Description 22 - The Last Spike

Live (uh, a month a half ago) and direct from a VIA train from Kingston, I try to figure out what to say about what rail travel means to Canada. We also do a soundseeing tour of Toronto's Union Station with someone who knows what she's talking about, yet can't steal one of those neat goody bags with William Shakespeare's picture on it.

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Click here to download directly like you're curled up in coach to Winnipeg.

Associated links:
VIA Rail!
Official Kingston, Ontario website
The Last (Canadian) Spike in Wikipedia
Silver & Blue class on The Canadian from Toronto to Vancouver
Doors Open Toronto
Toronto Railway Historical Association (who took us on our tour, so support them!)
Ninjalicious (RIP) infiltrates Union Station
Steam Whistle at the Roundhouse
Stratford Express

Holy crap, was I zoned on the train. I must've had 8 hours sleep in the previous two days. And many of those awake hours were not always sober. But hey, to be in Tod Maffin's suite at 1am watching Shelagh Rogers play some crazy-ass card game? What the hell. Did I mention I didn't even talk to to her, even though I'm a fan and took something from one of her lockout podcasts for Description 06? Er...yeah.

(Update: March 30, 2007:When I go up the stairs into Union Station, a cute '80's song runs through my head, which pisses me off. The song is "Every Little Tear" by Paul Janz, and it runs in my head because much of the video was filmed in Union Station. So admire the architecture and try to get the hook out of your head. I'm sorry in advance.)


Some useless trivia: I recorded my own uneducated soundseeing tour of Union Station before I took a train to London to The Pursuit of Happiness' New Year's show last December, but somewhere along the line, I lost the file. So when I heard Doors Open snagged the station for the 2006 edition, I said, "hey!" Off the top of my head, I think I have at least 3 other Doors Open soundseeing tours, so we'll see if I can wring themes from them.

Since Taste of the Danforth came and went last weekend, I looked back and found that Description 01 (which featured Taste of the Danforth) was dated August 18, 2005. So I guess we can call it a year. YIKES. I gotta say, I have been from the depths to the heights in the last 12 months, and not much of it had to do with having a podcast. It had a lot to do with why I only squeezed out 22 episodes, though. I've gone from depression to having to finish this post quickly in time for a Yahoo Messenger video chat with my boyfriend in San Diego (!). I have a boyfriend! That's pretty f'd up. But I'm very thankful for the remarkable things that have come my way, and I'm thankful for you for bothering with this little dog-and-pony show I put on.

I'd be more thankful if you can tip me to any software where I can do video and audio chat from Mac to PC without Skype and without a frigging firewire cam (like iChat requires). :-)

Description 21 - Cleveland

It's the North Coast, it's the place Ian Hunter said rocks, it's where I was born - which I'll mention way too many times as I stumble around the debris of my lame-ass youth. Includes music by the Michael Stanley Band, a movie theatre that became a bakery, a life-size photo of Dan Marino and a band playing Outkast on an old freighter ship.

Click here to subscribe like you're on the Innerbelt.
Click here to download directly like you gotta take the 480.

Associated links:
Cleveland.com
University Circle
Cleveland Clinic (who took care of Mom!)
The Michael Stanley Band discography for download
The Cool Cleveland blog/podcast
PopMatters visits Cleveland Heights
Coventry Village
Cleveland Free Times
Cleveland Scene
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum
The Goodtime III

As I was recording the intro, it was early that morning, and saying the date, I realized it was my brother's 45th birthday. Mentioning that, my voice had a bit of melancholy to it because we haven't spoken for a few years. It's one of those long, stupid stories families have, unfortunately. When I was home, I only heard his voice on a voice message on my parents' cellphone giving a contact number in case of emergency, as he and his current wife were camping.

Editing, I noticed two main themes people might get from this episode: 1) I'm an old person obsessed with how things have changed or stayed the same, 2) no matter how significant certain places might be to me, they're not terribly distinct from places like them in many other towns. There are a lot of Coventrys out there, I suspect, just waiting for angst-ridden pseudo-intellectual kids like I was. I hope you had (or still have) yours.

