Wolf Parade + AIDS Wolf

Stephen Guy, editor of the Slouching Towards blog which documents his various escapades and triumphs in post-Soviet Hungary and the finest former 10 Commandments bassist around, gave me the heads-up on the Wolf Parade live session at the CBC's JustConcerts website. It was recorded on November 1 of last year in Vancouver, just after their double-stint with Pink Mountaintops and recording with Modest Mouse's Herr Isaac Brock. Also, as far as I know, the release date for the SubPop debut hasn't been announced, but there's a temporary tri-continental diaspora, as Dan's in Taiwan and Spencer's touring in Europe with the Destroyer and Frog Eyes hybrid.

Also on the topic of lupids, AIDSWOLF, (featuring Montreal's premier silk-screen addicts Seripop) are in the studio today, recording.

---

Montreal residents, don't forget about tonight's Automatic Vaudeville spectacular at the Main Hall tonight!

Canada's most productive nerd contingent and other movers and shakers are lovingly photographed and given the opportunity to voice opinions in the 100th issue of the CBC Radio 3 webzine, including Vice's Tim Barber, the last person I voted for - the Bloc Quebecois' Gilles Duceppe, David Desjardins of Voir, Gavin McInnes' ass on a dirtbike, and others.

Tuesday in Montreal.

David Border Troubles Carr, Dan Papa Bear Seligman, Marie-Catherine Put It On My Tab Anderson

Jace, of Spin Magazine heart-throbs, the Besnard Lakes

Nick Robinson, formerly of Mishima, and a Six Finger Satellite fan.

David Helping Hand Carr

Noelle The Hustler Sorbara

...And the terrible, terrible saga of ET's late-night molestation.

Safe...

STOLEN!

VICTORY!

STRUGGLE!

JUSTICE!

Unicorns

Though I'm unsure about what constitutes an acceptable amount of rumour-mill output, I'll take a chance and reveal that the remaining members of The Unicorns are now in Los Angeles working with a rogue's gallery of indie folks on a holiday-themed song to benefit a charity. I don't know if Giovanni Ribisi sings, but I'd like him to try...

Optimus Crime has vacated Montreal, opting for chaste and pastoral pursuits in quaint old Kingston, Ontario, and abandoning his readers... Are there other sarcastic, smart and smarmy graduate students in Montreal capable of entertaining me with the high n' low brow dialectics of political news and pop-culture commentary?

LCD and LSD

England's Drowned-In-Sound has an interview with James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem.

As Robin "The Titan of Terabytes" Simpson pointed out in his comment to the previous post, we occasionally embark on Tintin-esque adventures together - he as an inspired version of the intrepid boy reporter, albeit a brunette version, and I a beardless and avuncular Captain Haddock, swilling whiskey and cursing loudly. We are, however, missing a crucial component in this arrangement - that of Snowy, the dimunitive and cheery-souled puppy pal with a fine intuitive sense and a passport. If you're interested, contact us, either through the newspaper or the United Shipworkers Union office.

Black Mountain Video

If you're a lonely, tubby and bespectacled teenage nerdboy considering an Animation program at a college or a know-it-all clerk at a video store in Guelph (probably lonely, too), you probably unwind after a long day of unrelentless pedantry by contemplating growing a goatee and watching Zed TV. I don't, and I don't know many who did, so when this aired a couple of weeks ago, it did so below my finely-tuned Cultural Radar, which usually maps the flow of the Zeitgeist like Vasco de Gama mapped wherever it was that he shipped himself off to. Anyway, the massive resources of the state-run broadcasting system, the CBC, have provided even non-Canadians with a glimpse of these soon-to-be-bigger-than-even-Nada-Surf (?????) West Coast weilders of the psych-rock hatchet performing Druganaut in some dank Howe St. studio. As revealed on the Black Mountain website, former Black Halos/Three Penny Opera (I think, fuck, whatever, some Scallen-core band) bassist Matthew is on acid.

