Long Live Life

This Week in Music

Every week I try to provide an outline on a favourite artist/album/song of the week, mainly because my picks are new or not-yet-mainstream. This week, however, it is Coldplay and their new album Viva La Vida. I’ve liked them since Rush Of Blood To The Head and officially loved them with X&Y. They are the kind of artists that make each album better and better than the last. And when I thought it couldn’t get better than X&Y, they release Viva La Vida.

Since Coldplay is a band that needs no introduction, I will provide you with an update on all things new, interesting and uninteresting in the music world.

Live

This week, I saw an “interesting” live performance by a band DethKlok. Described as “Virtual Death Metal” they sing lyrics such “Murmaid Murder” and have a cartoon playing in between songs with a story line of evil antagonists who want to kill off Dethklok’s fans and decide to do so by pirating Dethklok’s music, which will make the band go broke and no longer produce music… therefore killing their fans. While they play, cartoon videos go along with their live performance.. cartoon music videos? What bad asses. A lot of it is so ridiculous that it is rather funny: Death metal with cartoons? lyrics such as “knives? check; dagger? check; laser beams? check; Anger? check.” It sounds like something that a four-year-old watching too many cartoons would create. Laserbeams? really? Says a lot about the four-year-olds I know…

Saints Of Los Angeles?

Just when we got bored of Black Velvet and Pour Some Sugar on Me, Motle Cru saves the day by creating a new soundtrack for every strip club in the country. That’s right, one of my favourite 80’s glam rock bands, Motle Cru, is back with a new album: Angles in Los Angeles. With song names like “Chicks = Trouble” you know it will serve as perfect blast from the past, get drunk theme music. Everything from the past is coming to haunt us, including NKOTB and the Spice Girls, and I’m not excited to see grunge make a comeback.  

In House Music

This week in house music, Im proud to announce that Joey Seminara’s track Just A Tip is going to be huge this summer. Other tracks building serious steam are as follows:

1. The Girl You Lost To Cocaine – SIA (remixed)
2. 4 AM – Kaskade (remixed my Soha & Adam)
3. Shine on Me – Nick Terranova

And we see some tracks returning again this summer. They are as follows:

1. Bleep – Sandy W
2. Tocca Me Together – Mariah Vs fragma
3. Move It – Eric Morillo (Kaval &Mark Remix)

POP Tracks

The pop tracks of the week that I have already heard too much of, meaning they will be/are big, are as follows:

1. I kissed a Girl – Katy Pery
2. Just Dance – Lady Gaga
3. Shake it – Metro station

Creating The Perfect Lounge Playlist

The perfect lounge playlist is essential for everyone’s music libraries because it is the only music that really sets the stage for drama and romance in fiercely chic way. This playlist is golden for dinners, cocktail parties, pre-drinks and post-drinks, and any other sexy situations you may find yourself in. The sound ranges in genres from electronic to jazz; but to me, its all lounge.

It also varies by tepos: the slower ones are better suited for winding down, the faster tempos are for getting a party started. I have multiple lounge playlists  arranged by tempo to suite every situation perfectly.

Just brought someone home at the end of the night? Bitter:sweet. Girlfriends dropped in for pre-party cocktails? Hotel costes. Dinner party? Jazz and 90s/80s.

The best Lounge CD series that make a perfect start to a playlist are as follows:

1. Hotel Costes (i – x)
2. Buddha Bar (i – x)
3. Jazz and (80s and 90s)
4. Om series (mixes, various locations)
5. Verve Remixes (i – iii)

The best artists for a slower tempo are as follows:

1. Bitter:Sweet
2. Goldfrapp
3. John Legend
4. Nouvelle Vague
5. Telepopmusik
6. Portishead
7. Massive Attack
8. Air
9. Gotan Project
10. Trentmoller

Best Artists for a faster-paced lounge are as follows:

1. Kaskade
2. Stephane Pompougnac
3. Mark Farina
4. Parov Stelar
5. Blue Six
6. Amy Winehouse
7. Fiest
8. Soulstice

And finally, my favourite lounge songs of all time are as follows:

