Category: Music

Saturday morning I went to the gym with Marlo and I burned 820 calories. I just stayed on the elliptical whachamajigger for the entire hour and…15 minutes or so. Saturday morn is a good time for the gym, there’s hardly anyone there. I think if I don’t spend too much time there (i.e. I don’t go there more than once a week) I won’t get sick of it. We’ll see. Unfortunately I was forced to brush up on my pop culture by watching the revolting MuchMusic video awards. I think Passenger 57 was also on the TV beside it. Neither of them had subtitles, except for the hair product commercials, which was strange.

Then we went to Greens and Gourmet where the guy behind Marlo doubled over in his chair and apparently went to sleep in a clam position.

I met with Theo, Kate, Mike Demers, Fraser, Jeff Ranger, Tea, Nicole and Chris Pramas at Tamagachi or somesuch sushi place on Broadway and Spruce (right next to Habibi’s) where I ate mostly chicken. I tried the eel and it was not to my liking. I believe it was “all you can eat” so we just kept filling up the form with check marks all over the place. Lots of yucks were had and then afterwards we went to Kate ‘n’ Theo’s to hang out and I made friends with Morgan the kitty and drank some chai. I’m sure Nicole will blog about it with some photos shortly. Some exciting things were discussed but it’s too soon to blog aboot it. But we talked about salamis and tsunamis, Nicole chasing down bullies in her neighborhood, and my famous story of Mom putting peanut butter in the hamburgers to make them stick together because we were out of eggs (no Mom, you’ll never live it down as long as you keep bringing up how I took the wrong ferry when I was 13). I also tried chocolate port and was suitably disgusted.

I’ve had Men at Work on the brain ever since watching Scrubs. During band practice, after Merrick was irked because Bob showed up and nobody told him, we talked about doing covers. I pre-emailed (premailed) Jordan and Bob with my suggestion of “Helpless Automaton.” Tara is the email checker in their household and he told the tale of the dialogue:

Tara: “Toren wants to do a Men at Work cover.”

Jordan: “Let me guess. ‘I Come From a Land Down Under?'”

Tara: “No”

Jordan: “Helpless Automaton?”

Tara: “How’d you know?”

Jordan suggested “Overkill” and Bob suggested “It’s a Mistake,” both of which I’d be thrilled to do but Overkill is out of my range towards the end of the song. I’ve been singing Overkill constantly (I’m sure the neighbors are thrilled) since Friday night. Jordan also suggested us doing an album of cover songs, which we’d record the same time as our real album.

Jordan left a half hour earlier than normal so I set up my mic next to the drums and did my best Phil Collins. Mario and Merrick and I screwed around for a while and we actually came up with a semblance of a new song, which is hilarious [Downtown?].

Courtesy Mr Chris Woods

In no particular order

You would think that being around a bunch of young people, and people you haven’t since you were 18 (and you’re now 35), would make you feel old. But playing with NoMeansNo this past Saturday had exactly the opposite effect. It was invigorating!

Fustie picked me up from work on Friday and we went down to Divine Industries new location. In the move they found a bunch of Thickets tapes and stuff that was destined for the bin, but Allen saved it for me. He also gave us BTO’s broken Juno award for Best Selling Album of the Year 1975. We figured we could give it away as a prize during our performance, or award it to NoMeansNo, for a lark. I picked up 25 CDs and then we headed to pick up the costumes and Mike Patience, then into Chilliwack we drove.

Fustie dropped me off at Mr Woods and we rented Fantastic Four, which really really blew. We stormed the beaches of Cave-In-Foods for strawberries, jerky and wasabi peas. In the morning it was Husky House for breakfast where I asked for (and got) a veggie omelette with extra everything (no onions, hash browns or toast). We hit the Mark’s Work Wearhouse for socks, boxers and a new pair of pants*, played some Mortal Combat: Shaolin Monks, and then scoped out “The Loft” at the Ag Rec Center for load in. I helped Jordan with his drums and then we three revisited Husky House. This time, a chicken Caesar mod for me. I learned that Jordan is on some kind of Focusin to help him quit smoking. He gets up at 5 in the morning and does laundry and the dishes and makes breakfast for Tara hours before she wants it. Jordan takes off and Chris and I are back at his homestead where we engage in a game of Scrabble with Angie and her mom. Before we could finish the game we got called back to the Loft for SHOWTIME!

There were scores of kids at the show, some as young as 7 or 8, I’d wager. Tagging along with their parents, of course. We put on our satyr outfits and hit the stage to much fanfare. We rocked out splendidly and the energy was super-good. We only had a half hour so we kept the songs fast and the inbetween times tight. The crowd was clearly enjoying themselves, jumping up during Colour Me Green and generally giving us the rock hands. Garett came out as Cthulhu, complete with glowing eyes and throbbing heart, for our last two songs. Best of all, NoMeansNo was present for the performance, watching at the sidelines, and grinning.

