Jimbuck2

2008-03-30T13:26:00.000-04:00

Thought about posting a blog entry today.

Naaahh.

Peeling The Layers

2007-06-27T20:25:00.000-04:00

A couple of interesting little interviews courtesy of The Onion's A.V. Club. One with Paul McCartney and the other with Nick Lowe.

I really liked this passage from the Nick Lowe piece:

AVC: If you had a choice between cutting a really great album or a really great single, which would you choose?

NL: Oh, a really great single, I think. [Pause.] Although, wait a minute. No, I answered that rather quickly. Well, you see, the sort of albums I like are the ones where no one song particularly stands alone. I like the sort of albums where you start at the beginning, and you listen to the whole thing, and there aren't any fillers. All the tracks actually bolster each other up, like the one that comes after the one before will make the one before sound better. So it does actually sound like one giant single.

All I can say is that back in the day, when I was producing a lot of records, I seemed to get gold records and awards and things all the time. They used to come by post, and I didn't know what they were. It almost didn't matter, it seemed completely irrelevant, so I sent them all over to my mother. And they were extremely ugly, these things. I mean, I know they represented something, but they were extremely ugly-looking, and I didn't really want to put them on the wall or anything like that. And then, unfortunately, when both my parents died in these last few years, I inherited all these hideous gold records and things. But amongst them was a gold 45 that I'd gotten in the UK for producing an Elvis Costello single called "Oliver's Army." And it's such a cool item to have, this gold 45 RPM single. I couldn't believe that I'd had it amongst that collection and I'd never realized it. I don't think they make them any more. Well, of course they don't make them any more.

AVC: Most bios of you now mention that you became a millionaire when a cover of "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding" appeared on The Bodyguard's soundtrack. But is that money still holding out? Or are you just about through it?

NL: Oh no, it went a long time ago. [Laughs.] It's amazing how not-very-far a little less than a million dollars will go. That's what I think I got. God knows what some people got for that record. Especially the guy who wrote the B-side of "I Will Always Love You" and got his album cut as well. So very nice indeed. But no, I managed to make two albums on that money really, and toured with them both, you know, with a band. Staying at reasonably good hotels, where we wouldn't get our stuff stolen. I could pay my guys right. So I financed all that, bought a couple of suits, took a couple of people to dinner, and that really took care of it.

But the thing is, my career had stalled a bit up 'til then, and I'd just found this new way of recording myself and writing songs for myself when this check came through the door, and hey, presto! I was able to realize it. If it hadn't gotten that money, I don't think I would have been able to. And once you're seen to be back in the game again—which I desperately needed to be—other things come to you. Even though the Bodyguard money per se is gone, that led to other things, and other people have cut my songs, and you know, my fortunes started changing for the better.

But the Macca interviewer sure doesn't know his shit. In discussing Dylan's influence, he asks: "When he went electric, were you and John and the guys booing?" I mean, really. Did he actually think The Beatles would have been booing Dylan's electric set at The Royal Albert Hall? Read a little, will ya?

Interesting, though, that McCartney still gets excited when he hears one of his new songs on the radio.

As The Jesus Of Cool says, And so it goes...

Being Kurt

2007-05-02T20:58:00.000-04:00

From the Onion:

15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better Than Anyone Else Ever Has Or Will

Number 3

2007-04-15T17:08:00.000-04:00

Well, I guess this answers that question.

etc.

2007-04-14T14:20:00.000-04:00

R.I.P. June Callwood.

They say we lose prominent people in sets of three. I wonder who's next?

So it goes.

2007-04-12T23:30:00.000-04:00

"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’"
--excerpt from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

"When the city of London wanted to give [George Bernard] Shaw its Order of Merit, he thanked them for it, but said he had already given it to himself.
I would have accepted it. I would have recognized the opportunity for a world-class joke, but would never allow myself to be funny at the cost of making somebody else feel like something the cat drug in.
Let that be my epitaph.
--Timequake p.141

"We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!"
--Timequake p.219

Happy Blogiversary!

2007-04-09T21:30:00.000-04:00

It was on Easter weekend, five years ago, that I started this little ol blog. Not for the fame. Not for the glory. Not for the hits. Just for the sheer...blogginess of it.

I've neglected it far too often, but here it waits, silently, to accept my whims and thoughts when the mood strikes me.

Bless you, little blog, and happy fifth birthday!

Right ONN

2007-03-27T19:57:00.000-04:00

The world just got better.
Now we have The Onion News Network.

And there's a podcast!

Jimbuck2's Joke Corner

2007-03-22T19:32:00.000-04:00

Bono is at a U2 concert in Ireland when he asks the audience for some quiet.

Then in the silence, he starts to slowly clap his hands. Holding the audience in total silence, he says into the microphone, "Every time I clap my hands, a child in Africa dies."

A drunken voice from near the front of the audience pierces the silence...

"Fookin' stop doing it then!"

What's The New Jimbuck2?

2007-03-18T15:12:00.000-04:00

Dig the new blog redesign! Spiffy, eh?

Gotta figure out how to add the other banner elements from the old template, but that shouldn't be too hard.

Whoa, barely a peep out of me in 2007, then three blog posts in the past week! I'm on fire!

La Fheile Padraig

2007-03-17T13:17:00.000-04:00

Happy La Fheile Padraig*

That's St. Patrick's Day in Gaelic. If you want to know how to pronounce it, go here.

Slainte!

*accents deleted because they were screwing up the text formatting

Close Encounters...

2007-03-13T23:04:00.000-04:00

I don't know if it's a full moon tonight, but it sure was a bizarre trip home from work. First, I get on the subway, only a few other people seated sparsely about. This little lady, Filipina, I think, gets on with a bunch of bags of groceries and a big shoulder bag, and even though there's a whole row of seats open across from me, she makes me move my bag from the seat next to me and takes up the whole 2 seats with her bags and herself, sitting at a bit of an angle, and squishing me in the corner against the door buttress thing. Her bag is partly on my leg. I move a bit and try to make some more room for myself. She's still encroaching on me a bit, but it's not a complete invasion of space so I let it ride. She's like a 4.5-footer. Little middle-aged lady. But she could have easily given me more room. A woman sits across from us, and she's looking at the lady with a quizzical expression, as if to say, "what's up with this lady?"

Then, later, my "close" friend gets out a book to read, and in so doing, places her elbow right across my right arm. I reach up with my left hand, move her elbow off me, saying "excuse me"... If I hadn't been so worn-out from work, I think I may have told her to get the fuck off me and shoved her away from me if she hadn't.

I figured maybe she wanted some sort of reaction from me, for whatever reason. It was almost like she was purposefully trying to provoke me. As my station was coming up at Woodbine, I figured I would get up, and then lean back in to her and say, as overly genuinely as possible, "have a nice day, ma'am." And smile. And then if she responded abusively, I'd dump her groceries on the floor.

But I didn't get a chance. When the train pulled into Woodbine, they announced that the train was out of service because of a power outage at Broadview which was effecting the line from there to west of Yonge. So in the general hubbub of everyone moving to "de-train", the moment just wasn't there.

On the subsequent bus ride down Woodbine I heard other passengers saying that the power outage was caused by a suicide jumper at one of the stations. Don't know if that's the case, and, of course, they don't normally report those in the media, but as I walked home a police car went zooming up Kingston Rd, siren and all, almost hitting an idiot driver at the corner of Dundas who didn't give the cop car the right of way. Then as I crossed at the intersection, another idiot driver almost ran me over. I let him know what I thought of his driving. Then another cop car went screaming up Kingston Rd. So something's going on, but I don't know if it's related to the subway situation. Maybe that lady pissed off the wrong guy after she didn't get what she wanted from me.

Ah, life in the big city...

Nuff Said

2007-01-16T20:04:00.000-05:00

blogorrhea

Happy Holidays!

2006-12-20T00:08:00.000-05:00

If a blogger doesn't blog
Can he still a blogger be?

Yes, I've been very delinquent in my blogging. Just too damn busy and/or distracted with other things.

Just wanted to wish you all (...um, if there actually is anyone still reading...) a happy and healthy holiday season, and the very best of everything in the new year.

Cheers!

Modern Times. Modern Tools

2006-11-05T22:47:00.000-05:00

I need to revise my opinion of Dylan's "Modern Times" CD. I've been listening to it for the past week or so, and while I still feel some of it is trodding a lot of the same musical turf as his last couple of CDs, revisiting a lot of the same song structures, the new CD has grown on me considerably once I had time to live with it a bit.

The gems that jump out for me are When The Deal Goes Down, Spirit On The Water, Beyond The Horizon and the exquisite Workingman's Blues 2 (begging the question, where's Part 1?). Old Bob has still got it in him to make some compelling music. And I'm not even talking about the lyrics. Stir in the words and these songs arrive like fully formed characters from a movie. Swaggering, bittersweet, nostalgic, funny...full of complexities and nuance.

I've also been able to listen to several episodes of Bob's Theme Time Radio Hour, the show he does on XM Satellite Radio. Great stuff! Lots of old-timey music, blues, country, R&B, jazz mixed in with more contemporary artists, each show built around a theme: Time, Water, Drinking, The Devil, Cars, etc. Bob's delivery is priceless. Kinda sounds to me like he's channeling a bit of Walter Cronkite. Usually he'll preface a song with a bit of background on the artist, or a little anecdote. This is what radio should be.

The reason I've been able to hear his show isn't because I've subscribed to XM Satellite Radio, it's because I've finally got enough room on my computer's hard drive to start downloading large torrent files. And the reason I have more space on my computer is because I went out and got a new computer. My old G3 iMac was starting to really show its age (at the digitally decrepit age of five years), so I got myself a new iMac Intel Core 2 Duo, 20 inch monitor, 2.16Ghz processor, 260GB hard drive (compared to 40GB for my old iMac), 2GB memory.

She's a wonderful machine. It's been hard to pull myself away from her. Got the built-in iSight camera, Photo Booth, Front Row with the remote, and, of course, apps like iDVD, iMovie and, most exciting for me, Garageband. I can't wait to get in there and start fooling around with recording. I really want to try my hand at making podcasts. I've always wanted to put together a radio show, and it looks pretty easy in Garageband. I could make my own Theme Time Radio show.

The built-in camera is fun, as is Photo Booth. Hard to imagine how I got by before I was able to make photos like these:

I wasn't sure if I needed a 20-inch screen. Thought maybe the 17-in would suffice. But, probably a few years down the road, it'll be pretty standard, if it isn't already. It's the same size as my TV. I have to say it's nice to sit back on the couch with the remote and watch movies and movies on the 'puter, cycle through music, etc.

As I said, I've been downloading lots of torrents. Got my hands on some films that are hard to come by. The Beatles "Let It Be", which I've only seen once, in a theatre in Moncton many moons ago, and Dylan's "Eat The Document", capturing the insanity of his 1966 tour of England. In the case of the latter, I can see why it was never released commercially. What a piece of crap. The editing is so annoying. Like something an inept film student might attempt. Apparently it was Dylan and his associate Howard Alk who edited it after D.A. Pennebaker, who shot the footage, submitted his version. Bob should have left well enough alone. Yes, it captures the madness of the tour, but the result is as unwatchable as that life was unliveable. The footage of the performances is good to see, and there are nice scenes of Dylan and Robbie Robertson working on new songs in the hotel room on two acoustic guitars, but the rest of it is ill-considered at best. Pennebaker's version is rumoured to be on the way, titled Something Is Happening. Let's hope so.

Also snagged The Stones' "Gimme Shelter" and "A Day In The Park", the latter documenting their July 1969 free concert in London's Hyde Park, where they introduced new guitarist Mick Taylor just a couple of days after Brian Jones' death. This free concert went over much better than the one documented in "Gimme Shelter", of course, that being the infamous one at the Altamont speedway. Interestingly, the Hell's Angels were hired to provide security at both events. Maybe the British Angels were more polite? Or maybe paying them in beer at Altamont was a mistake?

Lots of other stuff coming down the digital pipeline. Once I get some podcasts made, I'll post them here. Stay tuned.

Word

2006-10-07T11:20:00.000-04:00

Another installment from the dictionary.com Word of the Day.

Word of the Day for Saturday, October 7, 2006

gambol \GAM-buhl\, intransitive verb:

1. To dance and skip about in play; to frolic.
2. A skipping or leaping about in frolic.

I've been told dolphins like to gambol in the waves in these waters, and that sighting them brings good luck.
-- Barbara Kingsolver, "Where the Map Stopped", New York Times, May 17, 1992

The bad news is that while most of us gambol in the sun, there will be much wringing of hands in environment-hugging circles about global warming and climate change.
-- Derek Brown, "Heatwaves", The Guardian, June 16, 2000

Then they joined hands (it was the stranger who began it by catching Martha and Matilda) and danced the table round, shaking their feet and tossing their arms, the glee ever more uproarious, -- danced until they were breathless, every one of them, save little Sammy, who was not asked to join the gambol, but sat still in his chair, and seemed to expect no invitation.
-- Norman Duncan, "Santa Claus At Lonely Cove", The Atlantic, December 1903

Gambol, earlier gambolde or gambalde, comes from Medieval French gambade, "a leaping or skipping," from Late Latin gamba, "hock (of a horse), leg," from Greek kampe, "a joint or bend."

----

This is one I recall from my high school Shakespeare. Not from that other great tragedy "Kenny Rogers is The Gamboler" ("...know when to walk away/know when to dance...").

Check out the etymology, though. The Late Latin (can't they ever arrive on time?) for a horse's leg. Right away, the light went on in my head: gams; as in "check out the gams on that dame." I don't know much Italian, but is the Italian word for "leg" similar? Maybe that's where that leggy colloquialism comes from.

Oh, to be a linguist. And a cunning one at that.

Sunday Stones

2006-10-01T20:31:00.000-04:00

I love the fall. It's my favourite season. Today, the first day of October, was a pretty typical autumn Sunday. Started out rather crisp and sunny, but turned rainy by early afternoon. Later on, however, the sun returned and it proved to be a fairly nice day.

So I took a little walk up my street and strolled through the St. John Norway cemetary that starts at the Kingston Road and Woodbine intersection. It's a fairly nice old cemetary; some of the stones and markers go back to the early 20th century. I'm sure there are probably some that are older than that.

A couple of them in particular caught my eye. This first one is one I see every time I pass by on the sidewalk. I imagine it's made from granite, but to me, it seems rather iron-y...

Then there's this one...

I guess that's what they mean by... one Foote in the grave.

Oy. My apologies to the deceased, but I just can't pass up a good pun.

The pastor of the St. John's Norway church is often pretty creative with his signage. None of that doom and gloom, sin-and-salvation stuff. It's usually quite positive and rooted in the here-and-now. The current messages are no exception.

Almost makes you want to pop in for a sermon.
Almost.

Sweet Baby James

2006-09-24T12:49:00.000-04:00

Join me in welcoming to the world James Marshall Holland, the first-born to my good friend Joanne and hubby John. James was born at St. Joseph's Health Centre in Toronto, 2:35 p.m. on Wednesday September 20, weighing in at 9 lbs. 4 oz.

As for the excellent choice of name, the proud parents explain: "James is named after Joanne's father (James) and John's maternal Grandad (Marshall) -- two prominent men in our lives. It is purely coincidental that he shares the same moniker as James Marshall Hendrix, but we think he might be tempted go for the latter explanation when he's old enough to know who Jimi Hendrix is."

Congrats Joanne and John and welcome "little" James!

Helpless?

2006-09-02T13:04:00.000-04:00

Wow. Just noticed the "radical" redesign over at Neilyoung.com. Good ol' Neil is still fighting the good fight, only these days he's more feisty than ever. I guess having kids who are backdoor draft age will do that to you.

Check out the videos and documentaries for the LWW songs. Some are free downloads. Lots of other stuff, too. Anti-war editorials. The "Songs of the Times" section, featuring musical submissions on the theme; some known, some unknown.

You can also watch Neil's recent appearance on "The Colbert Report", and some archival footage from the 1986 Crazy Horse tour. This was the tour where they billed themselves as the "world's 3rd greatest garage band," taking the theme literally. The stage was designed as a garage where the band was rehearsing, complete with terrier-sized robotic cockroaches and periodic phone calls from "Mom" telling them to turn it down.

Go Neil!

Watching The Stream Flow

2006-08-31T00:07:00.000-04:00

You can listen to a stream of Dylan's new CD "Modern Times" in its entirety here.

Plus, watch the faux-vintage-Super-8-y video for When The Deal Goes Down, featuring the lovely Scarlett Johansson. Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. But seriously, it's a nice video. Seems to enhance the song.

I listened to the songs at work today, but I can't say anything made much of an impression. Except the name check on Alicia Keyes in the lead-off track. Musically, it sounds like Bobby's mining the same vein from "Love And Theft"--not that that's a bad thing. But there are many distractions at work (like...work) so it's not fair of me to judge it yet. I'll have to spend some time with it alone. Kind of going through a bit of a Beatles/Lennon revival in my listening life right now, so we'll see if Bob can lure me over to his side of the river of song.

A Series Of Dreams

2006-08-26T21:20:00.000-04:00

With the upcoming release of Bob Dylan's "Modern Times" CD, Google Video has put together some Dylan footage from over the years.

I've always loved the Jokerman video. And Series of Dreams is quite impressive, too.

Listening again to Political World, from his brilliant 1989 album, "Oh, Mercy", it's hard not to be struck by the incisiveness of those lyrics. I picked these off of his own website. Not sure if the first line of that last verse is a typo or not.

We live in a political world,
Love don't have any place.
We're living in times where men commit crimes
And crime don't have a face

We live in a political world,
Icicles hanging down,
Wedding bells ring and angels sing,
clouds cover up the ground.

We live in a political world,
Wisdom is thrown into jail,
It rots in a cell, is misguided as hell
Leaving no one to pick up a trail.

