The Wire Online

Various artists who contributed to, or were mentioned in, the Wire article have song samples for download on the Wire's site! Up now! Check it out!

John Lurie: A Fine Example of Art

The most fun you're likely to ever have with an art book: John Lurie: A Fine Example of Art collects over 80 of John Lurie's recent paintings - from the cartoonish to the painterly - in oversized hardcover form. They're nicely reproduced - the book looks lovely - and, though it's hardly an aesthetic consideration, is a damn good deal; with my iRewards card at Chapters, I paid less than $50 for it, after taxes! (At this juncture, you have to order it in, but it only takes about a week). See more of John's art here, and look for my interview with him, dealing with his illness, his art, his frustrations with the art world, and, yes, online poker, in the current issue of subTerrain (which also bosts a Lurie painting on the cover). By the way, the title of the piece on the front of the book is "First You Blow Us, Then We'll Let You Go."

(Half of) No Fun at Chapters: an informal chat with David M.

People know that David M. of No Fun does a monthly gig at Chapters on Robson, right? Commuting from Surrey, he’s been in charge of the magazine department there for years, and has been doing solo acoustic shows in-store, from 1 to 3pm, on the third Saturday of every month for about six of those years, with little or no fanfare (are No Fun fans not fond of Chapters? Could this be the explanation? I certainly haven’t gone, but mostly because I’m too lazy to do the math to figure out when said gig happens, exactly). Always a figure of underground fame in Vancouver, he described Chapters as “a new underground” to me on the phone, tho' apparently, he was having a very No Fun oriented shift when I called (I was not the first person to go "David? As in David M.?" when he answered the phone, apparently). In fact, I’d been calling to see if the new Wire was in the store yet - it ain’t - and ended up chatting about music with him, asking him those pressing No Fun-related questions that have lingered in my mind, like, why does the band - which has been around for 20-some years and put out several cassette recordings and such - not have CDs for sale?

“We’re the group without CDs,” he explained, with typically deadpan humour, before translating into bad French (“le group sans CDs,” or something like that). “A glut of good stuff [such as CDs] is still a glut,” he opined, and No Fun doesn’t want to contribute to it; he told me about a CD he released in a run of one, giving the copy to a single fan, under the name of David M’s Ironic Acronym - saying that, tho’ people may not be able to buy No Fun CDs at Red Cat and Scratch, at least “the one guy who has [that one CD] is pleased.”

I cannot argue with such logic. But will he provide me a CD burn of 1894, my favourite No Fun cassette of yore? (The one with “Be Like Us,” “Work, Drink, Fuck, Die,” and, if memory serves, “Paisley Brainbolts of the Mind” on it. I can live without “I’m Not Taking Suzy to the Be-in,” tho’ I’d probably pick up Snivel, too, were it, say, available on CD.) Mr. M is noncommittal on this question: “maybe.” I get around to it again, and he stands firm: maybe.

When he found out that I was a Vancouver writer - hence my search for the Wire piece - and that, indeed, I was at the Vancouver Complication gig, where No Fun performed in duo form, he asked if I’d written the review of it that he’d seen run in the Big Takeover, reprinted (apparently) from some local mag. It took him describing the review to me - which he called “the best No Fun review ever” - for me to realize that indeed it was not mine: “the guy said he went out to his car to get something and when he came back he found out that he had missed No Fun, ‘but he heard they were really good!’” David gave a little chuckle. That gig was in fact one of only three No Fun gigs I've seen - I saw No Fun at Christmas at the Railway, years ago; I saw them open for Robyn Hitchcock even further back, at the Town Pump; and I caught the Complication mini-set. I'm primed to see No Fun play again.

And so: the next David M. gig at Chapters will be on May 17th, and, David reports, he may also do something special for Mothers’ Day. This time, I’ve got the date fixed in my head, and I’m going to be there.

He may have an 1894 for me, after all.

(Post-script: You can apparently download "Be Like Us" for free at Download.com, btw. I wonder if No Fun have a Myspace?).

Fake Jazz - Josh Stevenson, The Sorrow and the Pity, Jazzfest

Photos by Femke van Delft

Hm! Those interested in checking out Fake Jazz Wednesdays (if'n you haven't already) should definitely bear April 30th in mind. Josh Stevenson, formerly of Jackie-O Motherfucker, currently of BCVCO, and head of the Cast Exotic imprint will be doing his Magnetic Ring thing there (which I have yet to actually see and am quite excited about); Dave Chokroun, meanwhile - the pic at the top - will be leading the Sorrow and the Pity, with Darren Williams - a spastic Minutemen-meets-Albert-Ayler poltico-poetic blustering shitstorm of punk/jazz playfulness that sees Dave step away from the bass and get back behind the drumkit. (Dave and I talk a bit about the project here - and fuck, the songs on the Myspace page are GREAT! Dig "The Ape Man!"). I'm told saxophonist Williams may take a hiatus from th' scene for awhile, for reasons I forget, so there may not be many other chances to see these guys soonish... Also on the bill are trippy drone psychedelia artists Ascend, Vipers! and Set Sail to Sea, whose Myspace account I cannot find.

By the by, both Josh and Dave are featured prominently in my Wire piece; the photos above are outtakes from Femke van Delft, and happen to be shots we submitted to the Wire that, to the best of my knowledge, they did not use.

Oh: Coastal Jazz announced it's jazzfest lineup today - The Thing is coming back! Yaaah! (and with Ken Vandermark, too!).

Three New Magazines with My Stuff in Them

In recent months, I have laboured long, friends, on a couple of different pieces on musician/ actor/ painter John Lurie, whose work, humour, and sense of style I have drawn inspiration and joy from for years. (Go listen to the Marvin Pontiac samples on the Strange and Beautiful site, if you don't know what I'm talkin' about). subTerrain picked up the first major article to be drawn from my interviews with John - which deals with his illness, his paintings, his frustrations with the art world and the music industry, and his new book, John Lurie: A Fine Example of Art (which is a delightful item indeed)... and it has a west coast tie in, which I'll leave y'all to discover. Anyhow: looks like it's coming out this week!
Note: the image on the left may not reflect the final cover, as I lifted it from a launch invite they sent me, but it'll give you some idea what to look for! The painting is Of Course Animals Have Souls, by Lurie; you can view it and more of John's work here.

Also exciting to me is that the new issue of the Wire is out, which features my one-page Global Ear report on the local avant-garde music scene. Drawn up from interviews with Josh Stevenson, Heather Jean McDermid, Dave Chokroun, Dan Kibke, and J. P. Carter, it also manages to pack in about as much Olympics-dread as I could fit into a 1000-word survey of new music. Subscribers already have it, but stores may not be getting it for a few days yet. At some point - I assume soon - samples of some of the bands discussed (like, say, Ejaculation Death Rattle, or Sistrenatus, or the Her Jazz Noise Collective, or - whoever gets it together to send them sound files) will be appearing on the Wire's site.

It's always nerve-wracking when new people are publishing my writing, truth be known - kind of like leaving your baby with strangers: you never quite know if they're going to chop off its feet, or subject it to Satanic Ritual Abuse, or somefin'. It might go to explain why I feel half-ill tonight, tho' generally speaking, I've overtaxed myself these last few months (in part, due to these very articles!). I can see why most folks come home from work, thwack on the television, and open a beer...

Thankfully, there is less worry to be had re: Bixobal, the third issue of which is out, featuring my enormous interview with Peter Stampfel of the Holy Modal Rounders. It's the third piece I've done with Eric and I have no reason to think it'll be any less positive an experience than the No Neck Blues Band thing (issue 1) or the Phil Minton article (issue 2). This one you're gonna have to hunt for, tho' I gather Scratch sometimes gets in copies. There's routinely stuff by the Bishop brothers of the former Sun City Girls, and all sorts of cool outside/experimental music articles and reviews. THIS is where my heart really is, musically speaking - and check out the pic on the cover, by Climax Golden Twins' Rob Millis, of a record store in India:
Anyhow, anyone wanting to congratulate me on the subTerrain piece (or fans of John Lurie's) might wanna come down to Cafe Montmartre at 7PM tomorrow night (ie., Wednesday) for the magazine launch. I may or may not be reading/playing a portion of my Lurie interview, but I will definitely have John's new book in tow, and I'm told that Sandy Bone will be providing musical entertainment...

