Hey, Fellow Babies!
As a kid I didn't actively listen to the radio very often but whenever it was on in the background, it always seemed to proffer some sort of auditory revelation. For example, I distinctly remember half-hearing the Peter Gabriel tune "Games Without Frontiers" on the radio back in 1980 and promptly becoming obsessed with it.
Ironically, it was television that really piqued my childhood interest in radio. Even as a ten year old kid I had an inexplicable fascination for the following show:
Cripes, even people who were adults in the 70's probably don't remember that particular nugget of pop culture flotsam.
Hello, Larry was a sitcom that aired for two inexplicable seasons on NBC, back when the station's call letters stood for "No Body's Choice". It centered around the life of Larry Alder (penitent M.A.S.H. deserter McLean Stevenson), a divorced radio talk show host who leaves L.A. for the greener pastures of Portland, Oregon (?).
Right from the start, Hello, Larry embodied every lame sitcom cliche: bland characters, contrived plots and broad attempts at "humor". Whenever I'd ask my parents if I could watch it they'd scoff and respond with "Why? That stupid show is too foolish to talk about!" Late night czar Johnny Carson took frequent and merciless pot-shots at the beleaguered sitcom during his Tonight Show monologues. Despite the critical drubbing and virtually non-existent ratings, NBC actually renewed it for a second season (which really says a lot about the sad state of the network at the time).
In a vain effort to staunch the hemorrhaging exodus of viewers, the producers shifted their focus away from Larry's time at the radio station to his mundane home life. As a discriminating critic, I positively despised these changes and immediately stopped watching. In losing their one and only dedicated supporter, Hello, Larry also lost its raison d'être and it was cancelled not long after.
But, man, I loved that first season, which mainly featured Larry attempting to deal with his insane co-workers at the radio station, all the while heaping abuse upon the weirdos calling into his talk show. So enamored was I of this concept that I promptly co-opted my Dad's tape recorder and invented my own radio station, appropriately named C.R.A.P.
I took the high-concept core of Hello, Larry and cross-pollinated it with sketch comedy shows like S.C.T.V. and Newfoundland's very own Wonderful Grand Band. To ensure that my own good name would never be linked to such lunacy, I invented an on-air persona named Larry Lovebug. Okay, so I wasn't the most creative kid in the world.
Originally a parody of the classically smarmy "RADIO VOICE", my Larry eventually morphed into an über-hostile version of the McLean Stevenson character. He became a narcissistic, abusive jack-hole who held the other shows in open contempt and constantly bitched about the overall sorry state of the station.
There were several regularly scheduled programs on C.R.A.P., including a parody of Phil Donahue's talk show called The Phil Interview Show. There was a darkly humorous (?) recurring skit about an old woman who experiences incessant bouts of cardiac arrest and the eternally on-call medical team tasked to aid her. I staged elaborate radio plays featuring my Star Wars, Buck Rogers and superhero action figures. I had an ongoing horror series about explorers raiding the tomb of a restless undead mummy which spawned no less then four sequels!
Only my closest friends or my poor long-suffering parental units would ever be witness to this lunacy. If we went on a road trip, I'd take my tape recorder along, much to the delight of my Mom and Dad. Occasionally I have re-enforcements in the form of my equally loopy cousins Debbie and Donna. Together we'd invent all sorts of zany characters and ridiculous shows, half of which seemed to be populated or hosted by stuffed animals.
Stephenville's own home-brew radio station / comedy gold mine C.F.S.X. was a frequent target for my sophmoronic wit. I mercilessly spoofed the station's community events calendar via What's Goin' On? (hosted by the eternally enraged Suzie Seasick), poked fun at the Day & Ross Road Report (read by the barely-conscious Merry Dowdie), and parodied their daily radio market place show Teleshop (which I wittily re-christened as Teleslop, har de har-har).
As great as all of this high-brow humor was, the concept really took off when I first laid eyes on this classic show back in 1981:
Being only eleven or so at the time, I didn't quite get all of the subtle humor and innuendo on W.K.R.P., but I certainly fell in love with the characters and the music Johnny and Venus played. This new data had a direct impact on my own enterprise. Larry's last name became the infinitely more respectable "Drake", the format was switched from talk to modern pop and the station's call-letters changed from C.R.A.P. to C.F.A.P. Which, in modern parlance, really isn't an improvement.
In order to facilitate the playing of music, I acquired a second tape player. Whenever I wanted to introduce a song (usually from a K-Tel tape like "Right On", "Hit Express", or my own personal favorite "Star Tracks") I'd cue it up on the second player and then un-pause it when I was ready to roll. This allowed me to blabber inane bullshit right up to the point when the lyrics began, just like a real D.J.!
Honestly, when you're twelve year old kid and figure this shit out, you feel like a friggin' savant!
I hit a metal phase in 1982, prompting a change in the music format. Larry became a minor character and full-time foil for a new, hip D.J. named "David" (okay, imagination really wasn't my strong suit). Although I'd sneak in the odd "retro" comedy bit or original radio play amongst all of the Ozzy Osbourne, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, all I really wanted to do was play pretend D.J. for music that I would never hear on the radio. By the time I turned thirteen, I'd outgrown my fictional radio station and C.F.A.P. promptly went out of business.
It's a pity that some teacher or authority figure didn't discover my crazy secret broadcasting career. If only I'd had the chance to funnel some of this unrefined yet manic energy into something productive like a High School drama class. Oh, wait, our lame-ass High School didn't have a friggin' drama class...scratch that.
Nearly a decade later, the following movie rekindled my interest in radio:
Since we only got a half-way decent radio station here in Halifax just last year (in the blessed form of Live 105), the idea of starting up a pirate radio station has always been kind of attractive to me. Although I have no desire to wax philosophical on the air like Mark Hunter in Pump up The Volume or Chris Stevens on Northern Exposure, I would certainly liked to have heard The Pixies, Sonic Youth and Soundgarden on the local radio over the past twenty years.
So, for the first time in almost three decades (*Yikes!*), I'm hosting a radio show courtesy of modern techmology and the Internetz. Ive long since traded in my dual tape players for a single digital audio recorder. My old, now-distorted analog magnetic tapes have been replaced by a massive CD collection rendered through my iPod. And thanks to the magic of Audacity and Internet Archive, I can finally have listeners beyond the poor bastards within earshot of me.
Pleeze lissun if you wantz:
EPIC Thank God, Vishnu, Crom, Zeus, Odin and Lemmy for internet radio.
FAIL This show was a friggin' abomination. And I liked Hello, Larry, fer Chrissakes!
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Friday, April 20, 2012
Sunday, January 9, 2011
The Oasis
Hey, Party Peoples.
A part of me was hoping to get into Corner Brook one of the days I was home during Christmas but it just wasn't in the cards. Considering the last time I was there, however, perhaps this was a blessing in disguise.
Y'see, growing up in Stephenville (a small town on the west coast of Newfoundland) in the Eighties was tough for an imaginative (read: "geeky") kid. If you were lucky and you could time it just right, you might score a few dog-eared comic books at the Sweet Shoppe or A.V. Gallant's variety stores, but it was hit or miss. It's not like you could have set up a subscription service with a corner store.
I personally kept VHS rental joints like The Video Screen and Debbie's Video Shoppe (hmmm, was that a "shop" or a "shoppe"? I can't remember now...) in business single-handedly. It's because of awesome mom n' pop places like this that I first saw all the sc-fi, horror, drama, action, comedy and fantasy confections that gave me an imagination and creative spark as an adult.
But if you wanted comics, cassette tapes, board games, toys or any other flights of fantasy flotsam you were kinda S.O.L. After all, these were the days before E-Bay and well, er...the internet. Me and my circle of peeps would speak in hushed tones about stores in far-away lands where you could just walk in and procure The Dark Knight Returns trade paperback, a copy of Ronnie James Dio's Sacred Heart album or Leading Edge's Aliens board game all in one fell swoop.
But in Stephenville, if you wanted shit like that you had to mail away orders to places like American Comics. Often times your order had to be sent in with a list of alternates in case what you were asking for was sold out by the time they got your letter. I don't know how many times I'd get a delivery, feverishly rip open the box and be crushed because three-quarters of what I ordered wasn't there.
Listen, I'm not one to get all sanguine and sentimental about growing up in a small town in the Eighties, folks. Frankly, if you had interest or hobbies like mine, it kinda sucked.
But there was hope. There was a reprieve. There was...
Now, I'm pretty sure that if you search the town's website or pour through it's tourism brochures, you won't see Corner Brook described as an 'Oasis' anywhere. But I'm tellin' you right now, in all honesty, as a kid, a trip to Corner Brook was akin to going to friggin' Manhattan.
I have very precious memories of being taken out of school on a Friday afternoon by my folks. My Dad would use the weak-ass excuse that he had business in town. Business that apparently couldn't have been done on, say, Saturday or any other day of the week, but I certainly didn't complain.
