Within Earshot

A translation for the metallically impaired

By Colin Hunter

A Montreal band called Endast is performing in Kitchener tomorrow night as part of the Kitchener-Waterloo Metalfest.

Like many of his headbanging peers, Endast's vocalist tends to growl and shout more than actually sing, which makes the lyrics a tad tricky to understand.  Thankfully, a dedicated translator (who obviously has far too much time on his hands) created the YouTube video pasted below for your viewing pleasure.

Something tells me the translation isn't quite 100 per cent accurate -- perhaps not even one per cent accurate -- but it's an entertaining video nonetheless.

WARNING: the video contains several written cuss words (bad ones), a naughty cartoon image, and a fleeting glimpse of a greased-up female posterior. If this kind of nastiness offends you, DO NOT WATCH THE VIDEO.  If you watch it and are still offended, any complaints can be directed squarely at Blogovich, who OK'd the video.

My favourite line happens at 4:58: "Bring me the shellfish ring." Poetry.

A Letter to Danko Jones

Dear Danko,

Why don't you like us? Why do you never come to visit us anymore?

We were disappointed when you cancelled on us a couple of years ago, but we understood. We knew that rock 'n' roll is an unpredictable vocation, and that these things happen.  We hoped you would schedule another gig in Waterloo someday, and we were excited when you booked one for next Wednesday at The Starlight.

But now you've cancelled on us again. We hear you're sick. We're sorry to hear that. The press release said it was an upper respiratory tract infection, and that sucks. We hope you feel better.

We also hope that you're not just pretending to be sick as a way of hiding your real reason for cancelling on us... again. We're really starting to get the impression that you just don't like us.  Was it something we said? Is it our breath? You can tell us. We won't be mad. Much.

We hope you come back to Waterloo someday, Danko.  We're just not holding our (bad?) breath.

Sincerely,

Disappointed Kitchenerites and Waterlooians.

And The Seventh Sign of the Coming Apocalypse is...

... last month's announcement that New Kids on the Block have reunited, are recording again and are heading out on tour.

Back in the late '80s, New Kids on the Block (or NKOTB, presumably pronounced Nuh-Cot-Buh) laid the blueprint for the completely prefabricated, carefully manufactured boy band. The band had all the right ingredients for making pre-teen girls go ga-ga and spend their allowances on merchandise: there was a cutie-pie (Joey) a bad-boy (Donnie), a Ringo (Danny), and a couple of innocuous sweetums (Pookie and Schmookie, or whatever their names were).

Like all megafads, they eventually vanished, and most die-fans suddenly refused to admit they ever owned an album/poster/lunchpail/official-NKOTB-orthodontic-headgear.

But for some reason -- call it retro nostalgia, call it Armageddon -- the band has reunited. And get this: their show at Toronto's Air Canada Centre in September is already sold out.

One of their new songs is called Sexify My Love. I wish I were making that up.

The band is set to perform their new single, Summertime, on the Today show this Friday. In advance of the performance, NKOTB has released their first new promotional photograph.  We don't have the rights to display it on this page, but you can find it here.

Hey Romaine, lettuce in on your secret!!

by Colin Hunter

I stumbled across this video during a recent bleary bout with insomnia. It's of a world-renowned magician named Romaine, who just happens to live in Kitchener.

Every time I see Romaine do this routine (a routine he has mastered over a period of decades, practicing for hours daily), I'm all, like, whaaa? 

What's particularly amazing about Romaine is that does not have the slender, graceful fingers you'd expect on a mastful card manipulater. Nope, Romaine's fingers are stubby and plump, like ten ready-to-burst breakfast sausages. How he manages to hold a pencil, let alone perform such virtuosic sleight of hand, is beyond me.

If you're interested, read a big long story I wrote about Romaine (and another local magican) a couple of years ago.

p.s. Sorry about the terrible pun in the title of this entry. Won't happen again.

