by JAY WATTS III

If the Situationist International had matched their ideas about drifting and psychogeography with some righteous, 21st-century technology—instead of covering magazines in sandpaper—an application like Platial might have arrived earlier. A Portland-based Web atlas, where users create and manage their own versions of the world using the Google Maps engine, Platial revives a narcissistic enterprise previously the exclusive occupation of schizophrenics and 17th-century court geographers.

But for all the quotidian listings of childhood homes and favourite restos, some keeners have been pushing more novel applications—a map of free power outlets in Portland, a list of “Bars We’ve Been Thrown Out Of,” maps of demolished buildings, a database of AA meetings and, uh, locations used by The O.C.

The one demographic the Internet was practically created for, obsessive music fans, has been getting into it themselves, documenting concerts and tracking the movements of groups like the Gossip and Franz Ferdinand (no doubt foreshadowing a dark time when it’s overrun by Phish-heads and their replacements, Wilco fans). Will this be little more than a favourite method for doe-eyed milquetoasts to locate the haunts of Stars vocalist Torquil Campbell (hint: Starbucks on W. Broadway, 3–5 p.m.)?

Pan-Atlantic blog Said the Gramophone, with editors Sean in Edinburgh, and Jordan and Dan here in Montreal, have pulled another coup by posting a song from Handsome Furs, the solo outing by Wolf Parade’s Dan Boeckner. Some of you may have caught his set last week at the Green Room, and for those of us who didn’t (I was watching Bowfinger), STG (www.saidthegramophone.com) tells us that Dan will be touring Scandinavia in May. As soulful and dirge-like as a post-bender hangover, it recalls the album version of Wolf Parade’s “Modern World.”

BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS, I’LL BE IN HAWAII… goldkicks@gmail.com

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