A Jewish pop quiz with Matt Damon and the luscious Scarlett Johansson, with (YES!) mentions of Gwyneth Paltrow. (Jew?)

After those are done, here’s an interesting version of War of the Worlds done by the legendary Buffalo radio station WKBW:  It’s a stream, so you can listen whenever you like.

Osheaga was a name used for the area that is now Montreal by some of the first European settlers in the region. The name is said to originate from Jacques Cartier when he met the Mohawks near the Lachine rapids in what is now Montreal. But so the Mohawk oral history goes the white man was waving with his hands, either offering to shake hands or asking about rapids on the river. The astonished Mohawks looked at each other and said “O she ha ga” which meant people of shaking hands. From the meeting Cartier transcribed the word Osheaga as meaning large rapids while the Mohawks would use the oral phrase to describe where they met the people of the shaking hands.

Nanna Øland Fabricius aka Oh Land.  A native of Denmark, Fabricius turned to music after a spinal injury put an end to her career as a ballet dancer.  Just starting to appear on North America’s radar, their eponymous sophmore album is available on Amazon.  Pop electro.  Fun.  A highlight of the festival.

We discovered Ellie Goulding a couple of months ago, see our June 26th post.  More high-octane electro-pop, but this stuff definitely has enough appeal that she should be a huge North American star within the year.  She performed live at the recent nuptials of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (aka William & Kate) and her debut album Lights is also available at Amazon.

The bigger draw for the younger demographic was Eminem on Friday night, but for us oldsters, Elvis Costello & The Attractions on Saturday night was an aural and visual feast.  Replete with go-go dancers (and pretty young ladies from the audience invited up to shake their stuff), Elvis stayed away from his new focus on the Great American Songbook and went back to his New Wave roots: “Watching The Detectives” “Alison” et al.

Five stages are set up around Parc Jean Drapeau, so there is continuous music from 1:00 PM until well after midnight all three days.  This year, the Green Stage was entirely powered by solar panels.

One of the highlights each year is a graffiti wall.  From Friday thru Sunday, Montreal’s best graffiti artists worked on the walkway (that leads to the bridge over to the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve) and created a masterpiece that will remain until August 3-5, 2012, when the sixth annual Osheaga festival will take place.  Nous vous y voir l’année prochaine!

Jian Ghomeshi is the host and co-creater of Q, a four-year old radio program of a kind not heard in the U.S. for many years.  It’s always a kick to interview other interviewers, and that’s what I did this last Friday. Jian was born in London, England, of Iranian descent and he lives in Toronto. Yeah, he talks about the Leafs, but he also talks about Woody Allen, Leonard Cohen and one of the toughest interviews in all of interviewdom, the tough, ornery, difficult, demon-driven singer/songwriter Van Morrison. (Click on his link, that’s his entire website.) So…give a listen:

Jian Ghomeshi with Steve Nichols

Oh yeah, Happy Father’s Day. Teach your children well.

They have appeared regularly here on VermontMornings.com.

If you just can’t get enough of Booptrax, you’ll be happy to know that you can now listen to them 24/7.  If you like musical oddities, audio rarities and other ear ticklers, go check them out for yourself:  Booptrax.com.

Those words were originally seen in Jack Kerouac‘s “On The Road.”  They’re  how Dean Moriarty describes the piano bench that George Shearing just vacated.  Shearing, the London-born jazz piano legend, died Monday of heart failure in New York City at the age of 91.  Blind from birth, Shearing began playing at the age of three and was releasing albums up through 2006.

I had the great fortune, back in 1983, to introduce George Shearing and Mel Torme at a concert in Hartford.  I can still hear DJ Ken Griffin saying “That’s George Shearing you’re hearing here on WRCQ.”  And I’m fortunate to have many, if not most, of those sexy Capitol recordings from the 1950′s. Shearing was the real deal, his style of performance and living was eternally…cool.

We play plenty of his music here on Vermont Mornings and will continue to do so.  We’ll put a Shearing special together soon…meanwhile, off to New York City for some R&R.  February is a good time to drive away from the snow and ice and go…on the road.

SILVINA ESCUDERO STRIPDANCE 25-10-2010
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…less snow, but more magic in Montreal.  This exhibit, which runs through February, is at Place Des Arts, in the heart of downtown.