SOME WICKED: Dashiell Brown's Blog

President’s Choice is not the brand I thought it was, and now I learn Loblaws heavily uses genetically engineered ingredients in many of their products. According to this Canadian Greenpeace Shopper’s Guide, up to 70% of all food items on the shelves of Canadian grocery stores have Genetically Engineered ingredients due to our lovely Members of Parliament who voted down a law to include mandatory labelling of GE foods in 2001. Yes, it’s one thing to have GE foods in the stores, but it’s quite another to have any lack of labelling on those foods whatsoever. This is a crime sandwich. To add further insult to injury, if you live in Newfoundland like I do, you have even less choice because many of the alternative products that are GE-free are not available here, much less any of the produce you can buy since the only stores you can shop from here are Dominion, Soeby’s, Wal-Mart, and Cost-Co. There’s Auntie Crae’s, of course, but you can hardly call them a grocery store. So what are Newfoundlanders to do?

You can do what Greenpeace is doing, calling on Loblaws to remove the offending GMO foods in their inventory as well as label the GE products at the very least. But they’re not even doing that.

According to the Greenpeace GMO guide above, retailers all over the world are refusing to sell GE foods and it is the law to label GE foods in more than forty countries worldwide. Yes, North America would be excluded from that list. Oh, the irony.

Read the guide and educate yourself. (You might also want to stop drinking Labatt and Molson beer; really that just leaves Quidi Vidi for us Newfoundlanders. Who owns Dominion beer? Molson, probably…)

The guide is organized by food category with three emoticons to easily see which foods are “happy” and which are not. Not much on the list surprised me save for President’s Choice. I really didn’t see that one coming. Basically any major brand is unhealthy, just add PC and No Name to the long list of untested crap that we are coerced to eat based on the sheer lack of choice we have in our beloved grocery stores.

At the very least, stop buying PC products until they start labelling them and email Chairman Galen Weston at customer_service@weston.ca and tell him why you are no longer buying PC products and that you’re spreading the word to everyone you know why they shouldn’t either. You can also become a fan of The People’s Choice Against President’s Choice on facebook as well and help spread the word. Everyone who shops at any Loblaws chain needs to know this since they obviously don’t feel your health is worth much.

And now for any of you naysayers out there who think GMO food is being blown out of proportion, who think that it’s safe to eat GMO foods. I’m not going to go into it, all the research is out there, but you can start by reading any book by Michael Pollan, specifically In Defense of Food and The Omnivore’s Dilemma and watch the movie Food Inc. Michael Pollan just wrote a new book Food Rules reviewed here in The New York Times. That should get you started as to understanding the eco-systemical nightmare that is GMO food. If you want a better understanding of the crimes of Monsanto against third-world food production and the devastating effects the WTO and NAFTA has had on these countries, you’ll want to read Raj Patel’s Stuffed and Starved. In a quick summary, basically poor farmers all over the world have been coerced into buying Monsanto’s seeds the same way we are coerced into buying GMO food in our grocery stores, and since these seeds are patented, these farmers will never become independent food producers in the same way that Newfoundlanders will never get to choose what they can fish. Furthermore, these foreign farmers cannot sell their local food in the markets since the cheap high-fructose corn syrup-riddled imports out-compete the locally-produced foods. It’s a nightmare, and we have our beloved institution of direct government subsidies to the soy and corn industry to thank for our corrupt food industry. King Corn is another must-see.

That’s all for now. Stop buying PC and tell Loblaws why. There’s going to be GMO food on the shelves. But at the very least, it should say so right there on the label. And not just PC, on everything.

Please become a fan of The People Against President’s Choice on facebook and help spread the word. It’s the least you can do, eh?

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The New Spin’s goal is to expose the great underground musicians of today. But given that 35% of everything The New Spin plays must be Canadian, I have discovered many great Canadian bands from among the piles of crap that’s out there. So here is a list in the order that I discovered them (kind of), the cream-of-the-crop Canadian bands making waves on The New Spin for 2009, some of which I have already written reviews for (they have links included.)

Of course, to listen to any of these artists, you can always tune in to the show every Thursday night on 93.5 CHMR-FM, online here, 9-11 Newftime, 7:30-9:30 EST, 4:30 Pacific. You should be able to find most of them on CBC Radio 3. I have added a few keywords to describe each artist in case you only like certain genres. SL means “sounds like.”

Tonight I will do a special show playing these artists, so tune in and hear the best of the best in Canadian music.

Hear a playlist of most of these artists here.

Timber Timbre (truly unusual folksongs, like Patrick Watson, this guy’s in a class all his own.)

Bruce Peninsula (dark choir/chamber folk, oh yes.)

Geoff Berner (Klezmer punk, what more needs to be said)

The Hylozoists (all instrumental like post-rock, but wow.)

Headache24 (SL Pixies)

Japandroids (SL Fugazi)

Olenka and the Autumn Lovers (if you like Dead Can Dance, etc.)

Weather Station (folk on the laptop loveliness)

Rae Spoon (how many transgendered folksingers do you know who sound like women but are actually men and who trade in their guitars for computers? not many, I’m sure.)

Patrick Watson (one of the best of the year, avant-garde/progressive indie folk)

The Torrent (dark 80’s inspired electro)

Pat Lepoidevin (amazing folk guitarist with an oh-so-sweet Scottish touch)

Eleazer Vs John (like Junior Boys?)

Tiga (play this at any club and watch them feet move)

Rural Alberta Advantage (dark, folky, I like them better than Elliot Brood)

Lovely Feathers (indie rock)

Hidden Cameras (80’s, New Order-ish, I love their new album)

Dan Mangan (folk, songwriter)

Wooden Sky (dark folk, reminds me of 16 Horsepower a bit)

Kids on TV Remixed V.1 from Blocks Recording Club (beats!)

Cousins (I can’t get play “Growling” enough)

Spiral Beach (kick-ass garage rock/punk)

Acres and Acres (lo-fi folksongs with St. John’s guest Amelia Curran)

Brock Geiger (banjo heavy folk songs)

Reverie Sound Revue (SL Stereolab)

Dark Mean (a little EP, but let’s see what they do in the future)

The Got to Get Got (fun fun in the sun indie rock)

Ambisonic (avant-garde-ish)

Jordan Klassen (love this guy from Calgary, oh my. SL Sufjan Stevens, David Pajo)

Gypsophilia (my interview with them is on my site here)

The Diableros (they have a new album, but haven’t heard it yet!)

The Danks (you love da danks if you love da strokes)

Flotilla (harp-based folk stuff from Montreal. SL Sunday All Over the World if you know who the hell that is)

Extra Happy Ghost (I only like one of the songs on this EP, but it’s so incredible I have to mention it. That would be “mash up: neither being nor nothingness”)

Vincat (Vincat!)

Rival Boys (alt-country, but their EP has grown on me)

Jesse Matheson (this guy’s songs are hilarious and oh so fun)

Octoberman (SL Calexico)

hellothisisalex (unusual chill-out chipcore or chipcore chill-out, whichever sounds better)

The Sales Department (electronic)

The Mountains and The Trees (from St. John’s, they’re making waves!)

Errand Boy (he moved away from St. John’s, too too bad, but keep an eye out for this dude)

Islands (not really underground, but whatever)

Language Arts (whoah, spoken word/hip-hop folk, cool…)

Fritz Helder (not really my favorite, but he has a very original electronic style that’s hard not to notice and that you may love, who knows)

Gregory Pepper and His Problems (problems? on his eclectic album With Trumpets Flaring I don’t see any problems, this guy’s uber-talented)

Makita Hack (straight up bluegrass, but awesome bluegrass at that)

Miss Quincy and The Ramblers (less exciting than Makita, but if you’re a bluegrass fan, why not?)

Woody Johnson (this guy’s a whiz on the acoustic blues front. so is Trevor Caswell, for that matter.)

Let’s Go to War (funky, electronic stuff, probably worth mentioning. SL Groove Armada)

We are Wolves (easily one of the best Canadian albums of the year, wow…)

Peace (who is this dude??? dark 80s-like stuff. SL early P.I.L. or Wilderness if you know them)

Minto (don’t know the album too well, but it’s produced by Steve Albini. yes, Steve Albini!)

The Fugitives (find me, find me! oh god, I’m drooling over them banjo licks.)

Digits (this guy emailed me and showed me his music. I cannot stop playing “Endgame”)

Jon and Roy (from BC, “Another Noon” is one of the best songs of the year.)

Vivian Houle (WTF???)

Rep by Pop (one of my favorite Canadian albums of the year, Cell Phone Camera, just wrote the review.)

Devil Eyes (very raucous, loud, but in a good, trashy-garage-rock-kind-of-way)

Sex with Strangers (I just love “We Want the Fire”)

Richard Laviolette and The Oil Spills (good folky stuff)

You Say Party We Say Die (yep, this is a good album, very punchy and lively)

The Racoon Wedding (like if Arcade Fire came from a bluegrass angle with some brass thrown in for good measure)

Okay, that’s it, I hope that’s enough to keep you busy for awhile, assuming you read this. I’ll post another list of the best underground artists from the rest of the world later. If you’re a new spinner, you already know them. If you need more, here is my list of top ten most under-rated records of 2008.

in sound,

Dashiell Brown

www.thenewspin.ca

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When it comes to St. John’s musicians, you can’t get any more homegrown than five-time MusicNL Award nominee Ian Foster, but this summer he’s going to spread his roots, embarking on his largest Canadian tour to date, to promote two remarkable new albums, We Begin Here and Found: Music From the Unmade Film, his latest project composed for the 2009 RPM Challenge (my own RPM album is here.) I chatted with him to get a better understanding of who this guy is and what he’s all about.

Ian Foster is not unknown in these parts. He was born and raised here in St. John’s, playing the keyboards in Radio Shack at 10 years old until he got kicked out of the place. His parents then gave him a keyboard and he immediately started playing The Beatles’ songs that came with the book. Seeing this as a signal that Foster seemed to have a knack for this music thing, they enrolled him in private lessons for piano and voice. Foster picked up the guitar along the way, though he didn’t study music at the university; rather, he majored in English and History because he enjoyed the folk/pop/rock idioms of popular music and though he loves classical music, he didn’t want to devote himself to the formal study of it.

He started gigging live in 2003, supporting other musicians, and then went out on his own with the Ian Foster Band, debuting his critically-acclaimed album, Through the Wires in 2006, which captured the live sets his band had been playing. But since the other members of the IFB had other jobs and priorities, the IFB served as a one-shot deal, and Foster has been going solo since, having released Room in the City and now his two new releases.

Where Through the Wires was about methods of communication, Room in the City was about traveling in cities, which had a major impact on him as he started to tour his material, made possible by funding through MusicNL. His latest release We Begin Here is about history. “There’s a weight to history and we feel it. If we don’t feel it, we should—it has to at least be acknowledged,” Foster says.

For example, take his Dylanesque folk song, “Gone with the Good Earth,” driven by his rich acoustic guitar and harmonica. The title, taken from Robert Wright’s A Short History of Progress, laments the plight of the farmer, the entropy of man’s detrimental effect on his land, farming the land until there’s nothing left. “I used to know what it was worth/But now it all seems to be washed away/Gone with the good earth.” History teaches us we must be good to the land. Not only today’s farmer, but the microcosm of modernity surrounding the farmer, is all but destroying it.

Or take “The Pacific’s Waters”, a folk song also inspired by history, in this case, herstory. A 30 yr. old woman sat next to Foster on a Greyhound bus and revealed that she had left her family to go meet a man she had met online, to see if she could escape her failing marriage, her own past which she was trapped by, to see what could be. We must acknowledge history, but sometimes we are compelled to go forward.

The title track “We Begin Here” is the centerpoint of the album and defines its overlying theme: “History is just an art of creating where we begin.” Foster means that history is not set in stone, that it invites many interpretations, and it’s flexible. In other words, as the title of the first track states, “the future is an ocean,” and “you’ve gotta be brave enough to sail.”

When asked about his own future, what his plans were, and whether he felt successful, he modestly told me, “I do…when I get close to writing the songs that I hear in my head…I know it sounds cliché, but I just want to make the music I want to make.” In fact, his aim has always been about communication. If he can make people respond to his music in some way, then he feels successful. He told me about the 1000 true fans theory, that if you can get 1000 loyal fans that will support you, buy all of your music, follow everything you do, then you can make a living doing what you love as a musician. But for Foster, I got the impression this would be the icing on the cake for him. Doing what you love and being able to do it, that’s his ultimate aim, and he feels he’s achieving it.

Indeed, once you listen to his two brand new releases, you will feel it for yourself. We Begin Here and Found are the mark of a man who fears no musical bounds or traps himself in any kind of formulaic song craft or sticks to any one genre. This isn’t songwriting to be ignored but wrapped around you like a cozy blanket that will get better with the wear and tear, especially the Knopfler-like “Different Songs,” perhaps my favorite song on the album, an ode in a way to all the different songs will you hear, not only on We Begin Here, but also on Found: Music From the Unmade Film, which has a Magnum P.I.-like techno number, a ragtimey piano jazz feel, and a gypsy, flamenco track; the album is mostly instrumental and may be somewhat inspired by Daniel Lanois. It is also an enhanced cd, which includes images of the unmade film.

We Begin Here slows to a crawl towards the end, taking you into more contemporary territory, with several power ballads, but the album is quite a journey and utterly memorable, like he’s taken you into a delicate, vulnerable world you never knew existed and want to protect with your life, lest it too be gone with the good earth.

Ian Foster’s tour and cd-release party begins here in St. John’s at The Ship, Sunday, June 21. This will be his fifth tour and his largest to date.  His website is ianfoster.ca.

Listen to Ian Foster this Tuesday on my new show, The Folkin’ Freak Show on 93.5 CHMR-FM, Tuesdays 9-10 PM, newftime, 7:30 Eastern, 4:30 Pacific.

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I am debuting two new shows tonight on CHMR-FM, The Folkin’ Freak Show and Other Frequencies. I have happily agreed to share a pint with myself and discuss the ever-growing popularity of the new folk movement and my two new shows.

ME: Hi, thank you for taking the time to chat with me.

DB: No sweat, but let’s make this snappy. I gotta prepare for my shows tonight.

ME: OK, sure. So, why The Folkin’ Freak Show? Isn’t there enough folkin’ music in this town?

DB: No, you can never have enough folk music. Folk music is the music of the people, the John Doe’s of the world, and when you consider Newfoundland’s own history, it’s no coincidence folk and trad. is so important here. Folk is labor songs, maritime songs, mountain songs, railroad songs…rock n’ roll grew out of it. And look at all the folk festivals going on everywhere, not to mention all the great new folk music popping up in St. John’s. And Tom Power’s Deep Roots on CBC2. You have folk night at The Ship every Wednesday. So why isn’t there a local show about it? It’s about folkin’ time, don’t you think?

ME: But don’t you play folk music on The New Spin?

DB: Well, The New Spin’s focus is really on new music, hot off the press, with lots of punk, post-punk and indie rock—folk fans might not dig that. The New Spin was initially called The Folkin’ Freak Show, but when I saw how much insanely good new music was coming to CHMR, I realized I had to devote an entire show to just playing the new stuff. But I still find I’m gravitating towards the folk-oriented new stuff. It needs its own show.

ME: So will it just be new folk music, then?

DB: No. The New Spin is a showcase of all that is great out there right now, that isn’t getting radio play or much promotion. The Folkin’ Freak Show will be about folk and world music and discuss it’s historical importance and influence to today’s mass movement that has brought us the likes of Devendra Banhart, Iron and Wine, M. Ward, Bon Iver, Grizzly Bear, Fleet Foxes, Animal Collective, etc. It’ll be a mix of the old and new. There’s a whole slew of new Canadian folk, too, Timbre Timbre, Bruce Peninsula, Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir… It’s a very exciting time for folk music. The Dark Was the Night comp is proof of this.

ME: Yeah, Grizzly Bear just hit the Billboard Charts with the likes of Eminem and Lady Gag. Animal Collective hit the charts at #13 with their latest release. Why do you think folk music is taking off again so suddenly?

DB: Well, it wasn’t suddenly, but Devendra Banhart has a lot to do with it when he released his critically-acclaimed album, Rejoicing in the Hands in 2004. But many other bands were doing the same thing, like Iron and Wine, Joanna Newsom, Coco-Rosie, Animal Collective, M. Ward…I think people were growing tired of shitty, compressed-to-death pop music which represented a growing commercialism and domination of the entire music industry which quickly killed the grunge movement in the 90’s. Folk music quickly moved in to fill the gap, but it took more than ten years for the world to catch on to this growing revolution. Malls are out, folk music is in. And now with the global economy in its fragile state…the new folk movement is going to speak to more people than ever. And it’s about folkin’ time.

ME: And aren’t you doing another new show after that?

DB: Other Frequencies, yes, a showcase of electronica and underground hip hop. What with Loft 709 on the go, Errand Boy, Le Malediction, Aoke, Sports, and Ye-Yeti, the popularity of electronica, dance and hip hop is growing, but there’s no show about it here either, and it needs a voice. New DJ’s are popping up and new electronica acts. Let’s support it.

ME: Do you plan on having guests on your show as you do on The New Spin?

DB: Funny you asked. Ryan Green of Patch is going to be my guest to help me launch Other Frequencies tonight. We’ll be spinning some Patch tunes, plus some of his favorite electronic tracks. Should be pumpin’.

The Folkin’ Freak Show roots through the backwoods to bring the best this folked-up world has to offer. Tuesday nights, 9-10 PM, streaming online on 93.5 CHMR-FM, or Rogers cable 942.

Other Frequencies is the first all-electronic show in St. John’s to get your booty groovin’, all genres of electronic music, from dub and grime to techno and trance. Tuesday nights, 10-11 PM, right after The Folkin’ Freak Show.

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Here is my latest article, my interview with St. John’s Jill Porter, previously published in Current Magazine.

