Hardstock 08

Sometimes I write because I have the time and then I just see what comes out. Other times I am compelled by an idea. Generally I don’t do either lately because I have been pouring those thoughts into music or into the ears of my friends. But…now am truly compelled to write about something that happened on Friday.

=”http://www.hardstockforscottyhard.org/”

You can click on that last link for all the pertinent details. My friend…and a friend and fellow musician to many musicians in New York and Vancouver was badly injured and in need of help. He lives in the US and has no medical insurance. I am sure most of you know this is a bad thing if you are ever seriously injured and hospitalized for a long period.

It would be really hard to give you a full rundown of the how the whole event played out but I will attempt to describe the feeling of the event. Our goal was to raise the maximum amount of money for Scott. We did that. Sold it out. A minimum of expenses and lots of donated merchandise. That wasn’t all we got out of it. We got the biggest reunion and union of a Vancouver scene that began somewhere around 1978. I am ballparking it now because their were participants from the scene that came before that and from the times up through the early 90’s. My job was to put together a motley crew of performers from that time to perform as a “superband”. Usually those things don’t go so well but I can tell you it went well. Many thanks to the other Hard Ones: Doug Elliott, Pat Steward, Simon Kendall, Colin Nairne, Neil Osborne, Dave Genn, Dave Ogilvie, Brad Merritt, Paul Hyde, John Mann, Harlan Daumann, Barney Bentall, Dustin Bentall, Colin James, Ra McGuire, Connor McGuire, Wendy Bird, Brian Smith, Blair Calibaba, Tom Harrison and Brian Gibney.

After the bands started playing at 7pm you could feel something happening in the room and the vibe started to build through the night. Every time you turned around there was another gasp of surprise and joy to see someone you hadn’t seen in a long time. As Scott himself said, “it goes to show we had something special back then”. We were there to support one another when we were hammering it out in the clubs and learning how to do this rock n’ roll thing and we are still there for each other when push comes to shove. All my residual anger at the arrogance and complacency of this town is now gone. As some of you know I am ambivalent about this place. We smuggly market this place as the most beautiful spot on earth and never realize that beauty is determined by the people and the way they behave. During Hardstock it was proven that the people rose to meet that ideal. I thought our generation was a little too anti everything and self conscious but as we’ve all become wiser that whole veneer strips away. I felt like I was levitating.

Icing on the cake was my opportunity to fully take in the Pointed Sticks. One of the greatest bands EVER to come out of this country. Great songs and great people. If you don’t know about them and their history then go here.

http://www.thepointedsticks.com/

BIG NEWS!

I haven't updated here in awhile but I promise I haven't been idle. See below! I hope to see a lot more of you all this year.

MapleCore and Kim Cooke hook up to launch Pheromone Recordings with the release of The New Odds' Cheerleader

February 27, 2008

MapleCore President/CEO Grant Dexter and former MapleMusic Recordings General Manager Kim Cooke today announced the launch of Pheromone Recordings, a joint venture that will bring Kim's musical selects to market using the resources of the Maplecore team, including promotion, publicity and marketing. Distribution will be handled by Maplecore's Fontana North Distribution.

Kim: "My time as Maple's GM was a tremendous experience and it's great to maintain the association with my old friends who are a fantastic crew to work with. Onward into the brave new world that is the contemporary music business!"

Grant: "I'm thrilled to be continuing my musical relationship with the Cooker. We worked closely together at Maple, signing and nurturing some of Canada's great artists, and I know that he'll do the same at Pheromone."

Kim again: "Craig Northey, Pat Steward and Doug Elliott are three of the finest musicians I have ever had the pleasure to know personally and work with professionally. With newcomer Murray Atkinson The New Odds have picked up where they left off. Cheerleader is a bracing power pop record full of stellar playing, whip - smart lyrics and the proverbial tackle box full of hooks. I'm honored for it to be the first Pheromone release. First single 'My Happy Place' drops in mid-March, and Cheerleader streets Tuesday May 20."

The New Odds are managed by Parkside Mike Renaud's Upper Management and booked by RAs Jeff Craib and Rob Wright for S.L. Feldman & Associates.

Listen to some New Odds music here: http://www.pheromonerecordings.com

What's a Pheromone?? Wikipedia says:

"From the Greek pherin, to transport, and hormon, to stimulate. A chemical that triggers a natural behavioral response in another member of the same species."

For further information re: Pheromone Recordings contact Kim Cooke at
(416) 961 –1040 x 239 or kim@pheromonerecordings.com.

