Never Trust a Rock Star
“I know rock and roll had to start somewhere, but did it have to be so fecking gay?” said Jenni, listening to the Beatles (live on the BBC) playing some slight variation of “Surfin’ USA.”

Yesterday morning I saw our landlady and her loyal subject scraping gig posters from streetlight poles, a type of neighbourhood beautification that leaves the poles looking patchy and scalped, not nice, shiny, and new. I’d like to apologize to all my Rock friends for her actions. When I returned home last night, a fresh layer of posters had been applied, and everything looked much better.

The Spock’s Beard mailing list has been abuzz all week with (a) theological debates and (b) breakup rumours. Well, both threads came together last night when the band released an official announcement. Lead singer/songwriter Neal Morse is leaving because “God wants me to do something else.” Neal’s been all about the Jeebus for a while now, and I’m guessing the CCM scene will become his new stomping ground. Good luck to him, but I hope he remembers that The Beard saved him from a lifetime of playing jazz synthesizer in Holiday Inn lounges.

The rest of the band are gonna keep being the Beard. Nick the drummer can carry a tune. If my worst fears come to pass, maybe he’ll come up front and be Phil Collins. Blargh.

So I just wanted to send out an Abba/Alan Partridge-style “Thank You For the (Secular) Music” to all concerned. Boy, the Glitzy Capers are going to have a field day with this one.

Rock and roll can still be pretty gay. Especially the bands that I like.

Career Day
On the crawl up Burnaby Mountain this morning, I listened to this kid riff on and on and on about how to get recruited by the right accounting firm. He sure had his shit together—did his research, attended “CA Night,” got his face known by people. I wonder what it’s like to be 21 and have it all figured out? When you’re a budding Patrick Bateman like this kid was, it must feel wonderful.

I was a standee through all this, so I couldn’t pull out my book and try to ignore the young number cruncher. I’m reading another hockey book, a novel from the belter’s shelf. Salvage King, Ya! by Mark Anthony Jarman (Anvil Press—plug, plug) follows an aging hockey player as he bounces between the minors and the majors, from hicksville to the city, between his Intended and a certain Waitress X. It’s so beautifully written that I’ve debated whether I should continue reading it. It’s like listening to a virtuoso guitarist solo for three hours. Sooner or later I want to scream, “Hey, Yngwie, trying playing the damn song!” Jarman never lets up. It’s written in first person, and our narrator has to be the most urbane, erudite, literate hockey chump of all time. Compared to this guy, Ken Dryden has the mental capacity of a fruit fly. The narrator drops references to Keats, TS Eliot, stage directions from The Winter’s Tale; he listens to X, Tom Waits, makes tapes from ancient blues 78s. Everyone knows that hockey players only like Our Lady Peace and The Hip. So my sense of credibility is strained, and not just by lines like “Let the galled jade wince, our withers are unrung,” and “And new lambs from the hills, ravens, her navel like a dark bullet hole, a tongue remembered, a cough held and waiting like fleece in amber cathedrals of winter light.” Crikey. As my dad would say, “Just shoot the puck!”

The writing is damn impressive, though. The book is subtitled “A Herky-Jerky Picaresque,” so perhaps I’m not interpreting the narrator’s voice in the spirit the writer intended.

The book also namechecks Harold Snepsts, which made me smile. It was spelled “Snepts.” Jenni, tell Kaufman that Willingdon Black and I will proofread for beer.

Denied
The belter's feeling poorly today. I think after yesterday's creative purge her body decided it was okay to rebel. Anyway, the story she shook out of her head is amazing and beautiful, and if it doesn't do anything out there in the world, then there's something terribly wrong.

After Spank/Blueshammer practice last night, I headed downtown to catch Bad Wizard at the Pic. I was carrying my drumstick bag, so I felt like a loser. I got some cash from the Sev on Seymour, then walked down to the club. Well, whaddya know, the band cancelled. I was half expecting it. I've always had bad luck at the Pic. I tried to see High on Fire there last summer, and they didn't show either. The last time I saw anything there was Michael Gira's Angels of Light, which was definitely worth the effort.

I'm now wondering about the likelihood of the Melt Banana show happening. Place your bets now.

Music found me last weekend, rather than vice versa. We drove around a fair bit and took our chances with CISL 650. Musky Welshman Tom Jones asked his special lady to help herself to his lips and also to his arms. She just had to say the word and they’d be hers. Alllll right. Yeah. The Beatles pointed out the inadequacy of the seven-day week for showing how much they care, bookending their observations with an intro and outro of the purest genius. Between songs, the increasingly senile and surreal Red Robinson plugged the Grease DVD so urgently that I suspect his RRSP was indexed to its sales.

Saturday night saw me slipping into a wine and cake-induced coma while watching Jackie Brown, which has a damn fine soundtrack. I would have liked to have seen the whole movie, but I’d done myself an injury.

Seals & Crofts serenaded us over Sunday breakfast at the White Spot. A summer breeze blew through the bacon on my mind. Or something. Phew, that’s a stretch.

That afternoon the stinker (in town for her semi-annual bath) and I made art to the creepy strains of In the Woods. She outclassed and out-produced me, running down the hall every couple minutes to deliver pieces to her favoured clients.

I’m looking forward to this weekend. Super is sending me emails about some kind of Saturday night gala he and the Fatman are cobbling together. I’m afraid I’m expected to participate. I have no idea where this is to take place. As long as it’s not at the Coppertank Grill I think I’ll be okay.

I had a good old-fashioned Mule Saturday morning last week. After chaining the belter to a chair in front of the computer (an act of Tough Love), I went downtown to buy records. Oh, it was good.