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As I sing about in my song from my latest album, “Happy Little Song,” I suffer from what they say is over-use syndrome. I screwed up my hands playing guitar about two years ago. I was taking guitar lessons after having bought a brand new Martin Acoustic guitar, the kind with steel strings. During the lessons, I pushed myself so hard that I over practiced, I guess, and my left thumb started to feel intense pain after about 4 months of lessons. One of the main factors in the pain, I think, was my guitar strings. The gauge was too high and my fingers had to push even harder, especially when bending or pulling the notes. So I quit the lessons, stopped playing the guitar, and proceeded to ruin my other hand, by overcompensating on the mouse and using the internet and composing music on my PC. Big mistake. Now both of my hands are pretty much ruined. 

Flash to present day, I now only write occasionally, I barely play the guitar, doing my last album was very hard on me, surfing the net can be painful, etc. My hands are in bad shape, and it’s amazing what your mind does when you’re stripped of some of your favorite passions. You go nuts! You try to ignore the pain and keep at doing what you love. Well, thank god I love to read. Since I used to be a High School English teacher, I’m a big fan of the books. Music and books. And writing. The Big Three. Raising kids, too, of course…

Unfortunately, for me, I love to read on the internet. But it’s painful for me, every time I scroll and browse. So, I try to avoid it, but it’s still pretty captivating and hard to resist. All that juicy information waiting to be tapped at the push of a button. Mmmmmmmm…

So now I’m looking for a good book to read. One that I can truly escape in. Escapism is what I need right now. And since I just saw the movie Souvenir of Canada where Douglas Coupland has the director document his experience in making the Canada House, only to have it destroyed later, I thought, hell, I should read a Coupland book. I loved both Generation X and Microserfs. So I picked up J-Pod, only to give it up half way through. Very disappointing, it totally lacked substance. Miss Wyoming? I couldn’t get past the second chapter. So I went back to the library and tried again. I didn’t know which Coupland book to check out, are there any other good ones??? Gum Thief wasn’t there, either, so I thought of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods which was a good read, and I just saw Caroline, so I picked up Neverwhere. It was okay, but nothing to write home about–I didn’t get a thing out of it, except for the end, which was great, just like Synecdoche, NY. A great end to an okay movie, the ending of which turned an okay movie into a great movie. It’s as if the way something ends determines its level of greatness.

Now I’m reading Coupland’s Gum Thief, though, and it’s funny and satisfying, thank god. But it seems Coupland is quite an inconsistent writer. After reading this one, I’m not sure what to read. I have no idea. It is partly due to a realization I had awhile back about fiction: I’ve been feeling like each time I read a book, I have accomplished nothing. Even worse, I feel like I am wasting lots of time. I never feel like this when I play guitar, write a song, or compose on the PC, or write. When I am creating something, I feel like I’m using my time valuably. But I’m probably just some kind of art snob that holds the act of creation on a pedestal, way more valuable than watching YouTube or any other kind of TV. Is listening to music a waste of time? It could be argued, I suppose. Isn’t a lot of the music we listen to a way to distract ourselves from whatever boring mundane task we are currently doing like washing the dishes or sitting in the car, bus, subway, etc. Music seems to be something we can use to kill time with or talk over. Either music is a tool we use to fight the emptiness in our lives and fill any perceivable void we’re feeling at any given time, or the lack of music causes us to feel this same void as we experience the void even more fully, when the music stops and the world stops because the silence is too unbearable, or at least unknown. 

In other words, the more music we listen to and the more we surround ourselves by it, the more empty we feel when we find ourselves without it. The other viewpoint could be true, too, where the more we listen to it, the more meaningless it becomes–it’s just another song, another mp3, another singer, more of the same. Music, music videos, DVDs, CDs, TV shows, books–consumable, disposable, ready-made entertainment right at our fingertips constantly. Does this add more importance to our lives or less? Especially when we surround ourselves by it like The Great Wall of China…aren’t we entertaining ourselves to death? And if were to give it up, wouldn’t our lives be that much emptier? Live and Die by the Sword, Live and Die by Media and/or Information. Information Glut. News. News=Entertainment. 9 to 5. Work. Consume. Work. Consume. What else is there? We better stay in tune, lest we face a deep and endless void of the “substance” we have become comfortable with. The Sublime is dead. Not our search for the sublime, but the actual center, the sublime awe that Wordsworth prostrated himself to.

