Romance.

I think it motivates me more than sex.

By a factor of 51:49, mind you. But still.

Headbangers

I got my first exposure to rock and roll subculture around the end of grade six. As summer approached, one of the tougher kids in my grade started bringing a portable stereo to school. He would play all sorts of popular heavy metal bands circa 1984 (I remember QR getting heavy rotation). I had gone to Cubs with this kid a few years earlier, and we got along well despite our different backgrounds (different like Nelson and Milhouse... you guess which was which).

I have no older brothers or sisters and my parents are pretty square, musically speaking. I also did not have a music video channel at my place, so any initial observations I had about headbanger culture were made through school. The first thing I realized is that the people who liked this sort of music were the ones who'd always been the "bad kids". Smoking on the schoolgrounds, not doing homework, etc. They were the ones everyone was afraid to piss off.

The bad kids were overt in their badness, yet they never initiated trouble through bullying of smaller or weaker kids. That was done by kids who were not overtly bad; they didn't wear heavy metal band t-shirts and high-top sneakers. More likely, they wore jackets made by their Atom or Peewee hockey teams. Some of them were into metal, but only casually, since it was popular at the time.

Obviously, I was not in either of these social groups in elementary school and neither were the majority of my friends. If anything, I tried harder to befriend the jocks. They didn't seem as scary on the whole, though in practice they were much more cruel. Headbangers just looked too dangerous to approach at all. But it was interesting to observe them. I was envious of their no-one-can-fuck-with-us status. I'd wanted it badly for a long time.

As a result, I started getting into metal without actually hanging out with metalheads. It made me feel empowered and protected. As I entered my teen years I began to look the part a little more. I grew out my hair (mullet-style!), wore hunting jackets, tight jeans and white high-top sneakers with the hugest tongues I could find. If the tongues stood straight up, all the better. Despite this I really just looked like a nerdy mama's boy in headbangers' clothing. I didn't really care though.

Through it all, I never did fall in with the headbanger crowd. I had a chance to. I showed up at a new junior high (in Darkside, where I had just moved from CB) at the start of grade eight looking more metal than ever before. I was put in a class with other such folk. It was awesome! Everyone was really nice. I didn't get the sense that anyone in that room was going to be mean to me. We all liked the same bands. Oh sure, almost everybody smoked and was kind of a burnout, but I didn't care. I felt safe and at home. But this would not last.

About two weeks into the year the new school received my transcripts from CB and I was moved to another class. There was only one metalhead there besides me, and he was waaay too scary to make friends with. Otherwise, it was mostly preppies. And some of them were real bastards to me.

The area of the school where the 'bangers hung out was called The Rock. This was literally a big rock, the size of the front part of a car. It was situated just off the school grounds, a convenient location for smoking. Most of the kids from the old class went there at recess. I'd walk by them on the way home for lunch. There were leather jackets, fringed jackets, denim jackets with Dio backpatches... there were girls with huge, tall bangs in big white boots and acid-wash jeans.

I stayed good friends with Ray, a guy from the old class... he was sort of my gateway to the headbanger world, yet I didn't really hang out with him in groups of people, more just by ourselves. He told me that the headbangers would have huge parties in the woods on weekends. I knew that going to such a place would be too scary for me, even if I could sneak past mom and dad. Those kids would be...

...drinking!

My friend wouldn't admit it, but I think he was of the same mindset. We did get to see the aftermath of the parties though. As thirteen-year-old kids with no income we were always trying to figure out ways to scam money. Ray had an inside track on when and where these backwoods blowouts were going on; we could show up the next morning and collect the empties! We did this a bunch of times. One particularly impressive haul came in a wooded area that is now a suburb in Co-Harb. There had to be over a hundred beer bottles lying on the ground, and those were just the intact ones. My parents have a picture of Ray and I standing with this epic collection of beer bottles we'd dragged home (how, I have no idea). You've just got to document events like that.

I look back fondly on 80s headbanger culture. I was sort of part of it, but mainly I was an outsider looking joyfully in at a world where no one dares fuck with you. In retrospect, I don't know if I'd be better off today for having fully entered that world. I guess that's why I romanticize sometimes about being a burnout. With that in mind, I went on to write this song. I'm not ashamed of the fact that the lyrics make very little sense.

