Nothing to be too ashamed of here. Pour yourself a cup of tea and join us in the basement.

Thanks to Smash, who shot and edited.

Bob Drake—What Day Is It? (Ad Hoc Records)
Bob Drake is definitely hero material. Why? He’s created a ton of fascinating music with the 5UU’s and Thinking Plague (two long-running American RIO outfits) and by himself on a number of solo albums, the first of which, 1994’s What Day Is It?, was reissued last year. Drake has also produced, engineered, and mastered a bunch of other artists’ work, underlining his status as a kingpin of the worldwide avant-prog scene, such as it is. He lives in France.

In the booklet, Drake notes that the original album was limited to around 300 copies. The grunt work involved, both in hand-making each CD package and in marketing a self-released album, limited the record’s initial lifespan and kept it from reaching as many people as it could have. For this edition, Drake’s reworked the booklet art only—the music is exactly as it was presented in 1994. And it’s fantastically peculiar, kind of a homespun progressive rock full of unpredictable segues and diversions. I find it more accessible and immediately enjoyable than his other bands’ work, though no less complex and rigorously conceived. The songs, which rarely break the four-minute mark, are like detailed little curios, etchings of mysterious scenes evoking dark nostalgia. Experiencing the album is like discovering an abandoned manor and clambering through the overgrown garden, then peering through the windows at the shrouded furnishings inside. You half expect each dust cover to rise up as a ghost and fly at you.

And hey, the opening track, a ramshackle thing called “The House,” talks of such an empty place where the narrator “went down into the cellar/and saw something on a table/it was surrounded by strange tools/I thought it moved./Now I hear wings.” Hearing this in Drake’s keening voice (which a lot of reviewers rightly liken to Jon Anderson) lends a gleeful eeriness to it. The instrumental “Weeds” blows the dust off with its hoedown-paced slew of tricky picking, handclaps, breakdowns and general backcountry joie de vivre. This kind of feel is repeated for parts of “Spiders” (before that track takes a turn for the ethereal), but the rest of the album resides in a hairy-scary cloister where occasional glimmers of cheerfully warped pop leak through (“The Drawing” and “The 13th Animal”) before being shut out by shady lurkers like might-as-well-be-an-Opeth-excerpt “Death Valley” and “The Cemetery Trees,” which ends in the kind of macabre sing-song that Drake fully explored on The Skull Mailbox, an amazing album that’ll give you goosebumps on your goosebumps, as Count Floyd once said. Having only heard The Skull Mailbox before, I was hesitant to taint its precious uniqueness by risking another Bob Drake purchase. What if his other stuff wasn’t up to the same level of inspiration? I shouldn’t have worried; he's had the goods from day one.

Jack Lord Tarmac
 
Here's one for Mr. Willingdon Black, as seen at the Honolulu Airport. 

 
Aloha from Kauai. I've been here since last Friday for a technical communication conference. Fancylady and I have been driving around, baking in the sun, hitting happy hour at the hotel every night (Bud Light all around!), and generally taking it easy after a long, troubled summer.

The nearest I've come to rocking out here has been overhearing one of the local musicians (hired as part of the nightly entertainment) running through "Stairway to Heaven" on the bandstand. I miss my music, but I think taking a breather from it has been good. I'll be rejoining the fray in a few days. 

Fancylady picked up this book while in Edmonton for her TV thing on the Labour Day weekend. It's crazy compulsive reading; the kind of book that grabs you right away. For me "right away" meant page 4, where 13-year-old Liza Normal, our protagonist, says to her mother, "I ate a plate of dicks again, Mom," after failing an audition for a TV commercial. I want to call the book a picaresque, but I'm not sure it exactly fits that definition. The novel plots Liza's floundering course as she tries to become a star despite having no idea how to apply what little talent she has. Cintra Wilson is scary cool and scary smart, and clearly knows the seamy underbelly of showbiz and the souless people who dwell there. I got the sense that many names had been changed to protect the guilty.