Weekend Wrap

Hey, hey, I'm on Page 61 of Spin Magazine. Upper right corner, holding the camera by Robin Simpson, watching Wolf Parade. For an autograph, send the magazine along with a SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope) to:

4576 Clark
Montreal, QC
H2T 2T4
Canada

Of course, there's a lot more than just me on that page and on the following page - the article and accompanying tidbits are about Montreal, the bands and the err, uhh, vibe. Melissa Auf De Mar weighs in, and despite being the daughter of a man so admired by Gazette readers and Anglo-Montrealers that he had a street named after him, she still seems as clueless about the city as she was in her Nylon Magazine "Guide to Montreal" in which she heralded Foufones Electriques as the nightspot in Montreal and told us about a delightful and quaint lesser-known Quebecois treat known as "poutine". Nonetheless, an entertaining read, and it's Spin magazine, and regardless of whatever they printed, it's necessary to complain and whine and mock whatever was written.

Pleasure Forever - This is the Zodiac Speaking.mp3
Tim Hecker - Celestina.mp3

Dave Clifford of Pleasure Forever interviewed Sunny Kay (formerly of The VSS, now in YR Future) in a spring issue of Skyscraper Magazine, that loquacious lump of off-set published by Bottomley Bros, which I just got around to reading. It's lengthy, of course. There should be a winter 2004/2005 issue available pretty soon.

I DJed a rather dismal set at the Bright Eyes afterparty on Saturday night at the 100 Sided Die - locals Telefauna and Coco Rosie entertained the crowd, and Jaime, of the now defunct Unicorns and soon to be LA-based (?), DJed as well. 20hz.ca, formerly montrealshows.com has all the gossip, scandal and e-hyperbole you could ever want on the night and its terrible, terrible aftermath.

Montreal's foremost Olde Tyme Entertainments Providers Automatic Vaudeville present another evening of Wagnerian and bourbon-soaked cinema, this one dubbed SCHANDFEST, and featuring "Seth W. Owen's long-awaited Apartment Complex, as well as Schandfilm Zwei, the second entry" in the controversial Schandcycle.

And, just in case you haven't noticed, flutes are the 2004 and 2005 equivalent to 2003 and 2004's "cowbell"... Many Jethro Tull jokes floating about, the Dungen records being released in North America, and now, the new album by Dan Snaith, formerly known as Manitoba, and now known as Caribou. (20jazzfunkgreats posted about the newest album a week or so ago - worth a read.)

BofL/Droom

As I've been a bit busy, travelling around the city and watching Caligula and smoking pot, my posting frequency has suffered. Later on tonight I'll put on some mp3s I promised earlier, including more Atlas Strategic and some fey-ish, Postcard Records stuff, as well.

Yesterday I received two CDs in the post from BC. The first was the unmixed EP by Chris Frey of Radio Berlin's new band, The Book of Lists. The EP should come out this spring on Global Symphonic. The second CD was the new self-released Droom album 10 Songs, which treads somewhat similar territory as Graham and William's previous band, A Luna Red, albeit more in the synth-pop vein. I'll write something proper about both of these when I get the chance to digest them a little more...

I'm going to see The Lovely Feathers at Sala Rossa tonight. You may be more familiar with their err, colloquial nomenclature - "The Jew-nicorns", revealed to me by Montreal's most popular bearded slow-talker.

The Bright Eyes after-party looks as if it will be densely packed even before Bright Eyes (that doe-eyed Dylan) finishes up his set, so I suggest gathering up your 15-year old girl harvest and bussing up to the 100-sided Die, before it's sold out. Nicholas and J'aime of the now-crippled Unicorns have been added to the DJ bill, amidst fears that my fondness for grating RISD key-tar bands will be far too much on display.

Rare Earth

After a twenty-one minute jam on the Temptation's "Get Ready" doomed their album, (a horrible joke gone awry, obviously) white-boy soul brothers Rare Earth released it as a truncated 3 minute long single, with the below song as the b-side. My girlfriend had a copy of this in her collection, and I picked it up last night, and was thrilled to find that the b-side was equally as amazing as the other b-side I had just listened to, No More Riders by The Hollies, which was the B-side to the All I Need single. (I'll post that b-side tomorrow, but in the meantime, some homework, download All I Need and tell me whether or not it was a template for later Verve and Richard Ashcroft albums...)

Rare Earth - I Know (I'm Losing You).mp3

The song's great, huh? I don't know if the lines "can feel the passage of another man" and "it's all over your face" are as crude as I imagine them to be, but the echo on the vocals and the bongo breakdown vindicate the whole thing.

