Just wanted to say another sincere THANK YOU to everyone who's ever supported us in any way - by offering kind words, helping promote our records, going to shows, buying records, playing our music on your radio shows/DJ nights, liking and commenting on our posts, re-posting, following, subscribing, adjective-ing and re-tweeting, reading, watching, listening, and engaging.
A mere 40 individuals pre-ordered our new record; we cannot thank all of you enough. You alone paid for the pressing of half of our 500 12" records! That is a monumental accomplishment and a true testament to your fan-dom. The record's been mastered by our ideal candidate, and is about to be sent off to an audiophile-adored legend to cut the lacquer. We couldn't be more excited for you to hear it. We'll tell you more about the making of the record soon...
We've been a band for nearly 7 years now and we can't thank you enough for journeying with us. Our promise never to repeat ourselves rings true in our minds and your hearts.
To everyone who has pre-ordered our 4th album SONIC UNION, your commissioned songs, poems, paintings, short stories, CDs, DVDs, and vinyl records will be on their way to you later in the spring.
To everyone across Canada who still wants to see us live - WE'RE COMING LATER THIS YEAR!
It is with all of my might and sincerity that I present my ramblings on varying subjects having arisen during our travails late in this mythical year. You may find yourself wandering through clauses and tripping over phrases, but I assure you the end will pool in punctuation...
Some days are average. Some are terrible. Some are glorious. Still others see you driving 20 hours away from your adopted home, away from the salt and green and into the grey. They'll see the stench of cat piss and rattle of vintage tube amps inside a clown car, with wilderness, lakes, mountains and plains rushing by. They'll see your face in the clouds, up and away...
We've had so many great experiences of late, I figured it's time to share. Since September we've discovered the punk-soaked beauty of the DIY Collective art space in Barrie, the live-in bohemia of the Artel space in Kingston. In Windsor we were ghosts in a roomful of delightful goblins. The lights and sound of the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern, where the sound engineer is a professional gentleman, where musician of many achievements Steve Fall (aka, Jeffrey the Corpse from my favourite director Bruce McDonald's Highway 61) helped load out our tiny stack of gear and inoculated us with positive vibes on the strangest of full moon nights, where fabulous DJ Shannon brought on Dance Cave flashbacks, and Ryan unwittingly scrawled our name just beneath that of the holy Dead Weather, infused us with goodwill towards rock'n'roll humanity. We discovered the Twin Peaks-worthy interior of Trinity Lounge in Sarnia, full of smiling, dancing faces and met many sweet, generous folks who were kind enough to buy our records afterward, including a very inquisitive Dave Genn, whose band 54-40 had just performed at a big theatre around the block.
I am left almost without words to describe the exhilarating transcendence of attending the live shows of Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Patti Smith (both in one evening, no less). Suffice it to say that I smiled through the Bob show, nearly lost consciousness during Tangled Up In Blue, and was a weeping soggy mess for much of the Neil/Patti sets. When the stage lights came on and she appeared before us singing "Dancing Barefoot," it was all I could do to keep from climbing over all the politely confused Crazy Horse devotees before me as I ran toward Patti onstage in ecstasy. Venue security ejected a rock'n'roll dad who'd just lit up a joint with his pre-teen son in tow. The two were gleefully singing along to Powderfinger as The Man put his feeble foot down, and my middle finger went up. The duo of Jack White shows in Toronto/Montreal led us to hotel rooms with ominous red lighting and smoky back alleys lined with big sexy black tour buses. I smiled into SUVs as Pokey Lafarge vociferously savoured the aroma of my stogie. These excursions inspired a second video update, soon to be released.