Party At The Rock

(written by me, 1997. recorded by "pop band #3", 1997)

Mommy's in the basement, daddy's in the loo*
Everybody's hangin out, don't know what to do
Call me on the phone, there's a party goin on
Now we're gonna score, then we're getting really gone

I'm gonna be with the freaks tonight
Don't wanna stay home watchin TV tonight
Cause everybody knows that we're goin
To the Party At The Rock

Joey's in the mental ward, Stevie thinks he's cool
Johnny's at the arcade cause he's droppin outta school
Tonight'll be the night, everybody's gonna go
See me at the hospital, I'll see you at the show.


*What was I thinking using the word "loo"?? I'm not even British!

90s Emocore

...harsher stuff, Ebullition style. I used to hate it. But now I love it!

What the fuck?!?

I want a 90s emocore revival movement.

Life At The Fjort...

...is so decadent, it sometimes feels like a dream. Sitting around a barbecue, laughing at gross personal stories has finally supplanted internet time wasting. There are no responsibilities. Just feast, drink and crash. I've never kept up a lifestyle like this for such a long period, and I may never again.

God bless us, everyone.

Falling

When falling, it's a basic human response to try and regain balance, so that impact does not occur.

Another possible response is to deliberately speed up the fall, so there is less unpleasant waiting before the inevitable crash.

Relationships

There's something to be said for the casual, fleeting ralationship. You know the kind I mean. It can be quite exciting and liberating.

But I think there's also something to be said for getting to know your partner beforehand and really forming a bond before exploring other, more "tangible" dimensions.

Maybe to some I'm overstating the obvious. To others this might just be crazy-talk. I think it's good to take a well-rounded, global view of such issues.

What the hell am I talking about? This made more sense at work when I was high on coffee.

An Otherwise Great day

Our house needs to have sunny day barbecues all the time. We ate a bazillion course meal, drank refreshing beverages (PC lemonade for me), smoked cheap-ass cigars and had some of the best conversation this side of... well, I guess I've run out.

My one-cigar-a-year quota has been modified.

Hell in a handbasket, people.

The Man!

The Man cut off my phone. But I can't pay The Man if The Man doesn't send me a letter to tell me what I owe Him!!

Taffy, What Are You Trying To Tell Me?

I Still Do... But I Used To, Too

On our trip last month Ube introduced me to the comedic stylings of the late Mitch Hedberg. It was a real eye-opener; the dude was funny. Now though, not only do I think about his jokes a lot, but I also sometimes catch myself breaking into what I call the "Mitch Hedberg Accent"... in everyday conversations.

I don't know if that's funny, weird or just pathetic.

Guitars

I'm not mechanically inclined. I've never been very interested in the details of machines and how they work. I'm terrible at fixing anything mechanical.

I don't really know how a car works. I have no appreciation for the subtleties of driving; handling and things like that. I want a car that moves (cheaply), looks modest and gets me where I want to go. Because the voyage and arrival at this point is what really makes me excited. I could care less about the details of how the engine sounds or how fast I took that last hill. Just get me there.

This type of thinking is fundamental to who I am. It must be, because I feel the exact same way about musical gear.

Musicians I've worked with are very specific about the type of sounds they want their instruments to make. Nothing wrong with that. There are many settings with many possibilities. But to me, they all sound the same most of the time.

The perfect guitar for me has one knob. Volume! I don't need pickup switches. Why would I want two pickups? They all sound the same to me. Someone once asked me "do you prefer humbucker or (whatever the other kind is, I don't even remember)?". I was like, I don't know!! Who the fuck cares? Is there even a difference? Whichever is louder, gimme that one. I also don't care about tone controls on a guitar. I control tone from the amp. Having two places from which to control tone confuses me. I seldom if ever mess with those knobs on my guitars. They get in the way.

I guess I'm a little more of a nerd when it comes to amps. The perfect amp for me would have five knobs. Treble, bass, gain, volume and reverb. They would be labeled as such. The amp would be VERY loud. That's the one detail I pay a lot of attention to. Why do they make amps with no master volume? To me, that's just stupid.

