Within Earshot

Heavy Metal + Chamber Music + Violent Bloodsports = A Busy Weekend

Variety is the spice of life, right? Right.  With that in mind, allow me to recommend a few life-spicening entertainment options happening around town this weekend.

First up, Jakk Damage is playing tonight at my all-time favourite scuzzy dive bar, The Circus Room. Jakk Damage plays intensely heavy southern-fried metal (if you've heard Black Label Society, you've pretty much heard Jakk Damage -- but good luck seeing Black Label Society in Kitchener for a few bucks in Kitchener). You can read my review of their debut CD here.

At the exact opposite of the musical spectrum is a cool five-part concert series starting tomorrow at the Music Room of the K-W Chamber Music Society. The concerts will see the renowned Aviv Quartet perform a complete series of compositions by Dmitri Shostakovich, one of the greatest classical composers of the 20th century. Between tomorrow and next Friday, the ensemble will play 15 of Shostakovich's compositions for string quartet -- a rare feat and a major coup for local classical enthusiasts.

And if chamber music isn't quite your thing, how about no-holds-barred cage fighting?  One of the biggest stars in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell, is giving a seminar tomorrow at the grand opening of DojoBuy, a martial arts supply store in Waterloo. Liddell is renowned the world over for his ability to beat the bejesus out of people while wearing shorts. He was also in the movie The Postman Rings Twice with Jack Nicholson, oddly.  And he appeared in a Nickelback video, because everybody makes mistakes. Here's a video of him turning people into mushy goo:

Go see this movie. End of discussion.

Here's the thing: you should see the movie Man on Wire.

It's a documentary that chronicles Philippe Petit's illegal 1974 high-wire walk between the twin towers of the World Trade Center.  I saw it last night and it's freakin' fantastic. The events leading up to the stunt are reconstructed like a classic heist movie, with real footage bolstered by beautifully shot re-enactments.

I won't say much more, other than this: tonight is your last chance to catch Man on Wire at the Princess Cinema, but the film will also be showing as part of the upcoming Grand River Film Festival. If you see only one movie this year, see Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Scratch that. See Man on Wire.  Here's a trailer. Watch it:

"Nietzsche is Dead"

Had he not gone bonkers and died in 1900 (possibly of syphilis, though biographers bicker over this), existentialist philosopher Friederich Nietzsche would have celebrated his 144th birthday today. Well, he probably wouldn't have celebrated per se, being the crusty, unsentimental grump that he was, but today is the anniversary of his birth nonetheless.

During my undergraduate studies in philosophy, for which I only got this lousy t-shirt, Nietzsche was by far my favourite thinker, though I only rarely agreed with his opinions. He was the Lex Luthor of philosophers: a ruthless, vengeful thinker who disliked almost everyone other than himself (especially Englishmen and all women). He despised organized religion (he wrote: "After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands") and he famously declared that "God is Dead."  God perhaps thought otherwise, since He seemingly smote Nietzsche with a variety of nasty ailments, including a moustache so impossibly immense that the weight of it likely caused Nietzsche severe neck pain.

Although Nietzsche was a misogynist and kind of an all-round jerk, his writings remain some of the most provocative and engaging in philosophy (take that, Immanuel Kant, a.k.a. Captain Boredom).

So happy birthday Nietzsche, you brilliant goofball.

 

Braaaaaaiiiinnnnsss....

This Saturday, the streets of Waterloo will come alive (well, undead, technically) during the second annual Zombie Walk. The macabre march is founded on a simple principle: lurching around like a necrotic semi-corpse in tattered clothes, searching with outstretched arms for delicious brains, is a fun way to spend an afternoon.

Anyone is welcome to join, so long as they are capable of a rigid-legged limp, a thousand-yard stare and a gaping-mouthed moan.  Fake blood and gore help too. This year's special guests, the Tri-City Roller Girls, will lend a bit of hell-on-wheels surrealism to the proceedings. Participating zombies shall convene at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Waterloo Park rabbit hutch. For all the gory details, click here.

In the meantime, here's a couple of photos taken at last year's Zombie Walk by Record photographer David Bebee.

"You've got red on you."

Click here to see the whole photo essay.

 

More goodness for indie film buffs...

The third annual Film Harvest kicks off tonight, showcasing lots of cool independent cinema produced in and around the K-Dub. Between 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. (i.e., with plenty of time to go out Oktoberfesting!), nine short films or film excerpts will be shown at the Kitchener City Hall Rotunda.  But wait, there's more: It's free!  Of course, donations would be appreciated... but technically it's free!

Among the film companies whose work will be screened tonight: Cerabolic Productions, Crosland Sister Productions, Synn Studios and Phylum MVM.

