Last night I attended a lecture at the University of Waterloo by Reverend Luke Murphy, who is one of the most peculiar people I've ever met. Here's a quote from his lecture: "Very large amounts of shame produce very small amounts of poo(p), where poo is a function of (p)." He even showed a graph to "prove" his point:
He had graphs to "prove" a lot of stuff. It's kind of his forte. The Reverend Luke Murphy is an "information-based artist" from New York City who has co-opted the visual rhetoric of the corporate world -- graphs and flowcharts and PowerPoint presentations -- to express abstract concepts like shame and anxiety. He's also a big-shot internet guru with Viacom, a former sheep-shearer and a collector of vintage geiger counters. Yeah, he's unusual. But highly entertaining and very clever. Check out my story tomorrow's edition of The Record to read all about him.
In the meantime, let me know if you can decode these other graphs of his, 'cause I can't:
To paraphrase Laurier prof Garry Potter, who gave a lecture last night at Kitchener City Hall, life sucks and it's only going to get suckier. Although he wasn't wearing a sandwich board scrawled with the words "The End is Nigh" (he actually wore all black, which seems fitting), his message during the lecture was relentlessly doomy.
Among the atrocities he told the audience to expect in the not-too-distant future: the emergence of an AIDS/Tuberculosis supervirus, nuclear threat from terrorist groups supplied by the Russian mafia, poverty, melting polar ice caps, famine, and a two-hour reunion special of Everybody Loves Raymond. OK, I'm kidding about that last one, but judging by Potter's long list of coming disasters (you can read a more comprehensive rundown in Greg Mercer's story in today's paper), it wouldn't surprise me if that were true too.
Potter did try to spread a shred of positivity, saying: "We have a lot to be pessimistic about, but I don't think we should give up."
Phew! In the words of Little Orphan Annie: the sun will come out tomorrow! Unless it doesn't, Potter warns.
OK, I got some great responses to my previous post in which I asked readers which one song they just couldn't bear to live without.
Now I'm curious about the flipside. I'm asking y'all: what song could you happily go a lifetime without ever hearing again?
After much consideration, I've narrowed it down to New Orleans is Sinking by The Tragically Hip. I've never, ever understood how the Tragically Hip came to be so wildly popular (in Canada) during the 1990s.
When I was living in a university dorm, I would be forced to endure their bland, middle-of-the-road bar rock blaring from every room. I'm not saying New Orleans is Sinking is their worst song (I'd nominate their gawdawful Poets for that dubious distiction), but it is the song that inundated my eardrums and annoyed me the most.
Leave a comment below and let us know which song you'd like to exorcise from the planet for good.
The question is simple enough: what one song means more to you than any other? Answering that question is a trickier matter.
A couple of years ago, I put that question to a half-dozen people in the music scene and wrote a story about their answers. The wording of the question was important. I wasn't looking for what they considered the "best" song ever made. Nor was I looking for their current favourites, or a "desert island" list. I asked which one song carried the most personal meaning, resonated most deeply and summoned the most powerful emotions. Some people knew the answer immediately. Others struggled to narrow it down to just one song out of many. Here's a rundown of their answers:
- Glenn Smith, owner of Ethel's Lounge and pivotal force in Kitchener's blues scene since the days of his previous pub, Pop The Gator, narrowed it down to The Thrill is Gone, by B.B. King. Glenn first heard the song when he was just 15 years old and listening to "Daddy Cool" Dave Booth's late night radio show on CHYM FM. It was Glenn's introduction to the blues. "I had never heard anything like it," Glenn told me. "It led me down the path to the blues."
- Edwin Outwater, conductor and music director of the K-W Symphony, chose Ich bin der Welt abhanded gekommen by Gustav Mahler. Until he heard that piece, Edwin had been a devotee of the punk and new wave scenes in Los Angeles, where he grew up. Hearing the Mahler piece "completely re-booted" him, and turned him on to classical music. "It's the most meaningful, otherworldly song I've heard in my life," he said.