Radio Berlin + Black Mountain

Vancouver's longest standing new-wave n' post-punk institution, after that Audiopile guy who only hires goth girls to work at his record shop, Radio Berlin will be on the CBC's Zed-TV tonight, at around 11:30pm.

In other Vancouver news, the new Black Mountain album receives a very favourable Pitchfork review...

Six Finger Satellite MEGAPOST!

"Six Finger Satellite is serious business. The business of doing pleasure. There is an integrity that not all can muster. There is an emotional level that not all can understand. There is a past and a future that only a handful really know."

Confusing and foreign to the great majority of now-graphic designers and micro-brewery enthusiasts who populated the indie/college rock circles of the early and mid-90s, Providence, Rhode Island's original mercurial art-school hedonists Six Finger Satellite were underestimated, especially compared to colleagues Brainiac, who had a tragic death (the singer perished in a car accident - though 6FS bassist Kurt Neimand overdosed and passed away prior to the release of Law of Ruins as well) and an association with Kim Deal that guaranteed them a vague, if rather macabre and shameful nod towards recognition. More DAF than Devo and darkly teutonic than subversively quirky (but also, thankfully, angst-less) Six Finger Satellite were only signed to SubPop on the basis of a prank - a demo-tape sent to Seattle's finest , contained bunk "grunge-styled" songs the group had recorded as a joke.

Shimkus Yell.mp3
The Weapon EP is the poorly regarded bastard child of that original prank, four hookless songs pulling heavily from SST releases that appeased the higher-ups, but now leaves most listeners today with a slightly bilous and unpleasant tinge.


Crippled Monster Bearing Malice.wav (SAMPLE)
Released in 1992, Declaration Of Technocolonial Independance is a best-left forgotten slab of leaden post-hardcore. Nice spandex, though.


1993's The Pigeon Is The Most Popular Bird was the first album, produced by the poor man's Steve Albini, Bob Weston , and mastered by John Golden, who also mastered Drive Like Jehu, and Jehu's predecessor, Pitchfork.


The 10" Machine Cuisine was recorded using only electronic instruments, and remains out of my grasp... It's described by Trouser Press as...

"a conceptual mini-album of eight songs on 10-inch vinyl. Temporarily restaffed as a scientific guitar-free trio, 6FS plays heartless Germanic proto-techno with amoral undertones. The pulsing flow is about as warm as Ian Curtis' ashtray, but the construction is genuinely clever and dryly hilarious. Robotic vocals revisit Devo's neurotic erotica, stoking the fires of computer desire on the opening "Love (via Machine)"; catchy electro-pops like "The Magic Bus" (an original) and "The Greek Arts" modulate G-funk style synth over tight Kraftwerk rhythms and intentionally trite lyrics."

Parlour Games VIDEO CLIP
1995's Severe Exposure is my favourite 6FS album by far - digestible but inherently toxic, it's a cutting slab of heady paranoia and manic claustrophobia that earns its Chrome comparisons and laid a post-punk template that wouldn't be picked up on for another couple of years, possibly because that generation hadn't been brought up on ritalin and easy access to internet pornography like today's 20somethings. Rabies (Baby's Got The) has been covered by local Quebec City transplants Duchess Says and Parlour Games is my choice for best 6FS song. I first picked this record up in Victoria at the second-rate record store specializing in Bob Marley posters and surly, unsatisfied staff, where (thankfully) only the obscure metal CDs are priced at $35 a pop.



Both the Massive Cocaine Seizure and Man Behind The Glasses 7"s have also eluded capture...


The White Shadow.mp3
Paranormalized features The White Shadow, which shamelessly lifts the bassline from James Chance and the Contortion's no-wave dancefloor filler Contort Yrself, and the anti-Degreassi High hit Do The Suicide".


Race Against Space.mp3
Law of Ruins is an open-ended and gargantuan sounding affair, occasionally dubbed-out in that perverse Bauhaus-like way, but as engrossing and hypnotic as Can. Recorded by DFA head-honcho James Murphy.

a fitting finale to the career of the only band that used a key-tar frequently throughout the 1990s, this album was recorded in 1996 and only released years later on Providence's Load Records, who've been home to that city's crop of stoner, afghan-collecting art-student bands' recorded outputs for a while now.

Legacy...

