One of the Books Read from Canada Reads 2015 – S10E21

I made an accomplishment as I read one of the contending books for CBC’s Canada Reads. The book I read was When Everything Feels Like The Movies, written by Raziel Reid. Other books competing are And the Birds Rained Down by Jocelyne Saucier, Intolerable by Kamal Al-Solaylee, Ru by Kim Thúy, and The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King. All of the books are defended by well-known Canadian personalities, musicians and actors. They are Cameron Bailey (Ru), Kristin Kreuk (Intolerable), Craig Kielburger (The Inconvenient Indian), Elaine Lui (When Everything Feels Like The Movies) and Martha Wainwright (And the Birds Rained Down).

The reason for picking When Everything Feels Like The Movies by Raziel Reid and defended by Elaine Lui was that it interested me as it’s the first young adult book to be entered in Canada Reads. It won the 2014 Governor General’s Literary Awards and not without controversy with the subject matter of the book.

The book by Reid is pretty ambitious and explicit as the themes of homosexuality, sex and loneliness being prevalent throughout the book. It’s quite a tough book to read as there’s profanity and other harsh words being used. Aside from the negative points, the thing that intrigued me with the book was the use of pop culture reference and social media/Internet sites as it bursted a lot of ideas and imaginations in my head. It does bring the notion everything feeling like the movies. It also made me wish that I went back to high school to experience what changes and attitude teens are doing now since the use of the Internet is influencing for the good and the bad. It really opened up an perspective for respecting one another in terms of gender rights.

AquaAlta at Zaphod Beeblebrox – S10E20

On Thursday night, a new band, AquaAlta played at Zaphod Beeblebrox. The band consists of Charles Austin, Jenn Grant and Graeme Campbell. It’s a side project and a collaboration of the three artists. The Halifax band released their debut LP, Dreamsphere on March 3rd and have embarked on a mini tour. Ottawa was their second show in promoting the new LP. Their vinyl includes 3-D glasses.

AquaAlta’s music can be described as dreamy or seagaze as described on their Facebook Page. The concert was much like that, very dream pop with some techno/electro beats in it as well as Grant’s hypnotic voice. For Canadian music fans familiar with Grant, there’s no change to her singing which keeps her folk music style intact. She had released her fifth album, Compostela in 2014 and is having a pretty busy year so far. The show at Zaphods was terrific and had a good turnout. At one point, Grant came down to the crowd and had people dance with her as she sang. It was definitely a fun show.

Opening up for AquaAlta was the local band, The Visit. Their music is a mix of experimental classical music and some throat singing. The duo consists of Raphael Weinroth-Browne on the cello and Heather Sita Black on the vocals.

Rich Aucoin at Nuit Blanche Montreal – S10E19

It was an eventful weekend to end a cold and miserable month of February. On Friday night, it was Dan Mangan + Blacksmith at NAC and Saturday, it was meeting people at Ottawa Radio Club. Saturday night was going to Montreal for their Nuit Blanche. It was a last minute getaway to Montreal and to find out what their Nuit Blanche was like.

The first event to check was the Rich Aucoin concert at Metropolis. It’s been awhile I had seen Aucoin live as he brings a very interactive show. In Montreal, there’s more a enthusiastic crowd to live events and the one by Aucoin was no exceptions. He started with the talk of the social media buzz of the black & blue dress. The very entertaining video clips and lyrics to songs made the concert enjoyable. It had a party atmosphere when he used a lot of confetti and streamers. He kept coming to the crowd to have them sing along, jump and dance.

Towards the end of the show, a playground parachute was used and the Montreal crowd had fun with it.
The best thing about it was that the show was free as it was part of the Nuit Blanche program.

Don’t forget that Rich Aucoin will be playing at Ritual Nightclub on March 6.