Queen St West Fire

If you live in Toronto you know about the fire that took out almost a whole city block between Bathurst and Portland on Queen Street West on Wednesday morning. I was at work when I first heard the news and was shocked when looking at the pictures of what was going on. My jaw dropped. This was the area I first lived in when I moved to Toronto in 2002 I was a 2 min walk from where the fire hit the hardest. I finally had a chance to go down and take a peek at the damage it left today and took a couple pictures. When I was there it looked like they where just about to take down Suspect Video.






To get an Idea of what the damage is like check out this picture
also check out these two Toronto blogs to get some amazing photos of the fire and the firefighters.

http://torontoist.com/2008/02/phototo_queen_s.php#more

http://www.blogto.com/city/2008/02/6alarm_fire_at_queen_bathurst/

Chicago

Last weekend me and and a couple friends and some new ones went down to Chicago for the Hot Water Music reunion show. When we where looking into this show I found a couple other shows that peeked all our interests. The day before the HWM show Chuck Ragan and Ben Nichols where playing a solo gig in town so we went down on Thursday Morning. Just as we where getting into Chicago a huge snow storm hit and we got in during rush hour we where stuck on the highway for about a hour and a half before getting to the venue. The show was really good. Ben Nichols played all Lucero songs and chuck played some rumbleseat songs along with some cover and originals it was a great show. Picked up a sweet silk screen poster from this tour. I cant wait to hang it on my wall. After the show we went down to the Beat Kitchen to see a new band with members of Small Brown Bike and The Casket Lottery called Able Baker Fox. They have a good combination of sounds between there ex bands and are one of the newer bands I am really siked on these days. Check them out I recommend it.

Ben Nichols:







Chuck Ragan:




Poster:

After the show we stayed at my old friend Tim Smith's place I have not seen Tim in 2 years it was great to see him and get to crash at his place the next 3 nights even thou we did not hang out much due to work and us showing up late at his place everynight.

The plan was to see hot water music the next night. Then go see Dillinger Four in Milwaukee saturday night. So in the morning we got up dug out and went to eat at this place that had a cool concept for a resturant it was like a circus freakshow kinda set up in the place. and it had this weird monkey with a huge penis and of course we had to sit right underneath it. After Breakfast we went record shopping and picked up some neat records then went out to eat at The Chicago Dinner. It was a good day other then slush everywhere and all the snow that the city got the night before. So we got to The Metro on Friday night expecting to get in. I was having some problems with communication with who we where buying tickets from. He told us they where for Friday night but after a couple phone calls to ticketmaster we found out they where for Saturday Night. So we shows up looked like fools got turned away bought the merch we wanted then left. Doug who came down with us had a ticket for tonight so we left him at the show and came to pick him up after the show was over in the mean time the venue was pretty much across the street from Wrigley field I had to walk down and take some pics then we where off to see this band Vee Dee where playing at the Beat Kitchen where we saw Able Baker Fox the previous night and Steve wanted to see them.. What a waste of time and money we should have went bowling at the Rock and Bowl instead. Oh well. We picked up Doug and went back to Tims.

The snow:


The Money Penis:


The Bathroom at Earwax:


Wrigley Field:




Saturday: We got up late today, we got our showers and got ready and went out. We had breakfast at Pick Me Up Dinner pretty cool place we went here a couple times during the trip. After that we where going to go record shopping again but we could not find any parking so we went downtown and went to H&M and other shopping places. It was cool to see the downtown core like that makes it feel like your in the city more. We went back to The Metro to see if we could get in tonight, and we did! Able Baker Fox just started playing when we walked thou the door it was really cool to see this bands first 2 shows. I look forward to seeing more. Solid set. was not as long as 2 night before but still great. Lucero was on next, I only really know one Lucero LP but they played a couple off it and a Jawbreaker cover of Kiss The Bottle. Great set. I'm really into his stuff now. Hot Water Music was just amazing the whole place was going nuts they played a ton of old stuff witch was great cuz thats all I really know by them. The show was super cool. I am glad I made the trip down.

Shopping at H&M they sell S&T merch now sweet:




Able Baker Fox:



Hot Water Music:




Sunday Drive Home: we got up and took off around 1pm and hit the road. About a hour in we pulled over at a Denny's in Indiana somewhere. We where all pretty siked on it. We sat down and the waitress came over and took our orders. Seemed pretty normal. While we where waiting almost every table around us where getting there orders fucked up. So we where just like " umm I wonder whats going to happen to our food?" and well 10 mins after that she came back to us almost in tears and was like " I lost your food slip i'm so sorry I have to take your orders again." haha what an experience we had there. we ended up getting our food for free so that was cool. haha then we played the Band name game for about 6-7 hours on the way band it kept the ride interesting I think we could have played for another 3 if we had to. Great trip I look forward to going back to Chicago when there's not 2 feet of snow on the ground and maybe catching a Cubs game.


Here are some of the Records I picked up During the weekend:


And 2 Videos I took During Chuck Ragan's set in Chicago sorry for the shitty sound:
Geraldine:


Open Up And Wail: