makes your body work

Some pictures of the MSTRKRFT show at the Showcase last Friday. GREAT set. And they must have fixed the sound because everything sounded crystal clear! Others on the bill were Surkin and Buraka Som Sistema, as well as a Klaxons DJ set and the Modular DJs. Also, I'd like to mention that Bitsy, Katri and I totally beat these dudes twice in a row at foosball.







Last night was alright I guess - Kavinsky and Busy P release party - featuring Mr. Oizo, Mehdi, an as-always-totally-trashed-Uffie, Feadz, Sebastian. Yeah OK last night was awesome. Especially the parts where I met Oizo and I danced to Wu-Tang.

Last but not least, VICE Magazine has finally arrived in France!!! I picked up the first edition today along with my invites to the party this Friday and I proceeded to tear through it in the caf between classes. People were staring at me because I kept on bursting into uncontrolable laughter. French people are probably some of the harshest when it comes to criticizing others...so just imagine how stellar the Do's and Don'ts section is!!

Ed Banger vs The Ers: Round 2, Brussels

I was so bummed when I had to miss Round 1 in Liege, because of too much schoolwork, so nothing was going to get in the way of me and this show on February 17th. I came home from the Alps on Friday night and 8 hours later was on the train heading to Brussels to meet up with the pals. It was an intense night. We danced until 6am. I stumbled out of the afterhours place at 9am, saw a jogger running down the street and jumped into the first cab in sight to make it back to Bitsy's place. For most of my pictures, you can check out my Flickr account, but here are just a few...

Favourite set of the night was Busy P's. Longest set of the night must have been Xavier from Justice.

Thanks to the ERS for an absolutely epic night. Round 3 sometime soon please!

The Alps

Some pictures from my self-imposed exile to the mountains last week. These were taken at Les 2 Alpes, where I rode for 2 days. I also went to Alpes d'Huez but the weather and visibility were terrible and it was too wet to bring out my camera.

The highest peak at Les 2 Alpes is almost 4,000 metres high. Just to give you an idea, Blackcomb's highest peak is at around 2,300 metres. It was hard to breathe but the view was absolutely stunning and I spent almost an hour just up there hiking around and taking in the scenery.

Tahiti Boy and the Palmtree Family

I've been MIA for the past week because I went to the Alps and then to Brussels for Ed Banger vs. the ERS Round 2. More on that in another post. This post will be dedicated to my new favourite french band, Tahiti Boy and the Palmtree Family. They have a residency at La Fleche d'Or this month, so every Monday they invite some buddies from the local music scene and we all get to enjoy 3 or 4 great bands and a DJ for free. Last week Teki Latex was behind the decks, but I headed out before then because my train left early the next morning. This week, Tahiti Boy invited Tunde Adebimpe, lead singer of TV on the Radio, and Ed Records DJ Vicarious Bliss. Here are some pictures.









Thank goodness Vicarious Bliss was there to drunkenly inform us between every song that we were witnessing a once in a lifetime opportunity and that we were lucky to be there that night to see "the best freaking band in France HANDS DOWN!!!"

run to the hills

In 6 hours I will be on a train headed to the Alps for three days of blissful snowboarding and alone-time. Yep, it'll be just me, some books, my iPod, Savoie cooking and sweet sweet powder. Here's an Iron Maiden video to keep you entertained while I'm gone:



And just because this is one of the raddest songs ever:



Tonight I checked out Tahiti Boy and the Palmtree Family. They put on a stellar show, but I'm too lazy to post pictures right now so stay tuned.

joyeux anniversaire ed bang-eur!

Saturday night Ed Banger records threw itself a little party to celebrate 4 years of making rad music and establishing Paris as a major electronic music capital. It was held at the Espace Pierre Cardin, a venue that I had never been to before. I'm not sure it was the ideal setting for this kind of event, but they probably chose it for its size. Unfortunately, the building is made entirely of glass, so there was a bit of a greenhouse effect going on. I'm guessing it was about 40 degrees inside. The windows were literally dripping with condensation. The Showcase might have been a better place to have it because there's a nice big stage and a huge bar, but since it's carved entirely out of rock, the sound is horrendous. So while it was really tough to get a good look at the DJs last night because of all the overzealous party-goers that had climbed up in front of the booth, and it was a little hard to breathe, the sound was nice and crisp.