Makes me wonder if Math class was in the afternoon. It would certainly explain my deplorable showing in that particular subject.
Anyhoo, as soon as the announcement was made, I'd be so giddy with excitement that I could barely pay attention in class that morning. Er, more so than usual, I mean. The forty-five minute pilgrimage would often be spent looking at indistinguishable tree-packed scenery, reading stale magazines or adding fuel to the fire if one of my parents was tormenting the other.
The last ten minutes before arrival was allocated to preparation of singing the official "Corner Brook Arrival Celebratory Anthem". Just as we cleared city limits me and Dad would strike up with our respective tunes. If I remember correctly, my selection was an original composition called "We're Here Because We're Here" (which, co-incidentally, was the extent of the lyrics for the entire song) and Dad's contribution was that timeless, yet unheard-of classic "Down on the Labrador". Mom added her own two-cents by shaking her head and maintaining that we were all "touched".
Eventually we realized just how stupid and juvenile this was, so we stopped doing it about three years ago.
Our first stop would typically be at The Glynmill Inn, a beautiful, Victorian-style manor overlooking Glynmill Pond. To me, it always seemed like an incongruous oasis within itself: a pretty, picturesque, sylvan garden and manor smack-dab in the middle of mountainous, serpentine streets, strip malls, Honda dealerships and the omnipresent sulfurous reek of the nearby Abitibi Price pulp and paper mill.
The Inn was the home of The Ewing Gallery, presided over in the Eighties by Lance and Tess Ewing. I always though that this stately couple were as out of place amongst the indigenous population as the Inn was amongst the city. I always wanted to know if they were natives. I always suspected that they were exiled "Mr. & Mrs. Smith"-style retired American Secret Agents who had chosen to go incognito in Corner Brook because they thought it was "quaint".
Lance always reminded me of a gregarious, rugged version of Heinein-award winning science fiction writer Arthur C.Clarke. Tess (who I'd nick-named "Tessica" for some reason) was considerably more ethereal. Whenever we had to swing by their house instead of the galley we would sometimes get a rare glimpse of her in a window or doorway: a slender apparition in a housecoat. At my Dad's art exhibits, however, she was always elegant, well-spoken and dignified.
I have the utmost warm feelings for these virtual strangers. It's because of their sponsorship of my Dad's artwork he managed to help me pay for university and as a result I didn't graduate under an insurmountable avalanche of debt.
After all the professional artist business was concluded, we'd often have lunch at the relatively opulent Carriage House dining room at the Inn. Being a stupid kid with a woefully underdeveloped palate I'd often opt for just a simple muffin so I wouldn't spoil my appetite for the eagerly awaited repast which would inevitably conclude out visit.
Just for the record, though, the last time I checked about three years ago, they still made the best apple cinnamon muffins in the galaxy.
The highlight of our trip would follow soon after: a trip to The Valley Mall. Speaking as someone who absolutely hates venturing into a mall now, it's amusing in retrospect when I think about how important this place was to me once. In the Eighties, the Valley Mall was the friggin' shiznit.
It was a little slice of nirvana. There was an A&A record store, a place where I could easily procure the latest metal opus. Leisure World had a back shelf well-stocked with Avalon Hill wargames like Squad Leader (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1035/squad-leader) and Panzerblitz (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2238/panzerblitz), fantasy games like The Creature that Ate Sheboygan (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1783/the-creature-that-ate-sheboygan) and a slew of intriguing-looking but intimidating Advanced Dungeons & Dragons hard cover books.
Coles bookstore was another highlight. Here I might find a trashy compendium of sci-fi or horror films, a movie review guide or a Star Wars book (which, towards the end of the decade became increasingly scarce as people became all Star Wars-ed out).
Another lynchpin for me: The Fun Villa arcade. It was great being in an arcade which was the antithesis of the one in Stephenville. It wasn't dirty, smoky or a place where I'd be offered weed every two minutes. Here I could watch teenagers play Pac-Man (the machine was always w-a-a-a-a-a-y too busy for snots like me to even get close to it), destroy the Death star umpteen times in the vector graphics Star Wars game and guide "Winky" the plucky, well-rounded hero of Venture through an electronic, snakealicious, neon maze.
Other stops might include a trip to the pet store to get food for my pet tarantula Max. I was aware at the time how long these spiders could live and always wondered if she'd still be around when I was forty. Alas, here I am and she only passed away just recently after being the star attraction at the Deer Lake Insectarium for the past six years!
When comic books became a hot commodity some enterprising dude had the foresight to open up a shop on Park Street. I was an easy mark for this guy and my folks would often indulge my weakness for Batman and X-Men comics as well as Empire Strikes Back trading cards and various hard-to-acquire toys.
The last time I went to Corner Brook a few years ago, I went back to his shop at its new location on Broadway. Much to my disbelief the guy still recognized me. Either Newfoundlanders are so in tune with people that they never forget a face or I bought so much crap from him in the Eighties that I made a lasting impression.
The store itself was in chaos. It looked as if someone had dynamited a warehouse of Todd McFarlane toys and then hung up an hours of operation sign. Nothing was organized. Nothing was priced. Thank God he was preoccupied with another customer since I was almost killed in a live-action game of Jenga when I made the mistake of looking for a price tag on some 3.5 edition D&D manuals.
I managed to extricate myself without too much awkward, "Jedi Mind Trick"-style pushy sales conversation. Although I found some tempting wares (like a Tony Esposito figure from McFarlane's hockey series, a few Marvel Legends I didn't have and some sweet-ass horror film figs by Neca), the total absence of price tags terrified me.
I also made a tactical error when I mentioned out loud that I'd rabidly collected hockey cards every single year except (for some stupid reason) 1979, which was Wayne Gretzky's rookie year. Well, when he overheard this, told me that he had it and was willing to part with it for a paltry $600.00. In retrospect, that probably wasn't such a bad deal.
On the way out, the owner (who's name I've never known), said loudly: "Hey! Make sure you bring $600.00 back for that set!", half-joking and half deadly serious.
My last tour through the Valley Mall about four years ago was pretty depressing. The upper level, once dominated by a large Zellers, upscale clothing stores and the entrance to a computer tech school (Keyin Tech? Beothic Data Processing?) had all been cleared out to make room for the employment equivalent of The House of Pain: an ICT Call Center. Eeeeesh.
It wasn't much better downstairs. Coles bookstore was gone. The Fun Villa (not to mention 98% of all arcades from the Eighties)...GONE! A&A Records...GONE! This was replaced by a CD Plus, where I took pity on the bored staff and bought an Arctic Monkeys CD to give them a highlight for their day. Leisure World was still hanging on. I trekked to the back of the store, hoping to find a perfectly preserved mother-lode of Eighties board gaming artifacts just sitting there, waiting for some savvy collector who knows their value to rescue them from a life of eternal neglect. Instead all I find are endless, boring shelves of yarn, Styrofoam balls and tole paints.
Even the food court has been gutted. For a moment I pause and mourn the Borg-like assimilation of the mom n' pop Burger World into a Tim Horton's kiosk before moving on.
Back in the Eighties, we'd leave the Shangri-La sensory overload of the Valley Mall and make our way up to the Corner Brook Plaza for a meal fit only for an advertisement-indoctrinated twelve year old. Back then the Plaza was, in the immortal words of Kevin Smith, the 'Dirt Mall'. At the time it was anchored by a K-Mart on life support and featured cheesy Newfoundland bric-a-brac stores and discount clothing outlets. The only draw for me in this mall back then was the "methinks thou dost protest too much" Family Bookstore, which was a schizophrenic pastiche of magazines (including some you wouldn't think to find in a so-called "Family" bookstore), pop paperbacks, Newfoundland music tapes, and cake pans (?).
But the other big pull to visit this mall: they had a real, live McDonald's.
Like so many other kids in the Seventies and Eighties, McDonald's was always a pretty big fixture in my life. When we moved away from Sydney, Nova Scotia (where a trip to the notorious Sydney River location http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_River_McDonald%27s_murders was quite common) and moved to Stephenville, this childhood institution was ripped away from me.
Exiled from what I considered to be civilization at the time, I lamented the introduction of such major childhood technological developments as the Chicken McNugget. American-sourced Saturday Morning cartoons were torture for me as Grimace, the Hamburglar and chief ringleader himself Ronald McDonald tempted me with their unattainable, transfat-tastical wares.
The only available option to appease my prepubescent fast-food cravings were home-made, non-flavor engineered burgers which recalled this awesome Eddie Murphy skit:
Or, A&W, which, at the time, I'd dubbed "A & Double-Spew".
Just like everything else, Corner Brook got an A&W first, which resulted in an unfortunate onion-related mishap. Back then the venerable fast-food franchise was going through a bit of an identity crisis. In an ill-guaged attempt to be more contemporary (I suppose), they'd eliminated their classic "burger family" menu in lieu of some new taste "treats". Instead of using yummy, kid-friendly minced onion on their burgers like McDonalds, they started using huge, sauteed, slivered onions.