We live in a political world
Where mercy walks the plank,
Life is in mirrors, death disappears
Up the steps into the nearest bank.

We live in a political world
Where courage is a thing of the past
Houses are haunted, children are unwanted
The next day could be your last.

We live in a political world.
The one we can see and can feel
But there's no one to check, it's all a stacked deck,
We all know for sure that it's real.

We live in a political world
In the cities of lonesome fear,
Little by little you turn in the middle
But you're never why you're here.

We live in a political world
Under the microscope,
You can travel anywhere and hang yourself there
You always got more than enough rope.

We live in a political world
Turning and a'thrashing about,
As soon as you're awake, you're trained to take
What looks like the easy way out.

We live in a political world
Where peace is not welcome at all,
It's turned away from the door to wander some more
Or put up against the wall.

We live in apolitical world
Everything is hers or his,
Climb into the frame and shout God's name
But you're never sure what it is.

Copyright © 1989 Special Rider Music

See The Sites

2006-08-07T22:16:00.000-04:00

More gems from WFMU.org's Sites For Sore Eyes.

The Automatic 45 Label Generator. This is cool. I could have all kinds of fun with this.

Then there's the Huggable Urns. I'm not quite sure what to make of these. I've always felt that keeping someone's ashes around your house was a little odd. I mean, would you keep their bones in a box? Still, if it's important to you to hang onto an urn of a loved one's burnt remains, why not make it nice and cuddly? Just pray your pit bull doesn't get ahold of it.

Definitely some interesting efforts in the Top 10 Strangest Monuments. Roof shark?

And, of course, a new installment of the always entertaining Top 10 Worst Album Covers. Check out the comments, and you'll learn that some Queen fans are: A) a little too tightly wound, and B) quite adept at demonstrating the difference between an oxymoron and the normal variety.

But I think I laughed hardest at the Museum of Unfortunate Domain Names. Funny stuff...indeed.

In praise of one-syllable intransitive verbs that offer superb economy

2006-08-06T20:03:00.000-04:00

Here's an entertaining article from Slate that, well... doesn't suck.

Although I have been known to rail against the dumbing-down of our language, the author presents a convincing argument. I found this section particularly persuasive:

"When someone says Bill Gates is a geek, do you picture him as a circus performer biting the head off a live chicken? Of course not. The word's root meaning has been replaced with a new connotation. Similarly, when I call Paris Hilton a moron, I don't mean she's mentally retarded, and when I call bungee jumping lame I don't mean it's disabled. What once was offensive is now simply abrasive. Language moves on, and the sucks-haters are living in the past."

I might offer a dissenting viewpoint about Paris Hilton, but maybe that's just quibbling. And, as a matter of fact, I have often developed a mental picture of Bill Gates biting the head off...oh, wait, no...that was Ozzy Osbourne. Goshdarnit, I'm forever getting those two mixed up. (Hmm, has anyone ever seen them together in the same room?)

I'm not a language purist, but neither do I take a laissez faire attitude. I remember being chastized by my first-year university English professor for using the word relate as an intransitive verb, in the sense of to react in response, especially favorably: "I just can't relate to these new fashions" (dictionary.com). Perhaps she was right, in that uptight proper Queen's English kind of way. She was also probably the kind of person who would correct you for ending a sentence with a preposition. (Go here for a denunciation of that school of thought.) But the vast majority of people who use the language understand and accept relate being used in that sense.

Words and their connotations are organic; they evolve over time, as the above article ably demonstrates. I also feel that language is fairly flexible. I've probably committed a few syntactical and grammatical errors in writing this blog entry, but likely nothing (I hope) that is truly unacceptable, unless I was writing for an audience of grammarians and linguists. Or should that be "unless I were writing..."? Whatever.

Where I draw the line is between proper English and correct English. For instance, it drives me up the wall when I hear people failing to make their plural subjects agree with their verbs. There's many instances of this. See? I hear it all the time, even from people who should know better, such as television reporters. It seems to be a growing trend, and it's very annoying. It just seems to stem from laziness. Is this language butchering on its way to becoming naturalized, so that it becomes an acceptable way to speak? God, I hope not. I blame the Internets.

There's aspects of grammar and syntax that shouldn't be messed with!
Or is that with which one shouldn't mess?

And don't get me started on the ubiquity of absolutely. Whatever happened to responses such as of course, definitely and even good ol' yes?

Let's try an experiment. Let's all start using the word indeed where everyone else uses absolutely, and see if we can get it to catch on. If enough people use it in important settings, and if we use it in the company of people who get on the media enough--politicians, actors, police spokespeople, TV journalists--maybe...just maybe...we can replace absolutely with indeed. We can Spock-ify the language! It will be a cultural coup, indeed!

In the meantime, here's a really handy online resource for common errors in English.

Word up.

Dublin Up

2006-08-05T14:33:00.000-04:00

And here are my photos from Dublin and County Clare and the last few days in London. Enjoy!

Zebra Cam

2006-07-22T12:05:00.000-04:00

Ever want to see Beatle pilgrims and tourists risk their lives for a photo op? Now you can with the Abbey Road Web Cam!

This camera is situated in front of the studio (you can see the white post of the front gate in the lower-right corner), looking south-ish toward the crosswalk, the opposite perspective from the album cover.

It's probably not quite as dangerous as it seems. While cars in London have the unchallangeable right-of-way at most crossings, the only time they're required to give way to pedestrians is at the "zebra" crosswalks, such as the one at the Abbey Road intersection.

Bear in mind: if you're viewing this from North America, London is five hours ahead of the Eastern time zone. Probably best viewed on the weekend during day, local time.

London Snaps

2006-07-21T00:15:00.000-04:00

Finally got some of my photos from my trip organized. Uploaded them to Ofoto (Kodak). There are four albums altogether: 3 of London and 1 of Dublin. I still have to organize my Dublin photos and the ones from my last 3-4 days in London. I've added some comments to most of the photos. You can view them by clicking on the arrows, or by viewing it as a slideshow. There are a few of them, so pull up a chair.

Enjoy the first 2 photo albums!

London Calling

2006-07-09T22:51:00.000-04:00

I got back from my trip Tuesday night. I was supposed to be back last Sunday, but had a bit of an unfortunate brain cramp when I was leaving London--I went to the wrong airport! I was supposed to fly out of Gattwick, but instead I went to Stansted airport. Ugh. I'm usually more organized than that when I travel. Guess I was just brain-tired. So I missed my flight, and the airline (Zoom) didn't have any other flights until Wednesday, and they said it was full and just generally weren't very helpful. So I had to scramble to find another way home. Got a flight Tuesday with Northwest that went to Minneapolis, where I changed to Toronto. Paid full fare. Ouch. Oh well, live and learn.

Had an absolutely fantastic trip, though. Best vacation ever!! London is fabulous. Weather was perfect. I actually got a sunburn. I had a blast in Dublin too. How could I not like a place that reveres writers, oozes music and celebrates pub life! Saw a bit of the country too--took a day tour, train to Limerick, then bus through County Clare to the Cliffs of Moher near Galway on the west coast.

I have to say, though it may seem corny, I left there feeling a stronger connection to my Irish-ness. It makes sense that that's where I come from. Five or six generations across time suddenly didn't seem like such a chasm. More like crossing the River Liffey than traversing the Atlantic. I definitely will return for another visit.

I'm just starting to get my 500+ photos organized, and I'll do a proper write-up later, but for now, here are a few snaps to give you the flavour.

Big Ben

A certain road

St. Paul's Cathedral

Guard at The Tower of London

The Ha'penny Bridge in Dublin

One of Dublin's famous doors

The Cliffs of Moher

Kildare train station

Oliver St. John Gogarty's pub in the Temple Bar area in Dublin

Greetings From Across The Pond

2006-06-23T22:43:00.000-04:00

London! What an amazing city! So much to do and see! Buildings, monuments, museums, winding little streets, palaces, incredible architecture everywhere, history everywhere, pubs everywhere, traffic, people, parks! Just mind-boggling and impressive at every turn. Had a pint the other day in a tiny, tiny, tiny pub called The Jerusalem, which has been around since the 1700s. Turns out where I'm staying at Sue's is about a 20-minute walk from Abbey Road, in St. John's Wood. I ambled over there yesterday and took some photos of the outside of the studio where the Beatles recorded pretty much all their music, and, of course, the famous cross-walk. Did a Beatles walking tour the other day, through several Beatles-related sites, including Paul McCartney's offices in Soho (MPL Communications), Carnaby Street and 3 Saville Row, the former Apple Records HQ where the concert on the roof for "Let It Be" took place. Neat to see all these places that I'd only read about.

Explored a bit of the south bank of the Thames tonight, walked across Waterloo Bridge. Tomorrow I'll go see the Tower of London, the Tower Bridge and St. Paul's cathedral. Hope to get to see Shakespeare's Globe theatre, the Tate Modern museum and maybe take a trip up in "the Eye". Sunday evening we're doing a "Ripper Walk" in the east end, guided by the foremost Jack the Ripper expert, which is supposed to be quite entertaining.

Weather has been outstanding. Mostly sunny and temps in the low-to-mid-20s. People walking about in t-shirts. I actually have a sunburn! Everyone here can't believe how great the weather's been all week, and it looks like it'll continue through the weekend.

Off to Dublin on Monday for 4 days, then back here for the weekend, then home. It's been the most amazing time I've ever had, and it's not even half over. Dublin awaits!

Will share photos when I get back--I've got a ton of them!

"Leavin' on a jet plane..."

2006-06-16T01:56:00.000-04:00

Today was my last day at work before my vacation, and MAAAN, did it drag on. I didn't get out of there until almost nine o'clock. But now...I'm FREE! My flight goes Friday night, so I have the day to get my shit together and maybe even decide to pack at some point. I have to do laundry first, though. I feel that's a sound strategy. Laundry first, then pack, as opposed to the reverse.

But I'm very excited! My flight gets in to London Saturday morning just after 10. I'll spend the first week in London, staying at my friend Sue's place just north of Notting Hill, then I fly to Dublin on the morning of Monday the 26th, returning to London the following Thursday evening. So that gives me a full eight days to explore Londontown, then the better part of 4 days in Dublin, 3 nights accommodation (which suits my budget), then back to London for the last weekend, returning home Sunday July 2, giving me the holiday Monday to recuperate.

Only snag is, while I have the London-Dublin flight booked (70 GBP return, not too bad), I haven't yet secured a place to stay while I'm there. Been doing lots of research on the Web, and have contacted a few places to get rates and availability, so I'm sure I'll get something settled before I leave tomorrow night. They're just waking up there as I type this, so when I get up (I'm about to hit the sack) I should have a few email replies to my inquiries. I think I've narrowed it down to a couple of hotels/guesthouses. One right in the Temple Bar area, a couple on the northside of the Liffey but still in the core, and one off a park near Trinity College. Customer reviews on tripadvisor.com were pretty handy. Some of the places in the Temple Bar area got some pretty bad reviews, but I have a hunch some of that was from people staying there on the weekends when the bars are all rockin', the hotels were packed with partiers and their rooms were noisy. Probably won't be that bad Mon-Thurs. I think the ideal would be to find a place just outside that area but still close to all the city centre attractions. Seems like a lot of places are within easy walking distance.

I may try to get a few blog entries in while I'm over there, so stay tuned.

Toodles.

6/6/06

2006-06-06T23:52:00.000-04:00

Sign of...

The Devil Duckie!!

Snap snap wink wink saynamoah

2006-06-01T19:35:00.000-04:00

In anticpation of my trip to London-Dublin, I finally went out and got myself a digital camera. That's right, no more disposables and discs for me.

After some research on the Internets, I settled on this one, which also happened to be on sale at Future Shop. The Canon Powershot A620. Seems like a pretty good one. Lots of handy features and settings (including manual), and it does video, too. I didn't want one of those ones that tucks into your pocket. Not ergonomically satisfying. I picked up a 512MB card and some NiMH rechargeable batteries, so I'm good to go.

This past Saturday was a beautiful day, and I had to replenish my coffee supply, so I took a hike down Queen Street, through the beaches, and took the cam with me for a field test.

Sauntering down toward the boardwalk, I spotted this scene and thought the colours might provide some interesting results.

Then I took a series of shots as I walked down the boardwalk itself. Nothing to brag about from a compositional perspectice. Some bad light and shadows.

Then I spotted this kayaker...

And this couple walking with their dog. I like how she's all decked out in bright colours while the four-legged companion stays closer to earth tones...and just closer to the earth, period.

Sign of the times...

Then, when I got home, I took a few pics of objects around the apartment, mostly so I could test the zoom on smaller, close objects

Bottles in my window, against the blinds.

A small skull I've had for ages. It's about the size of a billiard ball. The zoom caused quite a bit of camera shake here, but I kind of like the result. Gives it an ironic sense of motion. I call this one "SpeedSkull".

This is the front of a box I have in my living room. Like most of these shots, I cropped it in iPhoto.

And of course, the obigatory Mini-Gumby and iStick.

Maybe I ain't no Annie Leibowitz, and I doubt if I'll turn jimbuck2 into a photoblog, but I expect to have some fun with it. You can bet yer sweet aperture that you'll be seeing more stunning visual snapshots here in the days and weeks ahead. L'aventure commence.

The Good News

2006-05-28T19:32:00.000-04:00

Despite the last couple of entries, everything hasn't been Downersville and Bitterberg here in Jimbuck2. Just nearly everything.

The good news is... I've booked vacation time for the last two weeks of June. I'm finally taking an overseas trip! Going to London, and I also plan to take a side-trip to Dublin while I'm there.

This will be my first trip across the pond. I probably wouldn't be able to swing it if it weren't for the fact that I have a friend to stay with in London. Air fares were pretty affordable, too, compared to July, so I pulled the trigger and booked the flight.

The general plan is to spend the first several days seeing the sights of Londontown, then hop over to Dublin for maybe 4 or 5 days, then back to London for a few more days. Flights to Dublin are only about $70 return, so that's pretty good. I was thinking it would be more romantic to take a train to Liverpool, see a few sights there (apparently there was some famous band from said town), then take a ferry across the Irish Sea. But after some research, I discovered that the ferry ride takes about eight hours. That's a waste of prime Guinness-guzzling time.

The only problem is that it's difficult to book any accommodations in Dublin, not knowing exactly which days I'll be heading over there. And that sorta depends on the lay of the land when I get to London. I'm not sure if I'll need to book anything that far ahead. Maybe I can make arrangements once I get to London. Not sure if I want to assume that. More research is needed. Got some websites about Dublin hostels and B&Bs. Got a few recommendation about places to stay in the Temple Bar district. I may also saunter into a travel agency here and enquire about a "possible" trip to Ireland, and pick their brains.

But it's all very exciting. I'm really looking forward to it. I've been dying to go to Dublin for ages. I think it'll be incredible to be in the Mother Country, diggin' my roots, hoisting a pint of Guinness in a Dublin pub. And, of course, lots to see and do in London. Abbey Road, baby! Stone'enge! Piccadilly and all the rest. Should be cool. Should I take some courses before I go over, so I can speak the language?

I may even try to write a few travel articles out of it; maybe start a new career! I've always been told by people who've read certain of my articles that they've "felt like they were there." I love doing that--writing about a place or an event, trying to capture the essence of what it was like to be there: the sounds, the sights, the smells, what it felt like. So maybe my calling is to be a travel writer. I could handle that.

Toodles.

After Midnight

2006-05-19T22:58:00.000-04:00

It's been a rough couple of weeks. Lots of "good-byes." My cat, Midnight, was about 16 or 17 years old, possibly even older. I had adopted him when he was about eight years old. I had known for some time that I would need to make "that decision" one of these days--and that time had come. The day before I learned about the band nonsense, I made the call.

A couple of years ago he had been diagnosed with severe arthritis in his knees and his elbows. The vets had said it was the worst they'd ever seen in a cat. We had him on some very powerful meds, anti-inflammatories usually given to dogs, but could be safely given to larger cats. And Mid was a large cat. It seemed to help somewhat.

Then he was diagnosed with a thyroid condition. Got some meds for that. Then a mild case of diabetes. More meds and special food. Then he developed some sort of respiratory ailment, which an x-ray seemed to suggest was due to a possible growth in his chest cavity. Those symptoms seemed to have cleared up, oddly, but then he developed a nasty skin infection, probably due to his immune system being weakened as a result of his other ailments. And that's not to mention the cyst he had to have removed from his back after it burst.

Pictured here with his stylish bandage/girdle after the cyst surgery. Doesn't he look just thrilled to be photo'd in all his glory.

The poor guy. He battled through a lot of problems, and he was a real trooper. Didn't really complain that much. But his various health problems had finally just gotten the better of him. Mostly it was the arthritis. His mobility was going steadily downhill. I found him the shallowest litter box I could, to make it easier for him to get in and out. And even then he sometimes had trouble. I had to build him a "cat ladder" (sort of like a salmon ladder), so he could get up and down off the couch on his own--just an old trunk and a smaller box arranged like steps.

I covered them with towels so his footing was secure. Pretty funny, actually, but effective.

But in the past few months, he really seemed to be having more pain. There were times when he was just unable to get himself up on his feet. And he would complain more. I wasn't sure how, or even if, I'd know when the time had come, but I always told myself that when I sensed his discomfort had crossed the line into pain, it would be time to end his suffering.

It was a pretty tough day. The vet and the staff had gotten to know us pretty well over the past couple of years, and they were so incredibly respectful, gentle and sympathetic. I stayed in the room with Mid and petted him as his body relaxed and he went limp. He looked very peaceful. The walk back from the vet's, an empty cat carrier swinging too lightly from my hand, was about as sad a journey as I can recall lately.