I hit A&B first, in search of the new Spock’s Beard album. They had it in stock, but at $35 I decided to pass. I owe the Beard some hard-earned cash after getting their last album as a promo, but right then and there I decided to go the mail-order route for the new release.

After a poke around Noize!, I took a deep breath and visited Al at Crosstown Music. Every time I go there he ends up cornering me with one of his conspiracy theories, but on this morning he was occupied with other customers. I snuck into the back room and hunted around, finding most of what I came for, and something I wasn’t expecting to find.

The rundown:
Kate Bush: Lionheart
This album rounds out my collection of early Kate. We’ve been batting around the topic of “What’s the deal with Kate Bush?” recently. Can you imagine Kate Bush emerging in today’s music scene? “We signed this kid. 19. She’s real easy on the eyes, but she thinks she’s an artiste with those crazy songs and all that dancing around like a fruitcake. I like the leotard, but it ain’t gonna fly with the kids. Lemme call Avril Lavigne’s people, and we’ll get her sorted out.” The pictures in her early album sleeves—all soft focus and glam—indicate that the record company was working the ruby-lipped chanteuse angle, but nobody laughed patronizingly at Kate Bush for taking her music wherever she wanted to take it. Is such artistic continuity still possible? Are female pop stars still allowed to “mature” unless, like the post-“Y Kant Tori Read” Tori Amos and the Glen Ballard-produced Alanis, they’re marketed from the outset as “serious” artists?

Led Zeppelin: In Through the Out Door
We’re replenishing the Zep catalog now that the belter has moved away from her roomates’ record collection. A singular sort of Led Zeppelin album, but weren’t they all? Side one begins with much rocking, then turns playful, what with Fool in the Rain (complete with samba part) and Hot Dog. Side two is heavier, but still rippled with newfangled turn-of-the-’80s keyboards. That solo on All of My Love is sure moogtastic. Despite the new instruments and the couple “novelty” tunes, it sounds as otherworldly as Zeppelin ever did.

Keith Jarrett: The Koln Concert
A find! Two LPs worth of Keith going way out on a pianistic limb in 1975.

Archer Prewitt: Three
Got this at Scratch after reading a review at Pop Matters. I like this best when it busts out the flutes & string section. Despite its inoffensive nature, it’s growing on me.

I returned home to the belter, who had been her usual amazing self and written a buttload of new stuff, split a box of KD for lunch, and fired up the turntable for the rest of the afternoon.

Perfect Youth
I finally read John Armstrong’s Guilty of Everything this week. Actually, I devoured the book like a late lunch of grilled cheese sandwich and fig newtons. He won me over right away with the statement “All musicians are scum.” Hear, hear. Takes one to know one, and Buck knew a few. What follows his preface is an excellent account of Vancouver’s (and White Rock’s) emergent punk scene. The era that the book chronicles has a personal mystique because it was a time when I was just becoming aware of Vancouver’s music scene. I was too young to enjoy or fully understand it (how significant could The K-Tels be compared to Rush and Queen?), but I knew the names of the key players and the places they frequented.

Places like the Smilin’ Buddha. We all knew about the Smilin’ Buddha, but no one I knew had gone there. Years later, in ’88, when Alick and I were in DEM, we refused an offer to play the Buddha. We turned it down based mainly on the reputation of the fellow who made the offer, but we also, I think, factored in our personal safety and the security of our equipment. Not very punk rock, I know. I never did set foot in the place, which is partly why Armstrong has a book out and I’m messing around with this thing.

The book succeeds because, as we like to say around our house, Armstrong doesn’t let the facts interfere with the truth. He tells some good stories, fleshes out situations and conversations for maximum effect, and only admits to memory lapses when they’re caused by severe intoxication. Convenient, but believable.

But out of the chaos, some interesting (purported) facts emerge: Art Bergman stole the song “Hawaii” from the songwriter in his previous band. Burnaby punk bands were into heavy metal, while the White Rock scene was inspired by 60s garage rock. Armstrong wrote the Modernettes’ signature tune “Barbra” after a friend issued him a challenge, and he mispelled Barbra because he was drunk. Fascinamating, no?

The book is short. The detail hound in me wanted something longer, but as a reader I thought the length was about right. Like a Modernettes song, Guilty of Everything is tight and packs a lot into a short space. It would have made an appropriate but lengthy subchapter for Have Not Been the Same—perhaps a digression in that depressing chapter on Art Bergman.

Guilty of Everything was everything I hoped it would be—a trip back to a time when you could get attacked on the street for having short hair, when CFOX grudgingly broadcast live punk shows from Gary Taylor’s Rock Room, when The Pointed Sticks played my sister’s high school, and when some quiet boys played loud little concerts for their siblings and parents in a basement on Huxley Ave.

Tailspin Cycle
I bought a little book by Bruce Robinson called Paranoia in the Launderette at Word on the Street on Sunday. Two bucks well spent. When I say “little” book, I’m serious—3 x 4 inches, 45 pages. A booklet. I started it on the bus this morning. I love it when something I read makes me laugh. I hate it when I’m in public and all I can allow myself is a slight smile.

Robinson, he of Withnail & I fame, finds filth and embarrassment funny. So do I, at least to read about. There’s also something funny about people who are both devastatingly articulate and incompetent. This book is narrated by such a chap. When I left him, he was trying to negotiate his local launderette. I can relate. I’ve been to our laundromat probably 10 times, but I’m buggered if I can remember how everything works. Each time I go now, I watch the belter more carefully, trying to remember when the soap goes in, what orifice on the machine we pour it into, what temperature setting to use, how many quarters to put into the dryers, and so on.

