Hipster boys say the darndest things: Special indie rock edition

I haven't been overhearing many random remarks from Toronto's hipster boys lately: maybe I'm just not paying attention. Instead, here's some stage patter from concerts I have been to recently.

They Might Be Giants, Mod Club, July 23:
John Flansburgh: John, I don't understand what the hell you're talking about. Why don't you write about it on your blog?
John Linnell: [mysteriously] This is my blog.

Andrew Bird, Opera House, Sept. 25:
[Produces a See 'n' Say and points the arrow at the chicken. The See 'n' Say makes an inappropriate animal noise, like a moo or a quack. Exasperatedly]: This isn't a See 'n' Say, it's a time machine.

Shout Out Out Out Out, Lee's Palace, October 26:
Nik Kozub [to one of the 2 (!) drummers, who was nursing a torn rotator cuff]: Dude, your rotator cuff is so fucked, it has its own postal code.

I have never seen a Toronto audience get up and move like they did at last night's Shout Out Out Out Out show. There was a whole lot of sweating and arm-waving and jumping up and down. Plus, the band brought snacks. They passed one of those sectioned plastic supermarket trays of Halloween-coloured candies into the audience ("Crowd-surf the snack tray! Share! Crowd-surf the snack tray!"), and they threw bananas. I was there with Bret and Casey, and Bret caught one of the bananas and passed it on to me on the condition that I blog it, so here it is:



OK, now I have to go make this banana into a smoothie and finish grading midterms.

All together now

I was at the Silver Dollar last night to see Saskatoon's Cracker Cats and local band Entire Cities. I suck at concert photography -- I'm no Carrie Musgrave -- but I had to get a picture of Entire Cities, because they have a girl playing a singing saw. I am enamoured of the singing saw, it is like a low-fi theremin.



I approve of these Toronto bands where there are like 10 people on stage and half of them are playing kazoos or washboards or electric xylophones or God knows what. It looks like so much fun! I'd like to join one. I can't sing or play an instrument, but I could bang a walnut against an oatmeal box, or something. Also I could jump up and down a lot.

(That pic is looking awfully small to me, so here's a bigger version.)