The Stormalongs @ Clinton's, 03/19/08

The guys played Clinton's, it was a good show. Not many people were there. Nim showed up to film the show. Paul was supposed to come but ended up at the wrong bar (classic). They gave out some Cd's after the show, so I guess we have a few more fans. I think they need to play a show on a weekend and promote the hell out of it, that would be a good move for the band.

now watch Guru Pitka and laugh!

My new bed

What a good night sleep. I wouldn't have even gotten out of bed if I didn't have to pee so bad! I love my new bed, even if it takes up most of my room.

I went to my first Japanese class. It will defiantly require me to do a lot of reading between classes in order to keep up. I really want to do well so I can speak with Koji in Japanese when I visit him later this year.

Bed assembly

I had to run back from the gym to meet the Ikea delivery guys. I spent the rest of the day assembling my new bed. Paul came over, we burned and he helped me with the drawers that go in the bottom of the bed.

We went to see the Stormalongs rehearse in the Heaven Room. I was so pooched I closed my eyes for a second and when I opened them, Nim was there, it was great to see my old roommate again. It was the longest rehearsal in a while, four hours! I did my patented scream on Kierkegaard.

I'm going to watch Robocop 2 and go to sleep in my brand new bed!

Ikea Sweedesh Meatball Time!

I spent the day with Mom, Grandma and Andy at IKEA. They hooked me right up. My room should look just like the catalog when the stuff gets delivered tomorrow. I want to say thank you so much for everything, to my Mom, I had fun hanging out! Thanks to Andy for being such a trooper and G-mo for being G-mo. You are the best!

Ode to Ikea
Swedish meatballs...
Modular Furniture...
Guys named Sven and Bjorn.

I walked Mom to Union Station, and we walked by Max Payne shooting at 1 King West. The building was all lit up, there were NYPD Police Cars, a SWAT van, fake subway stairs. They were adding snow around the sidewalk. It was cool.

HULK SMASH SAM RECORD MAN!

Sam the Record Man's final film role, in this summer's Incredible Hulk

The Stormalongs Rehearsal We were in the Pink Floyd room, can you tell? We have been runing into trouble with the amps at the Rehearsal Factory, Mo-Mo had the bogus amp this time, last time it was Colin.
The new songs are coming together nicely. Days Alight (Shake the trees) has a crazy cool intro that still needs some work, but it will sound awesome live.
The older stuff was easy as pie, and they rocked through them quick and painless.

The show is next Wednesday at Clinton's.

Rivers Speaks

The new Weezer will be out in June, according to the man himself from weezer.com:

"Hey Weezer punks,
We have one song left to mix and then it’s on to mastering. We should be all done very soon. Then we chill for a minute.
The album will be out in June so with any luck you will hear a new Weezer song on the radio soon. I think I know which song is the first single but I’m not sure so I can’t tell you. I’ll give you some hints, though. It’s one word, starts with a T, ends with an R and contains twelve letters. You should be able to figure it out because you’re smart li’l Weezer fans.
The album is meaty, crunchy and melodic like a good Weezer album should be.
Peace out,
-Rivers"

I can't wait to hear the new album, and Weezer always hits Toronto when touring, maybe I can even catch a Japan date when they go there.

Burn Me Down

I woke up at 8 to meet my Granny Mo at the Eaton Centre. When I went to shower, I smelled burning, so I went to the basement and some asshole left the oven on again. This is the note I left:

"Asshole,
You left the oven on all night, AGAIN
Thanks, now the whole house smells like burning
What are you trying to do, kill us?"

I had a good breakfast before I left the house. Grams gets help with her mac at the apple store. I met G-Mo right on time. We had a coffee and walked around. She had to hurry home so I took the subway back with her so we could try to finish our conversation. Good times.

I got home around noon and Governor Eliot Spitzer was on tv, resigning because of a lapse in judgment. He spent 80,000$ on whores! That's over a 10 year period, but still a rather large entertainment budget.