Strangely, 6FS backed up the B-52's Fred Schneider on his Albini-produced solo album Just Fred. There's a Live at the ACI 7" put out by the group that I have precious little informtaion on as well... James Apt was fired from the band by e-mail, and according to messageboard gossip, doesn't perform music anymore and works for a non-profit organization in Boston. Drummer Rick Pelletier plays bass in The Chinese Stars, (Thanks for the correction, Chloe!) who feature two former members of perverse noise act Arab on Radar. Alex Minoff was a brief member of 6FS, but devoted most of his time to Golden, and now plays in Weird War, fronted by rocknroll astrologer and former Sassiest Boy in America Ian Svenonius. John MacLean now records under the moniker Juan McLean, and records for Tim Goldsworth and James Murphy's DFA label.

Some readers might recall a Vice magazine story published two years or so back by John MacLean, in which he discusses coming to Toronto on tour, desperately itching for heroin and shooting up prior to a meeting with some SubPop people... In the end he realizes that he and his pal have just shot up with crack. The same story was published in Index magazine, it's revealed that his pal was Kurt Cobain.

Calgary's Fake Cops are a band that manage to channel a bit of the 6FS sound, though I expect they're less prone to the self-destructive outburts and drug-problems that make up some of the legend of 6FS, and both The Apes and the now-broken up Trans Am have certainly tread the same ground that Law of Ruins was built upon, but it's unlikely that there will ever be a band capable of transcending or exploding whatever it was that 6FS did. (To say little of James Murphy's pre-LCD Soundsystem group Speedking or Northwesterner's Satisfact.) (Yes, yes, even that crackhead from the Libertines...) Within Montreal, you can find 6FS albums finally sitting on record store shelves, after years of being ignored and passed over. (Cheap Thrills, for example, re-stocked their entire SubPop back-catalogue this past summer...)

Blood to my cheeks.

1000 apologies for the delay between posts, I've been deeply disturbed by the amount of Turbonegro I've heard over the past week, which has caused me to recoil from most music and into a fantasy world of my own creation populated by lazy aristocrats, wordly butlers, scheming Aunts and other Wodehosian (Wodehovian?) archetypes... Anyways, a couple of tracks below that brought blood to my cheeks... And... The Globe and Mail's health columnist (his name's unfortunately skipped my mind) made mention in today's column about a study vindicating afternoon naps... For the younger set, the prime naptime is between 3pm and 5pm. On that note...

Procol Harum - Conquistador.mp3
Psychic TV - The Orchids.mp3

More mp3s and a more detailed post after my nap!

On the town...

I went out and saw Duchess Says last night at the VAV Gallery, Patrick DJed as well. Great performance from the Quebec City transplants, who now sport a muscle-bound drummer, which gives their set quite a bit more of a kick. Well-attended, and the Six Finger Satellite cover sounded just as good as I recalled.

Duchess Says

Hungry Like The Wolf Pinata

Victoria Taylor, Journalist

Robin Simpson, Dandy and Christopher Taylor, Publisher

Ned Schwartz, Heir to the Schwartz Fortune

Bill, Designer

Alex of We Are Wolves

Krzysztof, Son of Warsaw

Percival Sandhoven-Wastitch, Jr.

Skip Spence

Skip Spence (first name Alexander), former novice Jefferson Airplane drummer, Moby Grape member, and ax-wielding exorcist (attempting to save Moby Grape's Don Stevenson from demonic possession by this method while on a speed-binge) released his first and only album "Oar" in the spring of 1969. It's a work more likely to be found on the packed shelves of balding middle-aged record collectors, and though he had a Syd Barrett-like "light burns twice as bright" disappearing routine, it hasn't seem to have garnished his work the attention that it should have, or if it has, I don't hang around with those people. Sundazed re-issued Oar a while back, including a number of out-takes and tracks not heard on the initial pressings of the album. He passed away in Santa Cruz in April of 1999 at 56.

Skip Spence - All Come To Meet Her.mp3

Fuck Me USA again.

I'm sure that this will only stay on as long as it takes for me to work through my hang-over tomorrow, but here's another Fuck Me USA track, unmixed, unmastered and probably uncredited to whatever obscure new-wave band we happened to rip off. Anyways, there's some line in the song about Tom Verlaine (the Television one, I assume) and no guitar... The synth being used is a Roland Juno 6 (bought from William of A Luna Red and now Droom, and now in possession of Lindsay Sung of Radio Berlin), which was about as ubiquitious on the West Coast in the late 90s as certain forms of genital herpes, and possibly just as annoying.