When I finished it on the bus today, the last name in the acknowledgements brought me up short: "the late, great Kevin Gilbert." The Kevin Gilbert, the songwriting genius behind The Shaming of the True (which I had listed as one of the great post-1990 progressive rock albums)? I thought about it, and the connection made sense. Both Wilson and Gilbert's work paints broad strokes of cynicism and disgust mixed with humour and a good deal of joy...joy tempered with "what can I do; it's all I know" resignation about the milieu of money, fame, and massive, misguided talent that they've written about.

This is quite beautiful: Cintra Wilson remembers Kevin Gilbert.

Myspacerock
I'm having a heavy evening jumping back and forth between the BraveBoard and Myspace. Tim from Evil Legend Records has his mitts on Toronto's Blood Ceremony, who are looning around in a Pentagram/Witchcraft/Burning Saviours proto-doom haze. It took about 20 seconds of "Children of the Future" for me to almost soil myself. Brilliant, and I can't wait until Tim puts their album out.

The Energizer called me up earlier and weighed in with Danava, from Portland and signed to Kemado Records. The album comes out on Halloween, the perfect time to hurl yourself into a bonfire of fuzzed-out riffage, electronic effects, and (hail!) vocals that actually add melody and expression to the songs. These guys are touring with Witchcraft in October and playing Seattle on a Monday night, which kinda scuppers any quick trip down south to catch them without missing work. Hearing this band almost makes up for losing Portland doom heroes YOB last year.

Dysrhythmia—Barriers and Passages (Relapse)
I thought Pretest, this number-crunching instrumental trio's debut for Relapse, was a bit drab, but this follow-up triumphs over it in all aspects. I don't know whether the catalyst was their new bassist, Colin Marston (also of Behold...the Arctopus) or the switch to producer Martin Bisi (who captures the action in near-pornographic detail), but they've really ramped it up here. Like Don Caballero, they're working with guitar/bass/drums in the Mule-approved tech-punk-avant-prog manner. Their playing is more ensemble-based, though, with the emphasis on punishingly tight unison passages. No instrument is emphasized over the others—the guitar spazzes out, the bass grinds away, and the drums snap-crackle-pop. Opening track "Pulsar" is a moody overture to introduce "Appeared at First," where we get a true picture of the 36-minute assault on restraint and musical politeness that awaits. The rest of the album rains down in a storm of jagged grooves and micro-sections, pieced together carefully enough to avoid the unmusical rut-digging to which lesser bands with equally advanced chops might succumb. For every "Seal/Breaker/Void"—the album's centerpiece that fuses punk/noise/postrock/black metal (!)—there's a "Kamma Niyama," which could almost be a TV theme tune, given its wickedly abrasive take on the type of hooky melodicism that Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet peddled. The dissonant guitar drones of "Sleep Decayer" are what Bisi's old clients Sonic Youth might sound like with a less sleepy rhythm section, while "Luminous" offers a calming ambient antidote—just guitars tolling random notes amidst echo and gentle feedback. "Will the Spirit Prevail" races to the album's finish with more breakneck action. Dysrhythmia are smashing old barriers, blasting new passages, and making towering art out of the splinters and the rubble.

I'll bring you the show, little girl...

Posting YouTube vids is the last refuge of a scoundrel, but man, check out the Scorps! Whose idea was it to put Klaus on a lower riser than the rest of the band?
This one goes out to South Burnaby.

Don Caballero – World Class Listening Problem (Relapse)

Pittsburgh instrumental trio Don Caballero have been around since the early '90s, when the term "math rock" came to describe the kind of blues-free, proggy, King Crimsonic, heavy-non-metal sounds that a handful of bands (usually with a single degree of separation from Steve Albini) pursued. It was basically music made by white guys with lots of time on their hands for an audience of likeminded nerds. I latched onto this style but only ever found a handful of bands and LPs to pick up at the time. The style never died out, though, and with bands like Botch (RIP), The Wayward, and Dysrythmia steering the style towards hardcore, all-out prog, metal and/or jazz fusion, the time is right for Don Caballero to jump back into the fray with a new lineup and new album—their fifth full-length and first for Relapse.

