So for starters, as we’ve been repeatedly warned, it is different from the books. Significantly different? Maybe in some ways. The plot is pretty condensed, eliminating a lot of side stories and gags, and combining elements of different subplots and characters. This should really come as no surprise, since you just can’t fit 1,200 pages of comics into a 2 hour movie, even one as fast-paced as this. I can’t really call any of these changes detrimental. Yeah, your favorite secondary or tertiary character might not have made the cut (Joseph? Lisa? Mobile?), or your favorite Toronto location might not have any screen time, but the tone and spirit of the story are there, unscathed.

The cast is pretty much perfect. There was (and probably still is) a lot of worry about Michael Cera as Scott Pilgrim, and his interpretation of the character brings more of his introverted schtick than I get from the book. That said, he also has the perfect bewildered and oblivious air about him. He works in the role, even if it feels like the character has been dialed down just a notch. The supporting cast more than makes up for any minor shortcomings anyways. The look and feel of the movie versions are pretty much spot-on, even for minor characters like Sandra and Monique, or Comeau. Kieran Culkin as Wallace Wells and Aubrey Plaza as Julie Powers are absolutely impeccable, and predictably get some of the biggest laughs in the film.

The video game/magical realism elements are handled fantastically. Everything from bombastic, crackling energy bursts during the fight scenes, to subtle gags that play on the visibility of the sound effects and action lines. there are even some new jokes that play up the “film”-ness of this version, the same way that O’Malley would occasionally play up the “comic”-ness of the original – there’s a scene between Julie Powers and Scott Pilgrim that I’m thinking of specifically, a gag that can only work on film, and not on the comics page.

Last point: the music. Sex Bob-Omb is great, a sloppy, raucous garage rock trio, full of nervous energy and pop hooks. The Clash at Demonhead, with their slick, nimble dance pop and auto-tuned vocals, sound exactly how I’d imagined them. I pictured Crash and the Boys sounding a little more like No Age or Health, but the sludgy, metal influenced sound they ended up with suits them pretty darn well.

All in all, the only complaints I have are nitpicks that are too tiny to even mention. the movie was giddy, inventive, and deeply respectful of the source material, even when it wandered from it. Bravo. Now go shell out your $10 on opening day, with my full approval.

On Friday night, I came home to find a champagne bottle and sushi waiting, followed by a ridiculously decadent dessert. Can’t complain about that. Then we hit up several of the 80+ yard sales on Capitol Hill on Saturday, with pal Abby. Among the loot scored: a working NES and games for a mere $30, C.S. Lewis’ sci-fi trilogy for $1, a 35mm SLR with a 55mm 1.8 lens for $20 total, a sweater and some jeans, and more.  Follow that up with a little relaxation, then a jaunt down to the ID to shop for NES games at Pink Godzilla, and then to Georgetown for a signing by one of my favorite cartoonists, Jason, at the Fantagraphics store. As if that wasn’t enough, we met up with pal Valarie for drinks at Linda’s that night, and heard about the Sounders 2-1 win over the Earthquakes, finally breaking their streak of recent draws.

Sunday wrapped up the weekend with a sale on socks ($1-2 a pair at the U-Village Gap; guys, get your sock needs fulfilled cheap!), lots of video game playing, watching the pilot episode of the new BSG spin-off series/prequel Caprica, and more video game playing. Add generous amounts of wine and tater tots (oh, and hip hop and “your mom” jokes) to this last activity.

Not a bad couple of days by any stretch of the imagination. About the only downside was missing Art Brut on Friday…but hopefully we’ll have a chance to see them again soon.

I’ve never seen Iron & Wine before, and I’m not really sure if I can say that I’ve seen them now. The crowd that showed up for this free in-store performance at Sonic Boom’s tiny little shop on 15th Street in capitol Hill quickly filled up the available space, and proceeded to spill out onto the sidewalk for the duration of the 30 minute set. The thirty or forty people who couldn’t fit inside (myself included) stood on the street, craning our necks and hoping to catch a glimpse of Sam Beam through the windows, and over the heads of the rest of the crowd, as wisps of music drifted out of the front door, audible only when traffic had stopped. At one point, a man climbed up on his friend’s shoulders and yelled “I can see him! He’s got a beard!” drawing a chuckle from the rest of us. A little girl sitting on her Dad’s shoulders turned to him and yelled back “You’re weird!” All in all, it was worth it, just for the sheer random adventure of it all.

2. The Field: Yesterday & Today(Kompakt/Anti- 2009)

 Axel Willner’s second album as the Field is richer, deeper record built on an expanded palette. Where From Here We Go Sublime pushed the building blocks of pop micro-samples to it’s limit, Yesterday & Todayopens the horizons, incorporating processed vocals and live drumming on some tracks. This set of songs is just as rich and hypnotic as the acclaimed debut album, with John Stanier (of Battles) contributing some extra rhythmic heft in a couple places.

