Thursdemo 630

So this guy who goes by the name of Johnny West sent in these two CDs accompanied with a letter. Apparently he records all his own music and masters it and basically holes up in his basement or something creepy like that. Some excerpts from said letter are as follows.

“So… I Suppose I should tell you a bit about myself. I am a purple fish with gold trim. My friends call me Esmeralda, Glowing Esmeralda, Thief of Idle Breath.”

There are only two possibilities either this guy is a fucking nutter or he has good shit going. The rest of the letter was the self deprecating dismissal speech that it seems all musicians have when they are unsigned. It is some tragic form of humble that comes from the shattered dreams of not driving around in a limo being a prick to everyone and getting away with it—not saying that every famous musician is like that but that is just what I like to pretend happens. Why else would you be famous.

“I’ve always tried to keep things in first-or-second take territory; I’ve just become a more proficient musician over time, so my fuck-ups are better integrated into the music than they once were.” Alright now this guy is leaning back toward genius. “I suppose it can’t hurt to give you my email address, just incase on of these CDs ends up changing your life and you want to shower your appreciation upon me.” Done, sold and I am listening to this CD right fuggin now.

The first CD, (he sent us two) Who you are now is not what you were before, sounds awesome from the get. His voice wanders from that guy in James to Bono to Thom Yorke to Ron Sexsmith to a bunch of other singers I can’t quite remember who they are but make you think “If I could sing half that good I would rule the fucking world.”

The music sounds a little too good for his one to two take comments to hold much weight. The only problem is there is that 70s-old-style-keyboard-organ-burton-cummings-ish thing that everyone and their dog seems to be using right now. Or maybe I am just listening to too much Indy music right now. But there is also that wicked bass analog moog sounds on some of the tracks so that more than makes up for it.

He uses other musical elements that seem to encapsulate his voice very well. Like hand claps and ocean synthesizer. You know the sound that just makes you think of the beach in the late 80’s. Whenever I hear music that sounds like my old Sega Master System I get this weird halfway to body lightning nostalgia feel that makes my eye gunk well.

I really like this CD the meandering synthesizer mixed with the sultry vocals fit this rainy Vancouver easier than spilling ketchup on my favorite shirt. Speaking of Ketchup the CD cover is all red and has this super bad line drawing of a fat girl in a skirt. This by the way gets double thumb up from me. When you grab the CD from the case the tray card (also ketchup color has a picture of a cat. I don’t know what it is going to make my sexuality seem like but cartoon cats and fat girls are a-ok with me.
After that CD I throw in the other one he sent which is called nostalgia-triggering mechanism. Johnny West describes this album: “Might be one of the better things I’ve done—funny, because it’s basically just a collection of some misfit songs I didn’t know what else to do with. Maybe it’s just that I like the artwork” Yes Johnny this is really good I don’t know about the artwork though it is a white CD case with an Anime style girl on the cover who is somewhat slender an attractive. I like the fat ketchup girl better though. This album has less meandering video game keyboards and way more vocal harmonies. There is an overall feeling of soundscape to this EP. The second song called Judas Goat is awesome example of this with a wah wah effect on the keyboard and two vocal tracks, both by Johnny, that drags you into a dark place but you are happy to go.

Bottom line on everything is Johnny West has some good shit… and he is a fuggin nutter but in a good way like a grandma who pulls chocolate cake out of her purse sure it’s gross that she keeps unwrapped food in her purse but it’s chocolate cake and it is for you. Now that is a good present.

-dale

"Word on the Street is the Chicos are making another album." I am talking on the phone with Thomas Shields from Run Chico Run. He is at the home of his fellow bandmate Matt Skillings who is currently on tour with Carolyn Mark. This will be the fifth album from the Victoria-based Run Chico Run, and the follow-up to their 2004 Boompa Records release, Shashbo.

A couple of weeks ago while chit chatting with Matt on the phone I asked what the band's plans for the summer consist of and he replied simply "quantizing the magic." Thomas explained that this was a term for recording - turning sound into ones and zeros.

The band is recording in Matt's basement studio with gear they borrowed and rented for the total sum of $400. "Last time we had semi decent microphone and a bunch of simple on/offs. Last time we never had a preamp. We played through a four-track for some distortion but this time we have a lot of hot gear." The budget is targeted to be a 60/50 ratio of liquor to instrument rentals to make for "110 percent awesomeness" as Thomas put it.

The tracking for the albums is about half way done. The musicians both recorded the bed tracks and now are doing their individual over dubbing. When asked how the recording process was progressing Shields jested, "Matt's songs sound really good and my songs could go either way."

