I will really enjoy living there. In fact (and thanks to Porter for the link), it scores a 48 on the walk-ability index which is a vast improvement over the old apartment’s score of 18. I’ll really be enjoying the Waterloo Uptown living, which is where I hang out most of the time anyways.

But, honestly, I really hate moving. In my opinion, moving is the absolute worst thing I could spend my time doing. It’s so … unproductive. And trust me, I feel I’m qualified to make that statement having been an undergraduate co-op student and moving between cities more times than I’d care to recall. As I exclaimed (rather loudly) during the GSA Council meeting this week, I would rather die five consecutive times than move. The issue is that since I hate moving so much I decided that I would keep the old apartment for multiple years and not move. But that led to the foreseeable, yet unfortunate, side effect of accumulating a lot of crap over my years living in the old place. Now I have to figure out what I’m going to do with all my stuff which just won’t fit in the new place. I used to be able to move all my belongings (minus my mattress) in two car loads. Those days, as it seems, are long gone.

I’m about 75% done now and plan to finish up on the weekend. It hasn’t be going so well though. In fact, MacKinnon, who helped me move some large pieces of furniture mentioned to me that he never heard me drop the “F-Bomb” so many times as when we tried to move my pullout couch. But that being said, the new apartment has a pullout couch so if anyone needs a place to crash in Waterloo, drop me a line!

Well, it’s time for another edition of what’s becoming the only regular feature this blog has!

This months band hails from Charlottetown, PEI. They first appeared on my radar last November, when they opened for Joel Plaskett at the Starlight in Waterloo. In the past, I never really liked to go see opening bands. But lately I’ve discovered that opening bands are a good way to expand my musical horizons, so the concert crew and I decided to see what this band Two Hours Traffic was all about. Needless to say we were not disappointed! In fact, after their set, I immediately bought their Isolator EP from the table at the back of the show. Joel Plaskett, gave a solidly awesome performance, like he always does, but Two Hours Traffic was the highlight of the night!

Two Hours Traffic reduces Indie Rock to its purest form, with heavy emphasis on the rock part. In fact they can switch from power pop, to rock to alt-country with ease, making each song sound as good, if not better than the last. Their new album, Little Jabs, which was produced by Joel Plaskett, doesn’t disappoint. The album will be released physically on July 24th, but you can grab it digitally on the iTunes Music Store or Zunior.com now. Although it contains some songs off their Isolator EP, it’s a pretty sweet track list. If I had to pick a favourite track, it would probably be Heatseeker with its slow alt-country buildup and loud rocking finish!

Two Hours Traffic can be summed up with probably the greatest compliment in indie rock: solid! Here are some links that may help you out.

• Two Hours Traffic Website
• Two Hours Traffic on MySpace
• Two Hours Traffic on New Music Canada
• Two Hours Traffic on Last.fm

For the past 7 months, I’ve been trying to get back into shape. I’ve been doing pretty well too! I’ve noticeably lost some fat weight and gained some visible muscle mass. There’s been two secrets that I’m going to share with you on how I’ve been successful. Secret the first is that I’ve managed to work exercise into my daily schedule which makes it really easy to find the time to go the gym. Secret the second is that I’ve been setting short term fitness goals to challenge myself and keep my motivation up.

Now here’s the problem: I’m running out of fitness goals. My second last goal was to train so I could complete the 50km course on the Becel Ride for Heart in 2hrs or less, which I was able to do with no problems. Then I decided to go a little crazy! My next goal was to workout 6 times a week for a month. That was a little more difficult to complete, but with some creative rearranging of my schedule and diversifying my exercise so I could be active outside of gym hours I managed to knock that one down last week.

So, now I need some new short term goals to keep the motivation up! Anyone have any suggestions?

