One week ago today, the sleepy town of Windsor, Ontario (this is beginning to sound like Sleepy Hollow...), known for it's illustrious "massage" parlors and noxious garbage scent, hosted one of the most exhilarating live music events this city has ever seen. This event, aptly titled Phog Phest, was a celebration of the Phog Lounge. For those of you who are unaware of the Phog Lounge's existence, I hear Rona has a wonderful sale on horse manure that you should promptly drown yourself and loved ones in. Yeah, it's that good. Well, to begin this post, I suppose a brief history of Windsor's finest establishment is in order. Forward, Russia!
The Phog Lounge, located on the corner of 157 University Ave. West, is, in
the words of their Facebook, (I thank Bill Gates every morning in my prayers for the power of copy and paste...):
"Phog Lounge is an intimate bar/live music venue located at 157 University Ave. West. Small and cosy with a great selection of microbrewery beers on tap, Phog Lounge has been CJAM 91.5 FM's Jammy Award winning "Best Bar in Windsor" for 3 years running. In September of 2006, Phog Lounge teamed up with another local Windsor music venue, The Avalon Front, to bring Windsor the first ever PA Music Festival that featured the likes of The Golden Dogs, Sunparlour Players, The Hi
gh Strung, The Mark Inside and more!
Over the years, Phog Lounge has held beautifully intimate performances from the likes of:
Arctic
The Awkward Stage
Beast
Bend Sinister
The Bicycles
Robin Black
The Buttless Chaps
The Creeping Nobodies
Cuff The Duke
Die Mannequin
The Doers
Julie Doiron (ex-Eric's Trip)
The D'Ubervilles
The Dudes
Karyn Ellis
Fembots
Final Fantasy (2006 Polaris Prize Winner)
Fox Jaws
The Golden Hands Before God
Great Lakes Swimmers
Emm Gryner
Henri Faberge and The Adorables
Rebekah Higgs
The High Dials
The High Strung
Holy Fuck
'Mr. Chill' Kelly Hoppe
HotKid
Hot Panda
The Jason Trachtenburg Slideshow
The Jimmyriggers
Ron Leary
Lesbo Vrouven
Lindy Mahogany
Frog
The Mark Inside
Mohawk Lodge
Mother Mother
A Northern Chorus
Ox
The Pack A.D.
The Perpetrators
Poorfolk
The Postage Stamps
QR5
The Riderless
Pat Robitaille
Run With The Kittens
Spiral Beach
Square Root of Margaret
The Sunparlour Players
The Superfantastics
Tokyo Police Club
Al Tuck
Twilight Hotel
The Unsettlers
Patrick Watson (2007 Polaris Prize Winner)
Wax Mannequin
Bob Wiseman (ex-Blue Rodeo)
Royal Wood
Wooden Sky Young and Sexy Young Rival
You Say Party! We Say Die!
plus
MANY MANY MORE AMAZING NATIONAL and INTERNATIONALLY TOURING ACTS"
This, my dear friends, is the Phog Lounge. The marvel red shack, while often ignored by the common man, is the home of Tom Lucier and Frank (Just Frank). Tom and Frank, the warriors of manliness that this city tends to attract, have been operating the Phog Lounge for over five full years, bringing the best in independent music and barbershop quartet to the Rose City. Now, on to the reason for this timely post-a-rama?
CBC Radio 3, fronted by the gallant Grant Lawrence, sent it's promiscuous Searchlight on a quest for the Best Live Music Venue in Canada. Hundreds of venues, and many suspenseful weeks, later (all with a larger capacity/venue size), The Phog Lounge eventually emerged victorious. Fulfilling it's lucrative promise, CBC Radio 3 hosted a live broadcast and massive outdoor festival, dubbed Phog Phest, in front of the Phog Lounge. Headlining this extravagant affair was the best live band in this humble writer's opinion, Holy Fuck (a la Toronto). In the below section, I will include a cumulative mixtape, spanning most of the artists who performed, photos from heaven (also known as the prior mentioned event), and an incredibly brief synopsis of my adventures at the most anticipated musical event of the millennium. Try to contain your excitement. Emphasis on the "try".
Photos! (I was going to make this subheading clever by swapping whatever "f" was in the word with "ph" but irony struck again...)
Click here! to see THOUSANDS of photos, all credited
to KevKavPhotography, including a couple of yours truly!
Below are a few of photos taken from the vantage point of this humble blogger, who is also (not) a burgeoning photographer and (is very much so) a part time model.
The Arkells!
I'm artsy, therefore, I take photographs of awesome things, but have only the mundane objects in focus.
I wish I could tell you that I had that snow cone all to myself. No, it was a taste trifecta that needed to be celebrated in a threesome of excellence!
Holy Fuck pretty much sums them up...If one looks hard enough, they may find TWO interactive panoramas of the Phestivities!
Looking hard enough would boil down to clicking... here!
An Official Looks Like Coffee, Tastes Like Juice, Written Like An Amputated 3 Year Old Mixtape!
This is the second time that a title of a subheading hasn't had the letter "f" for my exploiting!
Emma, Grab Me A Lemon! The Phog Phest Retrospective! PART 1!
The TWO! (that's right, this prominently emphasized two is NOT a typo!) accounts of this spectacular event, written by TWO authors, will be posted tomorrow, along with part 2 of the mixtape! Hopefully...