This is the first time the band is recording on a deadline; the process usually takes them about a year -- they have a month and a half. "I guess it is just kind of different than in the past. I was used to just doing it (recording) when I was in the mood. But now when I am not in the mood I still have to do it. Those are the days I do tambourine or triangle. I still get excited to record. After playing for a while I get into it then the hours fly by."

"We never really shoot for a feeling with our records we just lay it down then take a step back and see where it is. We are trying to make sound more like our live show. We played all the drums one handed so the recorded version is closer to the live version."

Seeing Run Chico Run in concert can best be described as being tag teamed by music ninjas. Between the two of them Matt Skillings and Thomas Shields play drums, keyboard, guitar and sing.

The band's live show set up is something that evolved as they made do after losing members. The Chicos started as a four piece and went through three different line-ups. "I had to teach all the new guitar players their stuff so I got sick of it. So we played without it and it seemed all right as a three-piece band. After we went down to two members we went on tour and tried it with just the two of us then we decided that we could work it. So yes we evolved out of necessity but the theatrical aspect of it is a bonus," explains Thomas.

-dale

Thursdemo 616

PART I
So once again I am going to break the rules of my own design and talk about something that is not technically a demo and wasn't sent to us cold from an artist.

Shannon has lots of friends. One of her friends has a band in Calgary called Falcon Hawk. It was the bitching name that drew me to this band. I picked the CD up off of Shannon's desk and perused the cover. The art work consists mostly of pastel pink white and brown. There is a picture of two deers on the inside cover doing what I would hazard a guess to be a deer form of cuddling. So I figured I would listen to the album and poopsicles is it good.

I have to admit I am a sucker for the ladies. Some people I know hate bands with girl vocalists. Apparently this is a pretty common thing and I have heard it said a lot. I hate to admit how lame it is but I like female vocals I find them soothing. I also like male vocals and prefer a duo of both sexes but some people have pointed the finger at me and said that I actually prefer girl singers. If that is true I haven't noticed. All that said Falcon Hawk has the duo girl boy thing so in turn I immediately like it.

The music is that type of slow that if you aren't in the mood you are like wow this is pretty good but I am not in the mood. And if you are in the mood you make that face that a baby makes just after it fills it's diaper and knows nothing but relief but still before they feel the shit around their ass and cry their little heads off. Their are subtle synths involved and harrowing vocals. This music is perfect for late nights or that early morning coffee you drink when you look at the sun and ask yourself why you don't get up every morning just so you feel crisp beauty and smell the dew that only this time of day can offer.

PART II
The Picastro album art is a mish mash of all the most expensive aspects of album design. The vellum paper (which actually used to be a thin membrane of skin) as the cover sleeve, with nothing printed on it, is not %100 opaque so it allows you to see the actual disc. Since the cover is see through they have just stuck a round black sticker on the cover with the name picastro scribbled in white type.

The only aspect of the whole package that actually had art the CD has a grey scale disgusting mouth that runs has teeth that turn into flame. It is ugly and why anyone would want to feature this design with the semi transparent cover is beyond me. The shitty picture is something you would see if you went to a grade 8 art class and got everyone high and then challenged the students to draw something artistickly tough.

The tray card is metallic silver with black writing (metallic ink is the most expensive). Pretty cool indeed... if it wasn't handwriting by the same grade 8 stoned art student. The back cover has the same chicken scratch handwriting in silver on seafoam bluish color which I couldn't immediately find on the pantone list I would say that it is the color of light mold.

This may all seem so harsh for me to say but the album is so ridiculously pretentious because it uses the most expensive pieces of design that are available. The whole CD clashes with itself. The worst part is the music is actually good.

I wanted to hate the band so hard judging by their cover but I actually like it. This is a problem because even if you don't judge a book by the cover you have to ask yourself why would they have so much random cluttered crap on their CD? The obvious answer would be that they don't know what the fuck they are doing.

The slow guitar and smooth drums mixed with haunting vocals obviously proves that the band does in fact know what the fuck they are doing. This should be viewed as a cry out that bands art should reflect the over all feel of the band.

