Category: Uncategorized

I Love the Internet, Part 96

I was looking at a blog post about the new Super Friendz new CD when I wonderwed who was in the band, cause I used to live in Half-a-slacks in the 80’s, went to the Grafton Street Cafe, was 1/2 of Bob the Dog on CKDU and I found this picture on the band’s old site and I think – that guy looks like the John Wesley Chisholm guy from Blackpool once drummed by my soccer pal Roger as well as the Chipster (nice togs). So I goog a bit and find this chart created sometime before 1995 by Chris Murphy of Sloan (also ex-Blackpool) which sets out the entire family tree from, what, the mid-80’s to mid-90’s, which references Basic English who I knew as a NSCAD band of Monctonians when I was at Kings who used to live above Sams (later the Silver Bullet and the Double Diamond) where my brother Iain would see Sarah McLaughlin sing at parties. I had no idea there was a link between the semi-proto Slone band Kearney Lake Road (who I saw play outside at TUNS before or after Sook-Yin Lee and her band Bob’s Your Uncle in the summer of ’88) and 100 Flowers, one of which band my roomie dated in around ’89. Best name: Al Tuck and No Action.

Later: I did not mention the early 80’s start of the Hopping Penguins – still going – which I think was key in letting then-high-school kids know that local music could be vital and fun live. I have also dug out my tape of the pre-Geffen Sloan on Cod Can’t Hear from ’92 and the 1993 CDOut of the Fog, Too – brother Iain got me both. It is interestnig to see on the tape liner notes that Sarah M is thanked right before Zippy Print. Ah, before they were stars…

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 10:04:57 -0400
From: "Andrew P. Rodenhiser" <rodenhiser@chem1.chem.dal.ca>
To: JRCOVEY+sloan@ac.dal.ca
Subject: A Band By Any Other Name

OK, for the benefit of the newbies, I'll post it to everyone.  This came 
out in the Coast last spring, the infamous Sloan edited issue.  Set your 
screens to >80 column and no word wrap!

Andrew

ps. Note the list address, This is the olden days :)

------- Forwarded Message Follows -------

Date sent:      Thu, 26 May 1994 10:03:17 -0300
From:           "James R. Covey" <jrcovey@ac.dal.ca>
Subject:        A Band By Any Other Name
To:             gen4114+SLOAN@HUSKY1.STMARYS.CA

chris murphy's "a band by any other name" halifax music scene family tree

                          URBAN
               SURVIVORS  ATTACK                     STEPS AROUND
SUBURBAN              |    |  |                       THE HOUSE
REBELS              REALISTS  |                           |               TRASH
  |                   |       |    MEDIA              VULGARIANS  VACANT  KANZ
CLUB   THE   SPENT  SHAG  DOGFOOD  BLITZ  DUFF HICKS      |        LOT      |
MED   FLIES      |                   |        |       OCTOBER      |   NOBODY'S
|        |       | DELUXE  KILLER  KARMA   STAJATANZ   GAME   TOPSIDERS  HEROES
|     BLACKPOOL  |  BOYS   KLAMZ   WOLVES   |    |      |     |       |
|            |   |   |       |             AGRO  FLAGS FOR  RIDGE OF  TEDD
| REGISTERED |   KEARNEY    100                  EVERYTHING   TEARS
|   VOTE     |   LAKE RD   FLOWERS                 |     |    |   |  EUTHENICS
|   |        |   |  | |       |    SUSPECT DEVICE  |  BUBAISKULL  |  |
|   |  BLACKPOOL II | |       |    |            |  |          | MISERY  SYSTEM
|   |          |  | | 100 FLOWERS II  SEBAS-    COOL          | GOATS  OVERLOAD
|   LONE STARS |  | |                 TOPOL     BLUE  THRUSH  |           |
|            | |  | | CONVULSIONS       |       HALO  HERMIT  |         FALSE
| BLUEGRASS  BLACK| |      |       ALL GOOD        |  |       |        SECURITY
| LAWNMOWER  POOL | | HAPPY CO.    CHILDREN  THRUSH HERMIT II |           |
|    |       III  | | |                 |             |       | HIP      MORAL
AL TUCK &         SLOAN<-----------NO DAMN FEARS      ESSEN   | CLUB    SUPPORT
NO ACTION  RHINO                      |                       | GROOVE    |
     |     PLASTY  HOUSE OF USHER     T A G                   |   |     QUAHOGS
     |     |             |            |   |                  ONE INCH
SUPERFRIENDZ        ADINSONG       JALE   CHAZ RULES          PUNCH
                    |   |           |          |
        INFINITE LOOP  SPIKE N    SKREECH   LEONARD CONAN

I had to leave out one band -- Jellyfishbabies -- in order to fit all
the rest on the computer screen.  Chris has them located right next door
to "Registered Vote" but not connected to anyone else.  His note reads:

"Chris Murphy's my name and I'm taking credit or blame for this Halifax
 music scene family tree.  The tree itself was actually more twisted than
 this so I ended up eliminating some lines as it was getting too messy and
 hard to follow.  I didn't put every band I could think of either because I
 couldn't connect them to anyone else or I didn't like the band.  But the
 lines I did draw I think are true.  I was relying on others near the top
 in the 'before my time' section.  Sue me if I'm wrong."

He also writes a list of "Honourable Mentions":  Null Set, Redd Leader, 
The Nerve, Next X, The Quirk, Cooter Family, Roland Blinn, Basic English, 
Phycus, Aimless, Donner Party Reunion, Merge, Tetris

That's 68 bands on Chris Murphy's chart and I can 
claim to have seen 17 of them live (=25%).  There 
must be some longtime scenesters on this list who 
have seen many more than that.  Anyone?

james

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     _                                  _     James R. Covey <jrcovey@ac.dal.ca>
 ___| | ___   __ _ _ __      _ __   ___| |_    the "halifax scene" mailing list
/ __| |/ _ \ / _` | '_ \    | '_ \ / __| __|   to join or leave, send a note to
\__ \ | |_| | |_| | | | |   | | | |  __| |_    our list manager:  Scott Schuman
|___/_|\___/ \__,_|_| |_|   |_| |_|\___|\__|     <gen4114@husky1.stmarys.ca>
--
"People say you have to travel in order to see the world.  
Well I think if you stay in one place long enough, 
you'll see all that you can handle" -- Harvey Keitel, in _Smoke_
Andrew P. Rodenhiser, Ph.D. Candidate RODENHISER@CHEM1.CHEM.DAL.CA
Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., Canada   or APRODEN@AC.DAL.CA

Thanks to Katrina Grentz for sending this to me.

Dead Ducks

Duck soup, duck pie, duck jelly, duck wine....

One of the neat things about this picture from the 1930’s of my grandfather-in-law Stuart Penny and his brother Rae at the end of a day’s hunting at Honey Harbour, Ontario is that I have two of the decoys they used, one with buckshot in its butt.

Tag – You’re It!

…and I am going to quit playing for a while. 11 days off. Drove for 4 of them. 3300 km or so. Other 7 full of cleaning out the house which appears to have sold pending closing. Some thoughts from between Kingston and PEI, the length of the St.Lawrence:

  • The two best looking parts of Canada on the drive are both in Quebec: the Kamouraska areas between Riviere-du-Loup and Pocatiere on Highway 20 (huge granite mounds in the river and on the land, between which the river and the road flow respectively); and the waterfront road at the foot of the cliffs at Levis across from Quebec City (active working river, old rail bed used by hundreds as we watched for biking and roller blading, Chateau Frontenac in front of almost as many layers of mountains in the dusk as Montpellier, Vermont);

  • Old car tapes are a minefield of emotions. Bought before my CD buying days began around 1993, I was brought back to a rawer time. Garnett Rogers is pretty damn good. Damn song about a damn pigeon makes me cry every time I hear it;

  • Worst service in the world: The Kentucky Fried on the west 401 at Cornwall. Stood with wife and children at a till for five minutes as teen staff walked two feet past us setting up a fan for themselves to be told when we said we were leaving becuse the service was so bad, that the sign at the other end of the counter said “cash”. As there were five tills each with other families waiting, the meaning of this message eluded us. Please shun this establishment on your travels;

  • Cars are amazing. For about 75 to 80 bucks (Canadian) you can go 1500 kilometres either in one day (my trip to PEI) or over three (the return);

  • Best diners: the Irving Big Stop at Salisbury NB on the Trans-Canada (good diner food including a very respectable Ruben and 2 buck, 12 oz., large tomato juice), the Normandin at Levis (a favorite for over a decade – draft beer is a moslons ex and the waiting staff help you do the whole thing in our respectly poor english and french) – maple beans (aka “the bomb” in a couple of respects) with your breakfast; and

  • Best hotel in the Maritimes – the Sheraton at Fredericton. Great waterfront location in what looks like a park. Staff are capable and relaxed. Room service is fast and the wine celler is respectable. In 1999, they had no rooms left in the class we had ordered and we got the Royal Suite. Literally the rooms the Queen gets when in NB. We could have played basketball in the livingroom. The dinner table sat 12. We paid the same as the basic room we booked. Somnewhere we have a photo of our daughter, then 11 months having a pee on the floor. Although in the the same room, she was too far to run to in time but the camera was not. You have to think way ahead if you want to embarrass the hell out of someone at their wedding reception.

