The Stoned Poet

  Coco Rose shone as bright as the sun as they performed at the Havana Club Cabaret.  I saw them on the 30th of June, it was hot, damp but even the clouds were kept away as Coco Rose beemed onstage. The Cabaret , as seen on the picture above, is so small, they're nine onstage, and they filled every bit of the stage with their presence and sheer talent.   Their set featured covers like Squeeze from Maya Delilah , Abide with Me from Thelenious Monk and Broke Down from The California Honeydrops but it also included some older and newer originals like Ambulance , Song of Us and Lovelight to name a few. On the 30th, their main singer couldn't be there so they had someone else fill in. Marianne, the replacement, was simply stunning, not only did she have a range that had me thinking of Amy Winehouse, but she also just owned every song as if she'd always been the main singer of the band. I think this feat is quite impressive knowing many bands have had...

 Word of introduction, this article took a long time to write, because of indecisions. Should I speak truth, spit out what I felt and saw or write what people want to hear?  The show with Dievanse, Prowrestling and Armoire back in  was a great show, but the timing was wrong, some bands exploded of energy, other agonized and somehow an opportunity to make a bang was missed. And like anything in a society, with no rules or boundaries comes chaos, boredom, lost of sense and no progress. We see signs such as, kids outside of the Batiment 7 drinking more alcohol than there'll ever be of decibels in the room. Sold out shows with half the crowd giggling and photoshooting outside the show. So are the kids simply bored out of their minds or are the bands blame and tame? I can't tell, dpeneds on the nights, depends on the setlists and more, but hey, I'm only here to tell stories, so here's goes another story, a story of cold, of high voltage, a story about bands who wrestled agai...

"Come to me now and rest your head for just five minutes, everything is good Such a cozy room, The windows are illuminated by the evening sunshine through them Fiery gems for you, only for you Our house is a very, very, very fine house with two cats in the yard Life used to be so hard Now everything is easy 'cause of you and our [house]" Those lyrics from the song Our House by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young are the exact representation of what the project called Mai/Son was. A place where I could hang my problems, have a drink or two (as it was a Bring Your Own Beer, there was no pressure to drink at the bar) and simply enjoy the music whenever and whatever music it was. On many week-ends about to end up with no place to go, I would walk up Saint-Joseph Ouest and arrive at the mythic establishment. Compared to say Van Horne, Mai/Son was really a place to embrace, it was a venue we, the youth, had the possibilities of making ours and limitless were the possibilities towa...

October the 4th, I hop in my car with Antoine. Beer, a will to escape the ever dooming future of my generation and a hope of finding a groove that'll set me free from all morality and elusive mind bending thoughts or anxieties.  On a warm hot gloomy yet breezy saturdy night, I had my car parked downtown over the hills and as I locked at my car, the question was, will it stay put, will it roll down? Oh whatever it'll be fine I guess. Antoine and I take our stuff and I leave a note saying I just moved in and thus do not have a vignette for my parking yet, hoping it'll disuade any officers or parking agent of leaving a ticket on my windshield. We go down and turn on mcgill and walk and turn again and walk while talking, drinking a beer and suddenly, Antoine asks the question,  ''So were is the show?'' I reply, '' It's in a YMCA, in a gym more specifically.'' ''Damn thats crazy, just like when we saw shows younger at school in the gym...