Piss and Bacon: Sleaford Mods and FEAR upstaged by a) Gustaf and b) the Dayglos

Gustaf by bev davies, not to be re-used without permission. Check out the gravity-defying bassist...

Jason Williamson of Sleaford Mods, April 20, 2023, by bev davies, not to be reused without permission

Sleaford Mods probably truly are a great band (if  you can call them a "band" - it is interesting how they challenge the conventional notion, but if you have a charismatic-enough frontman, do you really need to see a guitarist, a bassist, and a drummer?). Trouble is, I don't understand them well enough to be able to evaluate them. I like some of what they do, for sure - but I figure I'm running at about a 30% uptake in terms of lyrical meaning, on average, when it comes to songs I have heard by them; I understand 70-80% of "Kebab Spider" or "D.I.Why," say, but that's balanced by several songs I get 10% or less of. Often there'll be a single potent image that lingers - the piss-and-bacon factor, say - coupled with  a few cunts and fucks, and that will be about all I get, other than the general mood of derision and complaint and the sarcastic tone of Jason Williamson's delivery. I mean, there's also Andrew Fearn's minimal, if often hooky, music, but, like, the music clearly isn't the draw, is it? You didn't go see Ian Dury for the Blockheads. And this is doubly so for a Sleaford Mods concert, because no one is even PLAYING that music, live, it's just a recording and Fearn dancing. 

So why did the Sleaford Mods nearly sell out the Commodore? There were more people in the venue last Thursday than for the fucking "all-original-members" Gang of Four reunion I was at awhile back, for chrissake. Was the mostly young crowd mostly British? Did they actually understand something about the Mods' lyrics on a level much deeper than I did? They sure seemed to be enjoying themselves, and occasionally seemed to be "singing" along with Williamson, which I guess means they at least felt a connection to his words. For me, half the time he might have been singing them in Esperanto, for all the sense I could make of them.  

Jason Williamson of Sleaford Mods, by bev davies, not to be reused without permission

Like, take "Tory Kong," for instance, off their newest LP, UK Grim. I get there's a King Kong reference in there, with the chant of the natives in the original version of King Kong crossed with a common term for conservatives; and that the island that the singer doesn't want to visit is not Skull Island, but the UK. Dense, clever, potent: piss and bacon, check: Williamson is rejecting an atavism he perceives in conservatives, a backwardness in male attitudes towards women. Okay, gotcha. But who is Kong signifying, exactly? If it's Boris Johnson or some other male politician, why does it begin with what one presumes is some sort of quoted barb at a female? Is that a reference, perhaps, to a specific conversation that somehow made the news in the UK, or...? "She's never worked... he does it all." I can't imagine the attitudes in the opening are Williamson's, but IS there a conservative woman who hasn't worked? (It's not Liz Truss, she's held jobs before...). Probably not; probably it's some other female public figure that has been abused thus, and Williamson is seizing upon it as a pretext for a song, whether we get the specifics or not. Maybe people in the UK don't know what he's talking about, either, here?

Andrew Fearn of Sleaford Mods, by bev davies, not to be reused without permission

So maybe I understand more than I think I do, and have all that I need - all that's available to be understood - but why is there then a poke at Midge Ure, and what does it mean to "Midge Ure" someone? ("Midge Ure'd ya, so did I"). Williamson uses the man's name as a verb, because as we all know, verbing weirds language; that's clever but - did someone hand out decoder rings before the show and forget to give me one? Or do I just not pay enough attention to Midge Ure? About the only thing I know he's done in the last 30 years is to play the Rickshaw a couple of times; if he's been in the news, I've missed it. Now we have the reverse issue: I know WHO Williamson is taking a poke at, unlike with the first verse, but not the meaning of the poke.

 And then... "suns out, yeah, guns out," which apparently is an idiom for showing off your biceps, though in the context of a political rant, this seems to mean something more, but from about this point on, I'm lost.

You think results come out ya arse
They fall out of the sky
Sun's out, yea, guns out
Make 'em pay at 9:05 on morning news
My baby's got the blues
You ever thought about leaving her then?
(Wanker)
I'm always deeper, I don't know why

Sleaford Mods by bev davies, not to be reused without permission

It's like the lyrics are stitched together from the day's news in a country I don't live in, as reported in a newspaper I don't read, written in a dialect I don't speak, by someone who doesn't care if he's understood by me or not, with in-jokes and references zipping by me on the left and right (but mostly over my head). I did better with Joyce's Ulysses, even, because there I could at least tell what the references were references to - some piece of classical literature or religious ceremony or whatever; I didn't understand the specifics, but at least I could classify'em a little, and here, I can't even do that. What's this about the morning news? Was there a shooting rampage that he's alluding to? Do people even do that in Britain? What does that have to do with showing your biceps off? Do all these people in the Commodore cheering and dancing and so forth have any fucking clue (more than I do, anyhow) about what Williamson is saying, here, and if not, in the absence of that understanding, WHY THE HELL DO THEY ENJOY IT? Is it because he seems to MEAN what he says, even if he doesn't make that meaning penetrable to a non-Brit? Is it because he punctuates it with fun birdlike squawks - he reminds me of an annoyed Fred Frith, when he does that - and colourful profanity and fist bumps to the audience? (He definitely has charisma, I'll give him that). Is it because there are piquant explosions of misty saliva when he delivers a particularly biting lyric, which catch the light and then fall? (I've never been as aware of spit-spray at a show; he's Mr. Plosive, and it was kind of beautiful watching the droplets catch the light as they hung in mid-air for a second). There are about five songs of the Sleaford Mods I feel like I have a pretty firm handle on ("D.I.Why," for example - one of two songs I shot a clip of here) and a whole bunch that just exclude me utterly, some of which are actually musically catchy and songlike enough that I don't mind not understanding (I actually don't really understand "Tied Up in Nottz," say, but I do like it). Could this be a case of the emperor's new t-shirt and track pants? WERE those track pants he was wearing? They seemed loose and comfy, in any case, and inclined to slip. I think we saw his ginch a couple times. 

Hell, maybe I'm just not cool enough. I've never felt as mystified at a live show, less by the band than the audience, and while I kind of enjoyed that mystification, if someone out there DOES have a decoder ring they can mail me - some website where Williamson's lyrical references are unpacked, for example, a Sleaford Mods for Dummies - I sure would appreciate it. I did, in fact, pay $35 for the Sleaford Mods' new record, and I do plan to listen to it and scratch my head some more, and could use some pointers as to what the songs on it are about. They're an Important New Development in Punk Rock, right? I get why they are critical darlings but most bands that are don't also have audiences this big. Is it just that Brits make better use of the word "cunt" than we do - is THAT a draw? Is someone really clever in how they're marketing this band? Why is this band a phenomenon here?

Help! 

Gustaf by bev davies, not to be reused without permission

Granted, I didn't understand Gustaf's lyrics, either - I somehow thought "Best Behaviour" was a cynical commentary on giving blowjobs, though I can't back that up with anything - but the hooks were way hookier and the singer, Lydia Gammill, was REALLY entertaining to watch, doing things like sprinting off one end of the stage and re-entering on the other side, which she must have practiced and timed before the show, because she'd come back round just in time to get back to the mic and get the next line of lyrics in. She also occasionally hit herself in the face, gesticulated expressively, had more than just a loud birdlike squawk in her bag of vocal effects, and seemed to want to crawl out of her clothing, though not in a sexualized way. She put all sorts of emotion and movement into her performance, seemed like a really quirky original, with a great voice and a real ENGAGEMENT with her audience - her eyes locked in on ours and made the fun SHE was having up there infectious as hell.  