Never ones to stay very long in one place, we are booking the next leg of our tour westward, but not before revelling in Ottawa's abundance of vegan food (to the chagrin of our pocketbooks). Our show at the phenomenal Daily Grind Art Cafe was positively memorable and its staff and proprietor Mike are among the warmest and most inspiring people we've met. We made the first of many visits to Vinyl Alibi, and made lovely friends who shared their wedding with us - a real honour. Fellow Albertans and DIY comrades The Famines showed us a napkin dancin' time at the Silver Dollar Room in Toronto, where historically significant promoter of the ages Dan Burke gave us another shot, and me a big'ol hug at the end of the night. We narrowly avoided a police shutdown of a punk house show (rivalling those of our early youth) in downtown Brantford, near the train station, by falling over onto our gear and causing Wayde to lose his glasses. The train station itself harbours fine music in a cafe setting over the din of railway traffic a few feet away. Ryan once again severely wounded his Gretsch in a tragically unceremonious headstock accident, taking the babe from his arms for a good week of repair. Once the guitar was back in action, The Brain - a cornucopia of beat erainspiration and a real visual pleasure - accepted us into its heart as we revelled in its impeccably staffed and lovely bathroomed glory with Hamilton sweetheart Aron D'Luxe D'Alesio. The evening found us filming and swooning over Aron's haunting (haunted) guitar landscapes in a late-autumn delirium while Dylan Hudecki helped us out with the camera(s) - and reuniting with a lot of old Ford Plant friends as the night went on.
Our dear friends Familiar Fiends filled our heads with their naked Ontario-via-Montana anthems, and the Copocs let us fill their magical home with our music - and recording equipment. Their records will show you the love. We all filmed some time capsule worthy footage at a low-key show at Homegrown Hamilton - the finest smelling, warmest, most ideologically sound venue we've seen of late. The seductive aroma of newly roasted coffee enveloped us as we performed alongside fellow workhorse CA Smith, whose songs and presence are always enchanting, and later, as we attended the Canada-wide premiere of Seth Smith's film Lowlife, a film dominated by stellar acting and ethereal East coast scenery. We continue to play shows with the Fiends and our new comrades and unofficial high school reunion candidates Hawkeyes, all of whom we are hoping will join us on our epic jaunt around this rugged country in the newest of new years.
To wind it all down, we've found a cozy new art space for the winter months, so we can zero in on our final mixes and album art - not to mention hundreds of hours of video production that will accompany our fourth full-length release to come in the regenerative springtime. Before that, you can expect a lot of written words, avant-garde video, photographs, paintings, and whatever else we get our hands on as we keep out of the blowing snow.
Some days you find yourself walking alone.
Some days you find you can't walk alone without running into somebody with insight on their tongue and a smile on their lips, whose sole purpose in that moment is to reinstill in you the vitality of youth, of art, of love, of rock'n'roll.
We are determined to tour our next album The Madness Of Crowds, preferably all over this country and a few others. This is an album whose scope both musically and ideologically overwhelms us both. This is not always the case. This has grown exponentially. This is not a local album. We are not a local band.
So we want to tour and tour, yet we have to dig for funds in painful places to manufacture the albums themselves. We trust, of course, that they will be taken quickly off our hands - such a small run - but never in our history as a band have we profited one cent.
Things we have lost, and lost. Money gone as creatively, we have won.
We don't all share the same ambition, and the same sole bank account. We don't all rattle our brains day and night, incessantly searching for truth.
Do we?
We want to take off in our car, as always, but further than always. That part is easy. The difficult part is embarking on a profitable endeavour - that which we have never sought out as a band. We've always dug ourselves in deep. Deeper.
But now, the time has arrived. Time has run out, yet all we have is time. In order to play our music before an audience, we must recuperate our lost daily earnings. So crude to speak of it that way; the beauty of performance shrouded.
Isn't this what all bands want? Why is it taking us so long? How will we do this?
The music is there. The music is here, always. We must help it find its way.
Reach out for it, for us.
***
Without any more ado, we present the "Death Rattle Blues" cassette.
Those who 'ave ordered copies will receive them post-haste. Those who 'aven't, buy a tape from us at cost.
"What day is today?" Saw two hawks mating atop a 7-11 on our way out of town - a good omen?
Picked up a limited run of shiny gold tour buttons in Toronto before driving directly to CJLO in Montreal to do a live performance and interview session (which should be archived online shortly here).
Ate a good ol' vegan cafeteria dinner in town, then crashed in a Quebec motel.
DAY TWO "The Grunge" The shower in our motel room boasted intense, near-painful water pressure, and neither of us could get a particular Quasi song out of our heads when we awoke. Didn't sleep enough as usual, then drove eight hours to Fredericton...
