I guess this will be the last week that I’ll be taking the 99 all the way out to Lougheed Mall every morning. With the new SkyTrain line going into operation after this weekend, the 99 is only going as far as Broadway Stn., where we’ll have to get off and take the Millennium Line.

I liked the 99 for the novelty of riding a bus that didn’t stop twice on every block. It was speedy and double-jointed, and made a strange hawk-squawk under acceleration. You also had your pick of the seats after the Brentwood stop, so you didn’t have to sit in the accordion part in the middle if you didn’t want to. Damn bumpy in there.

The Express nature of the 99’s route also had a dark side. Nearly every morning, someone found themselves on a bus that was racing into practically another time zone when they were expecting to get off near Sperling, perhaps. They’d walk over and talk to the driver (for the last month our driver has been an imposing woman with a therapeutic brace on her forearm), who would not let them off until the next official stop, which was miles and miles down the highway, just before Lougheed Mall. Sometimes the passenger would sit back down, bewildered and resigned. Sometimes they would get angry and spit “Fuck you!” at the driver when they were finally let off. But in any case, someone’s day would be ruined. It would kind of ruin my day a bit, too. My worst nightmare is being on a bus, looking up from my book, and discovering I’m not where I expected to be. I could sympathize. I’d probably die if I was stuck on a bus that would not let me off, not just because of the time I’d waste getting back to where I wanted to go, but from the embarrassment of all the other passengers watching what was happening to me, the shame of being the dumb guy who didn't know the route.

The drivers I had on the 99 never once stood up at Brentwood and said, “Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. This bus is not making another stop until it reaches the outskirts of Thunder Bay. If you want to get off anywhere in this climatic region, you’d best get off and take another bus.” That would have helped a few people, I bet.

Which Wesley?
I was intrigued to read on roadbedonline that the Shockker was scheduled to open for that enormous retarded guy novelty act Wesley Willis. Someone has made corrections though, and it now reads "Wesley Wet." Aw. I hafta catch the Shockker's Interior Design thing sometime. He's been doing it for a while now, and I'm starting to feel bad about my shoddy attendance record.

My Boyfriend…

Sid V: Hello, Fred. Still bringing ballet to the masses?
Freddie M: Ah, Mr. Ferocious. How lovely to meet you.
–quoted in Classic Rock magazine.

Another version. And another. And another.

While nozin’ aroun’ Julian Cope’s site I found this review of Over, a Peter Hammill album I’ve long avoided writing about. It made me think of a friend who’s having a hard time right now. I suspect that he takes more sustenance from his own music than from the work of others (to quote myself, he’s more of a Man than a Fan), but sometimes things like this are all I’ve got to share. Which is a bit shameful.

When I switched on the computer yesterday I had a good laugh. The belter had installed new wallpaper on the desktop—a shot of PH in full keyboard frenzy. Even without the Mac-generated post-it note that read “Rob’s boyfriend. True love 4 ever” written in pink Sand (that most spermatic of typefaces) she had intended to attach, it was a wonder to behold.

I’ll get my own back someday.

Well, Blow Me Down...
Julian Cope weighs in on an album I semi-slagged in Unrestrained! #19. I'm glad he's getting something out of it. Every time I see the thing, priced at $25, on the wall at JJ's, I feel slightly ill at the thought of someone buying such slop. Takes all kinds, and that's what makes life such a sweet fruit, eh?

Moving has thrown me off my grilled cheese game. I’m forced to work with a new frying pan, and, like an F1 test driver working out the kinks in a new chassis, I’m struggling to produce acceptable results. Twice now I’ve pre-heated my instrument to what I thought was a good grilled-cheese temperature, only to reduce the sandwiches to carbon. It’s a great dishonour to the love and care I put into crafting the raw materials—the bread, so evenly buttered; the cheese, precision trimmed to cover the surface of the bottom slice, like cheddar floor tiling. Uncooked, they are beautiful. All I want is to apply a gentle, even heat to transform that beauty into a pure, crisp deliciousness.

I end up taking a butter knife to them and scraping layers of charcoal into the sink. But no matter how thoroughly I scrape, I will never exfoliate my incompetence and shame.

Despite the routine of life, every week is unique. This was a week of extremes, you could say. I phoned my parents’ house to check the messages (they’re away for a bit) and found out that a cousin in Australia had died suddenly. She was just a few years older than me—way too young to go. We weren’t close, but the rest of my immediate family did know her well. I feel terrible for her parents, who have to deal with all this, phoning around, breaking the news to people in distant countries. It seems like they just finished dealing with the death of my cousin’s husband a few years ago. It’s awful when tragedies link together like that.

The nice thing that happened this week was Mel and Adam’s engagement. They’ve been the belter’s roommates for a long time, and they’re both cool and nice. They also kick our asses at (Super) Mario Party every time out. But I don’t mind. Without them there’d be no bowling, no Mitchell, no The Kingdom, and no brachiosaurus on the train tracks. Hooray for the nerds!

This week I also found out that risotto is pretty damn tasty.

Busted out some Hawkwind last night while assembling a cabinet and ripping seven shades of poo out of my hands in the process. The box should have warned me that I’d need to repeatedly bore through sheets of solid metal with a small screwdriver. Not fun, especially considering I have another cabinet to do tonight, but I sure enjoyed the space rock.

The Closer directed me here the other morning. We’ve always laughed at the same things, and this was no exception. I find his sense of humour to be funny in itself, if that’s possible.

Classic Albums #1
Peter Hammill: Nadir’s Big Chance
After the implosion of Van der Graaf Generator and the three harrowing solo albums that followed, Peter Hammill went back to basics for Nadir’s Big Chance. Recorded over four days in December ’74, Nadir is a loose concept record in the Sgt. Pepper’s tradition—a series of unrelated songs performed by a fictional persona. In this instance, Hammill, obviously feeling constrained by his reputation as “Dr. Doom,” adopted the character of Rikki Nadir, a perpetual teenager, predictably unpredictable, vaccilating between self-righteousness and self-pity with every song. The songs themselves are short and blunt; the production (by Hammill himself) is spare and dry, and because of the lack of production gloss, I feel that the album has dated very well. It’s the lovable black sheep of the vast PH/VdGG catalogue.

Nadir’s main claim to fame is the Johnny Rotten connection. The Sex Pistols frontman brought along the album when a British radio station invited him down to spin some of his favourite records on the air. This was a peculiar kind of exposure for Hammill during the heyday of punk. If he was regarded at all, it was most likely as an old progger. And by 1977, Van der Graaf were making a final push to gain an audience beyond the anorak-and-beard set, but were playing many of the same venues as the Pistols. Both bands were grassroots franchises, but guess who got more press? Nadir’s Johnny Rotten stamp of approval is often noted when Hammill garners a writeup in a mainstream publication—The Trouser Press Record Guide, for example—but it wasn’t enough to lift both the artist and this album out of obscurity for long. As Julian Cope wrote in Repossessed, “only me, Johnny Rotten and Fish out of Marillion were fans.”

What the two performers, Hammill and Lydon, shared was a vocal approach, a snarling, mad abandon that often channeled Shakespeare’s Richard III (as separately noted in The Filth and the Fury and Mojo’s VdGG retrospective). They arrived at their theatrical styles from very different origins, however: Hammill was the embittered choirboy, Rotten, the feral gutterpunk. Hammill got down in the dirt to uncover old bones with brushes and dental tools, while Rotten lined up his targets and obliterated them with slogans that still have an impact 25 years later.

Hammill clearly had a few targets of his own in mind when he conceived Nadir’s Big Chance. The album opens with the title track, and the lines “I’ve been hanging around, waiting for my chance/to tell you what I think about the music that’s gone down/to which you madly danced—frankly you know that it stinks!” Nadir then lays down the law, mocking his contemporaries “in their tinsel glitter suits, pansying around” and generally promising to deliver the real deal over the course of the next two sides.

The backing band—the Van der Graaf team of Banton/Evans/Jackson—do their best to keep up with their rambunctious leader. They take a few bars to get up to speed after Nadir’s count-in, but when they lock into the eighth note groove they pump away like John Holmes working for scale (who did I steal that from, acmac, and what was the exact quote?).

The song ends with a defining moment in proto-punk, and a call to arms for those who heard it: “We’re more than mere morons, perpetually conned/So come on, everybody, smash the system with the song.”

As Nadir’s final cry fades away, the album segues into the next track, “The Institute of Mental Health, Burning,” a decidedly odd song written by Hammill’s old bandmate Chris Judge Smith (latterly of Curly’s Airships “fame”). Nadir takes it back a notch to deliver this tale of the ultimate case of sick building syndrome (disregarding Hammill’s old favourite, “The Fall of the House of Usher” for the moment). His restrained, somewhat detatched approach isn’t far removed from David Bowie’s, and I’ve always imagined the Thin White Duke covering this song.

Judge supplies another song later on the album, the classic weeper “Been Alone So Long.” It’s one of Judge’s finest tunes, and Hammill championed it by performing it live for years and years. It’s a simple ballad, led by acoustic guitar, with an elegant bridge between chorus and verse that Jackson’s sax imbues with sadness, mirroring the regret and longing of the lyrics. On Nadir, the simplicity of both the song and the production merge into a satisfying whole, making this track an album highlight.

The remainder of Nadir’s Big Chance is, like its youthful protagonist, all about contrasts. The songs range from the vicious—the near-metal “Nobody’s Business”—to the emotionally fragile—“Airport” and “Shingle Song” are the lovelorn laments of an earnest young man—to the comic—the lust-crazed “Birthday Special” and a more sober remake of Van Der Graaf’s utterly bizarre debut single, “People You Were Going To.”

Despite the slagging of glitter suits in the opening track, the album isn’t that far removed from the glam stylings of early Roxy Music—rock ’n’ roll that deftly blends panache and primitivism. The Van der Graaf boys do quite well at playing things straight for once. Guy Evans hits the drums hard and Hugh Banton does well on bass and his customary keyboards—though he’s no Jon Lord, as his solo on “Open Your Eyes” demonstrates! Star of the show is David Jackson, who sounds extremely happy to just rock out for once. There aren’t many strange time signatures, nor are there many excursions into improv and free sound. The album sounds like it would have been fun to make.

This departure from the multi-layered aesthetic of VdGG and Hammill’s solo albums (with the exception of his first, Fool’s Mate) is possibly the result of Hammill’s desire to cut the crap and clean house. Despite the fact that 1974 was the year that rock achieved perfection (quoth Homer Simpson), perhaps Hammill was becoming aware of the same thing that the punks were waking up to. The starry-eyed first wave of progressive rock was bogging down, and creative stagnation was in the air. Record companies were becoming complacent and bloated, as Hammill documents in “Two or Three Spectres,” the closing track on Nadir’s Big Chance:

“‘Sod the music,’ said the man in the suit, ‘I understand profit and without that, it’s no use.
Why don't you go away and write commercial songs; come back in three years, that shouldn’t be too long...’
He's a joker and an acrobat, a record exec. in a Mayfair flat with Altec speakers wall to wall,
a Radford and a Revox and through it all he plays strictly nowhere Muzak.”

Nadir could be taken as a wakeup call for misunderstood prog rockers and young punks alike.

By cleaning house, I’m referring to the origins of many of the songs on this album, which date back to the very early VdGG days. Nadir was Hammill's last solo album before the reformation of VdGG and a return to epic musical landscapes. Recording these songs at this point in his career was, in effect, a cleansing of the palate for Hammill, his band, and his fans, a street-level rave-up before the blastoff.

I find it revealing that on Godbluff, the VdGG album that arrived a few months later, the first words are “Here at the glass—all the usual problems, all the habitual farce.” They’re prophetic lyrics. The reunited Van der Graaf rocketed on for another 2 ½, 3 years, hitting many artistic apexes along the way. But as Hammill writes in the cover notes of Big Chance, “There’s always room for another Nadir.” The band’s big break never came, and Hammill returned to his solo work, which, apart from the occasional epic, stayed pretty close to the less-is-more ethos he pursued on this album. After he got his big chance, the spirit of Rikki Nadir lived on.

Productivity
Yesterday evening was a busy one. I took a deep breath and unpacked the monolith of particle board that was the GOLIAT computer desk. Like David with an allen key for a sling, I vanquished the giant Swede, not by toppling him, but by piecing him together into an attractive, multilevel workstation with simulated beech veneer.

(Side note: my pseudo-carpentry was inspired by Cheap Trick’s Dream Police, as selected by the belter. I think it’s as solid an album as Cheap Trick produced (despite some of these reviews), and a fitting climax to the winning streak that was their first five albums (including Budokan). Every track has some outstanding feature, whether it’s the disco string section on “Gonna Raise Hell,” the backing vocal rounds of “The Way of the World” or the epic buildup in the latter half of “Need Your Love.” The Trick’s combination of songcraft and wit has always appealed to me. They’re one of the best examples of how to mix humour and music without it turning into fuckin’ Moxy Fruvous. As a kid, a lot of their funniest stuff went right over my head. Take “I Know What I Want” (vocal by Tom Petersson) for example. The verses are all lovey-dovey “feelings in my heart”-type sentiment, then the chorus roars forth with “I know what I want, and I know how to get it…from you!” The humour functions as a spanner in the works instead of a cloying nudge-nudge/wink-wink. It was cracking me up last night. I want to go home and listen to Heaven Tonight right now!)

(Another side note: Rick Neilsen often uses an evil genius songwriting trick that I can’t get enough of—starting the song with the chorus. I guess it’s a tip of the cap to the Fab Four, to whom he owes a lot.)

After I put the GOLIAT’s final shelf in place, we headed downtown to the Granville Book Company to do some promotional window dressing for the three-day novel contest. To be more accurate, the belter and Kaufman dressed the window while I drank beer and browsed. I remember I used to buy a lot of Arthur C. Clarke paperbacks there when it was called the Mall Book Bazaar. We were there till about quarter to one. The window looks good—a few final touches and it’ll be perfect. I was thrilled to learn that we’d used one of the mannequins from the infamous Michael Slade window display that upset a few people about 10 years ago. The poor thing looked like she’d been through the ringer, which was kind of appropriate for the three-day novel display. She’d get to spill her guts all over again, this time onto the page. It’s a painful process either way.

SPF 0: Painfully Waiting to Peel
I have a bad sunburn. I get burned at least once every summer. This one is quite nasty—my nose and neck got it worst; my legs are a bit singed, too. My whole body is reacting to it. My head’s fuzzy, my eyes are irritated (probably sunburned themselves), and I need to take a nap. The tag in my shirt collar feels like a thorn.

We were at the Under the Volcano Festival yesterday. It was a glorious sunny day, with a nice breeze coming in off the water. The breeze always gives a false sense of security. Its coolness makes you forget that the sun is boring billions of radioactive needles into your epidermis. (Nice sentence, wanker.) We sat down on the grass to watch a band for 20 minutes, and that was it. In the hours afterward, walking around looking at the hippies, I could feel the heat spreading across my body. Something was definitely up. The belter and I checked each other over by pressing fingers into skin and observing the white ovals that slowly faded into the crimson expanses of our necks and backs. Yeah, we’d been thoroughly sizzled.

I remember the worst sunburn of my life. I got it one summer at Alick’s place on Gabriola. I was probably 13 or 14. It might have been the summer that Live Killers came out. We’d spent most of the day exploring Taylor Bay in inflatable dinghies. I’d been wearing shorts and no shirt—a look I haven’t sported since—and, once again, no sunblock. Though the planet still had an ozone layer circa 1980, we both got horribly burned and spent a week in our beds up in that cool little loft. His mother brought us various salves and ointments to reduce the agony. They helped slightly, but they couldn't stop the pain from going right into my bones.

It’s funny—I’ll never forget that pain, but I can’t quite remember how we spent the days while we waited for our sunburns to fade away. We most likely listened to CFOX and mock-interviewed each other into a tape recorder…planning careers that, I hoped, wouldn’t include playing outdoor summer festivals.

I can't wait to see this movie. I was interested to read that Frank Cottrell Boyce wrote the script. I think he wrote for Coronation Street a few years ago. And if it's anything like the Manchester-shot Queer As Folk, a few ex-Street actors are bound to show up on screen.

I’m intrigued by Super Robertson’s appropriation of my screed for his own online forums. I won’t deny that it’s an honour to have my outpourings appear on roadbedonline from time to time, but I’m pretty sure that netiquette (blargh!) dictates that the original author be asked first. Perhaps I deserve it for letting my jackass go slack. I never did get around to penning “My Ride on the Roadbed Bandwagon” for the Robertson Chronicles. Through his undoubtedly well-intentioned copying and pasting, at least Robertson is forcing me to contribute to the “scene.” It’s not as if I’d turn him down if he asked. Maybe I should request some recording time at the Shockcentre as recompense. I hope this doesn’t launch a potentially detenous feud…

Items Left In Closets by Former Tenants of Our Apartment

Paint cans
A rainbow of pigments ranging from beige to white.

Wooden wheel block with rope handle
Way at the back of the “master” closet. Jenni thought it was A HUMAN HEAD at first.

Carpet scraps
Boring.

Yarmulke
A classic in black satin. On one hand, it’s cool that we can re-enact scenes from Yentl (Guy Caballero’s favourite) when the mood strikes us, but on the other hand, I have a sudden reluctance to eat bacon in our new home.

Our refrigerator’s broke, so I starve until lunchtime every day, when I can head down to the Xantrex cafeteria for a hot meal made from perishable ingredients I can’t keep at home.

The move has gone well, except for an episode where I went to a Roadbed show by mistake. The belter has installed all her stuff, and I’m almost set as well—forgetting for a moment the thousand-plus pieces of recorded music I’ve yet to truck over. I can't wait till everything's working and we're settled in. I can sense the potential for a very pleasant life ahead. Unfortunately furnishings are pretty sketchy right now. I’m working up the nerve to ask a few of my best and burliest friends to help move a couch that I’m not even sure will fit in the back of Clive’s truck.

If it doesn’t, should I risk another trip to IKEA? We were there Monday, and it was a chilling experience. Like a museum for caucasian/asians without the gilded ropes to keep you in bounds, showcasing not an extinct past, but an imminent, comfortable future you can heave into the back of your minivan. Dozens and dozens of 7/8 sized dioramas depicted possible lifestyles, all identical save for the details and surfaces. Will that be wood grain or white enamel? Futon or metal frame bed? The belter said she’d happily move into her favouritest diorama for a few hundred bucks/month, and I was getting a total BJØNER over stereo stands made from sheets of perforated metal, chrome tubing and chunky casters. We were sucked in and loving it.

Our Print Futures class has dispersed pretty thoroughly, but I do hear from a few fellow students now and again. My buddy Dave FX Sabanes dropped me a line yesterday, fresh from celebrating his 23rd birthday last week. The guy’s got more on the ball than I did at his age. I should have been placed on life support from age 13 to 24—tube down throat, catheter, maybe an iron lung—for all the vitality and wherewithal I had back then. So hail to thee, FX, and your muscle-bound, lady-killin’ ways. (Ever drop by the IKEA? Swedes aplenty!) Trade you a jar of creatine for some couch-shifting, dude.

The Roadbed Quiz at the Railway Club last night was a close-run affair. When all the exams were completed, there was a three-way tie for first between myself, CC Sitdown and Hey Kristian. We each scored 18/25. What to do? Towards the end of the set, the band settled into a quiet groove. Super and Shockk pondered the alternatives. Super decided that crowd response would decide the winner. CC had the biggest cheering section. The Mule only had himself and the stalwart Mr. Black. It seemed the (rather disturbing) ape pencil sharpener would go to CC. But Shockk intervened and called all three finalists to the front of the stage. On the count of three (or maybe four, in my case), we drew—one or two fingers, and the odd man out would win. I decided before the count that I would show two fingers. And I won. I celebrated my victory heartily, but inside I felt bad for CC, whom I’ve always respected. Watching him at the Cottage Bistro several years ago trying to play “Never Talking To You Again” with SR’s disruptive drumming was one of the more moving displays of onstage survival I’ve witnessed. And Hey Kristian, whose brother’s band laid down a thoroughly enjoyable set of jazz fusion earlier in the evening, was also a worthy competitor. Hails to all of them! The pencil sharpener will be placed on a pedestal beneath the chandelier to become the focal point of the new apartment.