I think a lot of guitar players feel that the tone of their instruments is an important part of their sound. I respect that view, for sure. But I don't share it, and here's why. The tones an amp produces are predetermined by the manufacturers of the amp. Yes, I can shop around, try out ten amps and pick the one that sounds best to me (good luck with that, Ash), but ultimately I'm picking the best sound designed by someone else. So I feel that the tone of the amp says little about what I'm trying to convey artistically. What I do to the guitar, how I play it is determined by me, that's a personal expression. The amp and its noises are just a means to an end.

Let me present this metaphor, somewhat derivative of my last post. Say I have a story to tell, and I can only tell it by using flash cards. Someone gives me a deck of one hundred pre-made flash cards and says "Begin". Chances are, I'll be able to string my story together so that I'm understood - but this method is not very personal. I won't feel all that satisfied when I'm done.

On the other hand, if you give me one hundred blank flash cards and some pencil-crayons (someone once got mad at me for calling them that instead of "coloured pencils"), I'll draw you the damn story, and it will look a lot more like I mean it to, and therefore, better represent what's inside my head. *shudder*

"But Ash," you say, "you couldn't draw your way out of a wet paper bag! No one will understand what you're trying to say!".

That's a risk I'm willing to take. I can look back at my glorious failure, smile and nod and go, "yup... I did it all by myself". That's more satisfying to me. It makes me feel like my art is real, and came from inside me and nowhere else.

The way I see it, I play a guitar, not an amp. Very little the amp does or doesn't do will make me feel any better or worse about how I made the guitar line in the song sound.

The amp should not cut out. The sound should stay about the same throughout the set. Just what that sound is, is a detail I'm less concerned with.

All this said, I'm not completely indifferent to amp settings. My needs are just really basic. I like it very loud with a lot of distortion (but not too much, necessarily) and tons of low end. Some reverb here and there. I like effects too, but I'll take those from a pedal. I find pedals more satisfying to use than built-in amp effects (other than reverb... and I must admit the built-in chorus in my new twin
is pretty nice).

I think everyone likes to turn the knobs on their amps before they start playing, and I do this too. But once I do, I have no idea how get back the sound I had last time. You'd think that would bother me 'cause I kind of don't like inconsistency... but it doesn't because the differences are too subtle for me to pick out.

Favorite guitar sounds by other people:

Greg G. (BF)
Rick W. (ET/E)
Tony I. (BS)
C. Simmonds (local feller)

They're all probably pickier than I am.

Shanawdithit

Shanawdithit was the last survivor of the Beothuk people, the indigenous culture of the island of Newfoundland. She died of TB in 1829, before the age of 30.

I'm not qualified to speak with any authority on Native American history, so I'd recommend searching out proper articles if you want some background. What I'm going to talk about is just my own speculation, not fact.

I first heard of Shanawdithit during a trip to NF when I was nine years old. I read some pieces on her recently and the more I think of her situation, the harder it is for me to get my head around.

First of all, she must have seen enormous suffering in her short lifetime, the Beothuk having been under constant assault from European diseases, starvation and settlers' bullets since many years before her birth. I wonder at what point she first considered the possibility that her people would no longer exist. What kind of conversations must she have had with her family before they passed away? From what I have read, there was never much communication between the Beothuk and Europeans.

If being the last surviving family was isolating, what must life have been like for her when her relatives were gone? She knew no english, and no one else in existence knew her language. She had a fatal disease. She ended up living in a foreign environment as a servant to a family in St. John's (how voluntary this was, I don't know. She may not have had many options for survival).

But what really blows my mind about Shanawdithit's situation is that at some point she must have realized that anything the world was to know about her people rested on her shoulders alone. I can't imagine that level of responsibility. The people she lived with at the end apparently encouraged her to draw as a means of describing the Beothuk way of life.

She managed to make ten illustrations before she died. I'll link them, but I have to warn you that the accompanying text has a tone that I found condescending and racist. That said, it was written in 1915.

I've been thinking about this a lot. Trying to imagine what was going through her mind in the final years of her life. What she thought her place in the Universe was, and the place of her people. The complete isolation. Being burdened with the curse and responsibility of being the last of one's kind. It's mindboggling.

All of this philosophical thinking made me decide to use her image as the background on my desktop.