I’d describe Don Cab’s current sound as “tense.” The instruments come together, diverge, and come together again, building often complex songs out of unison and dischord. As always, founding member Damon Che’s drums are the lead instrument. His style is massive and commanding—rolling and roiling over, under and all around whatever the rest of the band is playing. The guitars on the opening track, “mmmmm acting, I love me some good acting,” alternately squall and thud along with the rhythm section. The song also makes space for a percussion breakdown, then tightly wound sections in 5 and 3, before laying out for a loosely structured ending with layers of looped guitars. “Sure we had knives around” uses more guitar looping without become repetitive, rapidly moving from section to section during its five minutes. “And and and, he lowered the twin down” rocks hard & skronky for its entire length, as does the title track. At times the band takes a more melodic, conventionally structured turn, as on the sunny, rollicking “Palm trees in the fecking Bahamas” and “Railroad cancellation,” an easygoing tune that benefits from not being in a hurry to go anywhere. While the overall feel of the music is tense, there are a few relaxing stretches along the way. With a guitarist who manages to sound like two, a drummer who plays like three, and a bassist who wisely stays out of the way and finds his own space to work in, Don Caballero are sounding really good at the moment, and World Class Listening Problem is a powerful comeback album.

I went into battle with my old musical nemesis, Power Metal, last night at the Croatian Cultural Centre. Not just any variety of Power Metal, but DragonForce, the mightiest, speediest, floofiest, most flighty, nonsensical power metal band in creation. DragonForce have become a big deal in the last few months, and the show was sold out. Amazing what a few YouTube videos and strategically placed MP3s can do for a band's notoriety.

I was expecting the two opening bands to provide the evening's musical highlights, and they did. Horse the Band are a strange outfit, given to rhythmic fits and starts and odd keyboard sounds. They were breaking in a new drummer, who took a lot of teasing on his fourth show as a Horseman. Although I heard a couple "You fucking suck"s from the crowd, the band were well received, with comments from the lead singer like "This song's about stabbing your best friend with scissors in the eyeball" getting some laughs.

All That Remains augment their American deathcore with a lot of twin-guitar flash. My heart sank during the first song when the singer did the standard gruff verse/melodic chorus trick (repeated on many of their subsequent songs), but he did it without sapping any intensity, and the rest of the band ensured that the bottom didn't completely drop out of the songs when the transition occurred. Their set was gritty and impressive, and even had room for a solo spot for guitarist Oli Herbert.

The crowd was pumped for the headliners, with "DragonForce! DragonForce!" chants erupting every few minutes, as the temperature inside the venue rose to sweaty new highs. The lights went down and Slayer's "Reign In Blood" began playing at full PA volume as an onstage timer began counting down the four minutes to the gig's proper start. Unfortunately, that was the last good song I'd hear all night. It quickly became apparent that their high-speed barrage was on the sloppy side. Their drummer in particular had a hard time sustaining a blast beat for any length of time. By the fourth song, after a dozen whammy bar pulls, liberal exchanges of shredding, and heroically melodic choruses, their bag of tricks was just about empty. I even counted a couple truck driver's gear changes in there (a device I can't really fault any band for using, seeing as my favourite modern-day power metal album, Falconer's Grime vs. Grandeur is littered with them).

No denying that DF do their best to make sure everyone has a good time, and expend superhuman amounts of energy doing what they do. I had sweat running down my back just watching them in that giant sauna. I only wish the songs were as impressive as the band's energy and the audience's adulation. When the band left the stage to take a breather before the inevitable encore with inevitably another soundalike song, I took off to get some fresh air myself.

Chaosbeard joins the Difficult Music list o' links. Paul applies a musicianly POV to his metal discussion—check out his recent post on Opeth and "The Part" we all love so damn much from the song "Deliverance." Killer stuff.

Paul also plays in Toronto's Burn to Black, whose music was featured in Metal: A Headbanger's Journey (Sam Dunn, BtB's bassist, co-directed the film), and who are signed to Adrian Bromley's Urgent Music imprint. Their new album is out later this month. They mix thrash and death with a good dose of technicality—enough to keep things interesting, but not to the extent that song structure cannot be discerned and heads cannot bang.