I picked up the parentals at the airport last night. Their plane was full of Catholic youth returning from Popefest. God showed his approval with a thunderstorm that forced them to wait out on the tarmac in Toronto for two hours. Anyway, it’s nice to have Clive and Sally back. Soon as he got back from his walk this morning, Dad was on the phone to the municipality, asking them to pick up four old tires someone had dumped along Huxley Ave. (“Rob, how long have those tires been there?” “Can’t say I noticed them, Dad.”) He’s always “on,” that guy.

Breakfast soundtrack today was Gong, Angel’s Egg. I went straight for “Oily Way” midway through the album, which was a mistake. Now suffering from endless-loop-in-head effect. I should turn Super Robertson onto this album, if he hasn’t already been. I have to remember that he was a tree planter.

I’m going to eat my words at some point, but I’m enjoying the bus ride these days—thanks to the magic of reading. I’m tearing through books at a great rate. Thanks to Tweek for lending me a couple massive things when I was in Edmonton. I read Head-on and Repossessed by Julian Cope first (two books in one handy volume). I know nothing of the Teardrop Explodes’ music, but Jesus Christ, this was a hilarious book. I’d like to come back to it again and again here on Difficult Music, because I can’t really do it justice in one go. If you’re interested in the birth of (English) punk rock, the music industry, drugs, or toy collecting, I give it my highest recommendation.

I moved on to Dave Bidini’s Tropic of Hockey next. When I was a kid I was really only a true hockey fan for a few years. My fetish for stats got transferred to auto racing pretty quickly. But hockey’s never really left my life entirely. I’ll watch a few games during the regular season (more out of happenstance than by choice), follow the playoffs up to a point, play some street hockey. I even had a character-building foray into intramural floor hockey earlier this year. Dave approaches his book from the POV of a lapsed hockey fan, which I could relate to. He moves back and forth between travel writing and rants about the state of the NHL and Canadian hockey in general, never staying in one place for too long. I could identify with Bidini’s attempts to reconcile his love of the game with the fact that it’s a sport for assholes. I live with that kind of dissonance every minute of every day. So, yeah, I enjoyed the book. And I’ll never see Jim Cuddy in the same way again.

Tweek also lent me Have Not Been the Same: the CanRock Renaissance, a 750-page doorstop that I started last week. I was scared, but lo and behold, it’s killer. Lots of great stories within. The early chapters are going city by city, and I’m on the Montreal chapter right now. Sad story of wasted potential with the Nils. I remember them from the Decline of the English Murder days, when I tried to keep an eye on what was going on. I heard them a lot on BNW and liked what they were Husker Du’ing. I’m now a few pages away from the Voivod section, so my lunch break can’t come fast enough today.

Random Notes
Weird thing I saw on TV tonight: a SportsNet promo piece with background music by Peter Tagtgren's Pain. The piece cut between the promo material (an interview with Don King[!]) and the video for the song. There was Peter in all his cadaverous glory. Before the helpful SportsNet caption identified the tune, I thought it might have been Sentenced. That would have been even more unlikely, I suppose. Next up: Amorphis rejigs the Friends theme.

If you're curious, check out some freelancing the Belter and I recently completed. David Zieroth is a marvellous writer, poet, and a nice guy to boot. Help his site move up the Google rankings!

Looks like I'm moving out of the house this weekend, an event that coincides with the inaugural game of the Hades Hockey League.

L’Homme du Sport
On Saturday, during a break in culling the tons of Print Futures-generated paper I’ve accumulated (my bedroom now has a floor!), I checked out what was happening in Alan Partridge’s life. Quite a lot, it turns out—a new BBC Web site, and a new series airing in the autumn. I’m very excited, and a bit anxious. What if it doesn’t air over here? What if does air, but only on BBC Canada? Does anyone subscribe to that, or even know someone who does? If so, I’ll trade you a superficially damaged chocolate orange for some VCR time. The belter and I pondered whether we should take some holidays in the UK when it airs. It might be worth it, because I’m Alan Partridge was one of the greatest works of televisual art ever produced, and Steve Coogan is a frigging genius. Alan manages to be a complete shit and compelling at the same time. I want to follow the guy 24 hours a day. He’s completely oblivious to the effects he has on people. I think he embodies the worst fears I have about myself, so that while I might be laughing at him, I’m practically climbing out the window with dread over my very existence. The new series can only probe deeper into the tormented Partridge psyche, and imagining the tortures ahead for poor Alan fills me with a very blackened kind of joy.

I Wanna Be in (The) Pink Floyd
It's been a long time since I've been handed some "secret tapes." Smash surreptitiously slipped me a couple C90s during the latter stages of a very pleasant, very welcome listening party at his and Mai's new "pad" on Saturday night. The tapes came from someone at Smash's work, and are packed solid with early The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett solo stuff. Wow, I'm all over that.

I had a listen to the first side of the first tape, and here is my report: the tape begins with a couple tracks straight off The Madcap Laughs--"Golden Hair" (an adaptation of a James Joyce poem) and "Terrapin" (one of my all-time favourite songs). From there, we move to a very early (pre-Piper at the Gates of Dawn) CBC Radio interview with the Floyd. "In a frenetic haze of sound and sight, a new concept of music has begun to penetrate the senses of Britain's already hopped-up beat fans," intones the female interviewer, and we get to hear Syd and Roger talk about the racket they make and the lights they flash, and how they moved from 16-bar structures into sort of 17 1/2-bar structures and so on. Then it's back to Syd, barely keeping it together through "Milky Way." This sounds like a bootleg recording, but both it and a couple other tracks on this tape--"Wouldn't You Miss Me (Dark Globe)," "Opel" and "Word Song"--were released on the outtakes collectionOpel back in '88 or so. For all you Voivod fans, there's a storming version of "The Nile Song" on here as well. Not sure where this is taken from. It could be from a Peel Session. "Scream Thy Last Scream," the whacked-out and wonderful "Vegetable Man" and a Syd song I couldn't identify take us to the end of a fun evening of Floydspotting.

On to side two. I hope "The Gnome" is on there somewhere.

Still grumpy about the pictures thing. Either I’m a moron or Blogger is screwing up. There’s a lot of “Fuck you, Blogger!” sentiment on other folks’ sites right now, with references to template troubles, so I guess I’m not alone. I wouldn’t be having these problems if I was clever enough to create my own template .

I had a nice phone call from the belter last night around dinnertime, which did much to cheer me up. She and her mom had a good shop yesterday. I hope the rest of her week in Ont. is as pleasant. Looks like she’ll be in Toronto Thursday for a visit with the legendary Joan. Still, I want her back home, so we can get on with the rest of our summer. Exciting developments await.

Robbie’s Holiday Camp
Meanwhile, back in Harrison…

The gig was in Harrison Holiday Park, a mile or two away from our rendezvous point at the Crossroads Motel. Roger and I arrived at the venue first and, after locating someone with the keys to the place, started unloading our gear. The hall we were to play in was an average-size banquet room with a large, low stage. The place reeked of cedar. The back wall, right behind where I set up the drums, featured a big stone fireplace. I had flashbacks to The Fishin’ Musician on SCTV. Maybe The Tubes would turn up.

As Phil likes to point out, I am no ordinary drummer. I can set up my kit in no time flat. My alacrity left me with a lot of time to kill, however. I sat down on the steps at the side of the stage and had a sulk because I didn’t want to be in Harrison with Blueshammer and I didn’t want to play another gig. I wasn’t looking forward to a two-hour drive home in the dead of night, either.

After everyone else got their stuff wired up, we did a quick soundcheck. The PA was horribly loud, so we rolled it back a couple notches, and we were good to go. I need some fresh, less cedar-infused air, so I took a walk through the Holiday Park. Quaint little road/paths, RVs packed side-by-side, playgrounds, drifting barbeque smoke. An excerpt from Tommy played in my head—“The holiday’s forev-ahhhhhh!” I stopped at a picnic table adjacent to the hall. Murray and Carolyn joined me and began discussing the latest developments at the WCB and the LDB. I watched a young couple playing catch and tried not to slip into a coma.

Dinnertime arrived. We went back into the hall and chose a band table. Roger introduced us to several of the guests, my favourite of whom was a certain “Baron,” the brother of the bride. He was gay as all-get-out. He said he worked at an Aveda counter, and I could tell that he’d be really good at the job (excursions with the belter have been a crash course in the cosmetics realm). Roger seemed very fond of the guy—he did have charisma, that Baron.

Dinner was excellent, a festival of prime rib + taters + salad. The roast potatoes were a bit underdone, but you didn’t hear me complaining. With a couple glasses of red wine as final catalyst, I began to cheer up. Chemistry.

So, on to the first set. As happened at the Cottage Bistro earlier in the month, we were way too loud from the get-go. The people were into it, though, and the dancing started immediately. The blues overtook them, you might say. Baron was grabbing all the old ladies and taking them for a whirl. I settled into our opening number and tried to enjoy my surroundings. The wall on the left side of the stage had a window with a view of the Holiday Park swimming pool. It was still daylight out. The scene on the deck was more John Waters than Aaron Spelling, which wasn’t a bad thing.

Mark, the bride’s other brother, joined us on guitar and vocals for the second set. He was a seasoned vet of the cover band circuit, and had hundreds of screaming licks at his disposal. I have to give the guy credit for learning the tunes quickly, but his sound was a little too metallic. Still, it gave Murray a break to have him sit in with us.

The third set…ah, the third set. Why do we need a third set? I don’t know. Every audience we’ve ever played for has been well blueshammered by the time we reach the third set, and this crowd was no exception. After the second set, the canned music took over, and the people seemed happy with the situation. I was all for packing up and hitting the highway, but instead I had to wait while we decided if we were going to play again. During this interval, I witnessed something that no should have to witness.

