FameFame hosted a party called Unknown.Unknown. this weekend at a secret location in the middle of Toronto.



Perhaps there's a reason they only party once a year at this location. It's as cold as a frozen hell, and it can be rather dangerous. Without a flashlight, I would have fallen into the many holes in the ground that once held factory parts, or tripped over the train tracks running through the tunnels, or walked into one of the protruding pipes or machine parts sticking out of the walls or hanging from the ceiling.



Getting in there was crazy enough. After trudging through ravines, sliding down their leafy, mud covered slopes, we made it to the location to find two stages, both playing drum n' bass and banger type stuff, and some strange ambient droning coming from god-knows-where. Still, It was safe enough to get around, provided you shone your flashlight at every step. Rain leaked in from the roof every few yards, and the dirt floor of the factory was so muddy that a whole new sole developed on my shoes.



We ventured up a staircase, and then things got weird. I took a piss, and returned to find not a single person I knew. I spent the next two hours wandering around looking for people, and saw some bewildering things along the way. In one room, some art freaks had set up a glass case where a live woman lie still, on her side, in a strange drag-queen kind of costume, just staring back at all the people who gazed upon her. Gas generators blasted in abandoned corners, blowing the stench of gasoline all over the place. In the darkness it was hard to tell the ghosts from the people.

I found my friends near one stage where some incredible disco was hammering away through some powered speakers. You had to move your feet or they'd get stuck in the mud, so it was a good opportunity to bust some moves, despite the crowded environs. We left the stage, and after a journey through a brick pit, we ventured down the rail corridor, only to find a full-on lamb roast being administered by a dude in a medieval metalsmith outfit. He had a huge sword, and every once in a while, he'd turn the lamb over and make strange gestures. When the lamb was ready, we reached in and snagged pieces off with our bare hands, and it was mighty good. Oh, and the whole time, a freshly severed pig's head sat on a post as the riton for our ceremony.





The pig roast, followed by the exodus from the rickety staircase, madness in the dark, and finally, dancing to ragga-jungle, and then some disco.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

.1 Our fundraising show will be coming up in two weeks time. Support CIUT and The Electric Sound Basement with your pledges! We'll talk more about it the coming days, but you can check out CIUT for details.

.2 Next Tuesday, drop by our studios at 91 St. George St. on the U of T campus for a 12 hour outdoor Halloween special. I'm more than likely going to appear as Wolfman Jack, and the show will feature a horror-copia of event-appropriate music from the likes of Screamin Jay Hawkins, The Creping Nobodies, and more.

.3 For fans of Old Time Relijiun and The Blood Brothers, check out The Kettle Black from Vancouver on Thursday at Ciao Edie.

ESB PLAYLIST 10/24/06

BONDE DO ROLE - Melo Do Tobaco (A-Trak Remix)
OMNIKROM - Achete-Moi
GHISLAIN POIRIER - Justin Timberlake vs. Champion
LES GEORGES LENINGRAD - Mange Avec Tes Doigts
LES GEORGES LENINGRAD - Sleek Answer
MAN MAN - Engrish Blood (Pink Skull Remix)
MARTIN MATISKE - Japanese Science (Pink Skull Remix)
THE NEW YOUNG PONY CLUB - Fill in That Blank
THE NEW YOUNG PONY CLUB - Tight Fit
THE KETTLE BLACK - You Don't Say
THE KETTLE BLACK - All Work and No Play
SUPERSYSTEM - Joy
SUPERSYSTEM - Eagles Chasing Eyries
SUPERSYSTEM - Earth Body Air
THE TWO KOREAS - U-Boat Commander

Caught a last minute ticket for Beck last night at the Ricoh...the sound wasn't too spectacular but the show itself was well worth the cash. When the opening beats to "Loser" started the show, no one expected to see the band appear as marionettes on the giant video backdrop. Halfway through the song, the humans joined their marionette likenesses on stage and played selections like "We Dance Alone" from The Information, the singles from Guero and the odd classic from Odelay. At the end of the main set, Beck played a few solo numbers, briefly covering "Do You Realize", while his band sat down at a table and ate a meal provided by a waiter. Half way through the interlude, the band started clanging rhythms out on their plates and glasses, and Beck rapped about his pants. They left the stage, and before the encore, the puppets returned in a video that had been shot only that day in Toronto. They were all dressed up in Maple Leafs jerseys and played themselves a cute little hockey game after hanging out by the CN Tower and declaring in a rhyming couplet that Toronto "ain't no burrito, it's a nacho!". Then came the encore, with giant bears and spacemen dancing about to "Hell Yes", followed by "Where It's At" and "E-Pro" as the delicious closers.

It was finally nice to see Beck, twelve years after I first bought Mellow Gold, which was the first non-Weird Al or Kriss Kross album I ever bought, and I credit its hybrid specialties and heavy sampling as a huge influence on my listening habits down the road.


Beck and the Puuppetown Band rocking Washington earlier this fall.

ESB PLAYLIST 10/17/06

CHAM - Rudeboy Pledge
DJ MINI - No Work for Words
DJ MINI - This Is Now
DJ MINI - Walking
HABITAT - Next Yeat
XIU XIU - Buzz Saw (Crystal Castles This Song Is A Mess But So Am I Remix)
THE PRESETS - Down Down Down (Digitalism Remix)
BECK - Dark Star (David Sitek Remix)
LES ANGLES MORTS - Kaleidescope
MODERN BOYS MODERN GIRLS - Edge of My Blade
THE TWO KOREAS - Coat Cloth Revolution
TOKYO POLICE CLUB - Cut Cut Paste (Live)
TOKYO POLICE CLUB - Box (Live)
POP LEVI - Blue Honey

On last night's 12" Split release between Anagram and The Creeping Nobodies...

