Filed under: Friends, Music | Tags: bort licence plates, mockingbird wish me luck
This weekend made me realize that I’ve got the best best friend. He’ll enjoy that video, you might get it, probably not. I went out to Derrick’s on Friday night and he made a shitty night into a great one. I picked him up down the street from his house and he had bought me a 2litre bottle of Dr Pepper (some of which I spilled on his floor later in a drunken rage.) I like that we can hold conversation for hours and the time just sort of melts by, you rule dude.
I saw Michael Gira play on Saturday night, what an incredible man. He’s definitely not the greatest musician but he’s got a haunting voice and heavy lyrics, I only wish he’d have played something off of the Burning World. He talked of a new Swans/Angels of Light album being recorded soon and the songs he played that he said were going to be on there were great. There’s one that’s stuck in my head that I can’t wait to actually hear a recorded version of. I went to the show with Mike, another person I’m proud to call one of my best friends and I’m really glad he came along with me and then came to Urban Blight with me when I moshed my thumb into oblivion.
I finally picked up the typewriter again yesterday after a long disconnect from it. I’m nearly caught up with the recipes, I need to type 4 more I think then I’m still waiting on one or two more then I’ll be ready to put that shit together. It’s been sort of a long time coming and I’ll be excited/glad when it’s finally done. If you’re reading this and haven’t sent me something but have something worth sending, let me know. Right now I’m looking for a couple more breakfast things and a couple of barbecue things (not necessarily things you’d grill, but things you’d have at a barbecue).
On the subject of food (my favourite behind Black Sabbath, John Darnielle and slurpees) there’s a vegan potluck on Wednesday at the Sweat Lodge. It’s going to be the last get together before the house gets sucked into hell so come out, bring food, eat and have fun. Afterwards there’s a show going on at the Grist Mill in Waterloo, bike your full asses down there, it’s not that far. Don’t sleep on Bridge and Tunnel, I did for far too long (literally and figuratively, I chose the Office and sleeping instead of seeing them the first night I was in Gainesville last year) and completely regret it.
Also a similar show is happening the night before in St. Catherines, there isn’t a flyer anywhere but it’s Bridge and Tunnel, Orphan Choir, Wayfarer and Mockingbird Wish Me Luck (seriously, better than your favourite band (unless your favourite band is Black Sabbath)). I’m looking forward to that show a lot because it’s been too long since I’ve seen MWML.
That’s all, Internet. I bought Slowly We Rot on break tonight, probably paid too much but I don’t care. I should probably be preparing stuff for the potluck but I’m too tired. Disregard females, acquire records.
I’ve been in a rut all week, finally decided to dig myself out. No use brooding over shit that’s not worth my time, might as well keep positive and do positive things. I’ve got a few crucial replies in regards to the vegan zine, it’s coming together but typing up shit on a typewriter sucks so it’s coming together slowly. I’m hoping June-July, sooner than later. Also, Thanks To You 03 in 2009? Maybe, I love and am extremely proud of my friends and heard something last night that blew me away.
It was Andrew’s birthday yesterday so I decided to put to use one of the recipes that’s going to be in my zine. It turned out pretty great. Vegan vanilla cake with vanilla frosting and chocolate chips.
Dong.
Cutting dong.
Eating dong.
Filed under: Friends, Materialism, Music, Obligatory Simpsons Screencap | Tags: amps are cool man, bad mustache, records are cool man, the decay - this month's rent
It’s been a while since I’ve written anything of any sort of substance here. Today will be no different but there’ll actually be a little bit to read when you get back from your day in paradise.
First off, being an expert in the art of frivolous spending, I’m going to start posting about everything that comes in the mail that is of any interest. Unfortunately, my eBay and PayPal are still tied to my father’s house so it won’t necessarily be in real time but you can see the cool shit I’m blowing money on soon after I do which is usually a few days after my dad asks himself “what the fuck does he keep buying from Japan” and other concerned questions.
