"Sruel Quay" Released!

Many years in the making, "Sruel Quay" is finally here...a last scraping together of UPhold music that's been languishing during the last few years. You can get it as a free download from Bandcamp, including some beautiful cover and back artwork (photographs by Patrick, design by Dave McEwen), or you can just listen to the whole thing online if you're so inclined!



So what's the story? When I first started to use Logic Express 6 in 2003, I went through the usual learning curve of trying out a whole bunch of grand concepts that I couldn't complete at the time. As my knowledge and skill increased I started newer projects, which eventually became the "Damage" and "Roade" albums. Meanwhile, those early songs languished, getting further and further down the date-sorted list of "Multitrack" projects on my hard drive.

Then I bought a new, spiffy iMac, and while I saved money to eventually buy Logic Studio 8 for it, I decided to go back to the old eMac and finish off those songs before the hard drive disintegrated. I spent about a year dredging up 6-year-old songs and reworking them with the new experience and distance I'd acquired: "Bomb," "Devil Woman!", "Foozebox," "Humpback Forty-Four," and "The Swive (Part One)" were the results, and I planned to finish off a few more and release them as "False Memory Syndrome."

The problem was, by the time I'd finished these songs I'd finally started work with Logic 8, and I was no longer satisfied with how those dinosaurs sounded. They all relied on plugins I could no longer acquire (Pluggo and Mode) so I couldn't continue working on them with the new computer...they were frozen in time and technology. To make them even marginally better I'd need to spend more effort on them than I felt they deserved.

In the meantime I'd created some soundtracks to little video experiments ("Phonebox/Lunchbox," "Lightbox," "Boxcar," and "Caboodle"), and contributed to a compilation (a remix of "Icebox" on "Powdered Heaven Dressed in Plastic") and a split release with Infant Cycle ("Folded Memory Syndrome" and "Shut The Fuck Up Delia/Dmitri" on "Our Past Present").

In addition, I'd created a remix ("Roadbird") from the "Roade" album, and a remix of THAT remix with Chad Faragher. I also had a new song ("The Voyage of HMCS Thumpy") that I was spending so much time working on a video for that I simply got sick of it.

These were the bits and pieces I had lying around. What they all had in common was that they either couldn't be further improved due to technological limitations (both "Roadbird (Metal Mix)" and "Voyage of HMCS Thumpy" had ham-fisted mastering attempts so burned into their original tracks that they'd be very difficult to rescue) or had appeared on CDs from other venues (eg. "Shut the Fuck Up Delia/Dmitri," which I think is probably the best thing I've ever done...I wouldn't change a note).

In short: they were good enough to release, but generally fell short of what I'd expect people to PAY for. Like I said, I COULD improve them if I spent a lot of time and effort, but the improvement would be so marginal that it wouldn't justify the work.

With all that in mind, I hope you enjoy these oddities! They're a farewell to "UPhold" and the old ways of doing things. They sum up six years of my life: a time of personal exploration, sudden world experience, half-assed notoriety, and -- most obvious in many of the songs -- a degree of self-destructive too-much-fun behaviour that peaked and then subsided.

I'm surprised at how well "Sruel Quay" holds together as an album, and I look forward to what the first "Lemurian Congress" release will sound like!

Three Arrivals, Always in the Morning #1

Every weekday we'd drive to the parking lot of the obscure company and stand on the pvement, eating take-out breakfasts and making awkward conversation in the cold. The sun would come up and melt the frost in the wasteland of scrub and river around and below. When conversation faltered I'd watch that big empty space while we shivered and waited for Oscar to come out of his office.

Oscar relished our days together because we were young idealists and he was a wise, no-nonsense populist with extreme ideas. He'd bring us fresh coffee and reveal inklings of a generalized xenophobic hated. When he'd finished venting and the sun was up we'd drive our rickety vans a hundred kilometres, avoiding the weigh station with a long detour through undeveloped hills and farms, returning to the highway just in time to rendezvous again at the bankrupt company building.

The building was the only one in sight, otherwise just cars and trees and a lone microwave tower that I never got to visit. Oscar would unlock the front gate and then lock it again behind us, and for the rest of the day we'd be imprisoned, doing something that was probably illegal, protected only by our presumed innocence and the big steel fences.

Oscar gave us clipboards, then he'd disappear to prepare the vans and do his own mysterious paperwork. We, the employees randomly drawn from a temporary student labour force, picked an area within the building and systematically dismantled it. In the garage where the gardening tools for the bankrupt company were stored, we'd disregard safety regulations and hang from high shelves, dropping picks and shovels into the hands of fellow workers who would load them into Oscars' trucks.

Oscar was not innocent, he was informed and guilty and cheerful about his job. He told us to remove everything but the paint on the fresh new walls. In the bathrooms we'd unscrew soap dispensers and lighting fixtures and toilet paper rolls. In the meeting rooms we'd take down corkboards and put all the push-pins into the drawers of desks that we'd also move downstairs, out the door, into the vans. Then we'd go back up and remove the carpets, piece by piece.

One day, while we were on our lunch break, a black car arrived and a man in a suit approached the fence. He tried to give us a piece of paper. "Just take it and hand it to your supervisor," he kept saying, pushing the rolled-up paper through the fence, and the three of us stood back, afraid he'd grab us and take us to jail. We said no, no, no. Oscar had told us never to take papers from anybody. The man smiled at us and drove away, and when Oscar heard about it he was proud.

We drove the vans back the same way we'd come, even more careful to avoid the government weigh stations. The vans were old and not meant to hold a company's entire assets. They were sluggish and creaking and they rode low to the road with wide gaps in their carriages, and it was a relief to return to our starting point and unload the contents into storage sheds.

Desks, tools, carpets, fax machines, and paper documetation...everything was pushed into the sheds and locked up, hidden away from everybody who wanted it. Oscar was very happy at the end of every day, standing under a sky that had become warm and lazy, watching us spray water into the vans that leaked rusty mud out of every crevice. Every day he'd say "See you tomorrow, kids!" until the last day, when we were finished, and we handed in our clipboards and he said "You never did any of this." We forgot everything we'd done, like he'd cast a magic spell.

Doc Walter

I was surprised to find Doctor John Walter in the 1967 KCI Yearbook. Why? Because he was my art teacher at Waterloo-Oxford in 1989!


Doc Walter was a very imposing man. It was as though he'd spent his entire teaching career cultivating a massive personality that could crush you in an instant.

This is not idle speculation. One of the first things he taught us was that an artist must be able to stand up to cruel criticism, and to hammer this point home he would put all of our assignments on a table in the class and make us all stand around while he rated them. His ratings went from "excellent" to "crap," and we were forced to watch as our own prominently signed works were arranged in the crap continuum.

I'm not doubting Doc's rationale, but the problem was that not everybody took visual art because they wanted to be artists. Many of us -- me included -- only took it because we were required to take at least two art courses before we could graduate, and our options were visual art, music, or drama. I settled on drama after finding myself in Doc Walter's "crap" pile far too often.

Even so, I loved Doc Walter, and many other students did as well. He was gruff and frightening, but he was also totally honest and he didn't mess around, and I think most of us recognized that he was a talented man and a great teacher.

Anecdote #1: I had his class right after lunch, which was followed by a twenty-minute "reading period." Doc Walter actually USED this time to read, and what's more he would read short sci-fi and horror stories to us. Being an avid reader and a horror fan myself, I absolutely loved this time, and I even loaned him some of my horror collections to use.

I also remember that he allowed our highschool's Dungeons and Dragons club to use his room during lunch, though I don't think he thought much of the game.

Anecdote #2: Some students -- especially those who had trouble with authority figures -- hated Doc Walters. They particularly hated the fact that he insisted everybody call him "Doctor" ("He's not a real doctor!") Rumour has it that he stopped teaching at Waterloo-Oxford after a physical tussle with a student, which I can certainly believe.

Anecdote #3: Several years after graduation, a friend and I actually visited Doc Walter at his house. Doc had recently purchased an Atari computer and we brought some software for him.

I don't know if Doc Walter is still alive, but I'm sure that most students from Waterloo-Oxford who took his classes still remember him. I hope he knows (or knew) that even though the most vocal students found him impossible to deal with, the rest of us thought he was really damn cool.

I'd Buy Anything By...Talk Talk

It's outrageously hot here in Southern Ontario so excuse me while I try to sweat this one out. It's a shame, because...

...I'd buy absolutely ANYTHING by Talk Talk. I'd buy bootlegs. I'd buy T-shirts. I'd buy baseball hats, which I don't even wear. I'd buy clippings of Lee Harris' back hair, and I'd still cherish those clippings even if I later discovered that they actually came from some other drummer's back.

In short, I adore Talk Talk and no flippant post can adequately convey that.

Why do I love them so much?

The individuality. The uncompromising drive to do whatever the hell they wanted, while somehow having the credibility to do so. A serious and bombastic passion. A beauty.

For me, it all started when I rushed out to buy Thomas Dolby's "Europa and the Pirate Twins." The record store didn't carry the single but they DID have a 45 that featured four different artists. I bought it for Thomas Dolby, but I was amazed to hear the self-titled song by Talk Talk. I loved it but it was a bit too Duran Duran for me.

Fast forward to the title track of their second album -- c'mon, you know it, "Life's What You Make It" -- and I was somewhat hooked, but it wasn't until "Colour of Spring" that I fell completely.

Have you heard "Colour of Spring?" After shaking off their manufactured New Romantic style, and still retaining some of their sublime pop, "Colour of Spring" was an amazing fusion of Top 40 and virtuoso improvisation. Mark Hollis was still singing about the human condition, and Paul Webb's and Lee Harris were still laying down a solid groove, but suddenly all these other musicians were involved: Mark Feltham's overdriven harmonica, Robbie Macintosh and David Rhodes on guitar, Morris pert's percussion, Stevie Winwood's sublime Hammond organ, all of them given equal time and attention and yet somehow sounding great together!

And holding it all together was producer and unofficial fourth member Tim Friese-Greene. He helped make it all gel into some of the most unlikely songs to hit the charts.

I hope that the world hasn't forgotten "Life's What You Make It," which was the real baffling single off the album. But did you ever give a listen to "Living in Another World?" Here's a mostly-live performance -- I think only the drums are pre-recorded -- that presents a literal wall of perfectly-meshing sound. This was Talk Talk at their height.



I think we were all confused by what came next: "Spirit of Eden." Continuing their musical trajectory it dove almost completely into experimental rock-jazz, inspired by extended jams and ideas provided by all members of a huge collection of musicians. I won't rehash all the details of its recording, release, and commercial failure (read the Wikipedia article for that), but I'll be the first to admit that I didn't "get it." There were parts that I liked, but I missed the pop.

All that EMI could do was to chop up one of the most friendly songs and make a single and a video. Then they dropped the band.



I was even more at odds with their follow-up and final album, "Laughing Stock," which dispensed entirely with any pretense of commercialism and was a long, languid, meditative journey. What's more, Paul Webb had left and taken his amazing bass playing with him.

Mark Hollis eventually released a solo album that was almost entirely personal and impenetrable. Meanwhile, Harris and Webb had formed "O.Rang," a collection of musicians who performed a more raucous and percussive style of the "Spirit of Eden" phase. I didn't like Hollis' album but I did like most of O.Rang.

It took years for the world to recognize what Talk Talk had done with "Spirit of Eden" and "Laughing Stock." They're now considered to be revolutionary must-have albums, and I've happily jumped on that bandwagon: I didn't have the ears or the musical experience to appreciate those difficult albums at the time, but I do now. They're amazing.

I just KNOW that they haven't given up, and I live in hope that Talk Talk -- together or separately -- will release another amazing album.

Essential albums: "Colour of Spring" and "Laughing Stock." Albums to avoid: their first two albums of keyboard-heavy pop sound a bit dated to some, but I think they're fantastic in their own way...they definitely show the band's ripening potential. You really SHOULD avoid "History Revisted," a collection of terrible remixes and a blatant EMI cash grab which the band managed to actually withdraw and destroy with a successful lawsuit. For fans only: "Asides Besides" (a 2-CD set of rarities, demos, and remixes) and perhaps their "Live at Montreux" CD, which seems to suffer from poor production.

All My Neighbours: The Crack House

After leaving The Grey Yonder, some friends and I moved into The Radiator House. This was just across the street and much nicer than the previous place, an actual house that had been divided into two separate areas: a downstairs where a peaceful hippie couple lived, and an upstairs where the four of us shared a few tiny common areas.

Everything would have been fine if it weren't for THE CRACK HOUSE NEXT DOOR.

The guy who rented it was an extremely quiet, perpetually-stoned, moderately well-off young man who seemed to never go outside. At night he'd put his speakers in his windows and play bass guitar at top volume.

We knew he was selling drugs because a constant stream of traffic was always pulling in and out of his driveway, one of those terrible King St. North constructions that scrape the bottoms off of cars. This driveway was the reason for our first real altercation with our neighbour and his patrons.

You see, OUR driveway was a nice, well-graded path that looped around the back into a gravel parking lot. A particularly slick and disgusting fellow -- who we called "American Psycho" -- got into the habit of screeching into our driveway, racing across the parking lot, and driving up the grassy incline into the entrance to the crack house. This allowed him to avoid the terrible hump that was no doubt damaging his flashy low-rider sports car.

The problem was, this route required him to drive directly under the bedroom window of our peaceful hippie neighbours, and he'd do this at 3am every night, spraying gravel everywhere while deliberately gunning his engine. They'd asked him to stop several times and he always said he would, but then the next night he'd do it again, louder and faster than ever before. He was That Kind of Guy.

One morning I woke up to a furious pounding on our door. I went downstairs in my bathrobe and there was the American Psycho, ready to explode.

"WHO THE F*CK KEYED MY CAR?" he screamed, pushing his way into our hallway. American Psycho was big. He wore expensive suits and wrap-around shades and combed his thinning hair backward. He was not a guy to mess with.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said.

"LIKE F*CK! SOMEBODY IN HERE KEYED MY F*CKING CAR LAST NIGHT AND I'M GONNA KICK THEIR F*CKING ASS!"

"Wait--" I said.

He lunged toward me. "YOU F*CKING DID IT!" he yelled.

"I did not, wait..."

"YOU F*CKING KEYED MY CAR!!!"

"Why would I key your car?"

"BECAUSE I DRIVE UNDER YOUR F*CKING WINDOW!"

"It's not my window," I said. "I live in the attic. That's the window for the people downstairs. Why would I key your car?"

He flew into a complete rage and started kicking apart an old desk that we'd left by the front door. I told him he'd have to leave or I'd call the police, and he stalked around the other side of the house to confront the peaceful hippie couple. I heard him screaming, and I heard the peaceful hippie husband scream back, and then American Psycho came stomping back around the house again. He punched our wall and drove away, the scratch on the side of his sports car painfully visible.

He never drove through our parking lot again. The peaceful hippie husband was built like Grizzly Adams, you see. So it all had a happy ending.

Anyway, the quiet bass-playing guy wasn't the only person living in the crack house. He was also sheltering a drug casualty who squatted in the unfinished basement with his girlfriend. We didn't see much of him either, but on particularly spooky nights we'd hear the door slam open and the girlfriend would howl: "FWAAAAAAAWK YOU!"

"Where you gonna go?" we'd hear him slur.

"FWAAAAAAAAAWK YOU!" Slowly, stoned and incapable, she'd stumble down king street. He'd stumble out and follow her, the two of them shambling along, and he'd keep saying "Where you gonna go? Where you gonna go?"

"FWAAAAAAAAAWK YOU!" she'd howl, and gradually their voices would fade.

Ten minutes later we'd hear them from the other side: "Where you gonna go? Where you gonna go?"

"ffffwwwwaaaAAAAAWK YOU!" And they'd both stumble back into the house, having circled the block and providing us with some sad late-night amusement. This happened a few times and it was always the same. They deserved each other.

------

Eventually the quiet bass-playing tenant left and some friends of ours decided to move into their house because it was really kind of nice. On the first of the month they pulled up with their moving truck, walked inside...and found the crackhead still squatting in the basement.

"I got nowhere to go," he said. "Just let me stay for a few more days." The walls were torn apart and sprayed with graffiti. There were syringes on the floor, circling a highly illegal propane tank which later had to be removed by the police.

Our friends finally managed to coax him out by promising to drive him to a friend's house, but on the way through the door he pointed at the ceiling fan in the living room and said "Wait, dude, that's my fan."

"It's not your fan, it's part of the house."

"I bought that fan. Listen, dude, I'm not leaving without my fan, it's worth a lot of money." So our friends removed the fan and gave it to him, assuming it was a small price to pay to finally get rid of him.

The Radiator House is still there but it has been converted into a massive student apartment, with an addition on the back that actually merges with the crack house. So have things changed and the student slums have grown.

Dunjonquest: Temple of Apshai

I have so many guilty pleasures that I'm in a permanent state of mortification, and one of my pleasures is a good old-fashioned dungeon crawl. It's not because I love killing monsters and collecting treasures; the actual BULK of a dungeon crawl game is incidental to me. What I REALLY like to do is to EXPLORE.

I've always gotten a thrill out of mazes, tunnels, and imaginary digital worlds. Unfortunately there are few games that are simply about exploring...pissy monsters are always attacking you and you have to solve anachronous "eight queens" puzzles at every second step. I'm of the opinion that the world (the real one) is waiting for a computer simulation of a rich landscape that doesn't necessarily have anybody else in it. The fact that I'd enjoy such a thing is creepy, really.

But anyway, my favourite games as a teenager were the ones where you could wander around a maze and map it, and then stare for hours at the map wondering what sort of cool place it would be to live in. Unfortunately back then I had a very low threshold for frustration, so I rarely succeeded in finishing the games that were so fun to explore: Ultima, The Eidolon, Alternate Reality, and...

...the Dunjonquest series, considered to be the first dungeon crawls for the 8-bit home computers. Originally developed by Jon Freeman (who is most idolized these days as being one of the creators of Archon) for his fledgling Automated Simulations company (likewise most idolized for later becoming Epyx), these games were all about wandering around mazes, killing monsters, raising your stats, collecting treasures, and running from Antmen who apparently used a vanilla-scented body lotion.

The Dunjonquest game that most people remember is "Temple of Apshai" and its two sequels, "Upper Reaches of Apshai" and "Curse of Ra." These three games -- like the "Hellfire Warrior" trilogy that followed them -- presented you with a very basic depiction of your surroundings, requiring you to actually read the room descriptions from the accompanying manual (or "Book of Lore.")

Originally written in BASIC in 1979, the first games required a great deal of patience and imagination, and the subsequent games -- with the exception of "Gateway to Apshai," a very different arcade-style adventure -- used the same engine. Even when the Apshai games were eventually released as a re-written, integrated, machine-language "Temple of Apshai Trilogy" -- the way most people remember them -- you still needed to shuffle your little character along featureless corridors, bumping into walls and slaying barely-animated 4-colour monsters.

So Dunjonquest games don't have a lot of appeal to gamers these days, and they've slowly faded away from the eyes of even the most nostalgic 8-bit fans.

Until now!

I'm happy to say I'm not alone in my love of these games, and I've been collaborating with Robinson Mason -- and scrounging the darkest corners of the internet -- to reclaim the programs. And not just the programs, but also the even more rare "Books of Lore" which are both essential for play and a delight to read.

While my compatriot tirelessly unearths more of the games and materials, I've been concentrating on reverse-engineering the BASIC code and mapping all the levels. I've discovered some interesting things buried in the convoluted rats-nest of oddly-ported BASIC, but that will come later. Right now, here are maps for the four levels of the first game, "Temple of Apshai."

I decided not to include room numbers, traps, or treasures -- that would not only clutter up my tiny drawings but would also spoil more of the game. And I make no claims to the 100% accuracy of these maps; they are complete and fully-connected, but their proportions may be slightly off. Click on an image to see a larger version.

Temple of Apshai - Level One


Temple of Apshai - Level Two


Temple of Apshai - Level Three


Temple of Apshai - Level Four


The maps for the next game ("Upper Reaches of Apshai") are coming soon (along with playing tips), and I expect there'll be a resource site starting up eventually. Until then, spare a thought to all those digital worlds that are locked up in decaying floppy disks in attics and basements, and consider rescuing them for one last time.

Music I'm Buying and Then Loving

I have a new ritual which keeps me smiling on Monday mornings: when I go to work that day I allow myself to buy ONE album off iTunes. I might buy something old that I'd never managed to find, or something new that I've been dying to get, or I'll simply hop around using the "People Who Bought This Also Bought That" links until I finally find something interesting.

Here's a chronological list of what I've been buying since I started doing this last August, with linked YouTube videos to appropriate songs when available:

Various singles by Rose Elinor Dougall. My favourite Pipette has gone solo with these lush songs, apparently inspired by '80s acoustic-goth music.

"Sign 'O' the Times" by Prince. I've long admired the tour video of the same name, but I've never been able to find the studio album until now. It was a shock to hear the original, stripped-down, somewhat bizarre versions of songs which became epic onstage, but it's grown on me...and "Hot Thing" is SUCH a sexycool song.

"Dali's Car" self-titled EP. Mick Karn from Japan and Peter Murphy from Bauhaus produced a very odd album: exotic, brooding, somewhat Arabic in its sound. It's not GREAT, but it's INTERESTING, and something I fondly remember listening to on vinyl.

"Imaginary Friend" by The Faith Healers. I heard their song "Don't Jones Me" on a compilation at CKMS, and it took me almost twenty years to give them a bigger listen. It's very much rooted in the '90s shoegazer-meets-grunge scene, but with a nice eccentricity and a hypnotic vibe. The twenty-minute "All at Once Forever" is especially fab!

"Here and Now" and "Moon Bathing on Sleeping Leaves" by Sky Cries Mary. Talk about eccentric: funk, prog-rock, DJ beats, and gorgeous vocals. The live album is amazing, but I'm disconcerted by the apparent presence of TWO copies of Anisa Romero singing at once. Overdubs or backing track? Either way, not cool.

Self-titled album by Zaza Fournier. Delirium gal Anissa sent me Zaza's debut video because she said Zaza reminded her of me. I am infinitely flattered, because Zaza's persona is the one I have always subconsciously tried to cultivate: playful, gawky, cute, individualistic. Do you think you wouldn't enjoy an album of accordian-dominated songs sung in French? YOU'RE WRONG!

"The Warning" by Hot Chip. Their song "Over and Over" is perhaps as close to perfection as a song can be, and it's one that DJ Al at Club Abstract plays when he's feeling very happy. "The Warning" is a good album but just a tad uneven and overproduced.

"Couples" by The Long Blondes. A happy random discovery, but again, a sort of uneven album...it's all good, but the hits stand head and shoulders above the rest. Oh, "Guilt!"

"Fixin' to Thrill" by Dragonette. Toronto's very own electro darlings full of attitude, oddness, and buzy-synthiness. Yet another slightly uneven album -- too long, maybe, to sustain its necessary energy -- but you've got to admit they have something original going on.

"Unmixed" by Freemasons. When I heard their cover of "Uninvited," I had to grab the album, and while it covers a huge number of styles -- being basically a collection of non-remix versions of their recent hit singles -- it thumps so beautifully hard, and the singers they choose are ALWAYS AMAZING.

"Replicas" by Gary Numan. I've mentioned here before that I've never picked up a cheap Gary Numan album that I didn't like; I love his gulpy voice and his ominous keyboards, no matter the era. But I found "Replicas" to be a tad overhyped; it's considered such a landmark album -- and it certainly helped shape the burgeoning New Wave sound -- but it's also awfully monotonous and sloppy.