There was a group of women on the dance floor grooving to the hits of the sixties and seventies. I know Smash doesn’t like it when I harp on appearances, but can I point out that all these ladies had big perms? Okay. “Paradise By the Dashboard Light” came on, and the youngest perm rushed over to the stereo. “Great,” I thought, “she’s turning it off so we can get this last set over with.” But I was so wrong. Up went the volume, and crazy went the ladies. One woman, the queen of the perms, took up a stance and play acted her way through Meatloaf's mini-epic, throwing her head from side to side and fiercely mouthing the words. Oh god, I was so glad the belter hadn’t come with me. There would have been a bloodbath. “Paradise…” is perhaps her most-loathed song…besides “Bohemian Rhapsody” (we haven’t had to seek counselling about this yet).

We did play a very short third set to a depleted audience. If you’ve been to a Blueshammer show, you can picture the scene. We quit after about four songs, and I packed up and hit the road around midnight. Murray left at the same time, and he led me through Agassiz to Hwy. 1, which was a much quicker route home than the #7 would have been. I floored it all the way home, and I thought about what Jochen Mass said after a demon lap at the Nurburgring in ’75: “If I’d have left the road, I’d never have stopped travelling.”

That’s it for Blueshammer for the rest of the summer. I’ve told everyone outside the band that I don’t want to continue with them. Every gig we’ve done this year has fallen on a date where I wanted desperately to do something else, attend another event. I don’t think I’m in love enough with playing live to keep doing it, and I’m definitely not in love with the music we play. This break will be good. I’ve got too much going on with work, volunteer stuff, and with people outside of the band that I care about. I’ve picked up the guitar again. I haven’t written anything in over a year, and I’m very curious as to what my next song will sound like.

We were paid a nice sum for that Saturday night in Harrison. I got my cut from Roger in the mail yesterday. Dinner's on me when the belter gets back.

Dammit, I want nothing more than to post pictures here. Do you think I've been able to do it? No, I haven't, and it's ruining my day. I wasted all last night on the endeavour, too. I got the stupid GeoCities site to store the pictures, I've uploaded them, I've linked to them from here, but nothing. No pictures, no joy. Grr.

Random
I realize that I haven’t finished my Harrison saga yet. When I have some time I’ll sit down and polish it off. There’s not too much to tell, really, but once I start writing I might find a few digressions that I’ll want to explore.

I’m reeling from the fanciness today. The summer’s good, eh? I was never a big fan of summer, especially after I joined the working world back in the late ’40s, but I’m liking it these days. I’m not sure why. I used to resent all the summertime fun people, blocking the Gastown sidewalks that I needed to use to get home from the office. But they’re no longer my enemies. I’ve found my own scene. I’ve overcome my fear of wearing shorts in public. I wear tinted lenses to protect my eyes; sometimes a hat to cool my head. Plus I don’t have to go anywhere near Gastown anymore.

As the 133 merged onto the highway this morning, I saw a test train going into Brentwood Station, which produced a mild excitement. Once the new line is operating I expect getting to and from Xantrex will be less torturous.

There’s a derelict on-ramp at Gaglardi Way that’s totally giving me a boner. I want to drive out there one weekend morning and take some pictures. Scatter tabloid clippings of Jayne Mansfield, Princesses Grace and Diana, James Dean and Lisa Lopes on the weed-ruptured asphalt.

I get about 15–20 minutes every morning to listen to music. I look forward to this time. Morning music, when I get to choose it, is the best. Today was Boards of Canada, Geogaddi, an album that is growing on me a lot. I bought it on musique machine’s recommendation, and it was pretty much what I expected it to be—I don’t really know how to classify it. You’re better off hunting down the original review if you’re curious. The catchiness and complexity of their music is gradually revealing itself, though, and I imagine that if I listened to nothing else for an entire month I’d gain a full appreciation of what they’re doing. It made a nice soundtrack for spoonfuls of slightly milk-damp Raisin Bran this morning. It’s been a belting week thus far.

One-handed Reading
No, this is not about those couple pages near the back of Bust magazine. You're dirty.

I had to stand on the bus this morning, which was a drag. Before you start sawing away at the World's Tiniest Violin, let me explain that I'm reaching the end of a really good book: Purple America by Rick Moody (lent to me by the belter, who hasn't steered me wrong yet). It's hard to turn pages while holding on and trying to stand up on the 133 SFU as it barrels down Hwy 1.

There's more brilliance in one paragraph of Purple America than I could muster in a lifetime of wordsmithery. I guess Moody is most famous for writing The Ice Storm. I haven't read it, but I thought the movie was the feel-good hit of the year. Purple America casts a similar glow in its dissection of the well-heeled and uneven keeled. Its shifts in voice and tone are brilliant and Moody strikes me as one of those guys who's scarily intelligent. He certainly knows a lot about power grids, utilities and suchlike. I wonder what he did in his previous work life. Perhaps there'll be a job opening for him at Xantrex once he's done with the writing thing.

At least I know I'll have seat on the milk run going home—an interminable journey on the 144 that winds its way down Burnaby Mtn., across Kensington, into the loop at Bby Municipal Hall (tantalizingly close to home, but too far to walk and save any time), through Heritage Village for god's sake, and concludes at glamorous Metrotown. I'll get to finish the book off then.

CORRECTION
As per the guestbook entry from Super "Marlon Perkins" Robertson, please read "heron" for "crane" in the previous entry. I thought about going in and changing it myself, but I didn't want to pull a Sharon Osbourne and wantonly taint the artistic achievements of the past.

CANADA DAY EVE
On the last night of our long weekend on Mayne Island, the belter and I walked out to the point after dinner. For the last 48 hours the island had been teeming with people, but when we reached the end of the trail I was relieved to see that the point was free of visitors.

The only inhabitant was a crane standing down by the water. It noticed us and took off, flying a short distance to the rocks in the middle of the channel between the point and Georgeson Island. It resumed scanning the ocean for any fish-related activity. We found a rock to sit on and began scanning for any seal-related activity.

Apart from a few distant splashes, the seals weren't putting on much of a show. We stuck around anyway. It was one of those nice summer nights when it gets dark very very slowly. "When you're down here, something always happens. All you have to do is wait," said the belter.

The crane was being very patient, just changing position once in a while, pivoting around on its twiggy legs. I looked away and watched the ferries heading back and forth between Active Pass and the Mainland. When I turned to look at the crane again, something small and black was wriggling in its beak—it had caught a fish! Hooray for the crane! I thought.

I was about to point this out to the belter when something very big and very dark swooped over our heads. A bloody great bastard eagle was flying directly towards our crane. The crane had just enough time to choke back its fish and take off, with the eagle in close pursuit. The dogfight was on. They arced above us, and I thought for sure the eagle would grab the crane, bring it down and most likely rip open its neck to extract that fish. But the combination of a larger wingspan and (probably) sheer panic enabled the crane to get away. Phew.

The thwarted eagle took over the crane's spot down on the rocks. It stood there for a while, looking stupid, then flew off to a treetop perch on Georgeson.

We decided on the walk back home that eagles are the assholes of the air.

Two-Lane Blacktop part II—Lindbergh or Earhart?

Strike the last sentence of the previous entry from the record. Priest was not actually on my musical menu that afternoon.

I decided to take the Lougheed Highway (#7) out to Harrison. It looked like the most direct route on the map. As I later found out, it wasn’t the most efficient way there, but I’m glad I took it anyway. The scenery and backcountry ambience made up for its comparative slowness.

I hadn’t intended to travel alone, but Murray’s cancellation forced me to go solo. I wasn’t happy about this. Once I’m east of Gaglardi Way, I start feeling like an untethered spacewalker. I like having someone else to talk to during these times, a companion to help me watch the road. Besides dying at the wheel, getting lost is one of my biggest fears.

Going through the burbs was start-stop-start-stop all the way. I was playing the new Melvins album, Hostile Ambient Takeover. It’s a heavy one; more The Maggot than The Bootlicker, more Stoner Witch than Stag. The tape ran out as I went through Haney. The traffic dissipated and the road opened up. I put on Howls From the Hills by Dead Meadow. Their shambling, rustic BigMuff humfuzz filled the cab. I could picture myself late at night, walking down the backroads just off this highway and hearing the band jamming in a distant cabin.

Mount Baker loomed, twice as big as it appears on a clear day in Burnaby. It’s a fine-looking mountain, such a proper volcano, so gracefully sloped and snowy. I really want it to spew magma at some point during my lifetime. Just a little eruption—nobody has to get hurt.

The #7 is mostly two lanes, 80 km/h all the way out. I’d rather have been a passenger, but I tried to take in as many of the sights as I could while still keeping the car on the road. Other drivers evidently weren’t so intent on scenic pleasures. Tom Slick in his Benz was picking his way through our convoy one car at a time. He made it to the front of the queue with no mishaps and quickly disappeared in the curves ahead. Oh, well, it was his loss. Maybe he drives this road every week.

Stuff I saw: fruit stands gearing up for the season. Kids selling roses by the side of the highway. On the lake to my left, a water-skier did a faceplant, perishing in an explosion of spray. I passed a nudist campground, wondering if I should stop by for a quick game of volleyball. Signs pointed me to stock car circuits and drag boat racing. So much weekend exotica out here in smalltown B.C.

The tape deck’s auto reverse kicked in, and Wino and his Spirit Caravan arrived for my trip into Harrison. I accidentally drove past the motel where I was supposed to hook up with Roger, and ended up driving right into Harrison itself. When I reached the lake, I knew I had come too far. It was an adolescent frenzy—hordes of today’s beef-hormone-enhanced SuperTeens milling about in not too much clothing. I escaped to the tourist info booth, where I got directions back to the Crossroads Motel.

Roger met me outside and directed me into the motel bar, where his son Adam, daughter Cathy and her boyfriend Jason were shooting pool. The air conditioning was in full effect. I opened my Coke, but all that time in the truck had made it warmer than the current room temperature. No refreshment properties whatsoever. Yuck. I drank the impotent beverage anyway and waited for the others to arrive.

