Pardo & Woods - the world's worst Vaudeville team. I didn't realize until later that Scott Adsit from 30 Rock was in the background. Ha!

I’m always impressed with people who can maximize a festival, particularly the ones that go longer than just a day or two – like the Vancouver Film Fest or Global’s growing comedy festival. But, I do what I can and go when I can. Yesterday, Chris from the Speedway Squad podcast invited me along to a taping of Never Not Funny live. LA comedian (warm-up man for the Tonight Show) Jimmy Pardo and company sat down in a conference room at the Westin and yukked it up for well over an hour. Chris got to talk to Pardo et al, as well as get some words in with surprise arrivals like Scott Aukerman, and I got to clunk up the show by taking them serious when they said “What’s Weird Al’s real name – let’s look it up.”

It’s not my fault I have an iPhone. It’s… Fido… no, sorry, it is my fault.

The episode of their podcast that was being taped should be up next week – I’ll make you wait until then to find out what Al’s real name is. You will be disappointed. The rest of the episode, fantastic. And it’ll be just like being there, only you weren’t and that means you didn’t give Jimmy any money, you jerks.

I’m not sure how many people would consider themselves comedy fans, other than everybody insisting that they like to laugh, but if you’re not inclined to hit the Yuk Yuk’s every once and awhile, you should consider the Comedy Festival, seeing as it’s a one week period where a lot of heavy talent from around the world come to Vancouver to play.

The festival wraps up today, with David Cross, Steve Martin, and Carol Burnett – however, there’s a second show added for Carol Burnett this coming Tuesday, where the audience gets to ask her questions. A great evening for anyone over 40 or idiots like me that watched too much TV as a kid.

Saturday December 6th, there’s a lot going on at The Rio Theatre (Broadway and Commercial), all of it part of Cthulhupalooza (kuh-too-loo-pah-loo-zah) – I’ll see if I can break it down for you.

For starters, there’s a Rock Band contest, sponsored by the game creators, Harmonix – if you’ve got some pals, and think you can rock it out, the contest is open to all attendees. Finalists get to rock it out on stage, and the winners, besides winning sweet prizes, can perform with The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets. The Thickets have a track on Rock Band, so that’s the connection.

Then later there will be a screening of the HP Lovecraft Historical Society’s Call of Cthulhu (which is done as an old-school, silent movie) along with other visual fun.

And then the evening is capped by a performance by The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets! Lead singer and chief instigator Toren was recently a guest-host on CITR’s We All Fall Down, helping to get the word out and drive some funds for CITR’s on-going funding donations (listen here.)

Besides being a barrel of monkeys, the event is helping to raise money for Child’s Play, which helps provide hospitals around the world (including BC’s Children’s Hospital) with video game systems, toys, and other fun things that make time spent in a hospital that much less sucky.

There’s a website for the event, which has information on where to pick up tickets (RX comics, Elfsar comics, Scratch, Red Cat, Zulu, and Neptoon records, etc. plus online sales via PayPal), how to enter the Rock Band contest, and more as the day of the event gets nearer!

Please spread the word, as the event benefits from having as many people as possible in attendance!

Full disclosure – I am helping to organize this event. It’s a charity event, so I’m not sure if you give full disclosure on that sort of thing. But let’s just say I a lot of my heart invested in this event, and I wish it to go well. Hope to see you there.

Every year Lydia talks me into going into Stanley Park on a late fall evening and ridding around on the Ghost Train [vpb]. Since 1999 the train has run throughout the fall celebrating Halloween. Since I’m too old to put on a costume and go trick-or-treating it’s pretty much the only thing I do for the holiday. It’s a shot of child-like goodness, as the ride and the other things going on around the park really capture what made Halloween one of the best holidays back when we were kids.

If you’ve got kids then this is almost a must. Apart from free admitance into the petting zoo, and the chance to make their own pirate hats the ride is really for kids. It’s still enjoyable without children, as we’ve gone the last few years. If you don’t need to worry about getting the kids into bed by a certain time then going later on at night is a good idea because the lines seem to subside by 8:30.