An open letter to Le tigre: If you wanted to alienate your audience you have done a fine job.
I can understand why you would want to tour with Beck he is a pretty solid performer. Whenever someone happens to ask me whatever happened to Beck I have to reply well I think he is still around. When I get home I'll turn on much music and there will be Beck doing something completely different and pretty good every time in all his forms he delivers. Le tigre you have done a good job getting on this tour with him.
You can reach that whole audience that thinks they are above music like yours. You can reach everyone that would consider themselves post angry art. Now I might be wrong but judging by your last album This Island it would be a fair bet that you are not quite ready for the post angry scene as there are still some bitterness in your songs like that song about the peace march and this is what democracy sounds like. I don't think that speaks to the people who have "grown out of angry music".
I would never go so far as to say your three piece is a riot girl band for all intensive purposes I was under the ideals that even uttering those words died when the world survived the millennium and the mid nineties were undeniably over. Kathleen Hannah you are an inspiration with your many forms of music that seem to be identifiable to anyone who is a little off the norm. But there is only one problem with low fi music and that problem is you can't pay 50 fucking dollars to watch it live.
I hope a lot of people pay your shitty price of $50 to see you perform live and I hope it makes you feel good that a large portion of your audience can't even afford that steep motherfucking price.
Or is it just me am I your only poor fan who wouldn't even think about paying said price for any concert. Is this like grade seven when I was too poor to be cool do I still have to shell out the big bucks to be cool. Do I have to work at my shitty job for 7 hours just to afford the price at the door. I don't want to sweat a whole day and possible have my landlord yell at me just to see you girls play.
At the same time I love you and your music I listen to the three albums of yours that I own all the time. My roommate hates me because of your music but that is alright I love your music that much. Just not $50 fucking dollars that much asshole.

jenny
oh jenny
how i miss the pinkness of you
i am on mushrooms and i just wish i could see you right now
i think you would be beautiful
all colorful and happy
i keep thinking of how so many people told me i would have so much fun in vancouver and i feel like i am letting them down
jenny
your lips are a must
a must in any day
there is a sunrise and a sunset
and your lips
with the shiny gloss:
yes i feel like i used to
when i wasn't so worried about being myself
when i wasn't trying to live like a book
because i thought that survival is what it took
and i did not realize
what was happening
i thought i lived like i wanted to and i do
i don't think there is anyother way you can live
the funniest thing is i am secretly a beatnik
jack keroac is my hero of sorts
yet i never really read that much of his work
just what I think he was trying to capture in general
yeah I guess
but a lot of times i am like
wwjkd
what would jack keroac do
nothing as sweet as you in winter

dalebot is jealous of zappa says:
i'm drunk
mike - spock days says:
good!
mike - spock days says:
write a post
mike - spock days says:
right now
dalebot is jealous of zappa says:
alright

open letter to mike: You wanted me to write a letter to you while i was drunk well here it is mother fucker. So you live in star trek town yippee do. You work on the vulcan advocate yippee do. Here is an idea since ever body dresses like star trek characters in your town you should have sex with some one dressed up as a star trek character. Deat mike call me when you finally bag a klingon cause they are pretty fucking hot. Make sure you do not sleep with a ferengi though they are freaky. I will also accpet bijorins and borgs oh man was 7 of 9 fucking hot or what jesus christ i could die she was so hot.

Oh to be 17 again

dalebot-circuits indicate success-RADICOLA! says:
parents are so backward
Anatha says:
well mine is anyways
Anatha says:
she actually incourages me to have sex
Anatha says:
its awkward
Anatha says:
shes like "your pimples will disapear if you start MASTURBATING or have SEX"
Anatha says:
and im like...."ew"
Anatha says:
"mom...shut up"

So in my procrastination phase I actually didn't give you my loyal audience your weekly music I'm into fix. My regular readers should be used to this seeings how I just forget to write most of the time.

The fucking champs.

I found out about this band when I was pilfering my neighbors CD collection looking for new music to listen to a couple months ago. I would hold up a CD and Levon would tell me a very short explanation about the music. Some he said was worth it to get my own copy and some I could live without. When I picked up the CD The Fucking Champs-IV I did not know what to expect I thought there was the possibility that they were a joke band from their name.

"Oh that's Nintendo metal" Levon says as he looks up from the Indy music magazine he was reading or was it a crossword he was doing.

"Shut up! Nintendo metal that would probably be my favorite genre ever holy crap I have to listen to this right now." I immediately run over to the stereo and insert the compact diskette.

When I was a teenager my older brother would wake me up by putting speakers beside my ears and cranking music. It was usually some obscure old band like Box of Frogs or something released by Blind Pig records. It was during one of these instances where I experience dream guitar it was kind of muffled and listening to it was like floating through space. I got so excited but when I woke up it was just Jeff Beck and the dream guitar had disappeared. It seems that the only way to achieve this effect is to be half asleep--or entirely too stoned and freaked out as I would discover a few years later at a party. Now you can get dream guitar anytime you want you just have to listen to The Fucking Champs.

This band wins the award for best skytrain music. The only problem is they will go into a solo or just fucking rock it out and before I realize what happen I am making a squinty 'fuck yeah' half way angry face and everyone is looking at me weird like I am slowly nodding my head trying to take a dump.