I used to pick up four or five metal magazines every month, but now I'm down to two. Much as I don't like the idea that the Web is killing hard copy mags, it's made an impact in my case. Ever since I joined the Brave Board (an invaluable forum for gauging which new releases are bunk and which are worthy), my magazine intake has dropped. I quit buying Brave Words and Bloody Knuckles (after 10 years it had become repetitive, and there's a frustrating lack of editorial presence and any perspective apart from the immediate present) and Metal Maniacs (a mag I'll always respect for its convenience-store accessibility and grassroots charm, but it remains an eyesore), while still picking up Terrorizer and the new kid on the chopping block, Decibel.

Decibel's pretty hot right now, with a good bunch of writers (especially Nick Terry, Adrian Begrand, and U!'s own Kevi-Metal) and a snarky attitude that consistently cracks me up. Their "Hall of Fame" features are indispensible and they're not afraid to zoom in on some of the more unsavoury aspects of metal culture, such as fascism and homophobia, that other zines steer clear of. If I can fault the mag, it's for the reviews section, which is tainted by get-to-the-point smartassery along the lines of "this band has a funny name, so let me spend half the review constructing a half-baked joke around it."

Terrorizer isn't quite the trailblazing, tastemaking publication it was under Nick Terry's guidance, but it's hanging in there. It still looks great, and the scope of music they cover is just right for me. The "Extreme Music–No Boundaries" tagline is still in effect. Featuring Diamanda Galas or Michael Gira in the same context as any given evil Euro-metal act only makes sense. I notice they've started a Classic Albums feature in the same vein as Decibel's Hall of Fame. I don't mind, though; I can digest unlimited amounts of that sort of fodder.

Joe Stannard interviews Strapping Young Lad in the issue of Terrorizer I bought today. Devin Townsend went through a bad patch while doing press for the new album (The New Black), hinting that he was fed up with the band and the lifestyle, and that this might be the final SYL release. His misgivings have sure made for great copy:

"Everybody's got such a hard-on for touring, too. All these bands are like, 'You know what I'd really like to do, man? I'd really like to get into a 40-foot steel tube, with fifteen men, drink beer and watch The Simpsons! For ten months! That would be great. Then for the one hour a day we'll go up there and sweat and pretend that it matters to our life personally that we can pretend that we're rock stars.'"

Or how about:
"If I could pay my rent by making music for me, my friends and a couple of people that I know here and there, man, I would do it."

That strikes a chord.

Stannard also reviews the new Circulus album Clocks Are Like People, which reminded me how great their previous album was. Sure they're twee, but that's their reason to exist. Who else, beside Ritchie Blackmore, would even dare? Acid-folk wasn't the hit with the kids that it should have been in 1972 (Marc Bolan had to plug in and go glam to make a buck, remember), so it's up to Circulus to take it over the top in 2006. I'm pulling for them.

I like to write about music that random visitors to the site might actually buy and hear for themselves, but I have to make an exception for this. Something really nice happened to me last week and writing something about it should help explain the idiot grin I’ve been sporting recently.

For the last two years a couple of my friends (Greg Pohl and Smash) have been secretly working on an album of cover songs... covers of my songs, as it turns out. Don’t ask me why; maybe they thought the music had some potential in the hands of competent musicians—I think my songs, with their basic musicianship, are sort of blank canvases. Greg and Smash solicited contributions from other friends in bands, assembled some odds & ends from old tapes, and ended up with 17 tracks worth of stuff. Smash even managed to trick me into giving him a new tune. I really had no idea until Smash sat me down at his place last Tuesday before the Tool/Isis show, poured us each a measure of The Balvenie (a recent gift from Willingdon Black), and fired up this disc.

