Taipei - Travel

Hey Taipei!

My journey to Taipei went pretty smooth! Jeff dropped me off at the airport with a lot less tears than I expected - me not him!

Dad gave us passes to hang out in the Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge, which meant comfy chairs and free breakfast. For some reason I was expecting something more than a continental breakfast, but beggars can't be choosers and having toast was nice.

A rare moment in the wild - Mom reading with her glasses on!

Flight to Vancouver was routine; the mountains were pretty and Mom was hilarious. I've only flown Air Canada once, I'm a WestJet girl. For the most part WestJet is the superior service, but girl when it comes to pretzels, Air Canada has got you beat! Those little buttery nuggets of salt were, embarrassingly, a highlight of those flights!

Mountain winglet shot!

Laughing for no reason, definitely not helping that man sleep.

Pretty birds, pretty birds!

Vancouver Airport, thought we had a little time to relax. We did not. Wine and caesar (which was free poured, wooooooo) were chugged and off we flew!

A steal of a deal at $7.00 CAD!

Chug-a-lug Donna

We were in the back section of the plane for our 13 hr flight to Hong Kong, but in the second row of it. Mentally that was great, it didn't feel crowded at all, and we were served early in our section. Jeff and I bought a Playstation Vita a few nights before I left, so that was a great way to spend time. Assassin's Creed Liberation and Gravity Rush are raaaaaad! Managed to catch a few winks in the middle and at the end of the flight. Watched an edited version of Ted - I thought it was funny! I was crushed that Mom was sleeping while I was watching it though as there was a shot for shot replica of the disco scene from Airplane. Hi-larious. Not always easy to get comfy, but it's amazing what position your body will sleep in when it hit's exhaustion.

My little apartment of goodies.

Rainy winglet in Vancouver, can you believe it?!

Head rests- are we doing this right?

Meal #1 - Chicken. This was all really tasty!

Oh ya, the booze was free.

Mom's meal #1. Pork. It was ok.

Winglet over Alaska(?). Lot's of frozen lakes!

Meal #2. Beef. A not so good!

More booze.

Yepppppp.

Goodnight!

 Hong Kong airport. Not as busy as we were expecting! The security guards were especially nice. I was feeling kinda dopey at this point. Not sleepy, just a little lost in the vortex kinda feeling. Our last leg was an 1.5 flight from Hong Kong to Taipei. Mom was very tired, she hadn't slept the night before, she slept most of the way, didn't even wake up when we landed! We got a meal on this flight too, pork with rice. It was tasty but I wasn't in the mood much for eating. I didn't even take a picture of it!

Getting sleepy.

Dragon Air.

Landed. Luggage. Dad hugs are the best hugs. He had a drive he uses, Johnny, pick us up. 40 minute drive to the hotel. BEAUTIFUL. Tired. Sleeeeeeep. Left 10:00 AM Saturday Morning MTN Time. Arrived 8:00 PM Sunday CST Time. Great success!

Room with a view.

Taipei 101!

Hi Faja!!!

Next day - exploring and Taipei 101!

Some random Garth Brooks thoughts

I'm a very lucky girl.

Tonight I got to see Garth Brooks play for not the first, or the second, but the third time.

The first time I was 10 years old. My aunt and uncle for some reason got me a ticket to go with them. I still remember he started 'The Old Stuff', and I'll never forget how he tricked us into thinking he was playing the piano at the beginning of the song, but actually rose up and out from the middle of the piano during the line "and I pray that SASKATOON (ba-dum!) goes wild toniiiight". And of course the place went nuts. My aunt and uncle were really on my mind tonight, and as my uncle's father passed away this morning.

At one point my mom turned back to me and said that she had goosebumps. Not gonna lie, I kinda rolled my eyes. I've never had that experience. Until tonight. I noticed it. During 'Thunder Rolls', Garth did sang the secret verse, and all of a sudden I felt shivers in my legs. It was eerie. Maybe it's happened before, I dunno, maybe I only noticed it because my mom pointed out. It was awesome though!

When Trisha Yearwood came out I got a bit sad. It was the same routine they did at Garth's show in Vegas. Last June I went to see him play at the Wynn, front row. I went with two girlfriends who I am now both figuratively and literally oceans away from. A lot changes in a year. Just not the Garth and Trisha act. Which is sort of nice. They are lovely.

Its nice to watch a professional band have some tempo issues.

I heard a bunch of people got ripped off on fake tickets. I got ripped off once when I was 13 for a fake backstage pass to *NSYNC. It blows.

I lost my phone last weekend, and while it's been a major inconvenience, tonight it felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. I didn't have the means nor feel the need to communicate my enjoyment of the show IN REAL TIME. I got to simply experience Garth Brooks instead of taking breaks to show off what I was doing. No worrying about getting a personal shot of him, no scrambling to get the video camera app working. No checking to see if anybody liked or commented on what I was posted. I get to talk about that it all now, and both my concert experience and this account of it have benefited from having full attention to one thing.

Welp, now it's blazing hot and I gotta try and get some sleep so I don't sleep in again tomorrow morning. The thunder's rolling though, and that's pretty awesome.

