CampusIntel

The Steamwhistle Brewery, located at 255 Bremner Boulevard, Toronto, is hosting an art exhibit brandishing photographs depicting some of rock’s biggest icons this March. The brewing house turned art gallery event, which is free, is displaying, for the first time in large-scale public view, a series of photographs taken at rock and roll shows in Toronto between 1979 and 1981. Included are shots of The Clash at their first performance in Toronto in 1979, and Bob Marley’s last Toronto concert.

The photos are a result of a pair of young punks’ do-it-yourself photojournalist tactics inspired by the early punk rock movement, around 1979. Nick and Simon White, brothers who grew up in Toronto, saw most of the shows that later went down in history as part of the beginnings of the new musical era. They got the idea to photograph these early performances, possibly foreseeing the nostalgic element they would later provide.

The mostly black and white photographs depict a youthful who’s who of 70s and early 80s rock: The Ramones, The Clash, Peter Tosh, The Specials, and U2 with a young Bono are among the legendary acts captured in the photos. Other rare performances like The Talking Heads, Johnny Rotten performing with post-Pistols band Public Image Ltd., and The Specials were also captured by the brothers.

For the past 30 years, the photos have been tucked away, and nearly forgotten about, by the brothers. They stopped photo-documenting the music scene when it became harder for them to obtain press passes for concerts. In the earlier, they were just seeing shows and taking pictures from the crowd. They started a fanzine, Smash It Up, where many of the photos were printed, but it went out of production when the 70s underground went mainstream and being punk no longer meant being free to publicize your favourite bands.

Now, the White brothers’ extensive work is on display for all to appreciate. The event is free, on for all of March at The Steamwhistle Brewery in Toronto, and, I’m sure, pints will be on hand to help commemorate the wild moments.

I’ve never really been one to watch the Olympic games in all honestly, I found them boring as a child, I’d much rather have seen what Bugs Bunny was up to or tuned into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles…you know, things with real passion eh? However, this year I actually sat down and watched the opening ceremonies, and from that moment on I was stuck on the Olympics.

            I don’t know how many other people across Canada alone got the ‘Olympic fever’ but this year for some reason I got it bad. Every morning as I got ready for work I would turn on the TV to the same channel and the journalists would wake up with me. Every evening I’d come home from work or class and I’d tune in to see what events had taken place and what was going on that night. I’d receive texts from my Mom periodically each day updating me on our metal count and what races we’d won in. It was just something outside of my own little world of crazy school and work life that I could sit down, relax and be excited for…and it didn’t hurt that I could actually do school work while watching it (I mean really, I was mostly interested in the Canadian athletes, or on occasion those athletes they did those little pre-game life stories on), so during other athletes’ runs I’d read my textbook…you know how student life is.

            I started looking forward every day to events I would watch in the evening and have people come over to watch anything really, curling, skating, and of course hockey! It didn’t really matter what we watched, we just loved seeing our athletes compete and really took pride in the metals won as though they were our own (I love living vicariously though athletes…makes me feel like I never have to go to the gym).

            The day I found out that the Olympics were ending however a wave of sadness washed over me briefly, I thought to myself, who will wake up with me in the morning? How will I deal with the lack of texts from my Mom? How will I decide what to watch on those nights when there’s no good shows on TV? But I made it though, and although the closing ceremonies were emotional for me, I held to one thing…we kicked butt in both women’s and men’s hockey!

Here is a small list of some cool shows coming up in March or April. Check one out for something to do!

SNFU – March 19 @ Sneaky Dee’s, Toronto. SNFU started playing in the late eighties in California. Early skate-punk with fast licks and catchy lyrics.

Forgotten Rebels – March 13 @ Casbah, Hamilton AND March 20 @ Alexander’s, Brantford. The Forgotten Rebels were around during the first wave of punk in the late seventies. Heavy garage sound, basically just distorted Chuch Berry tunes if you ask me – which is a good thing. And, they have a new album coming out this spring.

The Specials – April 19 @ Sound Academy, Toronto. This show will be amazing. The Specials also started in the late seventies, playing ska in the UK. Rocksteady-reggae that heatseekingly catches the ear. If you don’t know ‘em, try ‘A Message To You, Rudy’ on Youtube.

Gogol Bordello – April 20 @ Sound Academy, Toronto. Gypsy-punks. ‘Nough Said.

Also, Germ Attack from Ottawa just released a 7-inch, and they are releasing a new LP, Cruxshadow, in March. Speed-Street Punk that has been evolving in Ottawa for almost ten years now. The thing about Germ Attak is they have really well-done recordings, and they are seasoned musicians, so they know what they are doing. I recomend, and will have to pick these up sometime soon.