The Minimalist Jug Band, Petunia, et alia at Slickety Jim's, April 18

The Minimalist Jug Band, Al Mader, foreground, seated; Petunia, background, performin'

All photos by Femke van Delft


You know the Salvation Army down by Zulu Records? You ever shop the used CD rack there? I have. Discs too scratchy for Zulu sometimes get ditched there, and occasionally I’ve scored cool books or vinyl, too (Monocerous by Evan Parker for a buck!). Anyhow, a few weeks ago, I was lookin’ thru their CDs, thinkin’ hm, this 7 Seconds CD is kinda TOO-too scratchy, and this Dog Faced Hermans CD actually doesn’t have any disc inside it - but hey, look, there’s a disc by Petunia (that's the official site; hear his songs here, or check Petunia's Myspace here).

Petunia gets passionate

Now: Petunia’s name has come up around me mostly in the course of my interviews - two, now - with Al Mader, aka the Minimalist Jug Band (yes, you’re right - I incorporated a bit of the first one into the second, and yes, there is a sentence-level glitch in the Nerve article, which I tend to black out with felt pens when sharing the print copy around. My editor was so used to my impeccable prose that he got lax, I guess!) Both o’their most recent CDs - Petunia’s City of Life, or: Hayride to Hell, and Al’s Thrift Stories - featured the same song, “My Gal” by Petunia yoked to Mader’s “Love isn’t Blue,” making the most of their mutual guest appearances. Fun idea, but I’d never really seen him live before or spent time on him as a solo phenomenon, and while I’m gradually being seduced to the glories of country music - the roundabout way, through oldtimey and Eugene Chadbourne covers, and the like, or, say, by Rich Hope and his Blue Rich Rangers - whom I heartily exhort any fans of the form to come see at the Railway on the 29th - I did not know that I was ready to buy a CD by anyone who yodels and appears on his CD art in a cowboy hat, however good Al told me he was. So even at $2.99, having considered it, even having carried it around the thrift store with me while I browsed, I ultimately put it back on the shelf.

Ah, penance. This weekend I paid $20 for that selfsame CD at Slickety Jim’s Chat’n’Chew, where Petunia performed alongside the Minimalist Jug Band and some guy from Abbotsford named Cam Twyford, whom I had not heard before. At first the young Mr. Twyford’s acoustic strumming seemed a tad too maudlin and hippie-sincere, with a song, say, about how raindrops dream of the clouds when they fall, but must drown in collective puddles to survive once they reach earth; a bit of a “Earnestness Yecch” factor overwhelmed the endearing aspects of some images (“we’re all magical, tragical mixed-up grasshoppers,” say), which was unfortunate. I started to warm to him when he started singing about the importance of fertilizer - well, poo, really - to gardening and the seed cycle, and by his final songs - one with the memorable couplet, which I do not at all understand, “We are the memory stealers/ We’ll amputate your feelers” - I was enjoying him quite a bit (tho’ poo came up again in his final set - “thank God for plumbing/ it takes your poo away” - which seemed an odd aesthetic choice; who would want to be pegged as “the guy who sings about poo?”). Cam DID give a plug to The Skinny, which apparently has a review of the Minimalist Jug Band’s most recent CD in their 2nd, current issue. While he wasn’t exactly my cup of tea, I would bet he’s one o’ the better singer-songwriter-folkie types that Abbotsford has produced.

Cam Twyford

Twyford’s songs alternated with those by Petunia and Al throughout the night. Performing in front of a “David Lynch red curtain” - Femke joked that she expected a dwarf to appear, and Petunia in particular, impeccably dressed and neatly groomed, looked like he could have stepped out of a country bar in Lost Highway - the two men provided a very interesting counterpoint to each other. Petunia presents as a professional cowboy performer with a long history behind him, singing in a rich, twangy, perfectly-controlled voice about how crickets were calling in the Canadian night, doing a rendition of “Blue Christmas” - as if he knew that unseasonal snow would soon start falling - and doing a terrific, passionate take of my favourite song on the new disc, “Mercy” - a sort of dark rockabilly tune with an upbeat tempo and pleasantly anguished lyrics. His patter was well-organized and perfectly delivered, and his humour - as he joked about busking in London, say, before singing a song about that city - tended to a dry, wry wit.

The Minimalist Jug Band looks to the heavens for inspiration

Tho’ Petunia did have a goofy li’l ragtime-type horn that he blew into to accompany himself at times, he came nowhere near the impassioned faux-nuttiness of Al’s performance, which tended to be a little prop-heavy that night: he had a Smarties box on a coathanger that fit around his neck where Petunia actually had an instrument; and he made a little self-assaultive gag of sawing through some wrapping material that he’d tied into his longish hair while riffing on “Take the Ribbon from My Hair,” or whatever song that was. As always, his humour was kinda self-deprecating (by request, he did “I’m a Lousy Lay” and other favourites like “Problems in a Box” - Femke was laughing aloud for that one, which she hadn’t heard before - and “Making Myself Sick.”) One treat was a new song he did about a trip to Iceland, where “people don’t die except by suicide;” he jokingly riffed on how miserable the environment was, and how at home he felt there (“I wish I’d never come here/ and I wish that I could stay...This place is miraculous. This place is ridiculous. I guess that’s true of all of us.” I’m not entirely sure I scribbled down the lyrics correctly, but the song was delightful. Probably a couple of years until it appears on CD, alas.

Andrew Burden by Femke van Delft

And if that doesn’t seem like enough for your money (which was basically by donation, tho’ most people also ate or had a beer; I recommend the turkey sandwhich - named a Dove in Your Hand, I think, or maybe a Bird in Your Bush, for reasons our cute, pleasant waitress could not explain), after Al and Petunia and Cam had all done a couple of sets, an enormous, nose-pierced, cowboy-hatted fellow named, I think, Andrew Burden (of the Golden Wedding Band) also did one song - a country blues number that was interspersed with impassioned Screamin’ Jay Hawkins-ish scats, which he roared with a gusto that made the short hairs at the back of my neck tingle and caused the ghost of Dave van Ronk to bend an ear towards the proceedings. I gather Slickety Jim’s (on Main at Broadway, btw) will be having more such events in the future. I heartily recommend checking them out, 'specially if Petunia is curating...

By the way, Al: much as I appreciate the fact that the first two - and now, doubtlessly, three - links that appear when anyone searches for you are articles written by me, you really oughta at least get a Myspace page, or Facebook, or SOMEthin'! You don't wanna be left out in the cold!

The Next Step in Elephant Art

I've seen paintings done by elephants before - naive art meets abstract expressionism meets Wild Kingdom. Sometimes they're pleasing to look at, but there is little evidence of anything approaching serious artistic choice. There was a book a few years ago, detailing how two Russian artists established a preserve for (if I recall) retired tourism elephants in Thailand, where the former beasts of burden could try their trunks at less taxing tourist-pleasing and income-generating pastimes. The art is no more interesting than in, say, Why Cats Paint: A Theory of Feline Aesthetics; squiggles, dabs, splashes - nothing very controlled, but the idea is oddly pleasing - less objectionable, say, than a dancing bear.

This video, however, stands out as something new to me - a clip of an elephant painting what seems to be, well, an elephant (whether it's to be understood as a self-portrait or a portrait of another elephant I can't really say, particularly since the animal likely has no idea what, exactly, it is doing - just producing lines as taught). Having looked into this a few years ago, I can attest that elephants were painting no such images back then; this is something wholly new. While the cheering tourists seem pretty gullible, it's still pretty remarkable to watch, and is already a Youtube favourite. I had no idea that the elephants could be trained to this extent - to produce actual likenesses.

