Failed to see the sho’, but they still slept on my flo’.
Their first album was called ‘How to Have Sex With Canadians’. That is all.
More? I saw The DoneFors back in the days of their residency at The Cameron House in Toronto. It’s the kind of music that boasts smart musicians, so the notes know their place. Sick, Afrobeaty bass and guitar, smooth groove drummer, country sweetheart songstress, all multi-talented and genre-flexible. With their hints of clean jazz, country/folk, funk, and pop, there’s the danger of falling into the trap of the undefinable hip. But The DoneFors aren’t hipster (except for this poster, hehehe). They’re nicely placed, musical puzzle pieces that click together without pretense.
The most grown-up band to camp-out chez moi, but they still look cute when they’re asleep. I had to be a responsible grown-up too, and go to bed early the weeknight that they played in Montreal. But they’re playing in Toronto Toronto Toronto throughout the month of November.
Also their website is full of little gems of hilarity, like their ‘Name Our Van Contest’ and the promise of cake and unicorns if you click on their album covers.
A guy happy to bike up Montreal’s hills might still resort to a taxi at 7am after an all-night recording session.
Maneli Jamal got gobbled up by collaborative projects during his stay in Montreal – exploring urban soundscapes with electroacoustic artist and Concordia student Michael Palumbo, and taking the opportunity to record with Pouya Hamidi at McGill’s recording studios. In between, he slept in our living room. He’s also the first to take us up on the offer of a Bixi bike tour of Montreal, fueled by Le Vieux St-Laurent, Schwartz’s Smoked Meat, and poutine from La Banquise.
Maneli’s instrument and style demanded 9 mikes to record, the nerdy details of which I’m afraid I can’t provide. What I do know is that he milks every dimension of sound a guitar can muster, but sticks to creamy goodness that is undeniably nice to listen to. We’re not talking incomprehensible, experimental, contemporary, intellectual music. It’s just really yummy, percussive, fingerstyle, solo guitar, with a gentle Persian twist.
Something that stands out about Maneli is that this guy is full of stories. Oozing with a tragi-romantic past that he can tell you about sometime when he stays in your livingroom, haha. Politics, heroism, art, relocation, and of course love stories. Also – I can’t not say it – he’s a dreamboat. Popularity mounting.
Since my last post was clearly in a rage (despite my having toned it down a lot before publishing…), I’m going to skip my rant about classical music haters and instead write about something out of the ordinary that I just tried for the first time… PAINTBALL!
Hahaha. A little deceptive, because we weren’t a huge mob of hardcore war-play fans, but I wanted something with rock music to put after those capital letters.
I said, “YES, we have to do that!”, when we got invited. It’s one of those things to try, if it comes up. Apparently a lot of others bailed out at the last minute, which may have had something to do with the fact that we had to be there at 9am on a Sunday. We got an extremely animated, hilarious, and super Quebecois intro to the game/rules after suiting up. I got a homie-sized, full-body camo suit with a head cover, and a face mask like a fancy set of goggles with a mouth-guard – which our animateur said not to take off, even if you got a squirrel stuck in it (or did I misunderstand the French?). It was a newlywed party, so two of our group were decked out in fashionable fluorescent orange, for easy spotting.
Round 1: one newlywed on each team. Get ‘em.
Round 2: ambush newlyweds in a schoolbus in a forest.
Round #forget: rescue newlyweds from a plane crash.
Round #whatever: charge in teams into either end of a little building.
Round #whocares: occupy the church.
Round #lost-track: newlyweds run the gauntlet.
In the first round, I had no idea how far or fast the guns could work, so I was surprised when I ended up with a splat of purple on my goggles. Dead, haha. Luckily right after the first round we got a target practice due to a newlywed removing their mask on the terrain. Punishment: 1 ball from each of our twelve guns. Once I got the hang of it, it was really fun. I blasted the pants off of the groom and a flustered string of ‘sorries’ came out of my mouth in both French and English. A hardcore player outside the fence shouted firmly, “Never say you’re sorry!” I was lucky enough to take most of my hits in the face, except that a little pop on the mask doesn’t leave any bruises to show off later.
Of course it’s a game that gets a little more sombre when you actually think about it. When I thought about people playing this ‘game’ with real guns. Then it especially creeped me out how exhilarating it felt to hit your human target. My partner, who took 3 balls from each player for removing his mask, obviously reflected on the feeling of having a line-up of guns pointing at him. It makes your heart pound. He’s from a war-torn country that also endowed him with the looks of an extremely cute terrorist when dressed in camo, haha. Hopefully the game provokes similar reflections in others, and the experience of paintballing can awaken people to the seriousness of war. Instead of to the rush of violent play.
And I sure hope Wikipedia isn’t lying when it says paintballs themselves are made of “non-toxic, biodegradable, water soluble mineral-oil.” What a mess!
I recently heard a small group talking about a certain individual’s personality, and it turned into an overgeneralized, spectacularly judgemental, ego-feeding binge on the souls of ‘quiet people’.
This person was criticized for not being talkative and not being involved in a very verbal or socially responsive way. The observation that she doesn’t often make eye contact turned into the imagination that she must have no self-esteem or friends because she walks slumped forward, and reasoning that only confident people have friends. The observation that she’s a physicist led to comments about how she must have destroyed her social life by studying too much and how she probably never has fun.
Dear ‘loud’ people. Quiet people do have fun. They probably have fun maintaining a considerable distance from YOU. If being ‘quiet’ means not being socially equipped to connect with people, doesn’t that make YOU ‘quiet’ when you FAIL to engage a ‘quiet’ person? Maybe you’re not worth their social energy. But in a way that’s ok too. No one connects with everyone.
I had to be a responsible grown-up too, and go to bed early the weeknight that they played in Montreal. But they’re playing in Toronto Toronto Toronto throughout the month of November.
Maneli Jamal
Round 1: one newlywed on each team. Get ‘em.
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