A power ballad by Boston was playing on the radio—“I’m gonna take you by surprise and make you realize, Amanda.” I’d forgotten about that song, and I didn’t particularly need to be reminded of it then.

Before I get going here, I advise you to read Alick Macaulay’s Blacknblues sometime. You’ll find a growing collection of carefully considered and crafted essays by a man blessed with enough analytical power to add two plus two and come up with 8,000 every time. Genius. He’s making me look real bad.

Two-Lane Blacktop
I’ve done a lot of things in my life as a “musician,” but touring’s not one of them. I’ve never envied those dedicated enough to pile into the Econoline and head out for months of bad food, dodgy clubs, highway breakdowns and no bathing. I've seen the misery of the experience reflected in the faces of musicians at gigs I've attended over the years. Dale Crover, on tour as Nirvana’s substitute drummer, setting up his pedals on a crowded, dusty sidewalk outside the New York Theatre. The For Carnation moping through a set at the Starfish, still managing to summon a kind of lackadaisical glory. Seam gritting their teeth onstage at the Lunatic Fringe, with its ludicrously high drum riser and sword & sorcery murals on the walls. I'm grateful that these bands go out on the road, and even more grateful that they cross the border to play our dingy little town and sell me a t-shirt, but I've read Get In the Van, and that's enough for me.

Last Saturday’s day trip to Harrison was the furthest I’ve travelled to play a gig. Blueshammond guy Roger had arranged for us to provide music at a post-wedding party for a friend’s daughter and her new husband. They had got hitched in Australia earlier in the year, and this was to be their Canadian coming-out do. I embraced the idea of doing this gig when it was originally proposed (because it fit in with our “weddings, parties, anything” mentality, which has seen me playing on boats, illegal party spaces in North Van, and U-Brew establishments), but I grew less and less keen on it as Saturday approached and the reality of the drive set in.

I had a couple hours between getting home from the belter’s and having to load the truck and depart, so I ate some lunch and dubbed a couple tapes for the road. Unfortunately, I forgot my “Big Lebowski”-inspired pledge to make a Creedence tape from the three-LP set that JR gave me for Christmas one year—among my gift-exchanging friends, his presents are unrivalled for their sheer vinyl heft—and selected some newish stuff that I thought would provide some righteous road rock.

I was supposed to have guitarist Murray along for the ride, but he never called, and I gave up on him. I heard from him right as I was leaving. He apologized for not being in touch, and said he would make his way to Harrison by himself in about an hour.

So, with a handful of tapes, a can of Coke, and my drum kit in the back of Clive's Ford Ranger, I hit Huxley Ave. about 1:45 p.m. and headed out to the highway. Cue Point of Entry, side one.

Next time: Rendezvous With Roger.

I've Had Enough of the Blues...
But the blues ain't had enough of me. Stay tuned for a report on my Blueshammer road trip to Harrison. Probably mid-week.

"The Mule is accustomed to the unordinary"
-Super Robertson

Robert Wyatt. That floaty, amorphous music drifting out of Super Robertson’s stereo last Saturday night sure sounded like a Robert Wyatt album. No, it couldn’t be. But it definitely sounded like Rock Bottom, an album I’d been living with for a few years and shared with no one but the belter—a peculiar, accidental-sounding record that was surely the result of a random combination of time, place and circumstance. I had convinced myself that nothing else in the world could sound like Rock Bottom.

I thought for a moment about asking what this music was. I liked it a lot—almost as much as the feast that Super and Cristina had laid out. But I decided to keep quiet to prevent a potentially awkward social moment. What if I piped up and got some blank stares in reply? I didn’t want to have to explain too much.

Someone else’s conversation tackled the subject. Rumours started circulating. It was Robert Wyatt. Super passed the jewel case around. Shleep. He’d heard some of it on the CBC one night. I said something about Super being my soul mate. Super said something about having been aware of that fact for a while now.

Later in the evening he danced like Ian Curtis for us, and I recalled that we’d discussed forming a Joy Division cover band a long time ago. I want to spend every Saturday night at Super Robertson’s.

IF THE SHIRT FITS…
At Metrotown on Saturday I saw a guy with an acoustic guitar busking in the walkway between the mall and the SkyTrain station. Not so extraordinary in itself, but the young troubadour was wearing a Dark Funeral shirt! I never give to buskers (I should, at least when they don't suck), but that guy definitely deserved some coinage.

When I got on the train, I sat across from a walkman-clad bully rocker. He sure looked grouchy…maybe he was unhappy about that Mudvayne shirt he had on! Shit, dude, my mom's gotten me some lame birthday presents, too.
*******************************************************

I like Tool, but I’m not mad about them. I don't like them as much as Rudimentary Peni, but there's a certain craft and quality to their work that I have to salute. Their true genius, though, lies in the t-shirt arena. All those tuff guys walking around with the label "Tool" on their chests…too rich.

I bet 7,500 other writers have expressed that exact same thought. I dunno; I haven't read Spin for about seven years.

HATE MYSELF
I was really bummed out by my Hate Yourself entry of a few days ago. It left a bad taste in my mouth—the taste I get whenever I don't trust the validity of what I want to say and end up writing something horribly compromised.

I should have written this: I love "Hate Yourself," but I'm appalled by it as well. I don't like that I like it. The lyrics are ESL-awkward, and their phrasing is sometimes forced. It wallows in negativity and pretentious sentiment. "Hate yourself with a touch of glamour"? Marilyn Manson could have written that. And there's enough empty anger passing itself off as entertainment these days.

But there was a day early last April when I was going crazy from the pressures of school and watching classmates implode around me. All I wanted to do was hold everyone together for just a couple more weeks, but at the same time I wanted to scream, "just relax for fuck's sake, step outside yourself, take a break, get some sleep, have a drink, jerk off, do whatever you need to do to stop annoying everyone else and have them end up hating you for all eternity." I sent an email to a few friends wherein I let off some steam in an un-Rob Hugheslike manner, and the response I got a couple hours later from one friend was so awesomely positive and affirming that I immediately put on "Hate Yourself" and started leaping around the room like the floor was electrified. When it ended I was vibrating with joy. I then sat down and resumed my work.

That's why I love the song. That's why I love how Peter Hammill screams "One more haggard drowned man!" on "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" or "total ANNIHILATION!" (stretching the last word out for about 25 seconds) on "After the Flood." That's why I love "1/4 Dead" by Rudimentary Peni (who might be my favourite band ever if I didn't already have 324 Favourite Bands Ever), whose libretto primarily consists of "3/4 of the world is starving/The rest are deeeaaad!" There is enough catharsis in the blood-death-and-drug-saturated expanse of my music collection to last me the rest of my days. I can survive anything.

OLD SCHOOL AND TOO UNCOOL
Went shopping for shoes of the sports/casual variety, and I made a major score. Walked out of Foot Locker (where they still apparently only hire referees) with two pairs of leisure footwear.

My shoe of choice this time around was the Adidas Stan Smith. Certain members of my readership may be smiling right now. Indeed, when I showed off my purchase to my family before Sunday dinner, a huge collective groan, tinged with fond exasperation, went up. But hey, so what if those were the only shoes I wore for the better part of a decade? The selection out there these days is pretty limited. My Etnies were shot, and the belter had semi-seriously forbidden me to replace them with brand-new duplicates. She’s a woman of firm convictions when it comes to fashion. These convictions sometimes seem odd to me, but then again, I’m just a boy. I looked at other skater-type shoes, but they weren’t doing it for me. And your regular track/running shoes are looking so gay these days. They’re veinous and grotesque, embedded with air bladders and springs—they’re like penile implants. And you have to wear them on your feet, look down, and contemplate these cruel badges of impotence all day. No thanks.

I also bought a pair of Converse All-Stars. Haven’t had a pair of those in yonks either. I’m wearing my Stan Smiths right now, though, because they need to be broken in immediately. Gotta get that toe-hinge happening, and dull their alarming whiteness with some scuffing.

The referee who helped me yesterday seemed pretty stoned. He was having a helluva time lacing my freshly unboxed shoes, and he couldn’t work the price scanner. His officiating was very poor, all told. If I wasn’t so happy with my purchase I’d report him to the Shopping Mall Referees’ Association or something.

Oh, nothing about music in this entry. I bought a bunch of CDs on Sunday, and I'll get to those sometime soon.

With the belter off writing mock exams today and tomorrow, sacrificing her weekend for the greater good of the EAC, I’m left to my own devices. As usual, I’ve got a song stuck in my head. Be afraid.

HATE YOURSELF
Two guys from Norway wrote my favourite song of last year. “Hate Yourself” by Solefald is a punk-metal anthem that arrives four tracks into Pills Against the Ageless Ills. It has several movements, working through variations of the opening riff. Lyrics are repeated against the evolving musical backdrop—the same words with different phrasing. “Hate Yourself” is a turbocharged tilt-a-whirl of a song. It’s totally mental. Self-loathing never sounded so good.

Hate yourself and I will make you happy
Pills… is a concept album about two brothers—Cain, a pornographer, and Fuck, a philosopher. There’s a rather flimsy plot involving Cain’s murder of Kurt Cobain and Fuck’s subsequent exile and soul-searching, but it can safely be disregarded. “Hate Yourself” is described thusly: “When Cain confessed to Fuck’s answering machine that he was Kurt Cobain’s murderer, Fuck sent this storm of messages to his brother’s mobile phone.” So there you have it. Probably the first metal song ever written about playing phone tag.

Hate yourself like Kate Moss
I’m not sure if they’ll ever surpass “Coco Chanel, welcome to hell” from Neonism, their previous album, but Pills… definitely has its share of fine couplets. “Out of the seven classic arts/Rhetoric rises to bust the charts.” “My apartment works fine, no need for locations/it’s spacious enough for a camera and some Asians.”