For further research: a Thai website that sells elephant art; and a Snopes urban legend page on elephant art, with various further links. Also take a peek at eBay item 280217166008, an image of some flowers painted by an elephant, and compare it with 280217182162 - from the same seller in Thailand; the paintings are very nearly the same, showing the degree to which the elephant is just doing what it's been taught. One past auction (280215951756) by the same seller, vero389, shows a pair of elephants walking in the field, and fetched over $500 US - the priciest elephant art piece I've yet to see (is it the family theme, invoked by the fact that one elephant is slightly smaller, that accounts for the high price, or the simple fact that the paintings actually look like elephants?).

However neat all this may be, perhaps we should really understand these as actually being paintings by humans, with the elephant as simply a rather cumbersome medium? (ie, "Study of Flowers," by Phong Suc Tep; paper, watercolours, elephant). If you program your computer to produce a work of art, for instance - it's still YOU that is the artist.

How would vegans feel about elephant art, I wonder?

Post-script: ...and then there's the Thai Elephant Orchestra. Elephants playing theremin? Hmm...

Now, if people really want to wow the tourists - teach the elephants to make pizzas and serve beer. A full-service elephant restaurant, with elephant music, elephant art... a nice elephant massage... The possibilities are endless...

Last minute tickets: Hardstock, Daniel Johnston

Pssst - as of Tuesday night, Dale at Noize to Go (that cool little shop by A&B "colour me irrelevant" Sound) has a couple of Daniel Johnston tickets left, and a handful of Hardstock tickets. These gigs are selling out fast around town, thought I'd let y'all know where you can still get some.

Brotzmann and Haino

Sweet jeepers. You ever have those moments where - perhaps after a generous huff of cat pee (see a coupla posts ago) - you remember a CD you have that you've completely forgotten about, and absolutely need to put it on? Peter Brotzmann and Keiji Haino's Evolving Blush or Driving Original Sin, that's the CD of the night. It's a shame I get so locked into work that these "holy shit I NEED to hear that album NOW" moments only really happen when I've altered my state - otherwise, music just stays in the background while I wonder what work I have to do next. I agree with the reviewer linked above that Brotzmann and Haino are a bit of an odd pairing, but it's precisely the reality of that pairing that I needed to experience; I've gotten to know both men so much better musically since I bought this album - especially Brotzmann - that the very fact that they've recorded together is a cause for delight. I wonder if Brotzmann has ever collaborated with Eugene Chadbourne...?

Hey, Peter Brotzmann has a Myspace Page!

Hardstock Benefit tickets selling quickly!

The following is from a mass mailing that arrived in my inbox. A must-be-at gig, April 25th at the Commodore, featuring an amazing host of local musicians (the Pointed Sticks, the Furies, and I, Braineater are the selling points for me), going to benefit Scott Harding. Read on for more, or visit the Hardstock site. I'm told tickets are selling fast, so don't delay!

On Feb 15 2008, Scott Harding was badly injured in a hit and run collision in NYC. He has no health insurance. He is a musician, artist and friend. 100% of the net proceeds from this show go to help him.

This benefit show, which features the cream of Vancouver musicians from the last 30 years, will take place April 25 at the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver, BC. Headlining is a super group we have created for the occasion called The Hard Ones, featuring (in alphabetical order) Barney Bentall, Doug Elliot, Paul Hyde, Colin James, Simon Kendall, Colin Nairne, Craig Northey, Pat Steward...and others; The Pointed Sticks; The Jazzmanian Devils; John Mann from Spirit of the West with his son; Bughouse 5; Hardrock Miners; the Furies; I Braineater; Go for 3, and the Mike Webster band. Doors open at 7:00 and Music starts at 7:30 sharp. Did we say that 100% of the net proceeds go to Scotty Hard? Why? Because he needs it, and we love him and he deserves it. Our number one goal is to raise money for him in this time of need.

Another goal is to honour the universal health care program we have in Canada, which helps to make us a civilized country. While Scott is a citizen of Canada, he has been living in the US for some time with a green card. As a musician, engineer, recording producer and artist, he is like so many other Americans who do not have health insurance. Barack Obama says there are 47 million of them. Which is a number that means nothing until you know someone personally who needs help, and can't afford to pay for it. This is why we have come together to help.

Another reason is the real sense of community and love and friendship that binds musicians in Vancouver. We call it Hardstock to honour the spirit of the individuals who came forward, and made changes to their busy schedules, and offered without ego and without thought of renumeration or thought of loss of possible renumeration, to come together and put on a show for one of our own.Tickets will be available through Ticketmaster, and will available Wednesday April 9. With 10 bands and many more guest musicians, this show will sell out very quickly. We have tried to keep the ticket price affordable for all, and recommend that you purchase what you need for yourself and friends as soon as they go on sale.In the coming days, I will profile the various musicians that will play, and the man himself Scotty Hard aka Scott Harding.

For more info, visit

http://www.geoffberner.com/www.workhardprayhardscottyhard.com

orhttp://www.geoffberner.com/www.densemilt.com

There you will see many pictures and words of love from myself and the many friends of Scott.

Love,

Dennis Mills, promoter of Hardstock 08

aka Dense Milt

http://www.densemilt.com/
http://www.workhardprayhardscottyhard.com/

Jenkem Vs Cheesing: More Fun from the Deviancy Amplification Spiral

Right, so - there's mention in this Mentors DVD review in the current issue of Razorcake of jenkem, which provoked me to read up. You really should click that link, which directs to the Wikipedia entry; it's most instructive. Jenkem is a quasi-mythical mixture of fermented human feces and urine that some children in highly impoverished areas MAY be huffing to get high. Recently there was a jenkem panic in the US, with the media asserting (based on scanty evidence) that jenkem use was widespread in the USA, which it simply is not. A fine example of deviancy amplification!

Well: there's a new episode of South Park online that seizes this fertile territory and runs with it. This will be funnier if you saw certain animated features of the 1980s. I certainly did... I'm really hoping they used the BOC's "Veteran of the Psychic Wars" in it (how do I type an umlaut onto the O in BOC, anyhow?).

And God, yes, there is work I should be doing tonight, rather than watching South Park, but I've been feeling so awful this last week that I'm allowing myself some needed time off today (which I guess the trip to Seattle yesterday was, too, tho' I was exhausted by the time I got home...). I think I have short circuited my migraine cycle, finally - I woke up this morning with a headache, took a vasoconstrictor, suffered for a couple of hours, bemoaning my lack of codeine... And then I remembered how I broke my last migraine cycle, a couple of years ago. I won't tell you my copin' mechanism, but - it isn't jenkem, that's for sure, and no cats are involved. And unlike the various expensive prescription meds I've explored, it actually works quite well, both as a painkiller and as a way of switching off the Migraine Program. (Or so it has done tonight).

Off to Seattle...

Photo by Dan Kibke

Well, I'm still getting migraines, and had to bail from the Noise Fest yesterday, having seen only about half an hour of the Tunnel Canary documentary (which seemed excellent! - funny that they talked to Tim Ray, impeccably dressed as always, about dandyism...!). Today - ambitious, but determined - I'm attempting to make it to Seattle for a Carla Bozulich "Evangelista" show at the Renedezvous and a New Model Army one at El Corazon. Much as I love Carla, it's the latter I'm really excited about - I've been dying to see the full band of the New Model Army since I was tantalized by their poorly attended acoustic "mini-tour," really a Justin Sullivan show, at the Cobalt a couple of years ago (though I've been a fan for much longer, since I saw their "No Rest" concert clip on Soundproof cable access back in the '80's, when I lived in Maple Ridge). Hopefully I won't be slumped against the back of the club, my hand over my right eye, moaning "Owww my head..."

The migraines were so bad yesterday I had to throw up the water I'd been drinking. You know you're not in a good way when you vomit WATER.