And let me tell ya folks, nothing says "tastes like evil" to a twelve year old's palate like huge sauteed slivered onions.
I remember one trip when Dad relented and took us to A&W for lunch in Corner Brook. I got one of these new-fangled burgers and closed by eyes hoping the fast-food trappings (paper wrapper, undeniably burger-like appearance, omnipresent fries) would trick me into thinking I was partaking of my precious McDonalds.
One bite was enough to convince myself otherwise. I could instantly detect the nauseating texture of huge, slivered, half-cooked onions. I almost yarfed right there in the back seat of the car.
Dad tried to remedy the situation by scraping most of the onions off. Unfortunately he scraped them right onto the floor of the car. Later we tried to find as many as the pungent f&^%$^& as we could, but that car stunk like onions until we unloaded it (at a severely depreciated price) many years later.
I also found out down the road that the only food my Dad hates with a passion is half-cooked, slimy onions. Co-incidence? I think not...
So when Stephenville got it's own ersatz A&W years later I never darkened it's doors. In fact, before the franchise came to it's senses and realized they had an untapped vein of nostalgic gold on their hnads our hometown location soon closed down. Fast-forward a few years later and A&W experienced a miraculous resuscitation when they re-instituted the old, familiar, raw-onionated Burger clan (The Momma Burger, The Papa Burger, The Teen Burger , The Baby Burger, The Uncle Burger, The Grandpa Burger, The (Obviously Named After A Distant Italian Relative) Mozza Burger, and the presumably forthcoming Second-Cousin- Twice-Removed Burger).
Well, when Corner Brook got a McDonald's in the early Eighties, that was like taking wonderful and giving it a healthy dollop of awesome sauce. I have very fond memories of Dad finishing up an exhibit at the Glynmill Inn, taking us up to McDonald's in the plaza parking lot and letting me gorge myself on a twenty pack of Frankensteinian, mechanically separated Chicken McNuggets.
And this was back in the day when you were excited to bite into one that wasn't gray on the inside.
It also has to be mentioned around this time I developed a debilitating, life-long phobia of drive-thru's thanks to my Dad. Quite often he'd deliberately mis-pronounce things, make shit up out of the blue, request items that weren't even on the menu or ask for a side-order of "smiles". The poor girls manning the wickets were probably feeling debased enough in their day-glo, lime-green, MARK I-era uniforms (which, I'm surprised, didn't kill the appetite of the average customer even before they'd ordered) without having to contend with such smart-assery.
Hmmmm, I wonder how many loogie-burgers we ate over the years?
Well, of course, now I live in a place where I could re-enact my very own Super Size-Me experiment every day of the week. Even Stephenville has it's own McDonald's now. Between this and digesting such unappetizing but enlightening fare as Fast Food Nation and Food Inc., needless to say, the place holds very little appeal for me anymore.
Well, the last time I went to Corner Brook Plaza a few years ago it had realized it's revenge by laying low its hated rival, the once-proud Valley Mall. It had experienced a complete Renaissance, and was now chock-a-block with high end clothing stores and a pilfered and regenerated Coles bookstore. In other words, it had become just like any other boring, small-town generic mall on the planet.
I haven't been back in a few years, but it's my understanding that the Valley Mall is now entirely dedicated to commercial space. It's inadvertent role as a haven for geeky childhood interests had been swept away.
Funny how the progress of time can sometimes feel like de-evolution for someone still in commune with their inner child. Even though everything I could ever want is within my fingertips I still cherish how important these modest touchstones were for a somewhat lonely, awkward, imaginative kid seeking solace and escape from the ordinary.
Farewell, Fun Villa, wherever you are.
EPIC: Information on the City of Corner Brook. Please note that the city still seems insistent on using the bland slogan "Our Spirit...Your Success" versus the considerably more esoteric "Oasis For Geekery in the Eighties". Oh, well.
http://www.cornerbrook.com/
ALSO EPIC-ISH: The Valley Mall doesn't have a website since it's deader than Fatty Arbuckle but it looks like there's a new comics/toys/boardgames store opened up in town. Good to see that rural Newfoundland geeks still have a home!
http://thelair.ca/
50% BONUS IN THE EPIC DEPARTMENT: Website for the beautiful Glynmill Inn:
http://www.glynmillinn.ca/
FAIL: Let me tell ya, Kind Readers, I've been there...
A part of me was hoping to get into Corner Brook one of the days I was home during Christmas but it just wasn't in the cards. Considering the last time I was there, however, perhaps this was a blessing in disguise.
Y'see, growing up in Stephenville (a small town on the west coast of Newfoundland) in the Eighties was tough for an imaginative (read: "geeky") kid. If you were lucky and you could time it just right, you might score a few dog-eared comic books at the Sweet Shoppe or A.V. Gallant's variety stores, but it was hit or miss. It's not like you could have set up a subscription service with a corner store.
I personally kept VHS rental joints like The Video Screen and Debbie's Video Shoppe (hmmm, was that a "shop" or a "shoppe"? I can't remember now...) in business single-handedly. It's because of awesome mom n' pop places like this that I first saw all the sc-fi, horror, drama, action, comedy and fantasy confections that gave me an imagination and creative spark as an adult.
But if you wanted comics, cassette tapes, board games, toys or any other flights of fantasy flotsam you were kinda S.O.L. After all, these were the days before E-Bay and well, er...the internet. Me and my circle of peeps would speak in hushed tones about stores in far-away lands where you could just walk in and procure The Dark Knight Returns trade paperback, a copy of Ronnie James Dio's Sacred Heart album or Leading Edge's Aliens board game all in one fell swoop.
But in Stephenville, if you wanted shit like that you had to mail away orders to places like American Comics. Often times your order had to be sent in with a list of alternates in case what you were asking for was sold out by the time they got your letter. I don't know how many times I'd get a delivery, feverishly rip open the box and be crushed because three-quarters of what I ordered wasn't there.
Listen, I'm not one to get all sanguine and sentimental about growing up in a small town in the Eighties, folks. Frankly, if you had interest or hobbies like mine, it kinda sucked.
But there was hope. There was a reprieve. There was...
Corner Brook
Now, I'm pretty sure that if you search the town's website or pour through it's tourism brochures, you won't see Corner Brook described as an 'Oasis' anywhere. But I'm tellin' you right now, in all honesty, as a kid, a trip to Corner Brook was akin to going to friggin' Manhattan.
I have very precious memories of being taken out of school on a Friday afternoon by my folks. My Dad would use the weak-ass excuse that he had business in town. Business that apparently couldn't have been done on, say, Saturday or any other day of the week, but I certainly didn't complain.
Makes me wonder if Math class was in the afternoon. It would certainly explain my deplorable showing in that particular subject.
Anyhoo, as soon as the announcement was made, I'd be so giddy with excitement that I could barely pay attention in class that morning. Er, more so than usual, I mean. The forty-five minute pilgrimage would often be spent looking at indistinguishable tree-packed scenery, reading stale magazines or adding fuel to the fire if one of my parents was tormenting the other.
The last ten minutes before arrival was allocated to preparation of singing the official "Corner Brook Arrival Celebratory Anthem". Just as we cleared city limits me and Dad would strike up with our respective tunes. If I remember correctly, my selection was an original composition called "We're Here Because We're Here" (which, co-incidentally, was the extent of the lyrics for the entire song) and Dad's contribution was that timeless, yet unheard-of classic "Down on the Labrador". Mom added her own two-cents by shaking her head and maintaining that we were all "touched".
Eventually we realized just how stupid and juvenile this was, so we stopped doing it about three years ago.
Our first stop would typically be at The Glynmill Inn, a beautiful, Victorian-style manor overlooking Glynmill Pond. To me, it always seemed like an incongruous oasis within itself: a pretty, picturesque, sylvan garden and manor smack-dab in the middle of mountainous, serpentine streets, strip malls, Honda dealerships and the omnipresent sulfurous reek of the nearby Abitibi Price pulp and paper mill.
The Inn was the home of The Ewing Gallery, presided over in the Eighties by Lance and Tess Ewing. I always though that this stately couple were as out of place amongst the indigenous population as the Inn was amongst the city. I always wanted to know if they were natives. I always suspected that they were exiled "Mr. & Mrs. Smith"-style retired American Secret Agents who had chosen to go incognito in Corner Brook because they thought it was "quaint".
Lance always reminded me of a gregarious, rugged version of Heinein-award winning science fiction writer Arthur C.Clarke. Tess (who I'd nick-named "Tessica" for some reason) was considerably more ethereal. Whenever we had to swing by their house instead of the galley we would sometimes get a rare glimpse of her in a window or doorway: a slender apparition in a housecoat. At my Dad's art exhibits, however, she was always elegant, well-spoken and dignified.
I have the utmost warm feelings for these virtual strangers. It's because of their sponsorship of my Dad's artwork he managed to help me pay for university and as a result I didn't graduate under an insurmountable avalanche of debt.