We totally missed Vicarious Bliss, but got there just as Justice was nearing the end of their set. The little that I heard renewed my faith in their ability to spin good music live, after my disappointment the last time around. Hopefully they'll be in fine form next weekend. Mehdi was my favourite set of the night by far, with honourable mention going to Sebastian and his outstanding remix of Rage's Killing in Tha Name. The lamest part of the evening was (surprise surprise) Uffie. It's a shame that Feadz is being overshadowed by his girl, because her terrible lyrics cover up some very fine beats. I get it, she's hot and she's got a great voice for this type of music, but her fifteen minutes were up a long time ago. Mercifully, she's only got a few songs in her repertoire, so most of the hour-long slot was filled with Feadz' stellar mixing. Hey Vancouver, she's coming to your town next week. You can keep her.

I tried to take pictures but I couldn't unfog my lense long enough to get some shots. Nothing like a nice 5am walk home in torrential rain and gale-force winds to cool me off...

who's with me?

yes yes I know I've been double posting a lot lately but I was walking through the metro halls today and I turned the corner and lo and behold there is a huge poster informing me that Daft Punk is playing in Paris in June and I could barely contain my excitement, so much so that I almost grabbed the nearest passerby and shook them while yelling "HOLY SHIT I GET TO SEE DAFT PUNK!!!"

BEHOLD:



So...who wants to come with me?

Pas la peine d'appeler...

New TTC video:



Checked out Klanguage last night, but I was too tired to really enjoy it. Shame, really, because their music is catchy. We left before the end of the set.

to the right to the right

new links to the right.

1. Fluo kids blog: great for picking up mixes and other goodies.
2. Bienvenue chez toi...

it's a strange world...

Alright people. Those of you who know me well know how behind the times I am in terms of must-see movies. Hell, I only saw the Graduate this summer. That being said, why did no one just sit me down and force me to watch Blue Velvet? How is it possible that this is the first time I've seen a David Lynch movie? I'm not going to go into a lengthy discussion of why I loved it so much because this is probably old news to all of you, but if you haven't seen it, I strongly recommend it. Preferably on a movie theatre screen.

Paris has literally hundreds of movie theatre of all sizes. And the smaller ones organize mini movie fests once a month, so that they can compete with the large Silvercity-esque complexes. This means that you can see some of your favourite classics on the big screen again. So maybe it's a good thing I got to see Blue Velvet for the first time in a movie theatre... Did you know that he considered making it in black and white at first?

I've been on a bit of a movie binge ever since classes ended. In Spanish class last friday our teacher showed us Alejandro Amenabar's first major movie, Tesis. I'm usually pretty indifferent towards horror movies - at least more recent ones - because I'm always disappointed at the lack of suspense...and overall scariness. But this movie was terrifying. The basic premise: a university student in Madrid is writing her thesis on the depiction of violence in movies. She discovers a snuff movie in which a girl is being tortured to death. She finds out that the girl in the video was a former student at her uni and she decides to try to figure out who did it.

The real genius of this film is that you don't know who made the snuff film until the very last scene of the movie. And while the protagonist in the movie has a morbid fascination with violence, Amenabar is also trying to push the boundaries but never in a gratuitous or campy way. The end result is a truly scary movie that you will not be able to get out of your head.

ask and you shall receive

Aaron is right, I have been seriously neglecting this blog lately. It's mostly because for the past month, I've been so miserable that I didn't really have anything blog-able to say. I didn't want to bore you all to death with long descriptions of the unbelieavable amount of work I had... nobody likes a whiner.

But the tide is turning and on Friday at 5pm, when my last exam gets out, I will finally be able to relax and get back to leading a normal life. You know, one where I get to go out until sunrise and sleep all day.

One of the reasons I've been so overloaded with work is that the second debate for my master's project was last week. I had to present that first set of polls to the panel, which included the director of Sciences-Po (very intimidating), and the spokeswoman for Nicolas Sarkozy (also intimidating). The whole thing was filmed. Check me out, here.

Yes, I'm reading off my cards too much, but let's just remember that I hate speaking in front of people to the point that last weekend I had a nightmare about presenting this debate. Glad it's over.

So now that vacation is finally within reach, I can start focusing on how many amazing shows are coming up....starting tonight, with Kavinsky behind the decks after the Colette Dance Class at le Paris Paris. Ed Banger Records is celebrating their 4th birthday in style at Espace Cardin on Saturday. Next monday I will be checking out Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah! Then I'm off to the mountains for a little fresh air and alone-time. And when I get back, I jump on the train and head to Brussels where some buddies are putting this on. I could go on...