Hate yourself with a touch of glamour
I was reading about Thomas Homer-Dixon (The Ingenuity Gap) in yesterday’s paper, and what he had to say made total sense. I’m quite taken with the “Capitalist Trilemma” he describes. (1—The global economy is producing too many goods and services too many people can’t afford. In other words, the rich/poor gap is widening. 2—Population growth and economic expansion are outstripping the Earth’s ability to sustain us. 3—The problems facing the world are becoming too complex, and solving them in any comprehensive way is beyond our intellectual capacity.) There’s some serious trouble ahead, and we need more people like him to draw attention to the obvious. Not a day passes when I don’t give thanks to the random cosmic/universal forces that I was born when I was and that I live where I do. And I hope I’m outta here before the shit hits the fan.

Hate yourself continents are starving
I was depressed to read that the world’s population has quadrupled in the last century. Nothing can slow down now. You can call attention to the obvious, but when it's too late to change anything, should you even bother?

Hate yourself like I do. No way to improve. No way to do it better. Just suffer suffer suffer!

Sometimes I think there's a conspiracy to erase heavy metal from the cultural/historical record. In a Globe & Mail article about The Osbournes this morning, Ozzy was described as an "aging goth rocker." Hmm, I guess I had forgotten about his Bark at the Moon demos, where he worked with an embryonic Sisters of Mercy. What about the time he took the stage at a Cure gig and sang "Boys Don't Cry" with Fat Bob? Dead good, that. And remember the uproar when he bit off the heads of all of Balaam and the Angel?

Never mind "Hole In the Sky," "Into the Void," and "Hand of Doom." Really, his heart wasn't in it.

Words of wisdom from Professor Bill Martin
"Cyberanarchists are fond of saying that 'information wants to be free.' Systems for downloading music online such as Napster and other forms of what essentially amounts to bootlegging may not yet spell the end of the bourgeoisie, not only because the media corporations will fight desperately to enforce their ownership 'rights,' but also because there is something not yet sufficiently transformational about young people who have the disposable income for their iMacs or whatever (mine is lime) supposedly not having the scratch for the latest Matchbox 20 album."

I’m looking at a ragged pile of 21 CDs that were released last year, with the aim of taking one song from each and compiling a tape. I do this every year. It makes me happy, though it does wake me up to the fact that I don’t give this music the attention it deserves. I feel guilty about it. I worry about getting my money’s worth out of each album. I worry about wringing every bit of appreciation I can from them. I worry about all that agonizing in the studio by people far more talented and brave than myself, only to have schmucks like me listen to their work, like, twice.

I think I did pretty well by them this year, though. Blackwater Park? I had that in rotation during my commutes to Wenco, and I reviewed it for the OP. Massive airtime. No More Shall We Part? Well, that’s the Mayne Island soundtrack. I should play it more at home, but I got all weepy the last time I did. Vespertine? That one’s kind of reserved for special occasions. New Dark Age? Empiricism? Mekano? Prometheus—the Discipline of Fire and Demise? Okay, now I feel guilty. Time to start listening again.

Blueshammer Redeemed?
I only want to play gigs at the Cottage Bistro from now on. I was running late for my engagement with Blueshammer there on Saturday night—whether I was justifiably delayed or displaying some passive-aggressive tardiness, I won’t speculate. I was able to park right outside the door. That was a good sign. I lugged my gear inside, then sat down at the band table. Roger grabbed a pitcher and poured me a pint of Tree IPA. I kicked back to enjoy the hop picnic and watch our opening act do their golden oldies “Wake Up, Little Suzy” thing.

The Bistro stage is tiny. Once my kit is set up, there’s only a couple feet of clearance around it. So we move the mike stands out of the way, Roger sets up station on the floor, Carolyn bops around over by the door, nearly out of my line of sight. Murray stands in front of me, his elbows brushing against my cymbals now and again. It’s intimate, cramped, and fun. We were supposed to start quietly, but I don’t think we succeeded. The amps on either side of me seemed awfully loud. Murray’s combo was spitting out quite the raunch, but his volume knob was at 0.75. I gave it some welly with my splintering Lightning Rods™ and generally tried to make myself audible.

It was hot in there, so after the first set, I took a walk down Main. I stopped outside the Montmartre for a few minutes and watched the onstage action. A couple guys were belting out “Locomotive Breath” to fairly full house. I’ve had fantasies about Blueshammer doing some Tull for ages, but after throwing a couple song titles at them (“Teacher” and “New Day Yesterday”), we decided it was beyond our scope and went back to the Colin James tunes.

I gave the Tullsters a hand and went over to Cinephile to check out their Altman section. I’ve been wanting to see Three Women for ages… I saw it on Bravo when I was between jobs or on holiday or something. Shelley and Sissy shredded my heart like so much bocconcini. The clerk recommended Ghost World to a couple indecisives while I searched the shelves. They didn’t have Three Women, but they did have Paradise Lost 2. I’ll have to come back for that.

The Shockker came in while I was there, so we had a chat. He had seen me walk by from inside the Starry Dynamo, where he was watching a friend play. I’ve made him do enough hard time at Blueshammer gigs in the past, so I hadn’t told him about Saturday’s show. I invited him to swing by later and pick up a DCR CD, which he did.

That’s the kind of night it was—a succession of small, nice events. The crowd at the Bistro thinned out steadily, but I couldn’t take any offense. By 11:30 about half a dozen remained, including the honourable Mr. Black. We pared back our last set and were out of there shortly after midnight.

The belter and I were kept awake the next morning by a garrulous pigeon on the window ledge, amazingly audible through glass and venetian blinds. Flicking the blinds would fix the situation temporarily, but he’d quickly resume his assault on the world’s record for loudest sustained cooing. We gave up when Littlebelt decided she wanted feeding.

Sunday was packed with dangerous levels of tomfoolery. Before I had to go, the belter and I walked around the neighbourhood, drawing on poppies, roses, ball-chasing dogs, cats and shade to regain our equilibrium.

I ate more pancakes this weekend than I have in the last three years.

Just wanted to make note of a couple new additions to the catalogue.

PR-019CD
I was well chuffed to take home a pile of the new Dead City Radio release, Dead City Roadway, from Edmonton last weekend. Most of it was recorded during my last visit, in March of '99. It's a concept album, a soundtrack to an imaginary road movie and, whaddya know, it really works as such. I'm liking it more and more with every listen. Tweek went nuts with the e-bow. It snakes through nearly every track. I'm hearing a Goblin vibe on certain songs, too. Maybe we should try a soundtrack to an imaginary zombie movie next time out. Maybe I should record one myself...

Smash, JR, Mr. Black, Robertson, Shockk, step forward and claim your copies.

MULE 15
My first foray into the print medium. It's a tribute to the belter, and none of you get to read it.

More travelogue than discography today. I’ve been on the road, man.

TANKED
Capped off an unsatisfying week with a dire Blueshammer gig in Kits on Friday night. A few friends showed up, but nobody else wanted us there. My spirit was crushed during our first number, watching a table full of people get up and leave. So much for that nice chat they were having. During the break between sets, Jeff, a drunken gel-monkey birthday boy, took to my drum kit for a solo while his shooter-fortified pals cheered. Picturing him the next day, hung over during his morning shift at Future Shop, was scant consolation.

MINIMUM EQUIPMENT LIST
On Saturday, I got on the 7 a.m. flight to Edmonton. I was running on three hours sleep, but things were okay; there would be music, hospitality, fields, and flat, empty roads on the other end. But we sat in the plane for about 2 hours with a disabled anti-lock braking system awaiting an all-clear from WestJet Maintenance HQ in T.O. I hunkered down with Prof. Bill’s book and tuned out the complaints in seats D, E, & F behind me.

Two things about flying that always alarm me:
1) I like accelerating down the runway and the steady, comforting g-pull of takeoff, but there’s always a couple moments as the plane climbs when that pull disappears and I’m light in the seat for a couple moments, long enough for me to imagine the plane stalling and powering full throttle into the ground. I pored over a diagram explaining wind shear in Time magazine many years ago, and I’ve been a bit jumpy ever since.
2) One minute I’m looking down on the city, picking out the belter’s house, Central Park, and other landmarks, then a minute later all I can see are mountaintops. The Lower Mainland’s sprawl is just a sliver of habitability. From the ground the mountains on the North Shore loom all benevolent and noble, but from above, when you’re high enough to see behind that façade, they look incredibly hostile.

WOODFROGGERY
Tweek neglected to call ahead, so I’m afraid he was waiting for me at YEG while I had yet to take off in Vancouver. The Tape Creep was there, too, and was the first to spot me at the baggage claim. We hopped in our respective vehicles (Tweek and me/Mazda, Tape Creep/white Malibu) and headed for the outskirts, slowing only once to marvel at the latest breed of badass pickup truck being marketed to the phallically challenged in Klein country.

The Tweek estate is woodsy, lacking the blasted tundra feel of his old place (which I loved, and where I spent a surprising amount of time by myself, blasting Codeine, contemplating the lake from the living room and getting all wistful). The backyard is an acre or so, with narrow trails between whippy branches of hazelnut and chokecherry. There’s also abundant birch trees (speaking of Codeine), frogs, and a creepy abandoned swing set and kids’ playhouse back there. I teased Tweek about AJ and Colin using all that space for teenage bush parties--after all, that’s what he did on Windermere Drive back in the day.

Tweek was on to a good thing with Meadow Vole Studio, so his new jam space has a nearly identical layout. If anything, it’s even more comfy. Knowing we didn’t have much time together, we picked up instruments and rolled tape with due haste. I did a lot of “session work,” playing along with a “click track” to “overdub” drums for some previously recorded tunes. We spent the rest of the weekend hammering out new stuff, by ourselves, or with Tweek’s bro Wes (a steady bloke and a fine musician), who joined us on Sunday. We ended up with a couple tapes full of usable material awaiting lyrics, touchups and general sound fascism.