And hey, look, there's an ACTUAL BAND ON STAGE! You can watch their music being made LIVE! (Very entertaining indeed in terms of the gal, Tarra Thiessen, who was dancing and providing distorted background vocals, the one with the triangle and plastic pigs and such. My buddy Will, who'd gotten me out to the show, laughed when he realized that the thing next to her was NOT a keyboard, "it's just a bunch of shit on a table!" Which I hadn't cottoned onto myself, at that point). Why weren't the Sleaford Mods opening for Gustaf? That might have made more sense to me (of the two clips I've linked above, they've gotten about eight times the attention so far, 282 views to the Mods' 36, as I write; that actually makes perfect sense, but only because there's probably a lot more competition for Mods content out there). I'd snapped up the opportunity to go to a show and bought the albums by both bands, but of the two, it's Gustaf I'd go see again.  

Oh, I haven't said a lick about their music, have I? Do you know the Bush Tetras? Sounds quite similar in ways, with a bit of dance-party-mode Talking Heads flavour at times; I wonder if it's stuff their parents were into, or maybe involved in? Gustaf's album, Audio Drag for Ego Slobs has already been on my turntable, but UK Grim has not, as yet.

Erika digs it too. More on Gustaf here. 

Gustaf by bev davies, not to be reused without permission

Then there's FEAR. I got to chat with a certain former member of FEAR who was in town recently - I'll leave his name out of this; he's not on The Record, and he didn't speak on the record, either, so I guess it would be unfair to single him out  - during which chat he offered the observation that Lee was now 78 years old; Wikipedia says Lee is 72, so I was gonna go with that and assume this guy, genius musician he may be, was just wrong... and then I saw FEAR live. Unlike what one of my less welcome commenters sometimes asserts, I have no desire to be ageist, don't think that there's anything wrong with being older - as a 54 year old, I'd be in trouble if I did - and have to admit that Lee's voice is AMAZINGLY good for someone in his 70s; there were some really fun flourishes that he added to "Beef Bologna," for example. But, y'know, this wasn't our grandad's FEAR we were seeing at the Commodore. Lee's former menace and hostility and tough-guy image, and the barbed insults directed at the crowd that were almost his trademark in the 1980s, have been replaced by telling the audience how much he loved us and how great we were (the impact of which was somewhat diminished when it turned out that he thought he was in LA; he also seems to have thought this was his first time in Vancouver, which was repeatedly asserted in the online advertising, though FEAR has been here at least twice before, apparently, once at the Starfish Room in the 1990's and once somewhere else - at least I've seen a ticket stub for a different location). From the moment he walked onstage, it seemed like he had a fair degree of just basic difficulty moving around, which he didn't do a whole lot of while he sang; and though their setlist was almost the same as recent shows in California, there sure had to a be a fair bit of discussion around the drum kit about which song they were going to play next (sadly, "Responsibility," the song I was most hoping to see, and the song that would best suit Lee's self-presentation - like you were getting a lecture from your punk rock granddad - got the axe). At one point, Lee was trying to be expressive and theatrical with his moves, clutching his chest and throat and staggering like he was wounded, and I couldn't tell if he was performing or not, thought for a minute or two that he might just topple over. I'm glad the Vogue was packed, glad I got to see them - I would have kicked myself to have missed it - but I also was expecting a much more visceral and memorably hostile performance. As things were, there was a fair disjunct between Lee's lyrics ("piss on your warm embrace/ I just want to cum in your face," which is up there as one of the nastier lyrics to live on a record in my collection) and his between-song exhortations about how wonderful we are. "Vegas," a friend of mine quipped, derisively noting the appropriateness of the choice of exit music - Sinatra's "My Way," not even the Sid Vicious version, which I presume was meant as a bit of witticism from the house DJ, who'd noticed the same thing: "What a great audience! I love you guys!" 

Yeah, right. And here I had deliberately worn pink, intending to bait Lee, maybe get called a fag or something, so I could open my mouth and bite back. (I disapprove of their homophobia and was entirely willing to confront it and challenge it, if given the opportunity. It would have been too easy just to wear black).

Matt Fiorito and Murray Action of the Dayglo Abortions, April 21 2023, by Bob Hanham, not to be reused without permission

Blind Marc of the Dayglo Abortions by Bob Hanham, not to be reused without permission 

While clearly they revered FEAR and had no desire to upstage anyone, the Dayglo Abortions (next playing with Random Killing and Motorama at the Waldorf on May 6th) kinda blew them off the stage, I thought. They also outdid themselves: I've seen the Dayglos four times this year, so far, having loved Hate Speech so much (Matt tells me THERE WILL BE VINYL SOON, btw - it is pressed and should be available by the next time they play in town). But this was the best set of the year, that I've experienced. Between Murray's cancer diagnosis and whatever pressure opening for a band as legendary as FEAR brings, they really brought their A-game to the show (the mosh pit was rowdier for the Dayglos, too, I thought, though more people crowd-surfed for FEAR, it seemed). Here's a clip of "White People" and "Scared of People" that I shot... Murray, responding to the weird comment there about plagiarism, has said on FB that he is "sure all Dayglo fans are aware that I didn't actually write the guitar solo for 'Whole Lotta Love' [which the opening licks in the 'White People' solo reference] and the solo in 'White People' is my attempt to sound as white as my white ass can be, so I spoofed the solo in 'Free Bird.' On top of that there is a Black Sabbath riff somewhere on every single Dayglo album (purely to acknowledge one of my biggest influences.... Banksy hahahaha get it?)"... I had thought the solo had some familiar parts but hadn't pegged what these bits reminded me of and love the song even more now - proof that a guitar solo can have a sense of humour!

And no, folks, deliberately and overtly quoting a lick for humorous intent is NOT plagiarism...

Billy Bones of the Vicious Cycles MC by Bob Hanham, not to be reused without permission

I was happy to see the Vicious Cycles MC again, too, and to see that they have re-included "A Tiger in the Night" in their set, after having been apparently kind of traumatized to learn that my wife had heard the central lyric as "attack her with a knife." (Sorry to rub that in, guys, but I actually think it's really funny - ignore me; it's a good song!). They're actually really sweet, nice guys, for a punk rock motorcycle club, though it was fun that Rob got a laugh out of the audience by asking the lighting guy to turn up the lights, at one point, so he could see us, then quipping something about how fucking ugly we were, an uncharacteristic bit of rudeness that would have fit just perfectly with the audience-abusing FEAR of yore, but in fact ended up the only barb at our expense the whole evening. Who'da thunk, the politest band of the night would say the rudest thing? (FEAR lyrics notwithstanding). 

Anyhow, it was funny, and kudos to Ben Frith - presumably unrelated to Fred Frith - for repping the absent DOA via his t-shirt.

Ben Frith of the Vicious Cycles MC by Bob Hanham, not to be reused without permission

My strangest audience encounter of the evening was with a guy with a spiky Mohawk and tons of punk patches who sat in front of me and let a stream of politically-themed invective about surveillance, digital IDs, and Trudeau, not seeming to realize he was hitting mostly right-wing talking points, ending up saying how we should just should dissolve the government, or something: "We don't need them, we know how to do everything, it would be great for the economy, and then we'd all be driving around in Bugattis and Ferraris," all of which I just nodded and smiled at until he came to his conclusion: "I mean, I'm not a racist," he said, straight-facedly - not realizing there is no phrase more effective when it comes to getting a big red arrow to point down on your head with the word "racist" in boldface above it - "but that would take care of the Hindu thing too, because they're all driving around in their Trans Ams and they can't beat a Bugatti. It would be, like, natural selection," whereupon I said "Jesus Christ" and laughed in his face and rolled my eyes, because, I mean, what else could I do?

He stopped talking and left, then, for which I deeply thank him. 

I mean, maybe I am being unfair, here. Lee sure can sing - that was undiminished; and rude as his lyrics are, at times, politically incorrect as they are, they're great postcards from a different time and place, and it's refreshing to get some uncensored, unapologized-for in-your-face rudeness in this hypervigilant, hyperconsiderate day and age. I kinda hated seeing X alter "feel retarded" to "feel so stupid" in a clip I saw of "Nausea," and so worried that FEAR might follow suit. If he'd altered a single line - "give guns to the queers," "New York's all right if you're a homosexual," etc - I'd've been steamed, because there'd just be no point, then; a 'politically correct FEAR" would be an oxymoron. In fact, to my surprise, I could see happy punk girls dancing and singing along to "The Mouth Don't Stop (The Trouble with Women Is)," which I also don't really understand but found amusing.  And the band - also including Spit Stix on drums - were great, too. very tight. Was the new guitarist Eric Razo? Some real fun licks there. There's a new FEAR single, covering Australia's Rose Tattoo; maybe there will be an album, even...? Really, I'm glad I went. It just was NOT what I'd expected. 

Murray "the Cretin" Action of the Dayglo Abortions, April 21 2023, by Bob Hanham, not to be reused without permission

Ah well! Hope the Dayglos got some new fans out of it. (And I hope Joe Keithley is doing alright after his operation - he has a new solo album in stores now, by the by). 

Note: FEAR had a complicated contract that limited photographers' use of their images, and I want to put this article up ASAP, so I'm not posting any pics of them here, so we don't have to get permission. I have photos of my own, some not bad, but I don't want to screw anything up for Bob. They also might not like the writing I've done much, either (but unlike the photographers, I signed no contracts, and I paid for my admission, so I'm callin' it like I see it). Best just not to ask. 

So it goes.

FEAR audience by Bob Hanham, not to be reused without permission

See the Dayglos on tour across Canada!

Dead Bob - a John Wright mini-interview

When I last spoke with John Wright of Nomeansno, the project this article refers to, Dead Bob, which broke last night on Bandcamp, was known by a different name, 3 - 2= 1. It's a name that John briefly liked, but which he fell out of love with before the album saw the light of day, cancelling his original release date (his own birthday) and moving it to Tom Holliston's (!). I did not ask about the curious math behind the original album title that the new name was in reference to - Nomeansno's 0 + 2 = 1, which I always took to represent Andy Kerr (given to referring to himself in NMN liner notes as "nobody," or variants thereupon) in the role of 0, the Wright brothers (Rob and John) as the 2, and the band itself as the 1. One does not ask about things one feels one understands, plus my theory seemed validated by John's new equation, 3 - 2 = 1, with Nomeansno as the 3, 2 as the missing Rob and Tom, and 1 as John himself, though helped by an array of friends, notably Selina Martin and Byron and Adam Slack, whose involvement in the album I asked about here and here; I have not interviewed Kristy-Lee Audette of Rong, who contributes trumpet, or Ford Pier, at least in regard to this project, though he and I talk about his involvement with Nomeansno here, and he told me the other day at Red Cat that he's more on the follow up to Life Like, anyhow - because there is a second album in the works! Ford also assured me that whoever might be involved in either project, this is, make no mistake, a John Wright solo record...

...which is fine with me! I've always liked John Wright's songs - from the days of the Infamous Scientists' "Canada is Pissed" to the most Ramonesy song on All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt, "Slugs Are Burning" - superbly shot from multiple camera angles here - to say nothing of the Hanson Brothers (also superbly shot here), whom he fronted, or Compressorhead, which is also kind of a John Wright solo album, but played by robots (if you haven't heard Party Machine, it IS online... and last I checked, vinyl and CDs could be ordered, albeit in somewhat complex fashion, from Europe).

But during the talk, back when John was still thinking he'd be entering the world as 3 - 2 = 1, we covered the unfinished Nomeansno song, "White Stone Eyes," with lyrics by brother Rob, which has been completed for the Dead Bob release (which will be discussed in the next issue of Big Takeover, alongside a Nomeansno-referencing interview I did with Robyn Hitchcock). We also discussed how, in the absence of original masters or artwork - still in the hands of Southern Records, as far as anyone knows, probably packed in a box in a storage locker that no one wants the hassle of finding, Alternative Tentacles is having to reconstruct Nomeansno's back catalogue for reissue, a process which has begun but will probably be fairly slow-going, all things considered.  

What I would have asked about, if I had realized the relevancy, is the namesake of the album, Dead Bob, taken from a song on Sex Mad, but also, I gather, the quasi-mascot-like fella on the cover of Nomeansno's second-ever 12 inch, from 1985. See his li'l arm on the Dead Bob logo? 

I am presuming that "Bob" is actually Rob Wright (not involved on the album besides the lyrics to "White Stone Eyes" and the revamped title track, also originally a Nomeansno song, though again, do note: he is not now, nor has he ever been, dead). And I am guessing that, as with the Dead Bob cover itself, the art for You Kill Me is John's, though I haven't checked the sleeve or spoken to him much about the visual element of the band (it'll have to wait til next time!). 

Here's some of what I did talk to John about, however...  there will be more in Big Takeover (but not much)... I am in italics, John is not...

Allan: So Byron, Adam and Kristy-Lee, did they all come up to Powell River to record with you, or...?

John: No, it was Byron and Kristy that eventually came up. As you know, I've been working on my own material and some old Nomeansno material, a little bit - one song in particular that Robbie and I collaborated on that never went anywhere, but that I've now completed. But I've been working on this stuff for years and years and years. And COVID kind of gave me a break from the pub [the Wildwood, still in winter closure mode], where I could concentrate more on it. When I started recording my live drums - because I had all these demos and loops and programmed drums, as the tools of writing - I was really happy with the sounds of the results I was getting. This is kind of more talking about my album, but I'll get to Byron in a minute...

 But y'know, the songs were at various stages of completion. Often lyrics were... Robbie was the lyricist in [Nomeansno] - I wrote some, but I'm not a prolific lyricist. Silly Hanson Brothers songs were okay, but... and of course, I play drums, and I play keyboards, and some very rudimentary guitars and bass, but to be a band and to play some of these songs, some of this stuff is kind of complicated and beyond me, though I've tried to simplify things to suit my abilities. But eventually I knew maybe Ford or Byron or people I knew would come and help: "Hey, you want to play some guitar on this," or whatever. And also I said, "Hey, Ford, y'know, I've got these songs and no lyrics, got any ideas?" And Byron was sending me music for the robots, and - "Oh, I've got these demos and ideas." So we were exchanging things amongst ourselves, primarily with Byron and Ford. And I talked about how it would be awesome if Adam could play some bass for me... 