Jay Semko: Singer, Survivor, Eerily Nice Guy

By Colin Hunter

I'm looking forward to catching the concert by Jay Semko this Thursday at The Circus Room, not only because he's a veteran singer-songwriter (he was the creative guru behind legendary Canuck band The Northern Pikes), but also because he might just be the nicest man in the known universe.

I have several pieces of evidence for this assertion:

Exhibit One: My friend Marshall Ward, who made a documentary about Semko a few years ago, assured me that Semko was unfailingly kind. Marshall was a huge Northern Pikes fan -- perhaps the hugest -- during the band's late-'80s-early-'90s heyday, and was therefore understandably over-the-moon when Semko invited him to Saskatoon to film what would become the doc Love Will Set You Free.  "Jay Semko is the nicest guy you'll ever talk to," Marshall assured me before I interviewed Semko a couple of weeks ago. "He's ridiculously nice."

Exhibit Two: Mark Logan, owner of Encore Records and impresario behind Busted Flat Records (the local label on which Semko's new album was recently released), also assured me that Semko was staggeringly friendly. "Really supernice" was the term Logan used, I think.

Exhibit Three: Pat Lackenbauer, a creative fella known locally as The Wandering Artoholic (read a blog I wrote about him here), used to work as a lighting technician with rock bands, including a stint with The Northern Pikes. Pat recalled that Semko and his fellow Pikes were "the most friendly, humble guys" he had ever worked with.

Exhibit Four: I interviewed Semko over the phone recently, and he was indeed disarmingly nice, humble and honest.  First, he called exactly on time, which never happens with artists and musicians (they're an interesting but notoriously un-punctual bunch, them).  Then he spent the next 45 minutes chatting -- on his long-distance dime -- about anything and everything. He didn't shy away from questions about his past struggles with drugs and alcohol, and he thanked me profusely for the interview.  The last time I interviewed someone that friendly, it was imaginary. You can read my full story about him here:

So yes, I'm looking forward to seeing Semko perform songs from his new solo CD, International Superstar, and probably some classic Pikes tunes too. But mainly, I'm excited about basking in the guy's relected niceness.

   

Howard Jones is coming to Kitchener! But which one?!

by Colin Hunter

One of the awesomest singers in rock 'n' roll is performing right here in Kitchener Sunday night. His name is Howard Jones.  I know what you die-hard music buffs are thinking: which Howard Jones is coming to town?   

Is it this guy?                                                                                             Or this guy? --->

Here are a few hints:

- The Howard Jones on the left rose to fame during the 1980s synth-pop craze with such worldwide hits as Like to Get to Know You Well, which became an unofficial anthem for the Los Angeles Olympic Games and was translated into 10 languages.

- The Howard Jones on the right is the frontman of Killswitch Engage and has become one of the most revered vocalists in the genre of metalcore with his mixture of gutteral screaming and melodic, borderline-operatic tenor singing.

- The Howard Jones on the left performed at in Wembley Stadium as part of Live Aid, using Freddie Mercury's piano.

- The Howard Jones on the right performed at arenas around North America as part of the Ozzfest, using Ozzy Osbourne's gazillion-decibel sound system.

- The Howard Jones on the left has performed keyboards for Ringo Starr's All Star Band, and his playing is featured in Catrina Carlson's remake of the hit song No One is to Blame.

- The Howard Jones on the right has made guest appearances on albums by 36 Crazyfists and Throwdown, and scored a Billboard Top 20 hit with a loving remake of Ronnie James Dio song Holy Diver.

So which one is coming to Kitchener to play Club Elements this Sunday?

This video should answer that question.

I've had my tickets to this show for months and I'm giddy with anticipation. It's gonna destroy. In a good way. To read an interview I did last year with the "real" Howard Jones, click HERE.

Less Talk, More Rocktion

By Colin Hunter

I must admit, I was a bit intimidated (by which I mean a lot intimidated) by the prospect of interviewing Danko Jones, frontman of the eponymous Canadian power-rock band. For the past dozen years, Danko has earned a reputation as a kind of rock 'n' roll demigod -- a libidinous, sweat-dripping firebrand with a fearsome stage presence and a low tolerance for wussiness. Well before his band's first album was even released, Danko Jones had built a reputation as one of the world's most hypercharged rock personalities, and notoriously short-fused interviewees.