3. SkipScreen (Firefox extension)

For those of you who frequent the many anonymous file-sharing services available online today, such as RapidShare, MegaUpload, zShare, etc., this plugin is a real time saver. you know that annoying little clock that pops up before you’re allowed to actually click on the download link? the one that begs you to buy a membership tot he site? This extension skips it, or at the very least bypasses the additional confirmation that’s needed in order to begin the actual download. Now, why anyone would want to visit anonymous file-sharing sites I can’t begin to imagine….

4. King City 2by Brandon Graham (Image comics/Tokyopop)

As announced by the artist himself, King City 2 will finally be seeing release! The first King Citybook, a sci-fi spy epic that wraps a sweet and sad story into a world filled with aliens, cats used as weapons, zombie wars, and drugs that turn a users body into more drugs, was published by Tokyopop a couple years back, to mountains of critical acclaim and molehills of sales. The second book lingered in limbo for ages, with an uncertain future as Tokyopop slashed its roster and dropped titles left and right. But now Image will be reprinting the first book as a series of 6 monthly installments including new material, followed up by the debut of King City 2, in the same monthly format. This probably the most exciting comic book since Paul Pope’s THB, and that’s no small praise.

5. Bonkers! in 3-D at ReBar

So, honestly, the 3-D didn’t work all that well. The first 100 people in the door at Re-Bar this night were handed a pair of old-school red-and-blue foil 3-D glasses, to be worn during Looptid’s live visual presentation at 11pm. The red lens was a bit too dark, or maybe the projections weren’t bright enough, but somehow, the projected images of geometric abstractions and vintage softcore (censored by giant “Bonk!” text blocks) failed to leap off the screen. That’s OK, because the music leapt off the speakers in its place. Erictronic’s set combined techno, shuffle, 12-bar blues, and numerous other incongruous genres; Nerd Revolt’s live debut went without a hitch, rocking the dance floor with waves of slick sub-bass. Travis Baron and Dietrich Shoenemann kept the wheels of steel in effect the rest of the night.

Did you ever have one of those days when your significant other carpools into work with you at 7:30am, only to get summarily laid off by a borderline insane employer at 9:00am? And you come home at 6:00pm to find that she, her sister, and their friend have already worked their way through two bottles of wine and a bottle of vodka? And within about an hour, there are several more people at her apartment and every drop of alcohol has been consumed and it sounds like a fantastic idea to walk up to Deluxe for their $5 burger special? And somewhere along the way some wine is thrown up on the sidewalk and $5 worth of bottled water is purchased from a corner market in order to meet their debit card minimum? Because I have no idea what that’s like.

2. Celebrating a new home and a birthday

Then there are those other days, when you get invited to a rooftop housewarming party on a 6-story condo in the center of Capitol Hill, and there’s a nearly 360° view of the Seattle area, including the Olympics, the Cascades, Mount Rainier, Cal Anderson park, the Space Needle, and any other notable landmark you could care to mention. Funny hats are worn, assorted meats are grilled, and multiple parties end up cross-contaminating each other and poaching each others beverages. And this is before the underage partiers start showing up and acting like jackasses, so you go inside and eat Guinness birthday cake.

3. Free Comic Book Day (Saturday, May 2nd)

I probably should have posted this last week, since anyone who doesn’t know about it has now missed it. But this yearly event is a great way to get non-comics readers into comics shops, out of curiosity if nothing else. It’s also a good way to check out some new comics that you might not take a chance on otherwise. Let’s face it, with comic book pamphlets clocking in at upwards of $3 a pop these days, free sounds awfully tempting.

4. Molly Moon’s on Capitol Hill (917 East Pine)

Ever since I moved from Canada twenty some-odd years ago, I’ve been missing one thing above all else, and that’s black licorice ice cream. I found it, once, at an ice cream shop at a mall in Eugene several years ago, but that one encounter was not enough to quench a two-decade urge. fortunately, Molly Moon’s has answered my prayers at last, with a salted black licorice ice cream. It’s not exactly what I was looking for, but it is a new take on my long-lost childhood favorite. Maybe I can convince them to make a tiger tail ice cream (orange and black licorice swirled), and really make my day.

5. Phonogram 2.2 (Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie)

Speaking of comic books, the second issue in Gillen & McKelvie’s seven part series, offering seven different music- and magic- infused takes on a single night in a London club, finally hits shelves. For those who missed the first series, Rue Britannia, Phonogram is essentially an extended metaphor that disguises musings on the cultural and personal significance of popular music as self-aware urban drama spiced with magic. I mean, really, why would you write a dry essay on the rise and fall of Britpop, when you could instead make it a keenly drawn comic book filled with sorcerous intrigue? The second series expands this conceit, exploring the subjective aspects of pop culture through the eyes of seven very different characters.

