FUN TIME IS THE ONLY TIME

the weekend trip to kingston "blew my mind" as they say in high school. broken tables, bleeding people, yup, it was all there. the tsunami relief was a success, and possibly FUN!'s best show ever. we still haven't totally decided on the cause quite yet, as we're interested now in maybe contributing to AIDS fighting in africa or perhaps assistance to darfur people uprooted by janjaweed. iraqi civilian projects may also be considered. i think we'll leave it open to each act, who came across a good bit of money from the night.

this week we'll feature the more music from some of the people i met through the event. hamilton's eckart brothers were present at the gig, all from different bands: flatt street, the deviance and the escape goats. at the after show pary they let us in on some of the songs they sing together as brothers. i'm a huge fan of "keep your pants on, harold", which i hope one day we can hear live on ESB. i'd love to have these guys on the show. be sure to check out their label, drinking cap for som news on the hamilton scene and fresh tunes from their growing roster of musicians.

ESB PLAYLIST 1/14/05

DJ BC (aka the Beastles) - Hold it Togteher Now
* from the b--boys / fab four mashup one of the more creative and enjoyable mashups that goes a bit old skool. went around the net about a month ago but as far as i know, the project has been taken down.

TAPE-BEATLES - America is Confident
PUBLIC WORKS - Vesicle
* the tape-beatles and public works are the same artists with two distinct projects which the bastard pop mashup scene playing at those horrid "hipster" clubs owes its entire existence to.

DESTROYER ft. FROG EYES - New Ways of Living
* a nice collaboration, from a cbc session.

OF MONTREAL - Know Your Onion
* it's always nice to hear a good cover, but when does anyone do a shins song? outside of campus coffee houses, i'd think pretty much never. this is a treat that only the internet can really provide.

THE DEVIANCE - Fringe Funk
THE DEVIANCE - The Devil is the Father of all Deviation
* This Hamilton five piece has adapted John Wyndam's The Chrysalids into a tongue in cheek rock opera. you can downoad the album for free here.

SARAH RUBA - Please Send Me Someone to Love
FLATT STREET - My Heart
FLATT STREET - Big Scoop
* they've just released a new album and they're about to take their act to another level. the addition of sarah ruba on vocals for This Dog is Big allows for a further exploration of the grey area surrounding jazz. more from these guys on friday.

SCOTT HERREN - 3 untitled tracks from "Soul Outtakes"
PIANO OVERLORD - Recuerdas
* as promised last week, more from prefuse 73's solo and side projects. these two, in my opinion, eclipse any work that he did on savath and savalas. it might not be as busy or musically explorative as his better known work but its cohesion and solidity warrant some serious attention.

RAZOM - Nas Bagato
* the hip hop song from ukraine's orange revoltuion that became a rallying cry for hundreds upon thousands on the streets during the post-election protests in november and december.

over the next few weeks, we're going to start some serious non-ESB work for CIUT. hopefully, we can have our one hour feature on stephen marhsall's q+a session and screenign at the drake in december. he is guerilla news network's creative director and one of its founders. he spoke at length about the fundamental need for progressive news and culture to stop pidgeon-holing itself into alienation.

we're also aiming to produce a special in the spring about the annex neighbourhood in toronto based loosely around jack batten's new book. i hope for jack to give me a personal walking tour of the neighbourhood and go over some things that the book wasn't able to cover. i'll try and get in touch with the guys from the [murmur] project since they've done some of their own annex history digging as well.

let's hope we have the drive to get it done.

- guy stevos