I can’t list everyone I saw, because I’m bad with names, and you probably don’t care, but for the purposes of reminding myself later, here’s who I saw: Shalan Hay, who I haven’t seen since probably 1993. Leon, Devon’s partner in crime who lives in Taiwan and wants us to come there to play a circuit (I met his Taiwanese lady friend). Norm and Jen came out from Vancouver to see the show with a buddy whose name I forget. Syric, our longtime fan who may or may not live in the states, showed. Garett, Lea, Ashly, Tara. Bob Scott, who I haven’t seen since 1988. Matt, Merrick’s squinty roommate. A couple of old school Chilliwack punk fans with crazy hair who I have known. Cary Britton, Shane Ward. Chris, of course, who took some fabulous photos.

I handed out stickers after the show, and I sold all of the CDs I brought (22 – I pulled out 3 SSZ’s for myself & Bob), a new record. We didn’t expect to get paid much for the show as there were 6 bands on the bill, and I didn’t bother to ask Jay, the organizer about it after the show. I was just jazzed to have the experience. We watched Removal and then I got up on a chair so I could watch NoMeansNo play over the crowd (there was no stage, as such). What can I say? They still got it. It was fantastic.

After the show I spoke with Tom Holliston, the guitarist, and he really enjoyed our performance and invited us to play at their next two shows (at least one of which is a Hanson Brothers show). I got his email and hopefully that will all work out. A bunch of my friends were going out for drinks but Chris and I opted for the nerdy antisocial route of playing some more Mortal Combat until we crashed.

It was a truly memorable weekend. The only thing that would have made it better was if Marlo was there, but it’s still too soon for that, unfortunately. (57 more words until OVERSHARE) Marlo is worried about what my friends think after our breakup, but I’m sure we’ll be karaoking and watching MST3K all together again before you know it. Besides, I’m a big boy and I knew the risks when I took that step into our relationship. Despite the heartache I’m feeling now, I don’t regret taking that step. Overshare: Friday was the first day since the breakup that I haven’t cried, and had a healthy b.m. Hooray! Sleep was decent. I’m still getting maybe 75-90% of what I need on a given night, but seems to be getting better.

In all the excitement, we forgot to do anything with the Juno award. For all I know it’s still sitting on the stove in the kitchen above the Ag Rec Center in Chilliwack.

*I think this is the only time in my life I engaged in shopping therapy. Of course it helps to have money.

Someone asked this question:

“What would it take for you to put out your next album as officially mastered files (mp3, ogg, etc) that anyone could freely download or share across P2P networks? Basically, if someone was to approach you with a check that was cashable as soon as you released those files to the public, what would the amount on it have to be? What other considerations would need to be made? I understand that Divine Industries owns all the “mechanical” rights to your songs, and this would not preclude them from pressing and selling physical albums. It would also not interfere with any royalties you receive for song use, as you could retain control over all “commercial” use rights.”

I’m interested in getting input, feedback, yelling, about this idea. I mean besides “yeah that would be rad”, I’m interested in if anyone has any insight as to the pitfalls and perks of this kind of a deal in our modern age of digital downloads….

I had the good fortune of being contacted by a student at Vancouver Film School who is working on his final project for his term. That final project is to provide a total media package for a band. He sent out emails to a few bands he liked and after meeting with him at The Grind on Main St (the Italian soda was weak and the service wasn’t the jewel in their crown either) we’re going to be working together. This is good news because we’ve been needing a bit of injection into the old output department for some time and boy, am I lazy. For a few YEARS now Stephane and I have been working on a DVD of our live stuff, videos, and whatnot and part of the project was to put together a video for one of our songs that was just live footage. Not to be our grand masterpiece but at least its something we can put out there. Anyway, this new development opens up the possibilities. As always the biggest hurdle for any band endeavor is getting all the band members together, but if we rely on Adam’s computer wizardry that may not be a worry. Any suggestions on what you’d like to see for a video or other media? At the end of the deal we should have a bouquet of stuff to look at, with nothing out-of-pocket apart from time. Time in my pocket.

My band went on tour across Canada two times. Our van was broken into and things were stolen from it two times (one per tour). I lost one of my favourite shirts in Regina. (It was a Cthulhu shirt designed and printed by a UK artist.) I also lost a lot of the drawings for the Spaceship Zero roleplaying game. The drawings had to be started from scratch.

Today I found out that our brand new satyr-leg costumes were all stolen – along with the van that they were in.

I really, really hate theft.

The good news is, the costumes are being remade.