So it was with a mix of relief and disappointment (reliesappointief?) that I read an e-mail from Danko's media-relations flack informing me that Danko himself would not be available for our scheduled phone interview, since he had to rest his ragged larynx before last night's gig in Grande Prairie, Alta. So I was informed I'd instead interview bassist John Calabrese, whom the flack assured me was "great" too.

And he was great, in an affable, understated way. But he was not, unfortunately, full of the fiery rock-star attitude and reckless abandon I had hoped for. He was... polite.  When I called, he was watching sports highlights on the internet because the TV on the tour bus wasn't working. He dutifully answered my questions, but with blase quips like: "We love to play music" and "We just do what we do, y'know?"  My full story for an upcoming edition of The Record might be a little light on quotes.

But Danko Jones (the guy and his bandmates) need not talk about what they do.  They just do it. For more than a decade, they've been doing it in countries around the world. They're huge in Europe. The Rolling Stones hand-picked Danko Jones to open for them in Toronto a few years ago. Motorhead loves 'em.

The guys in Danko Jones are rockers, not talkers. Watch them rock The Starlight on May 21. In the meantime, watch them rock here:

Ultimate (Play)Fighting

by Colin Hunter

I'm not ashamed to admit that I love pro wrestling.

OK, I'm somewhat ashamed to admit it.

But I felt safety in numbers last night, as I was one of the 16,664 humanoids who crammed into the Air Canada Centre last night to see a live broadcast of Monday Night Raw, the flagship TV show of "sports entertainment" juggernaut World Wrestling Entertainment. Tonight, I'm off to London's sold-out John Labatt Centre to watch a taping of WWE's other big TV show, Smackdown.

Which, for many people I know, begs the question: Why?!  Why on earth would anyone want to watch a low-low-low-brow spectacle in which Spandex-clad musclegoons pretend to fight? 

My answer: I watch it precisely because it's a low-low-low brow spectacle staged by play-fighting musclegoons. I love wrestling for all its unabashed absurdity, for its simplistic melodrama and crass passion-plays, for its ludicrous plotlines and cavernous plot-holes, for its silly perpetuation of stereotypes and and its utter numbskullery. 

When people find out I watch wrestling, they automatically assume I'm also of fan of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), commonly known as ultimate fighting.  But this just ain't so. Pro wrestling and MMA may seem to share many similarities, and therefore have the same appeal, but a closer look reveals that the two are as different as apples and monkeys. And so I present to you....

Wrestling vs. Mixed Martial Arts: A Comparative Cage Match

REALITY: MMA is "real," in the sense that two goons actually try to beat one another up. Any day now, hungry lions will likely be introduced to the sport.  In wrestling, the goons create the illusion of violence through choreography that, while far less believable than MMA, allows the audience to satisfy an inner bloodlust without all the icky guilt associated with cheering for actual combat.

CHARACTERS: Wrestling has an undead undertaker (see left), several giants, a leprechaun, a snooty aristocrat, a jungle savage, an evil gazillionaire and a gaggle of Playboy bunnies. MMA has a bunch of dudes with shaved heads and crooked noses who pretty much all look like the guy over here------->

DRAMA:  Wrestling is a play, not a sport. It's a play in which the conflicts of the world -- good vs. evil, domestic vs. foreign, rich vs. poor, America vs. Whereveristan -- are dramatized through bawdy pantomime. It's all about archetypes and pathos and morality struggles.  MMA, on the other hand, is two dudes wailing on each other.

ENTERTAINMENT VALUE: Pro wrestling is kind of like Vaudeville -- an ever-changing variety show featuring an weird menagerie of entertainers. If the angry giant doesn't entertain you, maybe the conniving leprechaun or the pyrotechnics or the dancing ladies will. As for MMA, well, it's two dudes wailing on each other.

