Friday night round-up: O Jian Ghomeshi, Where Art Thou? - June 12, 2004

Okay dude, like, call me lame or whatever, but there's something kinda beautiful about this whole pas-de-smoking-dans-les-clubs thing. In the venues last night, everything was so fresh and so clean... and visible! And even better, right outside of each bar and club was a little magical smoker party! Plus, it's gotta be satisfying for all them non-smoking rawk fans to take home some merch that don't stink like emphysema.

But I digress, right? Big shouts must be sent to Classified, who rocked the mike rightly around 10pm-ish at B-Side (above Fez Batik), and quite frankly has some of the illest beats in Canada (shit, North America actually, dawg), and has been doing his fucking thing for like, fucking, forever, and furthermore, you should really go out and purchase three or four copies of his album before I get really upset, okay!?

After Class, we hit up Rivoli to see enigmatic, mathematic from fiction blast the backroom open with some atom-smashing insanity. This was the loudest band of the night, and one of the hottest, and we got a big kick out of their ram-like stage moves, and all the drum-busting energy, and the brass cojones of playing guitar with your back turned to a capacity audience.

I also kinda figured that the Riv' is a classy place, right? A smooth place. I'll stop beating around the bush: the type of place where I can run into ice cold Jian Ghomeshi 3000 (of Moxy Fruvous and CBC TV fame) and bask in his... um... cool glow for a while. But no Ghomeshi to be seen here. Lots of guys from the Edge radio though. In fact, there were tons of Edge people everywhere on Queen West last night. Anyway, from fiction rocked the casbah last night. And on an unrelated note, on my way out of the Rivoli, I went to the bathroom and used the sink, and the water that immediately flowed out of the tap was like a billion degrees hot and boiling and totally scalded my fucking hand.

Speaking of scalding, Fiest, aka Lesie Fiest of Broken Social Scene/Peaches/By Divine Right-affiliated fame, was scalding hot at the Reverb last night. And if you saw her there, up on stage completely alone but filling out the stage like a full band on the strength of this aura, nay, forcefield of charisma (again, not obscured by eye-irritating smoke), then chances are you're going to go check her out again tonight at The Mod Club on College (across from Dominion and Revival, and next to Blockbuster Video down there in Little Italy) and you're going to fall in love one more time. And if you didn't see her, well, you better get your ass down there tonight before all those greedy rawk hogs who already saw her get a double-shot while you're left out in the cold, getting all your Fiest fixation from her brilliant album, Let It Die.

Not to go on and on and on and on and on and on about Fiest or anything, but homegirl is just so cool. She's doing all this dancing and pointing, and she's a-twangin' away to this background track of herself, twangin' away and pluckin' and singin' vocals, and someone in the wham-packed audience, they ask her for the original version of one of her songs -- I can't remember which -- and she's all like, "You want me to play the original version? Haha.. well, no... but thanks for knowing it..." completely uninhibited, and your heart just explodes right there because it just can't take it.

No sign of Jian Ghomeshi though. But I reckon we did spot MuchMusic pop culture reporter Hannah Sung there. I also saw DJ Serious/Abs & Fase's buddy Planet Pea from Len (remember Len? They had that song, Steal My Sunshine? Anyone?) waiting in line for the bathroom.

Oh! And while waiting for Les Fiest, we popped up to Holy Joes and took in punkers echo-static. And they were pretty sweet, although I must say, Olivia, lead vocalist, was like waaaaay off-key. But that was on purpose, right?

The post-Feist traipse down Queen west was pretty indicative of that old "freaks come out at night" addage (and I'm not talking about all the people from The Edge 102 FM). Outside Bovine Sex Club, there was this grrl with pink hair in a wedding dress making out with this dude. It was so indie rock. And then one of the guys from rock n' roll-rockers Honor Among Thieves, who played earlier that night and was having a smoke outside, he gave me a copy of his band's self-titled CD and told me to write about it, and, you know what? It's a pretty fucking heavy disc. But it's also a little hair-metally sounding, but whatevz, right? Didn't see 'em live, but the album sounds like it'd be much more powerful live. So whatevz. That's what the 14-year-olds say, right? Whatevz.

Ah. Then what. Doubled back down Queen to [the Legendary] Horseshoe [Tavern] and caught old-school Can-rockers Lowest Of the Low. Whoops, dryer than Matzo Bread, this was.

So then I hit up Rivoli again, just to see what was doin'. I walked in for elizabeth, and it was alright, but by the look on his face, the lead singer dude kinda looked like he was masturbating. Again, no Jian Ghomeshi in sight.

Finally, had to check out Brooklyn's finest Lyricist, Wordsworth, back at B-Side, who tore shit up with Kenn Starr and Oddisee. And that's all you need to know.

And lest I forget, props and shout-outs and glory goes out to NXNE's film division, that threw down some great flicks on Friday, including a rare look at Screamin' Jay Hawkins, a rockumentary on New York glam poets Pagans, and a musical short based on the movie Deliverance. I repeat: A musical short based on the movie Deliverance. Hilarity ensues.

I'd also like to point out indie culture's acknowledgement that the mesh cap has been commercially appropriated and oversold to death and is no longer the cool ironic statement it used to be. The whole night, I only saw maybe 4 trucker hats. Hat this been summer 03, I would have seen 900 or more.

And finally buddy, if you're planning on proving you've got a life tonight, go forth and check out RIDICULOUSLY ILL femcee Eternia at Reverb (9pm - yeah, it's early, but it's worth it dude) and The Organ at Horseshoe at midnight. And also Ian Blurton's big, noisy, dirty, noisy adventure in noise, C'mon. Earplug advisory is in full effect.

Whew. Alright. I'm going to bed so I can be ready for more NXNE tonight. I'll see you (and hopefully Jian Ghomeshi) there. Peace.

JASON RICHARDS