"Damp" by Foetus. I'd buy anything by Foetus, so this was a no-brainer. A collection of demos, remixes, singles, and previously unreleased songs. His collaboration with Rotoskop will have to be an upcoming iTunes purchase, that's for sure...

"Your Bag" by Lida Husik. Back when I heard this album in the early '90s, it seemed so fresh and interesting: an oddball let loose in a recording studio to release a series of equally oddball releases, often with unconventional effects and weird noises and cut up tape montages. These days, however, it seems like more of a "good idea" than a "good album."

Self-titled album by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. I'd buy anything by OMD, and I was looking forward to finally hearing all those older albums I'd never been able to find. The subsequent disappearance of most of their catalog off of iTunes has put the kibosh on that plan, but at least I got this one, their first. It's a mix of perfect pop songs and bizarre experiments, best listened to in the early '80s but still a real treat.

"Big Sexy Land" by Revolting Cocks. I'd heard good things about this first album, but it's of the more monotonous type of '80s proto-industrial noodling: the worst parts of both collaborators, Ministry and Front 242. In University I had a friend who said that, to him, all industrial music sounded like a sample going "Bodies everywhere. B-b-b-bodies everywhere." I was less than delighted to find out that he was thinking of a song on this album ("Union Carbide").

"The Golden Age of Wireless" by Thomas Dolby. One of my favourite albums ever, finally remastered and restored to its original track sequence. Worth it just for the album itself, even more worth it for the additional material.

"Lust Lust Lust" by The Raveonettes. Recommended to me by a friend, and an excellent Jesus and Mary Chain brand of lo-fi -- love that spring reverb! -- but there's such a thing as too much of a good thing...the album is longer than it needs to be by far.

"The Frenz Experiment" by The Fall. I'd buy anything by The Fall. Another excellent album from their Brix/Schofield period. "Hit the North" is such a wonderful song!

"Ljubi in Sovraži" and "Arhiv" by Videosex, both incredibly cheap, both wonderful, both with awful sound quality, and both previously mentioned here.

"Horehound" by The Dead Weather. Since I'm probably the last person on earth who isn't 100% sure who Jack Black is, I can approach this supergroup without any preconceived notions or expectations. It's got a fun, gritty, dark-blues sound that gets a little dull after a while...but when it's good, it's GOOD.

"The Hazards of Love" by The Decemberists. I admit it: I've never heard anything else by them. I only stumbled across this album because amazing animator Julia Pott made part of their album-length music video. I watched the video and said "wow," and bought the album and said "WOW!" (Chorus of dead children excluded)

Many albums by Manfred Mann's Earth Band, bought in release order, from their self-titled release to "Solar Fire." Thank you iTunes, I finally get a chance to hear all the albums by a band I'd Buy Anything From.

"Prince Charming" by Adam & the Ants. It's hard not to love the Adam Ant concept: sexy guy dresses up like a "Top of the Pops" version of a highwayman, then sings a bunch of fetishy, over-the-top songs for a public scandalized, annoyed, and in lust. Do all the albums live up to this? Not "Prince Charming," but it's...well, charming.

"On the Threshold of a Dream" by Moody Blues. Another of my favourite albums, finally remastered and released with tons of bonus material. It's still just as scary and lovely as ever and -- in my humble opinion -- the only Moody Blues album you need to own.

"Tale to Tell" by The Mummers. Weird woman with amazing voice teams up with a soundtrack composer and releases and album with lots of potential. Composer commits suicide shortly afterward. We will never know what could (and should) have happened next, but at least we have this difficult album of outrageous orchestral pop.

"The Family Jewels" by Marina and the Diamonds. The only album in recent memory that has kept me literally SWEATING for its release...and yes, it's good, but the singles are far and above the most distinctive songs. Even so, I'd pay double the money just for that handful of songs, and there are some others that are "just good enough that another fabulous artist might have been able to do them."

"All Request Live" by Ween. They're always fabulous. Their new renditions of songs from the past are all wonderful, but check out "Where Did the Cheese Go," an insane presentation of their rejected Pizza Hut jingle. Six minutes long. It's the best.

All the cassettes by Pain Teens. I've already mentioned that I'd buy anything by the Pain Teens, so imagine my joy when I discovered all of their original cassette albums on iTunes! Well, lots of songs have been removed (probably for copyright reasons) and they're generally overpriced, but I love them both for the chance to hear the "demo" versions of songs from later albums, and for a format that they represent and has largely disappeared: the 4-track 90-minute tape recorded in your parent's basement by a person (Scott Ayres in this case, with a bit of input by Bliss Blood) who seems to have no end of creativity and talent. I recommend "Manmade Disasters" and "Cathy" if you like more song-oriented albums, and "Narcolepsy" for experimental oddness that is still listenable.

The self-titled album by Sons of Freedom. The tightest rhythm section ever, made even tighter by the fact that the guitarist usually played rhythm as well. This one just thumps and thumps and thumps along, and while the songs near the end are a bit self-indulgent and weak, the first half of the album is massively great.

The self-titled EP by Lioness. How appropriate that this should follow Sons of Freedom; take their thumpy rhythms and add the best bits of Dragonette -- everybody being Canadian, incidentally -- and you get the catchiest song in ages and a darn good EP too. They Will Be Big.

"Eyelid Movies" by Phantogram, recommended to me by Joshua, king of the OTHER twin cities, doesn't have a lot of variety to it but is excellent background music.

"Too" by Madita. Ahh, this is so good: a pop album that always sounds great, but still manages to pull the in influences and oddities that make it something special. And she has a perfectly capable voice without distraction.

"In the Flat Fields" by Bauhaus. I never used to enjoy this phase of Bauhaus' career, but now I see the joy. It's a weird album of chainsaw rhythm and guitar effects, held together by Peter Murphy's histrionics: exhausting, alienating, and -- apparently -- the beginning of Goth As We Know It.

"Trip the Light Fantastic" by Sophie Ellis-Bextor. Rarely does an album leave me so thrilled and happy! Perfect production, beautiful melodies, and Sophie's expressive voice; this is anything but a pop-by-numbers album and it baffles me that more people haven't heard it. You want to, right?!?

"Wild Young Hearts" by Noisettes. This is my most recent purchase so I haven't listened enough to give even a capsule review, but I'm liking it so far. Embarrassing fact: Delirium gal Annissa (her again!) told me about the Noisettes several months ago, and I brushed them off as manufactured entities ala VV Brown, then I forgot about them. This week I gushingly asked Annissa if she'd heard of the Noisettes, and she revealed to me my reactionary music snobbishness. Reality check!

Yaaaaaaarrrr, Night Moves!

You're a student in southern Ontario during the early '90s, and you haven't yet learned moderation. After a crazy night out with friends, you come home at 3am, and you feel like you're going a bit insane: the room is spinning, you feel spectacularly ill, you're exhausted, but your brain is running laps around your spectacularly-abused body. There's nobody you can talk to, there's no way to distract yourself...where do you turn?

Global TV's "Night Moves."



Somewhere in Toronto, a cameraman with a steadycam walked slowly through streets, subways, and deserted buildings. Sometimes you'd be in a car driving through the main streets and back roads of the city. No narrative, no structure, just some smooth jazz and a vicarious trip through the deserted city.

WHAT A GREAT IDEA. I'm sure it was conceived primarily as a cheap way to fill the early hours with Canadian content, but I (and many, many others) viewed "Night Moves" as a life-saver.

It's still fabulous, and has the added bonus of being a time capsule for the ever-changing city. I'm thrilled that I've finally found it again. Thank you, Global!

A Night With the Creeps

As a child and a teen I had a strange ability to re-watch movies, and while I still enjoy seeing a good movie two or three times, back then I could literally watch my favourite films ad nauseum. Dozens of times. With as many different people as possible. Until I knew every line and nuance off by heart.

Only certain movies could invite such scrutiny, and one of them has finally been given the deluxe treatment after twenty-three years. If you're not a film geek then you may never have heard of it, but otherwise you might be as excited as I was today: yes, I finally got my hands on the at-long-last release of "Night of the Creeps" on DVD.