If you do have kids this year is a pirate theme, and dressing up for ride is encouraged.

For times and ticketing information visit the Vancouver Park Board’s website [vpb].

“Hello Time Bomb” was at the top of MuchMusic’s charts when I tried to request it during a phone in request hour back in Kelowna.  I was working an extra long shift at the Uptown Cinema Centre, and wanted to hear the new Matthew Good Band track.  The DJ at The Lizard, which at that point was what passed for the alternative rock station, had never heard of the song.  He offered to play “Crash” by The Dave Matthews Band.

The Matthew Good Band was fast becoming one of my favorite bands, and since they toured British Columbia a lot more than U2 and charged a lot less for tickets I ended up going to a lot of shows.  At that point I’d already seen them at EdgeFest in Edmonton and since then I’ve seen the band and Matthew Good solo nearly twenty times.  My first time at the Commodore Ballroom was to see one of the band’s five shows that they played over the holidays between the release of Beautiful Midnight and The Audio of Being.  I’ve been to Kamloops and Penticton far more than I’d like simply to catch a show.

So Tuesday’s release of Matthew Good’s Live At Massey Hall album was an obvious buy for me.

Having such a compulsive need to see as many Matt Good live shows as I could, I had always been a strong believer in the need for him to release a live album.  One of the first things I had done when I had discovered the usefulness of Napster was to seek out bootlegged live songs.  The best of which were a handful of tracks that had been recorded in Germany, with only a little too much treble.

With all of my favorite artists I’ve always wanted a full Pearl Jam like live recording release.  These days all shows go through a mixing board of some kind, and attaching basic recording equipment to that would allow for a release of a live album for every concert performed. 

The Vancouver native didn’t go that far with his first live release, instead opting to focus on a single show at Toronto’s famed Massey Hall this past May [mg].  It’s traditional but Good’s promotion of the release almost exclusively through his website and iTunes could be the first step to a Radiohead / Nine Inch Nails like movement away from a traditional record label.  That the album is already at the top of the charts on the Canadian iTunes store and doing well in the States is  sign that maybe Good doesn’t need a label anymore.

I’ve spoken enough already about what I had hoped for, and what the future might hold.  The nitty gritty of a review should of course be about the record in question.  As it stands the album released on iTunes is just the first disc in a two disc set.  Recorded during Good’s return to full band touring after a few years of doing stripped down solo acoustic shows, the album focuses largely on his newer material with only “Hello Time Bomb” and “Load Me Up” surviving from the Matthew Good Band days.  (More MGB tracks will be on side two).

Having caught the Vancouver show on this tour, one of two of his shows I caught this year along with a cross boarder trip to Seattle for one of the acoustic dates, the tone is familiar.  Returning to a full band arrangement seems to have put a new burst of energy into some of the tracks, and while there’s a bit too much musical noodling at times we’re not talking about a Grateful Dead style jam session. 

Acoustic tracks will be part of the second disc, and were a large component of the In A Comabest of album from a few years ago, but I’d have almost preferred a release from one of his acoustic shows.  Still that’s complaining about what the album’s not, as opposed to focusing on what it is.  Good and backing band are tight and this is probably the closest we’ll ever get to the definitive live collection from his career.  It stands up well against other arstis’ live releases, and if it lacks the courage of Pearl Jam’s “release everything ever” philosophy then it’s worth noting that so does every other act in the world who aren’t Pearl Jam.

At the end of the day this disc isn’t going to convince anyone whose not already a Matthew Good fan to become one.  I think anyone cautious of really giving him a chance because of the radio hits like “Hello Time Bomb” should still check out his solo work like Hospital Music, but like a best of album this is mostly a repackaging of what’s come before.

It’s still a worthy purchase for any fan.  Anyone whose deep into his catalogue will have a few tracks they would have liked to have seen.  My all time favorite song of his is “Suburbia” and it’s nowhere to be seen, it’s also a fucking fantastic song live.  Thankfully it does have “Black Helicopter” his best track since.

