Daryl Tay.net » montreal

Music Mondays XIV: Fun

Daryl Tay — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 05:27:05 +0000

As promised last week, this week I’ll take yet another look at an opening band, specifically Fun, who toured with and opened for Jack’s Mannequin in Montreal.

Fun is a straight up well… fun band. I really loved their quirky tracks with the utterly nasal voice that reminds me of pop punk in the ’90s, but yet an absolute blast. They’re a relatively new band who got together only in September, 2008 but already have enough material to play about 40 minutes of songs while on tour. Have a listen (all videos are from the Montreal show).

The other thing I applaud Fun for doing, is putting out the demo for their first track, Benson Hedges, out on the internet for free download to spread the word. I’ve had that track on repeat many a night at home in Kingston.

The short story is this: Fun was so good, if their album was ready at the tour (it wasn’t), I would have purchased it right away without hesitation. Definitely one of my most anticipated album releases of 2009.

Music Mondays IX: Jack’s Mannequin Live

Daryl Tay — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 01:26:53 +0000

I first discovered the band Something Corporate (SoCo) while walking randomly in HMV, and still remember paying something like $28 for it and to this day, “Punk Rock Princess” is my favourite song of all time.

Much to my dismay SoCo ceased to exist, but front man Andrew McMahon created a new band (though largely it’s thought of as a solo project) called Jack’s Mannequin.

In a nice moment of serendipity, I actually discovered Jack’s Mannequin in exactly the same way – walking randomly in HMV – but this time in Tokyo, Japan. I heard Andy’s unmistakable voice over the in-house speakers and for a minute thought SoCo had a new album, but discovered it was another band entirely.

Needless to say, I was so psyched to check out their concert in Montreal and it was a blast. Andy actually was diagnosed with lukemia a few years ago, but watching the concert and the energy, you’d hardly know that he came this close to dying just awhile ago.

The songlist was perfect. I think Jack’s Mannequin showed a great understanding that fans want to hear material, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want to hear the old ones either. While most of the songs were from the new album, old tracks like The Mixed Tape, Dark Blue, Bruised and La La Lie were performed as well, as well as Cavanaugh Park – a song that was originally performed by SoCo. I knew Jack’s Mannequin still played SoCo songs, and I was hoping for Punk Rock Princess, but it was still nice to hear a SoCo song.

One song I hoped – but didn’t expect – would be played is Caves. I mainly didn’t expect it to be played because it’s more than 7 minutes long, but played it was and it’s such an amazing song. It’s a lot about his battle with the “sickness” (as he refers to it) and you can really feel the emotion in the song. Given I’m the same age he was when he was diagnosed with it, I am absolutely inspired by his fight and battle with it and I can’t imagine what he had to go through. If you only check out one video, let it be caves. The lyrics and almost haunting music really blend seamlessly to form a perfect song.

I don’t have the full songlist this time, but I took 10 full songs out of about 15. So that’s not bad. It was really hard to keep my hand still (because I just felt like jumping up and down half the time), so I hope you like the videos.



Caves


Crashing


Spinning


The Mixed Tape


American Love


Swim


Dark Blue


I'm Ready


Cavanaugh Park


Bruised



A Weekend In Montreal With QSEAC
Daryl Tay — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 06:13:25 +0000

			

				

			
		
So last weekend was spent East in Montreal for a trip with QSEAC (Queen’s South East Asian Club) and it was pretty fun! I had originally planned to go to Montreal for the weekend anyway because the Jack’s Mannequin concert was on Friday (more on that in Music Mondays this week), so it was a wonderful case of killing two birds with one stone (not that I would ever encourage the killing of birds!).
So we set of by bus on Friday at 2pm and were slated to reach in at about 4:30, but reached at 6:30 instead thanks to bad traffic. This is why I travel by train. No traffic jams. The hotel was pretty neat. Definitely enough space for four of us – myself, Ava, Joyce and William – and free internet to boot!
Essentially this was a clubbing trip, with trips to two clubs on two nights. On the first night we went to Tonic:
Tonic in Montreal
I wasn’t too impressed with Tonic. It was a big space but basically if not for the 100 odd people who went on the trip from different parts of Canada, it would’ve been deserted. Music was just so-so.
On the next day we headed to the casino for lunch because there was some discount for the people on the trip, and then headed to Sainte Catherine to do some shopping. We came to regret the move because lunch cost us 2 hours that could’ve been better used shopping (shops close at 5pm on Saturdays). I think the only one who didn’t regret that was William!
Lunch at the Casino
In any case, while Montreal isn’t my favourite city because of all the french going on, I do like shopping around Sainte Catherine quite a bit, and managed to get a shirt and a pair of jeans. Not bad for about one and a half hours of shopping.
The club that night was Tribe Hyper Club, which was a vast improvement over Tonic. Better lighting (dark, the way a club should be) and better music. I honestly got a little bored of two nights of watching barely 20 year old people getting skanky so I didn’t stay long at Tribe, which is not to say it wasn’t a nice place to be at.
So all in all it was a happening weekend and it managed to distract me from Fallout 3 quite a bit (more on that soon), and now I shall leave you with pictures of us getting dressed before Tribe!
Joyce & I
Ava & I



Weekly Review: November 10th
Daryl Tay — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 05:28:44 +0000

			

				

			
		
The work is really piling up this week, but on the bright side, I’m beginning to get the hand of instantly recording down stuff I need to do so that a) I don’t forget it, and b) I can schedule the next action. Combined with this cool weekly schedule task planner template, I feel like I’m going to stay on top of things for this week.
Real quick, the highlight of the week is not going to be work (surprise!) with a trip to Montreal with QSEAC (Queen’s South East Asian Club) together with Ava, Joyce and William. From all appearances this is going to be a party trip (the fee for the trip includes cover charge to two clubs), and I’m catching Jack’s Mannequin on Friday, so I predict this weekend is going to be one of the best ever in Kingston!
In other news the gym routine has been working out pretty well. Managed to squeeze in three sessions last week and two for the week before that. I weighed myself the other day and I’m at the same weight as when I left Singapore, so that’s a good thing.
The one thing I really hope to catch up on this week is reading. Web Analytics: An Hour A Day has been sitting around forever, and new stuff from Amazon just came in last week, so I have no shortage of reading material. What I do have is a shortage of time, since I’m behind my academic reading as well.
Finally, I found the time to get on Facebook and upload new stuff taken in Queen’s, and also pictures from way back in 2006 with SMUBE. Check them out!



Montreal: My Room & My Shopping
Daryl Tay — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 18:16:02 +0000

			

				

			
		
It’s in a good location (relative to Podcamp Montreal’s venue) and is clean. Check out the inside! (and what I bought).

Montreal: My Hotel Room from Daryl Tay on Vimeo.