what's up?

There's a lot of music to talk about right now, local and otherwise. Winnipeg's Jazz festival brought in indie-rock darlings Deerhoof on for a energetic and entertaining show on Monday (it was awesome!). Following the concert, we were all treated to a DJ set by ?uestlove, who rushed over to the Pyramid Cabaret after The Roots played the Pantages Theatre. It was a late night, but ?uestlove's set was worth staying for, sort of. It's the closest I've ever come to the "club" experience. Now I know for certain that clubbing is not for me.


Next week the Winnipeg Folk Festival gets underway, featuring Andrew Bird, The Dodos, Emmylou Harris, the Avett Brothers, Levon Helm, Etran Finitawa (who have the best promo pictures I've ever seen - above), Rock Plaza Central, Konono No 1, the Rural Alberta Advantage, and others.

Matador has just announced the line-up for its 21st birthday bash, and it looks better than most of the festival line-ups I've seen so far this year. Basically all my favourite indie bands from the 90s are playing it (with a few major exceptions): Pavement, Yo La Tengo, Cat Power, Guided by Voices, Spoon, Belle & Sebastian, Chavez, and Liz Phair (who, I'm sure, will be under strict supervision in case she makes the mistake of playing anything from the last 10 years). It's in October, by which time I'll be well into my MA program. And it's in Las Vegas. Probably for the best that I can't go. I wouldn't know what to do with myself and I'd probably blow a huge wad of cash on merch just out of sheer nostalgia for the late 90s. Just think of all the cool band t-shirts I never had access to, suddenly at my fingertips.

I should probably also mention that this Saturday I'll be joining a friend for an acoustic set of favourite rock/pop songs from the 90s. We've been talking about doing this for a long time and I'm pretty excited that it's going ahead, if for no other reason than that I can break out my XL band t-shirts that haven't gotten much use in the last few years. Here's a link to the event.