Saturday morning, I figured I was pretty much a goner. Still in last night's clothes, my eyes were crusted with shame and indifference. A pair of hands pulled me out of bed and we staggered to the Just Friends Brunch to find out ALL THE FOOD WAS GONE. At 11am. Great news for the brunch turnout, bad news for this hungover mope! We ended up at Coastal where I managed to choke down half of this delicious thing. To own this bagel would be a lox-ury.
Then there were more staggers about the neighborhood and we went and saw Cuff the Duke at a secret show at the Seahorse. Their show was nice and mellow but the darkness of the bar, residual beer smell and my apparent newly-developed inner ear disorder that made walking go sideways wasn't going too well, so we went to the zine fair.
I bought a lot of things I can't really afford but love, like my friend's Atlantic Comics compilation (they used to be "Valuable Comics" in Regina. You can see their Facebook group here) and a fantastic t-shirt with a yeti on it. I tried to talk to some people and sentences weren't really coming out, just sloppy halves of words, so my friend was very nice and let me sleep under his table for a bit. Then I went and heard some readings from the Invisible Publishing/Yo Rodeo book Rememberer. It was in the Sunday school classroom at Saint David's and we all sat on small chairs. I perched on a red rocking horse. For a person who went Springsteen-wild-and-dangerous on Friday night, Gordon reads beautifully:
All the readings were great and the book really is gorgeous. If you didn't grab one at the fair you can buy one here.
Then it was time to go home again. I bathed for the first time in a couple of days, my brother drank three cartons of chocolate milk and everyone else started shooting Gibson's. We were ready for the Company House.
It was nice to sit and listen to It Kills as a quiet opening to the evening. Live, the music is not as propulsive or art-poppy as this group's previous band, I See Rowboats, but the songs are still haunting and faintly intense. Lisa Lipton sat at the piano bathed in blue light in a fuzzy hat and handed out headbands made of woven yarn. I find her voice pretty amazing. It's choirgirl pure and seems like it has never been worn by the dirty shitty smoky rigors of life. Totally untouched.
I darted over to see Cursed Arrows at the Seahorse. At the beginning there were some issues. I had a hard time hearing the vocals, there was a lot of the necessary opening-band pausing and adjusting, and I could hear people were nattering at the bar. I never really know what to do in those situations. I really wanted to tell the sound guy but I didn't want to be one of those dicks. So at the end of their set I weakly yelled "VOCALSSsss!" but by then things were all right. When they hit their their stride everyone started paying attention and by the last chord I could tell that the room had warmed significantly. I heard a few people say it was one of their favorite sets of the fest.
We bounced (or, more truthfully, I trudged) towards Tribeca to catch Random Recipe. Terrible name, great band. The group in question consists two high-energy Francophone girls, one doing raps and beatboxing and the other playing ukelele and singing in a cascading sassy soulful voice that reminded me of Esthero before she started to suck, as well as a beatmaker and a drummer. The two girls (their names are Fab and Franny, which is delightful of its own accord) exuded a powerful exuberance and soon I found myself nodding my head and feeling like a real person instead of a festering trash hag. Thanks, women.
Then Three Sheet's EMC joined them onstage for a bit:
Back to the Seahorse. Somehow we got in even though it was packed. Cousins sounded fucking huge and awesome. Aaron Mangle is that nice type of person who onstage seems perfectly assured and also perfectly unassuming. Another shit photo is below. I recall being outside with Ashley LeBlanc talking about how we think Cousins will "break" soon. You will notice I'm writing a lot about what other people are saying. My brain was (is) too cracked for insight.
I had pretty much had it with crushing crowds (and we had seen North of America the day before, remember?) so we headed back to the Company House which was the best decision anyone has ever made in their entire life. All I wanted to do was get buzzy, not fight through crowds, relax and dance to Ghettosocks, Jorun and Timbuktu. All my expectations were met in ideal measure. My brother was really excited to see the bespectacled one perform and he ate it up. It was a feel-good no-hassle set and it was exactly what I needed.
Went home and the girls from Random Recipe came over to my neighbours house. Drank whiskey, listened to Biz Markie, listened to Shoop (which led to a roomful of girls yelling, as that song invariably does) drank more whiskey, yelled, smoked 200 cigarettes, the girls from Random Recipe performed two songs on my other neighbour's ukelele - these were recorded, I will try and upload them later - and we rolled down to the Khyber to see the end of the Khyber afterparty. The Khyber has posted a video of Long Long Long doing R. Kelly's "Ignition" which was playing EXACTLY when we walked in. I love how the incongruity between the lighting (it looks like an Andy Warhol film) and the song that is being covered.
Then Play Guitar came on to play a bunch of songs from Marquee Moon and I danced until my brain felt like soup and my eyelids twitched. I remember being dragged out at some point. I remember seeing my bed again. "Oh hello bed," I muttered and kissed my own pillow as someone else kissed my face and put sheets over me.
So that was it, Pop Explosion. This was my favorite night of the whole festival and guess what, it was pretty much ALL LOCAL. I think a lot of people feel the same way about this festival. The reason it was so good was because it reminded us that we're lucky for our surroundings, and other sentimental junk. Anyway, Halifax has good bands. I'm so pleased that this is where I live.
Thanks for taking care of me even though I didn't really take care of you. Thanks for working so hard to ensure I could get buzzed and listen to the best bands from here and afar. Thanks for cutting through all the industry bullshit and reminding us why we bought wristbands/write blogs/take photos/do art/make music/dance like dumbos. Thanks very much for being magic.