There is nothing to wonder at anymore, unless you find Wal-Mart so utterly titillating to all of your deadened senses. Today’s Media and consumer culture is not sublime, it is completely lifeless, and yet we still consume it like ants towering into an anthill of insignificance. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s just the way it is here in North America. It is what we are about and the rest of the world, though they would love to make us into the enemy, the evil capitalists we are, they want all the same things we have, you can be sure of that. So they can damn us all they want, but we all know the wealth that America has created at the expense of mass exploitation of the have-nots, wars and death, unencumbered, unchecked business warfare, globalization, it is the flag the majority wants to stand under, this American Way, the reason so many have emigrated from their homelands during the 20th Century–they knew America would give them a better life, a means with which to climb the ranks and make their lives better than they were at home. And for the first time, the world’s getting a big wake-up call: America might not be all that it was cracked up to be. Perhaps it isn’t the answer. Hmmmm…it depends on what you’re looking for. Bono hasn’t found it, so don’t feel so bad if you haven’t either.

So if Americans are starting to doubt this American way, not to mention the citizens of the world, and the capitalist business model, the selfish gene of the world, what is the alternative that people think they want? If acquiring more things in our lives leaves us emptier than before, then what is going to fulfill us as a people? What will make them happier if not the pursuit of happiness that America promised? OK, so America’s not the answer anymore, you tell yourself, then what is? According to The Daily Show it would be to go to Sweden, a “Socialist” country, because they obviously have it good. Lots of vacation time, few working hours, massages waiting for you at the assembly line, you will even love your job, because, hey, it’s a job and it’s something to do. And no bling bling??? Heavens to Betsy, even Robyn isn’t living like a pop queen, a Crib she did not have, that’s for sure, as they juxtaposed the hip-hop Cribs as seen on MTV. (So this woman said in the interview.) I wonder who hosts The Daily Show over in Sweden…oh wait, there probably isn’t one or any kind of equivalent. No, I know nothing about it, actually. Perhaps learning about it would be a good way to spend my time. Perhaps there’s a good book…

Anyway, I know what book I’m going to read once I’m done with Gum Thief. I am going to reread George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, two of my favorite books. I think everyone should read these books again and see what other alternatives we might look forward to as we damn the business model that got us here to this “ruined” state the rest of the world simultaneously envies and condems. Animal Farm. And South Park can damn Atlas Shrugged all it wants, but again, South Park doesn’t seem to respect the power of free speech and it’s ability to create shows like South Park in the first place. (I love the show and we all know nothing in the world of South Park is safe from their satire, and I’m sure they understand the power of free speech. Of course they are going to attack Atlas Shrugged, but I love that book! People take it too literally.) I’m sure I don’t have to say it, but Hugo Chavez doesn’t allow free speech, especially to the people that want to overthrow him. Atlas Shrugged is about curbing freedom and John Galt is a metaphor for freedom. If the business model has failed the world, so what’s the alternative? The pursuit of happiness by giving up your right to produce goods and services not for the betterment of mankind, but for the betterment of your government, a government that has the people’s wishes at the front of their concerns. And I’m Madonna. Good luck, world, in finding your alternative pursuit to happiness. I’m going to read a good book. Perhaps I’ll find something sublime within its pages. If I’m not numb enough already to notice, that is.

P.S. Searching for the Sublime is what Neverwhere is all about. It’s worth it for the end.

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It cracks me up when I get junk mail telling me I can help prevent global warming by turning my lights off for an hour. And it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that no difference gets made, but Time Magazine has a great article about the impact Earth Hour had last year: nil. But as the article states, that’s not the point, “because climate change is essentially a political problem, and the language of politics is symbolism.” Exactly. Turning off your lights for an hour wasn’t to save electricity or reverse global warming. It’s a political move. In other words, global warming clearly has nothing to do with actual science, it’s clearly a political game. Earth Hour is meant to make people more conscious of “climate change.” I just wonder how much electricity, not to mention all other kinds of fossil fuels, gets wasted in making an Earth Hour campaign, including all the junk mail that comes with it. 

Speaking of wasteful spending and wasting resources, The Onion does a great job of mocking the phenomenon with this video.

Sony Releases New Stupid Piece Of Shit That Doesn’t Fucking Work
 

And now with Obama going on the way he does about carbon taxes, the economy is in, and will be in, shitloads more trouble than before. Just like how sending me junk mail so I can save the planet doesn’t make any sense, neither does forcing companies to charge more for their production to create jobs, and thus making everything far more costly, make any sense either. If it costs me more to produce, then I’m not going to be able to give you low prices, and then you can’t afford it, and because you can’t afford it, I can’t hire more people because no one’s buying my stuff. 

People need to go back and read Animal Farm, 1984, Brave New World. I know Atlast Shrugged has been back on the table now, and for good reason. 

