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Archive for July, 2019

T. Coraghessan Boyle–“The Love of My Life” (New Yorker, March 6, 2000)

Posted in Babies, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Dave Clark, Death, New Yorker, Pregnancy, Rheostatics, Sex, Short Story, T. Coraghessan Boyle, T.C. Boyle, The Bookmen, Tim Mech, Tim Vesely, Toronto Blue Jays on July 27, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE BOOKMEN-“Huggin’ at My Pillow” (Moose: The Compilation, 1991).

Back in the 1990s, it was common to buy a compilation or soundtrack or even a band’s album based on one song.  Only to then find that you didn’t really like anything else on it.

Maybe that single sounded like nothing else on the album.  Maybe the movie was almost entirely one genre, but they had that one song that you liked over the credits.  Or maybe the compilation was for something you didn’t know, but a song you really wanted was on it, too.

With streaming music that need not happen anymore.  Except in this case.

I bought this compilation, used, recently exclusively for one song, Rheostatics’ “Woodstuck.”  It’s a goofy song and this is the only place you can get the studio version.  The actual compilation was not well documented, so I didn’t know what the other bands on it might sound like.  It turns out to be a compilation for Ontario based Moose Records which specialized in Rock, Folk, World & Country.  They put out another compilation in 1992 and that’s all I can find out about them.

The Bookmen were the creation of legendary Toronto musician and independent music promoter Dave Bookman.  This is a fun bluesy stomper that sounds like a song of lost love, although the final line of the chorus might reveal the truth:

I’m huggin at my pillow but it’s just not the same
My pillow don’t know the score of the Blue Jays game.

I really enjoyed this song, so it’s no surprise to see that the rest of the band consists of Tim Mech, guitar tech for Rheostatics, Tim Vesely bassist for Rheostatics, and Dave Clark drummer for Rheostatics.  Shame I can’t find a copy of their only release Volume One: Delicatessen.

[READ: July 20, 2019] “The Love of My Life”

I have really enjoyed the more recent stories from T.C. Boyle.  I haven’t read one of his older stories in quite some time, so I don’t remember if this story is representative or not, but holy crap was this story dark.

And yet it started so sweetly.

It is the story of two high school students, Jeremy and China who are madly in love.  That spring break, they were planning on going camping–a lovely five day stretch of gorgeous weather and solitude.  The first couple of days were wonderful–they didn’t even bother putting clothes on.

They were ever so much in love. He even practiced his AP Spanish on her: Tu eres el amor de mi vida.  She tried to reply but she was taking French.

They were also excellent students–he was heading to Brown (his father’s alma mater) and she was almost but not quite the class salutatorian. (more…)

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Alice Munro–“Nettles” (New Yorker, February 21 & 28, 2000)

Posted in Alice Munro, Big Smoke, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Death, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Short Story on July 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BIG SMOKE-“Clothes” (Moose: The Compilation, 1991).

Back in the 1990s, it was common to buy a compilation or soundtrack or even a band’s album based on one song.  Only to then find that you didn’t really like anything else on it.

Maybe that single sounded like nothing else on the album.  Maybe the movie was almost entirely one genre, but they had that one song that you liked over the credits.  Or maybe the compilation was for something you didn’t know, but a song you really wanted was on it, too.

With streaming music that need not happen anymore.  Except in this case.

I bought this compilation, used, recently exclusively for one song, Rheostatics’ “Woodstuck.”  It’s a goofy song and this is the only place you can get the studio version.  The actual compilation was not well documented, so I didn’t know what the other bands on it might sound like.  It turns out to be a compilation for Ontario based Moose Records which specialized in Rock, Folk, World & Country.  They put out another compilation in 1992 and that’s all I can find out about them.

Big Smoke is NOT the hip hop band Big Smoke.  This song opens with a slinky lead guitar and then a stompin two step.  The song feels country in the music but the vocals are rock.  There’s a cool mysterious menace to the song that I quite like.

Leader singer Steve Woeller has apparently done a lot of things since, although there’s not a lot about him per se.

[READ: July 20, 2019] “Nettles”

Wow, this story went in some unexpected directions.  And it was fantastic.

It begins in the present with the narrator remembering an incident in 1979 when she saw a man eating a ketchup sandwich at a friend’s house.

Then it flashes further back to her childhood.  She lived on a relatively small far that had its own water supply.  Even though they had enough water, her father wanted the well dug deeper.  The well-driller, Mike, brought his son (also Mike) who was about the same age as the narrator.  The Mikes were living in a local hotel while drilling wells in the area.