For inquiries re: The New Odds contact Mary Mill at (416) 961-1040 x 265

PS: YOU CAN SIGN UP FOR TNO UPDATES AT thenewodds.com and catch a few new photos at myspace.com/thenewodds

Holiday Thoughts

What holiday? I'm a musician. Hope you are all snug in your beds and rolling around in gingerbread crumbs. Renewing bonds and enjoying each other...that is the way it should be.

Gift ideas: Go to theWorldvision site and see what you can do. There are ways to give on every level. Sponsor a child. Give to the world. Blow all your money on that. Your friends will understand and they definitely can't gripe about it.

New Music picks: Dr.Dog "We All Belong" Park the Van Records

Recipes: brown sugar, butter, melt them in equal parts on the stove...eat it warm

News: working hard to finish "the New Odds" debut CD. We hope to have the radio song out there in January and the whole thing out to you in spring. We love it so we hope you will.

love
Craig

Dr. Do Not So Little

Dr.Dolittle could talk to the animals and that might be every child's dream. Why was that just doing little?

It was a 10-minute walk to the park. Through the mountainous gray chicken coops and corridors of exhaust in the West End and onto the goose shit covered trail ringing Lost Lagoon. He saw things in these terms. Whatever was good about a place was erased by the dirty commerce at its core and the dandruff on its shoulders. When he got to the Lagoon he had like-minded company in the nasty geese. Branta Canadensis. They talked to him. In truth they were always yelling. That was the one animal in Stanley Park that had truly learned how to push the boundaries. He once saw a goose, dissatisfied with the fact that a toddler had no seed to feed him, push the child into the water. All it took was one bum's rush. Gaggles had become mosh pits. The geese were the old punk rockers of the park and thus were just freeloaders when the commitment to anarchy had been finally neutered. Nihilists still need to eat but working for it is pointless. He guessed that this is what also happened to the hippies. They were back on Howe Street with new Hugo Boss threads, and every once in a while buying "red" products to soothe their battered consciences. Other old hippies lived in the park after dark and worked with only thought fragments, camp stoves and dirty hands. Other hippies hid in the suburbs and quietly invested in R.E.S.P.'s for their children. They drove what they considered to be practical and environmentally responsible cars. They recycled everything that the city told them they were allowed to recycle. They imbued their young with a "more realistic" sense of the democratic process and taught them how to cover their asses. These children of compromise were ten years ahead of the children of old-school punks as they headed into a work force filled with entry-level opportunities. Vancouver coffee shops struggled to find employees.

The man's idealism painfully welled up inside him every morning and he walked to the park to lose himself in "almost nature". He could relate to the animals that were almost wild. He found that, like the urban raccoon, he was living off the pocket change left over from the avails of prostitution. He guessed that the raccoons were far enough along in this evolution that the thought rarely crossed their tiny brains. They did not yearn to be truly wild because this lifestyle kept them alive much longer. Dark-age homo-erectus only lived to the age of thirty-five. Here in Vancouver you could make it to eighty-five through pure, animal cunning and a low stress level. There were free clinics and vitamin enriched food filled the dumpsters behind "the Bread Garden". Stay off the crack and watch your back. He was also almost wild. He and the animals used the illusion of free will to marginally maintain their souls. They could do what they wanted as long as the mulching machine kept leaving scraps on its plough through the jungle.

Today he walked to the heart of the park. Ironically this was the site of the abandoned zoo. As a child his grandparents took him here to watch the penguins swim around in tiny left-hand circles or the polar bears rocking from foot to foot in the ritual repetitive movements so common to anxiety disorders. His grandparents called it "dancing". Here teens could taunt a howler monkey into absolute tantrums or stare down a single clinically depressed Mandrill Baboon through a chain link curtain. The animals that didn't seem too human were still here in the "Amazon" exhibit or the Aquarium. The backlash had been strong enough that a Vancouver compromise had come down. Reptiles, a few birds and all the sea creatures could stay. They had no cute mammalian faces. It was also decided that the whales wouldn't be forced to do tricks on a regular schedule but would appear to do so of their own volition and because of their love for their trainers.