For those who don’t know me, a bit of musical history. I’ve been playing drums since I was 12, though you wouldn’t know this if you saw or heard me. Good drummers are athletes, and I haven’t got a jock bone in my body. After playing in neighbourhood bands, always with my friend Willingdon Black, I realized that being a gigging musician was not for me, and I dropped out for the first time around age 22. I was into music more than ever, though, and needed an outlet more true to my introverted self. Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth and Peter Hammill provided the songwriting lessons, pawnshops provided the guitars, my oft-vacationing parents supplied the recording space, and I got to work with my new Tascam 424. I was into the idea of creating artifacts—tapes with my own songs and packaging. Trade ‘em with your friends! I got the recording bug, and started living for those few minutes when I’d finish tracking a song, give it a quick mixdown, then blast the result through the living room. Sometimes I’d laugh my head off—I liked those songs the best. It’s like what Stuart Ross said about his writing: “…I’ll look at what I’ve written and say, ‘That’s some weird shit I write.’ And that’s what writing poetry is all about.” That’s what my songs are all about. They’re just me being weird, and having something to show for the insane amounts of leisure time with which I've been blessed during my lifetime.

Fortunately my friends are just as weird. Look at this track listing! The Shockker (ex-Roadbed, currently of punk kings Mongoose) gives “Fort” a good thrashing, coerces Mongoose frontman RC to help turn my song fragment “Alison Reynolds” into a breezy little pop tune, then crashes a 21 Tandem Repeats rehearsal, reforms Roadbed with Two-Sticks and Super Robertson, and blows through an insanely great version of “Grandad’s Volare,” which always needed a full-band treatment. There’s no better combo than Roadbed to do it. Greg Pohl takes control for a Red House Painterly treatment of “TDK SA90” and a sped-up Cure-like take on “Dead Meat Cindy,” a song I’d completely forgotten about. Willingdon Black as Snake Island Salvage faithfully recreates “No One New” with additional ultra-tasty guitar/bass/drums arrangements. Nice! As always, his guitar orchestrations are magnificent. Maia Azur really rocked me back on my heels with her smokin’ recasting of “Toyah” as a smouldering PJ Harvey-esque piano ballad. Finally, Tarkake, my Sunday afternoon band, working in secret with Smash and Sox’s girlfriend alongside, further mangle the already malformed party-pooper that is “Waiting for my Skeleton to Grow” with new lyrics to boot. Upsetting in the best possible sense.

These tunes are just the headliners. Interspersed are a seldom-heard bunch of vault-raiding live, rehearsal, and one-off lo-fi jam selections from the same cast in different configurations: The Beggars, Stoke, Logan Sox, In Spite, illuminaut v.x, Electric Religion, and Proctor, Mueller & Byrne. Smash also collected the extensive liner notes with contributions from WB, SR, Smash, Greg, and the mic-shy little belter fancylady. My friends are the best. Thanks to everyone for listening to my crap and for kicking my ass with your talent. Now I stagger off to find an ice pack for my swollen ego.

Just mulling over the relationship between music and comedy tonight as I try to write something spiritually wise about Brian Posehn's Live In: Nerd Rage album (which I like very much) for the mag.

As Dave Chappelle points out in Block Party, every comedian wants to be a musician, and every musician thinks he's funny.

Both professions demand that you be both ballsy and screwed-up if you're to survive and prosper. Both professions invite rejection and disdain from an undiscerning public on the way up the ladder of fame, and once success is achieved, losing your vital “edge” is inevitable as you start to depend on that undiscerning public to put bread on your table. In that sense, Metallica are the Robin Williams of heavy metal.

Full day of rock! That was last Thursday. I booked a half day off work so that Smash and I could meet up at 1:00 for Sounds of the Underground at the PNE Forum. Now, the Forum is a grim old barn with bloody awful sound, and this year's SOTU lineup was nowhere near as appealing as last year's excellent bill (incl. Opeth, Strapping Young Lad, High on Fire, and Clutch), but SOTU is a really well-run event that avoids tedium by keeping to a tight schedule with lots of bands playing short sets. As well, the day was abbreviated via the cancellation of Trivium and possibly The Chariot (who might have played in the first half hour that we missed).