I'm not good at keeping anything

Welp, we’re only 17 days in but I've already gone ahead and broken my secret New Years resolution, and it’s all Kathleen Edwards fault. In my bid to fight for Calgary’s music, I silently told myself that I would only buy albums by Calgary artists, or from musicians playing at Calgary venues. I still vow to keep as close as I can do that goal, but my (secret) girlfriend Kathleen Edwards released her 4th album today and I just couldn’t help myself. Back in 2008 when I was a naïve fledling musician in an old man cover band playing keys, “Back To Me” was one of the first Canadian roots songs I ever heard. I thought it was so cool and rad and I just had to go buy that album. Kathleen had also just released her newest album at the time “Asking For Flowers” so I snatched that up as well. I must have listened to that album 20 times before I let it out of my car. I was sold. This was the girl I wanted to be. I ended up covering her song “I Make The Dough, You Get the Glory” in the band The Pines, though I gave it up after awhile after I felt I couldn’t do justice to the vocals.

So, fast forward to 2012, and I’m listening to “Voyageur” right now for the very first time. I can’t make any comments on it yet other than its lovely so far. On the drive to work this morning, I heard on the radio (660 News no less!) that her and her husband Colin Cripps were in the middle of a divorce. I just saw Colin playing with Jim Cuddy at the Jubilee on the weekend, and had been wondering at the time if Kathleen was in the crowd somewhere. I can only assume that she wasn’t. All of Kathleen’s albums have a blanket of melancholy over them, but knowing now that this album is most likely a product of that relationship’s demise… it makes everything just a bit heavier, especially considering that he had contributed as a writer and producer on her previous albums. He’s entirely not absent from this album though, as one can imagine that most of the material is about him.

New Year, New Ideas

I am the worst updater ever! Clearly the 'recomend, buy, review' project never panned out. At the end of the day I didn't have enough words, money, time or motivation to complete it. Not a loss though, I got some wicked CD's outta the deal. On to newer and better things this 2012...

LIKE A NEW CALGARY MUSIC WEBSITE!

I'm in the very, very, very, early stages of developing a new website dedicated to Calgary music artists and venues. CKUA recently released their Top 100 artist/album for 2011 and it's disheartening to say the least. Matt Masters has issued a 'Call to Arms' for Calgary's artists, media and government to help push Calgary music to a national stage. I want to do my part. 

Sometime in the future. One website for all you could ever need to know about what's going on in Calgary's music scene.

Waltzing Matilda

And now, Small Change by Tom Waits. Via Mr. Burns:

He is my favourite Writer. Beautiful songs. I love "Closing Time" & "The Heart of Saturday Night" from his earlier work as well, and "Frank's Wild Years" & "Mule Variations" from the second half of his career.
But "Small Change" is kind of a turning point into the real bar-room character he was playing & living in that period.
It's got all the classic Waitsisms... ballads, blues & jazz, humour, young drunkenness.



My first experience with Tom Waits was last year with Swordfishtrombone. That album hit me harder then probably anything I've listened to recent years. I remember my jaw literally dropping and I was practically squeeling in my car listening to Tom Waits shout and sing and be a maniac. It completely changed the way I thought about music. I've always put a lot of limits on myself and what I thought music should and shouldn't be. I never listened to jazz because I didn't understand it. I never learned chords beyond major and minor because I didn't see the use. Swordfishtrombone changed all that. If you wanna be original without sounding like a train wreck, I've learned you gotta do 3 things. Be brave, know your shit, and don't give an eff what other people think.

After Swordfishtrombone, I went down to the now defunct Megatunes and lo and behold they had Tom Waits albums on for 5 bucks! That store was always bad for my wallet. But I didn't get this one. Now, I'm not sure if this was Sean's favorite Tom Waits album, but I'm pretty sure it was his favorite Tom Waits album that I didn't already own. And I think it's safe to say that my music collection would never have been complete without Small Change.

I haven't had the chance to listen to this one as much as I would have liked to before writing about it. The material alone is worth more than a week's worth of listening. Plus the stupid CD won't play in my car and that's where I do all my heavy listening! Bah, here goes nothing!

It starts off with 'Tom Traubert's Blues'. Stunning is about as good of a word I can come up with to describe this song and pretty much all of Small Change. I'm a fan of almost every style Tom Waits uses, but I'm such a sucker for melancholy piano ballads and I was shocked and delighted that the majority of the songs on the album were in this style. I think my only problem is that when listening to the album as a whole, I have a tendency to skip past the snappier songs (ie. 'Step Right Up' and title track 'Small Change) just to get to the dreamy stories and piano. Which isn't really fair, because I like those songs too. On random I'd never skip 'em. But squished between 'Tom Traubert's Blues' and 'Jitterbug Boy'? They don't really stand a chance.

Titles Are Hard

Here we go again.

To start off the new and improved Madly Beckons we have the wonderful and talented and bad diner breakfast lovin' Sean Burns! Sean is a musician based in Toronto, but more on him later.

