30 Under 30 #5: Beard-Clad Critics Recovery Group

This is The Way I Used to Be by the Neins Circa

Here's a real conversation I recently had with Cam Dilworth of the more-than-fine band the Neins Circa.

Cam: Hey Emmie Fitzgerald.
Me: How's it going?
Cam: You know what I was just thinking about?
Me: Nope.
Cam: Remember that time we played poker?
Me: Yes, I do.
Cam: We should do that again.
Me: Agreed.

I don't know when Cam and I (and hopefully a few other folks) will play poker again, but I do know when we won't. This Friday, May 18, the Neins Circa will be releasing their brand new album Sleeves and Wigs at the Media Club, right here in Vancouver City, Canada. Also releasing an album that night at the very same show is the Parlour Steps. They are pretty good themselves.

30 Under 30 #4: Fashionable People are a Wild Party

Back when I was mild-mannered music reviewer for a mid-sized metropolitan daily newspaper, I once took some flack for calling Joel Plaskett the Kim Mitchell for a new generation. I guess my love and admiration for Kim Mitchell wasn't then well-known enough for this to be recognized as a compliment. Now it can be revealed: I loves me some Kim Mitchell. Not quite to the same degree as my love for Andy Kim, but that's a horse of a different colour, anyhow. So here (at the bottom of this post) is the new single from the Joel Plaskett Emergency, "Fashionable People" from the new album Ashtray Rock.
What's great about JP isn't just that he revels in the patio-lanterned sentimentality of good-time rock and pop that Kim Mitchell brought forth unto this Earth, but he's also got a soft spot for hip hop and r&b, and occasionally brings elements into his music.
The first time I noticed this was at the old Easy Alibi on Scarth St. in Regina. It was a Wednesday night show, back when I was doing the old Spo-Dee O'Dee Radio Hour on Wed. nights, and there was also a provincial election going on. I voted for JP, who was playing with the Emergency that night. It was right after (or maybe just before?) Truthfully Truthfully came out, and I had yet to really cotton to JP. Midway through a song, Plaskett busted into a verse of a then-current hip hop club anthem (whose name escapes me now) and then back into his own song like it ain't no thing.
Later, on "Nowhere With You" (which was also a Zellers ad, minus the nihilism), Plaskett borrowed the tongue clicks from "Drop It Like It's Hot".
On "Fashionable People", Plaskett goes back to the Neptunes with a synthy sounds and plenty of falsetto, all tempered with a party-prog vibe Plaskett cribbed from Trooper.
Joel Plaskett Emergency plays in Vancouver this friday.
MP3: "Fashionable People" - Joel Plaskett Emergency

30 Under 30 #3: They Say It's Like Crack, But It's Totally Not Like Crack At All

Maybe it was Richard Meltzer who told me that getting free records (or CDs, as the case was for me, but since I prefer the term records, I will use it from here on in) is like crack, maybe it was me who told him. It doesn't really matter who said, the fact remains, free records are not like crack at all. Free anything is not like crack, because one of the most essential things about crack is that it's not free. Of course, free records aren't really free either.
It's been, what, seven months now since I got off the gravy train of free records. I feel okay. Cold turkey. More or less. There have a been a few exceptions, but nothing worth mentioning. In fact, the only free record worth mentioning was a gift from Nicole, who put a lot of effort and care into tracking down the awesome new RTX album for me.
I kinda thought I'd miss it, and, yeah, it's taken a while to get used to idea that I actually have to BUY records (poor me, I know), but then again, it's kinda nice to get a record and have no obligation other than to ENJOY it. And, honestly, those last few years, I was enjoying music less and less, outside of the radio stuff, of course.
In face, I think I reached a point where I actually enjoyed whining about getting free records more than I enjoyed getting free records at all. I had overstayed my welcome.
But now, I'm thinking about getting back into it. Not because I want free records (which I actually don't), but because I'm kinda feeling desperate to write again. So maybe writing is crack. Though, um, y'know, not really.