Now having said that…I hate a wasteful economy, and I hate commercials, and I hate supporting corporations, etc. But I have to put my foot down when it comes to letting an inept government try to do the exact same thing. Not only is it wealth transfer, but it is ideological transfer. Capitalism creates jobs. Jobs create happy, productive, dishwasher-buying consumers. Do we really want to criticise the market the way we are, the angry populist masses? No, my life doesn’t center around going to the mall, and I really can’t stand the mall, but I am starting to see, in this economy gone sour, the point of the mall–it created jobs for people to buy more stuff, and on goes the cycle. But…the more I read about the mess we’re in, the more I realize the majority does seem to be getting it wrong, and I think it’s because they’re pissed, and rightly so. But their anger is directed at the wrong folks. The minority are the ones that create the jobs, not the majority. So to punish the minority and try to control/manipulate/coerce the minority into doing the govt’s bidding, well… into the Orwellian world we go. People seem to forget that business owners are responsible for hiring other people. Without them, I’m sorry to say, but we wouldn’t be hired. You would be out of a job. Of course the government won’t think twice about taking your former boss’s dough and using it to give you a government job, which I am also helping pay for against my will. 

So now that so many are getting laid off, of course the ones that hired you in the first place are going to be the target of your anger. But they are not the ones you should be angry at. Black is becoming white and vice/versa. 1984, we’re coming! Please wait up. We want to be controlled because we can’t control ourselves. It’s sad, indeed, but unfortunately, it looks like it’s what people want. Hell, the way my schools taught me, I don’t really know how to go out and create work for myself either. Business was never a requirement in school. Nor was money management. In fact, I was too stupid as a teenager to realize that my school curriculum was forcing me into majoring into the most useless subject of all: ineptitude. But if it’s purpose was to make us dependent on their system, which it clearly is, then they get an A+.

Speaking of the follies of bureaucracy, here’s my review of the Cohen Brothers great film, “Burn After Reading.”

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RN Wagner is St. John’s spoken word aficionado. He came onto my show to do so some of his clever raps and talk about his fundraiser, The Anything Goes April Fools Showcase & Community Project Tour Fundraiser, to create funds for community art projects as well as a play that was put on by the “resilient youth” from For the Love of Learning. (Anecodote: Robin Grant, the Director, is Jenn Grant’s sister–she’s coming here in May, see mightypop for details.) The play was on the same night as the RPM Listening Party, which RN Wagner also did an album for, and we played some cuts from it on the show. (You can listen to my own project Circuit Tree on my site or on this blog.) 

Here’s Part 1. Here’s Part 2.

 

Press Release from facebook:

“These fundraisers are to create funds for Community Arts Projects such as…Publishing Ongoing Arts Books, Permanent Free Jam/Arts Spaces, Free Audio Demo Recordings, Film workshops/projects. 
The money raised in Newfoundland, stays in Newfoundland. I will be going to Ontario for a month doing more fundraisers/projects for out there, and then making my way back with a few others visiting community centres, schools, and other partnering organizations/groups/individuals who wish to contribute to these ongoing projects. 

Any help and guidance will be greatly respected. There will be a review of the updated news as things progress further. So far the places of visit are…

Newfoundland:
For The Love of Learning, St. John’s

Ontario:
Lighthouse Youth Shelter, Niagara Falls
The Raft Shelter, St. Catharines
Welland
Hamilton
Milton
Guelph
London
Toronto
Barrie

April 1st Schedule & Slam:

“Remember the dope jam slam that Neil Conway throwed down last year, this is kinda like that, there is also a format for the closing round, where the others competing get to try and mess yer stuff up without using physical contact or sound, anything goes, like a jar of mold and pictures of relatives young and old.” -RN WAGNER

5-7PM 
Silent auction, Poetry Slam and music Sign Up

So far there will be art auctioned by works from…… Alison Rideout, Robert Keyes, Sakurah Horwood, Joey Pynn, Jamie Michelyn…more TBA

7-8PM (Round 1) Open-Poetry Slam 
Confirmation List of Performers….

- The Wham Bam-a-Lamer Riley Fitzgerald aka ‘THE RIT’
- The Influence and Anonymous Poet
- Nathan Doucette, YoungBlood
- RADAR
- JOHNNY HARDCORE
- CYRUS CLARKE
- BOOGYMAN BRAND
- Stan Nochasak
- Deborah Jackman (Debtress Janewoman)
- Johnny Lewis
- YOUR NAME HERE
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8-9PM Music Showcase

- Dave Knill
- Hot Facets
- Stu Jones
- Patrick Molloy
- Matthew Hornell
- Johnny Hardcore
- Radar
- Liam Fitzgerald
- Sarah Stockley
- DowJonesNow

9pm !!!! (Final ROUND) Anything Goes Poetry SLam

Hosted by: RN WAGNER & 

Soundman: Jonathan Norris ( J FROST )

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The Cohen Bros. latest film, Burn After Reading, is a hilarious account of the idiocy of red-tape bureaucrats and how this idiocy obviously transfers down to the citizens who invariably get caught in the red tape as well, creating a huge microcosm of idiots trying to control other idiots. Furthermore, this film aims to prove that this red-tape, supposedly used to serve as a measure of control and efficiency, does the exact opposite: it’s self-importance becomes undermined by the fact that red-tape measures are utterly inefficient and ultimately worthless.