Tried not to notice the dead deer, fox, rabbit, and skunk on the side of the highway. But alas, a live lady moose drinking from a stream makes me feel a little better. Ryan explains the "world's largest beaver dam" located in Northern Ontario, nearly 1km long and the only animal structure that is visible from space. See, animals do crazy shit, too. I want to see that dam thing.
What time you guys playing? Where you going next?What comes first - the music or the words?
Our respiratory systems cleared, and we felt unusually healthy somewhere past Cabano. We stopped at as many of our beloved PQ rest stops as possible - these places are effectively beautifully maintained parks along the highway.
Played a quiet Thursday night set at The Capital with Bad Vibrations - an ass-whooping trio from Halifax. Found out we knew Evan from his Ontario days in Free Maracas. Also, I realized we first met KC when his band Made In The World played in my apartment back in 2003. I hadn't met Meg before this tour, but I am a huge fan of her relentless drumming.
The sound lady treated us to some old Vermicious Knid, Sourkeys, Burdocks and other nostalgic tracks before we played. All of those warm fuzzies mostly made up for the lack of attendance and the barfing guy outside.
Keep hope alive.
DAY THREE "They Don't Look Like They're From Ontario"
'Twas a no-shower, pseudo-breakfast kind of morning at the Prospect Inn in Fredericton - an affordable and hospitable resting place. We overslept, then ate breakfast with Bad Vibes and accidentally ordered toast with butter on it, then had to have the kitchen staff remake us some dry toast.
Next stop was Moncton, first for a feast at Zen Gardens, then a house show - a crowded, sloppy early-evening affair where we made sure to play "Happens All The Time." Petted a presumably deaf punk doggy all night long, and met some kind people.
Funniest of all, we overheard an attendee say, "They don't look like they're from Ontario," as we were setting up.
Compliment or criticism?
We finished just in time to see Bad Vibrations at the Paramount, then crashed for another evening.
DAY FOUR "Drunken Butterfly"
Wandered around Moncton's impressive Farmer's Market and indulged in some Egyptian samosas. It was pouring, so we headed out of town, but not before getting pulled over for a minor traffic violation by a smiling cop who simply said, "I guess you might not be from Moncton, eh?"
Sackville, home of a lovely cafe and ample healthy food choices, was a rainy experience but the sun kept poking out, beckoning us to stay
We rolled onward, stopping briefly to shoot an empty bus (while a self-appointed guard dog barked at us non-stop) and a recently burnt out trailer (complete with smoke damaged clothing and personal effects). We all get to be gum in graves, anyway.
In Truro (where DD/MM/YYYY references abound), I painted my bass drum head, and then we played for an attentive and hard-nosed audience with whose composure I can surely identify. Thanks to Evan, the sweetest promoter in the whole world, for having us back.
Stayed with Chad Peck of Noyes Records and had some intense nerd-outs about everything music-related, particularly gear and recording. It was nice to finally hang out with our label master, and his lady friend.
DAY FIVE "I'm Not Playing With You"
Played the Youth Centre in Trenton and encountered yet another prodigious promoter named Andy, whose insights and ambitions were welcomed like a breath of fresh, salty air.
Felt a little homesick for our cats, whom I knew were in good hands.
A week in Nova Scotia awaits.
DAY SIX "For Worse or Better"
We'd been having lots of musical and personal epiphanies on this tour - the ideal outcome of traveling and playing music with and for so many people. We had talks with KC, Evan, and Meg of Bad Vibrations about "bringing back" certain sonic vibes; however, I know we're just as hell-bent on propelling ourselves forward. Balls out, so to speak.
(The ipod finally died, six days into our tour, 30 seconds into the last song on Sea of Cowards - "Old Mary.")
At one point, I smelled the residual smoke from my burnt trailer shirt and had unwanted visions of death by smoke inhalation. The last tenant who lived in our current dwelling, we recently learned, died IN OUR APARTMENT weeks before we moved in, so we are prone to thoughts of the worst lately. We heard a sad story about a suicide, which hit hard, but otherwise our ramblings with people have proved fruitful. We're very much in our own heads, but lately it seems as if we're on a subconscious quest to feel like we're connecting (some very large dots).
