Well, it must have been a good start to NXNE 2010; I have a splitting headache and a need for greasy terrible food. I remember the bike ride home, but don't remember the rather large bruise on my thigh. That may be all the Oh Sees fault though. Everything from old school 80's punk to trippy folksy noise was represented at what I've been hearing is arguably the best NXNE in years.

Parts & Labour is pretty magical. Planted in the heart of Parkdale, it's a fairly swish restaurant on the main floor, and a unique venue in the concrete basement. The mingling of both crowds on opening night was almost too hilarious. Resident promoter for "The Shop" (the fun loving name for the basement venue), Mark Pesci gave me an excited tour of the place, amid the constant high pitched drone of hundreds of interested patrons. P&L is about 6,000 square feet, features design work by Castor (the guys behind Oddfellows), and the seating is in long dining hall style tables.

To break up the two nights the Black Lips played at the Horseshoe this weekend, they made about 200 people's day when they played an in-store performance at Sonic Boom yesterday afternoon.

It was a pretty tame half hour set -- they showed up, drank some beers and singed some autographs (why do people still need these?). I was kind of expecting mass insanity and at least a few things to get broken, given the scope and reputation of the band. But everyone played nice and kept sane. They played a few old favorites and peppered the set with a few tracks of their latest album 200 Million Thousand released on Vice Records last year.

Wednesday's show at the Mod Club saw New York's A Place To Bury Strangers, Britain's the Big Pink, and Toronto's own Katie Stelmanis destroy eardrums and blind the crowd with fervent smoke machines and epileptic strobe lights. It made for some fantastic photos, if nothing else.

A Place To Bury Strangers are one of my favorite bands, and I think one of the most interesting bands from the New York scene. Katie Stelmanis (though I missed her set due to the early show time) has probably the most beautiful and haunting voice in the city. I'm truly irritated that I missed her set.

I wasn't sold on the Big Pink, and I would have rather seen them open for A Place To Bury Strangers. However, they were extremely well-received by the packed crowd.

New York's Woods played at the Horseshoe last night as part of the Canadian Music Festival.

I was highly anticipating this, seeing as I missed the last show Woods played here a few months back. To give you an idea of how I feel about this band, I compare their live show to what a guy walking for days in the desert must think of finding a bottle of water. This is pretty similar to how I felt when I first saw them one hot and hungover day in Texas last year. Woods was the one band I was really excited to see out of the CMF lineup, and for good reason.

It was Friday around noon that I woke from a pleasant dream involving a live action game of Candyland. In the midst of the dream, I thought I was Queen Frostine. Anyways, my day was already off to a good start. I knew I wanted to keep the day rolling in exactly the same way. Well and good.

It all started to come to come together when a little bird whispered something in my ear about a day show going on at John O'Regan (you do know Diamond Rings, don't you?) and local filmmaker / man about town Colin Medly's apartment. It was the perfect start to my day, I thought, and what else was I going to do at 1 p.m.? Watch Simpsons reruns online?