After all the professional artist business was concluded, we'd often have lunch at the relatively opulent Carriage House dining room at the Inn. Being a stupid kid with a woefully underdeveloped palate I'd often opt for just a simple muffin so I wouldn't spoil my appetite for the eagerly awaited repast which would inevitably conclude out visit.
Just for the record, though, the last time I checked about three years ago, they still made the best apple cinnamon muffins in the galaxy.
The highlight of our trip would follow soon after: a trip to The Valley Mall. Speaking as someone who absolutely hates venturing into a mall now, it's amusing in retrospect when I think about how important this place was to me once. In the Eighties, the Valley Mall was the friggin' shiznit.
It was a little slice of nirvana. There was an A&A record store, a place where I could easily procure the latest metal opus. Leisure World had a back shelf well-stocked with Avalon Hill wargames like Squad Leader (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1035/squad-leader) and Panzerblitz (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2238/panzerblitz), fantasy games like The Creature that Ate Sheboygan (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1783/the-creature-that-ate-sheboygan) and a slew of intriguing-looking but intimidating Advanced Dungeons & Dragons hard cover books.
Coles bookstore was another highlight. Here I might find a trashy compendium of sci-fi or horror films, a movie review guide or a Star Wars book (which, towards the end of the decade became increasingly scarce as people became all Star Wars-ed out).
Another lynchpin for me: The Fun Villa arcade. It was great being in an arcade which was the antithesis of the one in Stephenville. It wasn't dirty, smoky or a place where I'd be offered weed every two minutes. Here I could watch teenagers play Pac-Man (the machine was always w-a-a-a-a-a-y too busy for snots like me to even get close to it), destroy the Death star umpteen times in the vector graphics Star Wars game and guide "Winky" the plucky, well-rounded hero of Venture through an electronic, snakealicious, neon maze.
Other stops might include a trip to the pet store to get food for my pet tarantula Max. I was aware at the time how long these spiders could live and always wondered if she'd still be around when I was forty. Alas, here I am and she only passed away just recently after being the star attraction at the Deer Lake Insectarium for the past six years!
When comic books became a hot commodity some enterprising dude had the foresight to open up a shop on Park Street. I was an easy mark for this guy and my folks would often indulge my weakness for Batman and X-Men comics as well as Empire Strikes Back trading cards and various hard-to-acquire toys.
The last time I went to Corner Brook a few years ago, I went back to his shop at its new location on Broadway. Much to my disbelief the guy still recognized me. Either Newfoundlanders are so in tune with people that they never forget a face or I bought so much crap from him in the Eighties that I made a lasting impression.
The store itself was in chaos. It looked as if someone had dynamited a warehouse of Todd McFarlane toys and then hung up an hours of operation sign. Nothing was organized. Nothing was priced. Thank God he was preoccupied with another customer since I was almost killed in a live-action game of Jenga when I made the mistake of looking for a price tag on some 3.5 edition D&D manuals.
I managed to extricate myself without too much awkward, "Jedi Mind Trick"-style pushy sales conversation. Although I found some tempting wares (like a Tony Esposito figure from McFarlane's hockey series, a few Marvel Legends I didn't have and some sweet-ass horror film figs by Neca), the total absence of price tags terrified me.
I also made a tactical error when I mentioned out loud that I'd rabidly collected hockey cards every single year except (for some stupid reason) 1979, which was Wayne Gretzky's rookie year. Well, when he overheard this, told me that he had it and was willing to part with it for a paltry $600.00. In retrospect, that probably wasn't such a bad deal.
On the way out, the owner (who's name I've never known), said loudly: "Hey! Make sure you bring $600.00 back for that set!", half-joking and half deadly serious.
My last tour through the Valley Mall about four years ago was pretty depressing. The upper level, once dominated by a large Zellers, upscale clothing stores and the entrance to a computer tech school (Keyin Tech? Beothic Data Processing?) had all been cleared out to make room for the employment equivalent of The House of Pain: an ICT Call Center. Eeeeesh.
It wasn't much better downstairs. Coles bookstore was gone. The Fun Villa (not to mention 98% of all arcades from the Eighties)...GONE! A&A Records...GONE! This was replaced by a CD Plus, where I took pity on the bored staff and bought an Arctic Monkeys CD to give them a highlight for their day. Leisure World was still hanging on. I trekked to the back of the store, hoping to find a perfectly preserved mother-lode of Eighties board gaming artifacts just sitting there, waiting for some savvy collector who knows their value to rescue them from a life of eternal neglect. Instead all I find are endless, boring shelves of yarn, Styrofoam balls and tole paints.
Even the food court has been gutted. For a moment I pause and mourn the Borg-like assimilation of the mom n' pop Burger World into a Tim Horton's kiosk before moving on.
Back in the Eighties, we'd leave the Shangri-La sensory overload of the Valley Mall and make our way up to the Corner Brook Plaza for a meal fit only for an advertisement-indoctrinated twelve year old. Back then the Plaza was, in the immortal words of Kevin Smith, the 'Dirt Mall'. At the time it was anchored by a K-Mart on life support and featured cheesy Newfoundland bric-a-brac stores and discount clothing outlets. The only draw for me in this mall back then was the "methinks thou dost protest too much" Family Bookstore, which was a schizophrenic pastiche of magazines (including some you wouldn't think to find in a so-called "Family" bookstore), pop paperbacks, Newfoundland music tapes, and cake pans (?).
But the other big pull to visit this mall: they had a real, live McDonald's.
Like so many other kids in the Seventies and Eighties, McDonald's was always a pretty big fixture in my life. When we moved away from Sydney, Nova Scotia (where a trip to the notorious Sydney River location http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_River_McDonald%27s_murders was quite common) and moved to Stephenville, this childhood institution was ripped away from me.
Exiled from what I considered to be civilization at the time, I lamented the introduction of such major childhood technological developments as the Chicken McNugget. American-sourced Saturday Morning cartoons were torture for me as Grimace, the Hamburglar and chief ringleader himself Ronald McDonald tempted me with their unattainable, transfat-tastical wares.
The only available option to appease my prepubescent fast-food cravings were home-made, non-flavor engineered burgers which recalled this awesome Eddie Murphy skit:
Or, A&W, which, at the time, I'd dubbed "A & Double-Spew".
Just like everything else, Corner Brook got an A&W first, which resulted in an unfortunate onion-related mishap. Back then the venerable fast-food franchise was going through a bit of an identity crisis. In an ill-guaged attempt to be more contemporary (I suppose), they'd eliminated their classic "burger family" menu in lieu of some new taste "treats". Instead of using yummy, kid-friendly minced onion on their burgers like McDonalds, they started using huge, sauteed, slivered onions.
And let me tell ya folks, nothing says "tastes like evil" to a twelve year old's palate like huge sauteed slivered onions.
I remember one trip when Dad relented and took us to A&W for lunch in Corner Brook. I got one of these new-fangled burgers and closed by eyes hoping the fast-food trappings (paper wrapper, undeniably burger-like appearance, omnipresent fries) would trick me into thinking I was partaking of my precious McDonalds.
One bite was enough to convince myself otherwise. I could instantly detect the nauseating texture of huge, slivered, half-cooked onions. I almost yarfed right there in the back seat of the car.
Dad tried to remedy the situation by scraping most of the onions off. Unfortunately he scraped them right onto the floor of the car. Later we tried to find as many as the pungent f&^%$^& as we could, but that car stunk like onions until we unloaded it (at a severely depreciated price) many years later.
I also found out down the road that the only food my Dad hates with a passion is half-cooked, slimy onions. Co-incidence? I think not...
So when Stephenville got it's own ersatz A&W years later I never darkened it's doors. In fact, before the franchise came to it's senses and realized they had an untapped vein of nostalgic gold on their hnads our hometown location soon closed down. Fast-forward a few years later and A&W experienced a miraculous resuscitation when they re-instituted the old, familiar, raw-onionated Burger clan (The Momma Burger, The Papa Burger, The Teen Burger , The Baby Burger, The Uncle Burger, The Grandpa Burger, The (Obviously Named After A Distant Italian Relative) Mozza Burger, and the presumably forthcoming Second-Cousin- Twice-Removed Burger).
Well, when Corner Brook got a McDonald's in the early Eighties, that was like taking wonderful and giving it a healthy dollop of awesome sauce. I have very fond memories of Dad finishing up an exhibit at the Glynmill Inn, taking us up to McDonald's in the plaza parking lot and letting me gorge myself on a twenty pack of Frankensteinian, mechanically separated Chicken McNuggets.
And this was back in the day when you were excited to bite into one that wasn't gray on the inside.