The MSB track was taken from a greatest hits collection called Right Back At Ya', and the song was originally found on the album You Can't Fight Fashion, both of which you can find at the link on the list above. To give another idea of the band's popularity at the time, MSB eclipsed Bruce Springsteen to set the attendance record at the local major amphitheatre, Blossom Music Center, which holds a little under 20,000 people. And sure enough, classic rock station WNCX is still around and Michael Stanley is still on afternoon drive, God bless him and his rich, low voice.

Oh, and the mixtape? The song before the MSB track is "Breakin' My Heart (Pretty Brown Eyes)" by Mint Condition, and the song after is "Justifed and Ancient" by the KLF featuring Tammy Wynette. Those were the days, man....

Great Big Day Job Update!

So I was just perusing Boing Boing as I often do, and there's this story from Cory Doctorow about the National Film Board of Canada putting many of their legendary short films online for free. Of course, that's great news for most people, but for me, I had to go over there to see if any of my day job stuff was up there yet.

Y'see, starting last fall, in my day job - described video for the vision-impaired - we started doing A TON of work for the NFB, describing a big chunk of their catalogue. It was done for this huge online project they're undertaking. Well, it's finally coming to fruition, and it looks like they're starting with the animation. The hardest films to do, not surprisingly, were some of the legendary films of Norman McLaren. Considering his groundbreaking animation techniques and the utter lack of dialogue in them (much less linear narrative), you may wonder how the hell someone could describe it all for the blind. Well, we wondered too, as did the NFB and the McLaren estate, which is why we went through months of meetings and focus groups and yadda yadda. And in the end, we all decided to do a little more description than we usually do, adding a tiny line about the techniques used to give people an idea why this stuff is such a big deal. In the end, we're pretty happy with how it all turned out, and evidently so is everyone else - a movie or two showed at Cannes this year as they gear up for the release of a DVD box set of McLaren which will include our work, and now the films are starting to appear on this new part of the NFB/ONF website here (for the French, click "Francais" at the top).

When you go there, in the drop-down menu, select "films+described video" and you'll have your choices. Also select described video in the preferences when it asks you whether you want high-speed and all that stuff. (Note: this whole thing is Quick Time only.) Play what you want, and for the English versions, you'll hear me saying what's going on if you're vision-impaired (btw, I think the site is supposed to be accessible to screen readers, but i'm not sure), or if you just want to listen while you're surfing somewhere else or don't feel like looking. Neato!

Coincidentally, the website for my day job is alive and open to all. I wasn't directly involved in putting it together - way more patient people than me pulled it off. So head to www.audiovisioncanada.com for the final word on what the hell it is I do, with info other projects you can hear (on tv in Canada or VoicePrint online), how to buy more of it or have it done for your tv show or movie.

Okay, back to editing the Cleveland podcast. Ain't it amazing what you can learn by procrastinating?

Description 20 - NXNE '06 part 2

From my balcony, I offer the last Podcasters Across Borders review in the podosphere while trying to listen for race cars. Then it's time for Saturday night at North By Northeast, with music from Kate Schutt and Galore after we don't stand too close to Stewart Copeland.

Click here to subscribe and have your canary in a coalmine.
Click here to download directly if there's too much information.

Associated links:
Podcasters Across Borders
IndieCan
dicks&janes podcast
The Sniffer podcast
The Ottawa Local Podcast
Molson Grand Prix of Toronto
Official Stewart Copeland Site
stewartcopeland.co.uk
Interview with cbc.ca about Everyone Stares
Kate Schutt and at myspace (please check out her sites and buy stuff - I didn't ask her permission to record her!)
Crash Kelly
Galore and at myspace and buy the new album!