I made a great ham sandwich, Then I went and joined a gym. Seriously, I joined a gym. I even worked out after I got the tour. I ran on the treadmill for a half hour, felt really good.

My tax refund came in yesterday. I don't get to enjoy any of it, I guess I already did. It all went on my credit card. I was actually considering racking up some more debt with a crazy trip to California. I decided I really can't afford it, but I told Mikey about the good deal at Air Canada, and he booked a flight! Mikey is coming to Toronto for the first two weeks of April! We are gonna have some good times.

I have been having trouble finding the studio version of the new Smashing Pumpkins track Superchrist from Guitar Center's Fresh Tracks. We don't have Guitar Center in Canada. I found it thanks to Davin at Netphoria. I made it real easy with a rapidshare link right here; Smashing Pumpkins Superchrist.mp3

It's a heavy rocker they first introduced at the Fillmore shows last summer. It's evolved since then and it sounds great.

I'm going to be learning Japanese! I signed up for Japanese lessons at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre. It starts next week. I can't wait to go see Koji in Japan later this year and actually speak some Japanese!

Granny Mo lives right nearby, so I got to hang out with her. We walked to the Jccc and checked it out. They have a huge Daruma doll. I have a tiny one that Koji gave me when he came to visit in February. I made a wish and filled in one of the eyes. When I go to Japan I can fill in the other eye. It only has one eye, like me! My Grandma is really nice to talk to, and she is helping me with a lot of things right now.

I bought some shoes cause I'm thinking of joining a gym.

We sprang forward one hour. If I used my time more efficiently it may have actually affected my life.

I cleaned my bong today. It had developed a nasty stank, which led to nasty tokes. I went to Friendly Stranger and got some Orange Chronic bong cleaner and a new rubber gasket which was surprisingly easy to change. The cleaner got the stink out, thankfully.

I went over to Colin's house tonight. Matt came over too, acoustic jam session styles! They played some Stormalongs songs, and then there was the obligatory lute number(w/solo).

The Breeders, Phoenix Concert Theatre, Toronto Ontario 03/09/08

The fourth Breeders record (the first since 2002) doesn't come out in stores for another month, but they still rocked the Phoenix tonight with mostly new tracks.
They opened with Overglazed the first track off
Mounain Battles. They did a wicked cover of the Beatles Happiness is a Warm Gun. This is a picture of the Breeders rocking their hit Cannonball. Kelley Deal asked if everyone had downloaded the new record yet.

I went to see The Stormalongs jam session tonight. We were in the "heaven" room, which had topless angels on the wall, classy. The heat was cranked, and Colin's amp sucked (it had "no balls"), but the guys rocked it out anyways. Mo-Mo was sick with what could only be described as black death.

I got 50 Aeroplan points in the mail the other day, my first self addressed stamped envelope! Keep em' coming. The plan is to eventually fly to Japan in first class, which is 120,000 aeroplan miles.

Standing in the shadow of the Midnight Mansion, by the snowmobiler who is not supposed to be there, Gibson waits, cold and wet, and just in time for another round of the bowlaroos. Saturday April 14th 2001

Nine Inch Nails Ghosts I-IV

The new NIN is, you guessed it, free! I tried buying the cd version (2 discs and you get to download it right away) for 10$, but the shipping was 13$! Thats 23$, i'd be better off buying my music at the store! So I tried paying the 5$ to download it, but they were having problems with their website, so I finally just downloaded it without paying anything. The future is now.

It would be sweet to see Trent live.

Smashing Pumpkins - Soundcheck, Frankfurt 22/02/2008

I just finished watching the full video, it took me 2 days to download. If you haven't seen this, it's one of the coolest recordings I've seen since the 666Tape. This guy got to watch the band soundcheck a new song, and recorded the whole thing!

There is a 10 minute clip on youtube, a torrent of the full 49minutes is available from zomb.

