I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: ZEUS-Live at Massey Hall (September 11, 2015).

I had never heard of the Canadian band Zeus.  They seem pretty well-known (and have since become the backing band for Jason Collett when he’s not doing Broken Social Scene).

The band has been active for nearly a decade, but have only released a couple of albums (it is mentioned during the set that they are working on new material, but that was three years ago).

They talk about the amazing sound in Massey Hall.

Massey Hall is the furthest from a giant gnarly arena you can get.  We’ve played places with similar capacity and similar sound but there is something different here.  It sound really good and clean.  Maybe I would be intimidated if I played on this stage but you remember that not just anybody gets to pay here–you get asked to play here. This takes some of the onus off of being intimidated–you feel important in here.

Carlin says, “You never wanna say you had a shitty show at Massey Hall.  But you can hear yourself really well here, maybe that’s why they are all so good.  There’s always legendary shows there.

Everyone in the band switches instruments throughout.  It’s hard to keep track of what everyone is doing.  The only one who doesn’t move is Mr Robert Anthony Drake on the drums.

“Come Home” starts with a Carlin Nicholson on bass and Mike O’Brien on the electric guitar.  They share a microphone and the harmonies.  Neil Quinn is on acoustic guitar off to the side. adding a third voice.  It’s a surprisingly short song.

“Where is My Love” has Neil, still on acoustic, singing lead with his deep voice and an occasional falsetto on certain notes.  This song is quiet for the beginning with just the acoustic guitar and keys before the rest of the band kicks in.  The song shifts gear and musically sounds like a slower Sloan song (whom they were paired with that night) but the vocals are quite different.  Mike has shifted to keys with Carlin still on bass.  Jason Haberman is also playing multiple instruments–he’s on guitar for this one.

“Miss My Friends” has a kind of funky, almost disco rhythm.  Carlin has switched to keyboards and Mike O’Brien is on bass where he sings lead vocals.  Neil Quinn plays electric guitar and c Habermans has switched to electronic percussion.

Carlin introduces the next song, “This goes back to the very first Zeus record, “I Know.”  It’s got Carlin on keys and lead vocals. Neil on bass, Mike on guitar and Haberman on acoustic guitar.  Carlin invited people to sing is they know it but I can’t hear of anyone does.

Neil shifts to a pretty melody on the keys with a gorgeous intertwining melody from Mike.  It’s a great opening to “Heavy on Me.”  There’s cool 70’s sounding keyboards and a great bass rumble.  There’s a lot of quieter moments where the bass is all there is and the riff is cool and slinky.  The song ends with great jamming session with a noisy rocking guitar solo and heavy drums.

After the applause, Neil says, “Thank you.  This is just what this band needs right now–a house fill of love like this.”

“Air I Walk” has a shuffling beat with (questionable) electronic percussion hits.  Carlin back  bass with Neil on acoustic guitars and lead vocals.  It sound kind of mid 8os Dire Straits

“Throwdown” doesn’t sound like a throw down as it opens.  There’s quiet guitars and gentle vocals from Mike.  But it gets really big by the middle and sounds like a non-synthy 80s classic rock songs.

The show ends with “Are You Gonna Waste My Time.”  Just like the opening, Neil is on guitar and vocals, Mike plays a great lead guitar and Carlin is on bass.

I really enjoyed this set quite a lot.  Zeus is a little soft rock for my tastes, but their musicianship and songwriting is top notch.

[READ: May 21, 2018] “Seven Years of Identity Theft”

Rick Moody had his identity stolen.  We all hear about this happening, but he really shows you how much of a real pain in the ass it is.  It’s not just a matter of getting new credit cards.

This essay is written as a series of letters.

The first letter is to the Most Honorable President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari.  He writes of leaving his bank card in an ATM in Macon, Georgia and that’s when he assumes it all started–the theft of his identity–back in 2011.

A week later his replacement card was rejected and ultimately deactivated due to fraudulent transactions.

Many more problems transpired, including the hacking of his various email accounts.  This included his Gmail account which, perversely, showed where the person who had hacked his account was logged in…  “the user manipulating my account was in Nigeria.”

How did your countrymen get my information, Your Excellency?

Moody learned that usually when identity is stolen, the thieves make a big pawn-able purchase within the first six hours that the account is open and then move on.  But then the data is sold.

And it seems that the malefactors were reading over his shoulder–figuring out passwords as he was creating them.

Freaked by all the spying, he switched to Apple, stopped using Google and then was free… until someone in Nigeria texted him.

There are many boast-worthy aspects of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.  Nigerian cinema is really very strong these days as is Nigerian fiction.  But it seems that digital malfeasance is also among your primary exports.

The second letter is to Stephen J. Squire, Chairman and Chief Executive Office of the American Express Company.

Moody says that false documents have been around as long as the end of Prohibition.  But large-scale fraud emerged in the 1950s with the advent of the credit card–the Diners Card was first.

Then came the American Express card and Moody laughs that he had such a hard time obtaining one.  He says the day his card arrived in the mail (in 1988) he also received a letter rejecting said application.

He speaks of loss of identity, something one should only have as a child

The second act of his identity theft began in 216, he has begun to think of identity theft as a quality of life crime.  At this point something pretty significant has to happen to him before he even lifts a receiver to complain.  Interaction from any multinational corporation is pretty much useless “you are again and again in the netherworld of ongoing customer-service entanglements, no more than a depersonalized residual contestable account number.

He says that he became lax about identity theft but so did the corporations–treating it as a cost of business.

He checked into his account and saw outrageous purchases and then eventually noticed that the address on his bill was in Alabama, where he has never lived.

And what he found is that identify theft begins to put an air of criminality on the victim.  He ultimately needed couldn’t even confirm who he was enough just to talk to AMEX.

By this time he was beginning to have a problem with his identity and his reality at the deepest level.

He went to the local police and when they asked if he wanted to press charges, he said Hell yes, then realized he had no idea who was guilty.  Some Nigerian?  Alcoholics in Alabama, a woman in Las Vegas trying to buy a used car.

At least the trooper there said I’m sorry you’re going through this.

And thus Moody is trying to go off-line–a credit union, no Google, no direct deposit.  He would like to be pre-internet if possible.