The narrator and young Mike hung out and played all the time together. They would spend a lot of time down by the river and she tells of a memorable incident where all of the local kids played a “war” with the clay by the river.  It was almost a snowball fight but with weapons made from the clay and mud. The boys were the soldiers and the girls were the nurses.  She was Mike’s nurses and she ensured that he was “healed” by wet leaves which she placed on his forehead and stomach.

They returned home and the adults were shocked by the filth.  Someone comments that they were going to get married someday, but the narrators mother didn’t like that talk. (more…)

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William T. Vollmann–“Just Keep Going North: At the border” (Harper’s, July 2019)

Posted in Canadian Music, Death, donald tRUMP, Essays, Harper's, Immigrants, Mexico, Nogales, Mexico, Racism, Rheostatics, William T. Vollmann on July 25, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-“Woodstuck” (Moose: The Compilation, 1991).

Back in the 1990s, it was common to buy a compilation or soundtrack or even a band’s album based on one song.  Only to then find that you didn’t really like anything else on it.

Maybe that single sounded like nothing else on the album.  Maybe the movie was almost entirely one genre, but they had that one song that you liked over the credits.  Or maybe the compilation was for something you didn’t know, but a song you really wanted was on it, too.

With streaming music that need not happen anymore.  Except in this case.

I bought this compilation, used, recently exclusively for one song, Rheostatics’ “Woodstuck.”  It’s a goofy song and this is the only place you can get the studio version.  The actual compilation was not well documented, so I didn’t know what the other bands on it might sound like.  It turns out to be a compilation for Ontario based Moose Records which specialized in Rock, Folk, World & Country.  They put out another compilation in 1992 and that’s all I can find out about them.

I’d heard this song on several live bootlegs, but I was very curious about the original recording.

It’s a stomping folk song with great backing vocals and a very funny chorus.

You can’t go back to Woodstock baby, you were just two years old You weren’t even born

And this wonderful verse

Before they were kissing the earth now they’re washing their cars
Before they were feeling stoned now they’re feeling bored
Sure you shed your clothes but you shed no blood
Poor hippie child don’t sit and wait for another summer of love

Was it worth getting this whole compilation for a two and a half minute joke song?  You bet.

[READ: July 20, 2019] “Just Keep Going North: At the border”

William T. Vollmann continues to amaze me with his dedication to writing about issues that matter.

This lengthy essay is Vollmann’s attempt to discover what is happening at the border after trump warned of migrant caravans coming up from Mexico in February of 2019.

He decided to go to the Arizona border, a place he knew little about, to save himself from prejudgment (he is from California and knows that border situation a little better).  He went to the internationally bifurcated town of Nogales.  Nogales said it would sue the federal government if it did not remove the new coil of razor wire.

He talks to an immigration lawyer from Tucson who says in the old days it was no big deal to cross the border–you could come and go. There were some small changes in the mid-eighties.  Then 9/11 caused big changes.  It had been bad before trump but trump’s policies at least opened peoples eyes to what was happening here. (more…)

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David Szalay-“Something True” (Harper’s, July 2019)

Posted in Balfa Brothers, Cajun Rambler, David Szalay, Excerpt, Harper's, Marriage Trouble, Rheostatics, Seattle, WA, Sex, Swamperella on July 24, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: CAJUN RAMBLERS-“Venez à Louisiane” (Moose: The Compilation, 1991).

Back in the 1990s, it was common to buy a compilation or soundtrack or even a band’s album based on one song.  Only to then find that you didn’t really like anything else on it.

Maybe that single sounded like nothing else on the album.  Maybe the movie was almost entirely one genre, but they had that one song that you liked over the credits.  Or maybe the compilation was for something you didn’t know, but a song you really wanted was on it, too.

With streaming music that need not happen anymore.  Except in this case.

I bought this compilation, used, recently exclusively for one song, Rheostatics’ “Woodstuck.”  It’s a goofy song and this is the only place you can get the studio version.  The actual compilation was not well documented, so I didn’t know what the other bands on it might sound like.  It turns out to be a compilation for Ontario based Moose Records which specialized in Rock, Folk, World & Country.  They put out another compilation in 1992 and that’s all I can find out about them.

Cajun Ramblers’ music sounds like it should–a cajun flare in a bouncy two-step (as the lyrics even say).  There’s even a verse in French.  This song seems so un-Canadian but that’s because Peter Jellard, an English musician, was busking in Paris and heard a recording of the Balfa Brothers, leading to a life long infatuation with Cajun music.  After a six-week trip to Louisiana he founded the Cajun Ramblers who performed a mix of Cajun and Zydeco around Toronto.  He was also in Swamperella

[READ: July 12, 2019] “Something True”

This is the story of a woman returning home.  She has been in Seattle visiting her daughter Wendy.  It had been fun but exhausting, sightseeing everywhere.  She was not looking froward to what she had to return to.