This is not a film for everybody. As fun as it is as a successful blend of horror, comedy, sci-fi, and cop story, it's just complicated enough to confuse the inattentive. Much of the joy is in the little details -- now gloriously visible after years of bootlegs and VHS copies -- so if you're unwilling (or unable) to put the pieces together...well, you'll just find it confusing and annoying.

One thing that's exciting about this release is to finally have one of my personal, esoteric obsessions be reaffirmed: other people love the movie for the same reasons I do! They've had the same questions and impressions over the years that *I* have had, but which I've never been able to share! Though nobody comments on the coolness of Stan Ridgway appearing twice on the soundtrack (I hope he gets residuals).

It's also wonderful to see the director (Fred Dekker) finally get acknowledgment for the unique little film that he poured his soul into, only to see it flop and disappear from sight. Now, suddenly, "Night of the Creeps" has a new fan base, and it's getting the recognition that he (and we) always knew it deserved.

Despite the dozens of times I've seen the movie, there are lots of little things that I only noticed for the first time with this new transfer: the trails of blood and goop that the departing slug-creatures leave, and the dead goldfish in the dorm room, and the collapsing frat boy that was previously obscured due to pan-and-scan. And it's a thrill to finally have the director explain certain oddities in the movie...why was Cynthia Cronenberg's final line cut off during her fade-out with Brad (because it was deemed too raunchy), and what was with J.C.'s awkward and nonsensical shout of "Tell HIM that"? (he was responding to a line of dialog that was subsequently cut).

The cast interviews are a bit saccharine in their (apparently genuine) love for the film, but the deleted scenes are very cool, especially a bizarre and stagey '50s scene that probably would have alienated audiences.

I'm in heaven. One of my favourite movies has been restored to look better than it probably ever did, some new material has been revealed, and many mysteries have finally been solved. So sad that a piece of entertainment should make me feel so happy! But I think that "Night of the Creeps" was a truly special film, not least because it finally made us realize how creepy "The Stroll" by The Diamonds was. I gives me shivers now whenever I hear it.

I'd Buy Anything By...The Red House Painters

When I think of San Francisco -- where I've never been -- I either think of William T. Vollmann's prostitutes...or of The Red House Painters.

When I think of the Red House Painters I am instantly transported back to the early '90s, when I listened to their "Rollercoaster" album over and over again while driving desolate country roads. There's a lot of angsty music in the world, but the Red House Painters weren't just angsty, they were downright MISERABLE. They'd given up on everything. Life was too awful to even scream about, and when lead singer Mark Kozelek DID scream it was like a sucide victim lurching suddenly out of the morgue: oh so dangerous, oh so lost.

Nirvana had nothing on the Red House Painters. These guys could play so slowly that you almost thought they'd stopped. The guitar was painful and alone. The lyrics were sheer poetry without a single misstep. They could make you cry for three minutes or twelve minutes, no matter how short or long the song. And the album covers, enigmatic and beautiful in that 4AD way.

Here's a prime example of how they could turn an already bleak four-minute song into a brilliant nine-minute epic. It's "Katy Song," which starts off simple and gradually descends into chaos.



When I say these things I am talking about the "classic" RHP albums. Kozelek cheered up a bit on the later albums -- musically at least -- and it was difficult for some fans to adjust to the slightly more upbeat sound. Errrr, "more upbeat" as in "not quite so suicidal." Take a look at this spot-on fan video for "Song for a Blue Guitar," the title track from their last 4AD album.



The band broke up, they had label problems, there are solo albums and new projects, blah-blah-blah. These things never last forever. I'd love to find copies of their post-"Blue Guitar" albums but until then, The Red House Painters will always mean San Francisco and sad country roads to me.

Albums to buy: the two (!) self-titled releases, often called "Rollercoaster" and "Bridge," which contain the most finely-crafted of their songs. Albums to avoid: their later work was more loose and spontaneous, but it shouldn't be actively avoided. For fans only: the bonus "Retrospective" CD with Rollercoast/Bridge outtakes and demo versions. There's a reason why those versions didn't appear on the final albums.

I'd Buy Anything By...Pink Floyd

I've already talked enough about Pink Floyd in this blog, and you already know enough about them.

Let's just say that I've been immersed in their music since I was (literally) an infant.

"Dark Side of the Moon" was on regular rotation in our house.

I spent countless hours listening to "Wish You Were Here" and staring at the red blowing scarf on the back cover. When I saw that Arabic numbers were used to designate each part of the title song, I was so in awe that I filled an entire three-ring notebook with all the Arabic numbers up to two thousand.

"Animals" scared me and I brought it to my grade three class so the other kids could listen. I trained myself to make my letters "g" and "a" exactly the way they were on the lyric sheet, a habit that persists to this day.

"The Wall" was the first album I consciously bought for myself. I remember the joy of discovering and deciphering the secret message.

Instead of having separate copies of "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" and "A Saucer Full of Secrets," we owned the double-album combination called "A Nice Pair," complete with Doctor Fang's name and the censored breasts. I loved watching the psychedelic Harvest Records label spin around.

David Gilmour's feedback squeaks during "Echoes" used to give me nightmares, and when I asked my dad how the noises were made, he said "Probably by ghosts."

The cover of "Ummagumma" was more magical than "Alice Through the Looking Glass," partly because of the woodsy hippie tinge. I discovered if you slowed "Several Species of Small Furry Animals" down that most of the noises were coughs. I assumed that the wooden gnomes behind David Gilmour's head were the creatures that made those squeaky sounds during "Echoes." I marveled at the amount of time it must have taken to set all their equipment out for that photograph. I still marvel.

"The Final Cut" confused me and it took many years before I learned to love it. I had no idea who that "Maggie" person was. When I asked my dad what "nips" were, he said "Probably nipples."

I saw the "Delicate Sound of Thunder" tour twice when I was sixteen. The first time I went with my aunt Julie, a hard-rocking super-fox who -- when the joint was passed our way -- said "We don't need drugs to have fun!" Two enormous rednecks stole our seats, and they heckled Julie when she asked them to leave, so she said she'd throw them right the f*ck off the f*cking balcony if they didn't move their f*cking *sses, and if she couldn't do it herself she could easily find ten guys who'd be willing to, and they said "Okay, okay, lady, jeez!"

By the time of "The Division Bell" I'd already spent twenty-two years listening to Pink Floyd. It wasn't too bad an album, but nothing more. Pink Floyd will always be "Wish You Were Here" and "Animals" to me.

I'd Buy (Almost) Anything By...Mike Oldfield

"Tubular Bells" was an album that I literally grew up with, one of those records that my mother played over and over again from my infanthood into childhood (at which time I was capable of playing it myself). My parents only had the first three "classic" Mike Oldfield records, but I listened to them endlessly (especially "Ommadawn," with a bit less emphasis on "Hergest Ridge").

In highschool I discovered that Oldfield had released a lot of OTHER albums as well, and I was surprised by his subsequent pop direction.

Urban myth has it that a very young Oldfield signed a terrible record contract with Virgin Records, requiring him to release twenty albums in twenty years. This may not be strictly true -- I'm too lazy to look it up right now -- but there is no doubt that Virgin controlled and directed Oldfield's career in a counterproductive way that he really hated.

They allowed him to release his "single song" concept albums for a few years, but when they began to decline in popularity they insisted on a pop song compromise: one traditional "long" composition on the first side, and five or six top 40 singles on the other.

Mike Oldfield cannot write a typical pop song, and any "exceptional" singles he produced during this period owe more to instrumentation and the performance of Maggie Reilly than his own songwriting ability. One of the best was 1984's "To France." This is a shamelessly lip-synced performance but it's actually more interesting than the real video clip. You can imagine that Oldfield is simultaneously saying "I HATE THIS!" and "I HATE VIRGIN" in his angry little head.



It's true, Oldfield DID hate Virgin, and he also grew into a real son of a bitch. Perhaps thanks to the primal therapy he underwent in the early '80s, Oldfield changed from a shy hippie into a sarcastic, bitter pop icon seemingly overnight. Accompanying this change was an increasing embrace of keyboards and sequencers (an Atari ST!) as opposed to virtuoso performance, making his music sound generic and dated.

