There's a walk this weekend called The Wishmaker Parade Walk for Wishes to support the Children's Wish Foundation.

I think a better name would be The Wishmaker Parade Walk for Wishes, Pennywhistles and Moonpies.

I would volunteer for The Children's Wish Foundation, but I doubt a kid with cancer's dying wish is to learn how to make mixtapes.

I passed on buying both these albums because of this:

Sure it sucks that CDs are Copy Controlled now, but that's easy to bypass. The reason I didn't buy it is cause these are two recent albums I've seen where the Copy Controlled warning is IN THE ARTWORK and ON THE COVER. I know most bands don't have any say in the matter of having Copy Controlled measures on the CD, but really, you should have control over your own artwork.

Note to record labels (mostly you EMI): I download more albums than any one I know. I also buy more albums than anyone I know. When I do buy albums, it's because the album is good, the cover is nice, and it's not outrageously priced. If you nail all 3, I'll buy it. If even one of them is off, it's easy for me to skip it and enjoy the MP3s instead.

EMI is the biggest culprit of this Copy Controlling. Concordingly, I own the fewest EMI albums this year.

Put it as a sticker on the wrapper.
Put it on the back.
Put it along the spine thing like the new Gorillaz album.
Shit, put it anywhere except the cover.

Or, you know, how about not putting it on there at all.

Love handmade stuff. Congratulations to Ryan on his first release:

Catbird Records CBR 001
Michael Holt/Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin
"Someone Still Loves You Michael Holt:
A Scrapbook For You"

Get one, it's $8.

Arcade Fire
w/ Wolf Parade and Bell Orchestre

Since Arcade Fire is too big to play Commodore, and other suitable venues like Orpheum or Queen E were booked, the show was at the PNE Forum instead. The Forum is the former Agridome, the former hockey rink and current home of the weiner dog races during the summer PNE. Even though the show was all ages, the audience was noticable skewed to the older sweater and spotty facial hair crowd. Bell Orchestre opened, and it was ok. Instrumental string rock is good for sleepless late nights, not for weiner dog hockey rinks. Wolf Parade was up next and they looked noticably rushed. Apparently they were stuck in an accident on the way to the show and just barely made it in time. So without a soundcheck, their sound was noticably muddy. For any other band, this would be a nightmare, but for Wolf Parade's sound, it wasn't so bad. The set was pretty much the same as a few weeks ago. The other, noisier keyboarder Hadji Bakara was playing different sounds, but apparently he always plays different every night. For the last song they brought members of Arcade Fire and sang a loud version of Fancy Claps.

Arcade Fire's set included a few from the EP, most of Funeral, and a few new songs. After being on the road for over a year, AF has definitely become a tighter band. Regine has added a robot dance to her routine. The two guys on the side still get super into it with the helmets and the drumsticks. In the middle, Win Butler brought out Dan from Wolf Parade to sing a new, slower song. After Win smashed his acoustic guitar angrily. It was really unexpected since nobody really breaks guitars in the middle of a show. After he said "Life's too short to play shitty guitars" and launched into spirited versions of Power Out and Rebellion (Lies) that had a shit load of people dancing and filing down to the floor. For the encore they played the future classic Wake Up with every member of every band on stage holding a tambourine or drum. My friends asked me if that was it and I said yes, thinking they wouldn't really be doing two encores, and really, how can you top Wake Up? Why come back? As were leaving we noticed the lights weren't going up and that crowd was still cheering. Sure enough, they all came back to sing a new song. At that point we were standing at the back of the arena by the doors. After the song, the band filed off the stage, still playing and singing, only they filed out into the crowd pied piper style. They marched all the way to the back, still singing and playing with no mics, and formed a little circle right in front of us. Everyone in the crowd formed concentric circles around them. I couldn't tell what they were singing, but they merged it into the number counting bit in Violent Femmes - Kiss Off! Holy shit, a perfect Arcade Fire cover song.

A good night. A good moment.