This was a couple of years ago, but time goes by, and I'm busy with the bar, they're busy with their lives, and Adam has a baby... there was no time for anything else. But eventually, Ford wrote some music for a new song that is on the album ["That Was Too Easy"] and he wrote another song that is complete that is not on the album, and he's got some other ideas, and Byron wrote some lyrics for some of my songs, and then he sent up a song and I completely re-arranged it and edited the words. So we kind of collaborated on some stuff. And then finally, after about a year of talking about them coming up and doing some recording, replacing some of my guitars and working on these songs - I'm speaking of Byron specifically here - that we had written together, he was able to come up with Kristy, whom I'd never met. She plays trumpet and guitar, she's a multi-instrumentalist, so - "Oh, well, that's awesome, I've got some horn parts, maybe she wants to play those!" And she did: she came up, she played some horn, she did some singing, and Byron did some guitar work and some background gang-vocal kind of stuff. It was awesome, and the next album is well on the way to completion; hopefully, I'm going to get them to do more. Adam never made it up - but if he can come up some time in the future, that would be great - because that is one thing that's lacking... Keyboard basses are okay in certain circumstances, but there are certain circumstances where it's like, "No, I've gotta have a real fuckin' bass player to play these songs on bass," because they're beyond me. A couple of them I've tried, and - "I can't fuckin' play this!" Plus the only bass I have is this giant Gibson's Thunderbird, the neck is so fucking long I can hardly reach down to the end, and I'm such a clumsy bass player... I do some bass playing, but it's the really dead simple stuff. 

 Having grown up and made music with a brother like Rob must make your standard a bit high...

Well... [portion indecipherable]. I'm a bit intimidated, right? Like, the people who are going to listen to this are Nomeansno fans, and yeah, Robbie set the bar pretty high when it comes to the tone and the text and the songwriting, y'know, lyrically. And I'm not that kind of writer. I try - well, I don't try to imitate him, but I try to have that kind of quality of writing, trying to articulate the feelings that I have, and... it's a talent, it's not easy. I have a difficult time articulating my feelings! I can string some words together that are clever, but Robbie could find the emotional tone in his words that makes the music mean something. And the music - it worked both ways; I could write music that gave Rob the opportunity, the palette, to emote on. So we worked well together. He didn't find it difficult to write words to my songs, and his words then gave emotional and intellectual depth to the feelings [I wanted to express]. To write a song, I know just how the song needs to feel lyrically, but I don't necessarily know how to do that [ie., how to put it into words]; I'm just not a talented lyricist. 

I realize that this is not a Nomeansno reunion, I'm very clear on that, but other than using some of his lyrics, is Rob involved in any way? Has he given you his blessing? 

Oh yeah, he's totally.. his blessing - it's fine, but no, Rob is not involved in any way, other than I've used his lyrics (for "White Stone Eyes"). And then I re-did a Nomeansno song, which I didn't really plan on specifically for an initial release of my own material. It's a song called "Life Like," are you familiar with that song?

I love that song! 

But it's utterly obscure. As a bonus track on a double-vinyl album, it never saw the light of day, really, and we could never play it properly live, and our [= Nomeansno's] version on the record - it's fine, it's good, it's well played, but the arrangement was a bit flat, I found, and it's kind of more of a pop song. I imagined it being a much broader arrangement. And I just happened to come across my original keyboard demo of it, and I thought, "Y'know what, I should just do this up as a pop song." Because I kind of wrote it to be one. Not the lyrics, because they were added afterwards by Rob; but the lyrics are great, so I thought, "I'm going to just re-do this and see what happens." And I really like it! 

Also, the economy of what I was doing... I've only been able to complete so many songs, because of the aforementioned shortcomings of  what I can actually perform on, and writing lyrics and such. So this was a completed song, and the tone of it - I just started seeing the other songs that I wanted to do on this first one, and I could see the lyrical tone matching with things. And I decided to call the album Life Like. 

Did anyone contribute electronically, like, emailing you parts? I gather Larry Boothroyd of Victims Family has a project right now, Specimen Box, that Ford is involved in right now, where people emailed parts to Larry and he's assembled them without them ever knowing what the whole would be like. But this isn't like that, it all happened up in your home studio...? 

More or less. Obviously we had to fire back and forth some ideas, but most of what is finished on this record was done here. 

Who else is involved? 

My son Aidan played some acoustic guitar for me. And I've got some lyrics coming from someone I don't know, actually. But the first person I reached out to was Selina Martin. I don't know her really well, but she had done a bunch of touring with Tom Holliston. She's out of Toronto, and I never really knew her before, but she came up here with Tom and playing at the pub, and that's when I met her. And I've seen her one other time, and I really enjoyed her songs and her singing. I ended up getting one of her albums on CD and it gets played in the car and I really enjoy it. She's a good songwriter, and has a unique sound to her. And thing song... I have a song that, like I say - I've got all these songs that I couldn't come up with anything lyrically for, and I thought I would farm a few out: "Y'know what, I bet Selina could do something interesting with this!" ...just from hearing her. And because we knew each other a little bit. I just fired it off: "I've got this song, maybe you'd write some lyrics, a melody, or do something with it..." [This song will be on the next Dead Bob album, apparently; it doesn't seem to be credited on this one].

And then with "Life Like" I really didn't want it to be just my voice, not just a male voice, either, but to be a bit more choral, and I thought that the whole song should be sung by a man and a woman. In the end, it didn't exactly turn out that way, but since it was finished and required no writing or creating, I said, "Here's a song, will you sing this for me?" 

So I have to say - I completely zoned when you were asking me [about emailing parts back and forth], I was thinking musically and instrumentally, but Selina recorded her vocals in France, and sent them to me. She sang along with my voice, when I sent it to her, and I sang along with hers when it came back, and I assembled the two vocals and harmonies here. But my apologies - her vocals were definitely not recorded here.

You're singing the leads on everything else, besides the parts of "Life Like" she does? No one else?

No, I'm singing the leads on everything. 

I'm curious how you envision playing this live. Who would be in a touring band, if there were to be one? 

Well, this is all very up in the air. This also occurred to me: it's like, okay, I can't lead sing and play these songs - a bunch of them. The opening track, for instance... well, maybe the opening track; there are maybe two or three of these tracks that I could sing and play at the same time. But this is a logistical problem: what exactly do I do, in a live show? As a drummer, I did some of the lead singing in Nomeansno, but I can't sing a whole set and play drums for the whole thing, like an hour and a half. There's just no fucking way! 

I don't know how anyone can do that for one song - I recall watching you sing "Humans," and it's like, how the fuck is he doing this? 