Onto Japan and this dude I keep winning records from, unfortunately this guy is some sort of “business man” so he won’t cut me any “deals” on multiple records even though I’m a continuing customer. Today I received an OG copy of Anthem For A New Tomorrow by Screeching Weasel and my favourite Old Man Gloom album, Christmas.
On the subject of records, last night Kyle came over and we tackled most of my record collection and gave my How’s Your Edge a serious update. Still missing about 1/3 of my 12″s but that’s for another day and another round of slurpees I guess. For the record, my edge is strong and so is Kyle’s, whether he’d like to admit it or not.
Another couple little items that have fallen into my lap are these two little noisemakers:
That’s a Riviera 725 25watt tube amp and a gutted Trace Elliot boxer combo that now acts as a single 12″ speaker cabinet. Neither of which are mine right now, well the cab might be, my dad was just like “hey do you want that single 12″ cabinet, it’s sitting in the back of my trunk. The Riviera is something I’m just testing out to see if I like it. Wayfarer isn’t quite as loud as some of my other bands so using a high wattage amp is pretty much useless because those sort of things sound no good with the volume at 1. Anyways, I’ll be trying the head out for the first time this weekend with Wayfarer in London. I’ll report back to myself and you, Derrick, the listener with my thoughts and feelings. It’ll probably be good and that means we’ll have to get together and get sad (dad).
The show looks like this:
Pretty cool if you ask me. That about wraps it up for today. Happy 11 weeks to me and my baby (see picture below.) I got a chest infection last week and as a result I sound like I’m going through puberty again, maybe that’ll help it grow. I’m pathetic and need better hobbies than growing mustaches put to shame by 13 year olds
If you want Johnny Cakes, you’re going to have to grow a better mustache than that.
Also my trendy hip douchebag friends in the Decay started a blog so check it out if you want to read what the best punk band in Ontario is thinking about. They put up three new songs on their myspace that put to shame your favourite local bands, fight me.
Filed under: Food, Friends, Materialism, Music, Obligatory Simpsons Screencap | Tags: All of my humor is based around the Simpsons, Kecuba, Sneaky Dee's Vegan Nachos
I’m keeping busy, everything is good in my life right now. Lesson here, stay busy, stay happy.
I’m almost finished my third book in the first month of this year which is more than I’ve read in the past few. Kayla visited for a while and left me with a couple books to borrow and Derrick, being the best dude ever, bought me the Master of Reality book I’ve mentioned a few times since I found out about it, so hopefully this whole reading thing continues. It’s nice being paid to read at work.
Got a whole bunch of cool stuff this week, when Kayla came she brought a whole bunch of clothes with her, she rules, a lot. After the show on Wednesday we got vegan nachos from Sneaky Dee’s, another one of the great things in life.
Also picked up some new records:
Replaced the Swarm 7″ I owned for about 2 hours two Fridays ago that someone decided should be theirs.
Being in two bands again, good feeling. I’ve got something going on for the next four weeks musically, it’s nice to be playing music so consistantly. This weekend Wayfarer is recording with Jay O’Young (edge), next weekend we’re playing in Kitchener, February 8th Eating Glass is playing at Adrift and then February 13th Wayfarer is in London. Come out to that Eating Glass show, Metz and Our Father are both releasing new 7″s that night. Try to get as drunk as the rest of my band or try to be as straight edge as me. Unfortunately our weekend play date with Surroundings in America has been delayed until April, hopefully that comes relatively quickly. Also hoping the snow goes away soon too, I just want to ride my bike.
Filed under: Food, Friends, Music, Obligatory Simpsons Screencap | Tags: mockingbird wish me luck, white boys make mexican food
Last night I went and hung out in Guelph with some of my best friends who are in the band Mockingbird Wish Me Luck because they were playing a show at Van Gogh’s Ear. I found out my camera doesn’t work well for shows, but oh well. The Music Box played as well, they’re an incredible band from Kitchener you should check out. Anyways, here are some pictures from my evening.