Through the Eyes of the Dead were at it when we arrived. The sound was like a wind tunnel, but their drummer impressed by being audible and having some killer kick drum chops. Evergreen Terrace's music sounded very poppy in comparison. They were fronted by a funny kid who was all limbs and blond hair. I don't think they went over too well. We skipped out to get some lunch. Behemoth were on next, and they've got a killer act—black metal with spikes and corpsepaint and choreographed hair twirling. Even the drummer was windmilling away. The sound had improved by this time, so their musical might was in full force. The Black Dahlia Murder impressed as well, although their grindy material didn't translate very well in the big room. In a small club these guys would slay. No such problem with Terror, though. I've said before that I don't normally like this kind of bully rock hardcore, but Terror are so damn good at it that I can't help but embrace what they do. Given the festival circumstances, the usual Terror speeches about scene unity took a back seat to commands for the crowd to "get on top of each other" and similar gym class shenanigans. Still, they ruled! 3 Inches of Blood went down really well, but I've never cottoned on to them. Cannibal Corpse will forever be tainted by the time we endured them (and some racist asshole fans) at the Starfish Room many years ago. From a distance at the Forum, bludgeoning through a brief set, they were still just okay. With our plan to skip out on headliners As I Lay Dying in place, In Flames closed off the event for us. Unrestrained! magazine did a rather daft cover story a few issues back with the headline "Why does everyone hate In Flames?" It probably should have said "Why do jaded, elitist metal writers hate In Flames?" because everyone doesn't hate In Flames. A Forum full of people bloody loved them, especially those big hits with the big choruses and sequenced keyboard parts that the drummer has to play behind using a click track. Whatever. In Flames have the material and staging to headline big gigs like this. I don't think I've seen a better light show since Genesis on the "Mama" tour in '83, back when Vari-lites were the big new thing.

Smash and I split to go home for a couple hours, then we met up again to go to the Commodore for The Eagles of Death Metal and Peaches. I didn't know that they were alternating headline slots during the tour, so I was surprised that TEoDM were going strong when we entered the club. It was a love-fest between band and crowd. The whole gig was an unknown quantity for me, not being too familiar with either act. The Eagles of Death Metal played pop-punk with poise and panache, sort of like the Ramones crossed with Roxy Music. They dropped a couple covers into their set—"Brown Sugar" and "Beat on the Brat"—then for their grand finale, invited ladies up on stage with them until there was barely any room for the band to move. Crazy. Peaches had her work cut out to top that. She opened her set over by one of the side bars, her face shrouded by a glitzy silver cape with cowl. After the opening number she cut through the crowd to the stage for the rest of the show. There's something gormless and endearing about Peaches, even when she's stripped down to her skivvies and telling us to "fuck the pain away." Maybe it's the way she balances awkwardly atop the drum kit or attempts to strike a pose on top of the PA stack, or the fact that her band (which included JD Samson of Le Tigre) made heavy use of the keytar. Anyway, I should just leave it at that. Fancylady wanted to go but I couldn't score an extra ticket, and she responds with a dreadful silence whenever I try to mention anything about this show. God forbid she should read this.

I'm working on my Voivod story for Unrestrained! at the moment, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to post something I've had to cut from the piece.

I got to see Voivod five times between 1990 and their final tour in 2003, and each gig holds some special memories. I think my favourite Voivod moment, though, was at their last show in Vancouver, opening for Ozzy Osbourne and (cough) Finger Eleven. It was the first show I'd seen with their new bassist Jason Newsted and the returning Snake on vocals. Even though they were playing early to a partially filled arena, they came out and killed, playing "Voivod" as their first number (the best bands have a s/t theme song—Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Motörhead...um...). Anyway, their playing that power-drill thrasher was the one of the most defiant, joyous things I've ever witnessed at a concert.

When I got the chance to talk to Newsted last March at the Katorz listening party, I had to ask him about that moment, and why they opened their set with that particular song. It turned out there were some very good practical reasons behind playing it.

"That’s how it was supposed to be," he said. "That’s how they did it for so long. It's just bringing it out—we’re here! That was one of the things as a band that always charmed me about them. No matter how many times you’d see them they’d either open with it or close with it. You were going to get crushed one way or the other. And especially in a situation on an Ozzfest or a thing where you’re playing with three bands like on that particular tour, you’ve got to put a song out there as the first four minutes for your mixing guy to make sure all the mikes are working and everything’s happening. We all sing on that song and all the instruments are full on and it’s got a change, the swells and everything, that gives the mixing guy a chance to go find the lower volumes, and then it crushes full on, as full volume as we’re going to go all night, so he gets to dial that in before the set starts. It’s such a racous type of song that it doesn’t really matter how shitty the sound system is, it’s still a fucking cool song because of how basic it is. So that’s really what it is. It can be in your face and raw as possible, and that’s even a better thing. Whereas if you come out with 'Astronomy Domine' [Voivod's minor-hit Pink Floyd cover] or one of your very delicate, very finessed-type songs it’ll take the mixing guy till the fourth song to get your shit together. So, that’s kind of a tactical manouver at the same time as it is this slap in the face."

