Popth 6th!

Pop Montreal's 6th annual festival is mere weeks away, meaning that, once again, it's time to book off work, stock your cabinet with electrolyte-replenishing goods, and make some serious charts and schedules to ensure you'll be able to see at least a portion of what you want to this year.

The schedule's already up on their main page, and just going through it, there are a couple of stand-out shows... Octogenarian comedian Mort Sahl, the Montreal-born pioneer of intelligent stand-up comedy and an all-around pleasant fellow is one of my personal highlights, but other, less greying figures and groups will receive my attention, as well.

The release of the program this year will lead to another crop of upset band-handlers and confused festival-attendees, like any year, but (full disclosure here: I wrote a couple of them), this writer took particular care not to be as snarky as in years past, attributing his missing the deadline that pulling-many-punches approach.

I'm going to try my hand at some festival coverage this year, rather than ending up in the hospital half-way through (last year), or blindly drinking my way through out it (last year and previous years). There are scores to be settled, bands to mock, and, hey, even some to champion, too! Osheaga presented an opportunity, but any review of that would somehow lack all the extraneous happenings, occurences, mistakes and everything else that go into making Pop the distinctly more enjoyable festival. "I saw Peter, Bjorn & John in a field with a bunch of other people and we were worried about rain, but it was sunny" is as fine a distillation of the experience as any other, no?

One big surprise for me this year is the evident lack of a SLUM showcase, but maybe I'm not looking close enough. First day highlights include Vancouver drone-o-morphic psych outfit Anemones at one venue and Caribou at another, at the same time. (What gives?)

There'll be more within the next couple of days, including a rigorous plan of attack (in that classical Goldkicks style, natch), choose-yr-own-adventure schedules, loads of self-serving blogging and more contributors... In the meantime, a couple of songs kicking around: I'm far too lazy to upload anything else.

Carly Simon Why (12-inch Extended Mix)

Zdar How Do You See Me Now?

Maestro Fresh Wes - Poetry Is Black

I don't care to tackle the lyrical conceit of the good Maestro's Poetry Is Black, primarily because my appreciation of hip hop has little to do with it as a poetic form, and also because it's dated ("1991, son, and that's how I'm livin'"), de-fanged and cliched enough to provoke nothing more than a smirk, but the quick-clipped pace, rolling bass, and trumpet swells of a song like this, so indigenous to the hip-house era of the early 90s, sounds fresher and fresher after a year or so of being assaulted by the unholy union of French Touch house and blog-friendly hip hop.

Dante Decarro (Wolf Parade guitarist and Hot Hot Heat alumni) has put out the last Daddy's Hands album, Welcome Kings on his south-island-based record label, Kill Devil Hills Records. Long-awaited. Order here.

More Baile Montreal stuff coming up... The 9th volume will be on Saturday, March 3rd at Zoobizarre. Usual info & some mixes on the myspace. For previews of what you'll hear, check out what Guillaume & JP have been working on, on the Masalacism blog.