Fuck Me USA - Lens Cap.mp3

Also, despite a couple of good stabs at it, no one has correctly identified the song or band from which the bassline was ripped off of for the first Fuck Me USA track I posted a couple of days back... A hint, then - ripping off from this band is a respectable past-time for hip-hop groups, too.

Atlas Strategic / Wolf Parade

I've recounted the whole pre-history of Wolf Parade many, many times before on this blog, though not thoroughly, so I won't recap now, but here's a song from the second, and now very much out of print, Atlas Strategic EP That's Familiar entitled National Flag. Recorded in January of 2002 by Scott Henderson in Victoria, BC, and written by Dan Boeckner, who went on to record it with his current band, Wolf Parade who released it on their second EP, which is also now out of print.

Vancouver label Global Symphonic have copies of the first Atlas Strategic album (Rapture Ye Minions!) available for purchase on their website, and there's a New Music Canada site for the band which has four tracks from that available to listen to.

Atlas Strategic - National Flag.mp3
Wolf Parade - National People's Scare.mp3

The January 7th Kodachrome.

Last night's Pavilion vernissage at La Centrale art-space.

Just Some Guy

Ami Brousseau, of The Ten Commandments

Robin Simpson, of Pavilion

Dan Seligman, Danager

Michael Doerksen, Birthday Boy

Krzysztof and Bartek, The Sons of Warsaw

The Complete Strategist, The Brrrrrr...

Tonight, at 2106 de Bleury, locals Milk Soup and du-wopper duo The Diskettes front for Herbie Shellenberge's The Brr and The Complete Strategist, who (as Dylan Young pointed out) do resemble XTC, though with an unfortunate math-rock stain in their pants that occasionally wears through their Oxford tweeds.
$5 Donation, Doors @ 9pm

The Diskettes - Mr. Lee.mp3
The Complete Strategist - How To Download An Atomic Bomb.mp3

Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel

Bizarrely, I was in the process of scouting on Limewire for the Cockney Rebel track "Come Up And See Me," and decided to listen to a couple of Wedding Present tracks that my roommate had downloaded, one of which turned out to be a cover of that exact song, though it was titled "Make Me Smile." (It turns out the correct title is a combination of both) Reproduced for your listening pleasure...

Cockney Rebel - Make Me Smile.mp3

At about the 2 minute mark, the flamenco guitar solo hits in, backed by a flush of synthesizers and one is transplanted way, way beyond the realm of guilty pleasure to a more stately pleasure dome of pop.

The Wedding Present - Make Me Smile.mp3

The Wedding Present version is decidedly more caustic and less enamored of production wankery or back-up singers, preferring to augment the chorus with a god-damn octave chord. Pffft, reminds me of Leatherface. Ahh, but then, I'm not a fan of the Wedding Present, preferring Primal Scream and err, uhh, the Soup Dragons on the one NME C86 tape that I do have.

I'm going to put up a song from Atlas Strategic's now out of print second album and if I can get it fixed up in cubase or something, a couple of songs from their final performance, at Logan's Pub in Victoria. (For those unaware, Atlas Strategic was the band that Dan Boeckner of Wolf Parade fronted and was also scouted by Isaac Brock for SubPop before unfortunately disbanding...)

Fuck Me USA Unreleased Track

Here's the first track from the unreleased Fuck Me USA EP, that was to be released on Global Symphonic. It was recorded at the beginning of last November, shortly before the group broke up, which accounted for the EP never being released and the recording never being mixed or mastered. There are a couple of things that need to be fixed on this song, particularly - the kick-drum is pretty rough sounding, and if you listen close enough you can "hear" the gigantic space of the room. Colin Stewart recorded it at The Hive.

Anyway, here it is, bonus points if you can name the song from which the bassline was lifted.

Fuck Me USA - Track 01.mp3 Untitled

And to cleanse your palate, a favourite track from Jeff Lynn's (the one guy from the Travelin' Wilburys that you could never name) ELO, masters of excessive studio trickery, back-masking and Bee-Gees vs. Beatles songwriting.

