Within Earshot

Farewell to the Family Thrift Store

Imagine every garage sale you've ever seen. Imagine all those gaudy lamps and grimy dolls and homemade ashtrays and mismatched plates and busted bowling trophies.  Now imagine them all in one place -- a sprawling, multi-level menagerie of accumulated knickknackery. And now imagine that somehow, amid all that eclectic miscellanea, a bunch of cool indie bands cleared a spot to play a concert.

Such is the case of the Family Thrift Store in Guelph, which over the past 16 years has become a haven for musicians and artists and other people who appreciate the shop's profound strangeness. Sadly, today is the shop's very last day in existence, as the City of Guelph has green-lighted the plan to demolish a row of buildings on Wyndham Street to make way for a new library and accompanying green space (read all about it). Thrift store owner Ray Mitchell, an imminently quotable oddball, called it "the biggest issue in the history of Guelph." 

While that might be an exaggeration, there are loads of musicians and artsy young people in Guelph who agree that the store's closure is a sad eventuality in the name of progress.  So for the past five nights, they've been giving the Family Thrift Store a fitting send-off, playing nightly concerts in the shop.  Tonight is the last hurrah -- a bittersweet farewell featuring performances by Wax Mannequin, Scott Nightingale and The Burning Hell, emceed by Guelph's resident carnival freak, The Great Orbax. It will definitely be the coolest show around, and your last chance to purchase some stuffed deer hooves, a sombrero and monogrammed shotglasses from a stranger's stag and doe. 

Here's a great little video about the final days of Family Thrift Store.

(photo by Katie Malo, The Ontarian)

Nickelback: Canada's Greatest Band?

According to last night's Juno Awards, yes, Nickeback is indeed Canada's greatest band. This is odd, since I have yet to meet one person -- not one! -- who will admit to being a fan of Nickelback. In fact, most people I've talked to seem to quite loathe the band. Same here.

Which begs the question: where are all the Nickelback fans? There must be loads of them somewhere out there, given that the band won the Junos for Best Group, Best Album and the Fan Choice Award. The band's gargantuan album sales and heavy radio rotation seem to indicate an enormous, rabid fanbase from coast to coast and worldwide.  So why haven't I met a single fan (or at least one who'll 'fess up)?

I think Nickelback sometimes gets unfairly gang-pummeled by music critics who see the band as an easy target for vitriolic reviews and cheap-shots.  I must confess I've taken my own jabs at the band, since they are the epitome of puerile, overwrought, over-produced frat-boy blah-rock (see, there I go again).  But in fairness, Nickelback has clearly tapped into a sound that people -- millions and millions of people -- want to hear. And they've gotten filthy stinking rich doing it.

But I'm still baffled: where the hell are all these Nickelback fans? Where are they hiding?  They're clearly not in Portugal, where a festival crowd give frontman Chad Kroeger a not-so-subtle hint with a rock to the noggin...

Farewell Mel...

Kitchener lost one of its coolest people last weekend when legendary bluesman Mel Brown died at the age of 69.  Mel was the real deal -- a guitarist from the Mississippi Delta whose playing was steeped with soul, emotion and finely honed chops. He was always a highlight of the annual Kitchener Blues Festival, and there was nothing quite like checking out a mellow, Sunday afternoon concert by Mel at The Boathouse in Victoria Park.  But my favourite encounter with Mel was a short private concert he played for me in his living room. 

A few years ago, I decided I wanted to write a definitive biographical article about Mel for The Record, so I gave him a call and asked if he'd be up for an interview.  He told me to call him back in a couple of weeks because he was a bit busy. A couple of weeks later, I called again, and he told me the same thing. This went on for a while.  Mel was a humble and private guy, and I could clearly tell he wasn't really in the mood to be interviewed at all. 

But finally, at about 10 p.m. one night, after weeks of being evasive, Mel called me at home and said "Yeah, c'mon over, boy."  Lucky for me, Mel's house was about a 30-second walk from mine.  So I dashed over, knocked on the door and was summoned in by Mel, who was dressed head-to-toe in grey long underwear.  He was strumming a beat up old guitar that looked like it had been through a woodchipper, but it sounded fantastic.  For about half an hour, I peppered him with questions, most of which he shrugged off, while he played guitar.  After a while we both stopped talking and I just listened to the master play.*  It was unforgettable.