She had had a health scare.  The doctor assured her that she was fine–nothing to worry about–but she was shaken.  The doctor could sense that she was very upset so he invited her for a drink.  And the he called her again the following week to go to an exhibition on Buddhist sculptures.

But she was a sixty year-old married woman, she couldn’t imagine going on a date.  Officially, it wasn’t a date but how could it not be?

After a few more outings she told her husband that she was in love with someone else. (more…)

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Nell Zink–“Marmalade Sky” (Harper’s, July 2019)

Posted in Excerpt, Harper's, My Bloody Valentine, Nell Zink, Pregnancy, Sassy, Sonic Youth, Tragic Mulatto on July 23, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: TRAGIC MULATTO-“Freddy” (1987)

I knew of Tragic Mulatto because they were on Alternative Tentacles records (home to Dead Kennedys).  But I’d actually never heard them before, I don’t think. I knew they were a noise rock band, but I had no idea they were quite so explicit.

The main band members were singer Flatula Lee Roth (Gail Coulson), guitarist Richard Skidmark (Tim Carroll) and bassist Reverend Elvister Shanksley aka Lance Boyle (Alistair Shanks).

This five minute song starts like a deranged circus with a swirling saxophone and  a muddled guitar and drum stomp.  Once the music establishes itself, the vocals come in, a deep growly evil spokenish rhyme that I can’t exactly make out.

Around 1:45 Flatuta takes over, singing a refrain of

“Don’t let him cum in your … butt … ear … rear … head … bed … feet … all over your sheets.” etc. that runs for the rest of the song. It’s surprisingly catchy, but you’d not want to sing it at the dinner table.

Fascinatingly, this album is described as featuring more tightly structured music that emphasized melody was less satirical and more serious.

It sounds like Tragic Mulatto, and especially Gail Coulson, (who is said to have possessed a simply astonishing vocals range) were really ahead of their time.

[READ: July 10, 2019] “Marmalade Sky”

I love Nell Zink’s writing and was pretty excited to see that she had a new story.  This is an excerpt from her new book Doxology.

It is 1990, Pam went over to Joe’s place to listen to records.

Joe let Pam in and introduced her to a man holding a piece of black plastic.  His name was Daniel Scoboda and he was holding the Sassy Sonic youth flexi.

Joe said he subscribed to the magazine as soon as he heard about it. But Pam, who introduced herself as Pam Diaphragm, said the magazine wasn’t long for the world.  Whats the demographic? Thirteen year-old girls who fuck?  Advertisers really go for that.

Joe said he’s a Sonic Youth completist. The only thing he doesn’t have is the single “I Killed Christgau with My Big Fuckin’ Dick.”  Daniel said its not a real record, the editor of the magazine made it up.  [I love this Sonic Youth indie rock banter]. (more…)

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Hanif Kureishi–“She Said He Said” (New Yorker, July 22, 2019)

Posted in Allen Baekeland, Canadian Music, Hanif Kureishi, Jealousy, Marriage Trouble, Negativland, Rheostatics, Sex, Sexism, Short Story, The Rembetika Hipsters on July 22, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ALLEN BAEKELAND-“Drinkin’ Ex and Askin’ Why” (Moose: The Compilation, 1991).

Back in the 1990s, it was common to buy a compilation or soundtrack or even a band’s album based on one song.  Only to then find that you didn’t really like anything else on it.

Maybe that single sounded like nothing else on the album.  Maybe the movie was almost entirely one genre, but they had that one song that you liked over the credits.  Or maybe the compilation was for something but a song you really wanted was on it, too.

With streaming music that need not happen anymore.  Except in this case.

I bought this compilation used recently exclusively for one song, Rheostatics’ “Woodstuck.”  The compilation was not well documented, so i didn’t know what the other bands on it might sound like.

This is a country song.  You can tell by the fantastic title “Drinkin’ Ex and Askin’ Why”  But it also contains everything else about a country song–slow, kinda mopey, pedal steel guitar and bad grammar with lyric about beer.

There is one saving grace that elevates this above a typical country song. Allen Baekeland is from Toronto and not the south of the U.S.  So his voice doesn’t twang.

This actually sounds kind of like a Negativland song–like a parody of a country song, even though it’s not.

And because it’s from Canada, it’s amusing to hear the line “yea I’m a grown man so I won’t cry / instead I reach into my two-four / for one more / and sit here and get pissed.”

