There are terrible truths to tell. I went away from the internet. I spent several weeks working hard on things I could touch, taste and smell. I have strayed but only by accident not intention. I discovered how to do it all on the web. Two weeks ago I browsed aimlessly through my day, slouching silently at my terminal, doing God’s bidding and clicking frequently on the “vote only once” button. One link led to another led to a dead end and then a pop up. Barely as interesting as daytime TV but legislated by the law of modern living. Don’t fall behind. All the while fingers of opportunism reached quietly into my personal details, mp3s and account profiles to ensure me adequate offers of penis enlargement, Japanese girls and low mortgage rates in the inbox of my future. Having reached the end of a three hour surf on the reef of an Idaho bed and breakfast scandal I received an indelible pop-up at www.interventionparty.com. No way to close the window. I would have taken it for the merciful screen freeze that signals futility and bedtime if it were not for the pulsing fuchsia words in 36 point Arial “Beyond this machine is a mind boggling and rich dimension”. I hit the three fingered Mac salute and waited for the steamboat and wind chime wake up and the then the little happy Mac resting on its bed of gray pixels. Clean the slate. This did not happen. No hard restart either. Nothing. Still “beyond this machine is a mind boggling and rich dimension”. Last resort. I went right to the wall socket. When I unplugged the computer the house went dark. All the 60 cycle hum you never notice but is always there...was not there. Out the window and into the street and down highways and across bridges there was no light or power. Synchronicity with some lightning bolt to a substation or some driver asleep at the wheel taking out a power pole? I felt my way upstairs. While doing so I realized I loved feeling my way in the dark. Wood grain in the railing. Rope twined fibres of dirty polyester in the carpet. Oh. I had a hole in my sock. The odd painful surprise. Things in the fridge would soon thaw and spoil. I ate strawberry shortcake ice cream in the dark. An oral supernova to my heightened senses. The venetian blinds cut the moonlight into stripes. The stripes hugged the contours of the kitchen and turned it into a domestic relief map. Everyone slept. I heard the highway from inside the house for the first time. I could picture the model of each car by its particular pink noise whoosh. I had been locked away so I tried to guess what the family had eaten for each meal by what the room smelled like now at days end. It took some time but it was worth it. I took off my clothes and felt my way to the bathroom. Carefully I touched the tops of the jars and tubes and bottles in the cupboard 'til I found the talcum powder. The one with the rotating holes on top. I made my way down and out the door quieter than I had before. I emptied the whole canister of powder over the surface of my skin and through my hair. I started with my chest for sheer surface area and spread it evenly over every nook and cranny. I walked through the ivied arbour and down the centre of the silent street. Glowing and lunar. As long as I walked it remained nighttime. I returned two weeks later and woke the kids for school on the same day. They have never asked me where my clothes are or why I am all white. They want to know if there are any Cheerios left. Tonight I will stop the power again and tonight I will walk farther.
posted by Craig Northey at 9:29 PM

