Avenue Q in Toronto

The last post I made featured some of Sesame St's finest moments. The description that I best remember someone used to describe this Tony Award winning musical, Avenue Q, was "Sesame St. on crack". And you know what? It's sorta true.


The story focuses on Princeton, a young puppet fresh out of college, struggling to find his purpose in life. He moves into the fictional Avenue Q, where he finds a handful of eccentric characters that each have their own troubles to deal with. The ensemble includes Kate Monster, a young school teacher, Gary Coleman (yes, that Gary Coleman), Rod and Nicky, the Q equivalents of Ernie and Bert, and Trekkie Monster. Think Cookie Monster, but instead of cookies, it's porn.

Maybe you can already tell that this particular puppet show isn't meant for kids. Perhaps this is made more obvious with song titles such as:

Original Broadway Cast of Avenue Q - B.A. in English/It Sucks to be Me (mp3)
If You Were Gay
Original Broadway Cast of Avenue Q -Everyone's a Little Bit Racist (mp3)
Be as Loud as the Hell You Want (when you're making love)

Here's a lovely medley performed by the London cast.



I'm hoping that the touring cast is just as talented. I've been looking forward to this for so long! Sadly I'm out of town this week and can't see it yet. D=

Avenue Q is in Toronto. The show starts today at the Elgin Theatre and runs until August 31st. Buy your tickets NOW!

Something New with the Airborne Toxic Event

Week 8 - Something New

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0bE5_hTv2A

Hey, kids. I'm not able to embed the new Airborne Toxic Event acoustic video here. The hotel I'm staying at has something funky going on with the copy and paste command, and I don't have the patience to type out the whole code for you. I'll properly embed it once I have access to my own computer. In the meantime, enjoy the link. Also, The mp3 for their single, Sometime Around Midnight is now available (remember, from our last post about the band?)! Yay!

Airborne Toxic Event - Sometime Around Midnight (mp3)

Lastly, the band will be making a TV appearance on Conan O'Brien on August 1st.

See you all back in Toronto real soon!

Sesame St. FTW

Who as a kid didn't like Sesame St? Trick question! There's no answer to that. Everybody loved Sesame St. I still love Sesame St, perhaps now more than ever. Their special guests just keep getting more frequent and they keep booking artists closer and closer to my heart. Here, take a closer look at some of my favourite clips:

Goo Goo Dolls! Remember way back when?



Brings back good memories! But it also reminds me of how disturbingly cute Elmo can be.

Backstreet Boys! Before the reunion!




James Blunt, with a lovely rendition of "My Triangle" (sung to the tune of "You're Beautiful")



Aha ha ha ha. "I don't want to talk about it... But I can sing about it!" Brilliant! Oh, Blunty...

Here's Feist with a self-cover of "1, 2, 3, 4"



It's like the song was specifically written to be but on Sesame St.

And OMG it's Neil Patrick Harris as the SHOE FAIRY. Well actually, I can't embed the video below because the youTube Sesame St accounts has issues with embedding, but trust me, you want to click the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDaszN9ByxM

It may very well be the best link you'll ever be redirected from this blog. I'll embed the video if it's ever available for that. Mr. Harris never ceases to amaze me. So talented! And I still haven't gotten over my initial fangirl phase of Dr. Horrible.

And this one isn't musical, and it's a slightly older clip but it was one of my favourites as I scoured youTube for Sesame St's guest stars. Robert DeNiro. The man knows funny.



Hey! Look at me, I'm a cabbage! Good source of Riboflavin!

Calling All Lady-Man Ladies

Eeeeee! I totally geeked out when I saw this! Since HBO announced that there won't be any new Flight of the Conchords' television episodes until 2009, I have been suffering from withdrawal. I stumbled on this slightly new (as of May) video for the song "Ladies of the World". This will have to do for now! Sigh, I even love Jermaine's pornstache!



Gotta get myself a piece of Bretty too!

Waiting for the Ode to E. J. Smith

Travis' next full length release "Ode to E. J. Smith" has not yet been announced, but its rumoured to be out sometime in the fall. For now, the boys have released a little sample of what this will sound like. Their new EP, "J. Smith" is a little more energetic than their last record and is a precursor of what's to come.