Ha! Right. Yeah, I can do some. And I think if I was able to form a band and go and play some live shows, I would have to sing more than I used to. But there's no possible way I could sing a whole show, and there are going to be certain songs here that I did here that I will not be able to sing live. So I'd have to figure out what to do about that. There'd have to be one or two other lead singers who were playing with me. But that's a bridge I haven't come to and haven't figured out how to cross yet. As far as who would play with me, of course, Byron, Adam, Ford would be awesome. Keith Rose? These are all people I know, they're all professionals, they're all great. There are certainly others out there, I'm just picking the ones closest to me. But it's also [a question of] who can. The people I know are all older. It's easy to be, "Let's be in a band and go touring!" when you're in your 20s, but when you're in your 30s and, God forbid, you have kids, that's going to be a lot tougher. You can't just up and go and do shit, and there has to be money and blah-blah-blah, there's a whole slew of things to figure out for forming a band and touring. I don't know what I'll do about that. 

But do I want to? Of course I do. I love playing shows - not only new songs, but old songs, other people's songs, I love playing live, and I've done very little of it in the last eight years. 

John Wright on the patio of the Wildwood, signin' some rekkids

Visit the Dead Bob bandcamp page for more! 

The Colour of Ink: must-see documentary for artists and creatives of all sorts

My wife, Erika Lax, is an artist, but not the pretentious kind; she's all about the making of things, the exploration of colours, materials, processes, techniques - the doing of art, and not what the art itself says, either about "issues" (she doesn't do issue art, that I've seen) or about herself (she doesn't go around in a beret; it's not a pose; it doesn't license her to behave in some snobby, "I'm-an-artiste"-kind of way, buys her no license to be judgmental or vain or difficult, unlike, say, her "I'm-a-writer" husband, who can be a bit of a feckin' prick at times). She's very creative, very playful, but also quite humble about it - maybe a bit too much so, because I sometimes feel like I steamroller her, and that my passions (movies, music, etc) dominate in our lives a bit too much (I take up a fair bit of space). I always feel like if she's in a stretch where she's not making a lot of art, I'm partially at fault, which may, in fact, be the case... but she spent a good part of 2021 doing these rather amazing alcohol ink pours, on Yupo paper. I would bugger off for a day to go thrifting or to a matinee so she could work on them by daylight, listening to her own music in the apartment for a change. Everyone was really pleased with the results; they look every bit as exploratory and surprising and process-oriented as they in fact were. There are a bunch of them on her Instagram page, and she had a small show of them in a cafe on Vancouver Island a few months ago (and she still has some framed for sale, fyi). They're pretty amazing - and definitely involve ink!   

So the other night, Erika was on the phone with a friend, Laurie Yeo, who is also an artist - very much of the same unpretentious, fun, making-of orientation, though maybe a bit, ahh, louder about it than Erika is, which I mean in a good way: she a playful, smart, slightly flamboyant woman, funny and passionate and outspoken and maybe will fight for her space to make art a bit more devotedly than Erika - in other words, she's a really good influence, when they get together, though I think she'd find it a bit hilarious to hear herself described as such - yer a good influence, Laurie! She and Erika previously featured on this blog when we explored the Yoko Ono exhibition, back when we were all wearing COVID masks in public. She's a really fun person - I like all of Erika's friends but Laurie is way up there...

Laurie Yeo self-portrait: she sent this in an email entitled "Art art let a fart," which I don't think is the actual title of the piece, but...

Anyhow, during this call, she started to talk about this movie that Erika HAD to see: The Colour of Ink. She had watched it in a movie theatre on Vancouver Island, and, being a bit of a vocal type, was gasping and, I dunno, moaning in pleasure (?) - I wasn't there to hear her but she said that she heard herself "in the throes of satisfaction," reacting quite vocally to how stunning some of the images were ("I wonder what my neighbours thought," she quipped). She told Erika and I that it was one of the best documentaries she's seen ("playful, timeless, exciting, inspiring - and then the artists!"). Happily, it still has several screenings at the VIFF Centre (see the link under the title of the film, above). Turns out a screener was available, and Erika and I both agree with Laurie: the film is every bit as good as she'd said (I mean, we didn't have orgasms or anything, but we paused it a few times to blurt enthusiasm at each other before continuing). It's an inspiring, visually stunning, fascinating documentary about a subject I know nothing about and wouldn't actually have presumed would be all that interesting - but if you have ANY concern for art (including comics and tattoo art), my oh my, it is fun. 

The Colour of Ink is about an ink maker, Jason Logan, who passionately forages for materials that he can make inks from, exploring what colours he can get from these berries or that patch of rust or so forth. It's an entirely mysterious world for me; to my mind, ink is a chemical substance that is probably made in a lab somewhere, not something that someone is getting by crushing flowers in water and then adding some sort of gum to, to make it into something that holds together, that you can put on paper (or under skin) and make art with. I didn't even know (tho' no doubt Erika and Laurie both did) that lampblack ink is made literally by scraping the black off the inside of a lamp. I'm sure there are commercial ink-making processes being performed in labs and such out there, but this film is so profoundly nature-based, an exploration of colour in the world, that the art documentary it brought most vividly to my mind was the film about Andy Goldsworthy, Rivers and Tides...

...except that maybe The Colour of Ink is the better film, because much as I love Rivers and Tides, it's about one artist and his processes and explorations, while The Colour of Ink is about someone who, while as passionate and engaged with nature as Goldsworthy, is making a material that is then being used by other artists, who are also interviewed about their work and about ink and colour and so forth. Robert Crumb is included, though not interviewed - he's used Logan's inks; Liana Finck, on the other hand, does talk about his inks, and is seen using them, too. Margaret Atwood seemed a bit of a stretch to me - like she might have been looped in more because she was available and someone knew someone who knew her - but who knew she dabbled in calligraphy? (We get to see some of her doodles, too). There's also an ochre archivist, Heidi Gustafson of the Wild Pigment Project; a First Nations artist from Haida Gwaii, Corey Bulpitt, that Erika has actually interacted with as a result of her working for Opus; and a Japanese calligrapher, Koji Kakinuma, who compares Logan's inks to authentic Japanese sumi ink. But the coolest of the interview subjects is someone you haven't heard of, probably, though her work is stunning and a welcome surprise, if you've come to the film expecting it all to be about ink-on-paper: Roxx, a blackwork tattoo artist of 2Spirit Tattoo in Los Angeles. She's from London, but her work might make you think of Maori tattoo art - some of it is very tribal, and in fact she says in this GQ interview that she wanted to become "a tribal tattooer" (Maybe Chris Walter or Ani Kyd or some of my more inked-in Facebook friends know who she is?). There are lots of images of her work that are jaw-dropping, and I'm really not much of a tattoo guy at all. 

And everyone is calm and articulate, with their work lovingly photographed... the film truly is an inspiring and fascinating experience. I don't have much to say about it beyond the above, save that if you care about art or creativity (or ink!), you should see it. Erika thinks so, too! Now playing at the VIFF Centre.

Thanks, Laurie! 

