Of all the bizarre emails I get, the one that came in recently with the subject heading "Joaquin Phoenix is now your friend on MySpace!" is up there. The punctuation made clear just how exciting this was to be for me.
Mr. Hairlip Von Handsome is in the midst of a bizarre drunken art performance/faux meltdown of sorts and I’d been investigating. He’s announced that he’s quitting acting in order to become a full-time rapper. Being the serious thespian he is, he’s gone full method, getting fat, growing a crazy man beard and only, apparently, performing while drunk. To wit: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=7F_Ikksg40U.
My research led me to a MySpace page that, for all appearances, seemed like it was actually his. Personal pictures, no fansite-type fawning and a trio of demos that, while they didn’t really sound like him, seemed like the right ballpark. Think late-’90s midlevel Anticon-style white boy rap. My repeated emails went unanswered and just this weekend the Phoenix appears to have burnt out and the page is gone. The rumour goes that this was the grist of a Spinal Tap-style rapumentary shot by his buddy Casey Affleck, but since he’s disappeared off the grid, we may never know.
I bring this up because last week I said that 2009 is the year of pragmatism. I’d like to modify this: If you’re going to go harebrained in this time of uncertainty, make sure you go into it full-bore, Phoenix-style. Now is not the time for half measures.
Uncertainty creates the need for connection. This is perhaps the reason for the increase in Montreal music collectives, like the ascendant Red Mass who’ve been garnering all sorts of good play. Hot on their jet stream (while sharing some of their pilots) is Owain Lawson’s Black Feelings, a project that’s been around for more than a minute now. On Friday, Feb. 13 (the day that Christ lost an important game of dice, hence its unlucky reputation), at Lab Synthèse, he and his cohorts are mounting something called Ancient Spirit Overdrone, which will feature over 16 local musicians from groups that you already like. Sounds fuckin’ heavy and it’s BYOB.
One of the original crammed-stage planners returns, after nearly a two-year absence, to present LABproject 38, the latest in the Moondata series. On top of head honcho Moondata Matt Lederman, catch members of Land Of Talk, Young Galaxy, P-Wats and more. They play Feb. 14, the night of neglectful boyfriends, at O Patro Vys.
Socalled’s been out of the spotlight for a little bit now, either because of his world-spanning tour tendencies or perhaps because that cluttered basement apartment of his is so dank that it has begun to produce antimatter. Either way, he’s playing the Nocturnes du Musée series (a really neat way to re-see the museum) on Feb. 6 at the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal.
Hollerado is doing a "residency tour," which seems like an oxymoron, but it isn’t because these guys are actually totally nice and pretty smart. Whatever it is, they play Barfly on Feb. 7 (and 14, 21 and 28).
When Katie Moore isn’t cashing those huge folk paycheques, she works as a fact-checker. Every once in a while she sends me a funny tidbit. Like this one: "Hi Katie: In reference to your inquiry, Burger King(r) restaurants had a veal parmigiana sandwich available for guests back in the 1980s." She plays with Sam Shalabi & Anthony Seck on Feb. 7 at Divan Orange.
