I'm waiting now to go out our local/massive thirft shop, where I spend much of my allowance when I was younger. Value Village is the perfect place to find random t-shirts and the funkiest and funky pants. It's the sort of place where clothing finds a home to either those who can't afford to buy new clothes, or the young and lively who choose to not where all the big brands.
Friday night was very busy at the harrington house. From what I can remember I did nothing particularily special all day......I think I just hung around relaxing, reading and playing guitar. At night, however, my sister caroline came back from sarnia for the weekend. She's being working up there doing a co-op semester with esso canada, and still has to the 23rd before her contract is up. Caroline arrived home at about half five, and I quickly helped her move her stuff in the spare room, knowing that the other two would be home shortly. Steph and Josh came home about half an hour later with a load of bags, and the house quickly got much noisier. I think the last time all of us were together must have been four or five years ago. I stayed at home for an hour until my ride knocked on the door.
I bought a ticket to see Iron and Wine and Calexico at the Docks in toronto a few days earlier. Luckly an old friend, Steph say my msn name, which announced my wanting to see Iron and Wine...and also with good chance she was coming back from kingston the same weekend of the show. The last time I met Steph was probably the staircase a couple of summers ago, but neither of us could remember for sure.
Anyway, after getting a bit lost, and a call to montreal for someone to mapquest us back on track, we finally managed to find the docks. We hadn't missed much at all, as the show must have kicked off a bit later than schedualed. The Docks, for anyone who's never been there before, is in the middle of nowhere. Seriously, when you're driving down towards it's general area the buildings fall away and you can't help but feel you just purchased a joke ticket to a show thats never going to happen. Alas, after driving into the abyss for a while you do indeed reach the Docks.
It was an alright venue, though not particularly suiting for a fairly quiet artist like Iron and Wine. I had a lovely time watching a couple of bands, including one very unexpected though delightfully entertaining mexican artist. He must have been in his late forties, had long aging dark hair tied into a pony tail, and was boyterious and flamboyant to say the least. Awesome.
Saturday was steph's birthday, and caroline and I shared a laugh when we both looked at eachother with somewhat puzzeled faces asking, "did you get her anything for her birthday?" Of course the answer was, No. haha, It didn't even cross my mind to buy anything for my big sis's birthday. Oh well. I don't think she cared or even noticed. We had a great dinner that night, with the main course being my mother's famous home made lasagne. Steph had some of her friends come over for the festivities and it was a great night, full of booze, music and food.
Lauren and her boyfriend Ryan came over as well, which was great because I hadn't seen Ms. L in ages, and Ryan for much longer. I know the both of them from highschool though I never much spoke to Ryan, he's a nice guy, and the two of them get along famously. Ryan was driving so he had a drink, whilst lauren and I plentifully filled our wine glasses again and again. We caught up as best as we could. It's always tricky answering the question, "so, what have you been up to during the past year?" giving them enough detail to satisfy their query. I never feel much like talking about what I've been doing in Hong Kong, because really, no matter where you are it's always the same sort of routine. Time keeps on kicking, and before you know it your unpacking your sweaters for a visit home.
Last night I went out with Steph and Josh to the Casbah to watch a great local talent, Caribou. It's a three piece act but I think it's mainly just the one dude, who does most of the work. There were two opening acts as well. The first was a waterloo/dundas based act called Winter Equinox. They had a big post rock mellow flavour that did them well, though I wasn't too impressed by their whole set. The first two songs involved a lot of changing of instruments that gave me an ametuer choppy feel. The other tunes were much better, but they still just followed your standard song pattern of big, quiet, big, bang! or quiet, big, bang, quiet. Up and down, up and down, up and down.
The next act called, Holy Fuck were really good. The lead fella feed off his own querky, "i've done too much crystal meth" sort of stage presents, but all in all they did make a very interesting tune.
Crap, it's time to go to the wonderful value village.
So, to shorten this one up a bit, Caribou was fucking great, and I had the pleasure of running into my friend from hong kong, anna!! It was so nice seeing her again, and she looked great with her cool new short hairdo.
Alright, time to head out.
Cheers!
brendan.
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