Going to Bed Reeking of Smoke... Everynight...

line of fires on the beach though it's hard to tell!
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Sometimes I really really miss Canada. But so far (not including people of course!!) the only thing that makes me miss Canada is going to bars and coming home reeking of smoke and waking up with a sore throat from all the second hand smoke. Gross. REally makes me appreciate the smoke free atmosphere back home.

Goodness me, I am coughing like a smoker. Perhaps we need to find some outdoor venues where smoke can dissipate?

Saturday's smokiness was not entirely tobacco. We went to the Easter bonfires. I thought it was just going to be a few people because Marthe invited us to a bonfire with her friends. However, we got there and the entire beach area was PACKED! It seemed like half the town was there! There were many smaller fires on the beach and a couple huge huge HUGE communal fires. We walked until we got to a slightly smaller area, where we noticed a lot more non-fire, non-tobacco smoke until the cops came along! It was really neat to see a beach dotted in tiny fires all over. We got pretty tired of walking on the loose sand and it was about 1230 so we were walking towards Marthe's place for tea. Thne she said that she just wanted to go to bed so Scott, Dave, Pudy, Sebastian, Jorgen and someone whose name I don't know all headed back to the Ubahn station. From there, Sebastian and us Canadians went to Ding Dong. It's an art venue where right now there is this festival where artists are working on installations. In the day you can go watch them working on them and at night it's a huge party where some of the more delicate installations are closed off but you can interact with the rest. It was like Kelowna's Duotone only backwards. Instead of displayed art and live music, it's live art and dj music. But pretty rad art there. we stayed until about 2am, then took the train home, where we (S,D,P &I) ate cake that Dave made for our 'eastover dinner' and we hadn't had time to eat before. so we went to bed at about 3am, reeking of smoke of course...

Pudy and I playing on one of the installations (don't worry, we were supposed to!!)
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Sunday absolutely nothing was open during the day and Scott was starting to feel a little sick so we stayed in and watched movies all day. All day that is, until 9pm, when our day truly began. Yes folks, we went to ANOTHER show. Our fourth live concert this week, fifth party. I feel like Chris or Clint or Chelsea, always going to shows! We figure we should take advantage since Kelowna almost never gets rad live music. SO take advantage we are!!!

We met Sebastian and Dave (who was twenty minutes late, but luckily we told him that we were meeting at 930 instead of 945 so he was actually only 5minutes late!) at a station and then walked to the dive-iest bar EVER!! it was this sort of skidpunkdirtylookslikeyou'dfindusedneedlesutitsactuallyreallycoolinsideandtherearenoskidpunksinside kind of place. graffitti and torn posters all over, stale and fresh smoke mingling in the air and my lungs. Not a place you'd want to buy beer in a glass, only in bottles!!! We scored a couch in the corner and sat for a bit until the show started. The first band was called Black Dice and it was this cool post-rock (a term which scott had to explain to me) noise art sound music with beats that are just off what you'd expect and weird sounds coming out all over. I was glad I'd brought my earplugs because the treble was intense and I could enjoy it much more when I wasn't going deaf. They had this really neat projection thing going on, that I'm sure the stoners loved, but I felt like I was going to have a seizure at one point, so I went back to the couch in the corner to just listen.

Battles
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The next band/headliners were Battles. A new york band that sounds like.... If Blue Quarter and Fly Pan Am made babies, this would be it. it had that amazing build-up of energy but they would break it one beat after it felt expected so you were constantly on your toes and really listening. It was a four piece band. Drums with an extremely high high hat, guitarist, guitarist/computer/keyboards, guitarist/voicesounds/keyboard/mixing board. I've never seen live music like this before, I've only heard it on CD and I always wondered how they did it! ITS AMAZING!!! And the crowd was so responsive and into it, unlike the crowd at STARS where everyone was too worried about looking cool to have fun and get into the music. Here everyone looked like they were in heaven. It was really awesome. After the show I went up to the voice guy to shake his hand and say good show, and ask if there was a lot of this sort of style of music coming out of the east (i just think of do make say thinkg/flypanam/godspeed and they are all from the east), in the hopes of getting some other names from him but he kind of said "Well, I HOPE not alot, but there is a lot of new experimental music coming out of new york" So, I'd like to go there now!! Sadly, they weren't selling cd's there, only shirts. I guess it's because they are on Warped Records which is pretty major so you can only buy their music in stores. But we did buy the Black Dice cd.

When we got home, scott was looking battles up on the internet and found out that the guy I talked to was Toni Braxton's little brother Tyondai!! Toni Braxton the POP star!!! Isn't that hilarious that one is pop star and one is backlash antipop? I think so.

Then we went to bad REALLY reeking of smoke because it was so bad in there. Today I cough and cough. Tonight, possible boat jazz for free again... mmm more smoke...

signing off

bertram