And on the off chance that a border guard is Googling me on the ride down - yes, this is the bearded guy in the passenger seat outside; hi! Blogs must really add an interesting dimension to your jobs. Mine will be the equivalent of a psychic cavity search - I get pretty intimate at times. If it makes a difference, I'm really just a huge New Model Army fan; and I really DON'T have any drugs on me, except some migraine meds that I have a prescription for, in sealed packages, which I'll happily show you. I would not be stupid enough to try to bring those OTHER kinda drugs across the border - especially when a New Model Army gig is at stake!

Oh: and my Dad wants me to get a 5lb block of mozzarella cheese, as long as it costs less than $3.50 a pound.

Stones of the World

You gotta spend some time here, folks: Yoshida "Ruins" Tatsuya's photography of monoliths, megaliths, and a host of other liths beside. The site's in Japanese but the navigation is simple enough - click "Europe" or "Asia" or so forth in the top left and you'll be treated to a host of different big rocks, all with that magical quality that he brings to his photography - like the stones are posing for a portrait, and in a minute are going to go back to just being big rocks...

Feelin' better!

Just to let people know, the bronchitis is clearing up, I've got some migraine meds that work, and yes, the photo of me passed out, below, was STAGED. (I wasn't even ill when it was taken!) It was from a BCVCO gig a few weeks ago in the DTES; there was a bizarre long stairway, and I was joking that my friends were "posing funny" as they took photos of each other in this cool environs. To show them a proper and normal pose - I lay down on the steps, and Dan obliged me by taking a picture! (You'll see that I couldn't quite keep a smile off my face...).

The Hawk is Dying

This is an odd, small, but emotionally rich film, based on a novel by Harry Crews. Paul Giamatti plays a man, George Gattling, who is out of step with the world, whose dream is to tame a wild hawk; after a family tragedy, this becomes a singular obsession, which no one around him understands. Gattling's involvement in his own emotions and his weary contempt for the people around him speak of a streak of possibly adolescent, possibly macho romantic individualism in the source text, which the film does nothing to critique; but fuckit, I've got my own streak of possibly macho romantic individualism, and I found The Hawk is Dying moving and honest and fresh. Giamatti's performance is excellent - rougher than his usual range, enough so that he gets tagged as "self-indulgent" by some critics, but, well - critics are assholes, for the most part; this film is worth a look. Dismissed at Sundance, dumped direct to DVD in Canada, with a miserable 27% on Rotten Tomatoes, you can probably pick it up off the PV walls at Rogers for $9.99. You might hang onto it for a second viewing. I might, too.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster Loves You

I'm still sick, I'm still not at work, and I need a long nap. Some amusements to tide people over:

1. The background of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the religion of Pastafarianism.

2. A new sculpture erected in the US of the same.

May you be touched by its noodly appendage.

About to Collapse

(photo by Dan Kibke)

Back to St. Paul's at midnight last night, coughin' green along the way. I started choking on my phlegm when I lay down to try to sleep, and it was the last straw. Cops everywhere in the emergency ward - sounded like someone had freaked out. Thankfully, tho', the staff were a little less chilly - likely 'cos the guy who helped me out was a fey gay man who was having a fair bit of fun with my delirious babble (he practically made a little ballet out of taking my blood pressure and temperature).

The diagnosis: acute bronchitis. And finally, here come the antibiotics: two 250 mg caplets of Azithromycin, which is such a strong dose that by time I fulfill my scrip for the rest and get home, I have explosive diarrhea (which usually takes about a week's worth of decimated gut flora to arrive). Poor sleep, migraine on waking (still probably related to caffeine withdrawal), and more phlegm to spew: let it be said for once and all that diarrhea and coughing spasms are a VERY BAD COMBINATION. Then, alas, I have more errands I gotta run - including prepping for a sub for my afternoon class. I finally get home, fire off a few emails, feeling dizzy and delirious and slightly high from the stress of it all - I can't stop working, once I get like this, even tho' I sorely need to just crash. And then I chance upon the Wikipedia entry for pulmonary edema, which doesn't scare me until I get to the part about frequent urination as a symptom. I've been peeing every fifteen minutes, on some days of this illness.

Ah, well. At least it's being treated.

It's time to crash. Tonight's intended movie: The Gospel According to St. Matthew, by Pasolini. (Bought it along with Race with the Devil).

Acid Mothers on Friday.

Noise Fest on Saturday.

God, I hope I'm healthy.

Yasukuni War Shrine Documentary Pulled

For those with an interest in Japan...

See also this post on the documenary Nanking.

Race with the Devil: subtext is everything

Oh, my God.

So I'm sick, dig, and tho' I didn't go in to teach today - it's hard to teach when you can't talk - I had to spend the day running errands, coughing up phlegm all the while. At the end of the day, totally exhausted, walking back from a meeting, I stepped into HMV to poke around: because if I could find a cheapie DVD I was genuinely curious about, I could keep myself awake for a just a couple more hours and go to bed late enough that I wouldn't wake up coughing (this is the theory) at 3AM.

Hm. Race with the Devil: 70's American cinema that I haven't seen. I examine the box for the umpteenth time. Pros:

1. Warren Oates is in it! (Almost enough, right there).

2. It's from the decade of American moviemaking that most interests me.

3. It's got Satanic sacrifices in it, which is neither here nor there, but if it's good (I genuinely think like this) I can convince Adrian "Deep State" Mack to see it so we can bullshit about it afterwards.

4. And it's only $11.99.

Cons:

1. Peter Fonda AND Loretta "Hotlips" Swit

2. I've never heard of the director

3. I don't remember Robin Wood OR Carol J. Clover mentioning it in their books, and it doesn't come up in The American Nightmare.

4. And fertile a decade as it was, some American 70's cinema is flat out drek.

Decisive, what-the-fuck factor? It's only $11.99.

Oh, my God.

I'm barely halfway through - I've paused mid-Satanic-ritual, so I cannot possibly spoil the ending for anyone, because I don't know where it goes - but I think this is THE anti-boomer (self?)-hate movie. What's amazing so far, tho', is that everything that interests me about the film, everything that is intellectually exciting about it, is playing out so subtextually, so quietly, so subtly that no one will actually believe me when I tell them what it's about, even after they see it. ("If one has character, one also has one’s typical experience which recurs again and again." - Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, epigram 70). It is quite possible that if I tried to talk to the filmmakers themselves about it, they wouldn't believe me. Fanboy Quentin Tarantino might go there, or Eli Roth, but who's gonna put me in touch with THEM? (And Carol J. Clover hasn't answered two emails I've sent, so I'm taking the hint).

Robin Wood? Hello? Do you read blogs? I was in CineAction! Notice me!

To understand why this is THE anti-boomer (self?)-hate movie, you have to look at it from two different angles: first, you have to consider the urban-rural horror film, roughly along the lines spelled out in Men, Women, and Chainsaws. Following this template, a group of people with whom we identify - typically middleclass citydwellers from our own country - go into another place, either in their own country or elsewhere, where people lack their luxuries. They behave badly. They (usually) incur, and MERIT, the resentment of the locals. We, the audience members, identifying with these (generally) "ugly Americans" see our own faults and recognize guiltily that affluence and comfort are not fairly distributed socially - the locals are our "victims" and have the right to hate us. But then - this is all paraphrasing Carol Clover, btw - the resentment of our victims explodes into violence, and the people with whom we are identifying with must overcome their guilt and

(Sorry, couldn't resist. I'm nearly delirious with illness and sleep-loss, you realize).

