You know those upscale hair salons that look like they brought in a Feng Shui expert to design the place to be both comforting enough to feel like you can open up emotionally to your hairdresser, but still intimidating enough that upon first visit you look and feel like the scum of the earth? The walls are covered in earth-tone art found at an almost upscale art gallery, but was more likely purchased at Ikea? The waiting area has a table piled high with magazines that are 200 pages of mostly ads, organized in a faux-disorganized way to make it seem like everyone has been rifling through them, but really they haven’t? The clientele is comprised largely of upper-class suburbanites that only venture downtown to get their hair done so they can flee back to their homes and name drop that salon, thereby instilling envy in the neighbours, all of whom are too uncomfortable with the idea of going downtown no matter how trendy? And the hairdressers are celebrities within the confines of the building, dressed for a gala, made up to look like an Anne Hathaway nightmare, with nails that are too long to function in the outside world? The smell of chemical treatments masked by floral arrangements placed just out of the way enough to only be noticed on your fourth or maybe fifth visit? And the cost is way too much, but worth it if it means being able to say that you got your hair done there? And they never call it a “hair cut?” Falty DL’s Hardcourage is being played in a hair salon like that. (Ninjatune, ninjatune.net) Myke Lewis