In the 1990s Allen Baekeland started The Rembetika Hipsters who are still active today.

[READ: July 21, 2019] “She Said He Said”

In this story Sushilia was walking in the park.  She saw Mateo and his male assistant sitting on a bench.  Mateo worked for her husband Len for over ten years.

Mateo was very drunk though, and he greeted her by kissing her checks and then asking if she would sleep with him–right now, at his place.  He said he’d always found her sexy but was too nervous to say anything to her.

Obviously, she was shocked by this.  She was friendly with Mateo’s wife Marcie and considered her a confidante.  She chalked this behavior up to drunkenness.

But the next morning Mateo saw her again in the supermarket.  He was sober and yet he reiterated his desire.  He said she must be bored with Len after all these years. She kept her temper but pointedly refused his advances.

Then she called Len and told him what happened. (more…)

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Jonathan Dyck & Christine Kampen Robinson–“Mennonites Talking About Miriam Toews” (The Walrus, July/August 2019)

Posted in Adrian Tomine, Bolivia, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Chris Ware, Christine Kampen Robinson, Jonathan Dyck, Mennonites, Miriam Toews, Radco, Religion, Sexism, Sexual Assault, The Poubelles, The Walrus on July 21, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RADCO-“Didn’t You Know” (2017).

Since this essay is about Mennonites, I decided to see if I could find any Mennonite rock bands.  Well, Radco was a “punk” rock band from Vancouver, BC.

Drummer Amber Banman described their music as

A heart crushing, unstoppable, rock and roll machine. Ha-ha .We like to say we’re too polite for punk rock as we all generally mind our P’s and Q’s. But oh boy, can we rock!

They have a few songs on bandcamp.

This song does rock (although there is a xylophone melody at the end).  It’s catchy with solid guitars.

The lyrics are indeed a polite diss track:

Pay attention
Before you miss
All of these things
That you could have kissed
Didn’t you know I wanted to go
But you left me standing by my front door

As of 2018 Radco were no more, although three of them went on to form The Poubelles (Amber sings lead in this band).

[READ: July 1, 2019] “Mennonites Talking About Miriam Toews”

The July/August issue of The Walrus is the Summer Reading issue. This year’s issue had two short stories, a memoir, three poems and a fifteen year reflection about a novel as special features.

I really enjoyed Miriam Toews’ All My Puny Sorrows.  I haven’t read her book A Complicated Kindness, but I gather that it (like Sorrows) shines a light on Mennonite culture.

The introduction to this piece says that Kindness introduced the world to the Mennonites of Manitoba’s Bible belt.  Her 2018 novel Women Talking is a fictionalized account of women living in the aftermath of sexual assault in an ultraconservative Mennonite colony in Bolivia (that book sounds painful to read).

This piece is a collection of cartoon panels each one a person expressing a real sentiment about Toews (although the panels are fictionalized). (more…)

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R.P. Larose–“Poem #8–Beetle” (The Walrus, July/August 2019)

Posted in Bears, Beavers, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, La vie d'Adèle, Lazy Grace, Nature, Poetry, Poets, R.P. Larose, The Walrus, Wolves on July 20, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: LAZY GRACE-“You Don’t Know How Much” (Moose: The Compilation, 1991).

Back in the 1990s, it was common to buy a compilation or soundtrack or even a band’s album based on one song.  Only to then find that you didn’t really like anything else on it.

Maybe that single sounded like nothing else on the album.  Maybe the movie was almost entirely one genre, but they had that one song that you liked over the credits.  Or maybe the compilation was for something but a song you really wanted was on it, too.

With streaming music that need not happen anymore.  Except in this case.

I bought this compilation, used, recently exclusively for one song, Rheostatics’ “Woodstuck.”  It’s a goofy song and this is the only place you can get the studio version.  The actual compilation was not well documented, so I didn’t know what the other bands on it might sound like.  It turns out to be a compilation for Ontario based Moose Records which specialized in Rock, Folk, World & Country.  They put out another compilation in 1992 and that’s all I can find out about them.

Here’s another traditional song performed very slowly.  This feels like a blues song only played with a more country style with violin as the lead instrument.  The two women singing have good harmonies, but it feels so downcast that I don’t want to listen to it again.

[READ: July 1, 2019] “Poem #8–Beetle”

The July/August issue of The Walrus is the Summer Reading issue. This year’s issue had two short stories, a memoir, three poems and a fifteen year reflection about a novel as special features.

I assume this poem is part of a series, although I don’t know for certain

This is a poem about nature.