Hey, you see my Yahoo avatar? (On my blog, for those of you getting this from an rss reader.) Cute, eh? My thighs are just that small and my eyes are just that big. It does effect my balance as I walk down the street. :-)

While Kate Schutt was listed in the NXNE grid as being from Boston, I have learned she has been living in Guelph, Ontario. (Go ahead. Say "guelph". GWELF! Isn't it fun to say?) Perhaps another ex-pat then? The kismet just doesn't stop! Btw, Kurt Swinghammer joined Kate at the end of her set for a terrific cover of Sheila E's "The Glamorous Life." Just a wonderful thing to stumble across. I wonder if this is making up for not asking her permission yet....

Of course, I also didn't ask Stewart Copeland for his permission either, but I did give him lots of time to promote the movie, which for the record is titled "Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out". The Police was the band who changed how I think about music. I'd always been into just whatever was on K104 or FM96, maybe showing early signs of loving dense vocal harmony by digging Daryl Hall & John Oates (hey! don't judge!). Then I ran across The Police - I don't even remember how anymore - and they blew my mind. It was all these aesthetics mixed together and put out with such high musicianship (especially Andy Summers, who Copeland admits is the star of this movie). Sting was of course compelling and could write a hell of a song, and there was Stewie, all wiry and cute and jumping around and beating the crap out of a drum set. Man, it was awesome. And a couple years later, they gave me my primer on my favourite band breaking-up-but-not-quite-breaking-up, wisdom I'd use with The Pursuit of Happiness. I loved Sting's first solo album, bought the second one, then my interest started to trail off. I peek in on Andy's work and Stewart's work on scores (you can just tell...) and work with Oysterhead. People grow up and their loves evolve, and it's cool. But to see these guys jumping around on a snowy hill, to see Stewart at a big show playing his drums but chatting with his camera over his shoulder about how cool it is? I'm a giggling schoolgirl with a scoliosis brace again.

Description 19 - NXNE '06 part 1

We appreciate the 3 nights everyone comes to Toronto to rock and talk. Enjoy the distorted music of Stella Panacci, C'mon and White Cowbell Oklahoma - and the metal picnic tables of the new Pennsylvania Welcome Center.

Click here to subscribe like you have a wristband.
Click here to download directly like you're paying the cover in each club.

Associated links
North By Northeast official site
ChartAttack's NXNE video blog (with clips of C'mon and WCO! Also check out the legendary Report Cards
Stella Panacci
C'mon - The Official Site of Rock!
White Cowbell Oklahoma
Opening of the new Pennsylvania Welcome Center on I-90 at the New York line

Sorry much of the music is distorted, but you're only just supposed to get a feel for the stuff anyway. Hear that, lawyers?

The first time I saw the Cowbell, it was about 4 or 5 years ago at the Reverb (a club we'll visit in the next episode). There were 9 guys on the fairly large stage; most of them slinging guitars and wearing fu-manchu-ish mustaches and beat-up cowboy hats. One guy not slinging a guitar was dressed like a sheriff, wearing mirrored shades and toting a shotgun. The remaining guy was behind the keyboards: called "The Wizard," he was clean-shaven with a conical wizard's hat and cape, and wore a Washington Wizards (NBA) t-shirt. The Wizard was the only one allowed to play the titular white cowbell.

There was some wrestling match later - I can't remember who was in that one. Elvis, I think. Elvis and Santa Claus? Or did Santa Claus wrestle Satan later? They all glom together... So anyway, you can tell now that the Cowbell is the kind of rock show that could fit in just fine at a Fringe Theatre festival. The guys in Edinburgh should check them out. And if you're a long-time listener (seriously? God bless you, dude!) and find this Cowbell stuff familiar, in the 6 Ross episode, someone had just come from a White Cowbell housewarming party. Yes, the mind does reel. :-)

And yes, Mom is doing very well now, thank you.

Description 18 - Valerie Takes the Streetcar

(Note: this blog post has an update at the end.)

Dubber, Spoons and Queen Victoria: three members of the Commonwealth worth a tribute, and that's what I give while riding a Red Rocket. May include a possibly illegal amount of music from The Supers, a sting-y little wasp, and the Mystery of the Missing Golf Course.

Click here to subscribe, so your podcasts come automatically like the Spadina streetcar.
Click here to download directly, chasing after episodes like an Entertainment District cab on a Saturday night.

