by JOHNSON CUMMINS

Another Valentine’s Day is here and being a “columnist,” I guess I am supposed to intro this tiny column with gift and craft ideas for your significant others, or recount favourite V-days past, but… well, I just can’t.

Y’see, Valentine’s Day is gayer than a leather picnic basket. C’mon, I know I’m not alone here, and you people deserve better. Would you rather pass a gallstone than sit through a romantic comedy or listen to a Dashboard Confessional song? Sure you would, and that’s why I love you dearly. Do you feel like a complete douchebag, lining up at a cash register to buy a card with a kitten holding a heart that says “I’m fur you”? Of course you do, so who’s my little snookums? That’s right, loyal readership—you are! Is buying “ribbed for her pleasure” condoms or even (gasp) raspberry-flavoured rubbers your idea of being romantic? Hello? Okay, maybe I’m alone on that last one.

I’ll leave all the syrupy, romantic shit to the other “columnists,” but I will say this. If I were to send a Valentine to anybody, I would get Cupid to puncture all of you, the beautiful people who read this little space every week, with his arrow of love. Alrighty, now that we have established that there is no intro this week, let’s cut the mamby-pamby shit and just get right to the shows.

Tonight, Feb. 9, is the first Parc Ave. Fire Benefit happening at la Sala Rossa. If you read last week’s column, you know the inhabitants of an apartment complex on Parc lost everything after a fire devastated their homes, so dig deep and come down. Bug out with my post-industrial band Bionic, as well as one of the dwellers of the devastated apartments, Chris Burns, doing a solo performance on guitar, snot-nosed young up-and-comers American Devices (could they be the new Wolf Parade?), blues-punkers Starvin’ Hungry and the Murray Street Band. Show up for the good cause, and keep your eyes here for the next benefit, which should happen next week at the same space.

Also happening tonight is the greasy rawk of Quebec’s Surcharge, at one of the best medium-capacity venues in the city, Petit Campus.

The big ticket this week should be the fusion/jazz (not to be confused with jazz/fusion) sounds of the Donkeys at Friendship Cove. The Donkeys could very well be my favourite local band right now, but giving them a serious run for their money will be Toronto’s latest big hype Anagram, Sailboats are White and Lunchmeat. Warning: this one is going to be packed to the tits.

Wednesday, Feb. 15, you are to report for rock ’n’ roll duty at l’Escogriffe when all-star band Angry Angles, with Jay Reatard (Reatards, Lost Sounds) and Alix from Atlanta’s the Lids, and New Orleans’s Die Rottz, prove why underground rock ’n’ roll is alive and well and why l’Esco is one of the funnest places to see shows. Local surprise guests will warm up the postage stamp they call a stage.

I LOVE YOU… jonathan.cummins@gmail.com

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