After the success of The O’Fishbein Factor and my highly sought after podcasting skills, my illustrious radio career is beginning! After finishing my studio training at CKMS, the University of Waterloo’s campus and community radio station, I’ve been awarded the opportunity to guest host the Thursday morning radio programming slot from 8am till 10am. I’ll be starting June 23rd till July 12th, then taking a 2 week break as the original host returns, and concluding by taking over the whole month of August. Format will be a music show, focusing on indie and small label Canadian bands which is what I’ve been listening to lately, in addition to my trademark radio banter. If you’re in the Waterloo area you can take a listen on 100.3 FM or on Rogers Digital Cable on channel 947. For the rest of you in the rest of the world, you can listen to the CKMS webcast on the Internet.

So I know where I’ll be June 23rd and onwards from 8am-10am … in the CKMS studio trying not to embarrass myself too much. Where will you be?

So I figure in order to gee me to update this blog more regularly, I have to get more regular features for the Blog. Since I listen to a lot of music, and most of that is music that generally unknown or unpopular, I figured once a month I’ll share the band that’s making the most headway on my iPod playlist. Of course, you can always keep track of my music taste in near-real-time by checking out my Last.fm profile!

I recently bought the latest A Northern Chorus CD, The Millions Too Many, from the iTunes Music Store. They had a song featured, Remembrance Day, on the ITMS a while back, and like most free ITMS songs, I listened to it quickly, downloaded it and never really listened to it much afterwards. Fast forward a couple weeks, and A Northern Chorus reappeared on my musical radar (can’t remember if it was from a CBC Radio 3 podcast or a Zunior.com podcast) and taking a quick look through my music library I found that free song I downloaded. So I started listening to it and was instantly hooked. So much so, that I bought the album a few weeks later. Now normally, I don’t like buying albums based only on a single song. I’ve made some terrible music purchases in the past based on that philosophy. But I was none disappointed by this purchase.

A Northern Chorus is band out of Hamilton that’s been around since 1999. I’ve heard some of their early stuff and it’s pretty low-fi and somewhat inaccessible to the average music listener. But The Millions Too May, is quite catchy a beautifully sounding. Most songs start a little slow and minimalistic, but gradually reach this crescendo of orchestral awesomeness! Like some hidden love child between Death Cab for Cutie and The Cure. The first three songs on the album give a killer 1-2-3 punch and I’ve been known to listen to them over and over again. So much so that I made the band’s weekly top listeners on Last.fm. 

Anyways, if you want to find out what Wikipedia describes as dream pop, or are just interested in some good indie Canadian music, got check out A Northern Chorus. Here are some links that may help you out:

• A Nothern Chorus Website
• A Northern Chorus on MySpace
• A Northern Chorus on New Music Canada
• A Northern Chorus on Last.fm

So I guess I owe everyone an apology since I haven’t updated this in a while. The truth is, after the resounding success of The O’Fishbein Factor (see here and here if you don’t believe me), and my subsequent blogging vacation, I really just forgot that I even had a blog!

But the recent efforts of O’Fishbein Factor Fan and former Imprint editor Tim Alamenciak have rekindled my blogging spirit. Tim’s started his @UW blog to tackle almost real-time current happenings a the UW campus which I can only assume is filling his post-Imprint free time block. And frankly, he’s doing a pretty good job. Not that I agree with everything he reports, though. His take on the C&D’s around campus proved to be lacking some facts. Most notably:

1. The prices at the EngSoc C&D were reported incorrectly (although the picture of the chalkboard with the prices was correct).
2. The EngSoc C&D has a single variety of Fair Trade coffee, not the “wide” variety as reported.
3. The MathSoc C&D is in fact the best place to go on campus if you’re looking for a brown, watery-tasting hot beverage.

But still, @UW is informative, timely and well updated (unlike this blog). Kudos Tim! And if you ever want to get into podcasting, look me up!

Someone tipped me off to this MyHeritage.com website that takes an image of your face and tells you what celebrities you look like. The Dick Cheney one is my personal favourite!