This picture has a strangely calming effect on me. She's a very gentle-looking person. When I think about her situation, it somehow puts my own life issues in a new perspective.

It's certainly better than my last background.

How Work Works

Friends of mine know what I do for a living, and I don't want to talk about that here. What I do want to talk about is my hours, and how they affect my life through the week.

I have two kinds of shift, which I will call the "sit-down" and "stand-up" shifts. I'm on a five week cycle where I do four weeks of sit-down and one of stand-up. They both start in the early morning - sit-down at 8:30am, stand-up at 7:30am. I used to start both shifts at 7:30, but that got too brutal. I just can't handle getting up that early. I wasn't able to get any work done because I'd be tired all day, every day. They will let you change sit-down hours somewhat, but the stand-up shift is not negotiable.

Some elaboration on what these shifts mean: both require me to focus my attention very sharply all day, studying and evaluating a lot of minor details. The sit-down shift has me doing this in a stationary position, essentially all day. Movement is minimal, which makes it very easy to get sleepy on that shift. That's bad news, because one fuckup at my job could cost someone their life (and on a lesser note, cost me my career).

The stand-up shift requires just as much attention, and I'm that much more tired doing it because of the earlier start time. Fortunately, this shift requires me to be on my feet all day, moving around a fair bit and doing (ridiculously light) manual labour. That sort of thing wakes you up a little, so I can be considerably more tired for that shift and still be effective.

If I'm going to go out or do any socializing after 11pm, it should be during the stand-up week. I'll feel shittier the next day, but being physically active will allow me to work through it. In a sit-down week fatigue is more distracting, so I have to work more slowly to feel confident in my results, and thus, get less done.

I guess the purpose of this entry is to point out the irony that the early shift is the one better suited to working tired. Actually, maybe that isn't ironic. Hm...

I Don't Mean To Be Gloomy

This link is grim and depressing, but fascinating. I don't shock easily, but it boggles my mind to think of how fucked up this situation must have been. In particular, scroll down to "immediate crisis management".

Next post will be about kites or something, I promise.

Standard Transmission Car Trouble

On my way to the radio station last night my transmission ceased to function. Good timing actually, considering the past month.

I was so close to the station when it happened. I was in the middle of the road, unable to get the car into any gear. I was trying pretty hard. Some guy offered to help me but I don't think there's anything he could have done. All I needed was to get the car into some gear, any gear. It was pretty frustrating. Somehow I managed to force the thing into reverse (giving my arm and temper quite a workout in the process), but as I backed down the street no parking spots were presenting themselves.

Finally I found one near the corner... a small spot between two other cars. I knew I would only have one chance to get in cleanly. I didn't do the greatest job. My back tire was vaguely near the curb, but my front was not. I was pretty impressed with myself though, because I was afraid I'd be stuck in the middle of the road. No one was boxed in, so it seemed like all was good. I'd have the thing towed the next day.

Well, today my brother gave me a lift to the car and what do I find under the wiper but (not a ticket as I suspected) and angry note criticizing my parking job. In the note I was called an "asshole", an "idiot", and was accused of drunk driving.

What brought this on? No one was boxed in. No driveway or fire hydrant was blocked. No cars were dinged. Why the hell would anyone even care?? My brother was furious and ready to tear a strip of the perpetrator. I didn't really care, but the drunk driving accusation pissed me off. I don't do that.

So, to the person who left the note on the badly parked car: You are the idiot. You are the asshole. My car died and you should consider yourself lucky I didn't just block your shitty driveway or leave it in the middle of your shitty road. Go fuck yourself.

So, we had the car towed to the garage, and my brother gave his professional opinion on what was happening. We think it's the clutch. I'm not too surprised it wore out given all it's been through lately. I just got my bike back on the road, so I'm not too concerned about having a car in the immediate future. I missed my bike.

Week Off

I took a week off from band stuff/other social activity and consequently have little to talk about. I'm tempted to do a point-form timeline entry as a tribute to a friend who's been uncharacteristically absent from the blog "scene" for awhile. A "cover version".

Last Monday I enjoyed a day of self-spoilage. I did such decadent things as enjoying a simple meal alone while reading a magazine at a sidewalk cafe, and buying a kite.