1. Koop Island Blues – Koop
2. Dream Machine – Mark Farina (Downtempo Mix)
3. All I Want – Jehro
4. Its You Its Me – Kaskade
5. Les Djinns (Trentmoller Remix) – Djuma Soundsystem
6. Sous La Soleil (Cuba Acoustic Mix) – Major Boys
7. Cleopatra in New York – Nickodemus (zim zam mix)
8. As The Day Breaks – Carmen Rizzo
9. Everything is Alright – Four Tet
10. Where Do I Begin (Away Team Mix) – Shirley Bassey
11. Diferente – Gotan Project
12. Loneliness (chill mix) – Blank & Jones
13. Metropolitan – Emmanuel Santarronama
14. Juice – Buddha Sounds CD
15. Faking The Books – Lali Puna
16. Paper Aeroplanes – Angus & Julia Stone
17. (This is Not) A Love Song – Nouvelle Vague
18. Our Remains – Bitter:Sweet
19. Adios – Zimpala
20. Show Me – John Legend

I’ll stop myself at 20, but let me know if there are any vital lounge tracks on your list that make your top 20 and I missed. If there is one thing I urge you to do, it is to give all of these a quick listen. You may like them all, you may like some, you may like none – but you will open yourself up to new music, which really is the greatest gift of all.

The Kooks

Some people can’t go a day without their cell phones, I can’t go a day without my Ipod. No more wasting money and time on whole albums, instead buying just the songs I like. This means no more clutter  and no more disappointment after buying a CD for one song, while the rest of the album sucks.  This also means creating playlists to suit every mood and situation in life.

Often I find myself enjoying only a couple of songs on an album; Sometimes I find myself enjoying a whole album; Rarely, I find myself enjoying the artist, wherein I enjoy many of their albums.

The Kooks are one of these rare exceptions. I stumbled upon their song Always Where I Need To Be by chance on ITunes just over a month ago. After playing it numerous times and loving it, I had to find out if their other musical offerings were at par with this gem. They were. This time I downloaded a bunch of songs off their Konk album. After playing it on rotation for a day, I realized I was addicted and needed to know more about them.

The sound is best described as beachy, catchy, singalong rock and is found in the Alternative section of ITunes. This delicious treat reminds me of chocolate, perfect any hour of the day. While its flavours are best used as a pick-me-up, it also serves as the perfect background to surfing, laying by the pool, lounging by the beach, and sunning.

I learned that they were coming to Toronto, and last Wednesday, I went to watch them live at the Koolhaus. I surveyed the crowd of the sold-out concert once inside – trendy, good looking, mid-to-late 20s. This was a good sign. The band played, the crowd sang along. When Love It All was preformed, the crowd may have been louder than the band.

My conclusion: The Kooks offer incredible music both on their albums and in their live performances. They get my five-star rating as my favorite band of the week.

My favourites off their second album Konk are as follows:

1. Always Where I Need To Be – The song that made me fall in love with the band
2. See The Sun – They preformed it live acoustically and had the whole crowd rocking side to side
3. Love It All - This song had the crowd singing at the tops of their lungs

My favourites off their first album Inside In/Inside Out are as follows:

1. She moves in her own way – The best surf and singalong rock 
2. You Don’t Love me – Another top-of-the lungs pleaser
3. Naive – Great background to any foreground 

 Other new/hot bands worth checking out if you love the Kooks are as follows:

1. The Virgins
2. Vampire Weekend
3. Spoon
4. Kenna
5. The Rapture

 

 Quote from their site:

‘The greatest records in the world can be put on in any situation: you can put them on at a party and they’re going to sound great, you could put them on in a club and they’re going to sound great, you could put them on on your headphones and listen in bed. That’s when you get a great album,’ says Luke Pritchard. ‘And that’s how I like to think of this album.’

The Job Search

Tomorrow is my first official job interview since my graduation. The interviews I’ve been on thus far have been either informational or with head hunters. I was actually quite surprised that head hunters would be interested in representing me, as I am not a top executive – quite the opposite, a recent graduate.

To begin the hunt, I tried the usual job search sites: workopolis, monster, media job search. I despise online searching, mainly because these sites are bombarded with spam-jobs. The spam-job classics include: The Scam, “Get paid fast, work from home;” The Bullshit “No experience necessary;” The Bait and Switch - a sales position avoiding the word “sales” instead using words like “Account Executive” and “Public Relations;” and last but not least, The Bills – remeniscent of light posts and construction platforms plastered with posters of upcoming events (and any other random thing that may find itself in a newspaper’s classified section). I wish I could filter the online searches to include options such as “post no bills” (which, by the way, Monster is the worst for).

The next step in my search had me join all associations relating to my field. I became an active member of both CPRS and IABC, and I attended seminars to learn about the industry and to network. Seminar attendance is proving to be far more valuable than the networking itself; the network is great, my networking needs work.