Associated links:
Victoria Day!
Dubber and Spoons Take the Bus
Dubber's blog, The Wireless
Spoons' photoblog
Spoons at DeviantART
The Supers
Graham Powell of The Supers on tour in Europe
Graham's myspace (with amazing solo demos!)
The Spadina Streetcar in Transit Toronto
Harbourfront Centre

Yes, we Canadians have the sense to start summer with a three-day weekend a whole week earlier than the Americans. For those new to Canadian culture, it's known as the "2-4 weekend" for three basic reasons: 1) while we celebrate Queen Victoria's birthday on the fourth Monday in May, her actual birthday was May 24, 2) Victoria Day weekend often includes the 24th anyway, 3) a "2-4" is a case of 24 beers, and taking those cases up to the cottage is as much a part of this holiday weekend as...well, as blowing up fireworks you bought off the back of a truck in the local Dominion parking lot. I still haven't figured that part out yet.

Y'know, The Supers is not all about Graham, although I played two songs he wrote and sings lead on. It's actually the collaboration of him and Maury LaFoy, who I first knew from playing bass in Danny Michel's band in those unforgettable gigs at C'est What. In fact, I had gone to see Danny play at the Hillside Festival a few years ago, and after his set, I wandered to another pavilion, which was where The Supers played, and I just fell in love with their stuff. Maury writes some of the songs, which he sings, and Graham writes some, which he sings. Maury's kind of the Lennon (rocky, sardonic) to Graham's McCartney (smart, but pretty). And I guess I'm just in more of a McCartney mood these days... Btw, the guys are finally putting out a new album soon, so keep checking that gorgeous official site of theirs, with designs by local art/music hero Kurt Swinghammer.

When I first moved to Toronto, there was no Spadina streetcar, but a Spadina bus. So beloved (or reviled by some) was it, The Shuffle Demons did a song about it. You can hear a sample of it on CDBaby, and I highly recommend you do. Where it cuts off, they're singing "77B, on the TTC / Now 77A, well I guess that's okay / give me 77B / on the T-T-T-T-T-T-C!" Those were the different routes. The streetcar line I ride in the episode has only been around since 1997 (the Queen and King Red Rockets are way older), but it's MY streetcar line.

Update Dec. 4, 2006: Hey, look! It's the "Spadina Bus" video! I found it on the Shuffle Demons' myspace page when they asked to be my friend! Thanks, guys! Isn't Web 2.0 awesome? :-)

Description 17 - Jane Jacobs and the Annex

Celebrating my neighbourhood and another American immigrant who helped make it what it is. Featuring music by Jennifer Foster, little boys play-wrestling, and the unwelcome strains of James Blunt.

Click here to subscribe, so it can download automatically as you go to a park with your kids.
Click here to download directly as you drive your gas-hogging SUV to a big box store on the outskirts of what used to be your town.

Associated links:
Jane Jacobs' house in Flickr
Jane Jacobs via the Project For Public Spaces
cbc.ca on Jane Jacobs
(and video from shortly after she moved to Toronto!)
Ideas That Matter
Robert Fulford interview
The Annex in Wikitravel
Jennifer Foster (and on Maplemusic and myspace)

Jennifer Foster was also mentioned in Description 05 when I missed her opening for MonteForte. Koop called her "J-Fo". :-)

As usual, there was a lot to cut from the soundseeing, so most of it is spent among the tree-lined streets and old houses. I'll have to do another one where I walk Bloor Street proper and talk about the stores and stuff. I didn't mention the Bloor Cinema, Trinity-St. Paul's Church (the home base of the world-famous Tafelmusik baroque orchestra and chamber choir), not even The Tap where Moe and Dave do their DJ thang.