ELO - Love Is Like Oxygen.mp3

The Unicorns

If their webpage is any indication, The Unicorns have broken up, following their Australian tour and Alden's West Coast ski vacation... If messageboards are any indication, they haven't, and this is some sort of prank, alluded to in an early press image and foretold in lyrics and song-titles.

"I'd just like to say, that I sincerely hope that this is not true. I don't believe it. Alden call me...."
Murray Lightbourn of the Dears weighs in...

In this event, I've managed to dig up a track from Alden's earlier project, All Makes, Parts & Collision when he was stationed in Vancouver Island. I nicked it from a CD that Alden had handed to me to pass on to a friend of his a couple of years back, which I didn't end up doing (being as unreliable as I am), but that little social faux-pas only benefits you, the loyal Goldkicks reader! I think it might be titled My Friends, but I left the track-listing behind in BC. Enjoy quickly, before I receive Seligman's threatening phone call tonight.

All Makes, Parts & Collision - Track 12.mp3

Tomorrow I may post a song from the disastrous results of FMUSA's late 2003 recording at The Hive. Yikes.

First Heart Mighty Dawn Dart!

2004 end with a massive lurching and crashing slide, lubricated by alcohol, a will to self-destructive activities and frequent black holes where large portions of some nights were to be... Clutching a generously poured gin and tonic and pontificating about a Paul McArtney song, I fell backwards and just missed ending up in my father and step-mother's Christmas tree, which is about as big of a holiday joykill as there can be without a family suicide. Drinking every night from December 17th until last night is about as stupid an activity as I could recommend, and sadly, a lot more of a long-term commitment than many other vocational endeavours in my life, which is why I've hopped so fervently on the teetotalling New Years' resolution bandwagon, along with my other two roommates. A generous helping of self-loathing, pizza and two terrible movies ("Dummy" - a comedy with a ventriloquist theme starring Adrian Brody and Milla Jovovich, and "Igby Goes Down" which was terrible and perverse and misanthropic) and one strangely heartwarming one ("About A Boy" - oh God.....) was my steady diet today from my 5:00pm wake-up time till just a while ago. Alright, 'nough of that... Some 2004 wrap-up nonsense.

2004 Rock-Crit Adjective: Appalachian

2004's Lazarus Act: Previously mentioned Daddy's Hands

2004's Worst Example of Goldkicksian Trendhopping: Afrobeat

2004's Best Example of My Own Irrelevance: Barely listening to any new releases

2004's Almost-but-not-quite-right Musical Rediscovery: People rediscovering Bolan, but omitting his fat and washed up stage, which is, in my opinion, the more exciting and err, invigorating.

2004's Missed Opportunity: Radio Berlin not releasing that towers song recorded for the "Glass" LP.

2004's "Dead Before Their Time" Band: The Orphan

2005! will be: Vancouver's year, Montreal and Toronto have stepped up with some admirable slabs of vinyl, (err, well Montreal anyway, but a lot of people were talking about this Toronto place), and Victoria, too, to a lesser extent, but 2005 will reveal to the rest of the world, to a greater extent the particular and peculiar blend of surfer-lingo, musical archeology and alchemy and chemically-induced music-making that makes Vancouver, or at least the Commercial Drive and Main&Broadway areas so enjoyable to be a sociable music fan in. Black Mountain, Pink Mountaintops, Ladyhawk, Radio Berlin, The Book of Lists (Global Symphonic's newest signees), that Bejar guy'll probably do something, too...

I'm now in Vancouver, hanging out with some friends before I head up to Northern BC, where I'll hopefully find some stocked liquor cabinets... I saw Lakeboat and Hank & Lily on Friday in Victoria - Lakeboat's made large strides in my absence, recruiting Thomas and Mattie from Run Chico Run as their new rhythm section, and Jesse Scott no longer has traded in his guitar for a tambourine and some Bob Pollard-esque moves.

Daddy's Hands didn't end up playing on Friday, which was indeed a shame, but I got to hear the new Black Mountain record, which is impressive beyond the words I'm able to muster to describe it. Pre-order it, if you can, or snatch up a couple of copies when it comes out.

Ssssssummahtime.