Both groups are getting tighter and stronger with every show. They remind me why I find most rock dead boring, precisely because they make it so exhilirating. I think of all those groups that make the same tasteless eunuch rock, stuck in the middle with no direction, sounding like everyone else under the sun, imitating or emultaing, never advancing or expanding, and smiling all the way through it in ignorant bliss...and I'm so grateful for this new sound we have in Toronto, embodied by the likes of The Lullabye Arkestra, No Dynamics, and the aforementioned groups. It's an atavistic kind of music that embraces the dark and carnal energy of human life akin to the ritualism of antiquity.

Anagram, dour and stoic but no less intense for it, have the faces of apparitions, hardboiled and ready to haunt, like a lost troupe of soldiers from a British colonial battalion. Matt Mason is the boldest frontman in recent Toronto music history. It's hard to imagine him singing from anywhere but within the crowd, ceding control to the bodies of his bloodthirsty audience, getting bashed around in the pit without losing a word or falling to the ground. The guitar work, and the added sax and sytnh, make up a most terrifying demolition crew, while the rhythm section churns up the ground underneath.

Meanwhile, The Nobodies, where other groups wouldn't even bother, can always be counted upon to bang on tin or entice electronic toys to sing ghastly wails into the night. They're one of the few reasons I haven't abandoned rock music altogether for electro.

Both groups played the newest material from the split, and they'll be doing so again tonight at Velvet Elvis in Anagram's home base of Oshawa.

Some new things to check out...

.1 DJ MINI

Known for years in Montreal for her club night at Parking, she's built herself up as a DJ long enough to generate some excitement in her hometown for her first album, Audio Hygiene, which plays a serious, globally competitve game of Twister with electro genres. It's out-deeps the deep and makes bangers out of what might be something less if it were made by anyone else.

.2 MODERN BOYS MODERN GIRLS

Shelbie, our CIUT music department assistant and Take 5 morning show live music coordinator, brought this group on Take 5 yesterday and I must say, what a choice! These guys and gals are behind the Casual Sex parties that pop up once in a while at various venues around the city. They'll be releasing a new disc tonight called The Edge of My Blade EP at The Bovine Sex Club, so check em out. Listen to the title track.

.3 LES GEORGES LENINGRAD

I'd never been too keen on them until I heard selections from their new album Sangue Puro, which places them in 2001 floating space baby territory. Their sound has become more expansive and adventurous, and the cavernous, cosmic coldness in those triangular and square-wave swells would fit brilliantly in a surround-sound, or dare I say it, quadrophonic realm. Check out a new track courtesy of Hate Something Beautiful.

ESB PLAYLIST 10/10/06

KLANGUAGE - Priceless Things
ARTHUR RUSSELL - Springfield (DFA Remix)
ARTHUR RUSSELL - Dinosaur L Go Bang (Francois Kevorkian Remix)
ARTHUR RUSSELL - You Have Did the Right Thing When You Put That Skylight In
YEBOROBO - Every Gentleman Loves A Good Trick
CRYSTAL CASTLES - She Fell Out
LES GEORGES LENINGRAD - Mammal Beats
LULLABYE ARKESTRA - Come Out Come Out
LULLABYE ARKESTRA - Ass Worship
RAH RAH - Ode to Pasquala
THE MINT CHICKS - My Arpeggio
THE MINT CHICKS - Silver Homeless Man
THE BOOK OF LISTS - Through Stained Glass
COMME UN HOMME LIBRE - Our Lips Are Sealed

I'm off to Montreal next week to check out DJ Seez's night at The Green Room. "Wednesday is the New Friday" is totally free and features all the good shit...like SebastiAn, Simian Mobile Disco, Soulwax (notice the alliteration), not to mention remixes and edits from all over the place. Expect adept selectorism by the Seez, and much of what the Yardies might call biiiiiig tchooonz.

Check out some of his mix work here and a new collabomix with Gk.

Meanwhile, in Toronto:

On Oct 7, Artists Supporting Sustainable Energy Development present a night of info and music at Sneaky Dee's, featuring the sounds of Proof of Ghosts, Mariposa, Trucks Leaving, and the very final apparance of the soon to be disbanded Good Ideas. Publications regarding Ontario's nuclear energy history will be distributed courtesy of Vitality Magazine, and prize draw will be held, which you could win, provided you reach Sneaky Dee's on foot or by bike, TTC, weather baloon, cold-fusion rocketpack or vegetable-oil powered flying saucer. 6bux.

If you're looking for an even later night, you can check out Glass Candy and The Chromatics at The Drake afterwards. 12bux.

ESB PLAYLIST 10/3/06

MARTINI BROS - Big + Dirty (Tiga Remix)
GHOSTFACE - Run (Edison Victrola Believe Remix)
CINNAMON - Feel So Good (Edison Victrola Remix)
EDISON VICTROLA - Clap
ARLING+CAMERON - Popcorn 2006
THE GOSSIP - Standing in the Way of Control (Soulwax Edit)
GORILLAZ - Dare (Soulwax Remix)
GLASS CANDY - Superficial Roadblocks
CHROMATICS - The Price of Love
BARZIN - Leaving Time
THE BOOK OF LISTS - Points of Arrival + Departure
BORN RUFFIANS - Piecing it Together
BORN RUFFIANS - This Sentence Will Ruin/Save Your Life
BECK - We Dance Alone