I sure miss the big guy. The apartment seems pretty empty without him. During the week afterwards, I kept turning around at my desk thinking I'd see him sleeping on the couch. Even now, when I come home, there's a split second as I turn the doorknob and enter the room, that I think he'll be there, waiting for me. You sure get attached to those critters.

So long, old friend.

The Ides of May

2006-05-19T22:12:00.000-04:00

The Dick Ellis Revival played Grossman's last night. How did it go? I have no idea. Y'see, I'm no longer in the band.

I've been turfed from the band I helped start.

Boag and I met up a few weeks ago at The Only Cafe, ostensibly to discuss our live show, but instead I was informed that most of the other members of the band had held a secret meeting and told Boag that I was no longer welcome in the band. Apparently the charges were that my playing was not up to snuff and that I had a bad attitude, that I was "uptight."

As for the first charge, nobody's more critical of my playing than I am. I've had some bad nights, or parts of nights, and I've been really disappointed with myself on those nights. But my playing hasn't been bad all the time, and at times I think it's been pretty good. I've even been complimented on my playing on occasion. I'm told that some members of the band have had "concerns" with my playing from the beginning. That was almost two years ago. How does one nurse these concerns for two years? I don't think my playing has been so uniformly bad as to warrant being kicked out of the band. I'm no Jimmy Page, but that just seems like a smokescreen.

Moreover, questions have been raised about the playing of other people in the band, and their attitudes as well. I have actually stood up for said members and suggested that a conversation with them might be the best way to address the concerns. This is the thanks I get for my sense of loyalty and fairness.

As for the second charge, I suppose it's different sides of the same coin. Some of them felt I was too uptight, and I thought some of them were too slack. Some of those guys seem happy to keep things loose and spontaneous on stage. And that's fine; it has its place. There's room for that, but there are other things that you need to put some work into, to put some effort and thought into, and it seems like I was always pushing for that, to get our arrangements down, for instance, whereas some others don't want to work that hard, or something. Granted, we had difficulty getting together for rehearsals--we haven't had a real rehearsal since late February--and that's just part of life in a band where people have jobs and real lives. But it seemed like I just cared more about how we sounded, and I didn't like it when we were not as good as we could have been. I figure if you're gonna do something, do it well. And when we played Grossman's, I was usually the only person suggesting that we actually do a proper sound check. I'm the rookie. Everyone else in the band has been playing for years, yet no one seemed to care enough to make sure that we sounded as good as we could. I just don't understand that.

I guess maybe that's part of the problem. Most of the other people in the band have been playing for years, have been in several bands, some may feel that they've "been there, done that" or that they've had their shot, and this was just a band to have fun with. Most are also in at least one other band. But this was the only band I was in. I was 100% committed to it, and I wanted it to be as good as it could be. For all of this, and for being resistant to and critical of some of Boag's bad judgments on stage, I'm branded as being "uptight."

I'm told that my former bandmates all appreciate and admire the dedication and commitment I brought to the band. That's nice. Too bad it wasn't a 2-way street. It would've been nice if the band members could have shown a little dedication to me in return, for all I did for the band: bringing songs to cover, writing songs, working out arrangements, designing posters, burning CDs, contributing to the website, etc. If there was a problem, they could have simply talked to me about it. That's what adults and friends do. You see if the situation can be resolved. Maybe it can't, but at least you show them the respect of dealing with it in a human and decent manner. I find it particularly classless that they didn't even have the decency to address it with me face-to-face.

It's pretty disheartening, especially since I considered some of those people to be friends, and had helped them out in personal matters, as they had helped me at times as well. Some of them had even told me that they agreed with some of my concerns about the band and our stage antics.

In the aftermath of all this I've been listening to a lot of Neil Young for some reason, especially his stuff with Crazy Horse, and re-reading parts of his highly recommended bio "Shakey", by Jimmy McDonough. Here's a guy who stuck to his vision, no matter what. If things weren't being done the way he thought they should be, he walked. And then he put himself in a position where he could have absolute control over his music. If I end up in another band or musical project of some sort, I think it'll have to be that kind of approach for me. I accepted compromise in this band, but I have very strong ideas and opinions when it comes to music, how it should sound and how it should be. I don't think I could be in another band unless I was 100% onboard about its direction and its music. So that either means starting my own band, or hooking up with people who are very much like-minded. In the case of the latter, I hope I can trust them.

I also re-watched the great Neil Young & Crazy Horse film "Year of the Horse", by Jim Jarmusch. Part concert film, part documentary. There are a couple of scenes where Neil and the band, principly bass player Billy Talbot, are almost at each other's throats over messed up arrangements on stage. In one scene, Neil is pissed because Talbot messed up. They're yelling at each other backstage. Neil: "Why did I rehearse it with you guys for three hours this afternoon? What was I doin', just jerkin' off?!" Talbot: "All I'm sayin' is, I didn't mess up any more than anyone else! I knew the arrangement as well as anybody else!"

Crazy Horse is not the greatest band in the world. They make mistakes. But Neil and the Horse have been playing together for 35 years, and something magic happens when they play together. What I saw there was a group of musicians who cared enough about their music to argue about it. To fight for it, so it's as good as it can be. But I guess they're all "uptight."

I need to find a band like that. Not one that yells a lot, necessarily, but one that cares enough to make it special, to make it as good as it can be.

So I'll leave the last words to Neil:

I hear some people been talkin' me down,
Bring up my name, pass it 'round.
They don't mention the happy times
They do their thing, I'll do mine.

Ooh baby, that's hard to change
I can't tell them how to feel.
Some get stoned, some get strange,
Sooner or later it all gets real.

Walk on, walk on,
Walk on, walk on.

I remember the good old days,
Stayed up all night gettin' crazed.
Then the money was not so good,
But we still did the best we could.

Ooh baby, that's hard to change
I can't tell them how to feel.
Some get stoned, some get strange,
Sooner or later it all gets real.

Walk on, walk on,
Walk on, walk on.

The Scream Heard Round The World

2006-04-09T16:36:00.000-04:00

Ever heard of The Wilhelm Scream?

No doubt you've heard it, unless you've somehow managed to avoid seeing any Hollywood movies made over the past 50 years or so.

One of the other copywriters at work stumbled across this, apparently while researching some movie we were writing a feature on: The history of The Wilhelm Scream.

Great stuff! Also a great name for a band.

I'm so getting a t-shirt.

A Kink in the Coinkydink

2006-04-03T13:23:00.000-04:00

Okay, this is just plain spooky.

A while back I heard the Kinks' song "I'm Not Like Everybody Else" on WFMU (probably on the Sunday afternoon slice of zaniness and vintage music nirvana known as the Glen Jones Radio Programme (featuring X-Ray Burns). For some reason I had never heard this song before, at least not to my recollection. It's a great song, and I immediately determined that it would be a fine addition to the Dick Ellis Revival arsenal. A quick search of the P2P universe netted me the Kinks' original, and also revealed versions by The Chocolate Watchband and Camper Van Beethoven. Moving these songs into my iTunes, I also discovered that I already had an MP3 of the song on file, courtesy of my friend Vernam Cipher in Chicago. (So Tom, if I ever get to Chi-Town, here's a song we can jam on.)

So now today, I'm perusing WFMU's "Sites For Sore Eyes" (the oft-linked-to portal to some of the wackiest and wonderfullest www's you'll ever find), and the first entry on the list is this one: exactitudes.

"...an almost scientific, anthropological record of people's attempts to distinguish themselves from others by assuming a group identity. The apparent contradiction between individuality and uniformity is, however, taken to such extremes in their arresting objective-looking photographic viewpoint and stylistic analysis that the artistic aspect clearly dominates the purely documentary element."

Pretty interesting project. I've always been fascinated by that contradiction.

But here's the weird part: At the exact moment that I'm looking at that array of individuality-uniformity, an ad comes on the TV; an IBM ad that I've never seen before, and it features... da da dummm... the Kinks' song "I'm Not Like Everybody Else"!!

I kid you not!

That's not just some coincidence. That's mind-blowing. Like a custom-made soundtrack from the cosmos. Must be a kink in the space-time continuum or something. You can also stir in the fact that Ray Davies played here last Thursday.

What does it all mean?

Can You Please Defenestrate?

2006-04-02T12:42:00.000-04:00

I was so angry at myself for forgetting to set my clocks ahead, I defenestrated all the clocks in my apartment, hoping to prove that Time doesn't fly!

(Of course, since I'm at ground level, the effect wasn't as dramatic as I would have hoped.)

--------
Word of the Day for Sunday April 2, 2006

defenestrate \dee-FEN-uh-strayt\, transitive verb:
To throw out of a window.

Some of his apparent chums . . . would still happily
defenestrate him if they caught him near a window.
-- Andrew Marr, "No option bar the radical one,"
[1]Independent, July 5, 1994

I defenestrated a clock to see if time flies!
-- Lane Smith, "quoted in Who's News," [2]Time for Kids,
September 25, 1998

A woman, driven to fury by the manner in which her lover
prefers to lavish his attention on a match on the telly
rather than her, starts to throw his possessions out of the
window. He's finally moved to stop her when she tries to
defenestrate his new Puma boots.
-- Jim White, "Budgets substantial enough to buy most of
the clubs in the Endsleigh," [3]Independent, April 6, 1996
_________________________________________________________

Defenestrate is derived from Latin de-, "out of" + fenestra,
"window." The noun form is defenestration.

Bubbling Up

2006-03-25T17:06:00.000-05:00

Check this out. Bubbles from "The Trailer Park Boys" has a page on MySpace, and he's added my friend Heather to his Babe Of The Week list! Act now, though, the list may change soon. Apparently he only picks girls with glasses. (Hear that Corry?)

If Heather has slipped out of Bubbles' favour, you can check out her page to hear a few of her tunes.

There are many ways to measure success, but getting the thumbs up from Bubbles must certainly be right up there.

Outta Sites

2006-02-28T21:10:00.000-05:00

You know that song, "I Hear A Symphony"?

No, not that one. The one by Matthew Ryan.

Well, this film is nothing like that.

These and other wonders courtesy of WFMU's Sites For Sore Eyes.

I especially love Arthur Ganson's Kinetic Sculptures--those are simply wonderful, and made me feel all good 'n' stuff--and Joe Vaux's Home Pig--that made me feel all weird 'n' stuff, but still absolutely fascinated.

Y'know, some days the world seems like a big pile of blah, rotating uselessly in the void. But then you stumble across stuff like this, and the sheer scope and variety of the expressions that blossom from the human spirit just leaves you in a state of warm wonder. And you look for this big ol' roller coaster to come round again so you can hop on for another ride, to see what it has to show you this time.

"You are not alone
You are not alone
I swear this burden is not your own
You are not alone"
--Matthew Ryan, "I Hear A Symphony"

Anything Ellis?

2006-02-25T16:19:00.000-05:00

[Okay, not the best title I've come up with, but it's better than another "dick" pun.]

I'm very pleased to announce the launch of the first ever Dick Ellis Revival tour! I'm calling it the Dick Over Ontario tour (a nod to the Wings live album). Right now it consists of a gig in Belleville next weekend...but, hey, even Dylan's Never-ending Tour had to start somewhere.

Belleville is Boag's hometown, and this gig is actually a private party for some of his friends, several of whom are turning the magical 40 around the same time. They've rented out a place for the occasion, The Belleville Club I think it's called, which is apparently a nice old heritage building. Should be a fun roadtrip, and a nice chance to get away and road-test our material. You know what they say about Belleville...if it flies in BelleVegas, it... well... it... you're good to g... it's all good... well, maybe they don't really use Belleville as a litmus test of any sort, but it should be fun all the same.

We've added a few new numbers to our repertoire:

Wait For The Light To Shine, an old Roy Acuff song that's been covered by lots of folks including Dylan
I've Got a Feeling, The Beatles
Burning Love, Elvis
Don't Cry No Tears, Neil Young (from Zuma)
I Still Miss Someone, Johnny Cash
Help Me Make It Through The Night, Kristofferson
Take Me Home Country Roads, John Denver

Plus we're trying to work out versions of Van Morrison's Wavelength and a funky Rufus Thomas song called The Breakdown (Part I). And there are some new originals on the horizon as well.

Last week's gig at Grossman's was a typically crazy time. Two songs into our set, this woman gets up on the "dancefloor" and starts doing cartwheels across the space in front of us, the first of which was rather expertly executed. Quite impressive. The second attempt fell a bit short of the bar, so to speak. I don't know if maybe she actually aimed to land in the chair, but the execution garnered very low marks, even from the French judge. As our imprudent gymnast landed hard on the floor, the chair tried to meld with the table, unsuccessfully so given the laws of physics, but this did succeed in the quite spectacular transformation of a full pint of beer into a creature of flight! Oddly, the gentleman who had been trying to drink the beer wasn't as impressed with his beverage's new aerial ambitions.

Cartwheel Katie then began grabbing Boag's mic, stepping on my pedal board to do so, and eventually leapt onto a table for some more dancing. This finally drew the ire of the bartender, who eventually managed to give her the bum's rush, after much high-pitched protestations and further furniture mangling. Of course, throughout all of this, we're all playing away. This all happened by about the third song. We did manage to use the occasion to work in some Jagger-at-Altamont-isms between songs.

"Peey-pul, peey-pul... who's foyting and wot foah? Who's foyting and wot foah?"
"Oh babies, everyone just calm down now. Let's get it together."

After that, it was a fairly normal evening. During the second set, we honoured some guy's request for Baby Please Don't Go, which we'd never played before, but we managed a reasonable facsimile. Late in the third set, a trio of 20-something yarmulka-wearing Jewish students ambled in and sat at the back. One of them kept bellowing for The Doors, so we obliged with the only Doors song you can pull out without any prior rehearsal: Roadhouse Blues, of course.

Always an interesting time at Grossman's.

I actually just discovered a newly added feature on our website, featuring kind words from locals who have seen us in action. Thanks for the kudos.

I'll let you know how the tour goes.

Say hello to my (new) lil frenz

2006-02-17T17:26:00.000-05:00

I am fully aware of the fact that life is not about getting "things". That saying "whoever finishes with the most toys wins", just leaves me cold. I sincerely believe the Western world's rampant materialism will be our downfall (if that isn't a fait accompli already), and is certainly the source of much of the world's disparities.

Still, some toys are just so neat!

So I finally took the plunge and got myself an iPod. I was thinking I might get a Nano, but after fiddling around with a friend's and trying out the different varieties of iPods at the computer store, I concluded that the Nano was just too small, not just in terms of capacity, but physically. It just felt too small in my hand.

So, thanks to the fact that I was able to sell a superfluous guitar on consignment at a local music store, I went for the real iPod.

The new fifth generation 30GB iPod with video. It's a cool little machine. I doubt if I'll use the video function very much, but it is nice to have that. And you can hook it up to a TV, so you could download a movie on it and bring it over to a friend's house to watch. Same with photos. A travelling photo binder. Also has some neat extras like a calendar, contacts list, alarm, clock, stop watch, etc.

But of course the main attraction is the music, and with 30GB, I was able to transfer my entire iTunes catalogue (almost 20GB) over to the iPod. But I found that was just too much, and too unwieldy. So I switched from "auto sync" mode to manual, and I've started loading it up with all my essential music, favourite albums, playlists of songs to learn for the band, etc. It's come in handy at rehearsals when we've needed to consult a song we're working on, and I've been able to whip it out, plug it into a stereo and we can all listen. And, of course, it certainly makes my commute to work more enjoyable.

The other great use for the 30GB iPod is as a portable hard drive. I've been able to load files on it and transfer them to another computer, no sweat. Good way to transport MP3s, because, of course, the iPod is designed to sync up with your iTunes, and to be loaded with songs, but there's no "downloading" functionality, per se. So you can't really offload the music from your iPod onto your work computer, for instance, or to a friend's computer. The iPod designers' concession to concerns about file-sharing, I suppose.

But, there are ways around everything, and I've found that the PodWorks application works great as a way to get around the "offloading" problem. The best part is that you can store the application on your iPod, and launch it from the iPod when you're hooked up to a computer other than your own (Mac OS X needed). Very handy.

As soon as you get an iPod, the very next step is... choosing accessories. And there are tons of coolio accessories to be had. I may upgrade the earbuds eventually, but the first thing I looked into getting was a good protective case. I had heard lots of stories of iPods' surface and screen getting scratched up (which is one of the reasons I opted for the white model over the black).

I decided on the Agent 18 VideoShield, which is a great case. It protects the iPod completely while preserving its cool looks. It looks so good, I just leave it in there all the time. Highly recommended.

The other thing I found I needed was some kind of remote to move from track to track and to adjust the volume. Being winter, I keep the iPod in an inside pocket in the lining of my coat (designed for cell phones, but the iPod fits in perfectly). And because volume levels of songs can vary dramatically, especially in random shuffle mode, I've had a few occasions where I've had to unzip my coat and bring out the iPod just to turn it down or up. Very inconvenient, especially since my coat has a removable inner lining, so I have to go through two zippers just to get to the damn thing. Plus, as my commute takes me on the bus through some rather unsavory areas of Scarborough known for gang activity and such, I'd rather not have to flash my iPod if I can avoid it. I've heard that iPod muggings have been happening in other major cities.

So last week, my solution arrived. The iPod Radio Remote. It's been a godsend so far. The radio reception is great, though I don't think I'll use it very much for that. Nice function to have though. I clip the remote to the inside lining of my coat, so I can cover it up with the outside zipper, to protect it from the elements. One little zip, and I can easily adjust the volume or change tracks. Great little device.

And speaking of great things in small packages, this is my other new acquisition.