I mean, think of it: how many movies does this sorta thing happen in? There are different variations, different nuances, but, I mean: Deliverance, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Rituals, Turistas, Hostel, I Spit On Your Grave, Pumpkinhead, The Hills Have Eyes... All of them explicitly show the people "we" are among behaving distastefully. Think of Burt Reynolds and Jon Voight talking about how their fellow city folk are "raping" the land, or anything that Ned Beatty says or does, in Deliverance; or the spoiled, selfish behaviour of the fratboy kids in Hostel or Pumpkinhead or so forth. We seem to be the enemy, initially - or at least he's among our ranks - but all of them end with Our Representatives On-Screen being forced to kill the underprivileged so that they can return to their lives. It's like a working through of the very guilt that draws us into the narrative: "Yeah, okay, so I've got more than they do, and they've got it rough, and I don't feel good about that, but all the same, if it comes down to them or me, fuck'em!" (Clover goes so far as to suggest the poor must be killed in such movies BECAUSE they make us feel guilty!).

Race with the Devil invokes this formula (and like I said, don't worry, what follows is spoiler-free; you will learn little more about the plot of the film than is already revealed on the DVD case by reading what follows). Oates, Fonda, and their wives are wealthy, successful, newly-established yuppie entrepreneurs, sort of a 1975 version of Kevin Kline in The Big Chill, and they're on vacation in their expensive new motorhome, with their motorcycles along with them. They drive off the road, see a Satanic ritual (and are aware that they might be trespassing - the land might actually belong to the Satanists) and, after being initially titillated by the orgiastic nature of the event, see something they shouldn't. Then the two couples have to flee for their lives, fighting off the Satanists, in hot pursuit.

The thing that's fascinating about it all comes down to Peter Fonda, actually, and Easy Rider. Because you can't put Peter Fonda on a motorcycle in a film made within 10 years of that one without summoning up its memory. I would bet a box of donuts that the Oates role was initially offered to Dennis Hopper.

And yet here, Fonda is no counterculture icon; he's a successful, sold-out Yuppie, whose love of his motorcycle is no more an act of rebellion than his longish hair. At one point, Warren Oates even looks over at him and says, "You're the straightest guy I know," or words to that effect, and while later conversation reveals that Oates means the most honest and upstanding, there is definitely a double-meaning that subtly lingers when the line is spoken. Oates continues to reflect that it's amazing how much money the two men have made in the last five years (again, btw, something you find directly parallelled in a conversation in The Big Chill). You just KNOW that they were hippie poseurs before they cashed in. The Fonda character and his wife, especially, mighta even been at Woodstock - but now they're affluent as can be, revelling in their newly acquired comfort, proud of it (half the dialogue in the first half of the film is the two men bragging about their toys or showing off what they can do with them).

So, I mean, you gotta know that the Satanists are going to be HIPPIE types, right? Because just as poor folks make rich folks feel guilty, nothing could burn the ass of a newly-minted Yuppie than honest-to-God hippie leftovers. (Did anyone see Old Joy? It's STILL going on, for fucksake). The film shows, plain as day, a 1975 division between those who copped out and those who followed the other extreme: the radical drop-out stance of, say, the Manson family.

To make a prediction at midway, there are two possible endings to this film:

1. After a long conflict with the Satanists, the Yuppies will kill them all, via classic urban-rural logic, deep-sixing their guilt and ultimately reassuring the audience of likeminded Yuppie sellouts that they made the right choice. (Everyone should go buy a motorhome!).

2. Or, more pessimistically, boomer self-loathing will triumph, and Warren, Peter, their wives, and their little dog too, will ALL PERISH. Along with their toys, which will be much damaged byt the end of the film.

I'd bet money on #2, really I would.

I can't wait to see how this film plays out. In my imagination, it perfectly dovetails with something I want to convince Sir Mack of: it isn't Scientology or MK Ultra or some hidden wing of government planners that are destroying the spirit of revolution with gaslighting and mindfuckery, driving those who dig too deeply into suicide or madness. It's the sheer nature of our economy, of our affluence, of our venal, all-too-human, what-new-toys-have-you-got-for-me GREED. The revolution is dead because we all have our gadgets, our computers, our internet porn, our MP3 players, our cellphones, our money, our precious little packets of security and pleasure. No one had to brainwash us into wanting these things. We weren't duped - we came here of our own accord, because we WANTED these things. We invited the devil into our lives - we are the bad guys in this story. They may be bad guys too, and the Deep State may have cottoned onto how to play us - it isn't difficult to see what we like and what we want - but ultimately, like X sing in that song - "It's our blood on our hands." It's all our fault!

Where's Charles Manson when you need him?

Time to finish the movie.

Post-script:

Okay, so it gets a bit more complicated in its nuances, and it's a tad ridiculous at times, but there's LOTS to chew on in this film. (And Robin Wood does mention it, but just as a near-typical examplar of the class-guilt urban/rural film, with a western twist). There's also a certain level of incompetence that has to be risen above: for example, there's a line in the script about how the sacrifice occurs on the other side of a river, and this is retained in the film and mentioned more than once, even though the sacrifice takes place on the SAME side of the river, which is plainly visible. (There's even talk of having to cross the river to get to the site, when the police come to investigate the next day - after which everyone just walks across dry ground). Still: this is one cool movie, if you dig at it a bit (and Tarantino cribs from it in Kill Bill Part Two, for what it's worth). See it with the thesis, articulated in The American Nightmare (the film, not Robin Wood's essay, tho' that's good, too) that the horror films of the late 60s and early 70s do much to reveal the underlying tensions in American society at the time, and there'll be no end to the bullshitting this can inspire...

Shitstorm Vancouver Noisefest

Do you enjoy listening to music that makes your whole body throb and thrum?

Is punk rock not punk rock enough for you anymore?

Do you own Tunnel Canary's Jihad CD? (I bet you don't).

Are you a sonic adventurer? An athlete of perception? Are you fascinated by that odd ringing in your ears?

Do you want to pick up cute noise chicks? Do you have a fetish for men with piercings in unusual places?

This is for you.

DeadbyDawn Sound, Westcoast Harsh Noise and VIVO Media Arts present:

Saturday April 5th 2008

the first occasional and semi-infrequent Vancouver festival of NOISE and experimental music
(...or the Shitstorm Noise Festival...)

at VIVO Media Arts Centre
1965 Main StreetVancouver B.C.

10-20 sliding scale admission at the door

starts at 4:00pm, ends late

There's something like 37 bands playing at this fucking thing. The usual suspects apply - Flatgrey, Sistrenatus, G42, The Rita, Taskmaster, Ken Roux, Totally Ripped, Ejaculation Death Rattle... plus there's a host of visitors and people I have not heard before, with delightful names like Quim, Brutophilia, Fistopia, Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, Ghost Taco, and far, far more... I am told that performances will be fifteeen minutes long or so, except for the revitalized Tunnel Canary, who get 20 minutes. (Remember the line in Constantine about how two minutes in hell is an eternity? 20 minutes of Tunnel Canary is enough to scar you for life, don't worry). Things will start out with a new documentary about Tunnel Canary and their importance in the Vancouver scene (they are the Ur-band of Vancouver noise, active in the late 1970's and early '80s). Did I ever tell you that I once saw the Haters play here, back in the 1980's? No, really!

Of nipple rings, civil rights, and airport security in Lubbock, Texas

Here's a very disturbing story, masquerading as an amusing oddity, which I bumped into on the Fortean Times site...

Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-La-La Band - a new CD, an old interview

Interesting coincidence here: Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-la-la Band released their previous CD, Horses in the Sky, about the same time as Carla Bozulich’s Evangelista, back in 2006; here we are in 2008, and Thee Silver Mt. Zion AGAIN is releasing a CD (13 Blues for Thirteen Moons) in short proximity to another Efrim-produced, Constellation-distributed, Hotel2Tango Bozulich project (see below, or here). Interestingly, while previously it seemed Efrim and co. had more influence on Bozulich, accentuating the ghostly, moody, and sentiment-rich aspects of her songs, it looks like this time the influence might be rubbing the other way: because if I had to choose one adjective to describe Bozulich’s music, it would be tough (in the powerful, I-will-endure-all, I-have-the-courage-to-feel-this-way sense) and based on one spin, I’d say that the new Silver Mt. Zion album is their toughest yet - heavy, discordant, and intense, the album of theirs that best captures the passion of their live performances. Anyone dubious about their past claim that ‘this is their punk rock’ will surely get the point this time out.