My dog came to the family on Christmas day. He died 14 years later on good Friday. My cat Nigel was born on Christmas eve. He seems immortal. Nothing can kill him. Pet messiahs. This reminds me of the story of the easter bunny. This was a long time ago -- before the baby Jesus and all the media that sprung up around him. While the killer rabbit guarded the cave of Cyre Bannoch his brother the good and powerful rabbit started to spread the word of Dog. Dog was the almighty power that made the rabbits in his image. Actually he tried to make them in his image but they ended up looking like rabbits because he had no opposable thumbs to properly hold the magic wand. Dog was, in fact, more dog like.
Since rabbits don’t make a sound (unless they are being killed) the good and glowing rabbit had to find new ways to spread the word of his higher calling. He knew he had been born with gifts. He believed himself to be the son of Dog (he accused his brother of being adopted which didn’t go over too well). His brother bit him so the good bunny left home after saying a quick goodbye to his surrogate father Tim the Enchanter.
He gathered the great unwashed bunnies in their warrens and started by turning water into wine. Rabbits need water more than they need wine and many bunnies wandered recklessly into the mouths of lucky predators while others complained that the water had been wasted. One wise bunny asked the good bunny if he could turn all the puked up carrots into something useful. He suggested they patch the cracks in their shitty little hovel with it and they kicked the good bunny’s ass out the back entrance. He moved on resolutely to the next warren.
The next warren was nearer the river so the good bunny demonstrated his ability to walk across the water. Unfortunately others followed and fishermen downstream were puzzled but happy at their windfall. Once again the bunny was in hot water. His miracles came with too much collateral damage. Soon the bunny world had had enough and he had to move into the chicken coop down at the Yester’s farm. Old farmer Yester was as blind as a referee and didn’t really notice. The good bunny had no idea farmer Yester was blind and decided to impress him with his next miracle. Passing a coloured egg each day. This made the bunny sore but he figured when news of the magic egg laying bunny who lived with chickens made its way through the community his position as a saviour would be secure. Yester never noticed. I remind you he was blind. When the pastel coloured eggs went to spring market the patrons soon took notice. Children were delighted by Yester’s novel idea and soon demand grew. The poor bunny’s miracle uterus could barely keep up and just as the business was about to boom Yester’s bum ticker gave way as he tried too hard to crack a lawn bowling ball he had mistaken for an egg.
When the priest came out to put pennies on Yester’s eyes ( and collect lots of money from his widow ) he happened to wander past the chicken coop and noticed the poor bunny squeezing out an oversized mauve egg. He quietly plucked him up by his ears and took him home. The bunny figured he could quit with the egg business and try a new miracle on the priest now that he was free of the farm. In his estimation the egg business had killed the farmer and he needed a new strategy. He decided to speak in plain English to the priest on one quiet night. How was he to know that any priest would surmise a talking animal to be one of the devil’s minions? His head was in a basket before you could say “your God must have heard of the SPCA”. The priest stuffed him in the fridge and would have eaten him the next day if he didn’t rise up to animal heaven that night. So began the story of the Yester bunny whose ghost lays eggs in your house at easter time to prove that he and Santa are still the only ones who really work miracles. They can’t stop killing or war but they can make children happy for two days a year. He is also making up for all the "presents" left around the house by the poorly trained dogs that seem to be confused on how to go about their missionary work.
posted by Craig Northey at 9:04 PM

Emperor Caligula would have been proud of the college students. I went out to see my friends Treble Charger and 54•40 at UBC’s Arts County Fair last night. The photo on the cover of my CD “Giddy Up” was taken at that gig in 1998 or ‘99. You can’t really smell the beer, sweat, warm blood, mud, perfume and dope in that photo. Lots of stretchers being wheeled through a careening crowd of hormonally charged beer commercial extras. I watched a manboy with a cold cold heart break the nose of soppy and clumsy (yet seemingly goodnatured) drunken fellow student. You know those guys who smile as they punch people? A logical look of rage, panic or fear never really crosses their face? This guy literally flattened the poor sap’s nose in a heaving crowd and moved on casually as if nothing happened. I believe this may have been the penalty for spilled beer. I watched him grin in that flat and tight way towards his equally cruel friends. He raised a tiny toast to himself as he probably had in the past when he spent his first victim’s lunch money on root beer. I’ve watched bar fights and street battles of ugly proportions and this one punch and ten second headlock was up there with the worst for sheer cold brutality. The mud splattered couple right beside the action plunged their tongues back into each other’s mouths and the band played on. A merlot fountain had sprung from the face of the victim. His hands came up to wipe away the blood and only served to spread it universally all down his front and make his eyes clamp shut under the wave of pain. A fall of Rome party. Celebrate through violence and lust. Everyone should fear those who cannot be swayed by compassion or reason. What creates a body that can function efficiently at such low temperatures? Ice in the veins. If cruelty gets no results then at least the party is just about lust and bacchanalia. Doesn’t that seem a little better?
posted by Craig Northey at 3:03 PM

Brian Fukushima has immortalized a few minutes of one of the Green Room shows in his new Bent Comic. Have a look at it here Recovering from the Canucks first loss by sitting in my hyperbaric chamber.