The Vox Pathfinder 15R amp. It's just a little 15W practice amp... but it's not just a little 15W practice amp. This thing is probably the best bang for your buck, if you're looking for a practice amp. They sell new for around $200 (CDN), but you can get a deal on a used one. I found mine used at Long & McQuade for $159. This thing rocks! Great tone, and great features. Reverb, tremolo, gain boost, headphone jack, line out for recording, output for connecting to another speaker cabinet. No midrange adjustment knob, but the bass and treble knobs are very responsive, allowing for lots of tone-shaping.

It's a transistor amp, but it's got a lot of personality. When I was trying it out in the store, I had it cranked up pretty good using the neck pickup of a Telecaster, the tone dialed off a bit and a good dose of overdrive, and the salesman came over and said "What's that, a little tube amp?" It's just so fun to play through, and it just loves my Telecaster. I could use it for gigging at a place like Grossman's, but I don't think it'll replace my Fender Blues, Jr. in that regard. Great amp for practicing and rehearsing, and a good backup if need be. Apparently Vox has discontinued this amp. So if you're in the market for a great little practice amp, you're not gonna do much better than a Pathfinder, at least not in this price range.

Until next time, this has been Jimbuck2's consumer products review. And remember, it's not all about the toys, but they're neat to have, just the same.

You've heard of government waist...?

2006-02-02T22:27:00.000-05:00

I sat down on the subway tonight for the trip home, looked down at the transit newspaper sitting open on the seat next to me, and this is what I saw:

Conclusions from the above?

1) The photo editor for this transit paper was asleep at the switch;
2) The photo editor for this transit paper decided to have some fun on his/her last day;
3) Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty has a great rack! Why would he need breast augmentation?

Another example of government waist...and cleavage!

What's New?

2006-01-16T19:50:00.000-05:00

...well, there's this.

Happy New Year

2006-01-01T15:25:00.000-05:00

Hi. Remember me? I live here. Haven't been here in a while though. Just haven't had the urge to blog (what the French call le joie de blogge). Or maybe my life just hasn't been interesting enough to blog about. Or maybe it's just that there are times when you simply have nothing to say. As has always been my way, when I have nothing to say, I say it.

(Did I just invent my own Yogi Berra-ism, or has that one been done?)

So here we are on the first day of 2006. I hope you all had/are having a wonderful holiday season, and I wish you all the best in the new year. Let's make it a good one, without any fear.

I had the past 2 weeks off, and it's been most joyful and fun. I went home to P.E.I. for the holidays. It was my father's 80th birthday on the 22nd, so everyone made it home this year to celebrate that occasion; the first time in about 10 years that all the "kids"--all eight of us--were home at the same time. My sister made it from L.A., as did my brother in Yellowknife, although his wife and 13-year-old son couldn't make it. But his 18-year-old daughter flew in from Vancouver Island, where she's just recently moved, having left the nest for the first time. It had been two or three years since I'd seen her, and there's a big change between 15 and 18. She's quite an interesting young lady now. Very sweet and engaging, and it was nice to see her stepping out into the world on her own, obviously excited by what life has to offer. It's always interesting to discover new relationships with my nephews and nieces as they move from their teen years into young adulthood. There's a whole gaggle of them in that age range now. Another niece, who's 20, had a baby this past summer, and it was cool to see my little grand-nephew again, and to see my niece growing into her new life as a happy and caring young mother.

I drove up with my brother from Oshawa. We drove straight through, sharing the driving duties, and stopping only to replenish the car's gas tank and refuel ourselves with Tim Horton's coffee and the finest highway dining. Couldn't ask for more perfect traveling conditions. The skies were clear and the roads were dry. We made it in about 18 hours. 1750-some kilometers. Not bad.

We had a big to-do for Dad's 80th. Rented the town's golf club (and no, I don't mean the sole available 9-iron...). Lots of old neighbours, relatives and family friends came by; people I hadn't seen in years. The mayor came by and presented Dad with a plaque. That was a nice thing. All in all, a fine night.

The major difference this year was that my parents had sold their house this past fall and moved into an apartment. It's been a bit of an adjustment for them, but they did so of their own volition. The upkeep of the house was just getting to be too much for them. Mom is 81 and her mobility isn't what it used to be. She has trouble with her ankles and knees, and has to use a walker or a cane to get around now. So it's much better for her to not have to go up and down the stairs for laundry, etc. It sure was odd, though, driving by the old house and seeing strange cars parked in the driveway and other people living there. We had moved to that house around 1973, when I was about 10, then we moved to Moncton around 76-77, sold it to our former next-door neighbours from the street I grew up on. Then, when my parents moved back around 1986, the house was on the market again, so they bought it a second time and moved back into the very same house they had sold 10 years previously! So we had two tours of duty in that house.

But things change and we adapt. Mom and Dad seem to be doing okay in the apartment. My three sisters who still live in town have been so incredible with helping Mom and Dad with the move, holding yard sales to get rid of stuff they don't have space for any more and just generally making it as smooth a transition for them as possible. God bless them.

Speaking of things changing... they renamed the street I grew up on!! I was floored when I drove by the old neighbourhood and saw the street sign that had always always always said Cedar Ave now said Oak Ave. OAK!!! What the fuck! They can't do that! Cedar Avenue was the centre of my childhood. I felt like every one of my childhood memories had been violated. Turns out it's for the purposes of some new 911 service. There were always two Cedar-named streets which connected in a T shape: the longer, north-south running Cedar STREET, and the smaller, east-west Cedar Avenue--our street--which topped the T. I guess the new 911 system couldn't handle two streets with the same name, so they changed my street to Oak. At least they kept the arboreal theme intact: above us had been Willow Ave, followed by Poplar and Maple. Elm Street was to the west. But that's cold comfort. Damn bureaucrats. They'll get theirs. I'll track them down and rename their kids. Bastards.

My sister and her family live on Maple Avenue, the northernmost entry in the (now apparently arbitrarily named) arboreal-themed street grid. Her husband has a tradition of making a large backyard rink every winter. With two young sons who play hockey, a dad who coaches hockey and a mom who's a former figure-skater, it's a no-brainer for that family unit. Unfortunately, earlier this winter, my brother-in-law suffered a hernia and needed surgery, and he was still in recovery mode when the time came to make this year's rink. So the call went out, and a whole crew of us showed up one afternoon just before Christmas to do the heavy lifting, putting up the hip-high boards that would eventually encircle the frozen surface. There were seven of us altogether: my dad, my brother, myself, two brothers-in-law and two nephews. Didn't take long to get the job done, as a light snow fell and the quips and jokes were almost as sharp as the nails we were using to whack the plywood boards together. It was a nice Rockwellian Christmas moment.

So it was a very nice family Christmas. We all had a lot of fun together and shared a lot of laughs. My mom and dad were obviously very happy to have all of us home. Chances are it was the last time that will happen, so it was one for the books.

Then came the trip back to Toronto. As perfect as the drive up was, the drive back was about as bad as it gets. My brother and I left at 5 a.m. Monday morning in rain, freezing rain, sleet, etc. My brother drove for the first stretch while I put the passenger seat in recline mode and tried to catch a few winks. Somewhere in the pre-dawn darkness between Moncton and Fredericton, we hit a patch of black ice. The car fish-tailed completely sideways, then back the other way, then back the other way, took out a small wooden stake on the roadside with the back of the car, then did a complete 180, and finally came to rest in the middle of the road, facing forward. Thank the deity or belief system of your choice that there were no other cars around. I had awoken and sprang upright as we began going out of control. Not a nice way to wake up. But my brother did a good job keeping us out of the ditch. Close call.

Then it started snowing. And blowing. 100 kph winds. And all the rest of the way through NB was just awful. Some of the worst winter driving conditions I'd ever seen. Poor visibility, blowing snow, slippery, treacherous road. Saw lots of cars in the ditch. Basically you just had to stay in the worn tracks from the vehicles in front of you or you were toast. We made it as far as Riviere-de-loups, just across the Quebec border in the Gaspe as it got dark, and stopped there for the night. Tuesday conditions were much better. Sunny skies, stopped snowing and the roads were clear, completely dry from Montreal to Toronto.

So I'm back, baby... back in the TO groove.

Dicking On

2005-10-29T23:03:00.000-04:00

Well, The Dick Ellis Revival lives on. We've pretty much settled on the name, if for no other reason than the fact that we can't find any other name that we like better. A tip for all you kids in bands out there: if, after 10 months of searching, you still haven't decided on a band name, you're not going to find one. For godsakes, people make babies in less time. And name them!

My recent suggestion didn't go over very well. I don't know, I kind of like Courtesy Flush. Maybe a bit too punk.

Things are going pretty well, though. Our monthly Thursday-night residency at Grossman's continues. We played there this past Thursday, and it went pretty well, except that our Queen of the Keys, Bertie, was sick and couldn't make the gig. We really missed her. The beginning of "Orange Juice Blues (Blues For Breakfast)" suffered for it. But we soldiered on.

We've booked a real rehearsal space for Sunday night because we've got a big gig coming up. Next Saturday, November 5th, we're returning to The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern, opening for the great gospel-blues-roots group, The Holmes Brothers. It should be a great gig. We're both drawing from the same well, so to speak: a mix of blues, soul, gospel, country, rootsy rock. We've designed our hour-ish set to be a compact, punchy run-through of our best stuff. At least half of the songs will be originals. I think it'll go over well with the Holmes Bros' audience. I'm really looking forward to it. Three hours in the rehearsal space tomorrow night and another in-home rehearsal later in the week, combined with the fact that we've been playing every month at Grossman's, we should be able to get it together nicely and do a good job.

And we've added a link on our website where you can check out our upcoming gigs.

Dylan For 0 Dollars

2005-10-24T00:07:00.000-04:00

AOL has some free streaming footage of Dylan and The Band doing "One Too Many Mornings" from their 1966 tour.

They also seem to be rotating other streaming content (on the right). You can also see Dylan doing "Just Like A Woman" with George Harrison and Leon Russel from The Concert For Bangladesh. You might need Netscape 7.1 or Safari.

Trailer Lark Boys

2005-10-19T23:02:00.000-04:00

Just have to pass this on. Got this from my friend Heather. Apparently these are from a competition in which film editors (judging from their e-mail addresses, I assume they were students from a public school in NYC) were asked to recut an existing film trailer, using only footage from the film, to recast the film in a completely different genre. I love "Shining", especially when Solsbury Hill kicks in...

"Shining"

"West Side Story

"Become an NHL star at home, at your own pace"

2005-10-10T16:31:00.000-04:00

Now that NHL hockey is back, and "cost-certainty" has hopefully introduced a measure of parity across the league, it's great to know that you, too, can become an NHL star. How, you say?

With NHL Academy!

I did very well in all modules, except the goaltending simulator. But I think I was screened on some of those point(setta) shots.

Good luck!

Keys To Jimbuck2

2005-10-02T20:21:00.000-04:00

Spent most of the day rearranging my living room to accommodate my new acquisition. I picked it up at the annual bargain basement sale at Long & McQuade last weekend. It was pretty cheap, and I had been thinking of getting a keyboard for a few years now, so I figured at this price, I had to pull the trigger.

It's quite a cool little keyboard. Obviously it's not a professional-level instrument, but the piano sounds are quite impressive, and of course I can dial up several varieties of electric piano and organ, as well as various kinds of strings, wind instruments, brass, vibes, marimba, percussion, etc. I'm not a keyboard player by any stretch, and I have no illusions of becoming the next Billy Preston, but I can hack out a few chords, so maybe this will help me upgrade my skills to the point where I can carry a song. Plus, with all the other instruments on board, it'll be a great tool for home recording.

"Gimme something in a bouncy C!"

Bobbing in the barrel of time

2005-09-28T22:59:00.000-04:00

Of course I watched (and taped) Martin Scorsese's "No Direction Home" Dylan doc over the past 2 evenings. Having never seen more than a few snippets of the 66 tour footage, it was fascinating to see that stuff. I wouldn't have expected Dylan to have been so animated, especially sitting at the piano for "Ballad of a Thin Man". Then again, apparently there was no shortage of those peppy little pills at that time.

I have to say, though, that I thought his performance of the acoustic songs was almost more revolutionary than the electric stuff. I wonder what the folkie-purist-booers thought of his delivery of "Mr. Tambourine Man" or what they made of "Visions Of Johanna". A fine line between delivery and devilry?

It was also interesting to see him expressing his complete exhaustion during that tour. Facing the derision of audiences night after night, and even garnering some death threats, he really was putting his body and soul on the line every night to play the music he believed in. Ironic that the punter in Manchester had yelled "Judas!" when such behaviour less like the kisser, and more like the one kissed. Not that I want to go down that road... just an observation.

I do hope there are more chapters to come. I mean, the first 10 years or so of Dylan's career were certainly interesting, to say the least, but the next 40 years had more than enough stuff worth exploring. Maybe, like Scorsese's blues series, a different director could tackle each successive decade. Hmmm. Who could we get?...

1966-1976 - Tim Burton?
1976-1986 - Spike Lee?
1986-1996 - Jim Jarmusch?
1996-2006 - Clint Eastwood?

Any other suggestions?

U2 II

2005-09-28T22:30:00.000-04:00

Just a quick update of my previous post about seeing U2 in concert. Here's some post-facto visual evidence. (Post-facto, yes, but it is pro Bono?)

This is more or less the view I had of The Edge, except I was a little more behind him. For the record, he is left-footed. I was a bit surprised to see he was using that huge digital multi-effects pedalboard. I always figured he was more of a vintage analogue pedal kinda guy. Progress overtakes The Edge.

Here's a shot of Daniel Lanois joining the band on Bono's beautiful, green Gretsch guitar, during the encore of "Bad".

And, I forgot to mention that during one song (can't remember which one), Bono has been choosing women from the audience to haul them up on the catwalk to dance with him. This chick came prepared, decked out in full belly-dancer regalia (hoping to relive the "Mysterious Ways" video, perhaps). She had the moves too! It was pretty impressive.

A Trip Around The Blog

2005-09-15T21:29:00.000-04:00

Oy. I've been back from the vacation for over a week now, and I still haven't found the time to blog about it. My excuse though, is that I'm waiting to get my pictures developed. Sorry, I'm not digi-cam-ready yet, still have to get that nasty film to the lab. So I'll wait till then, cos then it'll be real nifty to be able to see the snaps.

Here's the short version though:

- Spent the first week in P.E.I., visiting with family. Met my new great-nephew, all of one week old. Saw the new seniors apartment my parents will be moving into in a few weeks time. Very nice. Also went for a spin is a little 4-seater Cessna. The landsape of the Island is beautiful from the air; a patchwork quilt of various shades of greens, and yellows (wheat), red soil, blue water. Buzzed the bridge.

- Spent the long weekend in Moncton partying my ass off with high-school friends and others. About 80,000 others, in fact. Attended the big Rolling Stones outdoor show in Magnetic Hill, and was blown away by how good it was. The boys are better than they were 10 years ago. One of the best concerts I've ever seen. Also featured The Tragically Hip, Our Lady Peace and Maroon 5. But it was all about the Stones, and they kicked ass!

- Last night, I went to see U2's 2nd of four shows here in Toronto. They played Monday, last night, and again Friday and Saturday. Had a great seat about 20 feet from the side of the stage. Closest I've ever been to a band of this stature. I was close enough that I could have spit on The Edge when he was playing piano during "Miss Sarajevo".

But I didn't. I would never spit on The Edge.

Many celebs in town for the Film Festival. Monday night's show was apparently attended by Ray Liotta, Cuba Gooding Jr., Harvey Keitel, Hal Wilner and, reportedly, Leonard Cohen. Last night, I saw a guy down in the area between the stands and the stage, below me, really digging the show, dancing like a madman. Skinny guy in a tan jacket and tan poor-boy cap. He was being filmed by a crew. I looked closer and realized it was Michael Stipe of R.E.M. During the encore of "Bad" Daniel Lanois joined the band on Bono's beautiful, green Gretsch guitar. My initial thought was "who's the guy with the scraggly hair and prominent bald spot that Bono just handed his guitar too?" I think it's the only time in recent memory that I've seen Danny boy when he wasn't wearing some kind of hat. He and The Edge seem to have a thing about their baldness, don't they. C'mon boys, accept your cranial beauty! Accept it before it DESTROYS YOU!!

Not a Great show, but a very good show and a very cool show with some great moments. "Where The Streets Have No Name", when the house lights came up, I had goose bumps on my goose bumps.

The set list:

Vertigo
Electric Co.
Elevation
Beautiful Day
Still Haven’t Found
City of Blinding Lights
Miracle Drug
Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own
Love and Peace
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Bullet The Blue Sky
Miss Sarajevo
Pride
Where the Streets have no name
One

The Fly
With or Without You

All Because of You
Yahweh
Bad

Ok, that is all for now.

Just A Note Before I Go

2005-08-22T23:49:00.000-04:00

Isn't it a beauty? That's "Old Black". Neil Young's legendary guitar, a '53 Gold Top Les Paul that a previous owner painted black. Neil found this guitar around the time he hooked up with Crazy Horse in 1969 and used it on their first collaborative album, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (still my favourite Neil album). He later took it to a guitar shop for some repairs, and when he returned some time later to pick it up, the shop had folded up. It came back into his possession sometime around the mid-'70s when he again hooked up with Crazy Horse for his return-to-the-light album, Zuma (which happens to be spinning in my CD changer these days). At some point the bridge pickup had been replaced with one from a Gibson Firebird, which is so microphonic you can actually talk into it and be heard through the amp. That has a lot to do with the unique sound of this guitar.

For more info on Neil Young's sound and gear, look to the Neil Young archives over at Thrasher's Wheat [not to be confused with Neil's "Archives" boxed set(s) which are supposedly finally going to see the light of day next year. Then again, he's been saying that for years].

And before I take off out East for 2 weeks of vacationing, I want to leave you with this exerpt from an interview Neil did with a guitar magazine (available at the aforementioned website). There are so many things I love about Neil's guitar playing--the intensity, the melodicism, the range of expression--but above all is his approach. Check out this little Q&A.