Word. Thanks for reading, reply with a comment about a show I’ve missed. See you in the pit.

Baltimore hardcore band Give opened the show at the Opera House Friday night, and set somewhat of a heavy tone for the night. Sadly, I only caught the last two songs of their set, and I really wish I could have seen more. The thunderous, bass-laden drums that continuously keeps rolling on through both fast parts and slow breakdowns initially captivated me. Their uniqueness kept my attention. Give is definitely a hardcore band, complete with tell-tale aggressive heaviness. This gets mixed, though, with a lighter guitar sound. There isn’t too much distortion, making it easy to follow the rhythm. Comparing the guitar style to a similar band would not be easy.  And, when a band can heed me from b-lining to the bar as soon as I get into a show, which Give did, they usually stick around in my playlist for good.

The D’urbervilles, who took the stage after Give, are also great at keeping your attention. Their new-age brand of rock-pop beamed through the Opera House. Their sound is somewhere between Joy Division and the Weakerthans, and much in common with most dance-rock indie bands. However, they strike their own pose. They have some very technical, high-tempo, yet sometimes hard to follow, drum beats. Two synthesizers, looked after by guitarist/lead singer John O’Regan and lead guitarist Tim Bruton, work together well with the clean, palm-muted, not too overpowering guitar lines. There were highs and lows to this set – when at their best, The D’urbervilles can trigger sporadic, arm-throwing dance moves in any wallflower, like they did for O’Regan.

After the D’urbervilles, Kurt Vile played a captivating six-song set that I, once again, was very drawn into. He opened with “Overnite Religion” accompanied by a second guitarist/percussionist, who laid down the tambourine and maraca lines of the song. The trippy folk-rock made up of loop-dubs, looped drum beats, and guitar, set an intimate vibe throughout the Opera House before Fucked Up went on. At times I felt like it was just Kurt and I alone in a room, and when I would come back to my senses, I would look around and confirm that everyone else was also entranced by him. The third song was drummed by Jonah from Fucked Up, which added a refreshing crack to the low-key stoner rock. In total, the Kurt Vile set felt almost like a healing process, a cool rejuvenator before Fucked Up tore the place apart.

Tore it apart they did. Fucked Up started their set with drummer Jonah’s mother playing the flute line from “Year of the Rat,” and then dove into “Son the Father,” off their Polaris Prize winning album “The Chemistry of Common Life,” and staple opener for recent shows. They moved smoothly into “David Comes To Life,” with a tweaked breakdown in the middle, differing from the studio version of the tune. By mid-set, lead singer Damian Pink Eyes Abraham lit things up and tore his t-shirt off, as usual. For the next song, Damian sang while pulling an impressively long microphone cable around the entire Opera House floor, a perfect way to engage the crowd. Near the end of the set, while playing “Crusades,” a fan who grabbed the mic from Damian and started singing was attacked by another audience member, the attacker was swiftly removed from the event. After a quick break, the debacle was sorted out. The band just picked up where they left off, and finished the song with the final chorus. The performance was full of Fucked Up classics,  including a thrashing rendition of “Two Snakes” off the band’s debut LP, “Hidden World.” The sextet played well together, in sync at all times, while frequently switching and changing parts of many songs.  A tight set, that was undoubtedly planned and polished, from one of Toronto’s hottest bands.

We all know what a library is: You register and get a Library Card, then you may borrow books and other multimedia for free. If you are late in returning the books, you are charged a small fee. Students herd there for research assistance from librarians. Cheapskates are prominent in the newspaper sections, trying to save a quarter.  And, most importantly, you must be quiet at the library. SHH!

Now, this last library component is untrue. A new trend in free information acquisition has surfaced: The Human Library. Conceptualized in 2000 in Copenhagen, Denmark, in cooperation with youth action group Stop The Violence, the idea was simply to educate people about diversity. The books (people) are members of minority groups in society, ones that are often met with prejudice. From police officers to politicians to prostitutes – each Human Book tells his or her story and answers any questions the borrower has. In effect, the Human Books are an attempt to slash prejudice on stereotyped lifestyles through education.

Since 2000, the Human Library has globalised. There are Human Library events held all over the world. There is even one being promoted by Atira Women’s Resource Society in Vancouver, which will be running for the duration of the Olympic Games in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. In fact, there are almost daily Human Library events being held around the world in schools, community centres, and other public institutions as a global front to promote diversity and educate people about prejudism. A full list of events is available at http://human-library.org, along with the history and objectives of the organisation.

