Month: September 2010

The Winter Gloves & Megan Bonnell Interviews – S06E04

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I’ve overcome the cupcake craziness from Sunday. This week’s radio show had two interviews, one was the Winter Gloves of Montreal and the other with Megan Bonnell of Toronto.
The interview with Bonnell was done a few weeks back and it was more unexpected because I didn’t prepare but the interview went pretty well.
The Winter Gloves interview went well but I did not get a chance to see them live as I had to attend an event called GenYOtt. I was meeting up with various Twitter users in Ottawa.
The summary of the top 10 countdown is on the other page.
Being a supporter of Shad’s music, I was thrilled that there was a remix version of Rose Garden. It’s available at this link. Even though Summer is done, I am still hooked on the song.
In the 2nd hour of the show, I played the local acts who will be playing at Pop Montreal. I did a giveaway and then I had a few guests on the show. It will be a nice experiment to have a discussion type segment for final half-hour of the show.
This weekend, I am off to Pop Montreal and hoping to check out some live music and do some audio interviews.
You can check the playlist at this link.

Without further ado, you can listen to the full radio show by pressing play.

The Music Interviews
Winter Gloves – press play to listen or download it.

Megan Bonnell – press play to listen or download it.

The Return of the Ever Yummy Cupcakes in The Capital – S06E03

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Oh my! The ever popular Capital Cupcake Camp made it’s 2nd year and this time, at a bigger venue in Ottawa City Hall. It was marvelous to see several unique cupcakes ranging from the amateurs and professionals. The bigger space wasn’t as chaotic as last year and made it easier for anyone to walk around. To my own surprise, I didn’t expect to see CBC All In A Day’s Alan Neal to be at the event as a judge. I joked to him if he survived his bout of sugar rush from the cupcakes. The judging of the cupcakes in various categories would make anyone pass out after chowing down at least 4-5 cupcakes.
Overall, it was all in great fun and also for a good cause towards The Youth Services Bureau of Ottawa and the City of Ottawa program, Women Alive. I would give kudos to the organizer of the event, Ian Capstick, for doing an awesome job and also the volunteers who helped set it up.
During the event, it was great to see some of the Oyster Friday (minus the lead organizer) crew and also several friends I know, from Apartment 613 to friends of my brother.

Without further ado, here are several photos I took and apologies as it was taken on the iPod touch. Oh! My favorite cupcake would have to be the Cherry Cherry cupcake. I think that’s the name of it.
Last thing, for anyone who missed it, I did wear a pink shirt. Thanks goes out to Jennifer Lee Promotions for designing the t-shirt.

The Forest City Lovers Interview and the Mooncake – S06E02

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Summer has come and gone as Fall has arrived. That’s right, a new season has approached and cold weather won’t be as fun. Today’s also the start of Mid-Autumn Festival (in China and various places in Asia). As the image shown on top is a mooncake. I did eat a bit during the second hour of the radio show.
The second hour of the show was in celebration of the festival as I decided to play moon songs. The songs ranged from the 1960s (Moon River), 1980s (New Moon On Monday by Duran Duran) and the 1990s (Savage Garden). I forgot to mention to the friends and people who gave me suggestions on the moon songs, I would like to say, thank you. Apologies on some of the “famous” moon songs but due to time, I was not able to fit it in within the 2nd hour timeframe.
You can check the playlist by going to this link.
To check this week’s entry on the countdown, go to this link.

Going a bit from the 90s past, from one of the moon songs I played, I still like To The Moon and Back by Savage Garden. It’s been a second week that I have played Savage Garden.

Radio Show for September 22, 2010
You can listen to the show by pressing play. The duration of the radio show is 2 hours. On the show were the Top 10 countdown, the interview with Kat Burns of Forest City Lovers and moon songs. Enjoy!

The Second Hour – Moon Songs for Mid-Autumn Festival
If you want to listen to the second hour on the moon songs, you can press play to listen.

Polaris Music Prize Fallout
On Wednesday’s show, I did want to get into the Polaris Music Prize aftermath as countless of radio & tv shows would be talking about it. I decided to congratulate Karkwa on their win and played Marie tu pleures.

The Forest City Lovers Interview
Last Friday night, I had an opportunity to chat with Kat Burns of Forest City Lovers. Overall, she was pretty nice and it was also the first time to use the new iPod touch in recording the interview. I forgot to mention on the show that their gig at Raw Sugar Cafe was at capacity. Aside from that, I had to walk around to various places in downtown Ottawa.
You can listen to the show by pressing play or download it.

Flying Over To Polaris Again – S06E01 (Season Premiere)

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Congratulations to Karkwa for winning the 2010 Polaris Music Prize.



Finally! The blog is back for a sixth season and an apology due to a slight delay on the return. The Summer of 2010 was pretty interesting due to the hot weather but I enjoyed doing the so-called “summer specials” where I did some interviews at music festivals.
I have decided to begin the new season on the upcoming Polaris Music Prize. Friday night at Canteen Art Shop + Gallery held a Polaris Music Prize poster show. The 10 nominated short listed albums shown in an elegant poster art. I was told that the Broken Social Scene poster (image below) has been a hot seller. Mind you, those posters don’t come cheap. The photos on top are Radio Radio and The Sadies. The rest from under are Owen Pallett, Karkwa, Caribou, Broken Social Scene, The Besnard Lakes, Tegan & Sara, Dan Mangan & Shad.
There was a raffle draw for 2 tickets to go to Toronto (transportation and accomodation excluded) for The Polaris Music Prize Gala. Was hoping to win it but it’s unlikely to go to Toronto on such short notice.
In a way, Canadian indie music fans and myself cannot wait to find out who will win the 2010 Polaris Music Prize and the $20,000. I am totally rooting for either Dan Mangan or Shad to win it.
Enjoy viewing the photos that I shot on the new iPod touch (4th generation). Apologies on the image quality coming from it.

Aside from the poster show, there were other things happening that almost made myself go crazy. Prior to attending the poster show, I had to go to Raw Sugar Cafe to do an audio interview with Kat Burns of Forest City Lovers. I should expect the airdate for the interview to be airing for this coming Wednesday (Sept. 22nd) on CKCU-FM.
Afterwards, I decided to make a short stop to Darcy McGees for Oyster Friday. If you don’t know Oyster Friday, it is basically a Twitter get together for beers and free complimentary oysters. In case any of the tweeps read this, it’s my shoutout to you. You people are awesome!
The Canteen one’s already explained as after the checking out the poster show, I dropped by to Cafe Nostalgica to interview a Toronto singer, Megan Bonnell. I missed out on her performance due to going back to Raw Sugar Cafe to see Forest City Lovers perform. All I can say about Bonnell is that she’s lovely, nice and pretty easy-going. It was also the first time to conduct the interview without preparing questions. The airdate will be announced. She’s sure going to be an great singer.

To end off, Friday, September 17, 2010 was considered a hectic time due to walking all over downtown Ottawa and breaking a sweat. It’s all on fun time.
Here’s a videoclip of the posters.