JO: What are your views on people going to college to learn guitar?

NY: Paints a pretty doomed picture of the future, doesn't it? [Laughs.] First of all, it doesn't matter if you can play a scale. It doesn't matter if your technique is good. If you have feelings that you want to get out through music, that's what matters. If you have the ability to express yourself and you feel good when you do it, then that's why you do it. The technical side of it is a completely boring drag, as far as I'm concerned. I mean, I can't play fast. I don't even know the scales. A lot of the notes that I go for are notes that I know aren't there. They're just not there, so you can hit any note. I'm just on another level as far as all that goes. I appreciate these guys who play great. I'm impressed by these metal bands with their scale guys. Like I go, "Gee, that's really something." I mean, Satriani and Eddie Van Halen are genious guitar players. They're unbelievable musicians of the highest caliber. But I can't relate to it. One note is enough."

Amen.

Craigslist Ad Of The Month

2005-07-29T19:08:00.000-04:00

This is the funniest classified ad I've seen in some time. Under the "Musicians" category on the Craigslist:

Lets just get together and FUCKIN' JAM, & go from there
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reply to: anon-87425348@craigslist.org
Date: 2005-07-28, 5:28AM EDT

Lets just get together and FUCKIN' JAM, & go from there

I play guitar

how hard is it just to get together

jeezus fuckin christ

-----

That's just too fuckin funny!

Of course, it also raises the question: Do I really want to potentially be in a band with this person? Maybe a low threshold for frustration? On the other hand, at least he/she isn't shy about getting things off their chest.

No Moss

2005-07-27T21:55:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately, no Stones turned up at
Hubert Sumlin's gig last night at the Silver Dollar. No Keef, no Ronnie, no Mick (whose 62nd birthday it was).

I was pretty sure something would happen, seeing as the Stones have a solid history of playing a small club gig every time they've been in town. And the Silver Dollar is about the only place they haven't popped up. They've done The Palais Royale, RPM, The Horsehoe, The El Mocambo. Seemed like the planets were aligning, with Hubert in town and Mick's birthday and all, and it was an early show, doors opened ay 6, show at 8.

Hubert, god bless 'im, took full advantage of the hype, not saying whether Keith or anyone else would show up, but hinting that there'd be some kind of surprise in store. The place was packed. And hot. And sweaty. I don't think I've ever experienced a hotter show. Tim, from the band, had reserved a ticket, as had I, which was great because the line-up was down the street. I almost didn't get in. I had to take two cracks at convincing the doorman that I had a space inside waiting for me. What neither Tim nor I realized was that this reserved us a table. When I got in, they showed me to the table, which had my name on it, and the other spot at the table was reserved for Tim. Thing is, neither of us had arranged this. It was just pure coincidence.

Didn't matter anyway, as we ended up maintaining spots right in front of the stage, at Hubert's feet, as it were. If Keith showed up to jam, we wanted to be able to count his wrinkles. Maybe catch a pick. It was a real sweat-fest though. No ceiling fans or anything. Despite the disappointment that no special guests showed up, it was a pretty good show. Can't say Hubert's band was overly impressive. The guitar player was pretty good, but not outstanding. I think the drummer was new, radar always up for cues from the other musicians.

As for Hubert, he doesn't have the fretboard fire he used to have, but then again, the man is 73 years old. With one lung, as he reminded us a couple of times. Still, he showed a few flashes of his old strength. It was great to be able to see one of the true architects of the electric Chicago blues guitar sound. This guy's sound helped shape the music of Howlin' Wolf, he played with Muddy Waters, and he even played on a few Chuck Berry sides. Last night he did Little Red Rooster, Sittin' On Top Of The World (twice!), You've Got To Help Me, Smokestack Lightnin', Got My Mojo Workin' and a few other chestnuts (or shoud I say, Chess-nuts).

I must say, I've always had a much greater appreciation for blues guitarists who play with that strength in the fingers, like they put 100% conviction in every note they play. Every bend is a manifesto. Every slide is a testament. The fast, flashy, smooth guys are great too, although speed demons leave me cold more often than not, but it's guys like Hubert and Albert Collins, the guys that attack the notes with a different degree of intensity, whether it's a seven-note salvo or just one simple phrase, they infuse it with every fibre of their being. It's like they're squeezing every ounce of feeling out of the strings. I really need to dig deeper into the blues guitar archives, and get to know more of the legends. I have several compilations on CD, and I'm fairly aware of the major songs by B.B., Muddy, Wolf, Albert Collins and a few others. But I know very little of Albert King, Freddie King, Elmore James, Buddy Guy, etc.

So anyway, in spite of the lack of surprise guests, it was still nice to be able to pay homage to one of the great blues guitar legends. Rock on Hubert.

That Was The Week Off That Was

2005-07-24T15:52:00.000-04:00

Today marks the last day of my week off. I spent the day recuperating from last night's activities at the Beaches Jazz Festival. Imbibed a tad too much, I'm afraid, but it was a pretty fun night. Met some nice folks visiting from Alabama.

And what did I do on my week off? Not much, really, and that's just fine with me. It was more of a week-away-from-work than an actual vacation. Just needed some chill time, really. I consciously tried not to let my time be ruled by any major schedules or itineraries. Harder than it seems. But I did spend some nice time sipping refreshing beverages on patios, watching the work-a-day schmucks returning from the daily grind. Very enjoyable. And I did finally get my ass over to High Park. Been in this city over 10 years, and had never been there before. Did some exploring on foot. I loved the little waterfall part in the middle of the park. Very shady and cool, with a small frog pond, lilly pads, etc. Felt quite magical. Like an elf would pop up from behind a tree trunk and grant me three wishes.

No such luck.

I also did some exploring closer to my end of town. Left the house one afternoon, and just decided to go where my feet took me. They took me down to the Beaches Pub for a refreshing beverage and some garlic cheese bread on the lovely, shady patio. Watched a rollerblading newbie in full protective regalia and a huge backpack struggle along the pathway, arms flailing constantly. Very amusing. Then I walked up around Ashbridges Point, where I had never been before. Sat on some rocks at the lakeside and got some sun. Very nice parkland around there. Must go back again before the summer's over.

Didn't get to go to the Hillside Festival in Guelph, unfortunately, but hopefully the music karmic wheel will spin my way on Tuesday. That's when I'm going to see Hubert Sumlin at The Silver Dollar. Not only will it be fantastic to see one of the great Chicago blues guitar heroes in the flesh, speculation is that his buddy Keith Richards will drop in as well, seeing as the Stones are in town rehearsing for their upcoming tour. Sticky fingers crossed.

Oh yeah, we played a gig last Tuesday night. A return engagement at Grossman's. Wasn't as well-attended as the previous gig, and our first set a little shakey, due to the fact that we barely had one full-band rehearsal before the gig, but the second set was more fun. Overall, not a bad time.

Not Afraid

2005-07-14T20:57:00.000-04:00

Got an email from my friend Sue, who moved to London just over a year ago. Thankfully, she was not on the tube last Thursday.

She says that this website started within hours of the bombings.

I had a bit of a tense moment yesterday on the Toronto transit system. I was riding home on the Scarborough RT (a Rapid Transit above-ground train that connects with the subway system in the east end of the city). It was fairly crowded. There was a man standing in the non-active doorway area (opposite the doors that opened to the platform). Suddenly, while we were stopped at a station, he bolted off the train... leaving his backpack on the floor!!

A few seconds pass, and I'm thinking "... um ... er...like ...hey...", and then the guy jumps back on again. Seems like he just wanted to drop something in the trash bin, and then hop back on before the doors closed. He made it. Thanks for the heart attack, pal.

At least I didn't jump up and run to the opposite end of the train, screaming "we're all gonna die!" That would have been embarassing.

No Empathy. No Sympathy.

2005-06-29T21:05:00.000-04:00

Poor Karla. Preparing for her imminent release from prison, she's afraid she may be "relentlessly pursued" and "hunted down," and she fears for her life.

Now you know how it feels Karla. Shoulda maybe thought of that, dear, before you helped hunt down, abduct and kill those two young girls. You didn't have even a shred of humanity in you to allow you to put yourself in the place of those girls, and now you want our sympathy?

I think this is called Justice.

But really, I feel her pain. Oh, wait a minute... no I don't.

Brev.

2005-06-18T13:29:00.000-04:00

I like this video.

What, The Dick Ends?

2005-06-12T11:40:00.000-04:00

As I alluded to in previous posts, the days of The Dick Ellis Revival are near an end. Not the band itself--no need to run for the nearest open window!--just the band under that name. I had thought it was a good compromise name; one that we could all get behind. It wasn't my first choice, and others were lobbying for names that I couldn't live with. But, as is the nature of compromise, it just didn't satisfy enough of the stakeholders. So the search is mounted again for a consensus name. I don't know if you've ever tried to come up with a band name, but it's incredibly difficult. Especially finding one that will please seven people (and their attendant satellite community). And represents the essence of the band. And is original.

It's also unfortunate because after we had settled on the name, I had been inspired to whip up this essay on the origins of the name. It was going to go up on the website, but there's no point in that now. So here, by semi-popular demand, The Dick Ellis Essay.

-----------------
Far and wide, the question is asked: Who is Dick Ellis?

Fear not, my dear friends, for we have asked this question ourselves. And the answer has been revealed in time.

Some say he was a hometown hero. Some say he was a man of the people. Others say he is simply a myth, a story told to sooth worried souls in the dark of night.

But Dick Ellis is not one man. Dick Ellis is an idea. The idea of Dick Ellis cannot be expressed in one person. It takes a village--or at least a band of seven people--to conjure the presence of Dick Ellis. For Dick Ellis is not a captive of mere flesh and blood, nor of the flimsy, impermanent margins of time or tide.

Dick Ellis is the hero within all of us, waiting to be discovered--in every hometown, every city, every nation, and across the deep silence of space. Dick Ellis is a pure celebration of all that is beautiful and true.

But it wasn't always so. In the Fallow Times, there were many who turned their backs and sought instead the false pleasures of the shiny new ways and sounds. But, little by little, with each passing year, the shiny veneer thinned, the phony sparkles fell to rot, revealing more and more of the empty void behind the over-polished facade.

And the people began to wonder: Where was Dick Ellis?

And where was Dick Ellis? He was right where he always had been; we had simply become blind to his presence. And where is Dick Ellis today? Search your innermost soul, dear friend, and you will know the answer:

Wherever people speak from the heart -- there you will find Dick Ellis.
Wherever joyful folk maximize their mojo -- there you will find Dick Ellis.
Wherever innocence yearns to break free from the barbed tethers of the cynical mind -- there you will find Dick Ellis.
Wherever the Natural Smile, the Happy Tear and the Rebel Yell sway hand-in-hand -- there you will find Dick Ellis.

My friends, the spirit of Dick Ellis walks amongst us again. Find him, walk with him, dance with him. It is time for all of us to step out into the sunshine and join the parade. Welcome the rejuvenation.

Welcome The Dick Ellis Revival.

Sincerely,

The Esteemed Stan Herman

I Think It's Gonna Work Out Fine

2005-06-05T19:16:00.000-04:00

It had been a while since the band had played a gig. Boag, Tim, Kenny and I had played the Cadillac Lounge as a foursome, but before that, the previous full-band show had been at The Horsehoe on Boxing Day--five months ago, So we were itching to get out and play, especially since we'd added a few more orginals to our repertoire, and had learned a whole slew of new covers that are fun to play.

Through the auspices of our keyboard player Bertie, we landed a three-set slot at Grossman's Tavern this past Tuesday night. Grossman's is a Toronto institution, though compared to some other live venues, it's a little more rough around the edges. Carol Pope and Rough Trade got their start there, as did countless other acts. Bertie's New Orleans jazz band, The Happy Pals, plays a saturday matinee there every week.

We were all happy to get the gig, but the idea of taking on a whole night, playing three sets, seemed to me like maybe we were biting off more than we could chew, especially after being off for so long, and having to learn a whole bunch of new songs. This was compounded by the fact that we had been having a little trouble getting all of us together for rehearsals. But, once we had the gig, we set out to get in as much rehearsal as we could. I think we had had one full rehearsal, and we had scheduled to get together again a few Wednesdays ago, when Boag had the misfortune of being hit by a car while cycling on College Street. He was all right (his bike wasn't), but that scuttled a much-needed rehearsal night.

I'm always nervous going into a gig. Waiting to go on, I always have to use the washroom about 4 or 5 times. Not sure where all that pee comes from, but it wants out. Abandon ship! I was getting anxious about this gig a few days prior, even after we got Bertie's other other band to open up for us. (It's a new duo with her friend Lara, called Mack And Hunt. This was their second gig.) That made our job easier, with only two sets to worry about. But I was still uneasy about our preparedness. And my own preparedness as well. There were a couple of songs where I was fairly shaky about my solos and other parts.

But then a funny thing happened. The day of the gig, I just stopped worrying about it. Something tells me the rest of the band took the same approach, because when we took the stage (actually just the floor at one end of the room), we rocked! We were just having fun--relaxed, easy, happy-go-lucky. Part of it may have been the venue. Unlike other places we've played, such as the Horseshoe and Lee's Palace, where there is a dance floor chasm between the stage and the audience, at Grossman's the crowd is right there in your lap, and you're on the same level with them. No stage.

It was also a pretty rambunctious crowd, for a Tuesday night. Grossman's is the type of place where there are always a few neighbourhood regulars hanging around getting sauced. And, like I said, it's a bit rough around the edges. In fact, just before we went on, there was a huge kerfuffle between some seemingly crack-addled woman and her boyfriend. I had seen them come in, and noted her behaviour, practically bouncing off the walls. Then, as I was at the bar getting a beer for the stage, the man, who had left momentarily, set off a firecracker or something just outside the front door, then comes running back inside pointing at the woman, and yelling "You'd better just call the cops right now!" She's screaming stuff back at him, and then they get into a stand-off around the pool table. He's starting to look like he's about to really attack her, and I'm standing about 10 feet away, wondering whether I should jump in and stop the guy (he was a fairly small-ish dude, didn't look like he'd be that hard to handle). But there were 3 or 4 guys, just patrons, standing closer to them, by the pool table, and they jumped on the guy before he could get to her, one of them putting him in a rather expertly done arm lock. They wrestled him to the ground and then escorted him out. Of course the woman is yelling at them not to hurt him.

And with that out of the way, we started playing!

The room was respectfully populated with various friends and co-workers and regulars. I think I may have heard a few heckles from the half-drunk regs at the beginning, but by about the fourth or fifth number, they were hootin' and hollerin'! "You guys rock!" Shouting out requests. It was a good feeling. There was one rather haggardly old dame who got up periodically to dance right in front of us, sans shoes. "Interpretive" I think they call it. The last time she got up to shake her thing, she jumped in and sang a verse of the song (I think it was during "Down By The Henry Moore"), and then on the way back to her seat, she tangled with a chair, and lost, wiping out rather heavily, landing on her ass. We kept playing, but looked on with concern. She was all right.

In the second set, this long-stringy-haired dude succeeded in badgering us to let him sing a song. For his moment of glory, he chose the Led Zep staple "Rock And Roll". Not part of our repertoire, but we did a reasonably good facsimile. The vocal stylings left a lot to be desired, but our drummer Gerry gets full points for finding his inner Bonham.

But it was a great night. Hot and sweaty and rockin'. It was like playing a roadhouse, without the chicken wire. Our best gig, and our funnest gig by far. We had a blast. We're booked in there again in late July.

Here's the set:

Grossman's Tavern - May 31, 2005
* = original song

1st set:
The Dick Ellis Ramble* (formerly known as The Mavis Ramble, soon to be renamed)
Fast Train
The Fever
Thelma Jane*
Men Without Women
Just My Imagination
Lanois Song*
Get It Together*
Down By The Henry Moore
I Can't Dance
I Think It's Gonna Work Out Fine
Shine A Light

2nd Set:
Orange Juice Blues (Blues For Breakfast)
Don't Let The Green Grass Fool Ya
I'll Be Back
Fed Up Blues*
When Will I Be Loved
Don't Think Twice It's Alright (vocal & piano only)
10th Ave. Freeze Out
Tupelo Honey
Comin' Home*
Lost Highway
Slippin' and Slidin'
When I Paint My Masterpiece

The Fix

2005-05-16T19:57:00.000-04:00

There's a great initiative afoot to change the CRTC's Canadian Content regulations to give radio stations more incentive to play indie artists. I think it's a wonderful idea.

If you agree, and you're Canadian citizen, drop by the website and sign the petition.

Let's Fix CANCON

Flux On, Flux Off...

2005-05-15T13:05:00.000-04:00

Normal business hours where I work start at 8:30 a.m., but because I have a long commute by public transit, I come in around 9:00, and my boss is okay with that. Lots of other people come in for 9:00 as well. Tuesday morning, as I strolled in at the stroke of 9-ish, I saw everyone--and I mean everyone--from our 2nd floor marketing/creative services/repertoire/business analysis/web area assembled in the open-concept meeting room affectionately called "The Pit", with our Exec VP addressing the group.

My spidey senses were telling me that something was up.

I dropped off my stuff in my office and made my way to The Pit. I idled up next to one of our graphic artists who was standing near the back of the pack and hushedly asked for the scoop.

"We've been bought by BMG," he said.

Always trust your spidey senses.

We spent the rest of the week getting dribs and drabs of information about what it all means. Here's a little article on the subject.

Usually these kinds of mergers/acquisitions result in job losses--"efficiencies"--and that may very well be the case with this one, especially when it comes to the redundancies in the call centres both companies have in North America. Both companies have distribution facilities and call centres in the mid-west USA. I doubt they'll keep all of them operating as is. Both companies also have head offices in New York City. Word is they'll move both into a new building.