Whether or not Daddy's Hands' Dave Wanger was as big of an influence on the song-writing of Atlas Strategic (and by implication, Wolf Parade?) and Frog Eyes as so many hecklers would have led anyone to believe in Victoria a couple of years back is certainly up for discussion. (In drunken moments, I've heard it said that he was a gigantic Godhead figure in that small burg below the 49th parallel on Vancouver Island, but I can't recall if it was me saying that or someone else...) It is not up for discussion, however, that throughout his various musical outlets he's never been able to muster up any stability that could have led to him receiving some very deserved attention... (Though Metal Maniacs Magazine did favourly review the demo tape of his high school metal band, Moral Decay) From Breakwater to M Blanket (a group who's members included Frankie Sparo) to Ache Hour Credo to Daddy's Hands and now Charter Cruise, Wanger has charted a rather wobbly path, through the death of Daddy's Hands' member Emily, Kevin Shields-like control issues and constantly reconsidering moving back to his hometown of Victoria from Montreal...

"just another schoolyard bully ..he's apparently doing some sort of lounge act ..i hope he dies miserable and alone fuck charity he deserves whatever he gets ..shit now i feel guilty ..i don't hate you dave i hope you are doing fine..(i just don't know whether to hate or love ..)

Yikes, Google speaks! Anyway...

The more readily available Tutankhamun was originally released on the Que Sara label, and licensed under the Cargo imprint, Headhunter, and some might be aware of the track on the Slow To Burn compilation Group Therapy Explosion, but there are other releases floating about, most notably Marc (one-time member of Daddy's Hands) from The Mintaka Conspiracy label's releases of "Welcome Kings" (100 copies), and "Ghost In The Bong", which came out in September 2002. Other gentleman-archivists include Jeremy Robinson, proprietor of Ditch Records in Victoria, who had run off a couple of copies of a double-CD set of every song he could get his hands on, including the two early demos, and the Parka 3's David Barclay.*

Daddy's Hands - Summertime.mp3
Daddy's Hands - That's Rich.mp3
Daddy's Hands - There Won't Be A Next Time.mp3

Dave Wanger is back on his feet again and performing - he played last June while visiting in Victoria, substituting for Glass Candy & The Shattered Theatre, and apparently under the influence of a barbituate cocktail, as well as under the moniker Charter Cruise with The Ten Commandments at the Barfly a couple of months back. And now he's living in Victoria, performed last week in Vancouver, and will be playing (if he damn well feels like it, I've been told) tomorrow evening in Victoria at the 50-50 Collective along with Lakeboat and Hank & Lily. Owing to a fortuitous turn of events, I'll be able to catch that show, as I'm flying out from here in a couple of hours on a West Coast holiday tour.

* Another interesting link in this weird six-degrees-of-seperation is professional silent lurker Tam, who may or may not be releasing an album with Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace label, but certainly has freaked out many a mop-haired rocker in her time.

Back in Montreal after a stint on the East Coast where they played with Les Unicorns Francais, and sleeping in my living room, Vancouver's post-hardcore trio the Witness Protection Program are headlining a bill at the Electric Tractor tonight, along with Les Yeah Yeah Yeahs Francais and intheBROKENSOUND.

The Electric Tractor - 6674 de l'Esplanade, doors @ 8pm, $5

Are you worried about the future of the written word?

William STYRON:Not really. I get moments of alarm. Not long ago I received in the mail a doctoral thesis entitled: “Sophie’s Choice: A Jungian Perspective,” which I sat down to read. It was quite a long document. In the first paragraph it said, “In this thesis my point of reference throughout will be the Alan J. Pakula movie of Sophie’s Choice.” There was a footnote, which I swear to you said, “Where the movie is obscure I will refer to William Styron’s novel for clarification.” This idiocy laid a pall over my life for a dark brief time because it brought back all these bugaboos we have about the written word.

The NY Times Book section had an article in it about the Paris Review's online catalogue of author interviews, The DNA of Literature project, which they're just starting to put up in pdf format, and I've been skimming through it, catching things of interest here and there... It's worth spending a couple of hours here or there. The DNA Of Literature

“During signing sessions my queue is always full of, you know, wild-eyed sleazebags and people who stare at me very intensely, as if I have some particular message for them.” - Martin Amis

I've long considered (well, ever since that Mean magazine cover had him portrayed as Jesus in 97 or 98) Vincent Gallo to be pretty similar to Dennis Miller, the main difference being that Gallo's got that Manson-like look which gives every asshole utterance of his some sort of weight (Devandra Obi Banhart, too, right?) and that whereas Dennis Miller is an unfunny comedian, Vincent Gallo is an unfunny uhh conceptual artist or filmmaker or guy who used to be in Konk or something. Nonetheless, I'll take the opportunity to see his cock without having to watch that Brown Bunny movie, and Gawker has just provided me with that opportunity... Gallo's Cock and Sevigny's Mouth.