That’s all I have to say about the band at the moment; I’m told they should be touring this way in late spring or summer. Reprinted, below - because I don’t think it ever got published in full - is my interview with Efrim Menuck, guitarist and lead singer, from 2006, recorded around the same week that I talked to Carla.

Funny: for some dumb reason, I was convinced Gerry Hannah would dig these guys, and when I got my tax refund last year, I sent him some Silver Mt. Zion stuff (mostly because it amused me to do so). I don’t think it stuck with him, though. I mean, he listens to Stereolab...

I’m surprised to hear you guys singing now - when I saw Godspeed in Tokyo, you seemed to be a very self-conscious person; it’s good to be hearing your voice.

I mean, self-conscious would be, I mean, yeah… It feels good singing because there’s words involved, and it feels good to be able to use words to try to express stuff after playing in a band for so many years that didn’t use any words. In some ways it’s a great feeling, y’know?

Do you use images during your live performances with Silver Mt. Zion, as you did with Godspeed You! Black Emperor...?

No, we don’t. It’s just us on the stage with Silver Mt Zion, there’s no sort of film projections or anything like that.

The ticket prices seem low given that there are two full bands on the lineup. Is that an attempt to make show accessible for people with less income?

Well, I mean, for sure, we sort of charge the smallest amount of money that we’re able to charge and not lose money on tour. There are a lot of people involved, except the onus is on us for that. We’re the ones that decided to be in a band that has this many members in it, so I mean, we keep the ticket prices as low as we can. Most of us in the band got raised with very little money and we’re not comfortable fleecing people, at the end of the day, I guess. It doesn’t seem like such a profound statement. We mostly just try to I guess act responsibly in that way, we try to keep things as cheap as we can.

Yeah, but frankly, I’d be willing to pay more, to feel like I was supporting the band – I feel like I’m fleecing you.

I mean, that’s genuinely kind of you and that’s genuinely a rare attitude in this world and I don’t expect that to be a prevalent attitude and I… there’s no reason why people should be feeling that way. We earn an honest living, I cannot complain. I thank, you know, my miserable luck every day that I earn a living playing music, you know? In Mt. Zion, at least, we feel very fortunate for the fact that we’re able to earn a living. We’re lucky that way. It is hard to earn a living as a musician. We’re fortunate enough that we do, that it allows us to be able to make decisions like, ‘let’s keep the ticket prices as low as possible, so that we don’t lose money touring,’ y'know?

Do you all have straight jobs, side jobs?

For the most part we all make a living off Mt. Zion and other bands that we’ve been in or are currently in. Me and Thierry, who’s the bass player in Mt. Zion, also operate a recording studio here in Montreal?

Hotel2Tango?

Yeah, exactly – which is not a money-making venture but does earn us, like, a small income when we engineer people’s records. Becky who plays cello is in school… I mean, we all do sorta different things, but yeah, we all earn our living playing in Mt. Zion. I guess the only person who doesn’t is Scott, whose the newest member of the band and has only played on the last record with us.

Was there a point when you were all doing straight jobs?

Yeah, absolutely, the first many many years with Godspeed You! Black Emperor being a band with records out and touring, we were all working a variety of jobs and, and doing what we could to make ends meet. I remember between maybe the second and third Godspeed tour I got cut off welfare because I was out of country, yeah? And so I came back and made an appointment with my welfare worker, and assured her even though I was in this band and hopefully, y’know, someday we would earn some sort of living, right now the band wasn’t earning enough money for me to pay my rent, and she actually made me sign this declaration and get it signed by a justice of the peace, saying that my name was Efrim Menuck and I play in a musical group called Godspeed You! Black Emperor and that as far as I can tell I will never ever ever earn a living playing music.

My God!

So, y’know, I mean, it took awhile. We’re lucky. I dunno, I have sort of a skewed perspective on the whole thing. I will say for sure that most musicians – the bulk of musicians out there pleading poverty or talking about the difficult life of the artist – the bulk of musicians, especially in this thing that popularly gets called Indy Rock or whatever, are mostly either whining or lying or just have a real, sort of, luxurious understanding of what it is to earn a living in this world. Ever since CDs came out, the economics of record sales are completely, completely abhorrent. A CD costs almost nothing to manufacture but sells for what, you know? It’s all a big racket. Yeah.

I’ve been under the impression that you’re not comfortable with selling CDs through corporate chain stores.

Yeah. I should rephrase that. We do everything we can to encourage people to support smaller record stores, and that’s not a big political thing. We just really like small local record stores and see them drying up all over the place.

And of course, at HMV, Horses in the Sky costs $20, and at Scratch it costs $13.

Yeah, of course.

When I talked to Carla, she talked about how she got really good publicity from a photo of her with a butcher knife that ran in Spin. She said that for a lot of people - especially before the internet - there just weren’t that many ways to find out about bands.

Absolutely, I mean, there’s all sorts of different ways to engage in this world and anyone who makes any sort of imperial argument is being disingenuous about a million things in this world. I know, for us… I don’t like talking about myself so much but for me personally, given what happened with Godspeed and with what’s been the history of Mt Zion, I have reason to be distrustful of the entire industry that exists around the promotion of music, typically in North America, also in Europe... It breaks my heart a little how degraded the idea of y’know, rock journalism is in the year 2006. It broke my heart in the year 1998, it broke my heart in the year 1987, it breaks my heart even more today.

It’s all advertising…

And it always has been, and… whoo. It’s like 33 degrees here and my brain is like maple syrup right now, so I’m not feeling super articulate, but absolutely... There’s validity (in what Carla said). Our record label doesn’t send records to Spin because Spin Magazine generally doesn’t review our records. A more complicated issue is that our record label doesn’t send records to Pitchfork media for an entirely different set of reasons which have to do with, uh… I don’t know. Let’s keep talking about this, but you ask me questions…

Well, in a way, this article too is advertising. I’m advertising you… There are things I like about the marketplace. I mean, I love buying CDs and music, finding cool stuff.

Yeah, I hear you, I mean, uh… (sighs) I mean, there are couple of things to say. The first thing I have to say is that Mt Zion in what we do and in the way we do it, the words we choose to sing, the way we peddle songs, the way present the music, the ethic of the record label we’re on, all those things can’t be simplified as, we absolutely disdain the marketplace. I… We are not comfortable issuing huge pronouncements like that. I mean, I’ve bought records at HMV, y’know? None of us are presenting ourselves as ascetic monks who somehow spend every second of our day fighting the man and not engaging, at all in the marketplace or anything like that. The fact is the world is a bleak place, we find it – (sighs) -- the one thing we all have in common is that the world seems to be in a steaming pile of shit and that the forces that overlap that create this thing that we’re sort of lazily right now calling the marketplace and all the rest of it are part of the problem, so as responsible, grown up, thoughtful human beings we do what we can to limit our engagement with market forces, for lack of a better term (it sounds like Dr. Death or something!) -- with market forces that we feel are contributing to a global state of affairs that we find to be horrendous. And that’s basically, like, humanism, it’s not anything deeper than that, and through Godspeed and with Mt. Zion, it’s been frustrating because we don’t fancy ourselves and we’ve never sort of described ourselves or presented ourselves as some sort of radical force or something. Mostly we’ve presented ourselves as clumsy, drunken Canadians, most of whom have like, university degrees, grew up fuckin’ lovin’ punk rock, who, when we reached a point when we decided we were gonna start playing music together, had a sort of ideal. We started to do that and we continue to do it now, just some ideals that we stagger towards kind of blindly, and we feel common cause with other people who shares those ideals. I mean, we’re just a fuckin’ band, you know, we’re not a… but we take the fact of being in a band quite seriously, and I’m endlessly discouraged at how generally what people take seriously is their own careers. There’s no consideration of anything other than that, and further than that, I mean, if you want to site a really easy example, you know, I wake up in the morning and turn on CBC radio, yeah? And I have to hear Gian fucking Gomeshi, right, gushing about what he’s terming as the newest independent genius thing, right, and then he plays some band that’s just released a record on either a major label or a so called independent label that’s owned by a major label. Now, I don’t think it’s like, splitting hairs to sort of wonder what the hell the word independent mean in thats context. I don’t think it’s an unreasonable request that other sort of intelligent or semi-intelligent grown up human beings think twice before they describe something lazily, y’know. Does that sound ridiculous?

