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Statistics |
| Unique Visitors: 0 |
| Total Unique Visitors: 26 |
| Visitors Out: 180 |
| Total Visitors Out: 180 |
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| Slither @ New Harbours Music Series 1.3 |
| 2008-06-29 23:01:00 |
Slither plays Christ's Church Cathedral as part of New Harbours Music Series 1.3, June 13, 2008handheld camera, ambient sound + lightingP + C = Slither, qzh, Throwaway Digital, 2008...
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| The Urban Moorings Project |
| 2008-06-14 11:01:00 |
Hamilton’s art community has a vibrant history of engaging with public installations. When dislocated from the antiseptic confines of the art gallery, art becomes more fluid and more of a subjective and discursive enterprise. The Urban Moorings Project is a group installation on the wetlands of Cootes Paradise. Artists Susan Detwiler, Noel Harding and David Acheson, Steve Mazza, and Tor Lukasik-Foss have created floating sculptures and gardens which are intended to question the nature of human industry and ecological preservation. Curator Nora Hutchinson describes the project as “travelling canvas, one that is ever changing…sun on calm waters extends and mirrors perfectly the sculptures and their reflections on the b...
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| New Harbours Music Series 1.3 -- Slither + Fossils |
| 2008-06-08 11:01:00 |
New Harbours Music Series 1.3Slither + Fossils June 13, 9:00 PMChrist’s Church Cathedral262 James street NorthFree AdmissionThe noisier and more experimental end of jazz has always been a troubling beast to many listeners. Throughout the history of the genre, musicians have been simultaneously playing within traditional structures and emphatically breaking past them in search of new musical horizons. Free jazz attained a popular zenith in the late sixties with reed players such as John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, and the genre was able to proliferate commercially despite the demands which it placed on listeners. Over the next two decades however, jazz was concretized in the public imagination as a genre of rigid formalism associated with easy-listening ...
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| untitled (June 3, 2008) |
| 2008-06-03 23:01:00 |
laying, face fragile,in thought i am marginal to her story,while everyting else pours into her, beingso, with graceand upturned intentions, she is smilingsideways, gravity marks time for usas i hold stilland soft as death or a sidewalkwhen life enters and exits without fanfareuntil a warmth comescloser. submersed and paralytic,in vain do i sit beside her sojune 3, 2008...
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| Sois jeune et tais toi |
| 2008-06-01 11:01:00 |
featuring DJs Gary Buttrum and Carla Coma,as well as mixes from special guestsdance and silent auctionLoose Canon GalleryFriday June 69pmpay what you can$5 suggestedall money from door, beer, and auction will be donated for cancer research at Princess Margaret Hospital...
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| an open letter to Hamilton Police Services |
| 2008-05-22 11:01:00 |
As a language instructor who has worked at Mohawk and Columbia International colleges as well as McMaster University, I am deeply concerned with Mark Nimigan’s suggestion in last Wednesday’s Hamilton Spectator that Hamilton Police Services begin focussing on “clean[ing] up” the downtown core by arresting individuals who swear in public. If police are to be used as agents of the cultural hygiene policies of a few motivated bureaucrats, then an extremely dangerous precedent will have been set.I wish to argue with Mr. Nimigan that Hamilton Police Services does not have the authority to arbitrate what use of language constitutes “vile” and “filthy”. Police forces are not se...
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| 30 / 30 -- Thirty Years of Hamilton Artists Inc |
| 2008-05-12 11:01:00 |
This video was initially six metres wide by two and a half metres tall, and had separately edited intertitles. The audio was initially presented in a three-channel discreet mono format with stereo music accompaniment.Without prejudice toward the previous fifty, I am fond of the last twelve minutes of the video.Now 30 / 30 can be watched in a crappy online version, taken from a DVD source that I made a year and a half ago. Perhaps I will format this for a 60 by 90 pixel cellphone to make the film eminently portable and completely unwatchable.Notes from the DVD:30 / 30a video by Quintin Hewlett, done in 200630 / 30 is an impressionistic celebration of art as it is practised in the city of Hamilton, Ontario. The impetus for this video project was to documen...
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| Stars of the Lid @ The Music Gallery |
| 2008-04-30 11:01:00 |
Stars of the Lid played a great set at The Music Gallery in Toronto on Monday April 28, 2008.stationary camera, ambient sound and lighting, ~ 1.5 minutes missing from final pieceP + C = Stars of the Lid, qzh, Throwaway Digital, 2008...
