Dear all,
I'll be playing in the annual "Juno Cup" hockey game benefitting MusiCan (music education for kids) on Friday April 1st in Selkirk Manitoba.
http://www.insidehockey.com/juno/
The next night I will be saying a few words to induct the Tragically Hip into the "Juno Awards Hall of Fame" at a gala in Winnipeg.
Its a big honour as you can imagine and I will try to fuck up in all the right ways.
CN
Today I have been very very sad. Paul Hester (drummer for Split Enz, Crowded House) died. The last time I was that guy who handed you an album and said, "here... take this you are going to love it" was when Crowded House's 1st album came out. I bought about a dozen copies and gave them away. I had left my last band and had decided to never be in a band again. "Crowded House" came to town. I saw them. The next day I got on the ferry to Victoria BC and saw them again. In the encore Neil Finn started playing "Message to My Girl" (Split Enz) on Eddie Raynor's piano and then the notes fell off and he fell to the floor laughing as a stark naked figure appeared centre stage. It was Paul Hester. He waved slowly to the crowd in a blaze of spotlights and walked slowly off stage right. It was pandemonium. The band attracted a lot of girls. As the song wheezed back to life he scrambled back to the drum kit from stage left buttoning his shirt and doing up his belt. When the song finished he grabbed the mic and said, "easiest fifty bucks I ever made".
It must have been the same week I had gone over to Doug Elliott's basement with my friend Paul Brennan to "jam" with a new band they were forming with Steven Drake. In that jam we actually wrote a couple of good songs and I left feeling pretty excited about the experience. Even though I had sworn I would never be in a band the experience of seeing Crowded House had made me feel that being in a band was part of who I was and that it was possible that it could be a great thing...an organism greater than the sum of its parts. The other "Odds" were fun, witty, and a little darkly strange. The chemistry seemed right. The next day they asked me to join and, after futile hesitation, I said, "yes". I honestly wouldn't have done it without Paul Hester and Crowded House. I'm not comparing the two entities. I'm saying that I have a very soft spot for those people even though I have only been the briefest of a real life acquaintance.
Paul Hester was a very bright light. I am stunned and so sorry that he is gone so soon. My thoughts go to his family.
Getting the message from a misguided woodpecker. Loud and clear. After a month of spending creative energy elsewhere I decided to write about the woodpecker. The woodpecker has returned this spring. This time I am not confused. Last year I was scrambling in the dark corners of my house trying to find the noise. It was coming from the hot water tank. A joy buzzer intermittent burst. Were there relays inside a hot water tank that could make that sound? After a week of procrastination I resolved to call a hot water tank guy the next day. That’s what procrastinators do. They resolve to do things tomorrow. That afternoon I went out to the studio to work and emerged at dusk to walk back across the yard to the house. Another cup of coffee called. Empty mug and mind bent around some half-formed idea like an oyster’s foot and mantle. Mild irritant becomes pearl. I heard the hot water tank noise in 3D. It had been released from inside and had escaped to the roof. There was a dark blur of motion up on top of the shiny aluminum Guggenheim pod that caps one of the roof venting stacks. I counted off that same number of seconds between joy buzzer rattles. I did this and then realized I had measured this interval without conscious effort. It must be the same instinct that turns the rhythm of the car’s turn signal ticking into songs. After the interval the bird on top of the vent stack hammered its head into the aluminum cap again. Why did the woodpecker want to drill into this warm metal disc? No bugs. No food. No shelter. I didn’t have to call the hot water tank guy. I watched for a while and then went down to the hot water tank, listened and laughed.
A few days ago I was hanging up my hockey gear down by the secret closet that hides the water tank. That sound. I ran up and out and looked to the roof. There she was. It was then I realized that procrastination in my household duties was helping with evolution in the natural world. If I had disturbed my friend by having someone climb in around all my ducts and pipes she may never have kept at it. Maybe she’s aiming to be the first woodpecker to drill through metal. Raising the bar. When all our trees are wrapped in metal to protect them from the orange chemical winds there will be a hardy breed of woodpecker that will survive. Not if I had meddled. That squeak in the dryer may be flying squirrels practicing anti-gravity maneuvers. The howl in your dashboard may be a spotted owl practicing mobile nesting for a world beyond the thunderdome. I got the message on year two with the woodpecker. I will not interfere.
Sidebar. Why can nobody replicate what Chuck Berry did? I mean …people come close in spirit and execution. Insert great rockers names here. I was listening to a bunch of Chuck tonight and freaking out. Those grooves are so fucking exciting and improbable. “Sweet Little Rock n’ Roller”, “Little Queenie”. Jesus H. Christ. It just kills me. Johnny Johnson inspired so many imitators but none of them have the full bag of tricks. It’s how those guys listened. It’s how they felt things. It must be impossible to get to exactly where they were in space and time. Everyone tried and ended up inventing new things instead. Its so far away in time now but the quest to get to the heart of that music is as valid a quest as it has ever been. It’s a joyful and dangerous physical sensation that is essential to survival. We need it. There are idiots who will tell you that this music is simple to learn and easy to dissect. There are children’s entertainers who put on Ray Ban Wayfarers and a leather jacket and sing their “rock song”. They put their hat on backwards and “rap”. This music is as complex as the DNA that makes up every person that performs it properly. Its inside you and comes out and cannot be described or articulated in any other form or in any other manner. This anti-science provides a reason to live. It proves the existence of magic.
I feel like Zelig. My antidote to the lockout is to play with the guys who aren't allowed to play with other good hockey players. It makes them feel better about their skills. this picture explains everything