We showed up way too early so we decided to get some supper. I had heard a lot of hype around the Salsateria, Guelph’s only fast burrito place ever since Gringo’s closed down (RIP.) The place is bullshit, I paid $7 for a burrito that was good but not $7 good, and it was as big as something you’d get at taco bell.
Of course the only decent picture I take is of Amos when he’s setting up.
The guy running the show said he wanted everyone to label all of their stuff so there were no issues with whose gear was whose, so Amos wrote MINE on green pieces of tape, stuck them on his amp, cab and guitar.
I didn’t get any pictures of the Music Box and if I did they wouldn’t have been that great anyways. Kyle and I left shortly after the Music Box finished and shortly before a band with Chris Colohan’s doppleganger took the stage because I had to work at midnight. To make up for the bullshit that was the Salsateria we stopped at Taco Bell/KFC and I knocked a couple days off my life with a few tacos and cinnamon twists. Turns out tacos are now 99 cents at Taco Bell, I’m going to try and avoid this temptation as much as possible.
In other news, I’m in the process of starting to put together a vegan zine with recipes and other stuff. I’ve asked a bunch of people for help with recipes, so if I’ve asked you and you’re by some chance reading this, get back to me! Since this entry seems to be basically entirely about food, mexican food, here are some pictures from my Saturday night feast with Andrew and Mike (not pictured).
End incoherent rambling, I need sleep. I’ve been going to the gym with Andrew a couple times a week so I’ll close this entry with the usual…
Filed under: Food, Friends, Obligatory Simpsons Screencap | Tags: Ben Thanh Kitchener, Ben Thanh Waterloo
Year of the Vag Roll. McLean and I are going to eat 365 veggie spring rolls in 365 days this year.
Status report as of January 18th, 12 of 365, we’ve got a long way to go.
Filed under: Friends, Obligatory Simpsons Screencap | Tags: Christian Children's Fund is a bullshit organization, gluttony, hot dog eating contest
I used to live with Ben Brake, for about a year his diet consisted of hot dogs and sometimes chicken burgers or rice if he was feeling fancy. I hadn’t seen Ben in quite a while so I decided to set up a contest between him and myself, a hot dog eating contest. There were no real formal rules, we just ate as many hot dogs as we could. We both wanted to die afterwards, it was awesome. Not sure who was at an advantage, Ben was eating pig anus dogs but each one weighed about 8 grams less than my tofu dogs.
In the end we both finished our 12 hot dogs, so we moved onto Dr Pepper, first one to puke, shit or piss lost. Ben almost puked a couple times and then finally gave in and took a shit. So I won, sort of. I want to have a rematch with more hot dogs to make it fair.
This is what a winner/Biafran looks like.
This is what a loser looks like.
Finally, obligatory Simpsons screencap relevant to this post.
Currently reading the Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, the story has got me pulled in so far, not too much has gone on but it’s basically similar to 1984 from a female’s perspective. The main character used the word “dumpy” to describe a maid or “Martha” as they’re referred to. So good. The little things. Work is slow so I have the opportunity to read a lot, I’m alright with that. Listening to Mono, post rock is coupling with this book much better than the hissing of dozens of computers.
Thinking about someone who came in and out of my life so fast, who still plays a small part in it, sometimes mentioned in conversation, often on my mind. I think about that week or so where I was absolutely on cloud nine because of this person, a smile hit my face so hard every time I thought about them. Some things happened that changed my thoughts completely, but I’m thinking of those moments where I would they would be on my mind and I’d get that awesome feeling in my stomach and I still can’t help but smile. I wish this person would take care of them self better.
On a completely unrelated note, 1983-1984 were pretty cool. Andrew and I were talking and it’s pretty cool that these two bands got started around the same time, maybe it’s not cool, but these videos are.