I’m still going to see him live as long as he’s within driving distance, but to hold me over through the lean months when Matthew Good isn’t on the road I know have something to hold me over.  Matthew Good Live at Massey Hall is the methadone for my live concert habit.

All photos by Jeffery Simpson.

…sorry, what? Oh, right. Vancouver angle. There’s a good one – this year, local Lovecrafty rockers, The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets are playing at the Penny Arcade Expo! It’s been a long trip since they played in an arcade parking lot in Burnaby for a proto-PAX Necrowombicon, but they’ve…

…what? Yes, I realize it largely gibberish. Hang on, I’ll see if I can help a bit.

So, there’s a web comic called Penny Arcade, which some, as I do, find hilarious. It’s creators have grown it into a yearly convention, attended by 40K+ people, called, The Penny Arcade Expo. There’s lots of video games, board games, games games, panels about gaming, panels about web comics, and a concert, with performances by people like Jonathan Coulton, Freezepop, and The Thickets.

Little known fact is that PAX (the expo, short form) started as a fan gathering called Necrowombicon (for reasons I do not remember, nor will you care) here in Vancouver. Or, more accurately, Burnaby, thanks to things like hotels hooked up to malls with big arcades. The Thickets, as mentioned, played one of those gatherings. In a parking lot. It rocked.

More Vancouver ties, Vancouver companies, such as Hothead Games (who worked with Penny Arcade to produce their recently released video game) will be there, or are at least sponsors.

Which brings me full circle – I’m going. I would like to see The Thickets rock thousands of people. I want to meet Wil Wheaton. I want to meet Felica Day. I want to meet the Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters (whom/which I will marry and run away with – if I’m turned down, Felicia Day is my second choice. I don’t know if Wheaton is my alternate third – we’ll see how it goes day-of.)

So, surely others from Vancouver are going? Anyone? I’m not there Friday, but I’ll be there Saturday and Sunday, most likely helping man the Thickets merch table… because I promised.

Or is everyone going to Bumbershoot instead?

[UPDATE] Triangle Productions (as you may have spotted in the comments – you do read the comments don’t you?) will be at PAX and posting some video here. So if you can’t be there, keep an eye out there for vids. Then start saving for next year.

Black and white, originally uploaded by rvnix.

Rain down, rain down
Come on rain down on me
From a great height
From a great height… height…

- Radiohead, “Paranoid Android”

Those lyrics from Radiohead’s final song followed us up the hill as we left the field at UBC’s Thunderbird Stadium. It had indeed rained down on us, and while facing the elements to watch a great rock and roll show can be a beautifully uniting experience every inch of my body was soaked and I was pretty much tired of beautiful communal experiences at that point.

Any other show I would have before the first encore, but this was a great show despite the weather. A good rock and roll show can remind me why I love music, and there’s none better than Radiohead right now. Their music is big, soaring and operatic the music of motion picture soundtracks meant for laying on your bed in the dark with good headphones. I’d go to watch someone like Matthew Good play a stripped down acoustic show any day of the week, but when you’re watching the best band in the world at the top of their game it’s something else.

It’s incredible.

So incredible that Thunderbird Stadium stayed packed right up until the end, whereas another audiance would have abandoned the show early on we stayed clamouring for a chance to actually see the stage and catch sight of Thom Yorke and company as they performed the non-radio friendly hits that make up the band’s back catalogue. It’s challenging music at its best, and while the band have yet to vere from the road laid down by their Kid A reinvention they’re still one of the most interesting bands out there.

And did I mention they’re awesome live?

All in all even with a few misteps by concert organizers, the exit plan seemed to be having concert goers scramble up a muddy hill and over wet metal pipes that had been laid down in our path for no apparent reason other than to cause injury, the show was a great success. I even picked up the best bit of tour merch ever [jks].

Given the continued, ritual scarification of the city – better known as the building of the new Canada line – Yaletown will not be holding it’s annual outdoor car show this year (a terrible blow, as that’s when Elfsar Comics has its annual sale – hopefully some good news on that later.)