posted by Craig Northey at 10:37 PM

Joyful and triumphant. Celebrating 4 or 5 explodingly blowing up times at the Green Room. Many notes to go in many perfect places. Tonight should have been taped. I always forget that part. Someone should take that job from me. Will anybody please volunteer to archive these things? It would be better if the fidelity sucked just enough to cover up the mistakes we made on purpose but hi-fi will do in a pinch. Paul Hyde was too good tonight. When you get to play with him you really feel why you were such a fan for so long. Chin Injeti came not knowing a note of what we were going to do and still tore the house down. Keith Scott made it look easy as he just about melted the damn neck off. All feel all the time. Thanks to everyone who came out during this run (the Mya & Tim Award goes to...) and thanks especially to Byron Lonneberg, Geoff Hicks, Doug Elliott, Simon Kendall, Sean Comer, and Paul Myers for their musical contributions. A special trophy must go to Gary Durban for his dedication to the cause. A gleaming statuette should lay in the hands of Treble Charger, Andrew White & Colin Nairne for the loaning of gear. The Green Room staff and House of Blues were great hosts and I think we’ll see more of this in the future.
posted by Craig Northey at 2:36 AM

I just read that last post. Usually I just type on this thing like its a loom and soon there is enough cloth and I throw on the shawl. I don’t usually proof read. When I read it tonight I realized it looked negative when it was meant to be positive. I guess I should read then to see whether they best captured what I meant. Not knowing what I mean is a big part of the process so I’m a little torn. What I meant by this last post was that I always feel like every musical day is a new one and I was marveling at how this could be possible taking into account that I am supposed to be a “veteran”. Am I not supposed to be embittered and crotchety by now? That was where I was going. Maybe I never got there. I also think its OK to suck sometimes. My impression on what sucks about a particular Craig show is much different than what a Craig enthusiast might think. People reach a state of competence in their professions and hobbies and there is sometimes a blurry no man’s land between that competence and the transcendence in the distance. My music is a selfish pursuit designed for my pleasure and that of my henchpeople. I have to have loved the experience for me to think my own show was any good. I’m glad when other people have enjoyed the music, and I take great satisfaction in that, but if I know it could have gone better I start to look to the next opportunity before I’ve even toweled off. That’s all. Without a bit of nervous energy and doubt I think things would get boring. Off we go.
posted by Craig Northey at 11:14 PM

I’m giving myself five minutes. I said I would stop sitting down to this thing after gigs because it wrecks me badly for the next day. I think each of these Green Room shows have been pretty cathartic. Firstly its amazing to see how many faces come out of the different Vancouvers I’ve known over the years. Its like some sort of post booze haze reunion. I’m glad to see I’ve not been held accountable for all my past actions. Secondly I keep having the same revelation. Each time I get through a gig I feel like I’ve just played my first one. I say to myself every time, “hey, That was pretty good. Maybe I DO know what I’m doing” -- liar, sometimes I just think I sucked. It would take me a long time to even figure out how many shows I’ve played in my life. Lets put it this way...its in the thousands. I worry each time that I don't know what I'm doing. I think this phenomenon speaks loads about what is yet to come. My head is just grazing the yardstick as I try to stretch to where I want to be. When I dredge up old songs I still want to make them new and better. I don’t want to change them I just want to inject them with a huge dose of who I am right now. I wonder if the “who I am right now” quotient will fit the songs sometimes. Funny. . . it usually does. I’ve gone into all these shows without completely knowing how to play a good portion of the material. If its old Odds stuff I basically have to slip into muscle memory and hope for the best because I can’t consciously summon up vast tracts of that stuff. Its been shunted out to make way for new crops. I’ll dive in and just make it through and then the next show I’ll try that one again and be able to put more muscle into it because I reanimated it the week before. It’s brand new again and I’m learning how to make it work. Old is new. New is still new. I am a rookie each night. Its been so long since I had a jaded period I better start worrying. The big nasty sarcastic bastard in me will surface soon. Then I will just always know it sucked. That took longer than five minutes. Tomorrow is destroyed.


posted by Craig Northey at 3:14 AM