I’m looking for a way I can work the expression “fussy as a lesbian drummer” into the vernacular. It’s no “peuncy,” but it’s all I have right now.

creo ATE MY NEIGHBOURHOOD
I felt a bit forlorn this aft, so I drank a load of tea and went for a mailbox run down to creo. It was nice out, so I extended my walk down to Canada Way (looking for bus stops where I could catch a lift up to Burnaby Mountain when I start work on Tuesday) and up Willingdon back home. Lots of crows around these days, which is good because I like crows. Real Love is a crow on a telephone pole with something to say, as the song goes. Right now I’m quite taken with the way they walk. Of all the birds, crows are the best walkers. They fly down, land, then immediately start striding towards something only they can see. Other birds hop daintily about. Crows have a wide, solid Sumo stance that makes them look like they weigh about 80 pounds. I bet if they weren’t so busy with the daily grind of being a crow, they could size you up, start chasing you up the sidewalk, then take a little leap and sink that stout beak* into the tender flesh behind your knee. Then you’d know who’s boss. Crows are rad.

On the return leg up Willingdon I noticed that there’s new signage on the Dogwood Lodge, the long-term geriatric care home where Grandad lived in ’95/’96. Everything reads “creo” now. I decided to find out if the old folks were still around, so I walked up the access road to the patio by the entranceway, where the residents used to catch some rays on nice afternoons like this. There weren’t any seniors milling about, and the foyer inside was done up in creo colours. I could sense the receptionist inside glowering at me, so I casually walked away from the spot where I waved goodbye to Grandad for the last time.

*I unconsciously stole "stout beak" from David Zieroth, whose website the belter and I are working on these days.

********
I'm spending the day with my guitar and a bunch of old tapes, teaching myself some riffs to take to Edmonton with me on Saturday. Going to be jamming/recording with the Dead City Radios. I'm grateful for the helpful tips I sometimes give myself when I'm recording riffs, so I can figure them out later: "Uh, this is the Scary Ann chord moved up to the fifth fret--no, wait, the third fret. Then it goes to the A power chord on, um, the seventh fret." I'd be lost otherwise. The guitar is still very much a strange and exotic instrument to me.

Things are flying all over the place this week. I’m pining for the belter, who’s working towards literary greatness in Surrey all week. I’m bitter, besides, because I have band practice Thursday, and will miss her reading that night. Grr. My great achievement of the week will be plowing through “Roadhouse Blues” with Blueshammer on Friday night for the shirt-tucking crowd at a Kits pick-up joint. I’m so proud.

So while I contemplate vacating the Blueshammer drum stool, I’ll turn to the more pleasant subject of the difficult music I’m dealing with right now. I was cheered up during a trip to Chapters today by the appearance of a new Bill Martin book. Professor Bill authored the fine Listening to the Future a few years ago, and his latest tome, Avant Rock: Experimental Music from the Beatles to Bjork, deals with music in the same general neighbourhood…at least to my way of thinking (I seem to say this a lot). Whereas LttF had Tull on the cover, this one has Sonic Youth and the wee Icelandic one. Bill is pictured on the back, Rickenbacker four-string in his burly embrace. As a purchase, it was a no-brainer. I started reading this afternoon, and it did not disappoint—lots of philosophy, situationist politics and other things I don’t understand mixed in with solid musical appraisal. I’m interested to see what he makes of Merzbow, who I had much difficulty reviewing for U!

I also picked up a freebie at the belter’s office: an “encyclopedia of northwest music,” which equates to Washington State and Oregon for the purposes of this volume. The thing tries to do too much by including sections on jazz and classical (which seem like afterthoughts tacked onto the big rock section), but there’s some good-to-great bits within. Nice to read Dawn “Backlash” Anderson again, and the coverage of NW metal and hardcore is extensive. The Melvins entry had me listening to Stoner Witch tonight—the guide picked it as perhaps their most beautiful album, and I concur. I was even inspired to put a track from it on the belter’s tape. I would have welcomed an Engine Kid entry, but you can’t have everything.

Back to Melvins: after a couple bottles of Bass last night, I put on Houdini to fall asleep to. I’d forgotten how familiar I was with the album; I could anticipate the sequence of tracks pretty well. As sweet memories of Melvinian shows at the Town Pump congealed into a gloopy mass in my head, I passed out—a track or two before “Spread Eagle Beagle” as luck would have it.

Promo CD Hell Part II
I chipped away at the pile some more. Deadsoul Tribe features the ex-Psychotic Waltz singer (never heard them or him) and they’re being released on InsideOut America. It reminds me of Bruno rock, the nebulous metalgrunge we’d rock out to during the glorious, blurry all-nighters we used to pull. I’m thinking Warrior Soul and Nudeswirl. Smash, I will pass this on to you after I give it another spin. soundisciples didn’t look too promising. First, the album’s called Audio Manifesto, which is pretty gay. Second, the ginger-haired trio who are apparently the soundisciples are pictured on the back with black suits, sunglasses, and (in the middle guy’s grip) a handgun. Yawn. On the other hand, this is on Peaceville Records, who generally rule. And the music itself is passable techno-metal. So scrap the band photos and let the music do the talking. I also spun the new Vanden Plas album, Beyond Daylight. When I’m the mood to dislike prog metal, I really dislike it. I despised this release. There’s supposed to be a Kansas cover as a bonus track on the “real” version of the CD, but it was left off the promo. That really blows, because it would have been nice to have at least one listenable song on the album.

I've neglected this thing for far too long. There comes a point where the fat ass of guilt sits down so hard on me that I’ve no choice but to squeeze out a bunch of words. The writer as whoopee cushion, I suppose.

I’m terrible, because god, there’s no shortage of difficult music around to write about. Actually, I’ve reviewed a bunch of it for Unrestrained! magazine, writing between breaks in copyediting the thing. This is like the 12th issue I’ve done for them, and I’m always impressed by the way their writers can just crank it out…especially Bromley. On the other hand, there’s quite a price to be paid when you’re writing that much that quickly, but I don’t want to get into that here. Suffice it to say that we’d give most of these articles a really hard time in any of our workshops at Douglas.

So yeah, I’ve realized through this latest round of reviewing that the most difficult music of all is music that you didn’t really want in the first place. Though I did luck out with some of the stuff U! sent me (stuff I was actually curious about, like the stellar new Arcturus album and the “reunion” cash-grab by Swedish prog fossils Kaipa), the rest of it was nothing I’d invite into my house under any other circumstances. So writing about music I have no automatic love for is disconcerting, but I had fun with it. Fingers crossed that I don’t come across as an utter tosspot when (or if) my crap makes the hallowed pages of U!

I’m looking at a Purolator box full of promo CDs I’ve received over the last couple years as part-payment for my U! work. It’s piled high with grim, sixth-rate hobby bands that I have no interest in listening to…but I must. It’s the guilt again, its ample posterior packed into stretchy summer shorts, backing towards me, threatening to transform me into a crimson smudge on the office wall (or at least fart in my general direction) if I don’t give these vague semblances of near-art at least a perfunctory airing.

Second War In Heaven by Gonkulator (the band’s logo has pentagrams inside the “O”s) is by far the ugliest thing I’ve got in the pile. The comic art cover painting of an advancing satanic army is oddly sun faded (or perhaps it was rendered in pencil crayon), and the inner painting is equally as bad, featuring a bevy of impaled and bloodied female angels (naked of course) lying amidst the ruins of the gates of heaven. The belter says the band photo looks like it was taken with a pinhole camera…could be a pic from a TV screen too. Band member rundown:
1. Prat in corpse-paint and a Horgh-from-Immortal corset. A sword in each hand completes the ensemble.
2. Darkthrone/Satyricon guy with hair-obscured face wearing gloves that make his hands look skeletal. He brandishes a skull on the end of a stick. Alas! poor Yorick.
3. Female bass player…they’re not just an indie-rock mainstay. “Morbidia Kruel” is no Laura Ballance, however.
4. Short-haired guy with sunglasses and a Brujeria shirt (tucked in). Probably the only member of Gonkulator with a day job. Short-haired guys are a valuable component to any band, as Carcass and Enslaved have proven.

Now for a listen…intro with synthesizers, screams and infernal wheezing. Winds of hell are blowing. Somebody in the band owns a sequencer. Now it’s time to “Banish the Holy Trinity”! Or maybe not. Nice drumming—who taught you, Stephen Hawking? Nice whammy-bar dives, gaylord! Nice fadeouts on the songs. Couldn’t decide on endings during rehearsal? I guess they’ve had a “Volitile (sic) Response to Religious Brainwashing,” which has rendered them incapable of playing their instruments, writing songs and recording them the way God intended. That hasn’t stopped them from trying, though. I’m wondering if Gonkulator are satire-bent art fags (like Gwar), or if they’re a modern-day Shaggs, albeit more Venom-influenced. But I won’t ponder this eternal question for too long. My tea wants warming up.

Another winner from Fudgeworthy Records. Next!

SATANIC PANIC
I'm going to step back from the music-related stuff temporarily, although what I'm going to talk about does have a slight connection to rock 'n' roll. A few years ago I saw a movie at the Ridge that I'll never forget--Paradise Lost: the Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills. This documentary chronicles the aftermath of a triple murder in West Memphis, Arkansas. Three 8-year-old boys were killed, their bodies dumped in a ditch. Three local teenagers were accused and convicted of the crime based on extremely flimsy evidence. It seems that, down Arkansas way, wearing black, listening to Metallica, and reading Stephen King is enough to get you sent away for a couple consecutive life sentences. One of the convicted boys, Damien Echols, received the death penalty and is still awaiting execution.

I borrowed the video from the library and watched it again this weekend. It's not all that far removed from Harmony Korine's legendary freak show, Gummo (another night I spent at the Ridge that provokes nervous nip-ups upon recollection) in that there's plenty of mobile-home squalor and malformed people on display. If you ever see Paradise Lost, pay attention to John Mark Byers, the father of one of the murdered boys. He gets scarier with each new revelation, and his head gets progressively more peanut shaped until at the end you're expecting it to erupt and expel a clump of God-fearing brain matter into his lap.

Anyway, here's the site for the Free the West Memphis Three campaign, where you can read the latest updates on the case, buy a t-shirt (as seen on Eddie Vedder) and contribute to the legal defense fund. Paradise Lost also has a sequel, Revelations: Paradise Lost 2, that I haven't come across yet, but I desperately want to see it.