Being Between: a Selina Martin Interview (with John Wright/ Nomeansno/ Dead Bob tie-ins)

Selina Martin at the Lido, Vancouver, March 30th, 2023, by Gordon E. McCaw, not to be reused without permission

It was John Wright who turned me on to Selina Martin, apropos of his first post-Nomeansno album release, Dead Bob's Life Like, which drops on bandcamp on April 21st (John and I spoke a bit about the album here, which I used as a teaser for an Invasives feature, since Byron and Adam Slack of that band are also involved in the album. There is more to come, but it is not yet online). Selina's music has very little to do, on the surface, with Nomeansno - as you'll see below, the Talking Heads, Kate Bush, and Jane Siberry are more common references dropped by journalists - but when Ford Pier posted that he would be opening for her at the Lido, a couple of weeks ago, I knew I had to check her out, since she was the only collaborator of John's on the album who I didn't know at all (I'd even seen Rong), and since - as she is based in France - I knew she probably wouldn't be back this way for awhile. I stayed long enough to chat with Selina and record the second song in her set, "Your Face Goes Long," sung partially in French - but then I got a message from my catsitting neighbour that she had to go to bed and that our kitten was back in our apartment and had no food. It would take me nearly an hour to get home via transit, and Selina and Thomas, her bassist, were having a wee spot of technical difficulty, so... that was it; I got to see two songs, and a partial soundcheck performance of "The Spirit of Radio," 

Flash forward a week later, and I'm headed to Duncan for an Easter meal with my in-laws and wife, and discover that Selina is performing the night after we arrive at a small little artspace called Time & Space Continuum. Apparently there are enough young arty types in Duncan to merit having gigs there - often punkier ones than Selina's - and while my wife played a protracted game of Scrabble with her Mom and Dad - because she'd rather visit her parents than go to a show! - I snuck off to downtown Duncan to do Selina justice. 

It was a delightful show, quite intimate but with a crowd of people who really appreciated the opportunity for a night out. I shot video, again, of an easy favourite off Selina's newest album, Time Spent Swimming... and sent some questions to Selina via email, which she answered on a train through Ontario, as she finished her final two Canadian tour dates and prepared to go back to France. 

I am in italics, below, and Selina Martin is not. See her live if you can! 

Selina Martin at the Lido, Vancouver, March 30th, 2023, by Gordon E. McCaw, not to be reused without permission

Allan: I have this idea that Canadian musicians who go to Europe are going there because they are saying goodbye to Canada, giving up on audiences here for more enthusiastic and cultured crowds and access to a host of easily-driven-to venues - so I was surprised to get a chance to see you play live, and that you were including some fairly small towns in BC in your tour. Do you tour like this often, or was it exceptional, or...?

I like including small towns on tours. They often end up being the best shows. It's the people in small towns who are more enthusiastic, generally speaking, as they're not constantly offered a selection of concerts to see every night of the week. It ends up being more of a special occasion.

So yes I often include small towns on tours. And I don't really think about whether people are 'cultured' or not. People are just people. Last fall we played a number of what would be considered small towns in France as well. They have a similar vibe to small towns in Canada, or anywhere, really.

 
One other thing I love about small towns is that it just takes one or two people to make the town a cool place to live, and those are the people who I get to meet, because those are the people who set up local concerts for independent musicians.

I really enjoyed what you did, and thought both the Vancouver and Duncan audiences dug it, too, but I also wondered about the economics of it: the Lido had maybe 100 people in the room, but no cover charge, while the Duncan venue had maybe 35 people at most, paying $20 each... I hope I don't offend with the question - ignore it if so - but I always wonder how anyone affords to be a musician? After expenses, when you fly back to France, have you made money? Does the European scene treat you well enough that it is, in a way, subsidizing tours like this, or...? (Do you retain Canadian citizenship, btw? Is that part of why you toured here - do you want to keep a toe in the Canadian scene, in case you decide to leave France, or maintain eligibility for grants, or...?). Do you have a larger following in Ontario than here?

Firstly, thank you.

Secondly, it's very hard to afford to be a musician. I have always had day jobs to help pay the bills.
Yes the Vancouver show didn't really pay. Ford refused to take any money as the income (a percentage of bar sales) was so low. And he paid to print the posters, so I owe him. The Duncan show made a bit of money.

To go back to your first question, it's the smaller cities and towns that usually pay better, at least at the level that I'm currently at. Big city venues are more and more 'pay to play', as in you have to rent the room and pay for the sound person and door person, so it's a gamble if you'll break even.

I don't know if this tour will pay for itself. I haven't had a chance to tally everything or properly estimate.

Being a good business person is never something I've excelled at - I probably need a manager - though I am trying to get better at this. Euro tours do not at this time subsidize CDN tours, no. But keep in mind we're all still trying to wriggle out of the confines of Covid-19, concert booking is still quite challenging, and I haven't actually had very many shows in the EU with this current band. I'm just getting started trying to re-build an audience.

I love Canada and I miss Canada and I miss my creative community in Canada and yes I'm a Canadian citizen. Even if I wanted to be a French citizen, which I don't currently, it's quite a long and difficult process to get citizenship, and I wouldn't even qualify at the moment.

I'm not sure where I have a larger following. I toured a lot as a solo performer in BC with Tom Holliston, which was really great. He took me to lots of large and small towns which expanded my west-coast audience considerably. That said, we just played a sold-out show in Toronto last night, so. Not sure.

Selina Martin at the Lido, Vancouver, March 30th, 2023, by Gordon E. McCaw, not to be reused without permission

Did your choice to settle in France have to do with the reception of your music there, or do you like the scene, or were there other factors...? (Was there a "honeymoon phase" that has worn off, as I gather can happen when you relocate...?). Do you get reverse culture shock, at all, coming back here? (or, like, "Oh yeah, I had forgotten this part...")

France is where I went because I had a fairly solid base in the language. Or so I thought, anyway. Most of what I know I learned since moving there. There wasn't a honeymoon phase at all. It was the opposite, as it's quite difficult to get a residence permit and quite difficult to even be approved to rent an apartment as a foreigner. For the first eight months I couldn't even unpack my bags. It was like I left, I took off, but I wasn't allowed to land. I sold or gave away most of my possessions, bade farewell to my friends and family, and stepped out into the unknown, but then wasn't allowed to touch down, or settle. There was no ground beneath my feet for a very long time. A lot of the themes in Time Spent Swimming (including the title) came from this feeling of being between places, or states; neither being here nor there. It was a very long period of limbo, which I'm not even certain I'm fully out of.

You sing in French, a bit, in "Your Face Goes Long," for example. What does it mean to "put a little hole in my ocean?" I wonder also about the I am here/ you are there lyric, given that you have a foot in France and a foot in Canada; is that what you are referring to, or is it an image of alienation from the person you love, or...? (Do you have more French in your live set when performing there? Do you speak Quebec French of Parisian French? I gather that the "French French" don't think much of Quebec French... is that ever an issue, or did you learn French IN France?).

For some of your last questions see the response to your previous question.

"put a little hole in my ocean?" - I like to let people interpret lyrics their own way, but in general this one is referring to an ocean as a vast loneliness, and I'm asking for a little less of this. Je suis ici, tu es là = same theme. I am here, you are there. We are not together. We are separated/separate.

I did (with the help of a French songwriter friend) translate all of Something Wide Awake into French. Though I haven't yet had a chance to perform this in France, as that song just recently got added to the set for this Canadian tour.

French-Canadian French is apparently similar to a very old version of France French. So I like to think of it as more authentic, rather than less. It's strange to me that in public school in Canada I was taught Parisian French instead of Canadian French, but that's what happened, so it's easier for me to understand French in France. Canadian-French films are subtitled in France. True. Cuz the France French have a hard time understanding it as well. But they do support and appreciate French Canadian culture.