The kite has not yet been flown; yesterday would have been a good day for it had I not been playing a show in the afternoon. I took it out of the package last night and had a look. Seems easy enough to put together. I wanted a modest-looking, single-line kite. Something diamond-shaped with a bowtie tail would have been ideal. Maybe I should have shopped around more (it was suggested that I make my own, but I tried that when I was a kid, with discouraging results). I ended up settling on a bird-shaped model with a large tail. Upon inspection, this kite was a lot more "flamboyant" looking than I'd inferred from the package. Yet, it was the most modest-looking single line kite in the store. Oh well. A full report shall follow the maiden voyage, when it occurs. I may solicit help/impartial observers on that day. I wasn't joking about this kite stuff.

The rest of the week was uneventful... until Friday night. I had been thinking about tequila lately. I'd never tried it but I'd heard it was an unusual drinking experience, relative to other alcoholic beverages. In the interest of scientific self-enlightenment, I took on the project.

I did a little homework... friends with experience in the field were consulted. The reviews were overwhelmingly negative. I was undeterred. I chose a conservative regimen for consumption - one shot an hour, with assessment on the half-hour.

After a couple of shots, one thing became clear: the physical effects of the drink far outpaced the psychological ones. My body was starting to feel drunk, but my mind was not. I was very surprised at how clear my perception and reasoning remained as the night went on.

The danger of this scenario requires no explanation; I cut myself off at five shots in two and a half hours. I did not feel drunk, but I knew I had to be. The time had come to switch to beer.

Two bottles of beer were subsequently consumed. After the second one was finished I noticed a curious phenomenon; I had crashed and could not move from my bed. I couldn't even summon up the energy to shut off the computer, and it was two feet away. I wasn't sick; I wasn't even sleepy. I just plain couldn't get out of bed. Interesting.

I had no ill effects for the rest of the night or the next day. I basically waited to fall asleep. I would have drummed my fingers had I been able.

This was research; I wasn't looking to get paralyzed, in case anyone is wondering.

BB played a show the next afternoon, my first time playing since getting home. The show went well, although I admit it's hard to get worked up for a matinee. People were receptive.

This week I'm going to continue trying to eat right (-er), and I'm going to fly that kite. Both bands will likely jam and work on new material.

Final Report

I'm still in kind of a haze but it's good to be back home. I took in a good Halifax show last night. It was nice to be only a spectator. Lots of people made me feel happy to be back.

It's hard to answer questions about the trip. Either I forget all the details or I end up quoting this blog.

I learned a lot. It's not all a bed of roses, but you can't forget that there's a job to do. If you do the job right, and with respect for your "co-workers" you'll have fantastic memories in the end.

Big American cities still seem scary to me, but less so. I had compiled this big list of little observations in my mind, but it's all blank right now.

Last Stop: Fredericton

We had very little sleep and it was the last night of the trip, in a small city with one local act, added only a couple of days earlier. I wondered what to expect.

Ube and I rolled in at about 6:45pm after an eight hour trek from Mtl. I was under the mistaken impression that we had to start at 7pm and be done by nine. Good thing, as the rest of the posse would not arrive for another 3 1/2 hours.

Philip arrived maybe half an hour after us. He would be providing ambient beats and sounds... and lots of 'em, as it turned out. He must have played for well over an hour, what with the rest of us being delayed.

To someone from my city, I would describe the venue as a larger, more militant version of the OW. GS set up in a super hurry, with the van people springing into action following their 175 km/h sprint from the 514.

Both bands gave it all we had left, with GS paring our set down to 8 songs... well... 9 if you count the self-declared B-dick encore of DSTF. I was really afraid we'd all just phone it in for an indifferent audience of 2 or 3, but this was not the case. A few records were even sold. I definitely want to go back there, there's potential for amazing shows at that spot. We should bring some H_gonia with us. I'm looking at you, A-Mo/Hold.

Afterward, we were spent but generally happy. The Band Fund treated us to a late supper. We listened to a metal show on the local campus station, and kept up the theme for the rest of the drive home. By the end we were into Sunn, and it fit the wiped-out mood nicely.

I'll have some closing comments later. Suffice it to say, we're back and it was awesome.

I'm going to bed.