And then there's Future Bakery, where I wrote the essay for this episode. I'd been having some writer's block and also needed a late Sunday brunch, so I went over there to take care of bizness. When I got there, I noticed that across Brunswick Ave. at the side door of the Brunswick House, a group of people were standing around, one of them sitting on the steps with a laptop. I recognised that these were members the improv/sketch group The Sketchersons, who I think were waiting to be let in to rehearse their Sunday Night Live show for later. One of them was the stand-up comic Fraser Young, whose work I admire and on whom I've had a persistent crush for about two years. I admitted as much when I added him as a friend on myspace, and he took it well. So I got a table by the window at Future, had my bacon and eggs (and those spicy home fries!), nursed my coffee and basically stared at the guy from across the street, with his emo windbreaker and soul patch and laid-back non-stoned-Mitch-Hedberg delivery, being all patient and stuff. Well, it's not like I was stalking! I didn't know the dude would be there! And I got my writing done - stalkers aren't very productive while they're stalking, are they? No. So there.

Did I go over and say hi? C'mon, you've been listening to this podcast long enough to know I wouldn't. I just ate and wrote and hawked until some kid finally let the Sketchersons into the Brunny. So thank Fraser for sort of...but not...helping me get my podcast done.

Damn, I love my neighbourhood.

Addendum: Great news from the Tony nominations in NYC: The Drowsy Chaperone, which started here at the Toronto Fringe, has been nominated for a crapload of awards, including Best Musical and Best Book for another crush of mine, the ubiquitous Don McKellar. Meanwhile, a young actress I worked with on my description day job once, Alison Pill, has gotten a nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Play for her work in The Lieutenant of Inishmore. Yay, everybody! And don't make Elaine Stritch kick you in the shins!

CBC podcasts, Grits and Danny Michel

Well, here comes the big CBC podcasting coming-out party, several months after we were all hunkered together at a downtown Casey's with unformed dreams inflating our heads as the guy with the biggest dreams, Tod Maffin, was poking away at his Sidekick.

For those who don't feel like going over there right now, it kinda goes like this: you have a new best-of-the-week podcast from a favourite show per day all week, then there are various not-all-radio-content (uh, I think...) shows with various release frequencies (CBC Radio 3 is in that group, along with a version of Sounds Like Canada), then you have weekly shows covering each region.

I've tested a couple of these. My favourite CBC show, Definitely Not the Opera (updated Sundays), had lots of original host content from the always fabulous Sook-Yin Lee, but mainly featured an interview FROM FEBRUARY with Ricky Gervais. That may have been a pilot episode, since the whole schmeer just started. I'm hoping from here on in, the content will be from the previous day's show. However, the As It Happens podcast, to be updated each Friday, did have content from the past week, including a fine interview with former Toronto mayor John Sewell about the late great Jane Jacobs (more about her next podcast episode). So far, then, a well-intentioned but mixed bag. Dig in there and see what you can come up with. Oh, and Tod or whoever: why not link the show photos on the podcast page to the show's main site so new listeners can find out more? And btw, congratulations on making it this far, Tod. It's a major achievement.

Another update: Michael Ignatieff has been joined in the Liberal leadership race by a couple other guys who could qualify for his category of smart-guys-you-wish-would-run-for-office-but-then-what. Ken Dryden is known for two things: being a legendary hockey goalie and being a verbose egghead. (obviously I can relate to the verbose part) Posing probably a more serious challenge may be Gerard Kennedy, who has a couple provincial government years under his belt, but who I know best as being the guy who ran the Daily Bread Food Bank for a while. If Scott Feschuk writes his speeches, I'm afraid my heart may head for a fall. :-) So anyway, now there may be too many aspiring philosopher kings in this fight. Let's see which one gains his senses first.

And now for Danny Michel. Sigh. I've been an unsettlingly big fan of this guy for several years. I have made THREE attempts to do a podcast episode about him, and aborted all of them. Why? If I could explain here, I would've finished one of those podcasts by now. But this much I can do. Or maybe I can't, but I'll do it anyway.

Danny's FINALLY releasing his next album next month, stocked mainly with songs I've been hearing him play live for about two frickin' years. He and his people (he has a couple of them at least) have started the promotion thing going for it with a welcome redesign of his site, including a "sampler" of many of the album's tracks. So if I don't have the balls to ask him if I can play one of his songs in full someday, you can hopefully enjoy this skip tra-la through this upcoming opus Valhalla. Pay particular attention to one clip near the end for something called "Midnight Train", which is such a single, I can barely contain myself. Then go to his site's free mp3 page and download everything, then go to his space at Maplemusic and buy all the damn albums. Thank you.

