Sense of Humour

My only point of references for Daniel Johnston prior to this year were Yo La Tengo's cover of "Speeding Motorcycle", Daniel's contributions to the soundtrack of the 1995 film Kids, and some vague recollections that back in the early 90's Kurt Cobain mentioned him in an interview. Until recently he'd been off my radar, but then I heard he was booked for Toronto's own indie music festival Over The Top Fest. I subsequently watched quite a bit of the 1995 documentary on him, The Devil and Daniel Johnston, and found it really interesting. Both Daniel himself and his music have a quirky, child-like, simple quality to it on the surface but underneath it Daniel and his music are much more complex. His music encompasses an amateur quality in its performance(at least when Daniel performs solo) perhaps but listen to some of the melodies or watch some of Daniel's chord changes and you can see how truly gifted Daniel is. Daniel was interviewed and performed on MTV Live yesterday(May 7, 2007). I particularly enjoyed his song "Sense of Humour" which was really beautiful. Check out the video links below(sorry, only Canadians will be able to view this):

Video: Daniel Johnston - interview (live on MTV Live - May 7, 2007)
Video: Daniel Johnston - "Mean Girls Give Pleasure" (live on MTV Live - May 7, 2007)
Video: Daniel Johnston - "Sense of Humour" (live on MTV Live - May 7, 2007)
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BlogTO reports that MySpace Secret Shows is coming to Canada. It officially launches May 14 with a free show by Billy Talent, somewhere. Keep checking the MySpace Secret Shows page for details about the location which will eventually be posted. Please note, that these are first come first serve events. Hope there's some cool shows booked in the future.

The Soundtrack of Our Lives are at Silver Dollar on June 8.[via Stille Post] This night is already stacked with shows from Voxtrot(Sneaky Dee's), Dinosaur Jr.(Phoenix), and Junior Boys(The Mod Club). What to do.

On closer glance of the NXNE big band list I noticed that Toronto punk legends The Diodes are booked for the festival. The band's Myspace indicates that they'll play an afternoon show at Dundas Square on June 9 with a performance that night at Sneaky Dee's. This MySpace post from today says it'll be the FULL 1977 first album lineup.

Screw Spider-Man 3. I only found out yesterday that there was a sequel made to 28 Days Later entitled 28 Weeks Later which is coming out this Friday. I loved the first film. Watch the trailer for the new film. ps. Just joking about Spider-Man 3 - I still want to see it, despite all the reviews I've heard. Update: I'm likely going to see Spider-Man 3 tonight(if it's not sold out). Also, 28 Days Later is on City TV at 9 pm tonight. Highly recommended.