The Burning Hell @ the Horseshoe Tavern: This band is amazing. They are coming off the release of their second full-length, Baby, and I think they get more energetic every time I see them. The bonus of this show is that they were almost all rip-roaring drunk, particularly Mathias (the frontman, brain, and master ukulele-man behind the project), which added about ten thousand energy points. “Grave Situation Pt. 1″ has never sounded so good, and I was amazed both at the number of people filling the ‘Shoe for their set and at how many of those people were raucously yelling along to most of the songs.

Six Shooter Records BBQ: For those unaware of the recent tradition, Six Shooter Records hosts a backlot BBQ on the Saturday of NXNE behind their store on Queen East. This year it poured fairly aggressively, but it was still packed full of umbrella-wielding, good-humoured folks; NQ Arbuckle, the afternoon’s host, definitely fits into the latter category. I believe the margaritas may have contributed to his good humour later in the day, but nonetheless, he did magnificently. There were great, and I mean great, performances by the likes of Justin Rutledge (including a rockin’ version of his “jellybean song”), The Beauties, Luke Doucet, Martin Tielli — yeah! — backed by Luke Doucet and Selina Martin, Rose Cousins, and a bunch of others too. Highlights included … well, the whole thing. I am sure you can imagine what the original post looked like.

And that’s about all I did. We played a show at Mitzi’s Sister on the Saturday night, though, and Chart magazine loved us. So that’s something! (I apologise for shameless self-promotion; in my defense, it has been quite some time since that happened around these parts.)

Much shorter than the last post, and hopefully you’ll actually get to read it this time! I hope things get interesting around here again so I have things to talk about. I am working my way through a couple of books (Claudia Dey’s Stunt and Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany), so when I finish them — which will be soon — perhaps you will see some musings.

Ho hum, summertime, etc.