In an effort to learn more about R&B star Akon, who is is performing tonight at the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium, I consulted Wikipedia (which is aninfallible bastion of truth, and don't let anyone tell you different). Here is an assortment of random factoids that should get you better acquainted with Akon:
1. His name is not Acorn. I stand corrected.
2. Apparently his full name is Aliaune Damala Bouga Time Puru Nacka Lu Lu Lu Badara Akon Thiam. I consulted the footnotes on Wikipedia wondering what evidence could back up this fact. It cited an episode of The Ellen Degeneres Show, which is also an infallible bastion of truth (and a bastion of middle-aged women dancing poorly), and don't let anyone tell you different.
3. Akon was born in 1973. Or 1977. Or 1981. He won't say. "The only thing I hide is my age... before I lie to you, I'd rather say nothing," he told a VIBE reporter.
4. He spent five years in jail. Or perhaps not. Although he sings a lot about serving hard time for being the ringleader of a car theft operation (many of his songs begin with the clanking of a jail cell), an investigation by The Smoking Gun suggests that "Akon's ad nauseum claims about his criminal career and resulting prison
time have been, to an overwhelming extent, exaggerated, embellished, or
wholly fabricated."
5. Akon is rumoured to have three wives. So his chart-topping claim to be "Mr. Lonely" is evidently a bit off-the-mark.
6. Akon apparently owns a diamond mine in South Africa, which explains the bling. He denies the rumours that the mine produces so-called blood-diamonds.
7. In April 2007, it was reported that Akon engaged in on-stage simulated sex
with Danah (Deena) Alleyne, a preacher's fifteen-year-old
daughter. Oopsie!
Apparently Akon has also released a lot of music and collaborated with dozens of other artists. He sells lots of albums and has legions of fans, yadda yadda. Hmm... perhaps "yadda yadda" should become part of his middle name. It would fit right in!
In the best piece of music news I've heard since "Billy Bob Cancels Canadian Tour," it was announced today that Eagles of Death Metal are heading out on a full Canadian tour this summer, with a stop at Elements in Kitchener on July 30. If you are already familiar with the EO(F'n)DM phenomenon, you'll understand why this is fantastically good news.
The band's show at The Phoenix in Toronto a few months ago was a transformative rock 'n' roll rapture that left everyone in the crowd craving more. So they're bringing more. (I emailed the band's guitarist, Dave Catching, after the Toronto gig to tell him how much I dug the show. He promptly replied with a gracious message saying the band loves playing for wild Canadian crowds. Perhaps he was just being nice, but I'm inclined to believe him. Oh, and screw you Billy Bob Thornton! Canadian crowds have plenty of "gravy" for GOOD bands, not YOUR band).
Anyway, if you've never experienced Eagles of Death Metal before, it's important to note that they sound nothing like: 1. The Eagles, or 2. Death Metal. They sound like awesomeness, in the form of fuzzed-out, high-energy boogie-woogie camp-rock that evokes all the best parts of the 1970s. Their live shows are renowned for tons of audience participation, hilarity and sweaty, stanky, knock-your-socks-on-their-asses rock. Here's a teaser:
When I got a press release last week touting that University of Waterloo researchers had invented a flying robot, I couldn't wait to see it. I envisioned a sleek, gleaming android with blinking eyes and a monotone voice that would say things like: "primary directive" and "resistance is futile."
I was hoping it would rocket me around the world, blow stuff up with its photon cannons, become self-aware and eventually figure out why humans cry. So I was a tad disappointed when I learned that the flying robot at the University of Waterloo is slightly smaller than a green pea and just looks like a couple of metal rectangles glued together.
But I went to see it anyway, since it is the world's first micro-robot with manipulable pincers that may eventually be used for cell manipulation and microsurgery. That's pretty neat, even if it's pretty useless for intergalactic crimefighting. The robot flies thanks to electromagnetic fields and lasers and other impenetrably science-y stuff (which I tried to sufficiently dumb down in my article about it).
If you want to see what a flying microrobot with laser-actuated pincers looks like in action, I suggest you check out this short video. It's really nifty, despite the lack of Hollywood pizazz. But really: would it have killed the scientists to put a pair of cool blinking eyes on it?
This weekend marks the third annual Carl!!! Festival (those three exclamation points actually make the term "third annual" redundant, since the first festival was called Carl!, and the second was Carl!!). The three-day Carl!!! Festival will unfold, as always, at Waterloo's funnest indie-rock incubator, The Trepid House at 130 King St. N.
The Trepid House, in case you've never been, is a century-old home that has completely been wired for sound, so when a band is playing in the living room you can listen to them through speakers rigged in the kitchen, the sunroom, and so on. Here's a big story I wrote about the place for The Record.
In an intriguing new twist, the musical line-up of the Carl!!! Festival is being kept top-secret this year. According to Jeff Woods, head honcho of Trepid's indie empire, "there are some pretty amazing nationally touring bands playing" at 130 King over the weekend, so the line-up is being kept hush-hush to prevent the house from being inundated. Its a way of "rewarding the brave and the curious," Jeff says.