Then I connected with a headhunter whom I met at a seminar. She honestly directed me on how to make my resume more powerful, gave me a list of all the agencies in Toronto and, most importantly, gave me a snippet of her invaluable wisdom.

Her resume tip highlights are as follows:

• Include quick company summary/highlights blurb if you have worked for a company that is not well known. ** common sense note: for consistency reasons, if you add a company summary for one company, do it for all**
• Tailor your resume to the job description by bolding important words, if necessary, and using the same words when they apply
• The most important aspect of your job experience should be the first point. Work downwards from there. For communicators, media relations gets the first point, followed by internal relations, event planning, computers skills, etc.
• Skip a regular “skills” section (as everyone’s looks the same and has the same empty buzz-words). Instead, opt for “Computer Skills” and let your potential employer know which programs you can use.

The jury is still out about whether to add your part-time job (if unrelated to position applying for), hobbies, interests, skills, and other “filler” unrelated to the current position applying for. But this is where I am on the fence…

 Is a resume supposed to highlight what makes one qualified for this position, without the B.S. “filler” of “…Hobbies include collecting stamps…” and overused buzz words??

OR

Is a resume most powerful when it stands apart from the crowd, delivering a message that one is not only qualified, but also has interests… interests which could be the same as the person holding the tedious task of sifting through those redundant resumes??

That is the question I pose: Resumes, with or without personality?

Best Burgers in Toronto

My youth was spent like most kids my age: obsessed with my dog who smelt of dirt and cookies, quoting lines from the Simpsons and thinking I was utterly witty, delivering newspapers and getting chased down the street by the neighbourhood black lab, buying sweet treats and candies at the local Mac’s Milk with fist-fulls of pennies, trying to see how much ice cream I could eat in one sitting and stayed up all that night puking. (Foreshadowing to my future?)

When I was the ripe age of fifteen I applied at the local Lick’s… home of the Homeburgers… after learning all of my friends had acquired employment there and hooked me up with free milkshakes. I wanted this power, to give away free milkshakes to my friends, too.

It was then that I developed a respect for the art of a perfectly crafted burger, real meat formed into deliciously thick patties On Site, toppings that went beyond the slice of pickle, tomato, and a soggy piece of lettuce – which every burger joint I had experienced up until that point would serve. No, I was beyond that now.. I was in Mecca. Even the Faux burgers (vegetarian) tasted divine and juicy. Even the croutons were made by hand, thickly slicing buns, dropping them into the deep-fryer, then tossing in seasoning. I had begun my appreciation for good food the day I tried a homeburger and today, I am a self-proclaimed foodie.

I may have a strange taste for burgers, because when I tried my first $30 burger in Miami three years ago, I wasn’t impressed. I thought it was over priced and that it under delivered. The Beer Bistro across the street serves a pretty good burger, with equally good fries, and definitely beats the haute casse-croûte from Miami, mainly because you get the same burger at about half the price – its worth.

Last week when walking home from a long day of shopping, en route to Fast Fresh Foods, I decided to try Hero Burger since it seemed to be the only thing open. Cooked medium well and topped with crumbled blue cheese, I melted with love for this burger. The fries and service, however, need some work.

That is when my love for burgers was reignited. Beaming with satisfaction well into the late hours of the night at a club, a guy informed me of a burger joint even better than Hero Burger and Lick’s. This diamond was located in my adored area of King West. I was intrigued. I was tempted. I was on a new hunt to Find Toronto’s best burger.

The next day, the words Craft Burger repeated again and again in my head with a vengeance. I felt like Indiana Jones on a hunt for a mysterious treasure that was always right beneath my nose.

Yesterday, I went with a friend after reading reviews and talking non-stop about this burger joint. I think he was rather relieved to have me finally stop talking about it. I had the Craft Bleu, onion rings and a old fashioned root beer, even though everyone else was having the milkshakes. The onions rings and milkshakes are good enough alone to go there for. The burger was a beautiful masterpiece I was in awe of. The only detail that from the first glance, we knew would be a significant problem was the fromage. It was one thick slice of triangular blue cheese; therefore, the cheese was not properly distributed upon the burger and was far too much (quantity) for such a sharply flavoured topping. If they were to lighten up on the amount of mayo and just Sprinkle the blue cheese across the Divine beef patty, it would be perfect.

Unfortunately, its not perfect and my hunt for the best burger in Toronto will continue… starting with another trip to Craft Burger in hopes that their faux burger, classic burger, or spicy burger will be better. We may have a winner, but I need to know – where are the best burgers in Toronto? I want to hear from you.