This band should come with a warning label because they have so much material. I have found five full albums and then they have two albums from a side collaboration with the Trans Ams one is called The Fucking Ams and the other is called The Trans Champs and they are both just as pants crappingly good as The Fucking Champs.

This is the part that I would tell you which songs to download but I always just put the albums on and let them play. Each one is a piece that holds the structure so they are all as good as the next.

For one reason or another this morning i started to think about the new pickton charges

I have no idea why but this morning on my way to work I started thinking about the Pickton murders--You know that fellow who killed the prostitutes. Robert "Willy" Pickton was charged with 15 first degree murders early in 2002. The crown added 12 charges to bring that total to 27. Yeah you have all read the papers or at least seen the blazing headlines running accross the front of the papers.

The case was such a big deal because from 1978 unitl 2001 east Vancouver had 69 women mysteriously dissappear. The families of the missing women accused the Vancouver police of mishandling the case and ignoring what they deemed to be convincing evidence that there was a serial killer at work. The area of Vancouver has been dubbed Canada's ghetto and is the poorest area in the whole country

It seems there was a viewpoint that action was not taken because all of the 'destute' women went missing out of the poorest ghetto in Canada.

What would drive a man to kill 27 prostitutes. There are two likely causes either Pickton was a simple serial killer who favored the prostitutes as his victims. (The next highest body count of a Canadian serial killer was 11 by BC's own Clifford Olson.) The other and darker possibility is that for one reason or another he felt he was cleaning up the world by taking out the so called 'trash'. There was another serial killer who was said to have been doing this in victorian England. But Jack the ripper only killed 7 prostitutes a quarter of what Robert has slain.

Now I guess I will finially drop the history lesson and everything that i just found out on the cbc website (www.cbc.ca) and get to what i was thinking about when i was skimming into the dirtiest area of Canada via translink. Is we are constantly cleaning up or own mistakes.

The dirty part of town, the crackheads that lost everything because they were addicted to some synthetic pleasure or they just lost everything the old fashioned way and it just vanished after a few bad mistakes this is what we all fear the afluent waste of our greed culture our consuming and breeding of need creates these poor people. The people who were somehow over run. Either their want was too much for their bodies or what ever led them here to the 'ghetto of Canada'.

I might be a little wierded out because becoming one of these peoples is my fear. The thought of falling under the tires of the civic machine terifies me. Maybe i am reading to much Pahleniuk or maybe my job doesn't pay me enough. It could be something as simple as just being jittery after college but I just can't wrap my head around why this mad would kill 27 women.

The majority of his victims were in 4 years 1997 to 2001. Ear marked by the worst years (6 in 97 and 7 in 01). The scariest part of the whole thing is not that a pig farmer murdered 27 women and fed them to his pigs. To me the scariest part is that 69 women were missing with no answers untill 3 years ago when the first charges were laid. Where are the other 42 or have the fragments become untraceble in the dirt.

I found the the records on the aforementioned cbc website and have plotted the years of all of the missing women on this easy to read graph

Missing Women Pickton Convictions
78 * 1--------------------------------78
79 * 1--------------------------------79
80------------------------------------80
81------------------------------------81
82------------------------------------82
83 ** 2-------------------------------83
84 ** 2-------------------------------84
85 ** 2-------------------------------85
86 * 1--------------------------------86
87------------------------------------87
88 * 1--------------------------------88
89 * 1--------------------------------89
90------------------------------------90
91 *** 3------------------------------91
92 ** 2-------------------------------92
93 **** 4-----------------------------93
94 * 1--------------------------------94
95 **** 4-----------------------------95 * 1
96 *** 3------------------------------96 * 1
97 ************** 14------------------97 ****** 6
98 ********* 9------------------------98 **** 4
99 ***** 5----------------------------99 ***** 5
00 **** 4-----------------------------00 ** 2
01 ******** 8-------------------------01 ******* 7
unidentified 1------------------------unidentified 1

These numbers are desturbing to say the least. What would make this man become so active in 97? and 01? How did 14 women go missing in 97? I have no answers for you i could waste more of your time with this rambling on about what i think could have happened and my opinion of what typically happens with serial killers--all of which i learned from TV, Movies and Books--but I won't. Instead if you read this far i will just leave you with these unanswered questions to pinder maybe next time you ride the sky train.

I have become the new director of information. Too voew my serious writing on the matter i will be writing periodic news bits at Boompa.ca the other not so serious bits will be on the myspace.com/boompa

Thursdemo

Here at Boompa we recieve alot of demo CDs from various bands and individuals for many different reasons. Some want us to here their stuff just for the sake of hearing it, some of the bands want to be signed by our illustrious label and I swear to god that some bands just send us stuff to make my eyes hurt and ears bleed from their bad bad music and their ugly album art.