Selina Martin at Time & Space Continuum in Duncan, April 7th, 2023 by Allan MacInnis

Did you also live in Tangier? (I actually don't know much about that, tho' I do know about Burroughs and Gysin and Bowles and Brian Jones being drawn to North Africa - but I don't think they were coming there via France, which has its own history with North Africa...) What were the draws for you there? Had you lived in France before living in Tangier, or...? If we followed your career with a line on a map, where are the dots?

I lived in Tangier for one month. Exactly four weeks. And the only reason I went there was that I was on the verge of being an illegal alien in Europe and I had to exit the continent. (see earlier response about difficulties getting a residence permit). It was quite last minute. My brother has a friend who has a friend in Tangier who had a little riad/ hotel and that's where I stayed for my first few days until I found another place. I was floating. It felt like I was just floating in France anyway, I had no apartment and was living out of a tiny suitcase and so instead of going back to Canada I decided to float further, and to see what inspiration or education or information I could gather in N Africa.

The lyrics for that song ("Tangier") seem very concrete and possibly autobiographical - roosters crowing all day, the peeling of apricots... Is the line about being a "wayward astronaut" a riff on the title of your first album? The line about being mapless reminds me of the title of Life Drawing Without Instruction, as well... are you a wanderer by nature, or do you have a practical side that you are in revolt against, or..? 

A lot of those specifics in "Tangier" are based on things that happened. The roosters, yes. The collared doves, yes, all day long. (and I tried to mimic the song of the collared dove in the way I delivered that line). I did sort of fall in love/lust with a Moroccan guy who peeled the apricots while I told him all my thoughts. It was ridiculous. He spoke no English nor French and I spoke no Arabic. But I talked to him anyway. And we sort of understood each other, but only sort of. I decided to use him as a metaphor for his city. It was like a lover I wanted but couldn't have, nor could I even grasp/ touch, as the culture is quite different and I didn't know the rules.

There is no deliberate connection of wayward astronaut and mapless pioneer to my earlier albums, but perhaps you've touched on something that has been hiding in my subconscious.

 

Your bass player here (Thomas? Tomas? Tomasz? ...did not get his last name) does not seem to play on Time Spent Swimming, where the bassist is Doug Friesen - unless he's Tom Meienburg, who did the layout and took the insert photo...? What are your connections with both men? (Does Doug usually play live with you? How did Thomas end up filling his shoes?). Since Ox Fanzine is one possible home for this, what has Thomas done that German audiences might know? He did a pretty great job of fitting into very complex music that he apparently wasn't involved in the original making of, I thought...).

Doug Friesen played on my last three albums I think, and has done a ton of live shows with me, and just last night joined us on stage in Toronto, which was brilliant. We both miss playing with each other. We have very similar tastes in music and what sorts of sounds and playing style we find exciting.
Doug had home recording capabilities during the pandemic so it was easy to have him play on TSS as well. I would send him the songs in progress, and he'd send back his bass tracks. Very little direction was necessary.

I met Tom Meienburg (yes the same one who did layout and made the inside photo collage) at the very end of the (almost two year) recording process. And yes he does a great job of playing complex music that he wasn't a part of the recording of. He's got excellent musical intuition and ears. And he's now my husband. I got married. How about that?

At the Lido, you quipped (when you and Thomas were having a tech difficulty) that you had recorded an album that was impossible to play live, but by Duncan, it all seemed quite seamless, like you had "ironed out the kinks," so to speak (tho' there could be other explanations, like maybe the Lido wasn't prepared for what you were bringing...?). What exactly were the portions of the music that were NOT being played live? Were they actually also part of the studio tracks for Time Spent Swimming, played back, which you and Thomas were then playing over, or was it something more complex than that? I had expected - and even said to a friend who saw you in Vancouver - that you had really sophisticated studio music, but were probably going to "strip it down for live delivery," but you didn't, really! (Was it tempting to TRY for something more stripped down?).

Time Spent Swimming was created by arranging and combining real instruments with electronic instruments and found sounds and anything, really. It all goes into the pot. This is what making music is about for me. Anything goes. It's exciting. But you have to make it interesting and it has to serve the song. This is why the album is impossible to play live. Most of the recorded tracks are unplayable live on stage. A few of the songs on the album are playable as a solo performer or a duo, but most require some backing tracks. I wrote all of them in my room by myself on an acoustic guitar with a pen and paper, with the knowledge that they would be fleshed out with other sounds.

The technical problems at the Lido had more to do with a faulty cable.

When you introduced "The Spirit of Radio," you said in Duncan that you had to explain who Rush was to French audiences, which surprised me, as I thought that Rush was fairly well-known everywhere. Were you surprised to have to explain about them? I'm actually not a huge Rush fan, but I think "The Spirit of Radio" is one of the greatest songs to come out of Canada, and it always makes me really happy to hear it - especially when it gets played on the radio, which is a very pleasing irony. How did you come to cover that song? Are YOU a Rush fan? Did you ever have dealings with Rush - did they ever respond to the cover? Why cover THAT song? (BTW, do you ever get radio play?).

I love that song too. I played it once as a sort of joke with Dave Bidini (Rheostatics) and Dale Morningstar (The Dinner is Ruined), not knowing that Dale was recording it. We were in his studio on Toronto Island. I'm not normally a pot smoker but I am pretty sure we were all high at the time. I hated the recording but Bidini loved it and convinced me to do a full studio recording of it on my next album. So I did. But I made my own version which is quite different from the original, and some of my excellent musician friends played on it. Dave Bidini is friends with Geddy Lee, so he sent it to him. Geddy said it was beautiful. Alex thought it was pleasantly surprising that "chicks" were doing their music.

I do get radio play. TSS is getting more than my previous recordings, so that currently feels nice.

You came to my attention as a result of John Wright and Ford Pier, because of this new Dead Bob project, but I'm reading online that you toured with Tom Holliston, as well. So that's a lot of Nomeansno/ Show Business Giants connections. What's your history with their music? Had you recorded with them before?

I met Ford a very long time ago and we've been excellent friends ever since. It's due to Ford that I met Tom Holliston in 2018 I think, and due to Tom that I met John Wright. Nope. never recorded with them before. They're all brilliant writers and performers and I'm honoured to call them my friends.

If I recall - I haven't gone over all his answers - you are the lead vocal on "Life Like" and that you sent him the tracks from France, but I'd love to know any and all details - what other songs are there that you contributed to? Did you help with any of the lyrics? How "collaborative" was the project, for you - was John giving you pretty specific directions about what he hoped for, vocally...? I haven't heard the Dead Bob version of "Life Like" yet - did you know the song before John got you involved? Did you borrow from Rob's approach at all, or completely go your own way, or...?

Yes, that's right. I sing lead and some bg's on "Life Like," and yes I sent the tracks from France. I didn't contribute to anything else on the record.

I wasn't familiar with "Life Like" before John sent it to me. I think it's a great song. He sent me a guide track of his own vocals to follow. I thought his vocals sounded great, so it was difficult to get started doing my own version, but eventually I found my way in.

John has sent me some new music that he wants me to contribute lyrics to at some point, though I simply haven't had time to do it yet. I look forward to it, regardless.