And there’s certainly no lack of things to do for the rest of the weekend. Sakura Con is happening as I type this, so we’ll be going out to people watch at some point this evening I’m sure. We missed Lightning Bolt at Vera last night, after hearing discouraging rumours about a line forming at 7:00 for the 150-capacity venue, but finding out that the Americas are playing at Atlas Clothing on Sunday almost makes up for it. I’ll see an insane rock duo at some point this weekend!

Oh, and I just bought my plane ticket to San Francisco for APE later this month. Should be a good palette cleanser after the tights-and-capes fest that was Emerald City Comicon. APE is the only reason I’ve been back to California for two years in a row, and this year Bryan Lee O’Malley and Hope Larson will be in attendance, making it especially enticing.

I think that’s about it for now. Time for a trip to the library, perhaps. More later…

First up is my impending trip down to San Francisco tomorrow night, to attend the 2006 Alternative Press Expo, meet up with California friends, and just generally live it up.

Then, as soon as we get back, we’ll be heading to Neumo’s to see Subtle, Fog and Jel on the 11th. Then there’s a free Calexico in-store at Easy Street Records in Queen Anne.

That weekend I’ll be heading up to my hometown of Abbotsford, and then on to visit family in that area of BC, some of whom I probably haven’t seen in over a decade. Sadly, I’ll have to miss the baby shower that Serene organized for Tracy that weekend though.

After about a week of relaxation, we’ll be hitting up a records number of shows, seeing Mates of State, Pinback, and the Books. We would’ve gone to see David Sedaris too, but that sold out immediately.

While all this is going on, I’ll be scrambling to get my latest EP mixed down and mastered (panicNow is working in mostly analog for the mastering process now, so I’m excited about that!), and get artwork done. I’m hoping for a release on Belladonna Records by the end of the month…we’ll see. I also need to have a new track ready for a compilation on that label by May 15th. And I still haven’t settled on a new artist name…

Oh, and I’m also working on a ground-up redesign of this site.

So, if I seem a little out of breath, that’s why.

More later…

Serene went off to visit her Grandpa on Friday, and Joey needed to get some work done for his latest web client, so Emily and I went out to the University district to do some browsing and shopping. I finally found a new CD store (you’d think it would be easier here), and an all-used CD store, and picked up the new Sleater-Kinney (limited edition with DVD), Daedelus’ Exquisite Corpse, and Jawbox’s Jawbox and For Your Own Special Sweetheart. Also went over to the University District branch of Zanadu comics and snagged a copy of Penny Century #6 and a bunch of Palookaville comics.

University Street in Seattle is packed with little boutique clothing stores, and I could easily go broke shopping at them. Well, if I was the type to spend $62 on pants and $112 on a sweater. But it seems like there’s tons of outlets for small-run designer t-shirts in a variety of styles. One shop we stopped at even had a few Tokidoki shirts in stock. There are also some pretty cool used/vintage stores in the area, and I snagged a Duck Hunt T-shirt at the Buffalo Exchange.

Later in the evening, it was back to Blue C Sushi for another excellent meal. There was a bit of a wait for a table tonight, so we went upstairs for some cocktails first. I had a Kappatini, which is essentially a cucumber martini. Soooooo refreshing. And we chowed down on the seemingly endless supply of sushi and tempura and noodles and puff pastries, and more cocktails (of course) before picking up a couple bottles of champagne and heading back home.

Saturday was the Sasquatch festival in George, Washington, at the Gorge Ampitheatre. Basically, the Gorge is a large stage set against the backdrop of the Columbia River gorge, and incredible view of dropped into the middle of some flat, ugly badlands in central Washington. It’s a pretty amazing place to see a show. We ended up arriving at about 2 or 3, after the first few bands had started, but we got there in time to catch the Arcade Fire’s set. They were pretty cool. I hadn’t heard them before, and they’re probably not something I’d listen to on my own, but they were inventive and energetic (especially the guy running around banging a crash cymbal wildly). Wilco came on shortly after, and played a long set with lots of songs ending in prolonged washes of noise and feedback. It was weird to see them in such huge venue, but it worked pretty well.

There was a bit of a break between bands we wanted to see, but the next act was Joanna Newsom at 7:00. I was excited to see her, but I was afraid this venue wouldn’t do her justice at all. Fortunately, she was on one of the smaller side stages, where we could get up pretty close and the sound was nice and clear. She opened her set by walking to the front of the stage, past all the mics and monitors, and singing as loud as she could into the audience, making eye contact with a lot of the crowd and getting everybody to clap along for her. Then she sat at her harp and played “Bridges & Balloons,” to overwhelming response. She proceeded through most of her album, as well as a B-side (from the “Sprout & the Bean” single) and an amazing new song that seemed to go on forever. The crowd was great, and everytime she asked what we wanted to hear, there were all sorts of enthusiastic shouts from the crowd.