It also has to be mentioned around this time I developed a debilitating, life-long phobia of drive-thru's thanks to my Dad. Quite often he'd deliberately mis-pronounce things, make shit up out of the blue, request items that weren't even on the menu or ask for a side-order of "smiles". The poor girls manning the wickets were probably feeling debased enough in their day-glo, lime-green, MARK I-era uniforms (which, I'm surprised, didn't kill the appetite of the average customer even before they'd ordered) without having to contend with such smart-assery.
Hmmmm, I wonder how many loogie-burgers we ate over the years?
Well, of course, now I live in a place where I could re-enact my very own Super Size-Me experiment every day of the week. Even Stephenville has it's own McDonald's now. Between this and digesting such unappetizing but enlightening fare as Fast Food Nation and Food Inc., needless to say, the place holds very little appeal for me anymore.
Well, the last time I went to Corner Brook Plaza a few years ago it had realized it's revenge by laying low its hated rival, the once-proud Valley Mall. It had experienced a complete Renaissance, and was now chock-a-block with high end clothing stores and a pilfered and regenerated Coles bookstore. In other words, it had become just like any other boring, small-town generic mall on the planet.
I haven't been back in a few years, but it's my understanding that the Valley Mall is now entirely dedicated to commercial space. It's inadvertent role as a haven for geeky childhood interests had been swept away.
Funny how the progress of time can sometimes feel like de-evolution for someone still in commune with their inner child. Even though everything I could ever want is within my fingertips I still cherish how important these modest touchstones were for a somewhat lonely, awkward, imaginative kid seeking solace and escape from the ordinary.
Farewell, Fun Villa, wherever you are.
EPIC: Information on the City of Corner Brook. Please note that the city still seems insistent on using the bland slogan "Our Spirit...Your Success" versus the considerably more esoteric "Oasis For Geekery in the Eighties". Oh, well.
http://www.cornerbrook.com/
ALSO EPIC-ISH: The Valley Mall doesn't have a website since it's deader than Fatty Arbuckle but it looks like there's a new comics/toys/boardgames store opened up in town. Good to see that rural Newfoundland geeks still have a home!
http://thelair.ca/
50% BONUS IN THE EPIC DEPARTMENT: Website for the beautiful Glynmill Inn:
http://www.glynmillinn.ca/
FAIL: Let me tell ya, Kind Readers, I've been there...
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Everybody Has A Price...Mine Just So Happens To Be Really Cheap.
Hello, Mes Amis.
Okay, so...in my previous entry I established how not to court me for future advertising opportunities. Now I'd like list ten things that I'd happily shill for.
So, without further ado, here's DAVE'S TOP TEN THINGS HE'D PIMP OUT FOR IN A SECOND:
EPIC: Awww, who am I kiddin'? Here, this should keep you busy for a bit. Don't don't too freaky-deaky with the mustard, tho...
![Fight Club (10th Anniversary Edition) [Blu-ray]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_t2Os-8uTZbqTgbgJGdfbNsY59Z5b__DDtbZpVqFuAaxsGeZ2ieUYnXLNbmQBRKUdmT9RkdeFg0_PMuawP_alMVCiGBbHryAGTEDZDUkGuWy3Ss1xsltypDUJi5j8f722a6l8GsaoWba5cl73dJp2roJb2zWQs7lf4_-NpfwuQ42zshqRq4Yau_ZMokILcd1b7IIKd0oGfqnPZFxSS9ZN35fUSj_ceqflFDZw=s0-d)
![Infinite Arms [+digital booklet]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vjSJ5q28jqkUBYY4DYy1O0odgsCExykFsqHx_jIRcRYvbBLjBP3ij-elJU_NFtYOa0wmSM6_LnFr13PL40QNzHkcJGLOAmwiUZ5UflFC8tPP4loCWHH-YNcoxpx5u6bakYzA-WyMM2nJ2bDJFzjL4i-c44UwlgG9H62TS1_5O_s7bCDukF3ZXgCBDtteFERCl4BMioSRMDiihlv9ysEPGI0m71FQMDvdgJgw=s0-d)
FAIL: Sweet Jesus, can someone make Will and Jada Smith stop breeding already?
http://www.vevo.com/watch/willow/whip-my-hair/USSM21001602
Okay, so...in my previous entry I established how not to court me for future advertising opportunities. Now I'd like list ten things that I'd happily shill for.
So, without further ado, here's DAVE'S TOP TEN THINGS HE'D PIMP OUT FOR IN A SECOND:
- Good Movies If you come to me with a decent film project I will flog it without mercy. As a corollary, any motion picture involving the presence of Jennifer Aniston, a talking pet or a Saturday Night Live character spun out to feature length need not apply. Also, as much as it pains me to say so, I will no longer be mentioning Star Wars anymore. It's not that George Lucas raped my childhood, but he did invite it inside Skywalker Ranch with promises of candy and touched it in it's Danger Zone.
- Good Music If your band or album doesn't suck, I will gladly shout your praises from the rooftops. In fact, I'm so desperate for good music lately, I'm willing to promote you even if your music is merely semi-distinguishable from everything else. Also, to save us both some time, please note that your music will likely have no resonance with me if you're under the age of twenty. What life lessons can I possibly glean from the lyrics of some snot-nosed kid who's cubes haven't even dropped yet? Mark my words, in a few years some enterprising obstetrician/budding manager is gonna get rich by filming a still-in-utero video featuring a fetus with a comb-forward CGI hairdo lip-syncing inane lyrics to a dance track. I'm tellin' ya, it's money.
- Good Television Next month I was planning on doing a blog series on television, so for all you folks playing along at home: here's a sneak preview! About four years ago I was blissfully snobby about the state of television and seemed perfectly content to write off the entire medium as a colossal waste of time. Then this jackass I was working with at the time had the audacity to give me the first season of The Shield. In light of this revelatory viewing, a whole new world chock-a-block with entertainment value opened up to me. Entourage, Dexter, Freaks and Geeks, Battlestar Galactica, The Tudors, Supernatural, Mad Men, and Veronica Mars blew me away in quick succession. Each episode is produced with the sensibilities of a mini feature film and not one of them involve tattooed orange people excusing the most reprehensible human behavior you can imaging with the mantra "Hey, you wouldn't understand, it's a 'Jersey' thing!"
- Good Video Games Video games have come a long way since their inception. I have to credit early designers with coming up with inventive attempts at something passing for a game just to try and offset the crude graphical tools they had to work with. But now, the visuals are so amazingly sophisticated that the best (like the Halo, Gears of War, Brother in Arms, Left 4 Dead, or Half-Life series) play out like interactive films. Which is why, in my humble estimation, even at their worst, video games will always be superior to homogenized, crappy network television. After all., with television, unless it's something really engaging or enriching, you're typically just sitting there inert, slowly being spoon-fed pablum-flavored entertainment, your brain getting fatter than Homer Simpson during the ironic punishment doughnut eating nightmare in Hell. At least with video games, you're not quite so damned...passive.
- Good Books Have you ever heard the quote: "Yeah, the movie was okay, but the book was w-a-a-a-a-a-a-y better?" Well, there's a reason for that: a wealth of additional details, the benefit of descriptive language, the power of imagination, and the author's freedom to do whatever he or she damn well pleases. In the immortal words of Stephen King: "A day without a book is like a day without sunshine!" Hmmmm, you'd think he'd be more of "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night" kinda guy...
- Good Board Games Hey, I've already done an entire treatise on why I prefer board games over video games but this bears repeating: sometimes you just want to teabag an opponent in person.
- Good Radio Stations Only within the last month or so did the city of Halifax get a modern rock radio station worth crowing about. "Live 105" is a virtual godsend in this city, which has suffered under the yoke of "classic" rock for the past fifteen years. Up until "Live 105" arrived on the scene the situation was pretty grim. "C-100" propagated nothing but non-threatening manufactured pop product, "89.9 HAL FM" and "Q-104" were designed for people who are laboring under the erroneous belief that rock attained perfection in 1975 and "Kool 96.5" (wow, there's never been a more ironic name for a radio station, by the way) is a viable promotional tool for artists that are either all completely irrelevant, defunct or deceased. And although "Live 105" is already starting to cheese me off a bit with their definition of "heavy rotation" at least I'm getting sick of songs produced in the last fifteen to twenty years. Here's the link if you wanna give 'em a spin: http://www.live105.ca/
- Good Comics It's kinda sad that this amazing medium has been ghettoized for so long. It really doesn't deserve to be written off as something just for kids. In some ways, comics are a superior art form to both film and standard novels. It gives a cool visual component, but unlike film it isn't so fleeting. The Egyptians certainly thought it was a pretty solid way to tell a story; after all what are hieroglyphics other than panels of an ancient funny book? I really do believe that titles such as Sin City, Bone, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Sandman, Watchmen, Preacher, The Walking Dead, From Hell, V for Vendetta and The Dark Knight Returns are all just as valid as works of literature as Ulysses and Atlas Shrugged.