Now here's the sampler for download.

(Note: I realised the podcast subscribers would have no idea what this thing is when it pops into their feed, so I added a little intro reading the last two paragraphs of this post. To avoid the redundancy, you can fast forward about 3 minutes in to get to the juicy music. Thanks!)

Description 16 - Le Rocket

It's about a great hockey player, a guy who finds his voice and inspires millions to find theirs. We (yes, we) go to a movie that shows how much better the Quebecois are at telling and listening to their own stories, while the Anglos may be better at matching NHL team colours of paint.

Cliquez-ici pour abonnement!
Téléchargez ici!

Warning: I have no pretentions that my French is any good.

Associated links:
"Rocket" Richard exhibition at the Museum of Civilisation
The Rocket/Maurice Richard @ IMDB
Playback Magazine on the English Canada release
Roy Dupuis @ IMDB
Roy Dupuis @ Canoe (Francais)
Official Montreal Canadiens site
Les Pierrafeu!

Already I know I screwed up because I pronounced it "pierrefeu" when it's "pierrafeu," which is a truncation of "pierre à feu" which pretty much means "Flintstones". Yet Fred and Wilma (Délima) do not have the last name Flintstone, but Caillou! What the-?

I could go on for days on that one, and thankfully, I won't.

Okay, back to The Rocket. I want to give some props to the actors you hear in the clips. Of course, you have Roy Dupuis as Maurice. The Anglo actor Stephen McHattie plays legendary Canadiens coach Dick Irvin (whose son became just as legendary for calling hockey games on Hockey Night In Canada). And a guy even more ubiquitous in Quebec than Dupuis while looking entirely different, Rémy Girard, played Maurice's barber to provide the voice of the people. Art-film snobs may remember Girard as the dying professor in one of the most globally successful Quebec films ever, The Barbarian Invasions (a sequel to another massive Quebec film, The Decline of the American Empire). He was also the coach in the more-than-massive series of Les Boys movies, which made more money in Quebec than any Hollywood film up against them. I don't think anyone in Quebec is allowed to make a movie without Girard in it. Also, I totally edited out Julie LeBreton as Maurice's wife Lucille because I already had too much. She does a very good job for having not much to do, a there's a nice love story in there. Just letting you know it's not entirely a Guy movie.

That night after the film, I went to the GTA Podcasters Meetup, which was pretty fun. Big thanks to Craig of the Tangents podcast for putting it together. Some great people there I already have links to over on the right. I think what really struck me was how great the video podcasters were. Not that they weren't supposed to be great...I just haven't gotten into video podcasts (mainly because I'm such an audio person and I have a hard time with .m4v) and didn't know much about the people making them. Last week I finally got into Jim Dupree: Enthusiast, which is hilarious, and met "the other guy," Tristan, at the meetup. I also met Kim and Patrick from Cooking Kitty Corner and Michael from Life's a Journey, and now from what I've seen, both podcasts are as funny and real and - dare I say - sweet as their creators.

Awwwww...

Video: TPOH @ the Indies

If you liked that last piece in Description 15, here's the video version, which I think has much better sound anyway (I could only get my iTunes to play the audio). As I don't have a snazzy video iPod, I have to take the word of our friend Peter, and the word of our favourite drummer and pub manager Dave Gilby, who converted it and was kind enough to send it along.

See why Bob Lefsetz said, "Moe Berg, in his cardigan that nobody would wear, and seemingly polyester tight-pegged pants, was alive with the spirit of rock and roll." Although I must disagree about the cardigan part.

Download here!
(and tell me if I've screwed this up, because I've never put a video in the feed before.)

Update, June 19, 2007: Bah. Let's just do this. Sorry, they edited out the cardigan and the F word.
Though really, Moe Berg is all about the cardigan and the F word.