Oh, I’ve done my own laundry before. I’m just not used to doing it in a facility where strangers can observe me. And, like Robinson’s protagonist, I know I’ll be scarred for life if I screw up and wreck something. Visions of the Brady kids engulfed in a roomful of suds, with Alice, hapless and zany as ever, plunging in to rescue them. I’d probably just flood a portion of floor, earning a resentful glance from the employee who has to mop it up.

Nah, forget it. I’m full of crap. I think I’d be fine if left to my own devices. As Alan Partridge might say, “I’m handy! I’m handy!”

Happy Families
Thanks to the kindness of neighbours, we’ve been watching The Osbournes. Last night’s episode was a laugh, with Sharon in fine form. You might say she was “hamming it up” last night (groan). (She heaved a massive chunk of pork—which she described using words I can’t repeat in this family publication—into her unruly neighbours’ yard during this episode.)

The saddest part of the show is poor Ozzy. He’s either catatonic on the couch, mumbling to his kids, or stumbling around looking for the garbage. And of course the show milks the spectacle for all it’s worth, playing zany background music and adding sound effects, like the dubbed-in snoring that accompanied a brief shot of Ozzy taking a nap. Out of the entire family, I think he’s probably least aware of the cameras, and acting the most naturally. He has no idea where he is, basically.

But it’s Sharon’s show. She’s a tough lady, from tough stock. Her father, Don Arden, was perhaps the most notorious showbiz figure in postwar Britain. This massive article chronicles his rise to the top. It’s interesting to note that Peter Grant, Led Zeppelin’s hellraising pitbull of a manager, was an Arden apprentice.

I was also intrigued to read of Arden’s relationship with fifties/sixties rocker Gene Vincent, whom Arden coaxed along and nurtured through career downturns and alcoholism. To a certain extent it mirrors Sharon’s relationship with Ozzy. Whatever you may think about some of Sharon’s decisions (including her shameful treatment of Lee Kerslake and Bob Daisley, erasing their tracks from the reissues of Ozzy’s solo albums), she’s always done her best for her Ozzy. Keeping him on the road might be killing him, but I suspect it’s killing him more slowly than being at home might.

Here’s an example of Don Arden’s fine-tuned management technique: “Prior to a performance in Manchester, [John Hawken of the Nashville Teens] arranged to collect £120 from his manager’s Carnaby Street office, but, upon arrival, he was handed a cheque for £20. Overcome by reckless indignation, Hawken raised his voice in complaint and demanded the full sum in no uncertain terms. Arden was evidently astounded by his impudent outburst, incensed, he leapt from his chair, seized Hawken by the throat and pinned him against the wall. Staring directly into his eyes, Arden screamed: ‘I have the strength of 10 men in these hands’. Feeling the pressure of Arden’s fingers on his neck, young Hawken realised that this was no idle boast. Within seconds, the agitated Arden had dragged the musician towards his office window, two floors above ground level, and exclaimed wickedly: ‘You’re going over, John, you’re going over’. Fortunately, Hawken managed to free himself from his manager’s grip and fled from his office in a distraught state. Suffice to say, Hawken learned the hard way that a manager of Arden’s stature always demands respect.”

More famously, he gave the same treatment to Robert Stigwood after rumours began circulating that Stigwood’s company planned to poach The Small Faces from Arden.

All in all, I’d say that Sharon’s noisy neighbours got off lightly last night. Jack and Kelly’s grandad might have been staying over.

Review: Destruction and Kreator, Sept 26, Studebaker’s Cabaret
I loved Kerrang! magazine in the mid-’80s. I originally started buying this slim British biweekly for their slavish coverage of ascendant progsters Marillion, but soon a newfangled subgenre called “thrash metal” also caught my imagination. Kerrang! mocked and embraced the movement equally—opinions varied from writer to writer. Depending on who had the floor, Venom, Metallica, Slayer were either clowns or geniuses. Because I’ve always been attracted to the musically freakish and extreme, I bought Kill ’Em All and got on board.

By ’86 the cover of Kerrang! would be as likely to feature Hanneman/King as Tipton/Downing. And inside the magazine you’d probably encounter the likes of Destruction and Kreator—German acts who were as extreme as anything out there. Exciting things were happening. Soon-to-be-classic albums were released every couple weeks, major labels were snatching up the best bands (and, by and large, not interfering with their artistic growth), and new bands were reaching new extremes of speed and heaviness. For probably the first time in my rock-following life, I was in on the ground floor of a new genre.

So last week’s Destruction/Kreator double bill (shall we call this The Antonym Tour?) was a pilgrimage back to those klassic and, indeed, korrosive days. Both bands had visited Vancouver before, but the metal landscape has shifted in the years since. As yet more proof that I’m getting old, thrash metal has become “retro”—hence the “retro-thrash” movement that Terrorizer magazine made note of back in December ’96 (which makes me wonder if we’re due for an onslaught of retro-retro thrash). Metal has always paid homage to itself (because no one else would, I suppose), and so newer bands like Inferno and Usurper have aped Destruction, Hellhammer, Celtic Frost, and so on. Necropolis Records even released a Thrash Metal Holocaust compilation a couple years ago, filled with up-and-coming bands capturing the “authentic” ’80s thrash vibe.

Thursday’s gig was very much a case of giving the old-schoolers what they wanted. I arrived in time to see the start of Destruction’s set. The trio kicked off with “Curse the Gods.” The sound was a mess (too much bass, no guitar), but it quickly got sorted out. Destruction are a funny looking band. Bassist/vocalist Schmier is quite a large fellow, while guitarist Mike is small and slight, with a huge mop of hair and the same peach-fuzz moustache I sported in grade 8. The pair of them crisscrossed the stage, with Schmier going back and forth between two mikes at either side. But did they look metal? Indeed, they looked metal—studded leather vests and bullet belts all around, except for the shirtless, pasty drummer, who would have been making his own gravy if he’d dressed like his bandmates.