30 Under 30 #2: The Outbursts of Everett True

Okay, okay, I'm lazy, and I'm straying from the format before I've established on, but this is just WAY TOO COOL not to share.
The Outbursts of Everett True - an early 20th Century comicstrip upon which you can build a brand new worldview.

30 Under 30 #1: The Night is the Future and also the Past

"the night is a liar, it will never be a friend to anyone" Andre Ethier, "The Night"

I'm walking home down Commercial, a little after 4 a.m. It's the start of the day, but it's the end of mine. I'm on my way home, to curse the motion-sensor lights and to try to be gentle with the door.
Fresh newspapers are being delivered to the squat metal bins outside convenience stores, still closed for the night. In the coin-op boxes I see tomorrow's headlines today. I'm glimpsing into the future. It will be another two-to-four hours before the rest of the city knows what I know, but this secret knowledge is useless. I won't have anyone to tell it to until mid-to-late afternoon. By then it will be old news.
It reminds me of Montreal, when I was young(er). When I could close a St-Laurent bar and stumble out into the street to meet newspaper hawkers with fresh broadsheets. I wasn't all that interested in the news back then. In fact, the one time I actually went out in search of a newspaper, I didn't even know where to look for one. I found what I was looking for (a place to live) en route. I remember it as a Wednesday morning, though I have no reason to believe it was actually so.

30 under 30

Well, it's freakin' May. It snuck up on me. No wonder, I just took a five-day-weekend. I have 187 lazy bones. My kid brother, no the other one, probably knows how many bones I actually have, he's the intellectual in the family. If by intellectual I mean SCIENTIST, which I do.
So, May. I turn thirty in thirty days, give or take a week and a bit. But my goal is to get 30 WELL-WRITTEN posts up on this bleeatch before the big day. So, like, this one doesn't count.

Tell Me About Gary Haché!

This is kind of an old song, but it's new to me, and maybe it'll be new to you:
Gary Haché by Andrew Vincent & the Pirates

In a recent post, I wondered where the hell AV's new album is, and then my brother sent him an email, and AV replied that it was coming. So there you go.

"Gary Haché" is a nearly perfect song. I kinda wish the vocals were a little louder in the mix, cuz that wicked riff kinda overpowers them, which is a what a wicked riff like that will do, so, like, whatev. I like the way the perspective goes from third to first person after the first verse. It doesn't really make any sense, so it's rad. It reminds me of the time I went to Stratford with Chad and we got loaded and I got kicked out of some bar because a guy next to me dropped his glass and it smashed on the floor, and I...I think I had only just barely begun to booze it up at that point, but I got the blame. I may have even been waiting in line for my first drink. Regardless, there were many other places to drink in Stratford that night, and we hit most of them. I ended up falling down in the mud near one of those quaint stone footbridges Stratford seemed full of.

Newer and just as cool is Houdini: The Handcuff King by Jason Lutes and Nick Bertozzi, from The Center for Cartoon Studies.

That's right, introduction by Glen David Gold, who wrote one of my favourite novels of recent times, Carter Beats the Devil. It's a fun and deliciously illustrated biography of Houdini (whose corpse is in the news again) very much in the same vein (though a little more lively) of Chester Brown's Louis Riel comic biog.

And in newer MUSIC news, and also civic whateverhood, I STILL DON'T HAVE THE NEW RTX ALBUM. VANCOUVER HAS LET ME DOWN AGAIN. None of the stores I've visited have even ordered Western Xterminator yet. I know for a fact that if I was still in Regina, Dave woulda had that sucker in my hands within MOMENTS of its release. I guess that's what's cool about Regina.
Last month, Drag City was giving away "Black Bananas" from Western Xterminator away for FREE. This month they're giving away "Sycamore" by Bill Callahan, formerly known as Smog or (Smog). It's pretty great. AND IT'S FREE.

The new pink layout is dedicated to Lindsay, the world's coolest 14-year-old.