As a child he was most enthralled by the old men and women who sat on the zoo's park benches and had the "wild" animals come to them. There was the "Pigeon Lady" and the "Squirrel Man". Pigeon lady had at least two-dozen birds fluttering and strutting around her at all times. They would land on her shoulders and head and hands. Wherever she held food they would light. At times she almost wore them as clothing. The Squirrel Man would hold out peanuts in the shell and huge gray squirrels would run up, sit up on their haunches, and take them with their tiny paws. He could place peanuts on his knee or on the top of his head and the Squirrels would run up and grab them. The odd animal was comfortable enough to stop on his head and eat the nut right there.

If he stood close to the Pigeon Lady or the Squirrel Man the animals would allow him to do the same. On all his visits the scavenger messiahs would give him tips. Like any true professionals they were happy to share their secrets. They were happy to have the attention of wide-eyed youth. Stay very still. Think gentle thoughts. Always hold an open palm. The birds will land on an outstretched index finger if you wait long enough. Wear thick fabrics because you don't want to react to the tiny pricks of talons or claws. A bird will not peck at your eyes or face. Squirrels don't bite. Be patient. He copied the little "tasking" noise the Squirrel Man made by sucking little wisps of air through his teeth and tongue. The squirrels knew this meant, "Come here my friend I have food".

Sciurus Carolinensis are the medium to large sized tree squirrels (8 to 10 inches long with a bushy, 6 to 8 inch long tail, weighing 500 to 600 grams). Colouration ranges from a dark to pale grey body with white to pale grey underbelly and tail. The Black Squirrels abundant around here are a melanistic phase of the Eastern Grey Squirrel. Between 1876 and 1929 a pair were accidentally released from the London Zoo and the North American variant has run rampant through Europe ever since. Currently they are destroying Scottish forests and meeting little resistance. Black squirrels were imported from Ontario to Vancouver's Stanley Park Peninsula prior to 1914 and have since run amuck into the city, across to the North Shore and into the Fraser Valley. This big black species has driven out all the native chipmunks and smaller red squirrels. They are the pumped up Ninjas and beach bullies of the squirrel world. These black beauties are efficient climbers with tough curved claws, and the ability to reverse their hind foot 180 degrees to permit headfirst descent. Tails are used for balance when running and leaping between trees. He pondered the tails every day.

He had returned to this spot daily for the last eleven years, not really knowing why, and when Harold the original Squirrel Man fell on ill health and just disappeared he had become the Squirrel Man for this new generation. Although he didn't understand them in scientific terms he had plenty of time to quietly observe their behaviour. Science was unimportant. He related to them and understood what they wanted from each other and from him. He was a catalyst for accelerated symbiosis with human kind. He was close enough to them that he could often see his curved reflection in the orbs of their shiny black eyes. He had bested old Harold's trick of having the squirrels take the peanut shell from between his teeth. He had gained the animal's confidence to such a degree that he could close his hands around their torsos and gently stroke the curling plume of their tails. He did this only once or twice and then placed them at his feet so they could either scurry away with a nut or hang around for more. Tourists oohed and ahhed as if watching gentle fireworks. It was impressive. Tourists loved the creatures and marveled at their perceived domestication. The squirrels were emboldened by this love and would just as easily sit up and beg for food at the feet of any passerby. Many of them would impatiently run right up a pant leg if the patrons were too slow in dropping the peanuts or popcorn. These antics were met with gales of laughter.

Another, less visible, resident of the park was the common rat. Rattus Norvegicus. He saw them often but they were trying not to be seen. This place was perfect for them. Garbage cans were constantly full to the brim with old fries, popcorn, fruit and delicious condensed soda pop syrup. Other animals provided carrion, eggs and hatchlings for them to feast on and it was much better to sleep in the natural loam of the earth than in the attics of the West End condos. Leave that to the skunks and raccoons. If a tourist, or even a local, spied a rat their sensibilities were immediately offended. They were incredulous that, here on the edge of a giant sweaty city in a lush green park, rats might be lurking about. Wasn't that just a given? What were these idiots thinking? What was the difference between these creatures and the seagulls, pigeons, crows and squirrels? All of them carried potential diseases. All could be potential pets. He bet that there were more pet rats than there were pet squirrels. He thought of his place in the order of things and realized he was not much different than the scavengers of the park. He was tied to the organism of the city but used his theoretical independence to give more meaning to his life. He understood that this was a conceit. He was no freer than the rat. The park's visitors seemed to take their top of the food chain arrogance to heart. They were running their own shows. The yard could be well groomed and the pesticides and fumigators could make things just the way they should be in a civilized world. They were on holiday in a holiday destination and they were ready to rank this acreage out a scale of one to five stars. They would report back to their clubs and clans and cliques. Fuck them. He began to take umbrage. The anarchist spirit at the root of his malaise began to stir his guts. How could he be of use? How could he punch the Buddha in the face when he saw him on the road?

