english house

Yesterday some friends and I made it into Vancouver, to spend some time in local scene stores and watch a concert. The concert in question was 'The Fleet Foxes', who, I think, are going to be huge in the next couple years. They are definitely the most humble, and committed, act I've seen in a long time. Without any pretension to speak of, they played a pretty powerful set. Check them out soon.

That said, in tradition of stories my friends and I on campus are telling these days, I'm going to move backwards from the end.

Before the concert we had breakfast at this dive of a place on Nanaimo street- costing a total of three bucks. Then we made our way to Commercial for a couple hours, where I visited my traditional coffee place for my traditional drink- JJ Bean, medium dark-roast. I was hoping this coffee would make me more aware, and energetic, but instead it made me pretty anxious and blah. Albeit, I stayed up until three am the night before.

On Commercial we checked out a record store, and I picked up Sufjan Stevens' Illinois and Wincing the Night Away by the Shins on vinyl for a reasonable cost. After that we found a retro clothes store, and I picked up my first plaid-esque shirt, thus boosting my credibility as an independant artist slightly (I wish).

After that we found had lunch at an all you can eat taco place, and they charged me too much for my pop- which I am aspiring to not drink- a lofty goal as both a youth worker and a college student.

We found a couple other retro stores near Burrard, and another record store where I found Michigan by Sufjan on vinyl (yes, I spent lots on vinyl that day, and yes I'm still trying to get my vinyl player to actually work. even so...).

From there, the highlight of the day, we walked through a giant building which looked a lot like the roman colleseum, but with a distintive North American design- square shaped windows and archways instead of the traditional arch design. Even so, walking through was a breathtaking experience in itself.

All in all, a good idea. I think the best concerts are those that have the potential to build a strong sense of community. Fleet foxes, although they are getting a lot of buzz recently, didn't come across as a band that was better than us because they have a record, radio time, and venue space.

I think this is one of the reasons why creating art in community is so profound- we seek to create together, instead of creating competitively.

~

In other news, trying to write a book is really hard. I'm hoping to get a lot more writing done this week, i.e. get some inspiration/find something worth capturing.

I'm starting to look into the possibilty of getting help from already published authors, who have been doing this a lot longer than I have. Thus is life.

Later.