Jeff Healey passed away, he was 41. We were both born with a rare form of Cancer called Retinoblastoma. It is a Cancer of the eyes that occurs 4 times in every 1,000,000 births. I lost my right eye, Jeff lost both of his. Contrary to what is being reported, he did not die of Retinoblastoma, as he had no eyes. He had a daughter who was born without cancer but his son was born with the disease. Apparently he didn't know having previously had cancer made him more likely to get other forms of cancer. He developed Cancer in his lungs and legs.

Smashing Pumpkins Are Free Agents!

Guitar Center has posted an interview with Smashing Pumpkins Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chaimberlain. The interview is to promote the release of Superchrist, a new studio track available exclusively on a new Guitar Center Compilation Cd offered at their stores. When Corgan is asked about the state of the music industry and the Pumpkins, he answers:

"Well, I’d say the best thing is that we’re out of a label deal – totally free agents. We we’re just talking about how we’re going to start addressing our artistic relationships with the world in a different manner because we don’t have to go through some parental structure of “we don’t like it and it’s not going to sell” – you know? We’re excited about the prospects of sort of being our own business people in terms of how it interrelates business."

Corgan is no doubt referring to Virgin Records refusal to release Machina ii:F&EOMM.
The Smashing Pumpkins began their career with singles on indie labels Limited Potential and Sub Pop, putting out their first record Gish on Caroline(a Virgin affiliate). After Gish the Pumpkins formally signed with Virgin Records, where they released the bulk of their albums.

After Machina: The Machines of God, their obligations to Virgin complete, the Pumpkins offered the label a bonus, Machina ii:The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music. Virgin declined to release it, so the band gave 25 vinyl copies of the record to fans, who spread it over the internet.

The Pumpkins broke-up in 2000, Billy Corgan released a solo record in 2005 on Reprise Records (A Warner Music Group Company).

The Smashing Pumpkins reformed in 2007 and released Zeitgeist on Reprise. On January 1st of this year the Pumpkins released American Gothic exclusivly on the American Itunes store.

With big name acts like Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, and now The Smashing Pumpkins directly in control of the distribution of their music the future of the industry has never been more exciting for music fans and never more bleak for the Corporate suits.

Weezer, Phoenix Concert Theatre, Toronto Ontario 08/31/00

I was living at my Dad's house in Parry Sound, it was the summer. I had my first job, washing dishes at Resort Tapatoo. I was on my break reading the concert announcements in the Toronto Star, and I was shocked, I couldn't believe what I saw. Weezer was going to play Toronto.

I got 2 tickets, I knew I could convince Colin it was worth the trip. I actually didn't plan on staying in Parry Sound. I hated the school and I missed O'Gorman. I figured I'd go back to Timmins with Colin and stay at his house till I figured something out. His mom gave the o.k. and the plan was hatched. Colin took the bus to Parry Sound and we partied.

I had a huge bottle of rum, this is Colin and I enjoying Rum and Lemon.


We took the bus to Toronto and went to wait in front of the Phoenix. Some girls were already waiting, and they had an extra ticket which they sold to this guy Mark, who lived across the street. He let us use his bathroom which was great after Colin went for food and came back with Steerburger. we waited out front all afternoon, which was a good idea cause look who showed up:


It's Weezer's drummer Patrick Willson and Weezer's Karl Koch, Karl Koch!Colin was like "Hey Pat! Is it true Rivers wears disguise so fans don't recognize him? Like I hear he wears a fake beard and a Nor'easter!" Pat confirmed Rivers often travels incognito.

The opening act was Dynamite Hack

Weezer played Mad Kow, a rocking track they still haven't put on an album.

After the show we slept outside the bus station. When it opened, Colin tried to wake me and then went inside. I woke up on the sidewalk, looking in the bus station to see Colin asleep on the bench.

We got back to Parry Sound and Roly drove us to Timmins.