  Here's a little clip of Mel doing what he did best.

 

* Odd side-note: at the beginning of the interview, Mel kept interrupting to ask if I was wearing cologne or aftershave or "perfume," as he put it.  I wasn't, but apparently my intoxicating musk was too much for him, as he then spent much of the interview talking through a moist towel to protect himself from my smell. 

The First Day of Spring!

In commemoration of the first day of spring, I present here the song First Day of Spring, by one of my favourite bands of the 1990s, the now-defunct Gandharvas. 

First Day of Spring was the Gandharvas' breakout first single, which earned them a heap of airplay and some heavy rotation on MuchMusic. They released two more top-drawer albums after their debut, played scads of concerts and then, sadly, called it quits. Although they scored some decent success with their 1997 single Downtime, they'll likely be best remembered for 1994's First Day of Spring.

It's a carpe diem, gather-ye-rosebuds call to action that I listen to every year on this optimistic day of renewal.   Like the creepy guy strapped to a chair in the video posted below, it's time for you to shake loose shackles of winter and scamper outdoors for some playtime!

"My friend, don't just sit there and ruminate, with your navel to contemplate.  It's a beautiful day outside. Time's passing you by!"

Remembering Randy Rhoads

Today is the 27th anniversary of the death of Randy Rhoads, the guitar god who helped launch the solo career of metal's clown prince, Ozzy Osbourne. On this day in 1982, while on tour with Ozzy, Randy accepted an offer for a quick joyride in a small plane.  During an attempt to "buzz" Ozzy's tour bus, the pilot (who had cocaine in his system) got too close and clipped the bus, which sent the plane careening into a nearby mansion.

Randy's influence on metal in the 1980s, for better or for worse, can't be overstated. He was among the first young guitarists to combine the chug-a-lug riffing of earlier metal with lightning-quick, classically influenced chord progressions. Though he got famous for playing million-decibel metal, Randy had plans to quit showbiz entirely and got to university to study classical guitar after the tour with Ozzy.

The first time I heard Randy's playing as a kid, I was gobsmacked and completely hooked. Sure, the music a bit dated by today's standards, but you still have to appreciate the technical prowess and innovation in Randy's chops.   His music made such an impact on me, I named my second hamster Randy! (My first hamster was named -- you guessed it -- Ozzy). 

So today I salute the late, great Randy Rhoads. Behold the tiny giant:

It's raining bunnies, and other weirdness.

Last night, as thousands of St. Patrick's Day revelers pummeled their livers with pint after pint green beer,  I was at the Princess Cinema, getting my brain pummeled by possibly the most peculiar film I've ever seen.  The screening of Archangel, directed by renowned Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin, was presented by Cinematheque Waterloo -- a group of avid cinephiles who present movies you're unlikely to see anywhere else.  The mandate of Cinematheque Waterloo is to show rare and artistic films in their original format on a big screen, the way they were intended to be seen.  You can read my story about the Cinematheque Waterloo in an upcoming edition of The Record.

For now, I'm still trying to wrap my noggin around what I saw last night. Archangel, like most of Maddin's films, is the antithesis of a typical Hollywood blockbuster. It's shot in grainy black and white, it's rife with allusions to art and philosophy, the plot is cryptic and often surreal, and it clobbers your psyche with deliberately jagged editing and disturbing imagery. If you were to judge Maddin solely by his cinematic output, you'd think he's an insane genius (which may be true, but when I interviewed him last year, he came across as a perfectly normal and affable dude).

To give you a taste, here's a short clip from Archangel.  If you can explain why it starts to rain bunnies, I'd like to hear from you. Perhaps having a few green beers would clear things up.

A common man in an uncommon world...

Jamie Adkins is a most peculiar kind of performer. At one point during his touring show, Circus INcognitus, he hands out oranges to the audience and invites people to hurl the citrus fruits at his face. Then he catches each orange on a fork held in his mouth.  Ta-da!  And that is probably the least dangerous bit in his show, which he's bringing to Centre in the Square on April 7. 

I chatted with Jamie yesterday about the one-man show, which is the culmination of his 20-year career of acrobatic street performance and work with troupes like Cirque Du Soleil. My full story about Jamie will be in an upcoming edition of The Record, but here are a few interesting tidbits: Jamie won the Best Comedy prize at the 2007 Montreal Fringe Festival. The New York Times has gushed about him.
And despite all the extraordinary feats he regularly performs (juggling a half dozen balls while balancing on a not-so-tight tightrope), he says the character he portrays onstage is a "common man" unwittingly caught up in highly uncommon situations. It's physical comedy in the tradition of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, and judging by the rave reviews he has earned around the world, it's magnificent.