That night he went into the park at a time even the squirrels were not expecting. He brought plenty of nuts, a Mountain Equipment Co-op battery powered headlamp and a mint blue Phillips "Phillishave" HQ 6863 electric razor with sideburn trimmer. The creatures were happy to see him, as he had made sure not to feed them during the daytime. Any extra inconvenience on their part was easier to overlook in the face of hunger.

The next morning he approached his park bench with a permanent smile and some nervous excitement. He sat slowly and his animal friends began to arrive. As the tourists started to filter in the reaction began to build. At first one blood curdling scream and then a hailstorm of rhythmic shrieks and wails from all directions. It appeared just as he hoped it would appear. A man covered in huge black rats with legions of rat followers waiting at his feet. A few rogue rats begged at the feet of the visitors and all hell broke loose when the first one ran up a pant leg. They had needed the balance of the bushy tail to climb and to leap but they didn't need that balance for the easy pickings handed out by the Squirrel Man. Dr. Dolittle indeed.

Dark Lotus Land

It was easier for the man to see the city on foot. He got his exercise and threaded his way through the hustle and flow of the city. There is no better way to connect. Halifax harbour was vivid and almost regal in today’s presentation. Tourists could expect no more. The postcard pictures matched the sky and the temperature was perfect. It was unseasonably sunny bright and flags on mizzenmasts flew perfectly as an optimum wind velocity rifled the fabric. The man sought high ground on Citadel Hill as instinct dictated. The sunken fortress’s surrounding green lawns fell away from the crest of the hill past the white wooden clock tower and into the streets below. Young Sunday floppers dotted the hill in groups of two or three. He decided on a course. He would run west to the MacDonald Bridge and cross the harbour to the Dartmouth side. He wasn’t sure if he liked heights or he was afraid of them. What better way to find out than to cross the thing on foot? He’d done it before and, whatever the phobias, it was a small thrill. Past the Halifax Armory and thoughts of the heaviness of foreign conflict and into the quiet of one of the city’s transitional neighbourhoods he was almost there. A few more blocks and cranking a hard right he was soon on the foot of the bridge. Steady traffic helped maintain the sense of disorientation that hits you when you step out onto a large metal suspension bridge that heads to a 49-metre peak above the white-capped sea. Locals call it “the Old Bridge” and that inspired the man to feel more of a connection to reality. This is what makes an old wooden roller coaster more fun. There is an illusion that safety may somehow be compromised. The numbers must indicate that somehow. Phillip Pratley designed the bridge in 1955 and that is why it resembles Vancouver’s Lion’s Gate Bridge. Same guy. Same ideas. He began immediately to rise up over the gray battle ready minesweepers at the HMC Dockyard and was soon at the summit of the bridge’s arc. He watched his feet as they treaded the pebbly grip surface of the walkway. It was the same colour as the warships below. The water was visible through a gap to his left that separated the roadway from the walkway. This magnified the distance to the surface of the water. He thought what all people think at that point. Could I live if I fell? Is 150 feet too high? Do you try to point your toes and enter like a knife? No. Femurs driven up into the lungs. Definitely. Do you curl up into a cannonball? No. Knees into face...out cold. As he calculated his chances of survival on his way down the longer descent of the south side he passed a pedestrian coming the other way. Probably in his early twenties and wearing a camouflage hoodie, ipod buds and aviator sunglasses the man smiled in no particular direction and trucked slowly up the walkway.

The man continued on to where the bridge touched down and turned back to retrace his steps. At the crest of the bridge he came up behind the pedestrian. He noticed the bottle of Molson export dangling from between the fingers of his right hand and as he drew up beside he could hear him singing into the strong wind. The ear buds were blasting and the pedestrian would have had no idea anyone was nearby so ... he felt free to sing full blast. On a gorgeous day with his lungs full of fresh air and sauntering through the sky over the sparkling ocean the pedestrian bellowed these words. “Shoot me! C'mon. Blow a hole in my lung. I'll lick out the hole when I swallow my tongue”. Violent J and Dark Lotus. We all run alone for different reasons. Maybe the energy is more important than the message.

The man continued to run past and kept his expectations in check. As he left the pedestrian far behind his daydreams continued to run wild now fueled by the deeds of the Insane Clown Posse.

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/darklotus/swarm.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Lotus