Listening to demos today some of the discs that went through the process were: black rice-rice lightning, Marika-Untitled Chances, Five Blank Pages-Spaces to occupy and abandon, New Estate-considereing.



I was actually surprised by Black Rice. I thought it was some overly racial slur that was meant to be tongue in cheek. That said I figured that the album would not be overly that good--truthfully I thought it would be stupid. Rice Lightning is a title that I do not know fully get what they are trying to go for in meaning but I will allow it to sway because once again I was proven wrong Black Rice-Rice Lightning is damn good. I would say that they have guitars akin to international noise conspiracy and overall their music would fall somewhere into the ever expanding punk universe they are well worth the effort it would take to track down the album.After we repeatedly said that we liked them we decided that we would move along to the next surprise that was in the pile.



Low and behold the next title in the demo box is Marika-Untitled Chances. At first I thought this album was going to be good because of the awesome artwork. If I had to guess what the band would sound like judging just by the cover I would say they would be one of those light easy yet a little bit hard techno guitar bands that just rock the house. I did not however expect to be taken back to 1996 via the Alanis Morrisette non-stop crap express. Well actually this album sounds like a lighter Alanis Morrisette. For those fans that would like her if she wasn’t just so dang crazy and hard. I myself on the other hand never really liked Alanis overly and the thought of a lighter version of her kind of repulses me.



By weird coincidence I picked up another ‘pretty’ CD that also took me back to the mid nineties but this was a good mid nineties a mid-nineties filled with Sonic Unyon bands like Chris and Smoother. It reminded me of the time we drove to the beach in my mothers car in salmon arm. Driving through the trees I wondered to myself if life had the ability to get any better than it was at that moment. So in turn nostalgia influenced me to like this CD. It was Five Blank Pages-Spaces To Occupy And Abandon and if you liked indy music at all in the 90’s then you too will like this CD.



New Estate-considering. When this CD started Scott said “wow these guys sound like Rod Stewart”

“You sound like Rod Stewart” I replied in Jest

“You sound like you want a punch in the head” Way to be terse Scott.

The next song on the CD had Erin and Shannon shouting for relief from the ‘sounds like things dying’ agony this song was instilling in them.

“Relax I am pretty sure the vocals on all the songs sound different judging by the huge gap in between songs 1 and 2

By song seven they were back to sounding like Rod Stewart. Over all I haven’t decided if the wandering style of vocals hindered or helped the record but I didn’t mind them as much as the others did.

-dale

An open letter to people who take self pictures in the mirror and you can see the camera:

Stop taking bad pictures of yourself please stop spreading bad art. I don't mean to be a downer but this is really fucking tacky. I thought it was just 12 year old kids who did this kind of shit photography when they managed to lay greasy hands on their parents camera and thought it would be cool to take a picture of themselves in the mirror. But when they see the picture they are like "wow that looks retarded you can see the camera in this picture." Even worse is when there is a flash in the picture.

I did this when i was five and if you ask my mother nicely she might even show you the picture. When I remember the moment I laugh heartily but I think it is funny because the camera is in the picture but instead it is hilarious because i took my moms camera and filled up the whole roll with useless pictures of my brother posing with his teddy bears and of my reflection. The humour is how pissed off my mom was that a whole roll was full of shitty pictures. Shitty pictures of me in the mirror with the camera up to my face and the fact that I actually denied the while occurrence as being my fault.

Why are these pictures showing up so often? Do you not know how to operate a camera properly? Or is it that you have no friends to take a picture of you? I have been noticing a rash of these photos with digital cameras. It has become what some people would call a trend. This is why people hate trends because they are ridiculous and the results are shit. Don't be arrogant be like everyone else and take a picture either at arms length or convince someone to take the picture for you or even just use your web cam. I mean sometimes it sucks when you can tell that the picture was taken at arms length and people said "hey this is stupid you can totally tell that they took this picture themselves why don't i make it obvious that would be better right?" But a fucking Sony commercial does not look any better my friend.

Open letter to people who write forwards to the people you care about the most with some lovey dovey shit that is not actually cute:
Now we hate you.
Way to fucking go.
Mike "we don't want these pictures of babies
or dogs with balloons
or angels
or hearts
or bunnies"
And bonzai kittens this whole situation was kind of funny.
Sorry but it was. I mean come on they crazy glue the ass shut and poop comes out a tube how gullible are you
You ever try crazy gluing anything have fun having your fingers glued to a kittens ass.