(photo by Urban Mixer)

Instead, they will be holding Hot Fridays, which are a series of live music performances on a closed off street until late August. Tomorrow… sorry, today, July 11th, DJ Leanne and friends will be spinning and winning on the 1000 block of Mainland (that’s by the Subway, at Nelson, I think.) Don’t sweat it, if you miss out this week, Leanne is up for the following two Fridays as well. No word on the bands playing in the weeks following.

And the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra is performing at Deer Lake Park on Sunday – I don’t know that much more need be said. People in evening wear playing a selection of very old, kind of old, and movie soundtrack music (in this case, West Side Story – do come and rumble, won’t you?) In a lovely park, for free – so, bring a blanket and nom noms, and enjoy.

I’ve been a Monty Python fan for years, and the thing that drew me in was Monty Python and the Holy Grail [wp].  Like most good nerds I could recite complete passages of the film from memory, having watched it more times than anyone should ever watch any film.  Later I’d get into the show through the audio recordings, then eventually renting the VHS tapes of the BBC show. 

Yet I was oddly unwilling to pay good money to see Monty Python’s Spamalot.  Some of it was that of all the Pythons Eric Idle, the driving force behind Spamalot, had always been my least favorite of the group and had always seemed the most willing to cash in on the group’s fame no matter how tacky. 

And tacky it is, though in the glorious tacky manner that both embraces and mocks its translation from low budget film to Broadway musical.  In a lot of ways this is a meta-musical, playing with the form the same way that the movie played with the form of movie theatre.  Songs such as “Diva’s Lament” and “You Won’t Succeed On Broadway” are often less about the plot, than about the fact that a musical is going on.  Some songs are slightly altered versions from the movie, while Idle brings “Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life” in from Life of Brian to help fill the show out.

 Spamalot is far more accessible than anything Python has done, consider it a simplified beginners version of the humour of the group.  Everything is a broader, partly due to the influence of Idle and partly due to changes needed for being translated for the stage.  Whereas Graham Chapman’s King Arthur was the straight-man of the movie, acting every bit as if he was in a real historical epic, this Arthur is louder and seems quite in on the joke.

Still it’s hard to find fault with the production.  The songs are catchy, the jokes are funny and the cast is talented.  I’d recommend it to pretty much anyone, even those with a low tolerance for Python will enjoy it and there’s enough reference to skits and jokes from the television show to interest a hardcore fan. 

The only original Python appearing in the show, as the pre-recorded voice of God, is John Cleese.  Michael Palin wrote the Finnish opening bits.  Though most of the other Pythons are less than pleased with the show and its success, this is probably the closest thing that there ever will be to new material from the group. 

Now if you’ll excuse me there’s trouble at the mill.

Spamalot is showing at The Centre, and tickets are on sale at your local Ticketmaster.

So once settled in Vancouver, I enjoyed the relative calm of not having July explode in a frenzy of cowboy hats and pancake batter.

Oh, sure, I’ve learned the nicknames (”pee-on-your-knee”) and heard about Playland, but reports of it were kind of like listening to an insane person; “I bought myself a cell phone number and an elderly Chinese couple told me it was a very lucky number and then ate a corn dog while waiting in line to be shot into space! Then that night, The Tragically Hip performed exactly where I had watched dogs jump through hoops the week before!”

But any trepidation I may have had is wearing off – maybe it’s because I haven’t been to a Stampede (or any sort of fair ground) in a decade. Maybe it’s because I know people with kids, and darned if they (the kids) don’t make it sound fun. Maybe it’s because I know the guys that have been designing the Playland ads for years. Whatever the case, I think it might be time.

But what should I plan for?

I know MetBlog should ideally be about telling you, dear reader, what’s what. Fine. Kid Rock is playing this Sunday – get your tickets now! But I can only read the website so much – I need the skinny, the inside track. What is a must-ride attraction? What’s the must-eat food? What’s the best time to go if you hate crowds (and boy, do I)? Help me out, won’t you – share your wisdom in the comments.