- Good Beer I had a bit of a struggle not to mention this one first, for fear of looking like a raging alcoholic, but I can't hold off any longer. When I was in university, I always thought I hated beer abd eventually I learned to tolerate it. Then, in a tremendous moment of epiphany, I tried a micro-brewed beer offered here in Halifax at the Henry House pub called "Old Peculiar". I've never looked back since. Guinness, Harp, Murphy's, Kilkenny, Smithwicks, Sapporo, Stella Artois, Hoegaarden and Innes and Gunn have all joined the ranks of my favorite beers. Please take note of the conspicuous absence of Coors Lite, a beer for people who don't like the taste of beer, or Bud Lite Lime, the makers of which seem to be admit "Yeah, our crappy beer comes pre-skunky, so we're just gonna use some unnatural lime flavor to cover it up." *Bleah*
- Grey Poupon "Oh my God, if your makin' a toiky sammich, put a little bit of mayo on one side, slap on your toiky, get some fresh lettuce and a coupla slices of foim, ripe tomaita. Then for a bit a zip, spread a bit a dis stuff on 'dere...it's like buttah! It makes your sammich right poiky!" Seriously, I'd put this stuff on toast for breakfast if I didn't so many weird looks from people.
EPIC: Awww, who am I kiddin'? Here, this should keep you busy for a bit. Don't don't too freaky-deaky with the mustard, tho...
FAIL: Sweet Jesus, can someone make Will and Jada Smith stop breeding already?
http://www.vevo.com/watch/willow/whip-my-hair/USSM21001602
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
"Dude, the soundtrack for your biopic sucks!" Part III
Good day, fellow music mavens!
Way back in the early Eighties a gent by the name of Mark Arm (later of Green River and Mudhoney fame) used the following colorful descriptors to characterize the sound of his then-current band Mr. Epp and the Calculations:
"Pure grunge! Pure noise! Pure shit!"
When an original, independent music movement emerged from the Pacific Northwest woods like a sonic Sasquatch, the industry and the media freaked out, unable to package, label and market it. "Grunge" seemed as good a term as any, but frankly I hate that description. Regardless of what you call it, we had our own modest musical revolution to be proud of in the late Eighties and early Nineties.
The first band of that ilk that I heard of wasn't who you'd think. It was Temple of the Dog, a tribute band assembled by Chris Cornell in memory of Andrew Wood, a close friend and lead singer of the glam/metal outfit Mother Love Bone who died of a heroin overdose. Andrew's early demise would prove to be the most galling, cliche and wasteful characteristic of the movement and it was repeated an-nauseum over the next few years. Here's a sample of Temple's ruminations:
This led me to the works of Cornell's own band, Soundgarden. Here's a particularly nasty little musical punch to the mush:
In this I'd finally found my ideal music. This "Seattle Sound" (for lack of a better term) possessed the aggression of metal, a surfeit of lyrical relevance and considerably better musicianship than punk. I was in a pure state of bliss, of rapture, of...
No. I won't say it yet.
This became even more pronounced in late 1990 when alternative was dragged kicking and screaming into the mainstream. Now this wasn't accomplished by the media, record executives or market research. It was done in the most democratic way possible: by one earnest, timely and talented band and hordes of fans desperate for genuine music.
To illustrate, here's a chart of top singles in 1990:
http://www.musicimprint.com/Chart.aspx?id=C000161
Minus a few aberrant examples (such as Sinead O'Connor, Faith No More, the B-52's) the lion's share of what's on this chart is pure product: safe, neatly groomed musical mcnuggets that can be imaged, produced and marketed like any other mediocre commodity designed for easy consumption.
And here's the same chart two years later:
http://www.musicimprint.com/Chart.aspx?id=C000164
Now, granted, there's still tons of crap (like Boys II Men, Kris Kross, and Lord of Mullets Billy Ray Cyrus) but isn't the difference amazing? Do you see what can happen when we collectively thumb our noses at musical gruel and embrace better things? Of course, in order to do that, we do need some incentive...
Now, don't get me wrong, I really think these charts exhibit something totally aberrant. Alternative music, is supposed to be, y'know, alternative. But for a few shining years in the Early Nineties, everything made sense to me in this crazy world.
And we owe it all to Nirvana.
As soon as I saw the video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on Good Rockin' Tonite I knew at once that my generation would finally have the sort of musical legacy that folks from the 60's were proud of. One single, one album and one band managed to give a big 'ole enema to the bloated music industry and a giant "f#@& you" to record executive weasels who wanted to keep feeding us a constant intravenous drip of audio diarrhea.
The Music Business Program ad for "AI International" that Nirvana spoofs in their "Live! Tonight! Sold out!" video is a perfect example of what I'm talking about:
Nirvana is so beloved to me, here's another live clip of them performing one my favorite tunes of all time:
As I said before, this grassroots movement was a bit of an anomaly, but it was great while it lasted. L7, Brad, Screaming Trees, Mudhoney, Hole, Blind Melon, Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, Screaming Trees, and the following enterprising lads all had unprecedented exposure:
But all good things must come to an end. Haute couture fashion shows began to sport flannel-bedecked runway models. Employees at Sub Pop made up fake "grunge-speak" just to get the scene-obsessed media (see FAIL below) to go away and pay attention to something more vapid. Every crap band with a pulse that lived on the West Coast was getting signed by corporate pinheads in the hopes that they'd become the next Golden Calf.
It was as if Kurt killed himself because he just didn't want to preside over the inevitable.
In the aftermath of such loss, the mid-to-late 90's were a dark time. Easily interviewed, attractively packaged and completely talentless divas, boy bands and novelty acts began to dominate again. If not for acts like Sloan, Pearl Jam, Beck, No Doubt, The Beastie Boys, The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, A Perfect Circle, U2, Hole, Foo Fighters, Stone Temple Pilots, Tool, Rage Against The Machine, and Monster Magnet, I would have cracked up.
A few bands deserve special mention. I'd missed our very own Tragically Hip during their Up To Here phase but as they got progressively weirder and found their own unique sound, I sat up and took notice. Here's their historical Saturday Night Live performance of "Grace, Too" from 1995:
With their copious references to KISS, Kitty Pryde and Dungeons & Dragons, Weezer's self-titled debut album as well as Pinkerton and Maladroit provided tremendous sustenance during this time. Here's "The Good Life" from Pinkerton:
Dogged survivors of the Seattle scene Modest Mouse also kept me duly entertained:
Radiohead was also there for me, taking me into paths barely tread. Here they are performing "Fake Plastic Trees" at Glastonbury:
And finally Built To Spill convinced me that alternative and indie music was still alive, well, and doing just fine away from the wilting glare of the zeitgeist:
Well, that's all for now, kiddies. In the final installment of my musical odyssey I'll cover exciting times as hope springs eternal, popular music is hits terrible new lows, prove that today is the best time to be a music fan and finally explain why Nickelback should eat a bowl of d!@%s.
EPIC:
FAIL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grunge_speak
Way back in the early Eighties a gent by the name of Mark Arm (later of Green River and Mudhoney fame) used the following colorful descriptors to characterize the sound of his then-current band Mr. Epp and the Calculations:
"Pure grunge! Pure noise! Pure shit!"
When an original, independent music movement emerged from the Pacific Northwest woods like a sonic Sasquatch, the industry and the media freaked out, unable to package, label and market it. "Grunge" seemed as good a term as any, but frankly I hate that description. Regardless of what you call it, we had our own modest musical revolution to be proud of in the late Eighties and early Nineties.
The first band of that ilk that I heard of wasn't who you'd think. It was Temple of the Dog, a tribute band assembled by Chris Cornell in memory of Andrew Wood, a close friend and lead singer of the glam/metal outfit Mother Love Bone who died of a heroin overdose. Andrew's early demise would prove to be the most galling, cliche and wasteful characteristic of the movement and it was repeated an-nauseum over the next few years. Here's a sample of Temple's ruminations:
This led me to the works of Cornell's own band, Soundgarden. Here's a particularly nasty little musical punch to the mush:
In this I'd finally found my ideal music. This "Seattle Sound" (for lack of a better term) possessed the aggression of metal, a surfeit of lyrical relevance and considerably better musicianship than punk. I was in a pure state of bliss, of rapture, of...
No. I won't say it yet.
This became even more pronounced in late 1990 when alternative was dragged kicking and screaming into the mainstream. Now this wasn't accomplished by the media, record executives or market research. It was done in the most democratic way possible: by one earnest, timely and talented band and hordes of fans desperate for genuine music.
To illustrate, here's a chart of top singles in 1990:
http://www.musicimprint.com/Chart.aspx?id=C000161
Minus a few aberrant examples (such as Sinead O'Connor, Faith No More, the B-52's) the lion's share of what's on this chart is pure product: safe, neatly groomed musical mcnuggets that can be imaged, produced and marketed like any other mediocre commodity designed for easy consumption.
And here's the same chart two years later:
http://www.musicimprint.com/Chart.aspx?id=C000164
Now, granted, there's still tons of crap (like Boys II Men, Kris Kross, and Lord of Mullets Billy Ray Cyrus) but isn't the difference amazing? Do you see what can happen when we collectively thumb our noses at musical gruel and embrace better things? Of course, in order to do that, we do need some incentive...
