Archive for December, 2013

2013

  • I continued looking at mountains in Vancouver. Did I mention the mountains?
  • I went north, kind of, flying in to Whitehorse for two bright nights in June. It was awesome and beautiful and disorienting.
  • I visited Portland and San Francisco again. Portland had a very warm Labour Day weekend and Voodoo doughnuts (from the second, east side, indier location, natch). San Francisco had a wonderful October and excellent brunches and a BART strike and hipsters were out in force in Dolores.
  • I spent a lot of time in Seattle, developing coffee shop preferences. Bauhaus, Victrola, Roy Street.
  • I got under one hour on the Grouse Grind — but just barely under, and couldn’t improve on it much.
  • The summer went by entirely too fast.
  • I went to a Canucks game and they lost, naturally.
  • I watched more live music (Last.fm, setlist.fm), continuing the trend of not much music in 2010, lots in 2011, and not much in 2012. This is one thing I’ll want to change.
  • I saw Stars twice, for the sixth and seventh time, on the same day. I saw The xx touring their second album. I saw Sigur Rós at Deer Lake in Burnaby in May, and yes, it was raining. I watched a grown man dance in his underpants when I saw !!! at Fortune Sound Club. A few months later, I saw Ólafur Arnalds there: he got the audience to sit on the floor like in kindergarten and enchanted us all. I saw Arkells and You Say Party in Stanley Park. I saw Godspeed You! Black Emperor and nearly fell asleep at their concert twice in as many times. I saw CHVRCHES the next night, two weeks after discovering them. I saw Young Galaxy at a semi-homecoming show; saw The Naked and Famous and their light show at Showbox Sodo, the nearest thing to Polson Pier I’ve yet found. I waited until midnight for Braids to deal with “equipment problems” and really wished for non-floor seating at Fortune. I saw Brendan Canning and it felt a bit like I was the only one interested in actually listening to the music (t). Then I saw Basia Bulat among a Rio-Theatre-ful of hipsters and wrapped up the year with a Said the Whale hometown headline show. And I missed Field Trip and Osheaga but it was excellent nevertheless.
  • I didn’t listen to as much recorded music: my earphones gave up the ghost in 2012 and I couldn’t get myself to listen much on headphones. I’m a little scared I missed on associating music I was into with walking around Vancouver as I had with San Francisco and Toronto.
  • What I did listen to was mostly familiar: Broken Social Scene, Stars, FM Belfast, Do Make Say Think, and The Rural Alberta Advantage formed the top five on Last.fm. CHVRCHES’ Recover was the top scrobbled track. Of Vancouver groups, I only really got into Japandroids and Said the Whale.
  • Like 2011, 2013 really ended in late January. I flew out of Vancouver on January 30.
  • It is all for them.