After "Tubular Bells III" -- his "house music" album -- I stopped my knee-jerk buying of Oldfield's records. This was partly because I got annoyed by him recycling old themes and successes, but also because subsequent albums looked REALLY wanky and unpromising.

But even so, his LIVE productions continue to thrill me like nothing else, because no matter how uninspired the studio versions are it is still amazing to see two dozen brilliant performers reinterpreting (and often improving on) his songs.

Here's an example from the premiere of "Tubular Bells III" in 1999. It's the concluding two tracks off the album ("Secrets/Far Above the Clouds") and demonstrates his multiple-orgasm style of composing. As an added bonus, the brilliant "tribal drumming" section near the end (which was not part of the original song) is a nod to the iconic drumming segment I described last month in regards to "Ommadawn."



Oldfield's albums are a mixed bag and I can't vouch for the later ones, but if you want to hear his "classic" sound you need to get "Tubular Bells" (the ORIGINAL version, not the sequels or the remakes or the remasters or the orchestral one), "Hergest Ridge," and "Ommadawn." If you can find it you also need "Amarok," a sixty-minute "back to roots" song that Oldfield released as an unsubtle f*ck you to Virgin.

If you want some Oldfield pop, I recommend "Five Miles Out" and "Discovery."

Albums to avoid: the piss-poor stabs at chart success ("Heavens Open," "Islands," and "Earth Moving") and you should also stay away from "Songs of Distant Earth," which is Oldfield at his plinky-keyboard, new age worst.

For fans only: "Boxed," a boxed 4-album (vinyl) set full of quadraphonic mixes and rarities, including the infamous original ending to "Tubular Bells": Viv Stanshall lurching drunkenly around Oldfield's house, improvising a slurred monologue, with "The Sailor's Hornpipe" played in the background. Wow.

Oglb: War of the Worlds

When I was six years old, a family friend gave me Jeff Wayne's double-album "War of the Worlds" for my birthday. It was a bizarre gift totally out of left field, but I must have listened to that album a hundred times.

Scary as hell. I'll never forget Richard Burton describing a Martian's mouth as "quivering and slavering like wet liver." It contained gruesome airbrushed artwork in a huge booklet. But most importantly, the music was dense, brilliant, driving, beautiful...though I was too young to recognize that it was essentially disco.

So yes, a DISCO version of "War of the Worlds," which left a lasting impression on children all over the world. It's hardly surprising that in 2006 they actually took the album ON TOUR, performing a note-by-note recreation complete with a virtual Richard Burton. Whenever I hear these drums, those keyboards, that fuzz guitar, that voice...well, I literally MELT as though I were exposed to a heat-ray...the same way that sides two and three of the album melted when I put a meatpie on them.*

Much to my chagrin I have never seen the 2006 tour DVD, so I'm forced to experience it through YouTube. Here's the first section ("The Eve of the War") with Justin Hayward reprising his original role, and Richard Burton saying the words which I chose for this blog's tagline.



Ulllllaaaah! Ulllllaaaaaah!

PS: That's Julia Thornton on percussion, who I absolutely love to death.

* Sometimes, vinyl double albums came with sides one and four on one disc, and sides two and three on a second. This was meant to make it easier to play the records on machines with auto-drop mechanisms; you could put record one on top of record two, with sides one and two cued respectively, and then -- afterwards -- put records two and one back up there with sides three and four cued.

The "War of the Worlds" double-album was like that, allowing you to listen all the way through with a minimum of record-changing. But people stopped doing this when they realized that auto-drop mechanisms wrecked your vinyl.

Nineteen-Eighty

Nostalgia for Long-Forgotten Canadian Bands

Wherever you live there are bound to be half a dozen regional bands that YOU feel strongly about, but which nobody else remembers. The musicians ended up doing wedding parties and the singers became real estate agents. It happens.

In Canada during the '80s and early '90s, we had a thriving (and very popular) music channel with strict Canadian Content guidelines...as a result, many regional acts gained national status and had their week of fame before fading out again. You won't hear these bands in nightclubs and their CDs are long out of print. But some of them are much beloved.

Here's a sampling of the long-forgotten Canadian bands that have fond memories of. Not all of them were good, necessarily, but they all had at least ONE hit song.

National Velvet

They were Canada's hard-rockin', somewhat gloomy, altogether sexy answer to...well, nobody really, because they had a unique set of strengths and flaws.

All the musicians were top-notch, but they tended to suffer from tinny overproduction. Maria Del Mar's voice was unique and perfect, but her lyrics were sometimes embarrassingly bad. She was the sexiest woman alive, but her persona was a tad TOO aggressive.

The few videos they had on YouTube appear to be gone, but here's a "tribute" with pictures and soundclips:



Unable to find more than fleeting fame and suffering from a REALLY bad final album ("Wildseed"), they disbanded. Maria Del Mar still performs occasionally in Toronto (but never when I can find out in advance). Bassist Mark Storm suffered a truly bizarre and unexplained death.

Strange Advance

Cheesy wanna-be pop stars who just might have made it...but didn't. Their songs were slick and radio friendly. I can't imagine what held them back.



Andrew Cash

One of those guys who was always lurking around the music circles but you rarely ever noticed...but I absolutely LOVED his "Lot of Talk" video which, sadly, is not on YouTube. Sorry

Malcolm Burn

Producer wonderkind with only one album to his name...but what an album! Ditto the lack of YouTube exposure for his great "Walk Don't Run" song and video. Someday I'll have to properly digitize all those videos...

Sons of Freedom

They were alternative radio darlings with a brilliantly sharp, twangy, wall of sound approach. Guitarist Don Harrison later worked with Skinny Puppy and Lee Aaron. Apparently the lead singer was a jerk, but he had an endearing speech defect.



Tu

We didn't do gimmick-groups very well this side of the border, but Tu were a definite exception: identical twin sisters with velcro-style hair, so much sugar in their bubblegum pop that it almost made you sick. Almost.

Their wikipedia page still says that their names were Amanda and Cassandra, but my aunt attended their wedding many years ago, so let me give you the inside scoop: their REAL names were Rena and Pena.

Sometimes, changing your name is a GOOD idea.



Perfume Tree

Ethereal vocals, minimalist dub-style loops, beautiful ambiance...their show was one of the best I've ever seen: just three people on stage gently rocking forwards and backwards.

I don't think they ever actually MADE a video.

Thrive

Long-gone Curve-style gothers. They only ever released two EPs, but we were CONSTANTLY being teased about a full-length album called "The Hanged Man." It never happened. They made at least one video (for "Revenge") but it's obscure and probably long gone.

According to a somewhat reliable source, lead singer "Madame Quattorze" went loopy.

Parade

Sort of electronic/psychedelic/goth-rock, they'd pop up as openers or headliners now and then but never struck it big. Their sound was erratic and never seemed to fit very well together, but when they clicked ("Crush") they were sublime.

I still cherish a cassette of instrumentals that I bought from band member Steve Faris...if only they'd kept going in that direction!

Acid Test

Achieved fleeting fame after their music was in Highway 61 (the wonderful "Mr. Skin"), they released only an EP and a quite-good record, neither of which was even remotely promoted. Big on college radio but they just dropped out of sight.

Sara Craig

Her debut "Bike" was an odd hit but she never managed to follow it up. I suspect that she suffered "lack of direction" syndrome, maybe exacerbated by producers who didn't know if she was Tracy Chapman or Jane Siberry.

Cub

Three women from Vancouver, only semi-competent at playing their instruments, took the punk DIY attitude and mixed it with tons of cute...creating a genre of music dubbed "cuddlecore," which is apparently now known as "twee-pop."

They were perfectly marketed by their label and it seemed like they were constantly touring. Of all these bands they are perhaps the most affectionately remembered, and here's their video for "My Chinchilla."



Furnaceface

They rode the Chili Peppers "funky wave" but made it their own, mixing in live samples and a goofy sense of humour. Despite their silliness, however, they were almost preachy with social consciousness, but that's sort of what you expected in the early '90s.