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| Gas High |
| 2008-04-23 23:01:00 |
As another week passes in 2008, we read daily reports about the rising costs of gasoline in this country. Motorists scream in alarm as gas prices continually reach new highs: greater than $1.20 per litre in Ontario; greater than $1.35 per litre in Québec. Rural commuters complain that they require nearly a quarter tank of gasoline just to reach the nearest gas station; some of them question the futility of remaining employed when faced with the economic reality of paying more to commute to work than they actually earn at their job. Every month of the year 2008 has seen a significant rise in the oil futures market, which as of April 23 has priced the May crude oil inventory at nearly $120 per barrel. That might not sound like much until you consider that only 10 years ago the price reached...
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| Cursed @ Cashbah |
| 2008-04-17 23:01:00 |
Video from the Cursed show at Casbah on March 28, 2008. There is also one song from Taken at the end of the video. Sorry Taken fans, I am not among you.My apologies Goodfellow; I tried to brave the crowd for good shots, but after enjoying a boot to my newly-unbroken hand I decided to retreat to a safe elevation. Forgive the first few minutes of blank / chaotic screens, as at that point I was getting my ass kicked in by the crowd. Soundboard audio courtesy of Donny Cooper.P + C = Cursed, qzh, Throwaway Digital, 2008...
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| i woke up this morning as the ex-mayor was stealing my mail |
| 2008-04-14 11:01:00 |
I woke up this morning, made some tea, ate my breakfast and opened my front door to see that the ex-mayor of Hamilton Larry Di Ianni was rifling through my mail. We exchanged pleasantries, and he forced a campaign handbill upon me. He asked me the manner in which i employ myself, and after mentioning that i had taught for Mohawk and McMaster, he tried to bond with me by discussing his past as a teacher of high-school english. We laughed and talked about student life. Despite the fact that in his hand ex-Mayor of Hamilton Larry Di Ianni was holding several of my financial statements along with a notification of an unsolicited offer for a pre-approved mortgage and credit card and a flyer suggesting that now is the season for me...
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| Stars of the Lid -- And Their Refinement of the Decline |
| 2008-03-18 11:01:00 |
Stars of the LidAnd Their Refinement of the Decline[Kranky, 2007]The music of Stars of the Lid – Texas-based duo Brian McBride and Adam Wiltzie – can at worst be described as contemplative. Listening to a Stars of the Lid record is not unlike listening to Eno’s early ambient period or the chamber pieces of Arvo Pärt. While the instrumentation is quite varied and the atmospheric dronescapes frequently invoke the aesthetics of cinema, this is not music seeking cathartic release or narrative direction. This is music that evolves rather slowly over long durations. One is intended to bathe in the textures and drone of each sound and engage in what can paradoxically be described as “situational transcendence”. Each sound is allowed space to be examined...
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| Justice Yeldham @ Casbah Lounge |
| 2008-02-26 23:01:00 |
Australian performer Lucas Abela might offend many before his music properly introduces itself. The sight of a human face contorted by a transparent sheet of glass is enough of a grade-school-shenanigan turn-off that a listener must be sufficiently disciplined to endure the performance. The noises which are produced by Abela's instrument of choice for his Justice Yeldham project are indeed varied and sufficiently detailed that repeated listens are quite engaging. Simultaneously, however, one cannot deny the immediacy of the performance, as Justice Yeldham is a highly visceral and surprising display for the uninitiated. As demonstrated in the video above, quite a few members of the audience were caught off guard by the show. Indeed, an interesting audience...
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| Exploding Star Orchestra - We Are All From Somewhere Else |
| 2007-10-09 23:01:00 |
Exploding Star OrchestraWe Are All From Somewhere Else[Thrill Jockey, 2007]I was quite thrilled – and indeed a little surprised – by the appearance of cornetist Rob Mazurek’s new outfit Exploding Star Orchestra at Pepper Jack’s Café (now, with the demise of The Underground, Hamilton’s best music venue). Mazurek, a long-time player in the influential Chicago scene, has surrounded himself with an all-star cast of players including Nicole Mitchell, Mike Reed, and the seemingly omnipresent John McEntire. After numerous live performances throughout 2005-6, the band retreated to McEntire’s studio for recordings which resulted in this year’s release of We Are All From Some...