The Warrior Magazine launch party on Thursday devolved into a rollicking dustup, a worthy homage to the violence that marred the Vibe Awards... Arlen of Wolf Parade found himself straddled by a Kops Krew representative, and Warrior publisher Tony Trew's head met the business side of a flying beer bottle. Speculatory gossip and comparative analysis can be found here... Beaver's cramped quarters performance was enjoyable, his voice reminding me a bit of the Mountain Goats, and he mentioned that next year he'd be putting together a band to flush out the songs, which will add quite a bit...

I dare you all to spend some time snooping about this directory... The jpg titled "plunderbunnies" is a special favourite, but I bet there are more hidden delights awaiting discovery. I just don't have the stomach for it right now...

Mos Def - Wylin Out.mp3
Joy Division - Disorder.mp3

Psych Warriors or Cowboys From Hell?

Warrior Magazine launches its second issues tonight in Montreal, proving that not every new magazine is an indulgent and masturbatory waste of time, published by recent English graduates and lacking rudimentary copy editing (blogs do it so much better, anyway)... Of course, I'm DJing this, so I would only have congratulatory things to say, wouldn't I?

1817 Ste.Catherine O Thursday, December 9... Doors @ 9, pay-what-you-can... Avec Myyellowfall, and DJs DAN SELIGMAN and Jay Watts III. Spencer from Wolf Parade may be playing as well, you'll have to see.

If you'd prefer to mourn the tragic, tragic loss of one of heavy metal's best goatee-farmers Dimebag Darryl, Montreal's biggest Pantera fans will be performing dirge-like requiems in his memory tonight. Steve Aoki's desert-island group Pony Up and the Kickers at The Green Room, 9pm. "RE! SPECT!"

I attended the Malajube show last night at Petit Campus... Despite a late start, everything finished up pretty much on time (a 10:30 curfew in place so the place could fill up for the Campus' white-tank-top bump'n'grind Tuesday night event), with Malajube returning for a two-song encore. I'd never seen the band before, and despite the obvious Unicorns comparisons (specifically with regards to certain syncopated drum beats and vocal melodies, and stop-start dynamics, though I assume that's a result of a shared post-hardcore musical past), it was an entertaining and heavily Francophonic show. The openers were forgettable, not the next Jean LeLoupe as my companion, Danager commented.

Also in attendance at the show was a be-spectacled, mop-topped ruffian, representing NYC's cut'n'paste glitch-pop shoppers Mixel Pixel, who played this year's PopMontreal festival. I'm ashamed to say I'd heard of the group, but never listened to them before, and when you're out in public, you can't googlesearch, ya know?

Mixel Pixel - Pink Shirts.mp3

A small, racist snippet: "Hungary? Do you know what immigrants' homes smell like? Now imagine a whole nation of immigrants. That's what Hungary smells like."

THE GET HUSTLE

The Get Hustle are a cabaret-tinged vision-force of bleak, liqueur-soaked voodoo and hallucinations emenating from seances with long-dead Parisians in 1920s brothels. Comprised of singer Valentine, drummer Ron Avila (formerly of San Diego's Antioch Arrow and Heroin), and Mac Mann (also of Antioch Arrow), the trio has chartered a similarly murky musical course through the arcane and profane as fellow Portland dwellers Pleasure Forever, releasing two 7"s (I've Got A Gun & I'm Excited and most recently Who Do You Love/Mad Power, featuring a lurching cover of the Bo Diddley original) the Now We're All Gone (GSL) and Dream Eagle (31G) EPs and (the now out-of-print) Earth Oyssey LP (5RC/KRS). They'll be featured on an upcoming tribute album to the Birthday Party as well.

The Get Hustle - Pharoah's Horses.mp3
Antioch Arrow - Conspiring the Go-Go.mp3