Another mystery, aside from the roster of bands, is why the festival is named Carl!!! in the first place. Who is this Carl, and why does he get a whole indie-rock festival named after him?
I can assure you the festival is NOT named after Karl Wolf, who is opening for Akon next Wednesday at the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium. I must confess I had never heard of Karl Wolf until a press release about the "certified platinum!!" artist arrived in my inbox this morning. Since I am actually going to the Akon concert on Wednesday (with much uncertainty, since it is NOT my preferred genre of music), I decided I should figure out who Karl Wolf is. He has earned some acclaim for his cover of Toto's schmalzy '80s hit Africa. I watched the video, and all I can say is "eeesh." Perhaps I'm just out of touch, but to me the video exemplifies everything that is lame, insipid, boring and predictable about contemporary R & B music (the egomaniacal singer, the random inclusion of dripping wet bimbos in bikinis, the reliance on ripped-off melodies...). Have a look:
Astronomers at the Carnegie Observatories in California are reportedly befuddled by the discovery of a giant space blob that was floating around space when the universe was newly formed.
"The puzzle is -- what is it?" said astronomer Richard Ellis in a story by the Associated Press. The blob was big, gaseous and emitted some kind of mysterious radiation. According to many theories of the universe, nothing as big as the blob was supposed to exist way back then. Due to copyright issues I can't post the telescope photography of the blob on this page, but you can view pictures of it by clicking here.
It's not every day that a ex-con says he wants to cut off your head. Well, if that DOES happen to you every day, you might want to re-evaluate some of the choices you've made in life. But it happened to me the other day -- an ex-con with a long rap sheet of weapons and drug charges said he wanted to decapitate me. "It'll be fun," he assured me.
To be fair, the guy never actually sold drugs or weapons, and the time he spent in jail was part of his job. He just pretended to be a scumbag during his 25 years as an undercover cop with the Niagara Police Department. In a rather abrupt and drastic career change, he became full-time magician a couple of years ago.
His name is Edward Stone, and he's headlining a pair of magic shows this Saturday at the Waterloo Stage Theatre (read the full story). Among the illusions in his arsenal is one he claims he has never tried before: lopping the head off an audience volunteer. He asked me to be his guinea pig. I think I'll attend the evening show (and if there are no reports of bloodshed or fatalities from the earlier matinee, I might just volunteer).
Because I am a total geek for magic, I jump at any opportunity to participate in a trick. Yeah, I'm that wiener. When David Copperfield performed at Centre in the Square a few years ago, I caught a frisbee he threw into the audience to randomly select a participant (there are rumours that I snatched the frisbee from the hands of a nearby child, but you can't prove nuthin'!). Anyway, Copperfield made a vintage car materialize right above my head, and he somehow magically embossed a pair of license plates with numbers hollered out by other randomly selected audience members, even though I was holding the license plates close to my chest the whole time.
But that trick didn't involve the potential divorce of my head from my shoulders, so I'm nervous about volunteering for that one. Stone insists the illusion is completely safe. If it's not, heads will roll.
For more information on Saturday's shows and other magical happenings around town, visit theKind of Magic page.
The song "Echoes" by Pink Floyd is 23 minutes long. "Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence" by Dream Theater clocks in at a whopping 42 minutes. Stoner-rock titans Sleep recorded a mammoth 62-minute track called, fittingly, "Dopesmoker." But all of them are tiny musical hiccups compared to the preposterously long song that will be performed at a Kitchener church this Saturday to kick off the 2009 Open Ears Festival.
Starting at 6 a.m., a team of more than 50 pianists will take turns playing Pages Mystiques, an 1893 piece by composer Erik Satie, who dictated that a certain 22-bar movement should be played 820 consecutive times. Satie was a bit of a kook.
If all goes according to plan, the final notes of the piece will be played at 10 p.m., 16 hours after it gets started. While anyone is more than welcome to sit through the entire performance, it would be clearly insane to do so, which is why Open Ears organizers are encouraging people to come and go as they please.
A 16-hour repetition of the same 22-bar movement is just the first of many auditory adventures that will await visitors to this year's Open Ears Festival of Music and Sound. The 10-day festival will feature experimental concerts (The Books, Hard Rubber Orchestra, Red Chamber and more), "soundwalks" through an ecological reserve, film screenings and sound-art installations at locations around Kitchener-Waterloo. Oh! And there's gonna be a BLUE DOT! Yes, a BLUE DOT! If you don't know what that is, I strongly suggest you learn more about the Blue Dot, then attend on Saturday May 2.
For a sneak peak of what's to come, I strongly suggest that, if possible, you head to the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery and check out Whispering Room, a sound-art installation by Janet Cardiff. In a nutshell, it is: a roomful of speakers, a movie projector, and one of the creepiest, most unsettling experiences you my ever have. Read all about it.
