Positive Hardcore Dance-Rap

Taylor and I were all over the place yesterday. I got to the all-ages show at the Arts Guild just as Windom Earle was starting. I can never get enough Windom Earle, but I have to say I'm starting to get blasé about "Beef Chow Mein." It's sort of turning into their "Smells Like Teen Spirit," not in that the song isn't fun or good, but that the band is kind of bored of it and doesn't give it the full enthusiam they used to. That said, the rest of their Arts Guild set was as good as I've ever heard them, they had the video screen going with images from movies and old cartoons and crap grabbed of the web flashing in synch with the music. It was almost enough to get the kids moving around a little.

The Maynards came on after that, they were as much fun for their between-song banter as they were for their actual songs, pop-punkish and fast-paced songs with lots of humour. Again people were kind of unenthusiastic, so they offered a 'dance prize' for whoever could put in the best effort. It ended up being a contest between 3 or 4 people.

After that, though Ninja Highschool started. (note: best website for any band, ever. Dig those animaget gifs). The title of this post is how they describe their music. I had no idea what kind of stuff they did, so whe nthey started shouting into the mics and calling out each other's names I figured they were just screwing around and testing out the sound, but nope, that's their act. I always love pleasant surprises. The songs were all really positive, too, if you paid attention to what they were singing about. (Well, maybe not "it's allright to fight / I'll send you home in an ambulance", but I probably missed a deeper meaning.)

They wanted people to come up on stage with them, but the terribly well-behaved crowd admonished them about the rule about people coming on stage. So they just jumped down and mingled in with the crowd. One of the members wasn't in the matching red t-shirt, so she totally just blended right in. It was lots of fun.

Taylor bought a ninja highschool t-shirt, after asking me if he should. I told him to give me one good reason not to, and of course he couldn't.

After that we went over to Baba's to see Tala from Montreal, who were doing a CD release show. Now Tala are an amazingly talented and innovative band, for 3 guys they can make all kinds of sound and really keep your ears occupied, but I guess I wasn't quite in the right mood last night. And Tay, who isn't big on jam bands, let alone self-described 'psychadelic' bands, was pretty well bored out of his mind by the end of their first set. I said that to enjoy that kind of music you ahve to be either a musician or stoned, and so I totally didn't blame him. We went over to Hunter's in time to see Windom Earle's nighttime show. No video projector this time, but the crowd was way more into it. (Partly because of our good friend Mr. Alcohol, and partly because teenagers are lame to begin with.) Also, the Ninja Highschool guys were in the crowd lvening things way up. After Windom Earle the Maynards were going to play. I was talking to the bassist from the Maynards about Superchunk and doing radio shows (she's got a show on CKDU on Mondays that she wanted me to plug. She also got me to give her the address to my podcast.)

The Maynards' Guild show didnt' at all do them justice. This was the liveliest I've ever seen a crowd at Hunter's. Everyone was up jumping around and bouncing off of each other and having a great old time. A certain little fella we hang out with had his pants off for a while, after the band said they'd give a prize to anyone who kept their pants off for an entire song.

The best part of the night was when I super-duper pwned someone when she was on her mobile phone with mer mom and I said "who's that baby? .. Come on baby, come back to bed." and no one else ruined it by laughing. So good. I almost didn't go out last night for not wanting to spend money and for being generally cranky but am I ever glad I did.