I think this is an amazing story. This is one way that we can work towards ending the stereotypes and hatefeul tendencies that are still woven into all cultures, somehow or another. If the popularity of the Human Library grows, maybe our children will be able to pull themselves out of humanity’s odd predisposition to ignorance, stereotyping, and judgment. We all know the idiom you can’t judge a book by its cover. Well, the Human Library has ironically put the sentiment behind this phrase into action.

Peter Russel’s book Recognizing Aboriginal Title: The Mabo Case and Indigenous Resistance to English-Settler Colonialism provides a meticulously thorough overview of Aboriginal rights in Australia since the inception of British Colonialism in Australia in the sixteenth century. In a time when, in Canada, Aboriginal rights are still at odds with our legal system, Russell’s story of how one man, Eddie Koiki Mabo, managed to instil key Aboriginal rights in Australian law provides an uplifting ray of hope.

The first half of the near-400 page book provides a background of Indigenous history in Australia. Not too surprisingly, it is 200 pages of extensive research on how the Natives on the British occupied land mass come to be at the mid-point of the twentieth century. It is a wealth of information to take in, beginning with the onset of colonisation and the threat it created on non-British culture. Much like in Canada and the United States, the Native peoples of Australia intended to work together with colonisers during the first wave of colonisation.

But, also like in North America, there were many injustices done to the original inhabitants of Australia by colonisers over the past 500 years. More or less, the many unrecognized land claims and Aboriginal rights treaties were left to rot, and be forgotten, until the famous Mabo case.

Eddie Mabo was a descendent of original inhabitants of Mer Island, an offshore land mass north of Australia. Mabo’s life consisted of countless political endeavours in order to decolonize Native life in Australia. In other words, he wished to see Native culture persist despite the assimilation, and oppressive techniques, of the British Crown. 

All this came to a head in the Mabo vs. Queensland case, beginning in 1982 and ending in 1992. In the end, the High Court of Australia deemed that Native title to lands, cultural practices and lifestyles are a fundamental right of Native Australians. Not to sound too promising, the second half of Russell’s book looks at how the government of Australia, like in Canada and the US, found loopholes to further challenge Aboriginal title rights for its own economic and political agendas.

I cannot give it all away in one small blog, because the story of Aboriginal sovereignty in Australia is a long, and still unfinished tale. However, Russell has managed to tell the story in a captivatingly interesting way. A real page-turner that any history buff should find hard to put down.

After a celebrated rebirth in 2005, and a tumultuous second life, ECW is finally, really, completely, dead.

Things started out so well; 2 majorly successful “One Night Stand” pay-per-view events in 2005 in 2006, a resurgence of a fan base, and then Paul Heyman’s wish finally granted: a TV deal with a network (SyFy)  that would actually promote the show instead of bury it behind “Roller Jam”, like TNN did with ECW’s first TV deal.  90% of the original talent roster, and 100% of the energy, extreme content, and originality were all there out of the gates.  Until, things went sour.   

 ECW lost its identity.  WWE programming made a move to broadcast PG content.  Paul Heyman and every last ECW Original eventually faded out of the picture and off the roster.  Some got caught doing drugs, some left, and some got fired.  Tommy Dreamer was the final ECW Original to part ways.  Most of the others didn’t want to work for THAT version of ECW anymore (and one part because many of them truly didn’t measure up to other WWE talent from an ability standpoint).  A few of them resurfaced in rival promotion TNA, if at all. 

The “E” in ECW still technically stood for “Extreme,” but you’d be hard pressed to prove it in ECW’s last days.  In fact, you’d be hard pressed to distinguish it at all from the other WWE shows.  The hardcore original version that Paul Heyman incarnated (Paul himself made a huge content shift from the original ECW, which stood for “Eastern Championship Wrestling”, a rather traditional wrestling show) gave way to a kid friendly and family oriented version.  ECW’s “extreme” movement simply meant violence; and this no longer melded with Vince McMahon’s vision of ECW.  Unfortunately, the man with the money controls the show; and Heyman’s ECW was not congruent with Vince’s.  Whether Vince liked it or not though, the hardcore style made ECW stand-out from other wrestling shows, since no other wrestling show took it to that level. 

McMahon has been known to make statements to the tune of him always knowing what the audience wanted.  Most would say either Vince never “got” what ECW fans really wanted, or else just chose not to acknowledge the truth.  Most would agree he’s never been good with characters and concepts he didn’t create himself.  When fans said they wanted hardcore barbed-wire, no-DQ matches with steel chairs and flaming tables, Vince gave them the company’s 3^rd tier show with 3^rd tier stars, performing the same material the others were doing—but worse.  Even the original format of ECW matches – No DQ’s and no count-outs—was abolished.  The show didn’t even stand on its own; tapings were piggybacked before Raw or Smackdown broadcasts, and didn’t even feature a stand-alone tour (though there was originally, it obviously was a failure).  Extreme-C-W had been phased out, and most would admit the writing had been on the wall for quite some time.