I saw them live at The Volcano and they were amazingly tight, complete with Devo-esque uniforms and an En Vogue breakdown.



Gogh Van Go

The band members sadly decided that their FAMILY was more important than their MUSIC (silly!), but they still managed to put out two albums of perfect pop/electronic/rock. It wasn't ALL good...but most of it was.

I'm pleased to be able to present a video for my favourite Gogh Van Go song, "Call It Romance." I LOVE these lyrics.



Sucking Chest Wound

Obviously they win the award for "best band name," they were a bizarre collective of Negativland-ish sample mashers...and they're still in action!

Their song "Mary Dear" was a college DJ staple. While you watch them perform live, I'm going to see if their CDs are still on sale...



Kathleen Yearwood

Reclusive, bizarre, wonderful. Her albums were a strange mix of conventional folk and yodel-screaming fury, a style that was personal and all her own. NOT to be confused with TRISHA Yearwood, of course.

Weasel Compilations

You know all those budget-priced "Best of the [Insert Era Here]" compilation CDs you often see in point-of-purchase bins at Chapters? The ones chock-full of classic songs at a price that's simply too good to be true?

Sometimes CDs are cheap because of a low advertising overhead or a high production run, but at other times they're cheap for a very simple reason: because the people who made the CDs found a sneaky way to avoid licensing fees. Hence "weasel compilations," for lack of a better phrase.

When I started DJ'ing retro nights I fell prey to several of these CDs before I finally learned my lesson. They always START OUT with three or four of the classic recordings that you're expecting to hear, but then they slip in the FAKE songs.

How are they fake? They either use a live performance by a few original band members -- always recorded at some highschool dance or small-town festival, with stadium reverb added for odd effect -- or they get the elderly, coke-addled lead singer to come into the studio and record a new version with karaoke session musicians. These ones are the worst, because the instrumentation is terrible Casio keyboard stuff and the production is bottom of the barrel. Even if you don't know the song, you know it's a fake version because no record company would EVER release it as a single.

Hence the cheapness of the CDs. By only including a few of the classic songs -- which cost a bundle to license -- they then find the surviving members who own the music themselves, convince them to do a budget recording session or a live soundboard recording, and then mix those "updated" versions into the bulk of the CD...without ever revealing this in the song titles. If you're lucky they'll include a weasel notice on the back, in tiny letters, somewhere down near the corner:

"To achieve the best sound quality possible, some of these songs have been updated or re-recorded with one or more of the original band members."

YOU JERKS! It's no wonder we're cynical nowadays, and also no wonder that most of us probably have two or three of these compilations in our own collections, in which Marvin Gaye or "(Two-Fifths of) The Temptations" sleepwalk through their hit song in the backroom of some Legion building in Iowa, cheered on by the one man drunk enough to have a good time.

My point? Just a cautionary tale, that's all. Look for that weaselly notification before you buy a box-set of classic songs from a bargain bin...and even so, expect to get ripped off.

PS: Strangely enough, if the CD company is from Eastern Europe or Russia, you'll probably get all the classic songs intact, albeit with humorous spelling-mistakes in the titles. THEY get around licensing laws because nobody can untangle the international copyright issues in order to actually prosecute (that is, if the company's address is real in the first place).

Liveblogging My Grandfather's Tapes II

Continuing the liveblogging, because I know you're curious how that wiener thing ended up.

This "wiener deal" caused a tightening of tour restrictions...wouldn't let tourists near chicken or wiener processing, then wouldn't let them in the beef kill or the pork kill. Tours kept getting cut down, both in volume and number.

He stopped taking tours two years ago. He was "senior man" and felt that other and younger fellows might be better at it. He did the tours for thirteen years. He started at Schneider's in 1934 and was still doing tours in 1989, well over fifty years with the company. They have a retiree's travel club. A woman who started at Schneider's when he did suggested the travel club after retirement, have been doing it for twenty years...have several trips on the go.

Trips to Alexandria, New York. A ten-day trip to the Ozarks, one to Toronto, one through the Welland Canal, one to the Shaw Festival. So he's still involved with Schneider's. They used to rent their own busses but the costs were too high, now go through a travel agent.

INTERVIEWER: I know that you went to PEI during World War Two. Tell me more.

He went to London to enlist, but he and his brother were told to wait for their call. He got his call in August 1942, got into the service in November or December. He went into the Air Force, his brother was in the Army. He went to a camp near Montreal. Went to the Toronto Hunt Club for initial training, was then sent to Jarvis for further training, also LINK trainer, where he "washed out." He didn't have the physical qualities necessary.

The LINK trainer was a machine similar to flying. Just an imitation. Just barely the cockpit. There was scenery around you and you had the horizon, what it was was a simulated aircraft flight. He couldn't judge between the aircraft and the ground so they washed him out. He was finished.

So he remustered to aeroengines (ground crew), he typed wills at the Toronto manning pool for troops who were enlisting, this was at the sheep pen in the Exhibition grounds. Then he went to Galt for the aeroengine training school, in some of the old factory buildings down there. Then was shipped to St. Thomas, just a holding depot for postings, waiting for his assignment, continued marching and was held in barracks.

Then was posted to Moose Jaw for four days -- on ground crew, out on the airstrip. Would warm up planes in the morning, test everything. It was a bombing and gunnery school. An aircraft would carry two fellows, would drag a flag on a cable from behind. The fellows in another aircraft would shoot at the flag and record the results. They also dropped imitation explosives, fly over targets. A fellow in a pigeonhole would record how the bombing run went.

Then he was posted to Prince Edward Island. Two stations were there: Summerside (surveillance for submarines) and Mount Pleasant (also bombing and gunnery school). Was there from June 1944 to June 1945 with Rita (his wife). Had two rooms, four families living in one house, had a daughter (Sharon) just a year and a half old.

The armistice was signed and he was sent back to Ottawa until his discharge. Got it in Toronto in October 1945 on the Exhibition grounds. He was never sent overseas, possibly because he was married and had a child, and was also thirty. They had kids, 19, 20, "sharp as tacks, and, you might say, champing at the bit." He was on an overseas draft but they took him off. So he ended up in PEI, not in a war zone.

INTERVIEWER: Were there accidents during training?

Planes did go down, he was on guard duty on occasions when two went down. A seaplane crashed on an Ottawa roof near Hull, he was sent out to guard the plane and make sure it wasn't tampered with. At Mount Pleasant a plane went down and he guarded it for a week. To keep everybody away, civilians, air force people, until investigators could determine what happened.

Came back home in 1945. He was glad to get home. Then he went back to Schneider's. His job was held, and the plant treated the soldiers well. They made up a monthly food box that was sent to every worker in the service. The boxes contained toffee, cigarettes, canned butter, cookies, biscuits, summer sausage, canned meat. Also mailed overseas. Clarence Heller was in charge of the department that oversaw that operation.

It was a good place to work. There weren't too many people suffered, and if they did it was their own fault. J.M. (the founder) knew the old originals in the plant and he'd go out and visit them. Fred was quiet, more the businessman. Norm was everybody's friend, would ask people's opinion of things.

INTERVIEWER: Who were the old-timers you started there with?

When he started, a lot of the original employees were there. William Rohleder was the fellow that J. M. brought over as the sausage maker. "He was big, fat, German fellow." Jolly and robust. He was retired by that time. When J.M. started he only knew how to make pork sausage, so he brought in Rohleder. Wanted to branch out. Rohleder was practially a partner, probably had some money in the business when he retired.

The Radke brothers. Oscar worked in the cook room, Dutch loaf was roasted at that time. Oscar ended up in catering, making roast loaves and roast tails, had a special recipe for potato salad. Harry Radke was a "pig-sticker." "In other words, he stuck he hogs."

Gus Hagerman was head of the cook room, he might have invented the Dutch loaf. The Dutch loaf is a baked liver loaf, has a liver flavour to it. It's still made. J. M. was around. Freddy Maier worked in the office, did bookkeeping. Fred Schneider was head bookkeeper, in charge of finance. Norm Schneider was a mechanic, factory superintendent, also very quality-minded.