The Smiths – You’ve Got Everything Now
Siege – Drop Dead
So this weekend I went to Chicago with Kyle, Cory, Jeff and Ben. We left at 9pm, with a long drive ahead of us. We made pretty good time to Sarnia, ended up getting our car searched because I had two non-alcoholic beers in the trunk that had been there for a couple months. Half an hour later we were cruising down Highway 69 with Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run guiding us.
At around 3:30am we found an IHOP in western Michigan. We destroyed some awesome food and kept going. One wrong turn and we were way off course for a bit. Note, Kyle Krische isn’t a very good navigator. We didn’t have time to stop in Gary, IN which was unfortunate, but we ended up making it to Chicago at 5am Central time, so it took around 9 hours in total. We scoped out the venue when we got there, pulled into an alleyway/parking lot behind the venue and attempted to sleep.
I think Cory was the only one who got a decent sleep, first, as pictured above, he tried to sleep on the hood of my car. Since we’d been driving for the last 9 hours, it wasn’t a very ideal place to be. He ended up passing out in the trunk for probably around an hour. I couldn’t fall asleep because I was half-worried we’d get raped in this alley sleeping with the windows down. I had a couple minute long naps and then attempted to find a legitimate place to stay. $30/person for a hostel was out of the question since we’d only be sleeping for a couple hours so I just stayed up.
Kyle and Ben ended up going for an hour long walk around the area, and Cory followed suit about forty minutes later. He took a little too long and we were starting to get impatient, but eventually he came back and we headed to Starbucks so I could charge my laptop and hopefully figure out some plans for the day.
I had an Arizona Arnold Palmer’s half and half for breakfast, it was pretty great.
We hung out for a while and sort of planned the day out. We were going to go to the Chicago Music Exchange (a really huge guitar store), some comic book shop, the zoo in Lincoln Park, Millenium Park and then get deep dish before going to the show. We got in the car and headed towards the Music Exchange. Some construction detour made us miss the highway end up a little bit into the wrong side of the tracks. I was getting frustrated with people in the car who were pointing and being obnoxious because that’s not the sort of thing you do in that neighbourhood. Eventually we got to the highway. Hit a little bit of traffic but nothing obnoxious. Made our way to the music exchange. Shout outs to Jawbreaker/Morton Salt company, this picture was taken the last time I was in Chicago.
The Chicago Music Exchange was awesome, my uncle, who unfortunately wasn’t in town on Saturday, told me about it the last time I was in town. Jason and I drove to it but it was late so the store was closed, but looking in the window was awesome enough. Finally getting to go inside ruled. Walls and walls of guitars, there were about 12 Rickenbacker 4001-4003s there, several Marshall Plexis and a bunch of other rad stuff. I took this picture of Kyle for Erik since it’s one of his dream guitars. The store was sort of a let down in the amp department, would have been better if they had a lot of old amps, but other than the Marshalls and a few Oranges, everything else was fairly new, except for a really nice ‘87 SVT. A few cool pedals, all the Moogerfoogers, ’70s Fulltone pedal that I almost bought, and a couple others.
After the Music Exchange we went to a comic book store for Ben “I’ve been balls deep in graphic novels ever since the Dark Knight came out” Brake. It was a pretty cool shop, I don’t really care too much for comics so I just looked at the art books. I picked up a book called Bible Road: Signs of Faith in America. Basically it’s just a book with a ton of pictures of people who think Jesus rules and stuff. Some of the pictures are pretty rad, others are just hilarious.
After that we headed to the zoo in Lincoln Park. We pulled into the parking lot, only to find out that if you stayed over 30 minutes it cost you $14 to park, pass. We ended up parking a few blocks up and just walking to the park. As we got to the park some sketchy ass dude who looked drunk/high out of his mind was being escorted into a police truck so we sat down and watched that go down for a couple minutes. The zoo was pretty cool, especially for being 100% free. There were tigers, kangaroos, seals, and a bunch of monkeys plus a bunch of animals native to North America (who cares.) After the zoo we found ourselves looking for a place to get pizza. We sort of forgot about Millenium Park but our hunger outweighed the desire to see that park. Cory went off trying to find an Internet cafe so the rest of us looked for a place to get pizza. We ended up in some fancy place reccomended to us by someone at Starbucks. We sat down, drank some water, realized we didn’t want to be there and bailed.