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| slightly open letter to John Baird, Canada's apparent Minister to the Environment |
| 2007-09-19 11:01:00 |
Hey kids! Here's a fun activity! Click the photograph below to send your thoughts to John Baird, who is supposed to be Minister of the Environment. Of course, there are several meanings to the word "minister":min·is·ter /ˈmɪnəstər/ Pronunciation[min-uh-ster]–noun1. a person authorized to conduct religious worship; member of the clergy; pastor.2. a person authorized to administer sacraments, as at Mass.3. a person appointed by or under the authority of a sovereign or head of a government to some high office of state, esp. to that of head of an administrative department: the minister of finance.4. a diplomatic representative accredited by one government to another and ranking next below an ambassador. Co...
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| Spectrum @ Virgin Festival |
| 2007-09-07 23:01:00 |
While most of the Festival">Virgin festival was mediocre at best (with the exception of a fine showing by Bjork), what I found to be the biggest letdown was a rare Canadian performance by Spectrum. One-time Spacemen 3 member Sonic Boom is an indisputable treasure of the 80s and 90s rock scene.It seems, however, that a "contract dispute" caused a delay in the performance by over half an hour, and left several members of Spectrum absent from the stage. After 15 minutes of decent, if not wholly remarkable, spoken-word soundscapes, the set was terminated.all photographs captured with an Olympus point-and-shoot digital...
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| the sweet(corn) little lie, part one: oil |
| 2007-06-17 23:01:00 |
MP3: The Last Poets - White Man's Got A God ComplexEver since September of 2001, the North American mediasphere has been continually repeating a mantra about reducing our collective dependence on oil imported from the Middle East. There are a variety of reasons for this desire. First and foremost, there is a security concern regarding Persian Gulf oil. Due to a complex web of colonialism, resource exploitation, and areligious/cultural reaction to modernity, the Middle East is a violent and dangerous place to do business. Furthermore, there is the issue of sustainability. Logic dictates three courses of action: either North Americans get used to consuming about 70% of the oil that they currently enjoy using, or instead find new local sources of combustible fuel. The third option is that whi...
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| forward to the future |
| 2007-04-24 11:01:00 |
One day soon, computer AIs are going to datamine things like email, and discover interesting patterns of "structural" anxieties manifesting through email forwards.I received the first copy of this email in December of 2000, shortly after the first Bush election. I then received a whole bunch of emails with slight variations on this text shortly after the 2004 election. Suddenly, in early 2007, this forward returns to my Inbox.you can tell that this text is a response to an election by the date given for "Come-Uppance Day", which is November 2. The presidential elections are always in the first week of November, and the 2004 election was nov. 2. Weirdly enough, this latest round of circulation doesn't follow any American election, save last november's midterms which saw the Democrats take ...
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| Fossils + Boughner @ Loose Cannon |
| 2007-03-28 11:01:00 |
Wednesday, March 28 was supposed to be one of the landmark nights for the Hamilton noise scene. Local acts were to be joined by genre stalwarts Prurient and Burning Star Core. Thanks to the whims of the border agencies which kept the headliners from entering Canada (obscenity laws!!!), only the local acts were able to perform. Despite the logistical chaos of a wholly improvised show, the evening's performance proved solid enough. Fossils (David Payne, Scott Johnson, and Jeremy Buchan) & Matthew Boughner were able to invoke a variety of harsh soundscapes throughout their short but inspired set. Sadly, my attempt to preserve an aural record of the evening was foiled by the incapacity of my $2 microphone to not be overdriven simply by the volume of the performance. The MP3 file below require...
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| Boris with Michio Kurihara - Rainbow |
| 2007-03-17 11:01:00 |
RainbowBoris with Michio Kurihara[Inoxia, 2007]Longtime Boris fans have come to expect a different approach to hard rock composition with each new release. Originally famous because of their extended, fuzzed-out drone records and extended Sabbath odes, the band has also been known to engage in several detours into more traditional songwriting. For their new album, Boris have teamed with current Ghost player Michio Kurihara, who is one of Japan’s more fiery guitarists. Naturally, there are solos aplenty scattered throughout this album’s nine tracks. The album opens with the slow burner “Rafflesia” before moving to the late-60s lounge-inspired “Rainbow”. If you are into the band's more psychedelic side, you might want to focus your attention on ...