No, not at all. Let me ask briefly about other aspects of your beliefs. I was reading a Wikipedia article that said you practice Judaism...

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve read that Wikipedia entry. If you tell me what the Jewish faith is, I’ll tell you whether I practice it. I don’t go to synagogue, I don’t believe that there’s a God in heaven, I don’t believe in any of that stuff, you know, I mean, so, no.

Would you say that there’s a spiritual aspect of A Silver Mt. Zion’s music, though - especially through a connection with roots music or early gospel, say, from the 20’s and 30s, pre-record industry days?

I mean, not gospel as it relates to God, but for sure, we listen to stuff like that, and we listen to tons of stuff in that spirit and we have conversations amongst ourselves about, you know, those sorts of ideas. I mean, even tho’ it’s mostly an impossibility, especially in the type of venues you’re relegated to playing, it comes down to the idea of performance as like a purely social and transcendent event, yeah? Which sounds huge and pompous and ridiculous, I know, but it’s this fancy word for a really simple idea, which is just a bunch of people in a room sort of working together, the band on the stage and the people in the audience, and now I feel like I’m talking like Bryan Adams and doing it for the kids and all the rest, but it’s not that… it’s like, it’s something I feel like we’ve all felt being at shows before. It’s rare that shows feel that way but when you do you know you’re in one, y’know, and you remember it… It’s ideas like that that interest us.

What was the evolution of the choral thing?

Um. When we did… we did a tour, I can’t remember how many years now, but after the first Mt Zion record came out we did a European tour where we tried to present that record live, so we ended up playing quietly, with a digital piano, and it was one of the most miserable experiences I’ve ever had in my life. I didn’t understand it at all. By the third show I realized that every time I go to shows like this, I hate shows like this, and, y’ know, why the fuck are we doing this? So then two years later while we thinking of touring again, the only thing we could agree on was that the music should be louder and that we should aspire to be able to win any audience in any bar anywhere; that we would come together and come up with a set that would win over, like, drunks and cynics and sceptics alike. So when we were gearing up and sort of reworking all the arrangements of all the songs to sort of fit that idea, we booked a week of practice shows in Ontario: let’s go see how all this plays out, yeah? When we were gearing up for those shows we wrote one song in particular, and, just trying it out in the jam space, we tried the idea of all of us singing together, and sort of like amongst ourselves we were like, well, holy fuck, that’s great! If that doesn’t melt your heart even a little, then fuck you, you know? So it all sort of came out of that feeling at first, because we scared shitless of this venture we were engaging in, that maybe if we just put our hearts right on our sleeves and just embrace our ridiculous awkward lack of slickness, then there’s value in that. It also just feels real good singing with a bunch of your friends! It’s just a good fucking feeling, it fulfills basic human needs. We enjoy singing together. I guess it all just comes down to that.

It sounds great. So how would you chart the change, from Godspeed to A Silver Mt. Zion? Is A Silver Mt. Zion still a side-project, with the intent of returning to Godspeed You! Black Emperor at some point, or...?

I mean, I enjoy Silver Mt. Zion, and I love what we do together and it’s not a small thing for me that… I mean, the last, the second last Godspeed tour was in America in the lead up to Operation Shock and Awe, yeah? The war started when we rolled into Minneapolis, and in the lead up to that war, and just talking to people... I mean, Godspeed mostly hardly ever spoke from the stage… We were sort of…

Withdrawn. A bit shy, separated.

Yeah, for sure, I mean, that was our approach, and so, I mean, on that last American tour, it was sort of like, “Okay, how the fuck are we keeping our mouths shut now? How are we not saying anything, how are we not engaging with the audiences, what the hell does it mean if we’re just presenting this huge sort of massive instrumental sort of onslaught?” And so we started talking from the stage, and for me it didn’t feel like enough, it sort of felt like for the most part people in the audience felt like this was some sort of unwanted intrusion, that what they just wanted that big sort of massive wall of sound to hit them and go home content. Which is fair and valid, but I mean… uggh, I feel like I could be speaking more articulately about this… I mean, when Godspeed started playing together, you gotta keep in mind that Clinton was president and fuckin’ Chrétien was prime minister, you know what I mean? The economy, the fuckin’dotcom revolution was gonna save us all, the Berlin Wall had come down, and the lives we were living were not optimistic and hopeful and the lives our friends were not optimistic and hopeful and it didn’t seem like the edge of a brave new century or anything like that. So a lot of what Godspeed was engaged in at the start was like, really, projections of what everyone knew what was going on anyways but wasn’t being talked about. But those things are talked about now. I don’t see what need there is to sort of project, I hate the word apocalyptic, you know, but to project, you know, the… It’s not necessary. You need pretty thick blinders on right now to not be able to...

Not see how screwed up everything is.

That’s simplifying it, y’know? The violence of our society that was like, really pretty buried isn’t buried anymore. It’s on the surface always now. So, I dunno, it just comes down to feeling that now’s the time where you need words, you need ideas, you need talking, you need at least something like that to communicate anything.

Is there more a concern with trying to engage people emotionally and personally, rather than through political argument?

Yeah, maybe. I mean, I know the other big shift that’s happened since Mt. Zion started, even, is the fact that like what was once was a pretty large activist community, specifically around sort of issues of globalism and free trade and all that stuff, since the sky fell in on Sept. 11, has sort of gone into a period of retreat. The most we ever sloganeered had to do with those causes, and we didn’t sloganeer so loud. So, yeah, I dunno – the word political is a loaded one. I don’t feel like we’re shying away from any sort of politics, I think we’re just, uh, I don’t know - if we had to make a banner and hoist it over our head, and put a slogan on it, I don’t know what that slogan would be.

So is there any intent to get Godspeed going again in the future, or is A Silver Mt. Zion the main focus now?

No, there’s no plan. I’m sure that Godspeed will play again. And it’s not just Mt. Zion; everyone in Godspeed is engaged in other things right now.

I liked the production on the Carla Bozulich album. That seems like a really fruitful collaboration.

Yeah, I mean, it was great, I felt – it was a complicated and difficult but really good process and I feel touched and honoured to have been a part of it.

If I can ask, I’m kind of curious about your film intake. I’m a bit of a movie buff.

It’s hard for me, because I went to film school and since then I haven’t been so engaged in that sort of stuff. I mean, I don’t own a DVD player or anything like that. Documentaries, years ago, were the things that excited me the most

Any particular filmmakers?

I mean, that was a lot of years ago. DeAntonio, yeah?

I don’t know DeAntonio (Allan’s note: I do now!).

The last movie I saw that I keep trying to get everyone to watch, and it’s a total b-movie but I really believe it’s awesome, is Silent Running. I love that movie to death and I don’t care what anybody says.

(Chuckles). Yeah, the, uh, cute little robots put me off a bit.

I love the cute little robots. That’s exactly why I love that movie. Those are the saddest cute little robots in the world.

Have you seen Peter Watkins’ Punishment Park yet?

No, never had the opportunity to see that movie. I’m super curious, I mean, my friend Gem (sp?) is one person who’s crazy about that movie. I haven’t had a chance to see it yet.

Okay. One last thing - there are references in your lyrics and album art to Phil Ochs, to Nina Simone – people destroyed or damaged by the music industry.