The Film Harvest is the brainchild of Craig Stewart, the creative guru behind by favourite local film company, FBN Multimedia. As the the producer/director/editor/financier/actor/writer behind FBN Multimedia, Craig is proof that big ambition can go a long way in lieu of a big budget. I once spent about eight months following Craig and the FBN crew through the filming their sixth feature film, Into the Badlands, for a story in The Record (you read it here). Despite the shoestring budget and the inevitable foibles that come along with it, Craig completed the post-apocalyptic sci-fi film and has made several since.

His films might not be as slick and polished as Hollywood blockbusters, and the special effects might not be quite as special (see trailer below), but I love that these movies are being made right under our noses. 

Gordie's Grady: Shady? Maybe. Heavy? Surely.

I chatted a few days ago with Gordie Johnson, the former frontman of Big Sugar who will soon be destroying eardrums with his new band, Grady, at the Starlight in Waterloo on Oct. 23. If you ever saw Big Sugar live during their 13 years on the Canadian club circuit, your ears are probably still ringing. Big Sugar played LOUD (and mostly awesome). 

I haven't yet seen Grady live, but a friend tells me they play slightly louder that Big Sugar. I've seen Motorhead three times, and I think Big Sugar out-volumed even them. But here's the important part: Grady plays really well, too. Loudness is pointless if the band stinks, which Grady doesn't. In fact, their sound has been described as "Motorhead backing up John Lee Hooker" -- a tag that delights Johnson.

"I've heard so many funny descriptions of Grady this year," he told me. "Someone else said we sounded like Junior Brown playing with Black Flag. I like that one." 

Johnson himself has a simpler descriptor for the sound: "Cowboy speed-metal."  My full interview with Johnson will be in The Record next week.

By most accounts, Grady is one of the most intense and impressive live acts out there, so I suggest you check out the Starlight show.  Bring earplugs. 

In the meantime, watch this:

Stay out of the megaplexes...

...'cause you're much better off checking out the great line-up of films showing at independent theatres and festivals over the next few days.

For starters, there's the biopic Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson, which continues in a very limited engagement at the Princess Cinema tonight and tomorrow.  I happened to get my paws on an advance screener DVD of this documentary and I found it fascinating (if perhaps about 15 minutes too long). Like most people, I knew the basic fable behind Thompson's rise to infamy as a self-described "gonzo" journalist: he spent a year with the Hell's Angels, he wrote Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and he offed himself with a bullet to the noggin.  This even-keeled documentary by Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney paints a complete portrait of Thompson, a complex character who was both sensitive and vicious, peace-loving and gun-crazy, a brilliant writer and an utter hack.  I suggest you check it out.  It's playing at 9:10 p.m. tonight and 9:20 p.m. tomorrow. Here's a trailer:

For some more thought-provoking cinema, head to the Waterloo Regional Children's Museum tomorrow (Thursday) for the ongoing In the Mind's Eye film festival. The festival focusses on issues of substance abuse, and this year features 38 films from around the world. Tomorrow's screenings at the Children's Museum include the film Brothers of Kabul, about two exiled Afghans who become addicted to heroin upon returning to their war-torn homeland. Also showing will be the heart-wrenching eight-minute documentary Glue Made Me a Ghost, about the glue-sniffing epidemic among Cambodian children, and Children of Leningradsky, a 2004 Acadamy Award-nominated short doc about homeless youth in Russia (trailer below).

Last but definitely not least, The Princess Cinema is hosting a special screening this Friday of The Glass Box, a 40-minute film by local director Matt Finlin.  Matt wrote and directed the film last year in Taiwan, where he worked as an English teacher. The Glass Box is a contemplative and engrossing work about the differences and, more important, the similarities between eastern and western cultures. Nearly the entire film unfolds inside a Betel Nut stand -- a neon-lit glass kiosk where attractive Taiwanese women sell an addictive substance similar to chewing tobacco. You can read more about it in my interview with Finlin, which ran in The Record a couple of days ago.  Finlan will be on hand for a Q & A session after the screening, which is the inaugural event of Cinematheque Waterloo, a new film appreciation society. The Glass Box is a fascinating little film and well worth checking out (7 p.m. Friday, $8 at the door).  Have a peek at the trailer:

   One last movie tip: don't go see Beverly Hills Chihuahua.  That is all.

The New Onkel Hans: Still Chubby, But Not Silly-Fat?

Organizers of Kitchener's venerable Bavarian festival, Oktoberfest, unveiled a slimmer, trimmer mascot last night. Onkel Hans -- the unblinking, ever-grinning spokesthing with a handlebar moustache, bulbous red nose and planet-sized head -- has been given a makeover.

For comparison, the old Onkel Hans is pictured at left, and the new svelte Onkel Hans is on the right:

 

Hmmmm...