Now, don't get me wrong, I really think these charts exhibit something totally aberrant. Alternative music, is supposed to be, y'know, alternative. But for a few shining years in the Early Nineties, everything made sense to me in this crazy world.
And we owe it all to Nirvana.
As soon as I saw the video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on Good Rockin' Tonite I knew at once that my generation would finally have the sort of musical legacy that folks from the 60's were proud of. One single, one album and one band managed to give a big 'ole enema to the bloated music industry and a giant "f#@& you" to record executive weasels who wanted to keep feeding us a constant intravenous drip of audio diarrhea.
The Music Business Program ad for "AI International" that Nirvana spoofs in their "Live! Tonight! Sold out!" video is a perfect example of what I'm talking about:
Nirvana is so beloved to me, here's another live clip of them performing one my favorite tunes of all time:
As I said before, this grassroots movement was a bit of an anomaly, but it was great while it lasted. L7, Brad, Screaming Trees, Mudhoney, Hole, Blind Melon, Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, Screaming Trees, and the following enterprising lads all had unprecedented exposure:
But all good things must come to an end. Haute couture fashion shows began to sport flannel-bedecked runway models. Employees at Sub Pop made up fake "grunge-speak" just to get the scene-obsessed media (see FAIL below) to go away and pay attention to something more vapid. Every crap band with a pulse that lived on the West Coast was getting signed by corporate pinheads in the hopes that they'd become the next Golden Calf.
It was as if Kurt killed himself because he just didn't want to preside over the inevitable.
In the aftermath of such loss, the mid-to-late 90's were a dark time. Easily interviewed, attractively packaged and completely talentless divas, boy bands and novelty acts began to dominate again. If not for acts like Sloan, Pearl Jam, Beck, No Doubt, The Beastie Boys, The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, A Perfect Circle, U2, Hole, Foo Fighters, Stone Temple Pilots, Tool, Rage Against The Machine, and Monster Magnet, I would have cracked up.
A few bands deserve special mention. I'd missed our very own Tragically Hip during their Up To Here phase but as they got progressively weirder and found their own unique sound, I sat up and took notice. Here's their historical Saturday Night Live performance of "Grace, Too" from 1995:
With their copious references to KISS, Kitty Pryde and Dungeons & Dragons, Weezer's self-titled debut album as well as Pinkerton and Maladroit provided tremendous sustenance during this time. Here's "The Good Life" from Pinkerton:
Dogged survivors of the Seattle scene Modest Mouse also kept me duly entertained:
Radiohead was also there for me, taking me into paths barely tread. Here they are performing "Fake Plastic Trees" at Glastonbury:
And finally Built To Spill convinced me that alternative and indie music was still alive, well, and doing just fine away from the wilting glare of the zeitgeist:
Well, that's all for now, kiddies. In the final installment of my musical odyssey I'll cover exciting times as hope springs eternal, popular music is hits terrible new lows, prove that today is the best time to be a music fan and finally explain why Nickelback should eat a bowl of d!@%s.
EPIC:
FAIL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grunge_speak
Monday, May 24, 2010
"Dude, the soundtrack for your biopic sucks!" Part II
Greetings, fellow music nuts!
Not content with the spoon-fed pablum on radio and Much Music (and totally unaware of the burgeoning indie music scene in the Late Eighties) I turned to Classic Rock for solace.
I distinctly remember around that time catching snippets of an odd-looking music video with crazy imagery, loopy animation, and anarchic chanting on T.V.. Needless to say I was officially intrigued. A few days later a friend of mine in High School hooked me up with a copy of the record from which it sprang: Pink Floyd's The Wall. I remember that it was handed to me like contraband, like audio TNT. When I got it home and played it, I quickly realized why. A mere three minutes into it's run time my brain exploded and leaked out of my left ear.
I had no clue what a "concept album" was. I'd never heard a band say "We don't need no education"/"We don't need no thought control". I'd never been compared to a brick in a wall before. Consider my mind officially blown at that point. Here's a particularly tasty morsel:
Pink Floyd "Another Brick In The Wall"
In fact, this album was considered to be so subversive in my little town that when I went to my local video store to rent the film version a few years later, the clerk behind the counter made me promise not to hurt myself, catch anything on fire or push old women into traffic.
Sure, maybe I was a bit antisocial and intense around that time, but I wasn't exactly "Trenchcoat Mafia" material either. F#@%*& pinheads.
Also around that same time I discovered an odd-looking LP in my Grandmother's basement, left there by an older cousin of mine. The cover was white and trippy-looking, with stereotypical 60's/hippie font featuring the band's name. When you turned a dial on the side of the album the die-cut holes scrolled by with an ever-changing kaleidoscope of surreal aerial-themed images. That alone made it worth investigation.
I brought this artifact home and threw it on my parent's record player. Flipping the record when it came time to do so was challenging since by that time half my face had been melted off.
The album was Led Zeppelin III. It was unlike anything I'd ever heard in my life and to this day "Since I've Been Loving You" is still my favorite Zep tune. Here's a sample:
Led Zeppelin "Since I've Been Loving You"
Discovering Zeppelin sent me on a quest for as much classic rock music I could consume. The Who, Cream, Aerosmith, Steppenwolf, Jimi Hendrix and Janice Joplin were all assimilated in quick succession. Blue Oyster Cult even had the consideration to write a song about one of my favorite childhood heroes: Godzilla. Here's a bit of Spinal-Tappian cheese to illustrate:
Blue Oyster Cult "Godzilla"
But this was all merely a warm up for the musical smart bomb that was imminent. When I moved into residence at St. Mary's University I was finally exposed to the sort of musical palette that kids in urban settings take for granted.
Like 95% of music fans at some point in time, The Doors became a major fixture for me, to the point that my first Intro English submission was entitled "Morrison and Hendrix: The Lyrical Revolution". Color me shocked when I didn't get an "A"!
As you might imagine, the music of The Doors makes for the perfect soundtrack to life in residence, with "L.A. Woman" a particularly appropriate selection:
The Doors "L.A.Woman"
Eventually I began to move away from the musical wankery that taints a lot of classic crock music (I'm looking at you, Styx). Thanks to the encyclopedic tape collection of a floor-mate, one Monsieur Buchan, I discovered my enduring musical passion for punk and alternative music.
Acts like Bad Religion, The Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Dead Kennedy's were fantastic, since they possessed the aggression of metal without the cheese or the wankery of classic rock. It also added a healthy dollop of social commentary. To this day, I'd fight anybody to the death for debating the relevance of The Ramones as one of the greatest bands of all time. Here's a favorite of mine from Joey, Dee Dee, Johnny and Marky.
The Ramones "Rock and Roll Radio"
I know this sounds stupid, but every one of the songs featured in these links gives me friggin' chills and makes me feel like I could bench-press a Subaru over my head. Awesome stuff.
Then something magical happened. It was like that scene in Star Wars when Ben Kenobi tells Luke: "That's good! You've taken your first step into a larger world!"
Alternative music surfaced in my line of sight for the first time and I felt a burning anger towards mainstream radio and video shows for completely ignoring it. Suddenly I was hearing The Cure, Sonic Youth, Ministry, Sugar, Sinead O' Connor, Fishbone, R.E.M., Rage Against the Machine, Smashing Pumpkins, The Lemonheads, The Proclaimers, Jane's Addiction, Helmet, Concrete Blonde, Dinosaur Jr, The Sugarcubes, Beck, Velvet Underground, The Pixies, Violent Femmes, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Nine Inch Nails, and Primus.
All of these bands are special to me but two deserve special mention. One is Throwing Muses featuring power-pixie Tanya Donelly. Listen to this without being amazed, I dare you:
Throwing Muses "Not Too Soon"
Now isn't that better than half the crap you hear on the radio nowadays? Don't your ears just go..."Aaaahhhh, refreshing!" Damn straight...
Also, upon first listen, the metal/alt/rap outfit Faith No More became one of my favorite bands of all time at that moment. I still play them incessantly and talks of a large-scale reunion keep me riveted. Here's my favorite track of theirs, from the desert-island disc Angel Dust:
Faith No More "Everything's Ruined"
I have that same bee suit, by the way. It's surprisingly roomy...
All of a sudden Canadian acts were revealed to me that just weren't aping their American and British counterparts. Turns out there were a slew of burgeoning bands that didn't suck in a Kim Michell/Parachute Club/Men Without Hats/David Wilcox/Glass Tiger/Haywire sorta way! Ska group King Apparatus, alterna-brats The Pursuit of Happiness, alt-rockers The Watchmen, surf-kings/Kid's In the Hall soundtrack maestros Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, the spacey-sounding Gandharvas, folksy geniuses Leslie-Spit Tree-o, more-than-a-novelty act Barenaked Ladies, local boys made good Sloan and Bootsauce, Canada's pervy answer to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Having said all that, one band in particular deserves a special shout-out: National Velvet.