It's scary stuff, but the possible blessing for us in Toronto is that BMG doesn't have a presence in the Canadian market. BMG Canada was operating a music club here, but we successfully shut them out 6 or 7 years ago, and they pulled out of Canada. So, assuming the new company (BMG-Columbia House, or whatever it's to be called) will want to maintain a presence in this market--and I can't see why they wouldn't--they'll need our office. Plus, not to sound like a company man, but we've been doing some very good work recently, making some very bold moves to rethink our business and reach out to our customers. I think--hope--that when our new BMG overlords finish examining their new assets and start deciding how to best integrate the two companies, they'll recognize that we've been a very valuable part of the CH business.

It's still early days in terms of knowing how it'll all shake out, but it may be a very positive move for the business. BMG is strong in its music club, and CH is strong in DVD, so the merging of the two brands could create a very powerful entertainment direct seller, as they are saying. Plus BMG also owns Book of the Month Club and several other large publishing companies, as well as other interests, so the cross-selling possibilities are there.

I think it's also better to be owned by an entertainment company once again. The Blackstone Group, which had bought us a couple of years ago, is an investment firm. They were only interested in "flipping" their investment. BMG is in the same business we're in, and they apparently see this acquisition as a strategic move to expand their business. They see value in adding us to their group.

At least that's what I can glean from the press and from what we've been told through the message coming down from the company execs. I was impressed that Stuart Goldfarb, the CEO of BMG Direct, spent all day Thursday travelling around North America, visiting every facility the two companies own around the continent, to talk to the employees and answer questions. I was also impressed that he showed up in a sweatshirt and jeans! As someone at our office said afterwards, he looked like a roadie for a rock band. It's true: 40-something, beard, sweathshirt, jeans, running shoes. He said that's just how he's most comfortable, and he does his job well, so his bosses leave him alone. He didn't have all the answers as to what's going to happen, because, as he explained, they simply don't know yet themselves. But he seemed like a pretty straight-up guy.

So, all that can be done is to wait and see how it all shakes out. Government approval for the sale won't come through until at least July 1.

The more immediate good news for me is that we're bringing in the new copywriter on a short-term contract, to get around the two-week hiring freeze. (Turns out the freeze was a result of the impending announcement of the sale to BMG--so that explains that.) Plus we're bringing in the other guy on a contract as well. He'll come in for 20-25 hours a week to work on certain projects. So relief is in sight for me. I can actually look at working normal hours and doing a nornal work load again--and taking some time off in the not-too-distant future. Woo!

Life is Hard, Then You Blog

2005-05-08T17:15:00.000-04:00

I've been really feeling the strain from covering two jobs at work for these past three months. Haven't really been able to have much of a life outside work. Get home around 8 p.m. or later some nights. Get a bite to eat, often a slice of pizza from down the street, read some e-mail, maybe watch the news, then try to get to bed at a decent hour, which is often hard to do when I eat late.

But there's light at the end of the tunnel. We interviewed a candidate for the Junior Copywriter position, and I think she'll be perfect. Fresh out of school and eager, and her writing skills are very good. She's obviously a natural writer and truly lives in the world of the word. And I'm sure she's bright enough to catch on quickly to all the other stuff that comes with working in an office, and having the pressures of production deadlines, etc. I sat in on the her initial interview on Wednesday with our HR guy because my boss was at an off-site meeting. I recommended that we should bring her in for a second interview with my boss. So she came in again on Friday, and my boss loved her. So we were excited that we'd finally found someone to fill the position, someone who seems perfect. Only problem is, as I found out on Friday, the company has just this week put a hiring freeze in place. And this comes after some of the other departments have made several hires in the past few weeks, making their staffs larger. We're just trying fill positions from staff we've lost.

So it's pretty frustrating, especially since it seems to me that there's been some foot-dragging in getting this position filled. All I hear is that there's lots of competition out there for jobs, especially for writing jobs, hundreds of resumes stacked up on HR desks. And we've interviewed a grand total of three people over a period of two or three months? And now we've finally found a perfect hire, and they announce a hiring freeze! I'm told that the freeze will only be in effect for the next two or three weeks though, which is strange in its own right. But my boss says she's working on the higher-ups to try to get things moving sooner, so we'll see how it all shakes out.

The good news is that we are going ahead with bringing in a guy on a short-term contract. He's a former copywriter there, just before my time. We'll bring him in to do some direct mail projects and he can also help me out in the interim. So there is relief in sight. Ideally by the time the new junior copywriter is on board, the contract guy will be able to shoulder some of my load while I spend some of my time training the newbie, and then once she's up and running, I can actually take some time off. What a concept! I dearly need some chill time. You know you need some time off when you're sitting at your desk, staring blankly at the computer screen, whispering Peter Lorre imitations to yourself.

"I am prepared to pay five thousand dollars for the figure's return."
"Reeck, Reeck..."

Yes, it's come to that. Life outside of work hasn't been much better. When the weekend rolls around, I'm usually too burnt-out to want to do much. Just sleep in and then chill out at my own pace. Been spending my weekends mostly in my own little cocoon. Hardly even venturing out during the day. The exception was a few weekends ago when we had a beautiful Sunday, 20-some degrees and sunny. People were walking about in T-shirts...and, thankfully, pants.

The day beckoned, so I took a walk up Kingston Road, and, on a whim, decided to turn down a random side street and wander through a Beaches neighbourhood I had never walked through before. I walked southward, making my way through the mostly large, beautiful and certainly expensive houses. I ended up on a street that ran south towards the main strip of the Beaches on Queen Street. On the left was a wooded ravine with a walking trail that followed the course of a stream. One of the nice things about Toronto is the system of ravines that runs throughout the city. Lovely to have access to nature in the middle of a city. Gotta stay in touch with the Mother. I saw a stairway of sorts carved into the hillside, so I descended into the ravine. It felt great traipsing through the shady coolness, hearing the trickling of the stream, the rustle of leaves in the trees, sensing the awakening of spring.

Today is another such day. Twenty-three degrees and sunny. People walking around in t-shirts. And pants. I probably won't get out today though. Gotta do my taxes. And my laundry situation has gone Code Red. I'm down to the third-stringers in my underwear-and-socks drawer. The bench-warmers that never get to play in the big game because I rely on my quality guys to carry me through. As they call it in the hockey world, playing a shortened bench. But now I'm calling upon socks I don't even remember owning. Underwear that now prompt me to question my initial purchase decision (ultra-briefs? What was I thinking?).

Anyway, I'm feeling a bit too cerebral to indulge in the simple pleasures of a sunny day. Not that they're mutually exclusive, but I just feel the need to write and cogitate. It's been a rare feeling lately. And I've been feeding my head with some good things. This past Tuesday was the "company store" day at work (a phrase that tickles me to no end: "You take 16 DVDs and waddya get..."), where I get to redeem the voucher that accompanies my pay cheque once a month. They set up a corner of the warehouse with about a dozen large tables of returned product, mostly DVDs, and we get to pick one DVD or two CDs. This time around I chose a 2-disc deluxe edition of the "Magnolia" DVD. I try to pick films that I'm likely to want to revisit at some point. That's my philosophy of having a DVD collection. Why have a bunch of films you'll watch once and then they just sit on your shelf? For those kinds of films, there's rental. I guess I see DVDs more like CDs than books. Oddly, I'm okay with having lots of books that I'll read only once and then they just sit on my shelf. Perhaps that's an issue to be more fully explored at some other time, but maybe it has something to do with the perception that books are more "permanent", an older technology. Or maybe it's that I've grown up conditioned to accept the logic of libraries, with no similarly popular concept of film libraries?

Anyway, I watched "Magnolia" Friday night, staying up way too late to do so. In fact, I couldn't finish watching it because I was just to tired, it was getting on to 3 a.m. or thereabouts--it's a long film--so I watched the last 45 minutes or so last night. It's the first re-viewing of the film for me since I'd seen it in the theatre, and it certainly is one of those films that rewards multiple viewings, if only just to get a clearer picture of all the characters and their various relationships to each other--literal and metaphorical.

[I interrupt this narrative with an announcement. I have decided to forgo doing laundry until tomorrow! I'm working from home tomorrow, so I'll be able to get that done while I work, just as long as I get it done before I have to leave for my dental appointment in the afternoon. Getting a crown done. Yay. So it looks like maybe I'll be able to get out and catch some of the Sunday sunshine after all. Me and my third-string socks and my ultra-briefs. And pants.]

The bonus disc has some interesting stuff on it. A bunch of outtakes which are quite funny. Some scenes that didn't make it into the movie. The complete T.J. Mackey seminar that Tom Cruise delivers ("tame the pussy!"), as well as the T.J. Mackey infomercial that plays mostly in the background on television during the scenes with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Jason Robards on his death bed. There's also Aimee Mann's video for "Save Me" and a making-of documentary that chronicles the process as the film goes over schedule and over budget, and then wins a bunch of awards and film-festival honours.

I'll say this though: Paul Thomas Anderson is one hyper dude. Made me wonder what it'd be like to be in a room with him and Quentin Tarantino. Give them some speed and then watch them explode like frogs in a microwave.

"Yesbutitreallyharkensbacktofritzlangsmetropolisandntherereallyhasntbeenapropernoirstoryline
sinceimeanimeanlikelookatdarkcity..." *BOOM!*

Odd thing was, as I was about to pop in the DVD to watch the last bit of "Magnolia", I channel-surfed across "Six Degrees of Separation", which had just barely begun. I had never seen it before, and it captivated me, so I settled in to watch that. A fascinating film, though it didn't take long to realize that it was adapted from a play. Great dialogue, but I find it detracts from the effect when you can practically see the playwright writing the words, watch the actor on screen turning into a mouthpiece for an offscreen presence. Stage dialogue doesn't always survive the transition to celluloid, no matter how brilliant it may be. But it was brilliant writing. Will Smith's discussion of his thesis on the death of the imagination was spellbinding and inspiring. But I say it was an "odd" thing to stumble across this film on TV because it certainly has some thematic commonalities with "Magnolia", chiefly the interconnectedness of lives and stories.

And then, today I finally got around to listening to Ryan Adams' new CD, "Cold Roses". I dropped the laser on the first disc without even looking at the names of the tracks, and the first line I heard was "I want to go to Magnolia Mountain..."

And the Narrator from the movie says...
And it is in the humble opinion of this narrator that this is not just "Something That Happened." This cannot be "One of those things..." This, please, cannot be that. And for what I would like to say, I can't. This Was Not Just A Matter Of Chance. Ohhhh. These strange things happen all the time.

I think I'll go take that walk now. Twenty-three degrees and sunny. Chance of frogs.

I'll leave you with some more memorable quotes from "Magnolia".

Bye Bye Johnnie

2005-04-16T13:09:00.000-04:00

A lovely tribute to Johnnie Johnson. God bless you Johnnie.

You Don't Know Dick?

2005-04-14T21:49:00.000-04:00

First, we were The Braveyard Whips.
Then, we were Mavis.
Then, The Darktown Strutters.

All just phases. Necessary biways to reach our destination.

Long live The Dick Ellis Revival!

Mmmmm is for Martha

2005-04-11T20:47:00.000-04:00

Check out the lovely and talented Martha Wainwright on Letterman tonight. Maybe she'll do the title track from her upcoming CD, BMFA (Bloody Mother-Fucking Asshole), apparently written more or less about dad Louden.

You may have noticed her in "The Aviator" as a big band singer in a nightclub crooning "I'll Be Seeing You".

Courtesy of her website, here are 3 downloadable songs from the new CD.
(right-click, "save link as"; Mac people: control-click, "save link to disc")

BMFA
I Will Internalize
How Soon

Martha rocks! Artistically strong, vulnerable, sexy, brave, passionate, smart. If you've never seen her play live, do whatever you can to rectify that.

Maybe she can hitch her wagon to the current "everything cool comes from Montreal" ethos. Although I think she spends most of her time in New York these days.

Tomorrow's Headlines Today

2005-04-02T15:22:00.000-05:00

You heard it here first:

BUSH NOMINATES BROTHER JEB FOR PAPACY

Oh, God

2005-04-02T13:50:00.000-05:00

With all due respect to the Pope and catholics everywhere (myself being a recovering one -- it's a 12-step program; one for each apostle), I think this article speaks for itself about some of the inherent problems with the church, or at least with some of its employees.

(BANG) - Madonna should be 'beaten' for dressing as a nun, a leading US Catholic has claimed.

I've always failed to understand how people who venerate "the lamb of God" and "the Prince of Peace" can be so comfortable doling out corporal punishment. People have heard of this Practice What You Preach thing, haven't they? It's been all over the Internets.

Then again, with George Bush pushing a "culture of life", what can one expect with that kind of consistency in moral leadership. I'm sure there are quite a few innocent Iraqi civilians who would have liked to be invited into that culture.

And while we're talking religion and hypocrisy, I noticed that as the Terri Schiavo case was unfolding over the past few weeks, the Rev. Jerry Falwell was hospitalized in "critical condition...battling his second case of viral pneumonia in just five weeks."

To recap, this is the man who said that the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon on 9/11 were God's judgment on America for "throwing God out of the public square":

"I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"

He was also quoted as saying that "God will not be mocked."

I think it's pretty obvious to see what's happening here: In the midst of the hypocrisy, threats and general ugliness perpetuated by right-wing Christian wind-bag zealots like Falwell, God is striking them down to send a message. Seems like a pretty obvious conclusion to me. At least according to the same kind of "logic" used by people like Falwell. Funny why they don't see this obvious expression of God's displeasure with their actions. I guess it's easier to intuit the will of God when it supports one's own narrow, hateful, fear-inspring agenda. When America is attacked, God is obviously punishing America for creeping secularism, but when someone like Falwell is struck down with a serious disease, it's not God's will, it's just a medical condition.

Maybe God should start leaving "calling card" notes like Spider-Man does. "This hypocritical, hateful pompous zealot struck down by your friendly neighbourhood omnipotent deity."

I think maybe God needs some media advisors to make sure his key messages are getting through.

The Goods On This Friday

2005-03-25T15:36:00.000-05:00

This weekend marks the third anniversary of my adventure in blogging.

And I have nothing momentous or profound to say about it whatsoever.

So let's get on with it...

I'm enjoying a very restful Good Friday. And that's... good!

A very necessary period of downtime. Just relaxing, drinking good coffee, listening to good music, surfing the web, trying not to follow any agenda or attach myself to any schedule. Off the workaday grid, so to speak. Will get together with some of boys in the band tonight for a rehearsal, probably go for a few beers afterwards (wait a minute... are pubs open on Good Friday? Hmmm, I can't remember). Either way, it should be a good way to spend the evening.

What have I been listening to? The new Solomon Burke CD is quite good. He goes a little over the top at times, but even when he does, it's entertaining. The lead-off track "I Need Your Love In My Life", is fantastic. Great Keef-esque rhythm guitar.

Been quite impressed with Josh Rouse's latest album, Nashville. Nice, warm, acoustic pop. "It's The Nighttime" is a great, catchy tune. Hear it and other selections streaming from his site. The piano ballad "Sad Eyes" is a little on the saccharine/schmaltzy end of the spectrum, but I find it hard to resist nonetheless. Overall I find him a cut above most of the other pretty-boy folk-pop romeos around these days, people like John Mayer. Rouse may be travelling the same road, but he's not so firmly planted in the middle of it.

Been following the Schiavo case, of course. Sad, sad story all around. I don't know all the details, and of course, none of us do, unless we have firsthand knowledge of her telling her husband or anyone else that she didn't want to be kept alive artificially in such a vegetative state. But seeing as how 30+ judges have heard the case at virtually every level of the judicial process, and the findings have all concluded that she did express that view, and has a right to die, I'm inclined to believe that those were her wishes. Similarly with the conflicting medical opinions. I'll side with the court-appointed experts over the bought-off hacks on this one.

Pat Boone was on Larry King the other night. His grandson had been in a lengthy coma after a fall, and then came out of it, despite doctors' advise that he wouldn't. Pat was calling the Schiavo case murder, and tossing around unsubstantiated innuendo about abuse from her husband. The fact that Larry King pointed out that the kind of coma Boone's grandson was in is a medically different condition than the vegetative state Mrs. Schiavo is in, didn't seem to disqualify Boone as "the voice of morality".

The bullshit, faulty logic and spurious argument coming from the right is simply incredible. If I hear one more right-wing pundit use the dog analogy, I'm gonna scream. Here's the spiel. "If I did to a dog what they're doing to Terri Schiavo [withholding food and water], I'd be arrested." Wrong. If you did that to an otherwise *healthy* dog, yes. But Terri Schiavo is not a healthy person. Fact is, if your dog was hit by a car, and was in misery, you'd be *expected* to put it out of its misery, perhaps even legally required to do so, but certainly ethically and morally obliged to end its suffering.

Then there's this ongoing talk of "activist judges." Apparently an activist judge is one whose decisions run contrary to right-wing, conservative Christian agendas. I guess some of the Reagan and Bush appointees on the Federal bench and on the U.S. Supreme Court have now succumbed to the same disease. People are screaming that "the judges are running the country". Funny, I don't remember these people so upset when judges appointed George Bush to his first term as president.

The level of hypocrisy is truly astounding. But that seems to be the central principle guiding American decision-makers--and we in Canada have certainly seen it in the area of trade disputes--if the game goes against you, change the rules. Or even better, ignore the rules.

I was happy to hear a voice of reason on CNN use the phrase "sanctity of the marriage bond" in defense of Mr. Schiavo's actions and in criticism of the bill passed by Bush and the Congress. Ah yes, that creature that is under attack by the forces of immorality and needs to be protected: the heterosexual marriage. Thank god Bush and the neo-cons have such respect for that institution.