Edgar Gimble was cashier, one of the old originals.

INTERVIEWER: Thanks to both of you!

GRANDMA: I've heard things too, that I've never heard!

Liveblogging My Grandfather's Tapes I

I'm digitizing 4 1/2 hours of my grandfather's taped interviews, and I'm doing it in a very short period of time. In order to keep myself busy (there's only so much solitaire you can play in one sitting), I came upon the revolutionary idea of LIVEBLOGGING my grandfather's interview.

Live, as in originally recorded on July 15, 1992.

The interview was apparently taped in their back kitchen, with my grandmother occasionally popping in. The interviewer was Frances Hoffman.

At the three hour mark he is explaining in meticulous detail the way the Schneider's factory and merchandising operated while he was there. He worked at Schneider's almost all his life, and continued to deal with the company long after his retirement.

There was a plant in Ayr for fried chicken and meat patties. It didn't do the killing, only the frying. When the fried chicken business caught on they started to buy raw product from other processors. Schneider's still had a chicken kill, but not sufficient chicken for fried chicken. This was for bucket chicken, nuggets, chicken fingers. Recent products since chicken "came into its own."

Schneider's also bought Bradley Brothers in Toronto. They went bankrupt, so Schneider's bought them out. They were mostly in hotel institutional business. They sold a ready made product, and Schneider's was already making the same products. If they hadn't bought it, somebody else would have, some "cut-rate operation." Schneider's ran it separately for a while -- Bradley's trucks would go into restaurants with a certain cut, then Schneider's trucks would go in an hour later with a different cut -- but since this was a hassle they combined the operations.

That plant was set up for Hotel Restaurant Institution, not sausage or cold cuts. Schneider's also made it a "patty plant" with new equipment, and therefore made all the meat patties. The hamburger and patty business increased to the point where the plant could survive. These were steakettes, hamburger patties, and special things for 7-11, Harvey's, Burger King, Dairy Queen. "Patty contracts."

In Kitchener they used to have a "beef boning" operation, would cut up, debone, and roll beef here. In order to have a sausage plant you needed both a pork and a beef supply (to make something like summer sausage). But were never large enough as a beef operator to compete with bigger companies. Became too costly and wiped out the beef killing and boning lines.

Now (1992) they buy boneless cuts from a firm called Carlisle in Calgary. They had over 100 people in beef kill so this was a big change. But they still butcher hogs there. In 1990 they had two hog kill shifts. A company called Hoffman was just cutting up hogs and sending them to Toronto for processing, ten to twelve thousand hogs away. But Schneider's killed 6000 hogs a day, purchased through the stockyard marketing board. That's the only way you can buy them, can't buy direct from farmers.

Now just killing 3000 to 3500 a day while the demand for red (raw) meat has fallen off with chicken becoming more popular. So Schneider's got into the hamburger business more, and dishes like lasagna, noodles, pasta. But they don't make those anymore.

He was in the shipping office when the Oktoberfest sausage hit the market, didn't affect much except just around Oktoberfest. It was just to be sold during the Oktoberfest parade, but Norris' bakery had a market for Oktoberfest sausage all year, and others too. Line was drawn at supermarket sales, however. They didn't make one-pound packages except for Oktoberfest.

Other than being in the shipping office, he also worked in Catering. The Schneider's catering was limited to roast ribs, roast tails, cabbage salad, scallop potatoes, pickles, cheese, and dessert (mostly pie, which they bought from Norris'). Also different fundraising organizations like the Stratford Hockey Club, who came twice a year to get catered meal for fundraising. Also had roast beef and roast pork (for a while) and roast turkey. But the only company they roasted turkeys for was for Pruitt's near the end.

He took care of catering orders. Goodrich's foreman's club ordered roast beef and roast tails. He also sold byproducts -- meat meal, bonemeal -- to feed companies. Would be mixed with chopped grain and be a supplement for animal feed. Feathermeal was for chicken breeders. Also sold bloodmeal for animal food, wasted very little.

INTERVIEWER: How was offal and waste disposed of?

It was run into the meat- and bonemeal. They had a lard rendering area to make lard and shortening. Shortening was part animal and part vegetable. Also rendered beef fat, sold to furniture companies as a lubricant. The hair was at one time exported to Germany for brush manufacture. The rind was sold for gelatin, possibly Jello. At one time they made a lot of gelatin products, but now all they make is head cheese (which contains very little gelatin). So they send the rind to Canada Packers, who has a gelatin firm.

The bone and intestines was dumped into a pressure cooker. The bones were cooked until soft. The oil was drained, sent by tank car to a soap company. The remainder was called "cracklings," similar to a rice cake. Was ground and screened then sold as meat- and bonemeal. This was tricky to sell because it depended on the supply of rendered material and the demand for it locally. Nothing was went to waste.

Also had a million-dollar water purifier. They were the second-largest water-user in the city, mostly used for cleaning. All waste-water was collected in a big tank, then agitated so that the fat comes to the top. Fat was removed with "sweepers" into containers, then sold to soap companies. Whatever wasn't useful was sent to the landfill sites, but the sites didn't want it, so they sold it to farmers for fertilizer. But if too much was used it became a contaminant.

The sewer commission had a standard that Schneider's had to meet before water could be dumped into the river systems. Checked daily now, are fined if the water doesn't meet the standard. If they DO meet the standard then the water supply was discounted, as encouragement.

He retired in 1977, but took tours afterwards. Schneider's always preached that they had an open house, so the tours was an advertising method. They had ten tour guides, the plant encouraged people to come through in groups. Took a lot of high school children, "they had to be a little bit responsible" (they still had problems, not too many, had to straighten out kids who wanted to show off and got out of line).

But when the recession hit they discontinued the school kids...they'll take an agricultural college group or a hog producer's association, also have Japanese delegations. The Japanese had a set up to send people to Canada to tour the operations, "it was a continuous type of thing."

Began running into sanitation problems. The USA was looking for excuses to blackball Canadian product. They found one package of wieners with bacteria in it so they blackballed the Canadian trade. Schneider's was just making headway into Buffalo, but the USA made a big issue so Schneider's stopped aggressively exporting wieners to the states. Still trade to Florida and Bermuda. But border shipping was stifled...

(The tape ended here, but if you want to know how WienerGate turned out, here's the next tape).

Nights with Grandpa

Since my grandmother's birthday is coming up, I'm trying to digitize a bunch of cassette interviews that my grandfather gave to the local historical society in the late '80s. The sound quality is terrible and the content largely mundane, but what does come through is the strangeness of hearing him speak almost fifteen years after his death.

I didn't begin to care for my grandfather until it was too late. Before his illness he seemed to me to be a conservative, maddeningly slow old man who ate pigtails right out of the carton. During his protracted and painful death I began to realize who we were all losing, but by then he was too far gone to really "have a chat" with. When he actually died I was at work.

So maybe it's easier to love somebody who isn't around anymore; I can think about his strength and his friendly sensibility, instead of fighting with him about my future, and I can also admit that his lectures about my goals in life were sensible, and that I've now actually done some of the things he wanted me to.

Then...there he is on the cassette tapes, talking about his father's factory and the manufacturing process for felt. His slow, ponderous voice which took forever but always arrived at its destination. His sentence introductions which never meant anything but served to explain his own thought processes ("That is...", "You might say..."). Him just sitting in the back kitchen, chatting with an interviewer, while the clock chimes two, three, four.

It's strange.

A She-Devils Memory

While digging through old cassettes and Protools project CDs I was delighted to discover a "She-Devils On Heels" promo from 2004. This was from the "third season," when Annie first joined as co-host, and I think the promo sums up the show perfectly. So does this picture.


The commercial was very much a collaboration, though I think Annie's energy was the most crucial ingredient. What I remember most about it was forcing poor Annie to say "Do we HAVE superpowers?" about fifty times. What I remember most about that picture was...well, unsurprisingly I don't remember it at all.