It is set at a lake in the woods of the eastern slope of the Rockies. (more…)

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Teva Harrison–“Falling, without You” (The Walrus, July/August 2019)

Posted in Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Poetry, Poets, Polka Dogs, Rheostatics, Romance, Teva Harrison, The Walrus on July 19, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: POLKA DOGS-“Slag Heap Love” (Moose: The Compilation, 1991).

Back in the 1990s, it was common to buy a compilation or soundtrack or even a band’s album based on one song.  Only to then find that you didn’t really like anything else on it.

Maybe that single sounded like nothing else on the album.  Maybe the movie was almost entirely one genre, but they had that one song that you liked over the credits.  Or maybe the compilation was for something but a song you really wanted was on it, too.

With streaming music that need not happen anymore.  Except in this case.

I bought this compilation, used, recently exclusively for one song, Rheostatics’ “Woodstuck.”  It’s a goofy song and this is the only place you can get the studio version.  The actual compilation was not well documented, so I didn’t know what the other bands on it might sound like.  It turns out to be a compilation for Ontario based Moose Records which specialized in Rock, Folk, World & Country.  They put out another compilation in 1992 and that’s all I can find out about them.

Polka Dogs sounded promising–I imagined a rocking polkafied band.  “Slag Heap Love” sounded like it would be a gritty rocking song.

So imagine my disappointment when the song is propelled by a tinny banjo and the accordions are only used as accompaniment, not for wild soloing.  Even the tuba is slow and ponderous and not used as a fun bass instrument.  Top this off with the vocals which are almost comically crooned and this song proved to not be anything I wanted at all.

About half way through (the song is five minutes long) the song goes to double time, which makes it more interesting. But the vocal style remains the same and nobody does anything more interesting than playing the same stuff in double time.

It doesn’t even really sound like a polka until the last forty seconds when the song picks up into triple time, but by then the song is pretty much over (especially since the lyrics don’t really change for the whole five minuets.  “Slag Heap Love” is pretty unexciting.

[READ: July 1, 2019] “Falling, without You”

The July/August issue of The Walrus is the Summer Reading issue. This year’s issue had two short stories, a memoir, three poems and a fifteen year reflection about a novel as special features.

This is simple poem of loss–of a person falling apart.

I rather liked how visceral this poem was, with each stanza being more explicit as she fears she might fly apart. (more…)

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Benjamin Hertwig–“The Space Between Trees” (The Walrus, July/August 2019)

Posted in Benjamin Hertwig, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Death, Mennonites, Military, Poets, Pretty Green, Rheostatics, The Walrus, Tree planting, Trees, Violence, War, Work on July 18, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PRETTY GREEN-“I’ll Follow the Rain” (Moose: The Compilation, 1991).

Back in the 1990s, it was common to buy a compilation or soundtrack or even a band’s album based on one song.  Only to then find that you didn’t really like anything else on it.

Maybe that single sounded like nothing else on the album.  Maybe the movie was almost entirely one genre, but they had that one song that you liked over the credits.  Or maybe the compilation was for something but a song you really wanted was on it, too.

With streaming music that need not happen anymore.  Except in this case.

I bought this compilation, used, recently exclusively for one song, Rheostatics’ “Woodstuck.”  It’s a goofy song and this is the only place you can get the studio version.  The actual compilation was not well documented, so I didn’t know what the other bands on it might sound like.  It turns out to be a compilation for Ontario based Moose Records which specialized in Rock, Folk, World & Country.  They put out another compilation in 1992 and that’s all I can find out about them.

This song was written and performed almost entirely by Ed Blocki, who I guess is Pretty Green (he has other people play violin and cello).

Blocki is (and maybe was) a producer.  This song sounds so much like a ton like a 1970s folk recording, which must be intentional.

It’s really slow and mellow.  I have to assume it was written as a reaction song to The Beatles’ “I’ll Follow the Sun,” there’s just too much similarity.

[READ: July 1, 2019] “The Space Between Trees”

The July/August issue of The Walrus is the Summer Reading issue. This year’s issue had two short stories, a memoir, three poems and a fifteen year reflection about a novel as special features.

I really enjoyed this short story–the way it juxtaposed two very different jobs.  But the ending was really abrupt and unsatisfying.  There was so much going on that I hope it is an excerpt from a novel because as short story it falls flat.

Benjamin Hertwig is a poet.  This might explain why the language of the story is so good, and maybe also while it feel so elliptical.

This is also yet another story about people (specifically a young woman) planting trees in Canada for a summer job.  I have read at least four stories about this profession and it makes it seem like this is a very common thing that most young Canadian try (and quickly give up because it sucks) at least once in their life. (more…)

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