And then there was the guy on CNN today protesting via megaphone outside of Jeb Bush's gubernatorial mansion, seemingly outraged that the groundspeople were watering the plants while Mrs. Schiavo was being denied water. Do us all a favour buddy, and start denying yourself food and water. Interesting too how Jeb Bush seems to have lost his righteousness and stomach for doing "the right thing" now that opinion polls are showing that his brother's ratings are taking a hit.

And what happened to the time-honoured conservative value of keeping "Big Government" out of people's lives? If one good thing comes out of this, other than more people getting their wills and their wishes in order, maybe it's the prospect of a rift developing on the right when the more moderate conservatives get a real clear look at what kind of religious zealots they're politically sleeping with.

But I'll just say right now, in lieu of a real living will with all the proper legalese language, that if I ever end up in a vegetative state from which there is no hope of recuperation, I don't want my body to be kept "alive" artificially. That's not being alive.

To quote a T Bone Burnett song:

The frightening thing is not dying
The frightening thing is not living

Leg Up

2005-03-19T12:31:00.000-05:00

Haven't had much time or cause to blog lately. Now that I'm doing two jobs at work, I've been busier than a one-legged man at a butt-kickin' contest.

As you may recall, I got a new boss back in January. So far, things are working out pretty well. New Boss has a lot of energy and enthusiasm, and a lot of very good ideas about how to make our magazines fresher and livelier and more interesting. Shortly after she came on board, we sat down and talked about what kinds of changes she'd like to see, and I like the direction she's going in. Wants to add more editorial content to our magazines, letters from the editor, that kind of thing. More interactive elements. Crosswords, games, etc. Things to make the reader feel like they're members of a club, and not just reading a catalogue of product to buy. Things that are more fun for me to write too.

And she really likes my work, and is quite a bit more supportive than my previous boss. Less stingy with praise. So, in turn, I find I'm coming up with better ideas and being more creative in general, which leads to more appreciation, etc etc...

We also talked about my role, and I pitched her on the fact that I'd like to have more control over copy decisions, and more responsibility. She seemed open to that idea.

Then about a month ago, the other copywriter quit. Since then I've been writing and overseeing all the copy for the company--Music and DVD/Video Club magazines, web, direct mail pieces, even a display for a trade-show booth and a telephone script for outcalls from our call centre CSRs (cutsomer service representatives). It's been a load of work with many late hours. Getting to know the cleaning crew quite well.

But, we've been doing some really interesting things with our magazines, adding the aforesaid contests (asking readers to match rock-star tattoos with their respective albums), getting more interactive with readers (asking them to go to our website and vote on their favourite albums of the moment, sharing picks from some our staff, etc.). I just finished writing some expanded, review-style features on the most influential albums of the past four decades. Our graphic artists have been doing some great designs and layouts, and everyone's been getting a lot more creative and coming up with fresh ideas, including me.

It seems that all is turning out well. And for me personally, it's meant a more satisfying work environment--albeit an extremely busy one--and greater job satisfaction. And help is on the way! We've begun interviewing for a junior copywriter.

Why "junior"? Because... [drumroll]... I got a promotion! I'm now the Senior Copywriter, and the new person we hire will report to me. I'll be responsible for overseeing all copy in the Music and DVD/Video Clubs, and other projects. The new person will write mostly for the Music Club. If I had my druthers, I would write the music stuff, but the fact is, our music sales are down and dropping lower, while DVD is growing. Career-wise, handling most of the DVD side of things is the smart thing to do. Better to be on the rising boat than the sinking one. Plus I get to deal with all our Playboy DVD products!

And speaking of getting a raise, I got a fairly decent increase in pay too. Nothing that'll change my income-tax bracket, but I was happy with it. I considered perhaps pressing for a bigger increase, considering I am in a bit of an advantageous position, as the only writer on staff. But, with the company in precarious financial health, I'm satisfied with what I got. There's promise of more in the future as we move forward. And if I choose to leave, I can market myself at a more senior level.

So, all in all, the work front is a lot more satisfying these days.

Things is lookin' up!

Gidget Gone-zo

2005-02-21T19:43:00.000-05:00

On the same day, we say goodbye to Hunter S. Thompson and Gidget.

Yep, just two peas in this crazy ol' pod we call life.

No More Mavis

2005-02-20T23:30:00.000-05:00

As it turns out, there's a band in town called Mavis Drive. It's a street out in Etobicoke. I'd heard of Mavis Road, but not Mavis Drive. They've been around longer than us, have a CD out and a web page and everything. They're "Sabbath-style hard rock". So it's back to the name game for us.

I think we may end up going back to The Braveyard Whips. It's original, and it fits the way we sound. Although tonight at rehearsal we all seemed to like The Goers as a name as well. I suggested we could make t-shirts that say "I'm a Goer" on them. But I'm kind of partial toward The Braveyard Whips myself.

I also have to go back to the drawing board on the CD art I created for our demos we recorded at Bertie's. I burned CDs to give to each band member, but I left the drummer's name out of the credits. Oops, sorry Gerry.

So...

2005-02-16T23:42:00.000-05:00

I wasn't sure how I'd start back into blogging after the last entry. Jumping right back into some mundane entry about work or the band or something just didn't seem right. "Sad about Mike, but moving right along, this is what happened to me on the subway today..."

Uh-huh.

But, knowing how Mike loved to deconstruct awards shows, let's dedicate this entry in Mike's honour: The Good, The Bad and The Grammys.

Let's start at the beginning: The opening.
Well, I suppose it wasn't as lame as some from years past, but that's about the best I can't say abou it. Does anyone else want to strangle the singer from Maroon 5? The guy just bugs me.
Gwen Stefani. Please go away. This woman cannot sing without sounding like she's sitting on a washing machine on agitate.

One thing about the Grammys is that when people do perform live, you really get see the wheat parting ways from the chaff. To wit:

- Gretchen Wilson: The Nashville marketing gloss is stripped away to reveal a glorified bar singer. Course these days in the music biz, as in the entertainment biz in general, it doesn't matter if you're flat; that can be fixed.

- Tim McGraw: Visually: beefcake. Musically: deflated souffle. Or as some say... all hat, no cattle.

Speaking of wheat and chaff, the Janis Joplin tribute was a prime example. Joss Stone is supposedly the new soul diva? She's got the style, but sorry honey, you ain't got the soul. I'm not even that big a fan of Melissa Etheridge, but at least she has the balls to be able to sing Joplin as it should be sung (not to mention to show up bald, after undergoing breast cancer treatments). Maybe not the Janis heiress, but at least her voice has the power to get her in the ball park. Joss Stone just doesn't have the... stones, to sing that stuff.

Loved the Loretta and Jack show. That was hilarious. One of the night's best moments for entertainment value and for seeing a real musical treasure get her due.

Kanye West. Get over yourself. Tool.

Queen Latifah: Nice job hosting. Very nice job singing that jazz song.

U2. Great performance. Deserved wins. Are there any real rock bands anymore?

Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony. Big hyped duet. Big yawn. Where's the wardrobe malfunction when you need one?

Alicia Keys: I liked her performances. She poured a lot of soul into her singing. She was spending some stuff there. The duet with Jamie Foxx wasn't quite as great as it should have been, mostly because it shouldn't have included Jamie Foxx.

Ray Charles. Nice to see a legend get his due (especially at the expense of a tool like Kanye West), but it was all a bit predictable and safe.

The big "We Are The World Across The Universe" ensemble: A Simpsons episode comes to life!

See you next year!

Mike Wolf

2005-02-11T01:30:00.000-05:00

I was out all evening, and arrived home to the sad news that fellow blogger, regular visitor here, and long-time online friend Mike Wolf passed away last night.

I don't even know where to pack this away emotionally -- other than in the general area of shock and sadness and disbelief -- given that I never met Mike in the flesh. But I've "known" him for about 10 years, going back to the days of the Elvis Costello email list, which I was quite active in back in the day, along with other regular visitors here, Dean and Vernam (Tom). Was in touch with Mike more often in recent years since we both started blogging. I read his blog almost every day.

He had extended a standing invitation to me to come visit and stay with him in Stamford, and hang out in NYC. Wish I had taken him up on it.

I don't know what else to say. We'll miss you Mike.

More Mavis

2005-01-29T18:10:00.000-05:00

Here are some more live demos. We recorded these last Sunday at our keyboard player Roberta's place. I took my portable Boss digital 8-track studio over there and we used only one mic, because it only has input for one mic. Didn't have access to a mixer. But they actually sound better than the previous demos when we had 2 mics set up. Go figure.

Took another run at "Masterpiece" (I replaced the old "Masterpiece" file in the folder with this new version) and "Just My Imagination". I added the newer take on "Imagination" to the folder because it's a better recording (despite some cable crackling coming from somewhere), but I left the older one up because it has a nice vibe to it. We also ran through Murray McLauchlan's "Down By The Henry Moore". "I'll Be Back" is a song we've been doing in our set, written by Pat Temple. We also recorded our originals, "Thelma Jane" and the new one, "Saved By A Song" (subtitle: "Lanois Song"), but I'm not going to post those until we have them registered.

I'm playing my Epiphone again, through my little Fender SKX amp. Not a great amp, but it only weighs about 7 lbs, which is I why I got it, to take to rehearsals at Bertie's. Beats lugging my 30-lb Blues Jr. amp on the bus.

Overall, I think these recordings sound pretty good. Boag's voice is more prominent, which is the main thing. Bertie's keys could have be a bit louder. But until we do some multi-tracking, these will suffice. I think we're really starting to find our sound, kind of a country-soul-rock thing.

Enjoy.

[click on the link, then, on the page that opens, go to the "page" icon in the middle, right-mouse click/save file to disc, etc.]

Down By The Henry Moore
I'll Be Back
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Just My Imagination

Sound Off

2005-01-21T18:16:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the problems with the Yahoo files. Yahoo says they're trying to fix my Briefcase access problem. It's been several days, though, and nothing has been solved. Took me forever on their Help page just to find a way to contact them. Maybe that should give me some indication of what kind of help to expect.

If you're really interested in hearing the demos we recorded, let me know (click on my name below to send me an email). I can email you a link to the files that apparently works.

Sounds Of Mavis

2005-01-15T16:35:00.000-05:00

As promised, here (in the Music folder) are a couple of the live demo tracks we recorded last Sunday at Tim's place. Obviously not professonal studio recordings, but it gives some idea of what we're up to. Don't forget to do the right-mouse-button-click "save as"/"save link to disk" thingy.

If my memory serves me well, we only did one take of "Just My Imagination" and two takes of "When I Paint My Masterpiece", the keeper being take 2. We may try re-recording these. I think Boag's voice should be more prominent. There's talk of maybe doing some multi-track recording, which would yield a much more professional sound, of course, but for now, these will suffice.

That's me starting off "Just My Imagination" with the tremolo guitar. Nice job on the backup vocals by Roberta, Sean and Tim. I think my solo sounds a little thin, and maybe lacks some "verve". I wasn't quite sure how long I'd be soloing. Was expecting Kenny to take over half-way through, but then Boag was gesturing for me to keep going as well, so my solo doesn't quite "tell a story" like it should (beginning-middle-end), but we kind of got into a bit of a groove near the end.

Please feel free to share your impressions. Feedback is always welcome.

Making Tracks

2005-01-09T23:25:00.000-05:00

Instead of our usual Sunday rehearsal, this evening we gathered at Tim's place to lay down some tracks for a little demo CD to shop around to club bookers, etc. Tim has a recording board that he runs into Garageband on an eMac. We just set up a couple of mics in the small den off the livingroom and played live -- myself and Tim on guitars set up in opposite corners, Sean on bass in another corner, Boag sat by the wall, positioned between both mics, Kenny sat on the couch and blew away on his harp, Roberta played a little Yamaha keyboard to my left, and Gerry set up his snare in the doorway to the livingroom, so it wouldn't be too loud. A couple of the songs needed a few takes, but we got pretty good performances of "I'll Be Back", "Just My Imagination", "Thelma Jane" and "When I Paint My Masterpiece".

Tim's apartment has fairly high ceilings, and even though the den is a pretty small room, and we were all crammed in there, we actually got a fairly decent sound. Add some reverb in Garageband, and it came out with a pretty nice vibe. Far from Abbey Road, mind you, but we were all pretty pleased with the results. If I get a copy of the disc, I'll see if I can post the results.

Meet The New Boss...

2005-01-09T22:32:00.000-05:00

So I met my new boss earlier this week. She was taken around on Wednesday to meet everyone. She seems quite nice. Hard to tell how old she is. Possibly my age or maybe even younger. Late-30s? Good sense of humour, it seems. Isn't a stickler about making sure we come in at 8:30 on the dot, which is refreshing.

Strange though that she didn't hold any kind of meeting with all of us in our department. I would have thought she'd want to hold some sort of pow-wow, even just a brief little pizza lunch just to get acquainted with us all, her new underlings. In fact she was oddly invisible for the remainder of the week. To be fair, I'm sure she had a lot of stuff to get up to speed on, being a newbie to the company. Lots of meetings. As well, there are several people in our department who were still away on holidays last week, so maybe she decided to wait until they returned.

So we'll see how things go. I assume she has the background to do the job, and she seems a lot more easygoing than my previous boss. I liked Phil personally, and I was sad to see him get canned after 17 years there, but the truth is that he could be a real hard ass, and it was quite frustrating to work for him sometimes. Maybe this will be a nice new beginning. Stay tuned.

Blood On The Boardroom Floor

2005-01-04T23:45:00.000-05:00

Major restructuring at work today. "Streamlining". "Efficiencies". Those words scare me.

They canned my boss, Phil, Creative Services Director, as well as the director of A&R, a marketing manager, and the web manager. A couple of other people "left to pursue other opportunities". And they're bringing in outside people to fill the newly "streamlined" management positions. Yikes.

Bit of a shocker. I meet my new boss tomorrow. Better get some sleep so I make a good impression.

Promises

2004-12-31T13:46:00.000-05:00

All is quiet on New Year's Day
A world in white gets underway
And I want to be with you
Be with you night and day
Nothing changes on New Year's Day
I will be with you again
I will be with you again

Under a blood-red sky
A crowd has gathered in black and white
Arms entwined, the chosen few
Newspapers say, it says it's true
And we can break through
though torn in two we can be one
I will begin again, I will begin again
Oh and maybe the time is right
Oh maybe tonight
I will be with you again
I will be with you again

And so we are told this is the golden age
And gold is the reason for the wars we wage
Though I want to be with you
To be with you night and day
Nothing changes on New Year's day

End The Beguine

2004-12-31T13:23:00.000-05:00

R.I.P. Artie Shaw. Quite a dude.

Mavis Lives

2004-12-31T11:40:00.000-05:00

The Horseshoe gig last Sunday went pretty well overall. There were a few rough spots, but a few sweet spots as well, including some of our best playing to date, at least from my perspective on stage (we have a DAT recording of our set, so we'll review that at some point). I always seem to play a few bum chords (like, "oops, that was supposed to be a B and I played an A" -- just mental mistakes), and messed up in a few other places, but nothing I'm gonna beat myself up over. Hey, Ronnie Wood is apparently renowned for playing bum notes, and he's doing all right for himself.

But the sweet spots were nice. We played "I'll Be Back" with a more rock-y feel, more of a snarl to it, more aggression--and it sounded great. Felt great. And our version of "Just My Imagination", which always sounds nice in rehearsal, came off equally well on stage, if not better. Nice vibe.

The Tele performed well in its debut. Sounded good, although I still find my sound at times is a bit dirtier than I woud like, so I'll have to work on that. I played the Epi for a 4- or 5-song stretch in the middle of the set which included Run Rudolph Run, I Can't Dance, Fed Up Blues--songs that call for that fuller sound. Felt like such a pro, switching guitars on stage! :-)

So our debut as Mavis came off pretty well, at least from a band perspective, which is key at this point in our evolution. We seemed to be received generally well, although it was impossible to see the small but appreciative crowd behind the bright lights. A couple of people got up and danced, so that's always good. We didn't hit the stage until about 11:45, and apparently by around midnight--our 4th or 5th song--people started leaving. I'll assume that had more to do with the hour than with the music.

And check this out: we got the blessing from THE Mavis. The previous Thursday night, Mavis Staples was playing Massey Hall, and Boag and Tim went to see her. Boag hung out at the stage door and got to meet the lady in her limo. She said she was honoured to have a band named after her, and she even signed the poster!

There's no stopping us now baby!

Jimbuck2's Picks Of 2004

2004-12-26T11:50:00.000-05:00

In no particular order...

A Ghost Is Born - Wilco
Smile - Brian Wilson
From A Basement On The Hill - Elliott Smith
House Of Ill Fame - The Trews
Ghosts Of The Great Highway - Sun Kil Moon (late 2003 - you wanna make somethin' of it?)
The Tigers Have Spoken - Neko Case
All Of Our Names - Sarah Harmer
Van Lear Rose - Loretta Lynn
Get Away From Me - Nellie MacKay
Let It Die - Feist

Haven't yet heard: U2, Tom Waits, R.E.M., The Arcade Fire, Paul Westerberg

TOP MUSICAL MOMENTS OF 2004:

The Sweet Harmony Review concert, Detroit
Daniel Lanois, surprise appearance at Rivoli Christmas show
Los Lobos, free show at Harbourfront
Neko Case w/The Sadies at Lee's Palace
Broken Social Scene at the Sloan/Sam Roberts fest, Toronto Islands
Blackie And The Rodeo Kings at the Horseshoe
Wilco at The Mod Club
Bob Dylan at The Phoenix
Greg MacPherson at Healey's, NxNE
Hawksley Workman, Toronto Streetfest, corner of Yonge & Eglinton

Darlings

2004-12-24T13:57:00.000-05:00

Look who got the "Best Bet" nod in the NOW magazine music listings for Boxing Day.