I wanted to say farewell to this old chum—my faithful JVC CD player. The first album it played was U2's The Joshua Tree, and the last disc its laser caressed was Duke Ellington's Piano in the Foreground. The LED display burned out several years ago, but I only gave up on it after the tray stopped sliding out last week. This anomaly negatively affected the user experience.

So meet the new boss—our Panasonic DVD/CD player, so generously donated by Mel and Adam down the hall a couple Christmases ago. After a trip to The Source at Kingsgate Mall for extra cables (no, I don't think I will buy the extended three-year warranty) I was back enjoying the tinny, overcompressed sounds of the world's latest obsolete media format.

Six Organs of Admittance, July 30, The Media Club
Openers The Christa Min didn’t smile, acknowledge the audience or appear to enjoy their own music. I don’t have any patience for that whole “I’d rather be napping” schtick. Musically speaking, the sextet’s songs are okay, if a little predictable once you grasp the formula most of them follow. Their last song did have some drama and power. I remember it from the last time I saw them at Mesa Luna, and I have the main riff stuck in my head right now.

I’m new to Six Organs of Admittance—thanks to that relentless kid at Outer Space Gamelan and Unrestrained! Adam for alerting me. I’ve been enjoying their new album The Sun Awakens (Drag City) for a few weeks now. Singer/guitarist Ben Chasny, who has connections to Comets on Fire and Current 93, makes music that’s difficult to categorize. I’ll go with psychedelic folk and leave it at that. While their music is bleak and ethereal on record, it takes on a more explosive quality on stage. Chasny wields a potent Telecaster in front of drummer Noel Von Harmonson and third member Steve Quenell playing a mysterious tone generator (which on closer inspection comprised a vintage radio unit, some effects pedals and a small mixing board). They opened with a shorter yet more abstract version of “River of Transfiguration,” the side-long piece from The Sun Awakens. Chasny set off bursts of noise like Neil Young in his Arc days and the drummer sprayed snare shots and pounded a gong. We were getting into Wolf Eyes and SUNN O))) territory for a while, what with the drones and the random elements, until things settled down for the rest of the 45-minute set. I recognized “Bless Your Blood,” “Black Wall,” and a jam based around “Torn By Wolves” and ”Wolves’ Pup,” the two instrumental tracks that bookend side one of the album. The arrangements of the songs I knew were sufficiently different from the album that I imagine a Six Organs… live recording would be well worth hearing. The main thing is, the trio were right into it through the whole show, with Chasny lurching around the stage, conducting the band by swinging his guitar neck around, and the other two responding in kind. That's all I ask for—musicianship and passion.

British MPs reveal favourite albums in today's Guardian Unlimited...in which they're outed as a pretty righteous crop of politicos. Despite attempts like that sorry list of top conservative rock songs, true rock does not observe party lines. I couldn't help noticing, though, that the sickos who namechecked Tarkus and Atom Heart Mother were on the Labour side of the fence. Comrades in prog, unite.

I doubt a survey of Canadian MPs would produce such an interesting list, although I'm sure the Bloc MPs would do themselves proud.

I continue to labour for the Voivod cause. Tonight I watched a chunk of Rock Pig: Karaoke, withstanding Nirvana cover versions (would everyone leave poor headless Kurt alone?) and the sight of Dave Navarro's ambisexual cyborg face to check up on our lad Jason. There he was, loud 'n' proud in a Voivod shirt (not as shown left) just as he promised in Montreal back in March. So what if he was playing "White Rabbit" instead of "Black City"? He was logging some serious screen time in that thing.