I'm sure many fans of MMA will whole-heartedly disagree with me, and will be tempted to totally wail on me. I can only hope that my defensive manoeuvre -- a flying elbow drop from the top rope -- will be as effective as it seems on TV.

Surfing the concrete wave (or chickening out).

by Colin Hunter

Have you ever said to yourself, "Golly, I wish someone would invent a sport that combines the attitude of skateboarding with the zen fluidity of surfing and the speedy insanity of street luge?"  Nah, me neither.

But that thought, or one not wholly unlike it, occurred to the pioneers of longboarding, which is a kind of skateboarding-surfing-street-luge hybrid that has its own burgeoning local subculture.

Longboarding has a pretty self-explanatory name: it's like skateboarding, but the board is long. See? Longboards offer a smooth, responsive ride and they go real fast (downhill longboarders have been clocked at over 90 km/h, at which speed the flux capacitor propels them back to the future).

I recently met up with the K-Dub's longboarding posse, a group of exceedingly friendly guys who offered to lend me a board, some safety gear and give me a longboarding lesson.  I was pumped.  Then I saw the steep, paved, potentially deadly hill they intended to descend.  I chickened out (or, as I prefer to call it, "declined to participate in order to maintain journalisic objectivity").

But the longboarders put on a helluva demonstration, and none of them left any significant amounts of flesh on the concrete. I wrote a story about it, which you can peruse at your leisure by clickity-cliking here.

Or you can watch a fantabulous video made by Record photographer David Bebee, who had the brilliant idea of duct-taping a very expensive video camera to a longboard to capture a board's-eye-view of a speedy descent, followed by a gnarly crash. The camera survived. Barely.  Watch the video, dude.

The Peculiar Case of Iron Bitchface

by Colin Hunter

Oh, Iron Bitchface, how I love to hate thee...

I had a review in yesterday's issue of The Record of the new album by Iron Bitchface, Kitchener's resident noise-rock offenders (you can read the review here).  The gist of the review was this: the best thing about the album, titled Kitten Apocalypse, is that it's mercifully only seven minutes long.

If you've never heard Iron Bitchface -- and for your sake I pray that's the case -- their "music" can best be described as "not music at all."  You know that wonky eeeeooooeeeeaaaa sound that old dial-up modems make? Imagine that, coupled with the sound of robots being tortured and a howler monkey trying to sing the theme from Carmina Burana, and you've got a rudimentary understanding of what Iron Bitchface sounds like.

The members of Iron Bitchface (essentially one guy, K-Rot, with a changing cadre of other "musicians") readily admit they don't rehearse and haven't got the faintest idea how to play their instruments.

But here's the thing: they have fans. People voluntarily listen to Iron Bitchface.  The evidence: the band has released several albums, a live DVD, and they frequently tour Europe.  No guff. Just the other day, after sending me a copy of Kitten Apocalypse, K-Rot e-mailed me from the Swiss Alps, one of many European tour stops.  Lots of local indie bands start their tours at the Circus Room and end at the Starlight. 

How does Iron Bitchface  (whom I quoted confessing "We don't even try!" in a story I wrote about them last year) achieve even a modicum of success?  Out of pity? Perhaps.  But I think there's more to it: they are different and interesting, two qualities that are sorely missing in a lot of popular music.

On any given day, I would much rather listen to Iron Bitchface than, say, The Tragically Hip, a highly popular band that I find overplayed, overrated, and generally boring.  I lived in a university dorm in the late 1990s, which means I was bombarded by Tragically Hip's brand of blah-rock from every angle. 

I know it's considered a form of treason in Canada to express a dislike for the Hip, and that I shall probably be deported to Guantanamo Bay forthwith. But I'm trying to make a point: bands like Iron Bitchface deserve points for having the courage to be completely different. The represent the opposite extreme of music, counter-balancing for all the bland, interchangeable Top 40 drivel playing in doctors' waiting rooms everywhere.  Great music resides somewhere between the two extremes.

So I'm not saying the music of Iron Bitchface is any good (because really, it's not), but at least the band is making the world a slightly more interesting and unusual place, one gawd-awful seven-minute album at a time.