National Velvet "Flesh Under Skin"
These guys don't get the credit they deserve for blazing trails in the late-Eighties altenative music movement in Canada. I wish they'd have stuck around a bit longer and collected some of the accolades they deserved.
Plus I'm still kinda have the hots for their Amazonian lead singer Maria Del Mar. Dang, y'all.
I also discovered rap beyond Run DMC. Kool Moe Dee, Ice-T, KRS-One and Boogie Down Productions, Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, Slick Rick, House of Pain, Del La Soul, Boo-Ya T.R.I.B.E, N.W.A., Sir Mix-A-Lot, Del tha Funkee Homosapien, Cyprus Hill, and Public Enemy all qualified for my harsh criterion: attitude, innovation and social commentary. Here's one of the best::
Public Enemy "Fight The Power"
The great thing about hip-hop back in the day is that it could also make for a fun party jam. What happened to fun in hip-hop? Here's what I'm talking about:
Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock "Joy and Pain"
Young MC "Bust A Move"
Maestro Fresh-Wes "Let Your Backbone Slide"
Organized Rhyme "Check the O.R."
OMG, I just realized that Organized Rhyme might be considered the Godfathers of Hip Hop Nerdcore. Heavy...
In my next entry alternative is dragged kicking and screaming into the mainstream, dark days return and hope spring eternal.
And, oh yeah, I'm also eventually gonna get to why Nickleback sucks Herculean amounts of ass. Keep yer friggin' pants on...
EPIC:
FAIL: http://rabidbulldog.tk/?article=776
Not content with the spoon-fed pablum on radio and Much Music (and totally unaware of the burgeoning indie music scene in the Late Eighties) I turned to Classic Rock for solace.
I distinctly remember around that time catching snippets of an odd-looking music video with crazy imagery, loopy animation, and anarchic chanting on T.V.. Needless to say I was officially intrigued. A few days later a friend of mine in High School hooked me up with a copy of the record from which it sprang: Pink Floyd's The Wall. I remember that it was handed to me like contraband, like audio TNT. When I got it home and played it, I quickly realized why. A mere three minutes into it's run time my brain exploded and leaked out of my left ear.
I had no clue what a "concept album" was. I'd never heard a band say "We don't need no education"/"We don't need no thought control". I'd never been compared to a brick in a wall before. Consider my mind officially blown at that point. Here's a particularly tasty morsel:
Pink Floyd "Another Brick In The Wall"
In fact, this album was considered to be so subversive in my little town that when I went to my local video store to rent the film version a few years later, the clerk behind the counter made me promise not to hurt myself, catch anything on fire or push old women into traffic.
Sure, maybe I was a bit antisocial and intense around that time, but I wasn't exactly "Trenchcoat Mafia" material either. F#@%*& pinheads.
Also around that same time I discovered an odd-looking LP in my Grandmother's basement, left there by an older cousin of mine. The cover was white and trippy-looking, with stereotypical 60's/hippie font featuring the band's name. When you turned a dial on the side of the album the die-cut holes scrolled by with an ever-changing kaleidoscope of surreal aerial-themed images. That alone made it worth investigation.
I brought this artifact home and threw it on my parent's record player. Flipping the record when it came time to do so was challenging since by that time half my face had been melted off.
The album was Led Zeppelin III. It was unlike anything I'd ever heard in my life and to this day "Since I've Been Loving You" is still my favorite Zep tune. Here's a sample:
Led Zeppelin "Since I've Been Loving You"
Discovering Zeppelin sent me on a quest for as much classic rock music I could consume. The Who, Cream, Aerosmith, Steppenwolf, Jimi Hendrix and Janice Joplin were all assimilated in quick succession. Blue Oyster Cult even had the consideration to write a song about one of my favorite childhood heroes: Godzilla. Here's a bit of Spinal-Tappian cheese to illustrate:
Blue Oyster Cult "Godzilla"
But this was all merely a warm up for the musical smart bomb that was imminent. When I moved into residence at St. Mary's University I was finally exposed to the sort of musical palette that kids in urban settings take for granted.
Like 95% of music fans at some point in time, The Doors became a major fixture for me, to the point that my first Intro English submission was entitled "Morrison and Hendrix: The Lyrical Revolution". Color me shocked when I didn't get an "A"!
As you might imagine, the music of The Doors makes for the perfect soundtrack to life in residence, with "L.A. Woman" a particularly appropriate selection:
The Doors "L.A.Woman"
Eventually I began to move away from the musical wankery that taints a lot of classic crock music (I'm looking at you, Styx). Thanks to the encyclopedic tape collection of a floor-mate, one Monsieur Buchan, I discovered my enduring musical passion for punk and alternative music.
Acts like Bad Religion, The Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Dead Kennedy's were fantastic, since they possessed the aggression of metal without the cheese or the wankery of classic rock. It also added a healthy dollop of social commentary. To this day, I'd fight anybody to the death for debating the relevance of The Ramones as one of the greatest bands of all time. Here's a favorite of mine from Joey, Dee Dee, Johnny and Marky.
The Ramones "Rock and Roll Radio"
I know this sounds stupid, but every one of the songs featured in these links gives me friggin' chills and makes me feel like I could bench-press a Subaru over my head. Awesome stuff.
Then something magical happened. It was like that scene in Star Wars when Ben Kenobi tells Luke: "That's good! You've taken your first step into a larger world!"
Alternative music surfaced in my line of sight for the first time and I felt a burning anger towards mainstream radio and video shows for completely ignoring it. Suddenly I was hearing The Cure, Sonic Youth, Ministry, Sugar, Sinead O' Connor, Fishbone, R.E.M., Rage Against the Machine, Smashing Pumpkins, The Lemonheads, The Proclaimers, Jane's Addiction, Helmet, Concrete Blonde, Dinosaur Jr, The Sugarcubes, Beck, Velvet Underground, The Pixies, Violent Femmes, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Nine Inch Nails, and Primus.
All of these bands are special to me but two deserve special mention. One is Throwing Muses featuring power-pixie Tanya Donelly. Listen to this without being amazed, I dare you:
Throwing Muses "Not Too Soon"
Now isn't that better than half the crap you hear on the radio nowadays? Don't your ears just go..."Aaaahhhh, refreshing!" Damn straight...
Also, upon first listen, the metal/alt/rap outfit Faith No More became one of my favorite bands of all time at that moment. I still play them incessantly and talks of a large-scale reunion keep me riveted. Here's my favorite track of theirs, from the desert-island disc Angel Dust:
Faith No More "Everything's Ruined"
I have that same bee suit, by the way. It's surprisingly roomy...
All of a sudden Canadian acts were revealed to me that just weren't aping their American and British counterparts. Turns out there were a slew of burgeoning bands that didn't suck in a Kim Michell/Parachute Club/Men Without Hats/David Wilcox/Glass Tiger/Haywire sorta way! Ska group King Apparatus, alterna-brats The Pursuit of Happiness, alt-rockers The Watchmen, surf-kings/Kid's In the Hall soundtrack maestros Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, the spacey-sounding Gandharvas, folksy geniuses Leslie-Spit Tree-o, more-than-a-novelty act Barenaked Ladies, local boys made good Sloan and Bootsauce, Canada's pervy answer to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Having said all that, one band in particular deserves a special shout-out: National Velvet.
National Velvet "Flesh Under Skin"
These guys don't get the credit they deserve for blazing trails in the late-Eighties altenative music movement in Canada. I wish they'd have stuck around a bit longer and collected some of the accolades they deserved.
Plus I'm still kinda have the hots for their Amazonian lead singer Maria Del Mar. Dang, y'all.
I also discovered rap beyond Run DMC. Kool Moe Dee, Ice-T, KRS-One and Boogie Down Productions, Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, Slick Rick, House of Pain, Del La Soul, Boo-Ya T.R.I.B.E, N.W.A., Sir Mix-A-Lot, Del tha Funkee Homosapien, Cyprus Hill, and Public Enemy all qualified for my harsh criterion: attitude, innovation and social commentary. Here's one of the best::
Public Enemy "Fight The Power"
The great thing about hip-hop back in the day is that it could also make for a fun party jam. What happened to fun in hip-hop? Here's what I'm talking about:
Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock "Joy and Pain"
Young MC "Bust A Move"
Maestro Fresh-Wes "Let Your Backbone Slide"
Organized Rhyme "Check the O.R."
OMG, I just realized that Organized Rhyme might be considered the Godfathers of Hip Hop Nerdcore. Heavy...
In my next entry alternative is dragged kicking and screaming into the mainstream, dark days return and hope spring eternal.
And, oh yeah, I'm also eventually gonna get to why Nickleback sucks Herculean amounts of ass. Keep yer friggin' pants on...
EPIC:
FAIL: http://rabidbulldog.tk/?article=776
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