My latent caffeine addiction took a hit at Just Us, a superior fair trade coffee co-operative based in Halifax. This place is extremely affordable and broad in scope, especially next to its Ontario counterparts.
"People and the planet before profits" says it all.
We tracked down our hosts (and longtime favourite musicians/people) Nancy and Seth of Dog Day, whose enchanted homestead awaited us. For the record: Nancy is an impeccable cook.
DAY SEVEN "Breaking Bad"
After one night at Seth and Nancy's oceanside paradise I was delirious from being in good company, breathing real air, playing guitars, staring at the water, and especially, playing with Woofy.
Rarely have either of us felt this relaxed - a near catatonic state that we relished. We were happy to have days off, for once. Every tour should be this therapeutic.
DAY EIGHT "Concentration"
Ryan desperately needed to re-string his Gretsch before our Seahorse show in Halifax with The Raccoon Wedding, and I needed to put sunglasses on Woofy.
In the meantime, we listened to Dog Day's last album a couple of times, and discovered our astrological birth charts, like the nerds that we are.
Rain, drumfusion, inaccurate posters, and a mediocre yet expensive meal (I could have sworn that I read that The Wooden Monkey was a vegetarian restaurant; it's not) started off the night on a tedious note.
Then, The Racoon Wedding played far too well, and crawling sweatily offstage after our set to find Seth and Nancy's cute faces in the room made it all worthwhile.
DAY NINE "Earthlings"
The inevitable happened: a show that we'd booked months in advance was canceled the day before by the chap who we trusted to put it together. Oh, well. Fortunately, this was the only show that fell through. I am still cranky, though.
...Now what?
I shouldn't have fretted, because Seth suggested an impromptu video shoot in their backyard. In the dark. With lots of found props, and a gracious hen. This was one of the highlights of our tour. I recall laughing uncontrollably, and feeling gratefully smitten to have spent time with a couple whose creative energy knows no end.
We miss them already.
DAY TEN "Children of the Grave"
Woke up hung over from our escapades the night before; Ryan, especially, was feeling a bit worn down. We wandered around town, walked off the crazies, ate a therapeutic meal at Satifaction Feast (best veg restaurant we've encountered in Halifax). We also had lots of circular conversations, which were eventually thwarted by our positive revelations.
Later that night, Gus' Pub was home to Long Live The Queen Festival and our last East coast show.(As we've noticed in the past, the bar owners keep VERY close tabs on bands and sound engineers, literally hanging over everybody's shoulders barking orders and nitpicking about instrument and merch placement until the second the noise starts.)
We sound checked an Eric's Trip song, played a short set, and struck up parking lot conversations with PJ from Moncton (whose band Iron Giant was playing that night), along with many of Halifax's musical finest who were in attendance. Though I was cranky as hell, I looked out and saw an extremely happy audience. Imagine - smiling and rocking out at a rock show! What a great crowd.
Anyway, it seemed like a stellar first year for the festival, and we are thankful to have been a part of it.
Arrived in Montreal and saw Crosss (featuring Christian of Play Guitar, The Hold, The Burdocks, etc on drums) play their first show then mounted Casa's wee stage for a psychotic, erratic set of our own.
We'd left Nova Scotia that morning, and driven at least 11 hours earlier in the day so it was all we could do to keep our motor skills functioning. Montreal boasted the greatest physical distance between the stage and audience of virtually anywhere we have played: approximately 5 metres of sad gaping floor space sat between us, and a small, partly seated audience.
Nevertheless, we let "Children of the Grave" and "Junk Bond Trader" rip, and tested out a couple of embryonic new songs. Thanks to Blue Skies Turn Black for the show.
A couple of vegan burritos later, we passed out in our motel room dreaming of Ozzy and Elliott and Woofy and ocean beaches.
Seth Smith's solo album, "New Problems," is highly recommended. By us.
DAY TWELVE "Got Took"
We realized on our way home that we never wanted to leave...
An artful Canadian rock and roll duo whose provocative live sets glide seamlessly between original folk. blues and country numbers, classic cover songs, and everything between.