And to make it extra-special, we edged out the "punk rockers get their big break accompanying strippers". I've been telling Boag that he needs to show more skin, and now it's fnally paying off.
Before ever playing a note as Mavis, and the critics love us already!

Bloody Irony

2004-12-24T13:38:00.000-05:00

Assailants kill 28 in Honduras bus attack

[From CTV.ca News Staff]
At least 28 passengers, including six children, were killed when assailants opened fire on a public bus in northern Honduras.
The shooting happened Thursday night in the city of Chamelecon, about 200 kilometres north of the capital Tegucigalpa.
The bus was driving through the neighbourhood of San Isidro when a car carrying an unknown number of armed attackers pulled in front of the vehicle and forced it to stop, police spokesman Deputy Commissioner Wilmer Torres said.
Torres said the attackers jumped out of the car and began shooting. Attackers in a second car fired from behind and alongside the bus.
Most of those on the bus were coming home with bags full of gifts and food for Christmas, Torres said.
The assailants left a taped sign on the windshield of the bus saying they were part of a revolutionary group against the death penalty.

Boxing Day Blow-Out!

2004-12-23T14:43:00.000-05:00

If you're in the Toronto area on Boxing Day, the 26th, and got nothing to do, drop by the Horseshoe. We're headlining the Boxing Day Blow-Out, along wth our friend Heather Morgan and her most-excellently named band, and a solo opening set by Amer Diab. That's us, Mavis!

(Thanks to Greg for the poster design. Great job!)

Coincidentally, Mavis Staples is playing in town tonight, at Massey Hall. Boag's going to try to get her to sign the poster. Apparently though, the name Mavis refers to the songbird known as the Thrush.

ma-vis n. See song thrush.
[Middle English, from Old French mauvis, probably from mauve, seagull, mew.]

mavis n : common Old World thrush noted for its song [syn: song thrush, throstle, Turdus philomelos]

Okay, that's a nice association. It's also a common name in Africa, I'm told.

Running Deep

2004-12-23T14:16:00.000-05:00

Because of this, I'm working from home today. This is brilliant! Normally I wouldn't be able to do this, due to proofreading duties which pretty much require actual eyeballs on actual magazine layouts. But the only major thing on my plate for today was writing a few SOMs (Selections of the Month), which I can easily do in Word at home. And I finished those about an hour ago. Woo!

Now I get to go trudging through the snow to get some groceries. But that's all right. Hey, it's Canada. It's winter. Trudging through snow...it's in the script.

Had a wonderful time last night at the annual Rivoli Christmas show, normally hosted by Tamara Williamson, but in her absence this year, guest-hosted by the lovely and talented Mia Sheard. The usual suspects performed: Kurt Swinghammer, Lori Cullen, Mia, Kevin Hearn, and the ever-humble and wonderful Ron Sexsmith, who sang a Chris Rea song called Driving Home For Christmas and his own neo-classic Maybe This Christmas. Kevin Fox did an impressively beautiful rendition of Joni Mitchell's River. But the highlight was a surprise appearance by none other than Daniel Lanois. He was apparently just there to meet a friend, and decided to do a number. He grabbed an acoustic and sang "Still Water" from Acadie. A fine, fine time.

I'll go out to my brother's place in Oshawa on Christmas Day. Will spend Christmas Eve alone at home, and that's exactly what I need. Between band rehearsals, Christmas running around, working late, etc, I can't remember the last time I had a quiet evening to myself. Plan to just chill and maybe get back to writing those songs I started but never got back to. Might be a good night for that. Have to be in the right headspace.

I hope you all have a safe and happy holiday season, and all the best for 2005.
Personally, I think 2005's gonna rock!

Merry Merry Happy Happy and all that!

Me On Tele

2004-12-12T18:00:00.000-05:00

I posted a while back about looking to pick up a Fender Telecaster one of these days. Well sir, that day was Saturday.

I am now the proud owner of my first Fender guitar, a lovely four-year-old, black-and-white, American-made jobbie with a rosewood neck. This is her.

It's real nice. I'm kind of partial to rosewood fretboards, over maple ones, I guess just because I've only ever owned guitars with rosewood. The bridge pickup is a Seymour Duncan that I assume the previous owner had installed. It's pretty hot, in terms of output, almost like a humbucker, though it has that Tele snap to it. Only problem is, it's noticeably louder than the neck pickup. It's just that much hotter. So if I were to switch to the neck pickup, or the middle position, during a song, there would be a significant drop in volume. Not cool. I'll leave it as is for now, wanna see how it performs at our gig on the 26th, then I'll look into either replacing the Seymour Duncan with a normal Fender Tele bridge pickup, or maybe replacing the stock neck pickup with a Seymour Duncan Tele neck pickup, which would likely have a similar output as the bridge pickup.

I had had my eye on an incredible and purty pink paisley Telecaster that was for sale in the same store when I dropped in last Saturday. I picked it up out of curiosity, and man, did it ever feel nice! Some guitars just have a vibe to them, and this was one. It's a 1990's Japanese-made reissue of the discontinued 1969 model James Burton played with Elvis in the late-60s, early-70s. (I believe that picture is actually of Burton's, which features the older-style bridge. The reissues have newer, modern bridges.) Maple neck, but it felt pretty awesome to me. If it had been in the store when I returned yesterday, I may just have walked out of there with it instead of the one I bought. But, these pink paisley Teles are apparently hot commodities and well regarded by those in the know, and someone had snapped it up during the intervening week. It was even about $100 cheaper than mine. Oh well, I don't know if pink is my colour anyway, and I was a bit hesitant about making that my guitar. Seems like the kind of guitar you can justify playing only if you're a real hotshot guitar-slinger. I don't really see myself like that. I ain't no James Burton. Tim Burton, maybe. Still, if I ever see another one of those pink paisley Telecasters, I might just have to snap it up.

But I'm pretty happy to be a Tele owner. I feel bad for my Epiphone though. It's stood by me and served me well during my first forays into the world of live performance, and now it's relegated to back-up status. I'll probably still play it for certain songs that call for that fuller sound and the bite of humbuckers. Maybe for "The Fever" or for straight-up blues numbers like "Fed Up Blues", or maybe for "I Can't Dance" to conjure that Chuck Berry thing. Great to have two such different guitars though, to cover off different types of sounds and types of music. They complement each other well.

Sorry for the guitar-talk for those of you who aren't axe-inclined.

Dixie Hangover

2004-12-12T17:18:00.000-05:00

Had a merry ol' time Thursday night. Our new keyboard player, Roberta, had a Christmas gathering at her place. She plays in a New Orleans-style jazz band called The Happy Pals, so a few of those folks were there, along with some players from another jazz band called The Silver Leaf Jazz Band. After some obligatory socializing, out came the trombone, tuba, sax, banjo, cornet, snare, guitars, with Roberta on piano directing traffic. What a blast! It was a small basement apartment in a house she shares with her sister and mother, who live above, but everyone was down in the basement. Space was at a premium, but thankfully nobody was skewered by the trombone.

I sat in on nylon-string guitar for a few bluesy numbers (couldn't play real jazz to save my life), and then later in the evening (morning by then, actually), I sat behind the snare and had fun holding down the beat or a while. It was a great time. I left around 3 a.m., had to run like a bugger to catch the bus down Coxwell. Woke up at 7:30 a.m. on my couch with my head on the arm rest. My first thought was 'oh my god, I'll be late for work', then remembered with much relief that I had taken Friday off. My ear was numb for the rest of the day and part of the next, where I had slept on it on the couch. My back was killing me, also from the posture I had slept in, my left calf muscle was sore as hell, likely from the sprint for the bus, and I was hung over like a bastard. A hurtin' unit I was.

Got up from the couch, threw some food in the cat's dish to shut him the hell up, and crawled off to my bed. Woke up around noon to a dreary, rainy day. Rest of the day was a write-off while I recuperated, though I had to slog out to buy cat food and groceries. Felt good to get back inside, warm and dry, and spend the evening watching a tape of the Gram Parsons tribute on "Sessions At West 54th" and the "VH1 Storytellers" with Tom Waits. A night to explore one's inner raindog.

iTuning Out

2004-12-12T16:43:00.000-05:00

Nice to see that the iTunes Music Store is finally available in Canada, a year and a half after its launch in the US and after launching in various European countries, including Belgium, Greece and Portugal. Apparently Apple felt the Belgian market was a bigger priority. What's up with that?

When I downloaded my first iTunes track last week, I had a brainstorm. I'm in the midst of trying to put together another Christmas CD, and I thought instead of frantically searching the web, downloading "illegally", or buying entire Christmas CDs just to get that one needed song, I could use the iTunes Music Store to find the songs I need, and buy them individually! Oh the joys of the digital commercial age (and the rosy glow of ethical decision-making that it bestows!).

Except...
In reading up on the fine print with respect to computer authorization and Apple's Fairplay encryption technology, I was confused about the number of times I could burn a track purchased through iTunes. So I asked the Apple:

According to your description of Fairplay it "...allows unlimited burning for individual songs and lets you burn playlists up to 7 times each." My question: If I create a playlist comprised of songs from my own CD collection and one or two songs purchased from iTunes Music Store, will I be able to burn that playlist an unlimited number of time, or just 7 times?

This is the response I received:

Dear Jim,

Thank you for contacting the iTunes Music Store.

In accordance with the contracts between the artists, the record companies, and the iTunes Music Store, you may burn unchanged playlists up to seven times each even if they only contain only a single title from the iTunes Music Store.

You may, however, enjoy unlimited synching with your iPods, and you may burn unlimited CDs of individual songs.

For more information about burning CDs from playlists or making new playlists, open iTunes and choose iTunes & Music Store Help from the Help menu. Click Contents, then click Burning CDs or DVDs.

Sincerely,

The iTunes Music Store Team

Well, that's just wonderful. I can burn "unlimited CDs of individual songs." Yes, I love doing that. Who doesn't mind wasting entire CD-Rs by burning only one song on each one? Seems though that the key phrase in their reply is where they say "you may burn unchanged playlists up to seven times each even if they only contain only[sic] a single title from the iTunes Music Store." But what does that mean? If I alter the positions of the last 2 tracks after every 7th burning, can I then burn the playlist 7 more times, then switch them back, and on and on?

Does anyone have any experience with this? Seems pretty stupid to me. If I bought the damn song, I should be able to burn it as many times as I want. I likely would have used their store for several more purchases, but now they've driven me back to the P2P realm. Seems contrary to the whole idea if you ask me.

Whipping Up An Update

2004-12-05T20:09:00.002-05:00

Been too bogged to blog much lately. But I'll try some catching up.

Played a gig last Sunday at the Cadillac Lounge out in Parkdale, a cool little bar. Things went okay overall, though we had some tempo issues with some songs. For some reason, we launched into "Men Without Women" at about half-speed. It felt like we were playing on quaaludes. It was kind of funny actually. It was quite a casual gig. Boag was talking to a friend of his who plays in a band called Der Backbeats, and he just said "hey, you guys should come along and open for us." So we did.

But, with every gig we discover things that we need to address, and it's good to learn these things. Plus, to be fair, we've played three gigs with three different fill-in drummers, so it's a bit hard to become a tight combo under those circumstances, no matter how good the drummer-of-the-moment is. This gig we had a great drummer sit in with us, Cam Giroux from By Divine Right, who has also played with Weeping Tile (Sarah Harmer's first band) and Oh Susanna, who showed up with him to catch the show. Cam's also a really sweet guy. A pleasure to rehearse and play with. But our search continues for a full-time drummer.

We have, however, found ourselves a keyboard player, in one Roberta Hunt, who has a background in jazz and boojee-woojee and possibly other stuff as well. We had our first rehearsal with her this past Wednesday, and it sounded great. She'll be adding piano and organ into the mix and it's just what we needed. She's also a very sweet and pleasant person (fed us pickles, cold cuts and beer at the rehearsal at her place), so I think she'll fit in marvelously.

She'll make her debut with us on Boxing Day (Dec. 26). We booked The Horseshoe for the evening, and our friend Heather's band will be joining us, along with another band to be determined. Should be fun. It's always nice to play The Horseshoe, and we'll see if we can get some people to come out and shake off some holiday stress with some good tunes.

Another good thing about having Roberta on board is that she lives relatively close to me--a short bus ride up to Coxwell station and then one stop over to Greenwood. Has a basement pad in a house I used to walk by almost every day when I lived on Greenwood. We'll likely end up rehearsing mostly at her place for practical reasons--her keyboard being less portable than our guitars--so it'll be less of a schlep for me, compared to going to Tim's place on Yonge Street south of Bloor. As much as I Iove my new Fender amp, it's a bit heavy even for the shorter trip. Lugging a 30-lb amp along with a guitar case and a backpack containing pedals and cables and such, is just too much of a hassle. So for rehearsals I'm looking to get a smaller, lighter amp, and I think I found one I like. Tried out a small Fender XLS(?) amp at Songbird. Can't weigh more than 7-10 lbs. Sounds good enough for rehearsal. Has an overdrive dial (which I probably won't even use), and even has reverb. $95 used. Should suit my needs just fine, and save some sore muscles.

We're still playing under the name The Braveyard Whips, but the push is on to come up with a new name for this gig. Tons of suggestions have been flying around, but so far nothing has stuck. Or at least nothing that has gained unanimous support among the band members. Some of the contenders at this point in time include:

The Dick Ellis Revival
The Handlers
Mavis
The Mayfields
The Mercy Patrol
The Tenders

Of some of the others I've suggested, I like:

The Molly Beggars
The Saturday Flyers
The Gonners (or Boag & The Gonners)
The Radio Sweethearts
The Boagarts

Ah, it's a tough business this band-naming thing. I honestly think the name will reveal itself to us, in something someone says offhandedly, or in some serendipitous event. We shall see. Suggestions are welcome.

Greats and Lates

2004-11-30T22:23:00.002-05:00

The day after the landmark CBC program announced the crowning of The Greatest Canadian (congratulations Tommy Douglas!), we also witness the passing of another great Canadian.

R.I.P. Pierre Berton.

FYI, here's the Top 10 finalists from the Greatest Canadian contest.

1 Tommy Douglas
2 Terry Fox
3 Pierre Elliott Trudeau
4 Sir Frederick Banting
5 David Suzuki
6 Lester B. Pearson
7 Don Cherry
8 Sir John A. Macdonald
9 Alexander Graham Bell
10 Wayne Gretzky

Perhaps Berton should have been one of the Top 10 finalists. Certainly would have gotten my vote over Don Cherry or Wayne Gretzky. I was kind of surprised Alexander Graham Bell finished so low. I mean, the inventor of the telephone, pioneer of air flight... not a bad resume.

Elvis City Limits

2004-11-19T19:44:00.000-05:00

Wanna see a sneak preview of Elvis Costello on a recently taped Austin City Limits?

The show will be airing on PBS tomorrow night (November 20), although according to my local PBS station (Toronto sort of shares WNED with Buffalo). it won't air here until the following Saturday night at 12 a.m. Or is that Friday night at 12 a.m.? I'd better check into that so's I can set the VCR properly. For that matter, maybe it airs in your market tonight at 12 a.m.? Better do as they say, and check your local listings if you're innerested.

Rock on EC!

Cleptomocracy II

2004-11-16T21:43:00.000-05:00

See how you feel about electronic voting after you watch this documentary, Votergate (thanks Heather).

It's a 30-minute movie, so be forewarned if you have a dial-up connection. With high speed, it took me about 8 minutes to download it.

Very interesting and disturbing, although I found myself a bit annoyed at their conclusion: If you're worried that your votes aren't being counted accurately, get out and vote? Did these people not watch their own film? That's like saying if you're concerned about automobile safety, get in your car and drive to your closest highway safety office.

And as usual, nobody does it better than the Onion.

But Can It Fly?

2004-11-16T21:33:00.000-05:00

Y'know, some musical instruments are just intrinsically funny. Witness the kazoo. Others are not especially funny. Hello, cello.

But I have to giggle like a schoolgirl whenever I see the Mandobird.

Site Seeing

2004-11-13T13:34:00.000-05:00

Been one of those weeks when blogging just seems like a chore I could do without. So I'll take the lazy way out.

So...here.

Down For The Count

2004-11-04T20:55:00.000-05:00

File under hmmmm.

Does the US electoral system need reforming? I think so. Here's an idea: When the vote for crucial districts is very, very close, and there are more uncounted ballots than the span of the "victory"... count ALL the votes before declaring a winner!

Cleptomocracy

2004-11-04T01:30:00.000-05:00

Well, that was a bummer of an election, wasn't it. Looks like George and his crew stole another one. Bush's Eleven.

I won't be surprised if in the weeks and months ahead, stories of election fraud and voter suppression start to trickle into the media. That said, I don't think Kerry really managed to get a clear, concise message to America. But of course, it's hard to do that when you're facing the politics of smear and lie. It's easier to tell a simple lie than to communicate a complex truth.

But here's my question: Is the election officially over once one candidate concedes? Or is it officially over only when the Electoral College declares a winner? In other words, if by some miracle the 175,000 or so provisional ballots in Ohio turn out to be valid, and 75%-80% for Kerry (perhaps due to concerted efforts by Republican cronies to destroy Democrat registration forms, as we saw reported in Nevada and elsewhere), Kerry would end up winning the state. Would he then be declared the president-elect, or is it too late for that once he has already conceded? Not that I'm holding out hope of that happening, but I'm curious about the procedure. Is a concession an official act, or just a speech?

Anyway, the next four years look like they'll be a challenging time for progressive-minded Americans. As much as I would like it if my friends in the States decided to throw in the towel and come north, their voices are needed in their home country now more than ever. But for those who do want to head north, here's a way you can help.