They played material both old and new, and heads were banging everywhere I looked.

But when the mighty Kreator came on, it was clear they were in a class of their own. Even though they had more members than Destruction, they were much tighter, and the twin guitar lineup gave them so much more musical flexibility—harmonies, solo tradeoffs, the works. Although Kerrang!’s Malcolm Dome once described them as “Accept warped by the Chernobyl fallout,” to me their style is a fiendish combination of Slayer and Iron Maiden, with speed and harmony and a touch of progressiveness. I loved it. They played “Riot of Violence,” “People of the Lie,” “Flag of Hate,” and many other songs of Kreator at this concert of heavy metal. I took in the spectacle from the edge of the pit.

I’d like to flesh out this review a bit more, but I’ve got to post this today. It’s been too long between entries. I’ll just say that it was a tremendous show, and it was nice to see so many diehards out at Burnaby’s own thrash metal holocaust. Shows like this don’t come around too often, and when they deliver as convincingly as this one did, it’s all the more satisfying.

Nuage Fractal
I picked a good day not to pack a lunch—they had beef barley soup in the cafeteria. I burned my mouth, but it was worth it. So hearty…

Anyway, there seems to be a friendly marijuana debate going on at The Robertson Chronicles. I have nothing much to contribute to the discussion except to say sensible Mule things like, you know, all things in moderation, keep it away from children and house pets, don’t operate heavy machinery, have some chips on hand, etc.

Pot is everywhere. It’s even in my home computer. The Apple Corp’s eMac is very weed friendly. The music player it comes with, iTunes, not only plays CDs, “tunes in” internet radio stations, and organizes MP3s, but it also has a button that, when clicked, starts the “Visual Effects.” The part of the interface that lists the track titles or favourite stations goes black, then colours begin swirling. Chains of lightning bolts vibrate in time with the music. Burning Schoolhouses fizz, galaxies coalesce. I, the helpless viewer, become Keir Dullea in the latter half of 2001, whizzing towards my ultimate incarnation as a foetal star-child. Trip out. Sometimes I think I can see words forming. “Smoke up,” they say. “Smoke up and spend the next four hours staring at me.”

Last Sunday afternoon all I wanted to do was write 300 words for the STC and there I was—having ingested nothing stronger than Orange Pekoe—staring into the abyss while My Dying Bride showed me the Light at the End of theWorld. I wrote the column, but at what cost? Who were the evil Apple boffins who came up with this? Why do ordinary consumer products come with accessories expressly designed to freak me out? They should put a warning on the box: “Under certain circumstances, contents may prove existence of god.”

Nevertheless, I’m going to make a playlist called “Laser Voivod” and give it a whirl. I’ll report my findings if I make it back alive.

Sunday Shopping
I missed another record swap at the Croatian Cultural Centre last weekend. I don’t mind, though, because I’m not really in the market for anything, and that recent Quo find has temporarily quelled my lust for the hunt.

It might have been nice to have a look around though. Those events are always hotbeds of amusing anti-social behaviour. Some troubled audiophile is bound to have a fit when they're denied a discount by a dealer or stepped on while rifling through dollar bins on the floor. People are crabby and hungover. Someone inevitably loses it.

And the smells! The near-visible swirls of cardboard-borne mildew and B.O. in the air make the record swap a surpreme test of olfactory and respiratory endurance. After a stifling afternoon looking for Thin Lizzy records you’ll go outside, reinflate your suffering lungs, and feel like you’re ready to climb Everest without a breathing apparatus.

Don’t forget to wash your hands afterwards too. If you’ve done the record swap right, you’ll have “album finger,” a condition marked by repetitive-motion fatigue and a revolting grey-brown glaze on the fingertips of your “flipping” hand. Soaking the affected hand in a mild solution of soap and warm water (Palmolive Liquid?) will relieve the symptoms. Soon you’ll be ready to play those Heep and Hawkwind LPs you sacrificed your epidermal well-being for. And once the music begins, that uneasy, unclean feeling will return. My god, what are you doing with your life?

The record sales are also a chance to catch up with the Pantleg Guy. Everyone knows the Pantleg Guy—shaved head, Army jacket, constant pantleg tugging accompanied by Tourettic cries of “Huh!” He’s always there, a few places ahead of us in the lineup to get inside. As my friend Scum says, you can’t make fun of the Pantleg Guy, because you go everywhere that he goes. It’s true—I’m at Chapters, he’s at Chapters. I’m at the library, he’s at the library going “Huh!” a few stacks away. I salute thee, Pantleg Guy. You are my sketchy lonely guy avatar. There but for the grace of God…

(This entry was inspired by Stuart Derdeyn’s record swap preview blurb in The Province, which featured the following advice/warning: “Come to haggle, and that UFO double live album is MINE!” Not if I find it first, man.)

I had a glimpse into the eyes of the enemy today. Everyone likes a good list, even a smartarsed list that makes fun of “bad” records, but this one simply makes do with cheap shots and smugness. Of course, the sole purpose of something like this is to get people riled up—it’s definitely successful from that standpoint, as you’ll see in the comments following the list. Though it’s not the kind of music writing I admire, I still feel compelled to read it, just as I can’t leave a hangnail alone until it’s loose enough to bite off.

It must be exhausting to expend all that energy worrying about what other people might think about the music you own. It’s not the life for me.

