Caila Thompson-Hannant a.k.a. Mozart's Sister via The Hour

More links! I picked five Canadian tunes to contribute to the Southern Souls staff list of best songs of 2011, check ‘em out.

Also, I’m on Twitter for real now, not just for my band (who’re prolly relieved) and work (so hard to keep profesh’). Um, “follow me”?

a !!!

Remember those videos my band did for the Southern Souls website? I’m now writing for the site, which is focused on Canadian music, so this will be a great way for me to keep exploring new artists and sounds on the regular. Do check out my first album review for SS: Dixie’s Death Pool – The Man With The Flowering Hands

Tune into CKUT 90.3FM tomorrow, Wednesday, to have a listen to a chilled out post-holiday-deep-winter-sugar-and-coffee fueled radio DJ sesh’ with yours truly for the If You Got Ears radio show. Listen along on-line! xo

UPDATE: Here’s the archived audio! Lotsa stuff on there, a seasick Bowie, Arcade Choir, Tanya Tagaq, et plus!

This here is a poster for a show my band Cobra & Vulture is playing with Sick Friend (luv these guys, so good) + Videotape (Toronto) at The Plant on Tuesday, Dec. 20th, 9pm, pay-what-you-can/$5.

Gonna be early + magickal! Facebook event right here.

PS: Do check out the CKUT archives for the show I did for New Shit on Monday December 9th between 3-5pm! Chris Watson, Dixie’s Death Pool, and much more! Play list to be posted up over here later today.

It’s been a long time since I last visited Expozine, one of the biggest (if not the biggest- hurrah!) zine fairs in North America. Ever since I stopped publishing Lickety Split in 2008 (it was run by Sarah Beall for a while after that) it seems like I haven’t been able to make it out to the fair for one reason or the other, so it was a treat to be able to go and visit all the tables I used to hit up at zine fairs when I myself was bent from stapling/hauling/selling folded paper.

Here’s what Mike and I picked up:

• A couple of recent issues of Querencia Zine
• Culture Slut #25
• Femme A Barbe #1 + #2
• A few postcards by One Sentence Stories (one thrown in for free!)
• An issue of Paula Belina’s Good Good Bon Bon zine (excellent collages on each of the covers!)
• A CD of music by Steve Godin called Trust Me (with a horned goddess featured on the cover)
• The latest edition of Four Minutes to Midnight Issue 12 which commemorates the 10th anniversary of Expozine and includes selections from a sampling of zines that have been sold at the fair over the years including Lickety Split.
• Sherwin Tjia‘s new book You Are A Cat, a choose-your-own-adventure about, well, being a cat. So funny (plus makes for a great holiday gift!). He also kicked in a copy of his latest purring cat CD ‘E-Z-Purr‘.
• ‘Music Is Rapid Transportation…From The Beatles to Xenakis‘, edited by Daniel Kernohan
• Maidenheadlock, a beautiful silk-screened , magazine-sized zine
• Radical Montreal’s city guide zine
• An issue of Ghostbusters illustrated by Salgood Sam
• A print (not pictured) of a post-apocalyptic Montreal featuring the Big O
• Collier’s Popular Press, a collection of the Saskatchewan-bron artist’s work that was published in newspapers and magazines, which we bought directly from Andy at the Conundrum table who then pointed out that Dave Collier was sitting at the table. Mike’s been a long time collector of Colliers work and is also from Saskatchewan and so the two got along like a house on fire. Dave inscribed our copy of the book (and sketched our likenesses) and we left the fair as ultra happy customers!

David Collier

2. Do celebrate indie upstarts like the Archive Montreal crew and 10 years of the rad zine fair, Expozine! Don’t stay in all weekend, instead attend the Expozine 10th Anniversary and Four Minutes to Midnight launch at Drawn & Quarterly on Friday and then check out the fair on Saturday and Sunday!

3. Do stay warm! Don’t catch a cold!

4. Do follow my band Cobra & Vulture on Tumblr, don’t sit idly by part two!

5. Do check out Howl, don’t stay at home Thursday night!

A xo

By Sonja Elizabeth Ahlers

2. Rookie, the new magazine for teenage girls edited by teenage style wunderkind Tavi. I’m often late to the the party when it comes to pop cultural stuff, but i’m glad I finally made it over to the website! Sonja has made some lovely images for the magazine to boot, so cool.

3. Campus Mixtapes and mixes in general! I especially like this one and this one so far.

4. Natasha’s Montreal Sessions residency this month, great guests, interviews and music.

5. Quantum Leap TV series The only TV I’m watching these days.

6. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon (thanks to J for lending it to me)

7. Basin/Bassin by Andrea-Jane Cornell

8. Oh yes, the momentous support the McGill student body demonstrated for CKUT in our recent existence referendum!

9. Music, of course: getting ready to write another EP with Cobra & Vulture, mixing the full length record, practicing country tunes at the station occasionally with my co-worker Slick (we debuted a Patsy Cline cover live on air during the Venus Radioke show earlier in the month!).

10. Hats. In desperate love of them, especially with autumn stylings…my tumblr is kinda chock full of them lately!

a xo