The final stretch of the evening was Modest Mouse and the Pixies. I missed about half of Modest Mouse’s set due to being stuck in a food line for about an hour, but I could still hear them from where I was standing. I was surprised to them as a 6-piece band when I finally got back to the green with my cheeseburger. Whatever happened the good ol’ power trio days? Although the added cello and 2nd drummer were kind of cool…

Amazingly enough, there was a bit of a mass exodus after Modest Mouse’s set. Philistines. The setup for the Pixies took forever, and I’m convinced the front-of-house engineer was just showing off by directing the mixing over the PA (“OK check….check…Uhhhhhhhh….We can take down 250 a bit in channel 9….and boost about 2db at 1200 on Kim’s monitor….”). It was worth it when they finally took the stage though, sprinting through a tight set with hardly any full stops between songs. The setlist was a Pixies fan’s wet dream, with all the big hits you would expect, and a few great oddball songs. Nothing too out there though.

The 2-hour drive back to Seattle at midnight was a little daunting, but we pulled it off, mostly with Serene behind the wheel. We staggered back home exhausted, dehydrated, and totally spent and collapsed on the floor.

Not sure what’s in store for today. Serene & I apparently slept in until 2, and Joey and Emily had taken off somewhere. Not sure what they’re up to, or when they’ll be back, but we’ll see what the day brings, I guess. Might go see John’s friend Kyle do a broadcast for KEXP sometime later. We shall see….

More later….

After we were somewhat recovered and mobile, we headed downtown to the Honey Hole for dinner and a start to the drinks. The Honey Hole is an interesting, tiny little bar/grill type place with huge portions. I wasn’t feeling too hungry, so I stayed with the artichoke dip, and everyone else had garden burgers (two patties! Jesus!) and sandwiches of various sorts. From there it was over to Bar?a, a nice chill little lounge, sort of pseudo gothic, with huge pimped-out velvet booths, for a few drinks.

From there it was another exciting night of card and dice games and Hefeweizen at the homestead. Not too shabby for a low-key 26th birthday.

Today we went for a walk around the neighborhood for a while, ending up down at the Arboretum swingset. It was a pretty hellish walk back, due to the huge Seattle hills and California-summer-esque weather, but the heat has been a worthwhile tradeoff for how beautiful it’s been.

Joey and Emily went to see Star Wars this afternoon while Serene and I walked around Pike Street and the surrounding area (but not the eponymous market). I picked up a Ubiquity Records T-shirt reading “Music is the weapon of the Future” in a nice hand-drawn font, cream and brown, and some Forlorn Funnies comics down at Zanadu on 3rd. Went on a fruitless search for a CD store, with the goal of picking up the new Sleater-Kinney, and whatever else catches my eye of course, but we didn’t end up finding anything. So we just met Emily and Joey back at the car and picked up lasagna fixins’, which we are now preparing. Dinner tonight is gonna kick some fucking ass!

More later….

On the remix topic…I got my first remix back from the Apparel remix kits, and mailed out the last two of about 14 that I sent. Now I just have to wait for them to trickle in. I’ll probably do up the first batch as a release for my Airliner website, complete with cover art, etc., and post the rest as they come in. I’m hoping to post those up in a month or so? We’ll see. I’d like to do it before I go visit Joey in Seattle, or shortly thereafter.

Did I mention that I played the first ever Airliner live set a while ago? I busted out my Ableton Live versions of Jacket and Skirt at North Light Books & Cafe’s open mic night. It went well…relatively well-received, considering the crowd consisted of everything from jaded indie rockers, college poets, old folkies, and bluegrass dudes. I still need to set up the rest of the songs in Live, but I’m not sure yet how I’m gonna do some of the drum tricks I’ve come to rely on in Buzz. But I haven’t really scratched the surface of Live’s abilities yet either, so I’m optimistic.

Picked up Flight Volume Two yesterday. I meant to grab it at APE (see previous post), but I’d all but spent myself out of house and home by the time I found out they were selling it there, and at that point, it was either Flight or my Cloonan original. I’m happy with my choice. I read through the book cover to cover last night though, and it was excellent. Over 400 pages of comics from relatively established and totally unknown artists, with stand-out efforst from Hope Larson, Kazu Kibuishi, Becky Cloonan, Jen Wang, Kness, Doug Holgate….jesus, there’s too much quality in this book.

Well well…more later, I suppose….