I see that you've done stuff with Fred Frith, as well, and can see some similarities between your music and his more "pop" stuff, like Cheap at Half the Price; and I keep seeing people mention Bjork, Jane Siberry, PJ Harvey, Kate Bush and the Talking Heads, too, as comparison points. Do you find some more apt than others? Do any get frustrating? 

Totally honoured to be mentioned alongside/compared to all those artists. I'm flattered also. They're all true originals in my opinion. Perhaps that's where the touchstone is.

Just a curious detail but the bandcamp page and the vinyl have a different sequencing of tracks. Why? Does one have primacy?

Neither have primacy.

I didn't want the vinyl to be too long, as the sound quality diminishes the longer the sides. So I removed one song and sequenced Side A and Side B the way they felt the best.

I spent quite a long time working on sequencing and spacing between songs for both CD/ digital and vinyl. For vinyl each side has to tell its own story, so to speak. and for CD it has to be one long story, and it has to have a shape; a beginning, middle and end.

Tell me about your titles? The Caruso one - is that the opera singer you're talking about? (Is there some sort of Fitzcarraldo reference there? He's obsessed with bringing Caruso to the Amazon, as I recall). Since I'm buying it off you, why Disaster Fantasies? Why Time Spent Swimming?

"i've been picking caruso's brain; i think i have the information we need to make a new world" (or "caruso's brain" for short): My Vancouver friend Patsy Klein posted this line on social media and I immediately fell in love with it. She was talking about fellow musician Matt Caruso.

Disaster Fantasies - I was hoping to coin a phrase . I think all humans have disaster fantasies. like, if your partner is late coming home you might imagine they had a car accident. I don't know why, but there's something that makes us imagine worst case scenarios, unless we're actually experiencing the worst case scenario. My life at the time of writing that album was morphing into a certain type of worst case scenario, which I managed to extricate myself from, eventually.

Time Spent Swimming - it's about being neither here nor there. I alluded to this or mentioned this earlier. It's about not having your feet on the ground. It's about being between states or places. Floating. Limbo. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. I think we all ended up here during the pandemic, though I had the title before the pandemic started.

But also, time spent swimming can be a pleasant thing. My favourite part about the south of France is floating in the sea. It's like meditation. The sea takes your troubles away, even if just for a few minutes. It's like a reprieve from being on land and just like, doing things. You don't really do anything when you're in the water. You just float. Or sink. Or swim.

The "front" of the venue by day - it's actually around back, down the alley and downstairs

Visit Selina Martin's bandcamp page here, and see her live if you can!  

Rob Frith for the win! (And a happy wedding to two good friends)

Well, that was interesting. A friend of mine is getting married on this very day, and like his bride-to-be, he is a massive Elvis Costello fan. They're both into Nick Lowe, as well, and with Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets playing with Elvis Costello this June - a show we are all going to, meaning said friend, his bride-to-be, my wife-and-I, but hopefully also most of my readers - it seemed a natural idea to get them an Elvis Costello-related gift. Easy, right?

...but when someone is a massive fan of a given artist, it makes it both very easy AND very hard to shop for them, because while they will appreciate receiving anything they don't already have by that artist, you may have to work fairly hard to IDENTIFY things they don't have, which can be challenging if you also want to keep the gift a secret, which I did. And even once you identify said items - he doesn't have the DVD of The Juliet Letters, for instance - the problem is, the stuff missing from the collection of a completist is missing either because it is either really hard to find, really expensive, or because (like that dubstep/ electronica EP of Nomeansno remixes, in my case) it just isn't really something they dig, as generally into the artist in question as they may be.  

HOWEVER, I reasoned, Elvis Costello LIVES 'round here at least some of the time, out in Nanaimo, we gather, with Diana Krall. I've only had the one sighting of them out-and-about (at the Nick Cave thing in New West a couple of years ago), and I gather Mr. Costello has become a bit more private in recent years, not hearkening to interviews often, but surely he's gone to a few record stores, here and there, and surely in doing so he's signed a few odd items? 

In particular, because my friend had quipped about how his bride-to-be could recite all the lyrics to Imperial Bedroom, I figured that that would be the album to get.  It has some of my very favourite Elvis Costello songs, too - "Man About Time," "Beyond Belief," "...and in Every Home." It seemed like the right one, though I'd have taken any signed Costello item, if it presented itself. 

I began with Rob Frith at Neptoon. If you're shopping for signed ephemera, there is, locally, no better man. Rob likes signed collectibles himself, and his collection was even the subject of a Museum of Vancouver retrospective. But he and his son Ben looked, and nothing turned up.

I called a few other local stores that sometimes get signed things in - not sure who exactly, but most of the usual suspects, none of whom had anything at all (Dale at Noize to Go is a big EC fan, I learned, but the signed stuff he has from the man is part of his own personal collection and not for sale). With a trip to Vancouver Island pending, I had hopes that I'd have more luck, and over there the other week, I called Fascinating Rhythm over in Nanaimo, visited the Full Bug in Duncan, sent a FB message to Supreme Echo and phoned Ditch Records in Victoria - four of the best record stores on the island (I'd also give a nod to Cavity and that place in Fantan Alley but they didn't seem very likely to have EC material). Apparently Mr. Costello HAS been into Fascinating Rhythm, but not for a few years. I was mildly surprised by my lack of success, but... well, some people just don't sign that much stuff.

Back in Vancouver, I visited Dale at Noize to see what he had. He tried to sell me some super-cool looking belly dancing albums, but that was a bit off the mark, as was a signed Charley Pride record (you gotta love the guy for suggesting it). He did have a bunch of Beatles rarities that my friend would appreciate - and had a copy of National Breakout, the one album by The Romantics that I coveted and purchased - but I wasn't going to even TRY to buy my friend Beatles items, since he has even more of that than he has Costello.  

I got Hey Clockface for myself at Audiopile, but they didn't have anything signed or especially rare. I peeked into Beat Street on other business, even chatted with Josh Nickel at his punk shop, asking if by any chance he had a line on any EC rarities... no and no. Zulu Records has some REALLY cool Elvis Costello rarities that I probably WOULD have picked a few up, but I was hoping to trade a rarity of my own for a couple of them, and we could not work out a satisfactory deal (note to fans, though - people looking for live, hard-to-find EC material should descend on Zulu forthwith, because there's stuff you will not see very often there, and the prices are quite reasonable. None of it was signed but all of it was obscure enough that there was a good chance my friend did not have it...).  

Frustrated and grumbling, I figured, well, I guess I'll just go back to Neptoon. Having contemplated buying non-signed stuff at Zulu, I had lowered the bar: it didn't have to be signed as long as it was rare.  

On discovering I was still on my quest, Rob thought a minute. "There's one last place I haven't checked," he said. He zipped into the back while Ben and I chatted about today's cancelled Art Bergmann event and the Vicious Cycles' opening slot for FEAR next week). 

Rob took about fifteen minutes, but when he walked up to me - I was over in the punk section, seeing if they had any Screaming Females - he had an album in his hands. 

 (The signature doesn't show up so well in the photo, but it's in silver pen, just slightly below and to the left of the album's centre). 

Rob Frith for the win! 

Happy wedding, kids! (I got that signed Nick Lowe pic from Rob, too; he truly is The Man, in this respect: "I'd kiss you," I said to him, "But I don't think you'd dig it.").