February is here and it's actually been kinda nice this week. Except for Tuesday. Tuesday not so much.

I spent the night before in Airdrie visiting with my mom and grandma. I left early for work that morning at 7:20, and half an hour later I realized I was going to be spending a really long time sitting in my car. The Deerfoot was backed up to to Stoney Trail and according to 66CFR it was bumper to bumper all the way to Peigan (my exit). An hour into my commute I started foraging my back seat, looking for something edible. Instead I found my little HMV bag with two new cd's in it. And lo and behold it was February 1st! Which meant I could finally start listening to them! My options were either Bob Dylan or Tom Waits. Without hesitation I cracked open the Waits album and threw it in the console. And waited. And watched it fail. Made a few more attempts to get the player to read the cd, but it was no use. All I was left with was Bob Dylan. Highway 61 Revisited.



I was worried.

I like Bob Dylan, I really do. But I only have a 3 disc "best of" of his, and it something I can only take in small doses. I had estimated that I had at least another half hour in traffic (it ended up being another hour), and I was concerned about how an entire album of this dude would effect my already foul mood. I put the cd in.

AND IT WAS AWESOME. No one could have ever convinced me that I would love an entire album of Bob Dylan's this much. It's the only thing I've listened to all week.

Highway 61 starts off with 'Like a Rolling Stone', Bob Dylan staple. And then right into 'Tombstone Blues' and I just love this line:

The geometry of innocent flesh on the bone

And it just keeps being awesome. 'Balled of a Thin Man' kinda slows things down in the middle, but it is groovy and it makes me wanna take up smoking. And start a bring back smoking in bars campaign.

I can't even complain about the only song I don't like, 'Queen Jane Approximately'. I listened to it once and that's all I needed, I skip it every time now. But having such strong feelings about a song pleases me! You see, I'm an easy sell. There is very little media that I'm not a little entertained by, and sometimes that's kind of boring. So for me to never want to hear a song again... big deal! I don't think the song is a miss, I just kinda hate it. The harmonica made me want to throw myself outta the vehicle on the highway. Except I was only going 5 kms/hr so that wasn't going to do much damage. But yes. Lukewarm is boring. And there was nothing lukewarm for me about this album.

WOO!

Normally I'll post the Recommender's thoughts before I start, but I felt like I needed to save Burnzy's comments till the end here for my story to work. Do I need to explain these things to you? Probably not.

From the man himself:

"Revolutionary. His first full album with a backing band.
Of course everybody has heard "Like A Rolling Stone", but the real reality and gravity of how heavy the song is, and was at the time it was released, is nothing short of astounding.
It rocks hard and was almost like a fuck-you to a lot of people that wanted him to stay solo like the "old Dylan"... door opening, life-changing Album."

Long time no anything

WOW! So I started this blog about 2 weeks before my computer's motherboard got fried and I've been laptopless since. I might have been more inclined to keep going with the blog idea if I hadn't already written (and lost) 5 reviews that I wanted to publish on here. Also I did not have a firm grasp on my financial situation and how this idea might totally put me in the hole. Awesome possum! So now here I am, gifted with another computer that I will hopefully not screw up in 6 months. I've bought and listened to more music then I can keep track since March.

I don't even know what to do with this thing now. Maybe talk about the last few cd's I got? I suppose?

On Saturday I tried to go Christmas shopping at the mall but I got completley overwhelmed and marched myself over to HMV to try and make myself feel better with a cd. Of course they had all those 2/20, 2/30 deals going on so I overspent and came out with 6 new albums. They are as follows:

1. Crazy Heart - Motion Picture Soundtrack
2. Brain Heart Guitar - The Dudes
3. Blood Guts Bruises Cuts - The Dudes
4. All in Good Time - Barenaked Ladies
5. Best of Bowie - David Bowie
6. Gossip in the Grain - Ray Lamontagne

I've listened to the Dudes albums about a hundred times now. I got The Dojo Workhorse's album earlier this year, but always put off getting some of The Dudes music. It's wonderful, joyful, fun. The Crazy Heart soundtrack is awesome. I've only taken a listen through it once, but I'm looking forward to my next listen.

That's one great thing about not having my ipod updated since March. It forces me to listen to the whole album in my vehicle. Which is pretty much my favorite way and place to listen to tunes, but I'd gotten out of the habit.

I've also started listening to the radio more now. I've learned that there is not just 92.9 in Calgary. I feel really... young and naive and small town sometimes. I never went to A Bar Named Sue. I don't get Pearl Jam. And I've only recently discovered how amazing CJSW and CKUA are. Ah well, better late then(than?) never.

The Barenaked ladies album is really disappointing. I bought it cause I really liked that 'You Run Away' song. That leads off the album. Then rest of it (well the first half anyway, I couldn't get through the rest) is just weird. It's synthy and sounds dated and I kinda maybe hate it. I don't know. I gotta sit down and listen to the rest. But it won't be anytime soon.

Haven't gotten to Ray or Bowie yet but looking forward to it.

Alright then. That's enough music talk. Back to working on my Mom's Christmas present (loading her iPad full of musicy goodness).