Bread Face

Via The New York Times (via BuzzFeed, Vice and Instagram...) comes Bread Face, a woman who, well, uh, likes to smash her face into bread.

Is it art? Is it comedy? Is it just a weird fucking fetish? Is it just that it feels good?

If you can, look up the one where she does it over a super-salty pretzel from Brookly hipster spot Black Forest, over Jennifer Paige's 1998 pop hit Crush... as much as I love pretzels, I'm just worried she'll get salt in her eye(s).

Happy St-Jean Baptiste Day!

It was going to be a paid Holiday like most others: spending three hours finishing the work I hadn't done last night, taking it slow, alone, in my shitty apartment, then heading out to see friends in a band performing, this time Orchestre Afrobeat Jeunesse Cosmique outdoors, at Parc Hibernia, in Pointe St-Charles.

But it rained, so all we got were the openers, Le Trio Poitras, for 75 minutes, then the rest of the festivities were cancelled.

But the Jeunesse Cosmique folks decided to turn the botched outdoors Québec National Holiday into a house party of sorts, and invited me over since I had friends in the band and was already there.

By the middle of the first song, i was the third percussionist, and by 10 PM we had recorded a live album. And I'm pretty proud of my playing on two tracks, particularly the last one.

And when I got home, I made myself the second-most Quebecest meal (because I wasn't going to make myself a maple syrup poutine this late at night), a bowl of spaghetti covered in Schwartz' smoked meat:

It was one of my best days in a very long time.

R.I.P. Dave Brockie, a.k.a. Oderus Urungus (Of Gwar)

I wasn't the biggest fan of Gwar (I prefered their half-cousin band Green Jellÿ as a kid), but I did love the spectacle that accompanied them whether they were playing a show, doing interviews, or appearing on Jerry Springer...

And, to be honest, as far as heavy metal slapstick goes, Scumdogs Of The Universe (1990) and This Toilet Earth (1994) are pretty much classics, and are still listenable today - provided you know what you're getting into (which is the story of alien characters here to kill off the human race and spread sex and violence).

Their long-time lead vocalist (and one-time bassist and/or guitarist) Dave Brockie, a.k.a. Oderus Urungus was found dead in his apartment yesterday. Though he wasn't the first member to die while an active member (guitarist Cory Smoot, who had portrayed the now-retired character Flattus Maximus since 2002, was found dead by his fellow band members in the band's tour bus in 2011). But Brockie was the lone original member left, the voice of the band - both in song and in the public eye.

Re-Plug: Loaded Sings The Velvet Underground, December 19th At L'Esco

It had to happen, and it will. Lou Reed left us, and left a huge void countless musicians are vying to fill, and tributes to the man's work came left and right.

In my neck of the woods, there is one collective that has attracted hundreds of people to their shows, specializing in his Velvet Underground era, the one I'm in, Loaded.

There will be absentees (Ingrid Wissink, Will Austin, Zuzu Knew, Cassie Doubleday), but enough will be around to make it worthwhile: grandmaster Allan Lento, maestro Dave Lines (also in A Devil's Din, who will close out the evening), Patrick Hutchinson, Jackie Gallant, Jordy Rosen, Caroline Glass, John Stuart, Luca Fantigrossi and myself, playing all the songs you'll want to hear, from Sister Ray to After Hours, from Heroin to Femme Fatale, from Pale Blue Eyes to White Light, White Heat.

The only ones we're forgoing are those usually sung by absentees and those off Squeeze, because, let's face it, it's not a real VU album.

Each musician will sing at least one, as usual.

Five bucks gets you in, on December 19th (2013), at L'Escogriffe, corner St-Denis and Mont-Royal.

Twerkin' Beethoven

I would tell Miley Cyrus to put that in her pipe and smoke it, but I'm afraid she'd try to, literally, smoke Chicago burlesque artist Michelle L'Amour, who puts the ''ass'' in ''classical'' in this fine, uh, interpretive dance version of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.



Ok, so it's not twerking, but it's definitely something. And, sure, the video is a year old, but who needs a reason to watch a live performance that includes dancing, classical music, and someone wearing a bow tie?

His Name Is Prince, And He's An Asshole

Prince was on Jimmy Fallon (the show) recently and was his usual, boombastic, spectacular, moody self, performing two numbers and shredding an intense solo, and then...

After unleashing a blistering solo on Bambi he did a guitar virtuoso’s version of dropping the mic before walking off stage, throwing his guitar up into the air and letting it crash to the ground. Just one problem: the axe wasn’t his. The Gear Page points out the guitar was a gorgeous 1961 Epiphone Crestwood that belongs to Captain Kirk Douglas of Fallon’s house band The Roots. Apparently when Prince arrived for rehearsal he admired the guitar and asked to borrow it for the performance. Douglas agreed, and then Prince wrecked it at the end of “Bambi.”

Yeah, he destroyed someone else's guitar, and this one in particular belonging to a well-respected musician with a reputation for being one of the sweetest guys on the hip-hop/jazz/pop/rock circuit.

But wait, there's more!

The worst part? Douglas apparently asked Prince to sign it for him, and Prince said no.

Now that's diva!

Plug: Drummer Jackie Gallant At Monastiraki On Sunday

Jackie Gallant (Lesbians On Ecstacy, American Devices), drummer extraordinaire and Montréal legend with whom I was lucky enough to play in the cover band Loaded not just once but three times last year is playing a solo show this coming Sunday, around 2PM, at museum/thrift shop Monastiraki (5478 St-Laurent).

A sight to behold, for sure. My favourite drummer not named Jack Irons, I tell you.

(terrific photo by Sandra Lynn Belanger)