- Kevin O'Brien's most meaningful song is etched into his memory and etched into his skin. On his arms are tattooed the words "There is a Light That Never Goes Out" -- the title of a song about eternal love by The Smiths. Kevin, who manages a Beat Goes On CD store, got the tattoo shortly after he started dating his girlfriend, Steph.
- Mark Logan of Encore Records had a helluva time coming up with an answer, since he has been immersed in music for most of his life. After much deliberation he narrowed it down to Ruby's Arms by Tom Waits. The song is a melancholic farewell to a woman sung by her lover, who is sneaking out of her bed and her life before sunrise. Without going into specifics, Mark acknowledged that the theme of an ill-fated relationship resonated with him.
- Jim Mason, principal oboe player for the K-W Symphony, had a rather surprising choice: The Longest Time, by Billy Joel. But it makes perfect sense, given his explanation: that song was playing the first time he kissed the woman who would later become his wife, violinist Julie Baumgartel.
Soooooo.... now it's your turn!
I'm asking you to give the question some thought, and come up with JUST ONE SONG that means more to you than any other. Leave a comment below, naming your most cherished song, and explain the story behind it (and please don't just say "cuz it's a wicked tune" or "because I can dance to it).
Look deep inside yourself, then spread the musical wealth. It'll feel good.
It's official: The Starlight in Waterloo is one of the 10 best live music venues in the country, according to online voting hosted by CBC Radio 3. Oodles of clubs were in the running when the contest was launched weeks ago, and the Starlight has survived two rounds of cuts to earn its position in the top 10.
The Starlight has some stiff competition in the final round of voting, including the venerable Call The Office in London, where I spent an inordinate amount of my teenage years and undoubtedly suffered some irreversible hearing loss. But as much as I adore Call The Office, I concede that The Starlight is a better place to see live music. The Starlight has way better sound, a much more welcoming atmosphere and fewer annoying corners and pillars obstructing sightlines. Oh, and the Starlight has cool chainsaw gashes in the ceiling from the last time White Cowbell Oklahoma played there.
Anyhoo, the Starlight gets my vote, and I humbly suggest that it should get yours too. To vote, you can go to the Starlight's page or directly to the CBC Radio 3 page. You can vote once a day. Yay democracy.
Tomorrow morning I'm going to interview a Kitchener fella named Daryll Vanamburg, who may or may not be a sorcerer, judging by his ability to levitate. He insists he is not an actually sorcerer, but rather an inventor of magic tricks instead. But isn't that what a sorcerer would want you to believe???
Either way, Vanamburg has actually made a living by inventing new ways for magicians to accomplish the seemingly impossible. One of the most sought-after effects by magicians is levitation, especially after David Blaine first floated his way to TV fame. There are plenty of techniques on the market for achieving apparent levitation, and Vanamburg's technique is considered one of the best, if not the very best. Take a look at him floating in the video below and see if you can figure out his secret. My guess is still sorcery.
Last week, I interviewed a wee eight-year-old Cambridge kid named Noah Ryan Scott, whose acting career is going like gangbusters.
His latest film work, a made-for-TV movie called Booky's Crush, aired on CBC this past Sunday night. Noah's resume boasts a whole whack of impressive film, TV and commercial credits, including what I believe to be one of the most annoying and infuriating commercials ever. If you watch TV at all, you've seen it.
Here's how the commercial goes:
"Dad, I can't sleep," says a pajama-clad little imp (that's Noah!).
The dad looks at him, then looks back to the hockey game on TV. Apparently, this is a terrible dilemma for the dad: should he continue watching the hockey game, or should he be a responsible father and tuck his son into bed?!?! But therein lies the crux of the commercial. Thanks to his Rogers PVR thingamajig, dad can pause the live hockey game long enough for his son to join him on the couch.
"C'mere," dad says. "Wanna see an amazing goal?" Noah hops up on the couch and -- hooray! -- dad doesn't miss a second of the hockey game. Negligent parenting just got easier. Thanks Rogers! (You can watch the commercial here, though I'm not sure why you'd want to).