Tracks include:

Chinese Blues

J Smith - Travis (mp3)

Something Anything

and

B-sides:

Get Up (which is to be the 7th track on the full length Ode to E. J. Smith)

Sarah

BRMC's back!

I can't believe I haven't posted about the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club before. They're so underrated. Yet, this is what a rock band should be: They dress in black. They're reverb heavy. They like to cover Elvis' "Love me tender" at their shows. One of the members has a revolving door membership. Noel Gallagher loves them. I love them.

Anyhoo, they just announced via their website that they will be headlining an intimate (acoustic?) show at the Mod Club (Toronto) Monday August 11, 2008. Tickets are $27.50 and are on sale now. This time, Nick Jago will not be joining them as he will be taking break from the band to work on his own stuff.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Berlin (mp3)

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Lien on Your Dreams (mp3)

Airborne Toxic Event Again

Here's the latest acoustic session installment by the Airborne Toxic Event.

Week 7 - Sometime Around Midnight



Also, their official video for the above song is out, embedded below. Honestly though, I prefer the charm of the camera work in their acoustic session. It came off more powerful to me. But it's not much of a statement to run on. They can do what they want with the video. The song itself will outdo any possible visual filler they associate it with.



They're vying for the Yahoo title, "Who's Next" through a spiffy poll. Vote for them here.

I can't wait to see what's in store for these guys. It's obviously going to be a BIG year for them.

Sounds of the Great Northwest

The Great Northwest's new album "The Widespread Reign of the Great Northwest" is out July 29, 2008. The mastermind behind the project, Brian Coates has played with the likes of the Dandy Warhols and you can hear a little bit of the mellower Dandy influence.

I got a copy of the album and in order to relay what the record sounds like, imagine this: You are in a car driving home from a road trip. It's sometime in the evening and you're exhausted by all the sheer eventfulness of the day. Nobody in the car is talking, not because they don't want to, but because its easier not to. Instead, they are looking out the window watching rural roads and lakes pass and the sky changing from day until night. If you can embody that scene into 13 tracks, that's what my impression of the Great Northwest sounds like.

Great Northwest - Chief John (mp3)

Ring Me.

Cartier, the diamond company has sponsored a bunch of works around the theme of "What would you do for love?", for their "Love" line, of course emphasizing the fact that a diamond would seal the deal. But it's not all cynicism, there is money being donated to various charities and 8 tracks commissioned to musicians like Hawksley Workman, Phoenix, Lou Reed and Marion Cotillard (yes, THAT Marion Cotillard of Oscar fame). All tracks can be heard and downloaded at the CartierLove website.

Hawksley Workman - The Ground that we walk on (mp3)

Phoenix - Twentyone One Zero (mp3)

Marion Cotillard - The Strong Ones (mp3)

Music nerds may actually pay attention to these diamonds.

Love's Labour's Lost

You know that feeling when you fall in love with a particular song?
You listen to it ad nauseam and miraculous you still love it.
Inspired by this love, you decide to take a chance and google the band to find out more about them.
It's a leap of faith, but for this one song, it is worth it.
Lo and behold, your instincts have not failed you and it turns out you totally love this band's other songs too! You know that feeling?

Riding on the wave of this exhilarating experience, you do more digging to find out when you can see this newly beloved band live.... only to find out they've disbanded about 5 months ago?!?

Yep, that's what I'm feeling right now.

So, though belatedly, I am currently mourning the loss of The Format. Their brand of peppy indie rock just makes my heart sing! Why, oh why, couldn't I have found them just a bit earlier? Or better yet, why didn't they just stay together?

Sigh, at least we will always have the music...

The Format - The First Single (mp3)
The Format - Dead End (mp3)

Airborne Toxic Event

I love this webcam shot.


This five piece just can't do anything wrong. It's silly to feel this way, but I feel like ever since I first heard of them, they've been making moves to win me over.

I found them last year by randomly clicking on the top musician friends of some bands that I liked. They hail from Los Angeles and at the time, they only had four songs available for preview on their profile, all of them brilliant. The indie scene latched onto them immediately following the release of a three-song EP and I've been keeping an eye on them ever since. They've recently signed with Majordomo Records (base for Impressionable favourite, Earlimart) and their debut self-titled LP is due on August 5th.