So now with ECW’s cancellation, we get what Vince McMahon describes as “the next evolution of WWE; the next evolution of television history.”  We get “WWE NXT”; a reality/wrestling mashup of developmental wrestlers trying to make it to the main WWE rosters with the guidance of current WWE Superstars.  While I’ll admit the concept contains partial originality (smells a lot like WWE’s first reality show, “Tough Enough”), I really don’t think anyone cares to see 8 b-list stars coach 8 complete unknowns to “greatness”. For WWE’s sake, I hope the new show is a success; but methinks this show may end up going the way of the XFL.

Isn’t it great when Hollywood, and other media outlets, inspire panic in people by suggesting in a film or other propoganda that the world is going to end in the very near future?  Isn’t it also interesting how much material on the topic becomes purchasable in various formats immediately after the report catches fire?

Contrary to suggestions of the 2009 straight-to-dvd blockbuster, Here’s why 2012 will simply be another year in history, and you can take a break from building your refuge tunnel to the center of the earth:

1)      The Mayans did indeed have a calendar that ends on 2012.  However, just like any other calendar, all you have to do is start it from the beginning again.  Their calendar begins from a time Mayans identified as a point of creation, and then counted forward in units of “tun”.  Similar to the way we sequentially write 10, then 20, 30, etc., Mayans change the names after 20 units.  20 tun equals 1 k’atun; 20 k’atun equals 1 b’ak’tun; then piktun, kalabtun, k’inchiltun, and so on.  On December 21, 2012, the 13^th b’ak’tun cycle will end, and then the 14^th will begin.  After the completion of 20 b’ak’tun’s, the first cycle of 20 piktun’s will begin October 13, 4772, and so on, and so forth.  So if the Mayans already had names for all this, why would they/why should we think the world was ending?

2)      There’s no planet or celestial body named “Nibiru” (or anything else) that is on a collision course for earth.  NASA’s got plenty of instruments in space, like the Spitzer and Hubble telescopes, that would have relayed a message about a planet on an intercept course by now.  NASA launched a spacecraft named Voyager 1 in 1977 (yes, there’s a Voyager 2 as well) that is just now in the process of leaving our solar system.  So if it took us 33 years to get something out of our solar system, don’t you think we’d know about something coming towards us by now?  The odds of something that size getting to us through our galaxy in one piece (the Milky Way is filled with much larger and dangerous things like larger planets and asteroid fields) is extremely slim.  Besides, if something we actually coming, The US or some other country would put up some sort of missle defence system, or we’d just deal with it ala Armageddon style, right?

3)      The earth is subject to solar activity ALL THE TIME, and is able to deal with flares and such due to its magnetic field and atmosphere, which deflect harm.  The earth’s magnetic field does reverse polarity once and a while (approximately every 400,000 years), but the effect takes several thousand years to complete, and would not interrupt the earth’s rotation or point of axis. 

4)      Planetary alignments also happen ALL THE TIME.  They’re called “eclipses”, and chances are, you’ve heard of them; you may have even seen one or two.  Even if all the planets in the solar system aligned (which they won’t), it wouldn’t be cataclysmic.  It might be cold for a few hours or so, but that’d be about it until the sun started hitting us directly again.  The earth isn’t going to flood, the oceans won’t boil, Hawaii won’t burn down, and the continents aren’t going to crash into each other. 

So there’s the scientific explanation of why 2012 will hold nothing to worry about except for living your life.  I’m a Christian, and my personal beliefs are to the tune of what Jesus said himself in the Bible,

“No one knows of the hour of the final days, not even the angels in heaven, except for God alone.  The Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” (Matthew 24:36, 44)

In other words, none of our fancy methods of determining the end of the earth will be accurate, as it will happen in an incalculable way; no calendars, no psychic or prophetic predictions,  it’ll just happen.  According to scientific theories, we’ve got a few billion years yet (but no pinpointed time), so don’t pack up or quit your job just yet.  Until then, go live and enjoy your life!  I’ll do my best to keep you afloat of other Catastrophic Cosmic events that are of no consequence to your, and everyone else’s, existence.

I felt it necessary to remove the Up In The Air review as well as the Daybreakers one I had planned. My reasoning behind this is that everyone seems to already have an opinion on Daybreakers due to the love/hate relationship audiences have with vampires right now. And I read the novel Up In The Air, and the movie is nothing special.