I hesitate to even mention one aspect of Open Ears, because the selfish part of me doesn't want it to be crowded. But I suppose it's my journalistic duty (Ha, I said duty!) to not withhold pertinent information. So here it is: the festival will also host a screening of Heima, the documentary about the 2007 tour that saw the inimitable dream-pop Sigur Ros return to their native Iceland to play a series of free, unannounced concerts.
I went to the Canadian premiere of Heima in Toronto last year, and it was great. It should have been super-mega-fantastic, but I had the bad luck of sitting behind a person with the WORLD'S LARGEST HEAD, who also happened to have the WORLD'S WEAKEST NECK MUSCLES. This woman's enormous, planet-sized noggin flip-flopped constantly from shoulder to shoulder. Trying to watch the movie behind this giant bobblehead was an infuriating experience.
I have since bought Heima and watched it on DVD a bunch of times, but it really demands a big-screen viewing, given Iceland's majestic vistas and landscapes. So I'll be at the Princess Cinema on April 27, basking in the gorgeous sights and sounds. Be forewarned, though: if your head enters my line of sight, you're getting a smack to the noggin. Here's a teaser (of the movie, not the smack):
I love old legion halls, with their dartboards and cheap beer and war medals and nicotine-stained pictures of the Queen hanging askew on the wall. They're so gritty and real. So I can't think of a better place than the Hespeler Legion to host tomorrow's Rock The Monster concert, which features four bands that are nothing if not gritty and real.
Headlining the show are London party-rockers Bobnoxious, with support from three of Waterloo Region's rockingest bands: Seven Years Lost, Saigon Hookers and West Memphis Suicide.
I must confess, I'm more pumped for the openers than the headliners, since West Memphis Suicide remain my pick for the best band in town (and Saigon Hookers are very strong contenders for that title too). Both those bands submitted FANTASTIC entries in the Within Earshot Music Video Contest that I hosted last year.
As a foretaste of the wonderful mayhem that is about to shake the Hespeler Legion, here are some clips for you viewing pleasure. Plug in some earphones, crank the volume and bang your head (but not into your computer screen).
Do you enjoy any of the following genres of music: rock, pop, funk, jazz, soul, hip hop, folk, bluegrass, metal, country, singer-songwriter, ska and/or blues? If you answered "no" to that question, check your wrist for a pulse. You might be dead. If you answered yes, congratulations -- you are among the living, and if you live in or around Waterloo Region, you're in for a big treat this weekend.
More than 50 bands will be playing between half-a-dozen venues Friday and Saturday during the third annual Go! Music Festival. It's kind of like Austin's South by Southwest festival, but instead of going all the way to Texas you can wander from venue to venue in the gorgeous spring weather and still stumble home in time for wee-hour infomercials.
The festivities kick off tonight with a free (you heard me, free!) launch party at The Boathouse in Victoria Park, featuring The Perpetrators, The Speakeasies and The Stars Here.
The Festival really gets rolling Friday night at about 9 p.m., when more than 25 bands take to the stages at The Gig Music Hall, The Boathouse, Lucky's Wings & Things, The Rum Runner, The Hive, Maxwell's Music House, and the incomparable Circus Room.
Among the highlights of Friday night's performances: - A headlining spot by the silken-voiced renaissance woman Sarah Slean at The Gig, with support from Mike Evin and Meredith Grant. - A showcase of Kitchener's venerable label Busted Flat Records at Maxwell's Music House, featuring label-mates Lynn Jackson, Sexdwarf, Mike Alviano and Paul MacLeod. - A night of heavy guitar rock at The Hive, showcasing The Nuke, Eye Rhyme and The Stone Angels (the cathartic new band for songstress Mary 5E).
Saturday's schedule boasts another stacked line-up of great shows including: - A headlining show at The Wax by Mobile, with opening support from one of Kitchener's most promising rock upstarts, Gran Casino. - A 9:45 p.m. show at The Children's Museum by Sebastien Grainger, formerly of the stupendously good band Death From Above 1979. - A stacked show at The Boathouse featuring Kyp Harness and fantastic Toronto band Run With the Kittens (watch this video -- it's like drugs, but legal). - A high-energy concert at The Boathouse with The Disguises, The Vestaloynes and local funk-rock heroes The Sound Foundation.
Want to know the best part about the Go! Music Festival (other than all the music)? It's preposterously cheap compared to typical rock fests. A $15 wristband will get you entry to most of the venues, or you can pay six bucks at the door if you're looking for just a one-off show.
Colin is an arts and entertainment reporter at the Waterloo Region Record. He's your brother from another mother.
Got a CD you'd like reviewed in The Record? Got a concert coming up you'd like publicized? Got some snacks you'd like to share? Contact Colin at chunter@therecord.com
Hey Waterloo Region bands, enter the Within Earshot Music Video Contest to win 1,500 bucks cash and more.