The fine people at Pop Matters published a response that says what needs to be said.

I will admit that I’m sometimes puzzled by my record collection. The process of reassembling it at the apartment has given me a new perspective on it. Like, how did I end up with seven Killdozer records? I admire their championing of the proletariat, sure, but I doubt that even members of the band have that many Killdozer albums in one place. If you want to poke through them when you’re over, I won’t stand in your way. Feel free to put ’em on. “Man vs. Nature” never fails to entertain. I may be puzzled, but I’m not ashamed.

If anyone has an opinion on what the definitive Killdozer release is, please cast your vote.

Classic Albums #2

Slint—Spiderland
The choice of Spiderland, Slint's second album, as one of those "lost classics" has become a total music-nerd cliche. The album deserves the acclaim, however. I got it a couple years after it was released, when its legend had already started to grow. A lot of the records I was buying at the time bore distinct traces of Spiderland's influence, and when I started making my own music, it was hard not to lapse into lame imitation of its stylistic template. It opened up so many possibilities that it was nearly impossible to leave well enough alone.

Even ten years later, it's probably still a risky business to get onstage and do anything Slint-like within earshot of anyone who's ever visited Spiderland. They'd nail you but quick.

There have been so many oh-so-descriptive words spilled in honour of this album that I won't add to the adjectival slag heap here. You can read this instead.

That rock 'n' roll can go from "Maybellene" to Spiderland in the space of a couple generations is an idea that thrills me.

NP: "Cortez the Killer" Slint, live in Chicago, 1989

Don’t Annoy Us Further!
The Rush Concert, Book II

Early in the concert, Gary “Geddy” Lee joked that they had 6,000 songs to play that night. Well, it wasn’t quite that many, but they must have knocked out a couple dozen. Even though this tour was billed as “an evening with Rush” and the band had about three hours to kill, picking the set list still must have been a chore.

The Rush back catalogue has piled up like sediment over the decades, and they managed to stick a trowel into nearly every layer during the show. They didn’t prise any nuggets from the Caress of Steel LP (despised by the band, but a favourite of Rush curmudgeons like Sox and myself), but gems from nearly every other release were unearthed. I guess the problem is that some layers of the catalogue are richer than others. So while 1980’s Permanent Waves yielded “The Spirit of Radio,” “Freewill,” and “Natural Science”—all strident, “progressive” numbers that the audience received warmly—1990’s Presto yielded only “The Pass,” an earnest-but-lethargic tune that provided the first pee break for dozens of concertgoers.

As a musician I can sympathize with Rush’s plight. It’s always more fun to play newer stuff. But as a fan I’ll admit that I want some nostalgia tweaked, especially in the case of Rush, who saw me through four crucial and formative years of my life. I’ll never disown any of that music because, as my mantra goes, I’m loyal to the things and people I love. And although I’ve got no right to ask for such a thing from an artist, I do want my loyalty reciprocated—I’d like them to go back and play the stuff that gave me a thrill back in the days when my ears were hungry for cosmic bombast (now that I think of it, when haven’t they been?) and my head was reeling with new possibilities. I treasure those songs, so it’d be nice to know they’re still fond of them too.

My problem with present-day Rush music stems from the fact that I’ve grown and they’ve grown, but I don’t think we’ve grown together. I’ve wanted them to abstract their music, to use their instrumental prowess to venture into realms beyond the rock song. Instead they’ve veered off into a comparatively conservative approach to music and songcraft. During their epic heydays, besides the proliferation of hairpin-turn virtuosity and scary narrator voices on nearly every album, there was a sense that they were forcing lyrics and music together into songs, and that’s what gave them character. So what if the words didn’t always rhyme or the occasional line didn’t scan? So what if Geddy just sang along with the riff instead of creating a counter-melody to sing over top? The material wasn’t any less memorable for it.

For the last decade and a half they’ve streamlined their songs, trimming away those endearing rough edges. There’s always 10 to a dozen songs on each new album, all four or five minutes long, always a single for the radio. Verse-chorus-verse. You might say they’re less “progressive” than they were in the late seventies, but I’m not going to touch that issue for now—I’m in deep enough as it is. Maybe Rush aren’t the mad scientist/pot-smoking geniuses I took them for when I was 14. Maybe their music in 1977 sounded as conservative to seasoned 36-year-old music nerds then as their current stuff sounds to me now. All I can say is when I compare tepid offerings like Test for Echo and Roll the Bones, to records like King Crimson’s bracing and raucous The Construkction of Light, I find myself wondering why Lee, Lifeson and Peart haven’t made a similar leap into the great beyond.

But there I go, being an ungrateful sod. My aforementioned loyalty was reciprocated on Sunday night. Absolutely. Bearing in mind Rush’s long career arc, I couldn’t have realistically asked for a better bunch of songs. Like I said, they played “Natural Science,” which surprised me because it’s one of their more outlandish, ungainly songs, and one of their last great epics. It’s probably still in the set because it’s just a fun song to play. It also affords Geddy the opportunity to sing the lines “Each microcosmic planet/A complete society,” which may not be rock ’n’ roll, but I like it.

The set also featured several instrumentals, a much-loved variety of song that Rush can never write enough of, as far as I’m concerned. They trotted out “La Villa Strangiato” (featuring an odd Lifeson rap during the “Monsters!” section that had his partners exchanging bemused glances), “Leave That Thing Alone,” and “YYZ,” which is perhaps their most successful instrumental—exciting yet restrained, concise but very satisfying. People lapped it up, getting as “into it” as one can get at a Rush show.