Of course, it's not little Noah's fault that the commercial is annoying and sends out terrible messages about fatherhood. Noah is actually very good in the role (partly because the filming was done after midnight, so he would look genuinely sleepy when the director yelled "action"). You can read my full story about Noah here.
The weird thing is Noah is just one of many young actors from Cambridge I've interviewed who have starred in grating commercials for giant corporations.
In 2002, I interviewed then-eight-year-old Raquel Cadilha, an enviably talented girl who had also just starred in a bunch of Rogers commercials. In one of the better known ads, a pigtailed Raquel discovers that her parents have used the parental control settings on their Rogers Digital account to block all the good, racy shows like The Sopranos. Raquel rolls her eyes and exasperatedly laments: "The life of an eight-year-old!"
In 2003, I wrote an article about Josh Kirk, a 10-year-old kid who had just co-starred in a commercial for Dell. It was one of those "Dude, we're getting a Dell" commercials. Josh didn't actually say that iconic/annoying catchphrase, but he did follow it up with an exclamation of his own: "Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet." The trick, he told me, was "to really carry the e".
My point is that Cambridge, for reasons I don't yet comprehend, seems to produce an disproportionate number of adorable, talented little ragamuffins who are perfectly suited for rather irksome corporate commercials. Is it mere coincidence? Or is something more mysterious, more sinister, at play? Until I hear evidence to the contrary, I must assume the latter.
The Brick Brewing Co. of Waterloo announced this week that it is retiring its stubby beer bottle, which really shouldn't matter to anyone since it's just a oddly shaped liquid vessel, but it kind of does matter. There's something strangely comforting about guzzling brew from a stubby. Perhaps its the low centre of gravity, which reduces the risk of spillage. Perhaps it's the illusion of smallness, which tricks your brain into thinking you're entitled to drink more of them than a typical long-necked beer. Or perhaps it's because drinking from a stubby makes you feel like a total hoser, eh? It is an icon of Canuckitude, and it shall be missed.
Farewell, Stubby, and thank you for helping me celebrate -- and forget -- so many things.
For years now, I've been informally collecting data in support of a semi-scientific theory I've espoused. The theory goes like this: there is an inverse relationship between the level of aggression in music and the level of aggression in the people responsible for making that music. More simply put, musicians who play angry, noggin-smashingly heavy rock tend to be the gentlest, friendliest people you're ever likely to be deafened by. The heavier the music, the nicer the players; on the flipside, the more namby-pamby the music, the jerkier the players.
As an entertainment reporter, I have interviewed hundreds of musicians from practically every conceivable genre of music. And almost without fail, the dudes who specialize in brutal guitar riffery and larynx-shredding screams are the ones who, offstage, are convivial, thoughtful softies. It has already been scientifically established that metalheads tend to be smarter than most other people, and now I shall argue that they're nicer, too.
Here's some purely anecdotal evidence, gleaned from some of my past interviews:
- "We don't try to act really mean or anything," Howard Jones (at left), lead throatsmith of Killswitch Engage, told me of the band's stage presence. "We're laughing more often than not. If we enjoy ourselves onstage, those who are watching will enjoy themselves even more. We're lighthearted guys and we want to have a lighthearted fun time." Jones then told me a lot about his beloved mother, and ended our interview with the inspirational words: "There's always hope for a brighter tomorrow."
- "We're a bunch of pretty normal guys who really enjoy playing heavy music, then having a few beers afterwards," drummer Chris Adler told me when I asked him to sum up his band, Lamb of God, whose masterpieces include Walk With Me in Hell and Foot to the Throat. "We're flattered by all the opportunities we're getting, like the Grammys and Conan O'Brien, but we're just amazed watching it go on around us."