  • NPR – 90.1 Calais Maine; 106.1 Presque Isle, Maine, 106.5 Fort Kent Maine, 104.7(?) Vermont Public Radio St. Albans, 89.5 North Country Public Radio, Northern New York State.

Well, that is it for now. Thanks for stopping by during a slow posting week and a half.

Web Radio

I love web radio as I love radio. You don’t get the romance of the signal fading in and out but crappy buffering almost makes up for it. I love media that let you know they are there. I have recently switched to using the Windows Media Player – and it’s excellent listings pages – and so have had to give up BBC Live Five due to poorer BBC coverage, compared to the Real player, for improved NPR choices.

By the way, I understand there’s some flooding risk in New Jersey – have care if you are out and about there this afternoon.

A Blog is Blorn

Who will have a sip from my experiment??The good lads at silverorange, my pals, former clients, former employers, wise buyers of my furniture and…umm…oh, yea…award winning web designers have listed me on their new development web log. The referral logs here at GenX at 40 HQ are a buzzin’.

One point. Establishing their web log as their playground is a disservice to their office round many days about 3:30 pm when the Snood-fest begins.

RTJ on Father’s Day

Two little voices were on the phone at noon to wish me a happy Father’s Day from PEI where they are helping get the house ready for sale. They gave their gift in calling after my morning nap, required after a visit from my pal, now a teacher in Scarborough, Arthur (aka Art, Uncle Artie, RTJ or Tree – depending on the era of our now 22 year old friendship we are describing and the number of ales having been tasted.)

We started Kings together in 1981, he suffering from the bad luck of sharing common keys with our room, the room Wugg and I shared in Chapel Bay. Safety second!Suffered in having us from time to time creeping in, lifting the bed where he lay between drunk and hung to two feet off the floor, dropping it as we screamed “wake up”. Rather than wallowing in glory days, we we toured the downtown pubs Merchant McLaim, Pilot House and the Kingston Brew Pub and talked about soccer, family and, well, some old friend talk . Home by taxi at a sensible hour watching a MLS game on Fox Sports World. Highlight – smoked cod battered and fried at the Pilot House with a Guinness.

Photo above: Not us but still… two at the Brew Pub to be admired for their foresight.

WBZ

I am listening to WBZ radio 1030 AM here on the east end of Lake Ontario with pretty much the same signal strength I had most nights in PEI. WBZ is the oldest licenced station in North America operating now for 83 years. They claim they are heard throughout the continent east of the Rockies – which is probably true given they have a 50,000 watt licence and a clear channel without competition. Don’t judge the station by its terrible web site.

Paul Sullivan [who sounds exactly like Ray Romano except for a total lack of “duh, I dunno” schtick on Everybody Loves Raymond (they never asked me) that drives me nuts] hosts the 10 pm to midnight Eastern show following David Brudnoy – a Phd talking in the town where Harvard can be found – who starts at 7 pm. Both in their own way stake an interesting place in the talk-radio world as both are rightist libertarian without being republican right-wing a la Limbaugh. Brudnoy, for example, was merciless on the Clinton administration but not in the banal coarse way in which most US talk radio was – he was offended on principle. By way of contrast, one of the few real US liberal voices on any talk radio is Lovell Dyett evenings on the weekend. He also has the best voice on radio anywhere, making James Earle Jones sound watery and thin.

What is amazing to me is that the CRTC can’t block access to whatever radio waves on the AM band float over the border to be caught by a $9.99 Radio Shack transistor special. In Canada, we live in a veritable cultural police state when it comes to the control of access to television signals on the grounds of protecting Canadian values. If those nasty US values are conveyed by audio, somehow they don’t count.

Heck – on a good night you can hear Cuba on 600 Khz from most of eastern North America most nights on your car radio, especially in winter. Viva the old tech! Viva the low tech! Viva radio libre!