There was no moshing, of course. You’re fairly safe from most concert-related injuries at a prog show. You might get a cuff in the head from an air drummer flicking out a hand to hit an imaginary splash cymbal, but that’s pretty rare. Or, if you were my friend Malty, you could get bounced by GM Place goons for too much headbanging during “Cygnus X-1.” One second, he was up front, hair flailing around in 11/8 time, the next, he had disappeared. Too bad, because if he’d caught “Working Man,” he would have really gone off.

I guess the staff were concerned for the safety of the child. Somebody in the second or third row saw fit to bring their six-year-old daughter to a Rush concert. Watching this kid perched on an adult guardian’s shoulders during “By-Tor and the Snow Dog” (“Square for battle/Let the fray begin!”) was cause for concern, and no doubt a lifetime of therapy awaits the traumatized tot.

Everyone I’ve spoken to about the concert has been quite moved by it. Whether their judgment is coloured by knowledge of recent Rush history, I don’t know. I’d prefer to think they were just awed by a spectacular rock concert. It’s sure nice to go to one of those now and again, and it was great to hear all those songs. Thanks, Sox.

Becoming Les Battersby
One of the highlights of the weekend was when the belter led me down to the basement of my local Salvation Army Thrift Store. I felt like a young monk being shown the Secrets of the Brotherhood. A torch, some cobwebs, bats, and mossy earthen walls would have completed the picture. Instead there was only a sign warning us that any abusive behaviour or language was grounds for immediate ejection from the premises. And instead of ancient scrolls and consecrated skeletal remains there was a massive tray of assorted cutlery, husks of obsolete computers, barrels full of golf clubs…the detritus of western civilization!

There were also records! We had no time to rifle through even a small portion of them, but I still managed to make a score: Quo by Status Quo. From 1974, the year rock attained perfection. I paid 54 cents for it, went home and rocked out.

I was mildly creeped out by the Sally Ann’s basement, and the sheer volume of junk down there. It looked like evidence of forced relocation, like the piles of shoes, clothing and jewellery heaped up in WW II concentration camps. Maybe the SA can twist The Bay’s slogan to its own purposes: Shopping Is Morbid. Works for me.

Went black light bowling with Mel and Adam and the belter last night. We played three games, and had the whole place to ourselves for the last two. The pins were falling strangely, and we think there was something wrong with the lane. There were lots of "goalposts," "the three amigos," and let's not forget "the lonesome dove." I think maybe too many people have been ignoring the "do not loft balls" sign and our lane had somehow become warped from the constant pounding over the years.

I won the first game through sheer luck/karma/divine intervention, and the fact that everyone else was getting warmed up. Later, as the pounding rhythms of "Tragedy" by the Bee Gees simultaneously inspired my companions and sapped my lifeblood, my game went to pieces and the Adam/Mel juggernaut quickly had the scoreboard sparkling with "X"s (which mean strike, you know) and "srares" (a curious typo for "spare" that appeared once and only once. Next time we go, I really hope to get a srare, too).

But it's not all about winning. It's about finding your optimum zone of bowling finesse and relaxation through drinking beer. I love playing sports.

I sure like tea. I drank a lot of it as little Robbie Hughes. I took my tea like any other youngster would—super-saturated with milk and sugar. So sweet and delicious. When I’d finished the tea there would be a slurry of semi-dissolved sugar at the bottom of the cup. That was the best part. I’d tilt the cup back and wait for the sugar to hit my lips. It oozed like wet concrete down a chute. When it reached my mouth, it was pure goodness…a total rush.

Despite all the tea, the Captain Crunch, the Coke floats, and the brownies, I was a pretty calm kid. I did ride my bike around a hell of a lot, though.

I’m reading A Head Full of Blue, an alcoholic’s autobiography, right now. Can’t you tell?

Back to the tea… I’m very well-catered for at work. There’s like 10 varieties to choose from, and they’re all one brand (except for a small crate of industrial-strength Red Rose). It cracks me up that the packaging for the caffeinated teas features a Ted McGinley male-model type, while the herbal/berry/lemony tea boxes show a wan Paltrow lookalike. In the afternoon sometimes I’ll have a cup of “lady tea” just for kicks. Perhaps I'm sensing the hysterical/sympathetic onset of “Bowser’s Curse.” In any case, hardly anyone else drinks the stuff, and I feel sorry for the Gwyneth tea.

Another thing—there’s no teapot at work. And tea made in the cup, especially the Red Rose, tastes like ass. Doesn’t stop me from drinking it, though. Would the coffee drinkers tolerate the same treatment?

I wrote a buttload more about Rush today. I got carried away, and my breezy concert summary has become a meditation on all things Rush-like. It's quite stupid, and you can expect it later this week.

Spent tonight copyediting 37 pages of album reviews for Unrestrained!, so my eyes and mind are burnt. However, I learned about new albums by Isis (check it out, they're on Ipecac now) and Napalm Death (I could sure do with going to a Napalm show in the next few months), and got further reassurance that I should buy the new Agalloch album. The Energizer's expecting some reviews from me tonight, but I haven't written them yet. The stuff he sent me wasn't too inspiring, though it was diverse--a bit of prog metal (urgh, it's Threshold), some Polish crap (Aion, who fail to gain any mystique by naming themselves after a Dead Can Dance album), and some useful hardcore in the form of Samadhi.

I'm going to have a bath and mull things over.

Flamin' Heck
Stoke now have their own weblog, and they're posting like mad. More fine work from Smash and Mr. Acmacblack. Join them on their, um, rock 'n' roll jihad.

Laughed At By Time
Much to my surprise, I found myself at a Rush concert Sunday night. My friend Bob Sox scored a fistful of comps from the radio station he works at, and distributed them amongst the D Room crowd. God bless the Sox!