- "You're from Kitchener?!? I LOVE Kitchener!" enthused Al Jourgensen, dreadlocked ubermensch of industrial-metal pioneers Ministry. I met "Uncle Al," as he's known to his fans, backstage at the Hollywood Bowl while following KW Symphony conductor Edwin Outwater, who was leading a star-studded Beatles tribute concert. Among the other stars at the show were Aimee Mann, Joan Osbourne, and Cheap Trick. Whereas all the other stars seemed snootily standoffish, Jourgensen hunkered down, answered any question I asked him and invited us to join him for a beer or 20 at a bar in Los Angeles after the show.
- "Everyone always tells me 'Oh, you've got such a cute (speaking) voice, '" said Jessica Desjardins, screamstress for the deathcore band Bloodshoteye. People tend to be surprised by her cute speaking voice, since onstage she growls like a soon-to-be-exorcised Linda Blair after a 360-degree head rotation. Jessica then spent much of the interview gushing about her newborn daughter.
- Most recently, I spent an evening at a rehearsal of the band West Memphis Suicide, the butt-kickingest heavy band in Waterloo Region. They were almost comically gracious, frequently insisting I raid their beer fridge (which, in the interest of professionalism, I didn't.... dangit) and inviting me to come hang out at future rehearsals whenever the mood strikes. They were exceedingly polite, except for the belches.
As I said at the outset, there appears to be an inverse relationship between the heaviness of the music and the levity of its creators. So the opposite rule must apply too: bands who make the wishy-washiest music tend to have the most unpleasant personalities.
I shan't name too many names here (though I've made no effort to hide my impressions of David Cassidy -- creator of some of the most saccharine bubblegum pop ever recorded -- in previous posts on this blog). I will also say that a member of Collective Soul, purveyors of quintessentially radio-friendly pablum, couldn't have seemed more disinterested in being interviewed. And though I cannot claim any personal experience with them, have any rock stars in history displayed more aloof, holier-than-thou egoism than the spoiled Gallagher brothers of the blah-rock band Oasis?
So how can we explain this seemingly incongruous inverse relationship between heaviness and friendliness? Here's one way: the musicians who express the most fury and rage in their songs are using music as a cathartic release for the negative emotions that might otherwise adversely affect their personalities. Purveyors of wuss-rock, on the other hand, have no such exhaust-valve through which to vent emotional distress. So they are jerks instead.* An overly simplistic explanation? Oh, totally. But until I hear a better one, I shall stand by my theory that nice guys finish heaviest. And never trust an emo band.
Now enjoy this utterly terrifying video, keeping in mind that the performers are, in real life, probably total teddybears.
* Note: this logic does not apply to musicians who are deliberately, effectively subdued (Elliott Smith, Stars of the Lid, nearly all folk acts). They can be perfectly charming. Rather, the wussier = unfriendlier locic applies to acts that purport to be "rock" bands (Coldplay, Counting Crows) but neither rock nor roll.
I just got off the phone with Dave Bidini, founding member of legendary Can-rock band The Rheostatics, and author of the play Five Hole: Tales of Hockey Erotica, which is coming to Centre in the Square on March 4. In a time when hockey fighting is being scrutinized and criticized more intensely than ever, it seemed Bidini has tapped into a potential solution: less fighting, more fu...um... fornicating.
Make no mistake, Bidini does not suggest that hockey players should throw down their pants instead of throwing down their gloves in the heat of the moment. His play actually explores the naughty dalliances that can emerge as offshoots of Canada's national obsession (you can read all about it in an upcoming edition of The Record).
Still, fighting in hockey would surely decline if the players could only regard each other as caring, sensual, emotionally vulnerable human beings. And it seems some NHL players have already begun to make this change in perspective. Check out the clip below, in which two angry pucksters stare deeply into one another's eyes and apparently decide to give peace a chance. Some might call it the lamest hockey fight ever. I call it progress. Beautiful, lame progress.
Colin is an arts and entertainment reporter at the Waterloo Region Record. He's your brother from another mother.
Got a CD you'd like reviewed in The Record? Got a concert coming up you'd like publicized? Got some snacks you'd like to share? Contact Colin at chunter@therecord.com
Hey Waterloo Region bands, enter the Within Earshot Music Video Contest to win 1,500 bucks cash and more.
