New Demo From Tasha Cyr

Good news on the Tasha Cyr front: she posted a new demo on her MySpace page this week. Sounds good.

She is currently in the studio with producer Erik Virtanen, her bandmate in The Darling DeMaes and in life.

You'll recall we shared a stage in February, at this show:

Art As Memorandum

So we're in the 21st Century. As a species, depending on who you listen to, we stand behind either 3000 years of evolution or 2 million. And shit like this still happens, albeit at a much rarer frequency than it did in the past (say, the gay-bashing bonanza of the 60s and 70s, or the lynchings of 100 years ago), but when they do, they seem more violent than ever.

A few days ago, I was in a ten-person conversation about Led Zeppelin when my friend came with the killer quote:

I don't know, man, maybe I just don't like Zeppelin because it just so happens that it's always guys wearing LZ t-shirts who beat me up at a bar 'cause I look like a fag.

His words, not mine - I would never just call them ''Zeppelin''.

I didn't think it was too frequent, first because we've evolved as a species, but also because I haven't seen Led Zep t-shirts since the early 1990s. Oh, and we live in the most open-minded City in the world.

But others don't, and this is a reminder of it: in 2007, a 20-year old girl was beaten to death (kicks to the head) for ''looking like a goth'' in London, England. Not being one, looking like one. And earlier this week, her then-boyfriend opened an art exhibit in her honour. Kudos.

This, in a town famous for slashers (Sweeney Todd, Jack The Ripper) and cab drivers who either sexually assault drunk girls or kill people at random or kill their wives or run over the homeless or cut their own heads off.

Like Dennis Farina says in Snatch, answering the customs question ''do you have anything to declare?'':

Yeah: don't go to England.

Prank Or Truth? Large Sinkhole In Guatemala

With so many people bored out of their minds (or job-less) and skilled at Photoshop, you have to wonder if the pictures are real...

Still, it makes you wonder what state the world is in, and why some countries would attack humanitarian convoys and others are still at war after a decade, with Public Enemy #1 still at large, melting polar ice caps, and the worst oil leak ever.

In any event, more info about the possible Guatemalan tragedy here.

Edit: Reuters is on the story, too, courtesy of Yahoo.

Edit 2: more on the story here.

Youth Of The Beast

I was waiting for him to have a few posts before directing people to him, and I think we're at that point now...

My pal Youth Of The Beast has a blog that could be interpreted as NSFW (some images have boobies)... what it is is a blog with vintage pictures, be it of architecture, interior design, cars, album covers, unnamed bands rocking out, and topless girls. In no particular order. With no accompanying text to understand or contextualize.

It is what it is, and he adds to it with relative frequency.

Try it out.

LWLLJB...

Lesbians Who Look Like Justin Bieber.

It's a blog, a website, a ridiculous new internet low and a great way to spend the next 10 minutes.

I've known about it for 24 hours now, and just realized I should probably share (I've shared on Facebook since yesterday, though, sorry!) in the fun.

It's weird - I struggle to blog once a day but post 25 links a day on my Facebook page...

I guess I save the really good stuff for the blog.

To My Friend, Yan Basque

I saw a kid today, he looked just like you, only, obviously, twenty years younger. He was running after a metro, trying to get in the subway train before it left Guy station.

I wanted to stop him, tell him it was too late, not to run uselessly in this suffocating heat, but more importantly, I wanted to tell him, for the future, ''don't sweat the small stuff, don't worry so much, but if you do, meh... chances are you'll be an artistic genius someday anyway''.

Or maybe even just a genius.

You could see it in the look in his eye, even beyond his glasses. You could see the pure, innocent dreams that someone should build upon to create a better world.

All this in a half-second of looking at your 10-year old doppelgänger.

I hope you had a great day.

The Unanimous Success Of Philémon Chante

And to think that just last Fall, Philémon Chante was performing a free concert at UnPop Montréal, my annual festival, for a half-full Cagibi... and that I got to share a stage with him, opening for Daniel Greer in an empty Brasserie Ste-Ambroise on a sad Tuesday night...

Like Patrick Pleau before him, Philémon Bergeron-Langlois has accomplished much in a short time span, not content with playing the Fringe Festival on June 12th, but performing at the peak of francophone music, Les FrancoFolies on the 15th.

A quick rise to glory for the man who, just two days ago, released his first record, Les Sessions Cubaines, at Casa Del Popolo, packed full of sweaty, loving adoration. Sure, it wasn't perfect - his usual charming and über-talented magnificent violonist Zoé Saint-Pierre couldn't make it... and neither did the records; despite a lauch show with nothing to launch, it seems the show garnered nothing but praise.

Here are a few articles in French preceding the show: Voir, Nightlife and L'Actualité!

And some pertaining to the show itself:
en français: on 4MTL and Bombe.tv
in English: from Free After Four and Examiner

The votes that matter are in, and despite being eliminated in the Francouvertes semi-final a month ago, we all know in our heart of hearts who the real winners are: those who get to witness Philémon singing.

Video Of The Week: The King Khan And BBQ Show

In honour of his showing Lindsay Lohan his behind at Cannes, this week's Video Of The Week features none other than King Khan, for the video ''Why Don't You Lie'', from his The King Khan And BBQ Show project (seemingly every year, he's in another, new ''King Khan & something'' band).

The King's real name is Arish A. Khan, of Indian descent but born and raised in Montréal. He now resides in Germany with his wife and two kids, and his projects garner much attention in Europe. Well, perhaps not as much as his stunt with Lohan, which got him on TMZ, Perez Hilton and Vice...

This song is a throwback to slow 50s love songs, while the video just pokes fun at indie films, homophobia, Berlin and German history.

Turn your brain off and enjoy. The link to see it on YouTube directly is here.

French Soccer Players And Poor Taste

This story is all kinds of wrong.

First, the (alleged) facts: three soccer players  from France's national team (Franck Ribéry, Karim Benzema, and Sidney Govou) have supposedly had the ''services'' of the same high-priced prostitute, and it turns out she was underage (17) at the time.

She says she had told them she was 18, and judging by the pictures, fine, I'll let that one slide.

Now, the reason why a man will use a ''professional'' for sex rather than, say, a groupie or their wife's sister, is that there is the implicit (and explicit) understanding that being paid for her services includes discretion and silence. Clearly, of late, some professionals are steping way over the boundaries of client/serviceperson privilege.

Then there's the issue of taste. You'd think that someone making upwards of $30,000 a month for sex would be hotter than Carmen Electra; in the  case of Zahia Dehar (the underage hooker in question), although she tries her best to look like Pamela Anderson, she fails miserably.

Case in point:

She looks like a used-up 40-year old skank who may have been a crack whore at some point.

And thus, a tasteless story becomes even more so, but in a different direction.

For that kind of money, seriously... Megan Fox...

King Khan Shows Lindsay Lohan His Bum

After a post about girls who wear (skimpy) clothes, here's another one about Montrealers who like to, uh, dress down: (musician) King Khan, pulling his pants down and putting his ass in Lindsay Lohan's face, at Cannes. Yes, King Khan is at Cannes; seems fitting, somehow, even if only phonetically.

The story was originally posted on the French blog Jalouse, but Vice (a former Montreal arts-and-community paper turned NYC/London hipster bible) worked hard and gathered all the evidence under the same roof - which was probably on fire, yet I doubt they let the ''motherfucker'' proverbially ''burn'', which could be a shame, I'm not sure yet.

Here are a couple of highlights; credit goes to Vice for stealing them from Jalouse, I guess. Is a man's behind safe for work? Who knows, who cares: if you're reading this, you're already in the wrong for not working. Enjoy.