The turnout was impressive for the pre-show gathering at Dix. Must have been the $2.50 draft. Mr. Black was there, as were the be-touqued Mr. and Mrs. Smash. Sox, Malty, Gregarious and Scum made the scene. Even the Shockker showed up for some caffeination. Gerald the Rattlehead (in a Dream Theater shirt, natch) was holding court in the corner.

We took off for GM Place around 7:00. Gig time was 7:30, and we had the feeling it would s tart on schedule—this is Rush we’re talking about, after all.

Scum and I had seats along the side, five rows up from the floor. Soon after I sat down, JR caught my attention. He and Rob were a couple sections over. I began to think that everyone I’d ever known was here. Perhaps that was my aunt Agnes over by the lighting board, chatting with Mr. Jameson, my grade six P.E. teacher. Maybe I’d bump into me old rhythm section partner Mike Schmidt by the merchandise stand (t-shirts—$35; Rush wallet—$20; Neil Peart’s new book—$30; being at a rock concert where they sell cotton candy—priceless).

The pre-show music was the usual interesting mix. I’ve always wondered if the band programs this themselves. I remember reading something back in the days of the “new wave” about them playing Talking Heads and suchlike in an effort to open the ears of their fans. And at one of the first Rush shows I attended I recall “Battlescar” (that majestic Max Webster/Rush collaboration) roaring out of the P.A., with an attendant cheer from the crowd that was nearly as loud as the start of the concert proper. A truly Canadian moment from the early ’80s. On Sunday we were primed with “Locomotive Breath” and the Chili Peppers’ version of “Higher Ground.”

Then the lights went down and Rush played “Tom Sawyer.”

At intermission I hung out in the concourse with some of our entourage and watched the people. Who goes to Rush concerts nowadays? The same people who went in 1978, basically. Plus their kids. There were also lots of rocker ladies, and more malformed people than I’d seen since my last evening at Studebaker’s. As I’d predicted, a sizable lineup for the men’s toilet formed quite quickly, while the ladies could walk right into theirs. Heh.

Next time: 6,000 Rush songs, air drumming, and who brought the tot?

Looks at Books
I’m reading Rick Moody’s Garden State right now. It was his first novel, and in the foreword of this edition, he’s semi-apologetic about this fact. I can see why the belter had problems with the book; it’s not up to the standard of, say, Purple America. For the first time in my experience, the author seems mortal. He hasn’t found his style yet—where are the italics with which Mr. Moody shares a small joke with the reader?*—and I’m not finding any of the characters very interesting or likable. They’re sulky and they think they’re so cool, but they’re not cool because it’s like 1989 and nothing was very cool in 1989. They’re probably listening to Skid Row when they could be listening to Bleach.

The novel follows a close-knit group of twentysomethings who play in bands, have parties, and listen to speed metal. They have unsatisfying sex and do drugs and drive around aimlessly. While I’m reading I keep seeing an over-earnest Gen-X movie in my head, maybe starring Shue or Leigh or Fonda, and I think I’ve seen that movie too many times before.

I’m not giving up on the book, though, because I’m heading into the last third of it and there are a couple mysteries I want cleared up. All will be revealed soon, I hope.

*His use of italics functions as much more than that—it also asserts his narrative authority, I suppose—but that’s the best way I can describe it at the moment. I don’t got all day.

Twenty Per Cent Off
I ventured down to A&B on the weekend and bought a couple things. I was actually looking for the new Spock’s Beard, but I was denied. Probably just as well because it’s a double album, and those can be a chore to get through even when they’re by a band as light and frothy as the Beard. I probably wouldn’t be able to listen to it straight through before the Christmas holidays.

Instead I got the first Caravan album, which is a true museum piece. Recorded in ’68, it sounds like a semi-botched attempt at getting a state-of-the-art “trippy” atmosphere—drenched in reverb, reedy organ swirling around, and drums struggling to punch through the murk. The songs have the naïve melodicism of The Pink Floyd garnished with occasional psycho-terror vocalizations à la Comus. I’m liking it.

I also picked up Shleep, that Robert Wyatt album I heard at Super Robertson’s party a while back. I listened to it in the background last night while I was copyediting, but a quick leaf through the hefty CD booklet made me pledge to give it proper listen (and read) soon.

Shleep… It’s been a while since I went to sleep with music on, mainly due to the change in my living arrangements. I used to do it nearly every weekend after a night out. Have one last drink of damnation, slap something scary into the blaster and drift off. I don’t dream after I’ve had alcohol, so maybe I was trying to provoke nightmares. I favoured Present, Univers Zero, and anything Italian. Darkthrone, too, very quietly, to provide soothing white noise. I’d only last a song or two; the rest of the album would play out while I slept. Sometimes I’d wake up to silence and the green LED glow of the blaster at 4 a.m. I’d sit up, reach over to turn the power off and quickly pass out again. Other times I’d sleep in properly, wake up, and notice that the blaster was still on…little hangover indication lights at the foot of my bed.

Here’s a top tip for all you budding interior designers: If you’re stuck for a satisfactory living room furniture arrangement, just take all your stuff and push it up against every available wall. This pleasing “perimeter effect” opens up a lot of floor space for exercise, slot-car racing, or eating risotto. If you’re not satisfied with your first attempt, try aiming for symmetry—BILLY bookcases flanking the TV, or twin cabinets on either side of the chesterfield. If you’ve only got one of everything, you’re SOL, I guess. But if you went to the same two-for-one sales as us, a beautiful apartment can be yours as well.