To lead up to that, the band has recorded ten videos in which they play acoustic versions of their songs in peculiar settings. Every week for ten weeks, they'll post a one on youtube. We're currently on week six. Most of these songs have only been heard by their live audiences, so it really keeps me watching and waiting. I'm also excited to find out what sort of obscure setting they'll be playing in next.

Here's the story thus far:

Week 1 - Wishing Well



Week 2 - Papillon



Week 3 - Gasoline



Week 4 - Happiness if Overrated



Week 5 - Does This Mean You're Moving On?



Week 6 - This is Nowhere



Needless to say, I'm completely smitten. I'll be posting the next four videos as they come.

Airborne Toxic Event - Wishing Well (mp3)

Visit them on mySpace!

July Updates

My gosh. I'm sure I've said this before. Damn, it's been a while.

Anyhow, to summarize my excuses for being tardy, I've been fairly busy. What with graduating from high school, getting all my university application documents finalized, and such. No big deal, right? Aside from that, I've also got a tendency to be lazy.

Moving right along now. I've got a two major updates I want to make, since I've been away.

1) Kill Kill Kill

No, that's not a command, silly. That's a band. They were the first ever to contact Impressionable Youth in regards to their music, so there was an immediate sort of affection for them because they helped us reach another blog milestone. Quite interesting, really. To be honest, I wasn't quite sure how to review music of their genre. Think somewhat mostly experimental-instrumental with a lot of distortion and a strange undertone of apprehension. Nonetheless, I'm a sucker for vocals, so here's a few tracks by them that include them.

Kill Kill Kill - Dark Cold Dark (mp3)
Kill Kill Kill - Pink Eye (mp3)
Kill Kill Kill - Hang Sleep (mp3)

These tracks can be found along with many more at their blog.

2) Earlimart


I fell in love with this these guys last year with the release of Mentor Tormentor. They're back, now (so quickly?!) with a new one. Hymn and Her is the name of the album, released on the first of July. Their way with words amuses me to no end. So do their oh so soothing melodies. Perfect for waking up to on a lazy summer day.


Earlimart - For the Birds (mp3)
Earlimart - Before it Gets Better (mp3)
Earlimart - Face Down in the Rights Town (mp3)

Visit their mySpace, here.

Quarter Life Crisis

Some of my friends have reached the quarter life mark recently and while I wish them the very best, I can't help but to think about my upcoming quarter life crisis. So I will try to condense these feelings into a few songs, starting with the uphill battle and going over the hill.

Garbage - When I grow up (mp3)

Sloan - I'm not a kid anymore (mp3)

Pursuit of Happiness - I'm an Adult Now (mp3)

Of Montreal - I was Never Young (mp3)

The Features - Idea of Growing Old (mp3)

As long as it doesn't turn into this, I'll be fine:

Celine Dion - All by Myself (mp3)

The Dandys are Back

The Dandy Warhols' 6th full length release is out August 18th entitled "Earth to the Dandy Warhols" and it will be their first on their own Beat the World Records. The Dandys will be making a stop on their tour at the Kool Haus Sat. September 13. Tickets are $24.75 and are available at the Ticketmaster, Soundscapes and Rotate This.

Dandy Warhols - The World The People Together (Come on) (mp3)

Dandy Warhols - Bohemian Like You (mp3)

Emo Hair

Here's a fabulous guide to creating your very own emo hair so you can be individual like that. Not that I believe in labels....

For boys:


For girls:

True Patriot Love

Happy Canada Day Folks! I know you love your country, and so do these guys. They drop names like it's hot! And I know you secretly love it too when you hear an obscure geographic reference close to your heart. Like the name of your hometown or the CN Tower or the fact that the background for the Barenaked Ladies "Lovers in a Dangerous Time" video was filmed five minutes from where you live.

Joel Plaskett - Work Out Fine (mp3)

Thrush Hermit - From the Back of the Film (mp3)

Bedouin Soundclash - St. Andrews (Mp3)

Carnations - Scream and Yell (Mp3)

Hawksley Workman - Smoke Baby (Mp3)

Final Fantasy - The CN Tower Belongs to the Dead (Mp3)