NXNE was a blast. It was three days of club hopping to see over 500 bands. We managed to catch 20 of them, and I have a list of music to recommended. We even found time to come up with some comics, which you'll find in the first issue.

But first, a shout-out to — shit, what's his name? It's almost a regular name, but misspelled. Oh, that's right: Dinis! Hey buddy.

Kobayashi is a 6-piece band that plays jazzy hip-hop. No wait, it's hip-hoppy jazz. Either way, they're the best band to come out of Montreal, as far as I'm concerned. After the show we went up to the band to buy a CD. I spoke to, who I assumed was, the manager, but who might have just been the CD Boy. I told him I represented The Media™ and asked him if he had any swag to give away. He said, unfortunately no. I made it clear that I wanted to promote the band and that I was susceptible to bribes by saying, "I'm susceptible to bribes." He considered for a moment, and finally handed me two more CDs and some buttons. Score. I was already planning to say that Kobayashi is awesome because they are. But after being bribed I'm going to do it with capital letters and indiscriminate use of bold: IF KOBAYASHI WERE ANY MORE AWESOME THE FORCE OF THEIR PURE AWESOMENESS WOULD SWALLOW THE EARTH. Pray that never happens.

The Lascivious Biddies. I'm a sucker for double bass, especially when it's played by a smokin' Biddy. If I had trouble pigeon-holing Kobayashi, The Lascivious Biddies are even harder to classify. Picture four femme fatales (on bass, guitar, keyboard, vocals) performing a combination of jazz, country, lounge, and 1920s pop. As good as their albums are, they're definitely a band you have to see live to watch their stories about pretentious dates and red pickup trucks come to life on stage, and the band members' quirky personalities come out through their banter.

Christopher Rees is a one-man band on guitar, harmonica, and vocals. Sometimes all at the same time. Assuming he wasn't lying to me, it's all talent too because he never took a single lesson. The only thing you need to know about his sound is that one of the songs on his new album is a spiritual successor to Stagger Lee (by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds) called Mary Lee. It starts off a little sappy, but he had me at chopping up the body and setting it on fire.

Electric Eel Shock. We went to see this band because they had the word "eel" in their name. Actually, funny band names is the primary criteria we used to decide who we'd see next. When they got on stage, the Bovine Sex Club was packed — which is admittedly not that difficult because it's as wide as a subway car — but what's more impressive is that they made everyone jump. Electric Eel Shock is a three piece Japanese metal band, and we walked in as they played their cover of Black Sabbath's Iron Man. The best part of their music is that the singer has only a tentative grasp of English and sings lyrics like:

What these four bands have in common, besides quality, is that they all include band members who took the time to talk to their audience. Moreover, Kobayashi gave us free stuff, the Lascivious Biddies stayed to have a drink with us, and Christopher Rees came up to us while we stood outside a club and personally invited us to his show next door. My influence might only extend to the readers of this journal, but at the very least they earned themselves a loyal fan. Next time they might meet some sleazy record exec who wants to offer them a trillion dollar contract.