Oh! Sweet vinylz

That sweet marbled look is not the vinyl, but my White Stripes peppermint LP mat

Yesterday I attended the Pop Culture fair, which is a giant gathering of nerds selling their wares to like-minded nerds. I was there to represent CJSR at our awesome table and hopefully secure some sweet new vinyl (but not much!). Being awesome, I forgot the following three things:

1) A camera, thus missing out on a photo op with the guy in full Ghostbuster gear, right down to homemade (and wicked looking) proton pack. Sad day.
2) List of records I specifically want in vinyl form.
3) CJSR record bag (for sexy shopping)

So I got there at 9:30 to find that our little table was situated right next to Sonic 102.9's obnoxiously loud display. SWEEET. And it was their all shitty cover songs weekend, where I heard, among others, a terrible terrible ska version of A-Ha's "Take On Me", which is an awesome song. Then the dj had the balls to say the original was "'80s crap"... That station lost it's cool in a big way.

Most dangerously, our booth was also right across from the Freecloud records booth. I resisited as long as I could, but I had to peruse their wares eventually. When I did, I was glad to not find any garage of surf vinyl I wanted...and I was doing really well until I got the 7"s. I wanted to see what b-side Radiohead threw on their "Jigsaw Falling Into Place" single, and found it to be the version of "Videotape" from Nigel Godrich's "From the Basement" podcast. The best version of that song evar, man. Once I had that in my hands, the dude easily talked me into the re-issues on Joy Division's first EP and the "Love Will Tear Us Apart" single, which led to the reissue of JD's "Closer", Velvet Underground's "Loaded" on sexy pink vinyl, and numerous others....I ended up spending $140 and not feeling ashamed of myself.

Afterwards, I was supposed to see Kevin Smith at the Winspear, but the fucker missed his flight and the show was rescheduled to next Wednesday. Thank you, Air Canada.

I made up for this loss by watching the totally bad(ass?) early '80s slasher flicks and The Burning and The Prowler. Both movies highlight killers who use totally impractical weapons. All the best ones are taken (machete = Jason, kitchen blade = Michael Myers, chainsaw = fucking guess.) The dude in The Burning kills kids with gardening shears, which I guess are pretty sharp cuz he effortlessly cleaves through the skulls of happy campers as if they were the softest of baby skulls. The Prowler stalks people while wearing army gear and killing people with ... a pitchfork. Awesome. There is only one effective kill...slow impaling while the hapless teen writhes in pain for a few minutes. I wouldn't want to spoil any plot holes, er, points, so I'll just say both movies are terrible and you should watch them.

Somebody painted over paint-painted wood.

Okay, I am really shitty at this. I need to try blogging a bit...regularly I guess.
Since April I've gotten really drunk, embarassed myself at least two or three times, once unforgettably, went to Calgary for the Sled Island festival, met Spiral Stairs (HOLY SHIT) and Kevin Drew, slept in my car, read some books, was in a show at the 2008 Edmonton Fringe called Green Eggs and Kerouac that was written by a good friend and did really well, got paid (but not laid), karaoke'd the faces off of all those around me, bought a $5 jean jacket that somehow doesn't make me feel stupid, went to Calgary a few more times, and read Perfect From Now On by John Sellers which was so good I decided to blog again. Oh, and I still work at a liquor store.

Perfect From Now On was a really great read about a man's journey from loving Journey and hating Bob Dylan (sad) to Loving awesome bands like Pavement and Guided by Voices and disliking Bob Dylan (pretty awesome, except that Dylan is great, you fool.) The subtitle is How Indie Rock Saved My Life, and I think that's pretty accurate. The book has given me a reason to try listening to the Smiths again, even though I'm sure I can't get into them.

It's 8:40 and I am going to clean my shower curtain.