When you really look at it, Onkel Hans' jowls look a bit pudgier in the new version, but he presumably now boasts six-pack abs instead of a keg-belly. There are other changes, too: Onkel Hans no longer has teeth, and his pupils are no longer soulless pools of inky blackness -- they do have a certain sparkle.  Oh, and he has eyebrows now.  And his handlebar moustache now looks like two slimy slugs crawling away from each other.

In today's Record article, Oktoberfest executive director Larry Blundell explained Hans' makeover thusly: "We wanted an icon you could throw into an activity like golf, baseball or running and wouldn't look silly doing it."

Sorry Larry, but Onkel Hans still going to look pretty silly playing golf. Though come to think of it, Hans does bear a distinct resemblence to pro golfer Craig Stadler.

If I sound a tad embittered about the Onkel Hans phenomenon, it's because I am.

See, I was hoping to write a day-in-the-life feature about Onkel Hans for The Record during this year's Oktoberfest. In fact, I've wanted to write such a story for about five years now. I've always thought it would be fun to follow the mascot around  from one venue to the next, seeing the festival through his enormous eyes, in a sense. The idea never came to fruition in previous years, but this year it seemed as if the Oktoberfest brass were going to let me tag along with Onkel Hans for a night. Then, a couple of days ago, I received an e-mail informing me that the Onkel Hans Committee (yes, there is such a thing) decided it would not be in "Oktoberfest's best interest to have this article written."

I was just going to write a cute, frivolous story -- a fun distraction from all the news about the election and economic Armageddon. I wasn't even going to expose the identity of the guy in the Onkel Hans suit (he happens to be a cool guy whose identity I still won't expose because I like him). But in their effort to protect the mystique of their mascot, the Oktoberfest bigwigs passed up the opportunity for a fun newspaper article about Onkel Hans.  So instead I'm writing this little diatribe, in which I argue that even after the makeover Onkel Hans is still a wonky-looking poster boy for debauchery and excessive schnitzel consumption who would look really silly playing golf.

The Funniest Man in Canada?

I just got off the phone with Derek Edwards, a comic who has been dubbed by many as "the funniest man in Canada."  A few years ago he officially earned that tag by being named best standup at the Canadian Comedy Awards, and before that he was the first Canadian to ever win the Invitational Comedy Competition in Vail, Colorado.  And at one point during our phone chat this morning he made me chortle unexpectedly and coffee almost spurted out of my nose.

Derek is bringing his new show, The Other Shoe Drops, to Centre in the Square on October 24.  He has a special affinity for Kitchener, since his first-ever "big city" adventure outside of his isolated hometown, Timmins, was a beery bout of Oktoberfesting when he was barely old enough to drink.  The memories are hazy, but he remembers "huge frauleins" serving peppermint schnapps amid a maelstrom of polka and chicken dancing. Yep, that's Oktoberfest all right.

If you ever watch Just for Laughs on the Comedy Network, you've probably seen Derek before. He's got an absurdly expressive face and he moves about the stage as if he's still reeling from that peppermint schnapps. And he's pretty dang funny. Check him out:

Kelly: funny-ha-ha and funny-weird...

A few weeks ago I interviewed perpetually raunchy comedian Margaret Cho about her upcoming stand-up show this Sunday at Centre in the Square. In the interests of good taste, I was only able to publish about three per cent of the stuff she told me, since most of it involved the activities of her reproductive physiology. You can read what I did write here. She's a friendly person and fantastic conversationalist, especially if you enjoy conversations about smut.

Intrigued as I am by Cho's unique brand of cutesy pottymouth, I'm even more keen on checking out her opening act on Sunday's show, Liam Sullivan.  Liam is an L.A.-based comic who holds the uniquely 21st-century honour of having created a viral internet video -- one of those clips that spreads through a culture like legionnaire's disease, only faster and with less vomiting. 

Liam is the creator and performer of a the character Kelly (left), a quintessential teenage American nitwit who has become an internet phenomenon.  One of the Kelly videos in particular, titled Shoes, was named by YouTube staffers as one of the top 10 videos of 2006, and was lauded by Entertainment Weekly as one of the best viral videos on the net.

I must admit, the first time I watched "Shoes" I thought it was mucho stupid (and I also thought it was a tad derivative of Bruce McCulloch's vapid pop-star character, Tammy, from Kids in the Hall).  But when I watched "Shoes" again, and then again and again, I did find a certain comic brilliance to its surreal stupidity. Or perhaps I'm just an idiot. Either way, I like.

See for yourself below.  WARNING: This video has some bad language, so if you are offended by cussing, I suggest you do not click play, got it?

Sunday's show at Centre in the Square should be pretty funny and filthynaughtydirty. Tickets are $28 to $55, available here.