Check him out:

Freaky video of Michael Jackson without makeup...

Twenty-one years ago on this day, March 12, Rick Astley's breakout schlock-pop single "Never Gonna Give You Up" topped the charts and stayed there for a full two weeks. Who'da thunk that two decades later the infuriatingly catchy song would become the fodder for one of the most pervasive and viral internet memes around, the Rickroll.

The Rickroll is a bait-and-switch gag in which someone claims to have a link to highly controversial/interesting/exclusive content (Jacko sans make-up, for instance), and instead provides you only with the disturbing sight of Rick Astley singing "Never Gonna Give You Up."   In one case, a political blog claimed to have footage of Michele Obama spewing racist sentiments, but the link actually only provided a Rickroll.

It's a bit stupid, yes, but cleverly stupid.  It preys on our desire to find the juiciest, tawdriest gossip and dirt online, then rewards us only with one of the cheesiest music videos of all time. Serves us right.

Here are a few of the Rickroll's shining moments.

Time for this commercial break...

If you've watched any TV in the past week or so, chances are you've already seen the new Ford commercial.  But have another look.  You might recognize one of the Ford devotees as Marisa McIntyre, the Kitchener actress best known for her quest to win the lead role in The Sound of Music during CBC's "reality" program "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria."  But also listen closely to the music in the commercial and you'll hear more Kitchener input.  The intriguing keyboard music is provided by the band Kidstreet, a trio of Kitchener's Snyder siblings, Karl, Edna and Cliff.  You can read all about it here. Perhaps when shopping for a car you should buy domestic, because the people involved with the commercial are very domestic -- like, right next door.

Kidstreet Ford Commercial from YYZ Records on Vimeo.

Fellow video game nerds, have your say!

I still vividly remember the day I got a Nintendo. Not a Gamecube or a Wii, but an original, old-school Nintendo Entertainment System with the rectangular two-button controller and front-loading cartridge bay. That day, I can say with only minimal exaggeration, was the single greatest day I had yet experienced in my ten years of life. My household was a pretty strict, bookish one, and we were always the last family on the block to get any neat stuff like cable TV or a VCR (for many years I believed that TVO was the only channel in existence, and that Polkaroo was a big-time celebrity).  So getting a Nintendo was an unprecedented leap into a utopian future. I realize now that it was probably also a post-divorce sympathy gift from my mom, but I digress. After always being the last kid on the block to have anything cool, I was suddenly the need-to-know guy for video gamery.

The game system came packaged with Super Mario Brothers, an 8-bit masterpiece in its own right, but I also harangued my mom into buying the game I really wanted: Pro Wrestling.  By today's standards, the game is a simplistic, pixelated snorefest full of bleeps and blops and limited gameplay, but by the standards of 1986 it was mind-shatteringly awesome.  On that first night, my best friend and I stayed up as late as humanly possible -- which, back then, was roughly 9:30 p.m. -- playing until our thumbs were raw and blistered.

The reason all of this comes to mind is that I'm getting psyched next Friday night's Video Games Live concert by the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony.  The orchestra will play the music of games from Pong all the way up to the Grand Theft Auto series, while giant screens behind the musicians will depict the evolution of gaming.  It promises to be nerd-gasmic. I'll be there to review the show for the newspaper, though I fear I might be overcome by paroxysms of childhood nostalgia at the mere sight of Street Fighter 2 and Double Dragon.

Which brings me to a question for all you fellow video game nerds (I know you're out there).  In the spirit of recent music polls I've conducted, I've ask you:

What, in your opinion, is the bestest video game ever made?  Leave a comment below. 

[A side note: I can tell you with confidence that Mark Davis Pro Bass Fishing Challenge for the PS2 is not the best game ever made. I know this because I bought it by accident the other day. It turns out that "one-click shopping" on Amazon.com is exactly what it purports to be. Oops, I clicked. The game arrived in the mail two days ago.  I did catch a 10.7-pound largemouth bass, which was actually kinda fun, but not quite as fun as using a 3-wood on the green in Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge.]