Absolutely. It comes again to the idea that we’re musicians by trade, yeah? I can’t think of any happy endings in music. In the personal lives of people who are engaged in this thing of making music, there are no happy endings. There are plenty of like cautionary tales, tragically short lives, it’s just…It’s a train wreck. The history of like, modern popular music is a train wreck. It’s got all these sort of like utopian ideas bubbling everywhere, like a song can make you feel like you’re not alone in the world, that there’s purpose to your life, music has that power... but at the same time, if you did deep and you look at the story behind it, it’ll just break your heart in 20 million places. It’s like a sucker’s game. It’s like the last thing in the world that anyone should believe in or engage in, y’know? So, out of love of music and out of making music, you end up making your own sort of hall of saints and you write your own little, what’s the word, catechisms, the Catholic thing there... those little books that teach you how to pray proper? You write your own little catechisms, if you’re a certain type of personality.

Anyone else on your list? Albert Ayler is one of mine.

Absolutely, I mean, Mingus too, what the hell, there’s so many. I mean, just because it’s on my mind because of this thing I read today about the peculiar last chapter, or what seems to be the last chapter, of Bob Dylan’s life. It’s interesting on that level, for sure. I have no idea what the fuck goes through that man’s brain, but, like, he’s like…ah, I don’t know if I have the words for it. I mean, there’s a lot of them, but I would have to think for a bit…

He seems a bit lost, but at the same time, he’s celebrated and praised. Like success itself has damaged him - almost an Elvis story.

He seems different to me from Elvis on that front; I mean, it seems to me he’s acutely self-aware of how far he’s fallen…

You think he’s self aware?

Even in Masked and Anonymous, I mean, uh, I do think he’s self aware. I don’t know what he’s self-aware about. I think he has an awareness that he’s not what he once was. Absolutely. I dunno, he’s like a ghost to me. I member, when he came back again into the public eye, I was at a friend’s house and we were watching the Academy fuckin’ Awards, and he won best song for some movie that I don’t know what that movie was, and he sort of appeared on satellite with this under-rehearsed band, and it was really like seeing this ghost with some sort of weird conscience, you know? It was like the oddest thing I’ve seen on television that and since then that’s what he’s transmitting all over the place, and it’s very odd… And I’m not saying anything interesting about it.

No, it’s good. Anyhow, I'm looking forward to the show. I’ll forward you this article before it sees print.

That’ll be great. I hope we do good. Talk to you later.

Still Sick, Watching Movies

Goddamn. Still have a sore throat, still getting mild but troubling migraine pain, and, weirdly, I constantly have to urinate. Stayed home from work yesterday, and am taking it easy as hell, catching up on movies I've been curious about (managed to dig up a few things I hadn't seen at a nearby rentals shop). Over the last two days I've watched: V for Vendetta, which, for all its subversive intent, falls curiously flat; Paul Schrader's Exorcist prequel, Dominion, which Schrader should be embarrassed about; The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, which tries too hard to flatter and win the audience's sympathy and respect; A Boy and His Dog, which works so well at times that the somewhat bungled second half is rather disappointing; and finally, Fritz Lang's The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, which merits a much more respectful attitude than the above - but which, I confess, I liked far less than M., which remains my favourite of his films. Today the possibilities include Ralph Bakshi's Fritz the Cat, Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke, Mario Bava's Rabid Dogs, and the Canadian film Goin' Down the Road. I really doubt I will get around to Peter Watkins' The Freethinker, though I bought it at Videomatica the other week.

And that's about all I'm going to write, because the right side of my head is starting to hurt again.

Oh: funny Engrish.

My Sore Throat Vs. the Case of Omar Khadr

After a fine evening on Tuesday watching Rich Hope and His Blue Rich Rangers at the Railway - a sincere and very fun appreciation of great country music, of a rather gentler form than his rock/blues Evil Doers, but still featuring "Sir Adrian Mack" (as Rich introduced him) on drums - I woke up Wednesday morning feeling not so fine at all. By the time I got into my pre-work bath to clean up for the day, I was determined to get my throat checked, and maybe get some antibiotics, because it was sore in a new and awful way; but then, as the bathwater was draining away, I coughed up a bright red ball of bloody phlegm. The shock of it sent me even quicker to seek out a clinic. I thought one around the corner might be open early (since it's open late), but it wasn't; so it was thence to the emergency room at St. Paul's, over an hour before my day as Mr. Teacher was scheduled to start.

The emergency room at St. Paul's is not my idea of a fun place to hang out. There's usually always a few of our addicts begging to be given pain meds, and a high concentration of homeless, mentally ill, and generally miserable and damaged people, packed into the waiting room alongside "normal" folks who are bleeding or wounded or seriously ill, either visibly or not. And with the exception of hospital staff zipping about or the odd talkative and mobile drunk who wants to tell you about his problems, there's not much to do but sit around together, contemplating with some distaste and reluctance your common humanity, as the institution does things in its own very institutional way, at a very institutional pace. If you can walk, you're left to follow this line or that painted on the floor to get from one area to the next, never quite sure if you've arrived at the right place. There's not even a window at the Fast Track section where you can talk to people; you're expected to just slip your forms through a slot and sit down and shut up like everyone else, until someone is ready to see you. Which is what I did, half-asleep, mind altered by illness, and the pain in my throat gradually subsiding of its own accord.

At least the TV in the waiting room was set to the CBC. After getting past the delirious hideousness of watching a couple of TV commercials, the falsity and malignity of which, as someone without cable, I am generally spared from, I perked up to hear about the case of Omar Khadr, a child soldier with a Canadian Al Qaida father, who was caught in Afghanistan during the war there at age 15, and shipped to Guantanamo Bay, where he awaits... whatever one waits for at Guantanamo. A trial? A session of waterboarding? A quiet repatriation? His 21st birthday, then his 22nd, then 23rd...? It's a pretty interesting case. He likely never had any choice at all,
given his family's commitment to their cause and the sort of indoctrination he was subject to, about whether he would participate in terrorism; there is no evidence, or so I've read, showing that he has actually killed US soldiers; he was - no one says this part - defending himself and his country's government, however hideous, against a foreign attack, which seems, even though that particular invasion was sanctioned by the world courts, to make it somewhat questionable that he is guilty of "war crimes," as charged; and of course, at Gitmo, he has been subject to torture (though one gathers he has also been given Mickey Mouse comic books. Only in America, you say?). And he's been held for five years illegally, which is a far bigger crime than anything he has actually done, regardless of what he knows or who his family is. CSIS and Canadian investigators have questioned him, and his defense team are currently petitioning to get ahold of those documents, which the Canadian government is unwilling to part with. It becomes very complicated, because our elected leaders have to decide whether to co-operate with clear human rights violations, which they probably realize will be bad for them in the long run, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, possibly end them (and win the wrath of the Yankees). Khadr is the only westerner still held at Gitmo, we are repeatedly reminded; assumedly, once he's repatriated, the other darkies can be left to rot there.

Well, who knows what Omar's morning was like yesterday, but I got out of St. Pauls at 10 AM, having been Xrayed and prodded and told - despite the bloody gob of phlegm - that there was nothing wrong with me. Not even a scrip for antibiotics was forthcoming. Relieved to no longer feel myself in the same boat with the various people sleeping in bundles on the street - because to St. Paul, we're all equal - I walked first to school, to make sure my substitute had what she needed, and then home, to take a long nap. Waking, I allowed myself a restful evening, went to bed early, not feeling that bad - and woke up at 2:30 AM, pretty much the same as I did yesterday morning. My nasal passages are completely plugged - my CPAP machine is useless, if no air can get through; and my throat, again, is sore as heck and phlegmy. There is still blood in my spit as I cough in the sink - alternating the thin pink liquid with dark green/gray gobs - but it isn't as concentrated or colourful as yesterday's little explosion, and not as worrying ("just a burst capillary," as the doctor who examined me said.) I've stayed awake long enough to gargle with hot salt water, pop some Advil, and spit up what I could. Now it's back to bed, to face work come 9 AM, I guess...

...at least I don't have US soldiers threatening to rape me...

The Deviancy Amplification Spiral

I learned a new term today!