The humor really lies in the plot where some idiots at the Hardbodies gym find some “important” numbers and dates and mistakenly think the information is highly top secret and worth $50,000. Even funnier is the owner of this information, “Oz” Cox, so believes in his own self-importance, just like the Wizard of Oz, that his delusion further cements the delusions of the idiots at the gym who try to blackmail him, so much so that they take further measures and try to “sell” this information to the Russians, as if we were still in the Cold War. And spoiler alert here, if you didn’t predict in the first ten or fifteen minutes of the film, in that very sick and twisted Cohen fashion, it all comes down to be “much a do about nothing.”

But given the state of the economy and what the government thinks they’re doing with it, don’t be surprised if, when you help an old lady across the street, you get handed a pink slip by a man in black: you’ve just been served the “Good Samaritan Tax” in the name of red-tape. The title “Burn After Reading” is a making a joke. The red-tape that surrounds us does more harm than good and, in this film, causes people to commit murders. The red tape actually makes us insane, and this is the same red tape we are depending on to fix the world’s financial woes. God help us all.

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This is my latest article that was published in Current Magazine.

 

Way back in 2006, Geoff Berner was so enamoured with St. John’s bar culture, or as he calls it, “Galway with a Tim Horton’s,” that he has chosen this city for the very last show of his tour to celebrate his latest release, Klezmer Mongrels. With aid from a Canada Council grant, he is also bringing his other band members with him, Wayne Adams and Dionia Davies; as Berner said to me, Dionia is so incredible that “there are women out there who’ve never realized they’re bisexual until they’ve heard [her] play the violin.” So mark your calendars because Berner said he hopes this’ll be a “blow-up.” Based on what I learned from him, I’m sure he’s not exaggerating.

Never a typical guy, Geoff Berner has always had punk in his blood. I asked him if he was like a starving artist, to which he replied, “I’m not making a killing, but I’m making a living.” When I asked him why the accordion, he said “it was widely disparaged in mainstream culture.” (I told him about the Accordion Revolution shirts at Living Planet, and I think he started to drool.) To further learn about Klezmer and hone his accordion skills, he traveled to Romania with Bob Cohen, an ethnomusicologist, to learn from the old gypsy veterans who were well versed in the “dirtier, grimier, more aggressive” type of Klezmer. Also, in true punk fashion, he was deported to Norway when the British Government wouldn’t let him back into the country. Rather than fret about it, he was more concerned about getting to his booked shows then returning to Canada, so he asked to be deported to Norway and he only missed a few shows. Berner also caused an upset at the Winnipeg folk festival. During a performance of his song “Maginot Line”, he reminded his free-thinking audience that Hitler brought us all Volkswagen, which just so happened to be the corporate sponsor of the festival. He assumed at a folk festival you should be able to say anything you want. Of course having a corporate sponsor at a folk festival doesn’t seem to be all that folky in the first place. Finally, if you really want to see how much of a punk Geoff Berner is, all you have to do is look at the cover of his new album, Klezmer Mongrels. Designed by Kelly Haigh, it shows a mother dog breast-feeding another dog…there’s also some tentacles whipping around in true Beetlejuice fashion.

Berner says his theme is all about mongrels, or “mixed-breed people.” He told me many bars in Europe actually let you bring your dogs and that bars are “a place for a mixing of people, of culture and ideas; it all fits with the idea of the mongrel.” Bar culture is strongly emphasized in Berner’s songs; in fact, his first album in a trilogy, Whisky Rabbi, is all about drinking, Wedding Dance of the Widow Bride is about women, and Klezmer Mongrels is a mixing of the two, drinking and women. Berner says, “I believe strongly in the social, political benefit of a healthy bar culture where people of different social classes and opinions get together in a public space.” “Shut In”, the first song on Klezmer Mongrels is a hilarious account of all the bars he’s drank in. I guess that’s why he loves St. John’s so much. So come see him punk out with his band and have a drink with him at The Ship this Saturday, Feb. 21. And bring along your accordions and dogs, let’s have a 2^nd Accordion Revolution where we march all the way to George Street, white and black keys flying, dogs barking, a St. John’s hootenanny.

   

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