The Lovely Bones:

Considering the last movie I saw directed (and written) by Peter Jackson was Braindead. And if you ever came across that little film then you will know my expectations were very low for The Lovely Bones. On the official Stoner Movie List this movie ranked 8.9/10, which makes it just above Pineapple Express, and putting it below Dogma. And personally I loved this film. The effects were spectacular and the acting was spot-on for the characters of the book the film was based on. The one thing that kept me entertained while watching it was the concept of the afterlife (or the ‘in between’) and how mindboggling and chaotic it seemed with its ability to act like an anti-reality where anything happens all the time (as confusing as that is).

It captured the one thing I always try to look for in films and that’s my sixth sense. When a character walks on screen and you feel a wave of creepiness and indecision about them, that is what I look for and that is what Stanley Tucci did. Tucci basically plays the character of a man who comes into the life of Suzie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) by becoming obsessed with her. He eventually captures and kills Suzie Salmon and we (the audience) go on a journey into the lives of Suzie in the afterlife, her family dealing with her death and the sad life of George Harvey (Tucci).

The story was excellent and the screenplay definitely well written. The sometimes lack of dialogue was actually annoying as I tried to get as much information as possible from what they were saying because of how interesting the story was. I’ve been back to the theatre three times now to see this film and I plan on seeing it a few more times. It’s well put together, well developed (both in characters and story) and the cinematography is top of the line. The only unfortunate part of the film was when I left the theatre and stepped into Legion.

Edit: Some people found this movie sad and a few even cried during it. I really didn’t see it as a sad movie, but a journey into the theme of grief in individuals and the exploration of the idea of the soul. Philosophical, not sad.

Legion:

My reaction after the movie: “So wait…what happened?” And pretty much I can sum up the film in those few words. What happened? To be honest I don’t really know. How I can properly explain this movie is to give a brief analogy. Imagine taking a book and ripping out the first chapter, doing the same with the middle of the book, but only taking every odd (instead of even) chapter. Now put the book back together and throw the ending in the fire.

No wait, better way of explaining it. They took a picture of Paul Bettany looking at the sky, added wings and a knife, a clearly photoshoped MP5K (that’s a gun) and some fancy lighting. Scott Stewart (the director) saw the picture on someone’s desktop and said, “Hey, I can make a movie out of that”. And KABLAMO I give you Legion.

My apologies, I’m ranting a little bit. I was the one defending the film as I walked out of the theatre. I defended its 100% action, zero story as I did when I walked out of Transformers 2. We didn’t need story, we needed action, right? Wrong. This wasn’t directed by Michael bay and it wasn’t written by any modern day Shakespeare either.

This film was poorly written, badly directed, included a slew of nameless actors and a smattering of wrongly casted famous ones. Paul Bettany remains the same character from The DaVinci Code, Dennis Quaid should not be a hillbilly and Lucas Black should have given up his career after Tokyo Drift.

My major problem with the film however was the story. In all honesty, it was like reading a letter addressed to someone else sent from someone I don’t know. I don’t understand the context of the letter, the purpose of it or even where the story is going to end up later on.

On the plus side – great special effects. That grandma was the most kick-ass demon I have ever seen since Daria in Night Watch (A Russian Film).

Is this film worth seeing?

No.

Is it worth ranting about?

Clearly.

- Written by Ethan Taylor

I posted last month about a bunch of shows going down in the GTA in the new year, and now I have realized that an update is due.

First off, the Slayer and Megadeth “Canadian Carnage” tour that was scheduled to hit Toronto in February has been rescheduled. The tour, which was a rescheduled event from a missed show last summer, has now been set for the end of July – they hit the Molson Ampitheatre in Toronto on July 29. Check out www.slayer.net for full tour details.

As a reminder, there are two Fucked Up shows happening around the GTA in February. They are at the L3 Nightclub in St. Catherines on the 23rd with Leatherface, and are in Toronto on the 26th with Kurt Vile at The Opera House. Wallet allowing, I will be at both shows.

And, something really exciting for me, oldschool punk band The Forgotten Rebels are doing some shows in the coming weeks: On February 27 they will be playing at The Casbah in Hamilton with The Lucky Ones; and on March 20 they will be at Alexander’s Tavern in Brantford. These are two shows that any ‘77 punk lover will need to see, myself included.

Also in February, skate-punk originals The Queers will be at the Horseshoe in Toronto on the 21st; and Killing Fields will be at the Rearview Mirror Bar in Toronto on the 20th for a FREE show.

Coming up, two-tone kings The Specials at the Sound Academy in Toronto on April 19. Can’t wait to dance the night away for that.