KILLER ROCK: SUBMIT TO LEW SIFFER
It's true, Satan does have all the best tunes. Here is one band's story, and it's a sad one. I'm also intrigued to see that lyrics like "We're gonna Rock, Rock, Rock/Rock with the Rock!" apparently go over big with the kids.

Is that what's gonna happen to Stryper?

SLEAZE!
My friend Bruno pointed me to Metal Sludge, a site devoted to the more carnal side of rock 'n' roll. There's nastiness, innuendo, and mud-slinging aplenty. I like the site's unabashed attitude, but I don't really care for any of the personalities involved. Does anyone care about these people anymore? To my way of thinking, heavy metal isn't about sex (except for Led Zeppelin, but are they metal to begin with?). It's about wallowing in misery, catharsis, and craftsmanship. Still, this is a fun site, especially if you're interested in various rock stars' shameful pasts, and have prurient curiosities about certain guys' dimensions, in-bed performance, and predilections. So, enjoy. I'm washing my hands of the whole thing.

PRETTY PICTURES
Okay, this week’s installment moves us into the visual realm--album cover art. I’ve always been fascinated by the packaging of recorded music. The artwork really affects the way I think about a particular release. The mental picture I have when I recall a piece of music is usually some variation on the cover art. Led Zeppelin IV brings to mind grey skies and crumbling walls. Dark Side of the Moon conjures up the wavering trajectory of an electrocardiograph reading. Husker Du’s New Day Rising is suffused with sunlight smothered by river-silt brown, matching that album’s glorious waves of guitar fuzz and the locked-in-the-trunk vocals. Hemispheres, Rush’s 1978 masterpiece, elicits thoughts of planet-sized cerebellums and elegantly clenched male buttocks... Oh dear.

Lovely Floating Landscapes
Roger Dean’s art went hand in hand with the ascendancy of Yes as hugely popular prog-rockers in the mid-'70s. He was there for their breakthrough album, Fragile, and stayed with them until 1977’s Going For the One album, for which Hipgnosis supplied the artwork. (More on them later.) Dean set the standard for fantastical sleeve art and hard-to-discern band logos. The average punter would associate his imagery with Yes, but he’s also done covers for two of my faves, Uriah Heep and Budgie--two of the greatest no-hope outfits that ever existed.

Mad as a Hatter
I LOVE Paul Whitehead’s album covers for Genesis and Van der Graaf Generator circa ’70 to ’72. They’re sort of "John Tenniel meets the space age" in exactly the same way as those bands’ music was reaching back while looking forward. My favourite Whitehead covers are for Nursery Cryme (Genesis, 1971), Pawn Hearts (VdGG, 1971) and Fool’s Mate (Peter Hammill, 1971). 1971 was a good year, I guess. Anyway, Whitehead’s official site has many great examples of his work past and present, and it’s nice to see that he hasn’t lost his gift for trippy imagery in the least.

‘Ead-banging
Like Roger Dean, Derek Riggs is intimately linked with one band--in this case, Iron Maiden. Riggs has been with them right from day one, with a brief respite sometime in the ‘90s, I believe. He created their adorable mascot, Eddie, and his album sleeves have played a huge role in Maiden’s growing popularity throughout the ‘80s. It’s all about visual consistency. The kids couldn’t get enough of it. My favourite Riggs covers are Maiden’s first album (before Eddie became too cartoony--back then he was just creepy) and 1983’s Piece of Mind. What must have America’s moms and dads thought? Be sure to check out some of Riggs’s other work for bands like Gamma Ray and Stratovarius. And, if you’re an up-and-coming group, why not buy an original Derek Riggs for your wicked debut? Or if you’re an aspiring author with a first-draft novel you’re desperate to have published, you can buy a cover for your paperback masterpiece, particularly if your book has a rural setting and features half-clothed characters wandering through wheat fields, casting steely glares, and shagging.

MORE ART
Note: a few of these sites are heavy on the Flash and Shockwave, so if you’re visiting via a dial-up connection, be prepared to wait.

Storm Thorgerson
Formerly known as Hipgnosis (the design studio he formed with Aubrey Powell in 1968), he’s responsible for some of the greatest album art ever--Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Houses of the Holy, and on and on. His website is a total knockout, too. For background/technical info on some of the most iconic imagery in rock music, it’s a worthwhile visit.

Travis Smith
This guy must work his ass off, because he's popping up everywhere these days. He’s the artist of the moment in the heavy metal world. As you can see at his official site, much of his work has a really cool hazy, misty quality to it, but he’s not afraid of being garish either. Opeth and Devin Townsend are examples of the former approach. Demons and Wizards and Iced Earth get more of a D&D treatment.

H.R. Giger
This infamous Swiss artist's work has appeared on albums by artists as diverse as Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Celtic Frost, and Debbie Harry. And who can forget when The Dead Kennedys included a poster of his Penis Landscape with their Frankenchrist LP? Tipper Gore shat blood. Ah, those were the days.

ALL WASHED UP?
This week, I'm taking some inspiration from a few of my PRFU 340 classmates and diving into the seedy underworld of rockers who've seen their time in the spotlight come and go. Thank god they have the Internet, otherwise we'd forget about them completely.

The Whackmaster!
Ted Nugent. Wang dang, the Nuge sure had rock fans in a stranglehold during the free-for-all that was the '70s. He may have been distracted by chronic Cat Scratch Fever, but that didn't stop him from inflicting tinnitus on an entire generation of Camaro owners. Ted hasn't had a hit in a long while, but he's still active on the musical front. However, Ted's official site downplays the rockin' in favour of a fusillade of pro-hunting, wildlife-conservation, "America: love it or leave it" ethos. It looks like the Nuge has carved out a cottage industry based on his passion for the hunt. As a child of the suburbs who placates his carnivorous tendencies at Safeway, I can't really relate to all the killin' (I know I'm guilty of distancing myself from the realities of the slaughterhouse and the general nastiness and waste of commercial meat-packing, but it's one of those small hypocrisies I have to live with if I'm going to stay sane), but what can I say? Ted walks the walk.

Domo Arigato!
While cruising through Styx's official website (they're pretty active these days, with the surprisingly-popular-in-Eastern-Canada Lawrence "Larry" Gowan replacing Dennis DeYoung on keyboards/vocals) I found an article that talks about the phenomenon of aging rockers finding their original audiences again. It seems that older fans are rediscovering the bands they followed back when they--the fans and the bands--still had hair, flares, and drug habits. It's cool, and I approve, but it would be even better if, instead of following the same old bands, the average over-35 rock fan had the curiosity to check out groups like Spock's Beard, who are making music that's a helluva lot more vital than what most classic rockers are cranking out these days.

Born and Raised in South Detroit...
What can I say here? I thought I'd send you on a little A/V excursion. This kind of thing justifies the Internet's existence. Even though the song is as wimpy as a meal of tofu dogs, carrot sticks, and rice pudding, I just know that the Nuge would approve.

At the behest of my instructor, Gladys, my task this week is to find some music-related blogs, blogs that are worthy of mention on the almighty Difficult Music. Is anyone else engaged in a sad monologue about music that nobody else likes? Here are my findings:

musicrag
I found this one via the 2002 Bloggies (it was a nominee. The winner focuses on the chronically under-publicized U2). musicrag put itself in my good books almost immediately, with reviews of The Breeders (reunited and live in concert!) and a list of someone's top albums of 1993. Funny thing, I'd just been talking about the music of 1993 with a friend, and it really was a good year, what with the aforementioned Breeders' Last Splash album, Liz Phair's opening statement, Exile in Guyville, and Urge Overkill's tribute to '70s pop-metal, Saturation. Didn't Nirvana release the repellent and compelling In Utero that year, too? Ah, 1993. Back then, the songs had tunes you could hum, and every Sunday we gathered 'round the old Victrola with mugs of cocoa and buttered slices of fresh pumpernickel. We also called sandwiches flat freddies and you could buy six of them for a nickel. But really, they don't make years like that anymore.

But I digress. musicrag has a number of contributors--five (or possibly six) guys and one woman. The site also has a reviews section (with a scant two reviews so far--for shame!), interviews, feature articles, a "fivesongs" page where you can vote for five songs that relate to a given topic, and a store featuring musicrag merchandise. Yes, these folks have some big ideas for their site. The typeface is tiny, and the line length is a little excessive, but the writing's snappy and the Blogger-powered site looks sharp.

People Talk Too Loud
This is another 2002 Bloggies nominee, and another good-looking site (it's powered by Movable Type). They pretty much cover the same music that musicrag does--indie/alternative rock, the kind of stuff that carries on the spirit of '93. Like musicrag, PTTL has a reviews section. It's not huge, but at least the reviews number more than two. And one of the reviewers is a metal-head! Nice reviews of Emperor and Neurosis, dude!

I wanted to find out more about the contributors to this site, but the "about us" section was under construction.

21st Century Schizoid Man
I set myself a small challenge for this assignment: find a blog that mentions either Peter Hammill or Van der Graaf Generator. Hammill fronted VdGG in the '70s and continues as solo artist to this day, toiling, as ever, in obscurity. Both the man and the band are my favourite artists of all time, but that's a tale for another entry. Anyway, I wanted to see if there were any kindred spirits out there.

As I predicted, most blog entries that mentioned my heroes weren't in English. Zut alors! Hammill's always been most popular on the continent, where folks are more attuned to the classical tradition and to the dramatic delivery that Hammill deploys, especially in concert. Anyway, I found the above site, which gave a brief nod to VdGG in a description of another band's style: "Jade Warrior are so obscure, they make Van Der Graaf Generator look like Yes." Ha-ha, I hear you, man! I don't know who this guy is, but I'm linking to his blog just because he's obviously VERY FAR GONE! He's big on the prog rock, and does a lot of reading on the subject. He buys obscure stuff on eBay, checks out the latest Mojo magazine, makes "best releases of the year" lists--in short, all the right things. I wish he lived on my block, so I could drop by and listen to his Cressida albums. I'm still waiting for the one I ordered from Scratch Records to arrive.