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| Deerhoof - Friend Opportunity |
| 2007-03-17 11:01:00 |
DeerhoofFriend Opportunity[Kill Rock Stars, 2007]‘The Perfect Me’ opens the record at a riotous pace, and listeners will quickly understand that the Deerhoof of 2007 is a more precise animal than evidenced by the noisier songs of their early output. This time the San Francisco trio wants to rock in a slightly more conventional manner. Of course, for this arty band convention is a slippery concept. Think of how David Bowie returned to the fold by releasing his famed Berlin records after Station to Station and you might get a sense of how Deerhoof views convention. Some of the band's ideas are a bit retro: the slinky riff at the heart of ‘Believe E.S.P.’ comes straight from 1973, vintage Orange tone intact. Others are a little more inspired by m...
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| an open letter to Stockwell Day and the Conservative Party of Canada |
| 2007-02-12 11:01:00 |
Hon. Stockwell Day,The other day, I somewhat accidentally managed to come across your blog, and while I am supportive of the need to express your feelings with your constituents, I do wish to challenge some of your assertions.First of all, let me deal with this procedural detail: I am aware that your personal site in no way represents either the Canadian government, or even indeed your own party. I am also aware that this email address represents an official government of Canada member, and therefore you are not legally required to address non-governmental issues. At the same time however, I cannot separate the opinions expressed on this website as more or less "Official", as they will inform your decisions regarding govern...
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| 2006: The Year of “You” |
| 2007-01-21 23:01:00 |
In the middle of December 2006, Time Magazine released its annual Person of the Year issue and stirred up a small media frenzy by proclaiming this year’s winner to be the somewhat eponymous “you”. The idea behind this proclamation is the supposed influence of the accumulated efforts of the “little people” against the might of concentrated power. Thanks, Time, for yet another sentimental ode to the “little people”. This media-constructed humunculus – “you” – has, according to this particular arm of the Time-Warner media empire, taken power away from the corporate and media elite by means of YouTube and Wikipedia, open-source software and user-produced media, and Web 2.0 and cellphone cameras. What a magical and revolutionary time in which we live, when technology is av...
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| FWCI no more... |
| 2007-01-09 23:01:00 |
Normally I don't put too many personal details on this site, but today I found out from Paul Schaffer that my old high school has closed. It was a great school, and I credit several of the faculty there for setting me in a decent direction in those rather turbulent times of my youth. Apparently this is not new information, but the fact that I learned nothing of this event until now reflects the fact that everybody I know from Thunder Bay has long since left that town. There is always a sense of sadness in a small town as it ages......
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| no snow = me cry now |
| 2007-01-04 11:01:00 |
It's January 4, and I am outside wearing just a t-shirt and pants. As I was biking home from work today, I passed several groups of kids who were outside playing. Not a single one of them was wearing a jacket. In Hamilton, it's currently 8.4 degrees Celsius, and from the picture you can see quite obviously that there is no snow on the ground. Statistically average temperatures for our region tend to hover around -4.5 degrees Celsius. This time last year, January was exceptionally warm and was followed by a cold February. When I was a child (we're talking the 1980s, so not really that long ago), winter was a season lasting many months, usually from early November through to late March. From the look of things currently, it seems as though southern Ontario wil...
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| Junior Boys at Pepperjack Café |
| 2006-12-18 11:01:00 |
Hamilton has proven itself quite capable of producing a diverse array of musical performers. Many local acts have come to define their respective genres. And yet the most popular -- pop music, itself -- is the one area in which Hamilton’s music scene remains relatively obscure. The city has come to be known for its noise, art-rock, hardcore, drone, indie, and various other forms of good independent music. But a Top-40 hit has been largely elusive for the Steel’s musicians. Enter the Junior Boys, who produce synth-heavy pop with sentimental lyrics and a vocal presence that has more than a passing nod-and-a-wink to Faith-era George Michael. If it weren’t for the digital complexities in their production, you might assume their music to be a post-Ne...
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| Leafcutter John - The Forest and the Sea |
| 2006-12-14 11:01:00 |
Leafcutter JohnThe Forest and the Sea[Staubgold, 2006]London-based John Burton has been producing interesting variations of traditional electronic music for several years. Not happy with the limitations of either analog or digital sound sources, under the Leafcutter John moniker Burton has released several albums featuring his uniquely introspective amalgam of groove-based and electro-acoustic music. Unlike contemporaries Four Tet or Matmos, Leafcutter John preferred abstraction to propulsive grooves, which perhaps explains his status as a peripheral collaborator to the mainstream of electronic music. Soon into the pastoral eloquence of album-opener “Let It Begin”, subtly metallic drones begin to add a dirt-ridden subtext. Likewise, in “Maria in the ...
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