The mafia brass team picks up the pace

Wall to wall screen of Jason - now that is priceless

Jason Mraz also showed his allegience by flashing “Vote for Obama” on the back of the theatre which roused a huge round of applause and claps. I guess the canadians have less vested interest in the u.s elections but hey, who isn’t a fan of obama? even if he keeps overusing the term “Change”. But one thing is for sure, his working relationship with Tocca is solid. Their harmonies are flawless and they have this undeniable stage chemistry. In fact his whole show is filled with sunshine and smiles, as he openly encourages phototaking and blog sharing the photos to his site. Nothing anal, and totally californian sunshine, it must be his diet of avocados and raw food.

Jason has a penchant for pointing to the sky, its so ravvee....

 Most of the songs played were from We sing, we dance, we steal things, save for the medley of oldies “You & I” was intertwined with “Sleeping to Dream” — one of my most favorite mraz tracks of all time, and sadly no studio version is available, only a live recording. He opened with Make it Mine, which was surprisely, given how it is such a huge hit, but I guess I’m Yours is now top of the pops. He didnt play Wordplay or anything from Mr A-Z, which was sad but I guess he really went mainstream and hugely successful with this new album, so I ain’t complaining about singing along to Beautiful mess.

Jason mraz has the childlike spirit that is simply addictive. he cajoled the audience to sing, he covered bob marley, he got us to do crazy dancesteps, now that is what i call real performer talent.

i think…this may be the best show I have attended all year. and i got to do it with my best friend. that rocks…

Of all the random things that one can do in Toronto, none is more random than sitting down at the Letteri cafe, drinking a cappacino vigourously in order to fight the cold winds that beat down round the corner, thumbing through the latest David Sedaris book, and then deciding that what I really needed to visit was the Bata Shoe Museum.

At first glance, i was faintly amused and excited and thought that the entire museum housed Bata shoes throughout the ages. For sure, who would not want to know where Bata really is from? And no, it’s not from Malaysia for those lesser intellectuals out there! Bata is erh hem…a Czech brand, with a full 110 years of history. That’s almost rivalling Lehman Brothers — i wonder if those dudes ever wore Bata.  And yes, ah nostalgia! The Bata 2000 series of white school shoes, I wore to shreds and still, i put them on again, till it stank, chased away the boys and yes…still i wore them. the good years.

But this post is not about Bata (slogan time: One Bata, One World - classik!), but rather…shoes. As a rather well-heeled individual, the shoe museuem had a good collection of footwear from North American indigineous tribes, Chinese/ Manchurian booties, Indian padukas, a collection on ballet pointe shoes, Victorian heels, african beaded boots and any other random queries you may have had about shoes, why shoes, what sort of shoes for types of activities, and clasps and detailings for shoes. all very random. What was even more interesting was the finding of the first Ice Man (Some 5000 years back), frozen and….wearing one shoe. Our friend was indeed well-heeled, with sandals made out of string, a flat panel and grass stuffings to keep the feet warm.

Ice-man shoes, filled with grass

There was a large indication of shoes addressing status, of which, height was the main enforcer of such opinion. The higher your heels, the more elegant and “above others” one was. I guess Buddha must have had 20 inch stilettos then. And that reminds me that i ought to go out and get those 7 inch vivian westwood clogs, cos that would put me right on royalty’s tracklist.

Well-heeled heels…

Such are the joys of adult learning. As one ages, it’s always exciting (if not neurotic) to learn that there is still so much that we don’t know or comprehend and if the Matrix technology of “jacking in” ever took off, I would be the first to sign on to fight the war. In the meantime, i will settle for marvelling at man’s greatness, at least with respect to shoe lace technology and how ballet shoes are straight, without a left or right foot shape.
Dutch roller-clogs…nice

There is always something nice about travelling overseas and over the years, I have established somewhat of a travel pattern. Cities warrant that I visit good independent bookstores, sip cappucino in a student hangout joint that spins music from death cab for cutie and the likes of other indie, electro and downtempo beats. but a favorite walkabout always almost includes a trip to an independant record store, speaking with the counter staff, who almost always stink of musical superiority, have wild hair and wear tees with slogans like “Slacker went home.”

After much searching, I walked about an hour or so through college town in Toronto and ended up at Soundscapes, a small independent outfit at 572 College Street. The store was dark, with muted lighting and of course with music that is rather specifically classified. It smelled of record imperialism. I like! One of the major difficulties about operating a music store is inventory. Music sales and distribution is incredibly low margin (especially post rent and having to deal with chronic slack-jawed staff whose real job is recording his next demo and stacking cds is just like his lunch job.) Choices need to be made about music selection, and what one carries and there is a fine balance between “no, we don’t carry boyzone, please go to hmv for that” versus “no, since death cab for cutie appeared in Time magazine, we now refer you to hmv.” One has to keep constant count on the “yes we have these in stock” vs “no, this is for hmv.” and mind you, that’s a key performance indicator right there that is hard to beat. And there is also the indie vs the ultimate-too-too-indie. Like a Beirut recording (which is acceptable indie and appears on reviews by Pitchfork and therefore of celeb status now) vs the (dude in his basement with his 4 track. “you gotta listen to this shit, cos it’s da shit. you know what i mean? like…no one has ever heard of him man…”)

Having worked my teenage ass off at a record store, I can tell you, we used to have where we all FOUGHT, with claws out, about what cds get onto the next order sheet. Of course, there would also be a sales tracker at the back of our minds to see whose albums ordered rendered the most sales. However, in all honesty, a bunch of indie records could never outsell Rickie Martin, so the KPI tracking was kind of a dud effort really.

In any case, after rummaging through the best of electro, lo-fi (only in an indie store does lo-fi get its own shelf), and simply just…rock - here is what i emerged, victorious with:

1. Morgan Geist - Double Time Home

2. Iron and Wine - The Shepard’s Dog

3. Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours

4. Santo Gold - Top Ranking Santo Gold, A Diplo Dub

5. Lambchop - Oh (Ohio) — beat sufjan stevens to the next american state huh?

6. Junior Boys - Body Language Six mixed by Junior Boys

7. Ron Sexsmith - Exit Strategy Soul

8. Sandro Perri - Tiny Mirrors (I have to support canadian as a result of being a tourist guest)

9. Santo Gold - reminds me of M.I.A but better and more rude electro

10. Donkey - really great. what can i say, kicks the tits off killers right out. they even got cute female vocalist.

There may have been 1 more record - but i forget. In any case, this is a pretty bombass list.

Oh and for those that wish to survive a recommendations-from-the-elitist-staff-at-indie-record-store, just look for the skinny, nerdy dudes. they are often pretty darn laidback and beta in disposition, so you probably wont get too much crap to annouce that your last purchase was The Killers debut effort.