May 30, 2007

"I hate everything that I don't own" -M. Gira

Not to quote him out of context or anything.
The great thing about not writing a blog entry in over 2 weeks --and I know it's been longer than that-- is that when you finally come back to it, you have tons to write about. Ergo, I've tons to write about.

Last wednesday I went to see Bjork in deer lake park with Stella. I said, "The gates are opening at five, so we should get there at four." Stella told me it would be an old crowd who wouldn't show up until the gates opened. She said, "Remember how we got to Lisa Germano an hour early and had nothing to do?" And granted, that was my idea, but as I told Stella, "Lisa Germano isn't Bjork." We wound up pretty much right at the front. And what can I say about it? It's Bjork. Whenever I go to a concert, I always think it's the best I've been to.

Before jazz on sunday, Stella, Fab and I went to the opening of a little restaurant at 49th and fraser. We met a woman who told us about a place called the Butcher Shop that has an open mic night once a month. She gave us her card and told us to email her for more info. Fab and I then proceeded to the End. The band had a different bassist whose name was Ian. He was certainly something! They played Blues for Alice, which is always a treat, and told us they'd have to start giving us a cut from the tip jar for showing up every week.

That same day, I was going to lend Fab The Perks of being a wallflower, as it is a somewhat Catcher in the rye-esque book. He wound up forgetting it, and this prompted me to read it. I finished it and liked it as much as the first time I read it.

Colin was sick last week, so there was no sax lesson. He was well enough to teach yesterday, though. He told me he'd only be teaching for another month, as "things are getting too hectic." He said he'd recommend someone at the end of the month.

Fab made me promise to write the guitar solo (that I've been supposed to write for over a month) "the next time I pick up the guitar." I wrote it today, finally. I found a way to make dying pig noises using the phaser. I find them much more expressive than dying cat noises. Those are mostly unplanned dissonance.

May 7, 2007

One day I will cover the entire Man Machine album by Kraftwerk.

It seems monday is the blog day. I just don't feel inclined to write during the rest of week, you understand.

I'm supposed to write a guitar solo for the piece Fab and I have been working on. Well, I've been supposed to write it for a few weeks. Now Fab's cracking down: "I want this bitch recorded by next week!!" He's also always saying that since half of it is written, I may as well improvise the rest. "[Nils] is probably the only one who's ever gonna listen to it. And it's not like he's gonna go, 'Hmm, that sounds like unplanned dissonance!!' or 'That last bar didn't sound like a cat dying!!'". On the other hand, the jazz hand, we've been trying to play better blues than, you know, wanking guitar solo blues. (Even though it's always time for a wanking guitar solo.) I'm slowly improving. My sax homework this week is to steal an idea from Mr. Parker.

We went to the see the live jazz last night, but we were only joined by Luan, and even then, not til halfway through the second set. During the break, Steve (the drummer) sat down at our table. We talked for quite a while. He said he'd been playing drums for twenty years, but jazz for just one. He asked what kind of music we play. I said, "Well, we've been debating what to call it for a while. I say it's called chamber rock," and Fab said, "And I insist that it's prog rock". Steve said, "I love prog rock!", and we got into this long conversation about prog rock, and he gave us his list of Prog Rock Classics.

The last tune was Well You Needn't by Mr. Melodious Thunk, during which Joel (the bassist) quoted my favourite Coltrane tune, Syeeda's Song Flute.

And I met Eliot the other day. She was pretty tiny, but bigger than I expected. You couldn't put her in your lapel or anything.