We walked up Clark St. trying to find Cory to let him know we weren’t having pizza anymore. We found him, but he went off again so we just went to a few stores. I tried to buy a new pair of shoes but the power went out in the store right as the person in front of me was paying. It seemed like it was going to be a big long ordeal so I just put the shoes back. Eventually we found Cory again and headed back to the car. We sat in the car and couldn’t get any WiFi to find a nearby pizza place so I just looked at a map and figured out where Nancy’s was, the place I went to last time I was in Chicago, and headed there. The pizza was pretty excellent and they had some of the best rootbeer I’ve ever had (I’m pretty sure it was birch beer, tasted more like it.) I got some deep fried ravioli too that was excellent.
After the pizza destroyed us (the last time we’d eaten anything was 12 hours before, and none of us ate more than 4 pieces of pizza), we walked up the street to a place called Reckless Records. We went there last time I was in town and I was only able to check it out for like five minutes. I actually just got my record back from that trip last weekend (I left it in Jason’s car after we left Chicago and didn’t see him until last Sunday). Anyways, as soon as we got in we saw Alex from Lemuria, pretty random, but it was nice to talk to him for a couple minutes. It was a really cool shop, ended up picking up the following, spending almost all the American money I had:
Countdown to Oblivion – Brain Surgery for Beginners
Reign Supreme – American Violence
Hatred Surge/The Endless Blockade split 12″
Low – The Great Destroyer
Darvocets – …are New Wave
Sun Kil Moon – April
Finally it was time to head to the show. This day had been insanely long since there was no sleep. It honestly felt like it should be around 10pm but it was only 6. We got to the venue with a bunch of people outside so we assumed the show hadn’t started yet. Turns out all those people were outside to smoke, and that two bands has already played. I looked at the tickets and the show had started at 5pm. Not a big loss, but I would have liked to see the Chinese Telephones. The Jetty Boys were pretty rad, they played a little too long for my liking because I was more concerned with seeing Ben Weasel. Eventually Ben’s band, which included Dan Vapid, took the stage and they started right into Making You Cry. Ben came out and I finally got really excited. They ripped through the entire My Brain Hurts album with only a few short breaks. I was half-worried that for some reason they’d only play My Brain Hurts and then call it a show but luckily they played a bunch of other stuff. This might be the closest thing I’ll see to a Screeching Weasel reunion with Ben and Vapid together and it was definitely one of the best sets I’ve ever seen.
As far as Screeching Weasel songs, the setlist looked sort of like this:
My Brain Hurts in it’s entirety
Dingbat
I’m Gonna Strangle You
This Ain’t Hawaii/Sunshine
Cool Kids
It’s All In My Head
Falling Apart
Peter Brady
Goodbye To You
Plus they played four Riverdales songs and two songs from Ben’s solo albums. Altogether it was a little under an hour and a half, and I didn’t get bored at all. Kyle did and I went off on him and told him he was an idiot, dead to me, etc. but I didn’t really mean it, I was just too amped on the show. After the show I found out Cory was going to stay in Chicago, so he found someone out front that he knew and we bailed. About an hour into the drive I was getting too tired (I was hallucinating as I often do when I’m really tired and driving, and I thought a van in front of me was a crab.) We ended up pulling off to a gas station somewhere in Indiana and catching about an hour and a half of sleep before I finished up the drive.
Excellent trip, completely worth driving 17 hours. I love Chicago, I love Screeching Weasel, I love beautiful Chicago babes even if they all wear ugly flip-flops. I LOVE AMERICA.