The Youth of Today Have Their Thing
I feel like smacking my temple with the heel of my hand and muttering, “what was that?” It was one of those weekends.

I’ll just talk about the Sonic Youth portion of it right now. Greg, the belter, and I arrived at the Vogue well after the doors had opened on Saturday night. JR saved us some seats, though—really good seats next to the soundboard. Top man. We had about 20 minutes to acclimatize before the opening act, Quixotic, came on.

They were a trio—women on guitar and drums, and a guy on bass. Their grasp of their instruments was pretty rudimentary, something I found off-putting at first, but as the set progressed I realized that their material suited their instrumental capabilities. The songs mixed primitive blues with an old-time spiritual feel. It was clearly a case of some white kids taking inspiration from “negro music,” but I didn’t mind it too much, unlike my three companions. Anyway, I liked that when the drummer (who sang about half the songs) announced a song called “I Am the Light of This World,” the audience shared an ironic chuckle, then fell silent during the song itself (it had a simple dignity), and gave the performance a healthy round of applause afterward. They ended the set with a bass-and-drums version of Black Sabbath's "Lord of This World.” As opening acts go, Quixotic were all right, but I’m very a generous listener, I suppose.

Sonic Youth! They were great! The best I’ve seen them since they turned Crazy Horse’s stage into an equipment-strewn mess back in ’91! SY were in full rock-band mode, playing hit after hit after hit, as well as the whole of “Murray Street,” which didn’t drag down the set at all. In fact, most of the evening’s best moments came from that album. My concept of SY as progressive rockers was fully reinforced by this show. The new stuff has lots of King Crimson parts, lots of Hawkwind drones…even a couple “Xanadu” moments. But never mind my boring old fartiness. I should keep such thoughts to myself. So…There were rock show lights and video projections and tunes like “Candle”, “Kissability,” “Schizophrenia.” The belter swooned at “Skip Tracer” and I swooned at “Shadow of a Doubt.” “100%” false started, but ruled once it got going. Thurston told a story about scamming his and Coco’s way into the IMAX Bears movie at Science World, which was pure comedy. They encored first with a new one and a very old one (“Making the Nature Scene”), then came back for a final tear through “Kool Thing,” complete with audience participation call-and-response and a Kim rap about the troubled career of “Sister Mariah.” Yep.

Oh, and this was my first experience of the new five-piece Sonic Youth. Jim O’Rourke is a valuable asset, taking on six and four-string duties, padding out the sound, and freeing up Kim and Thurston. I think he contributed a lot to the whole “rock” aspect of the show, especially when he and Steve Shelley were the rhythm section. For at least one song on Saturday, Sonic Youth had a bassist who plays with his fingers.

The entry below contains an untruth. I've seen Bruknow play before in a band I wasn't in. This was back when he was the Dis Doctor in A Posse of One. I believe I only saw the Carpenter's Hall gig. It was a good show. Sox was wearing a dress that concealed a pair of exploding tits. At the end of the set, he got naked (his bare ass exiting stage right), and someone dropped a mike, which earned them a Severe Talking To from the sound guy in the alleyway. The Posse were a magnificent disaster every time out. Was that like 10 years ago? Jesus.

Outtakes

Started writing something earlier this week, but got bogged down.

Wednesday: Blueshammer wants to reconvene, and I'm not sure I want to join them when they do. I learned a lot about stamina and feel playing with them, and I liked being The Drummer (the same way I liked being The Goalkeeper in my pee-wee soccer days), but in the end it came down to playing songs I didn’t like in places I didn’t like to people I definitely didn’t like. My creative self-esteem is very low at the moment. Everyone's doing better than I am. I feel like Pete Best, or John Rutsey. I also suspect that I can't write worth a damn (I’ll get a good belting for that remark, I know). I have no time, I have no space, I have no tools. I know these three things will all come together in short order, but it's been hard the last couple weeks.

I don't want to bail on Blueshammer because I know that part of me will regret it, the same way a part of me regrets leaving Stoke. Even though I hated the scrutiny of the recording studio, even though I can't listen to the CD without wincing at my performance, even though I had no musical goals, even though the thought of a career in music makes me ill, even though playing live fills me with dread (before the gig), embarrassment (during) and regret (afterwards), even though I had no time to devote to them, I still regret that I chose to walk away. When I left Stoke, I knew I'd be susceptible to certain esteem-damaging emotions, so I did my best to steer clear of situations that might generate them. I never went to see the band play for the longest time. When I did, I felt okay about it. I'd never seen Alick and Bruknow playing in a group that I wasn't in. It was kind of liberating just to sit back and watch the show. But now, with the longer they go on and the more they do, I'm getting the feeling that I most feared when I decided I'd have to leave: that they're better off without me.

Today: Whoa-oh-oh-oh. Self pity. I feel better now. There’s a chesterfield in the apartment (thanks to excellent friends Smash, JR, Acmac, and The Closer), there’s an ingot of fig neutrons wrapped in Cut-Rite inside my lunch bag, there’s a Sonic Youth show this weekend, there’s fresh air and promise all around. The melody of a song I started writing six months ago came into my head this morning. It’s not quite there yet, but the fact that I can remember it is an encouraging sign.

After I claimed to have the finest friends in the world yesterday, Smash and I had a brief debate over the ownership of such a claim. He said that he had the finest friends in the world, while I would have to settle for a close second. Because I estimate that we share 90% of the same friends, this is indeed a close-run thing. I’ll vouch for my exclusive 10%, and I’m sure he’ll extol the virtues of his. I’m sure a third-party observer would call it a draw.

In other news: Thanks to a certain jetbot, the belter now has a diary she’s proud to show the world. Look out.

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.