Michael Chabon TALKS capes, tights & towels

Further to yesterday's post, here's Michael Chabon speaking to the New Yorker about his essay.

mp3: "Cape Crusader" Michael Chabon interviewed by the New Yorker.

Interestingly enough, this all coincides with the release of photos of characters in their full unitard glory from the forthcoming Watchmen film, which opens in exactly one year. Maybe. And once you read Chabon's essay and listen to what he has to say, all of your gut feelings about the pictures linked to above will resonated true and strong.

Michael Chabon talks Superman

It's no secret that Michael Chabon reads this blog. Okay, maybe he doesn't. But maybe he does. Anyway, I was thinking about Superman last week, and he's going to be thinking about Superman next week (check the dateline). Luckily, we here at Bulldozer/Wreckingball have access to THE FUTURE, and all we use our powers for is reading Michael Chabon's essay on superheroes. Kinda pathetic, huh?

Orgy in Western Canada: Jesse Matheson & the Midnight Snacks on Tour

Vancouver musical icon Jesse Matheson has just left on his first ever tour of Western Canada. It takes a lot of gumption for a prairie boy to approach the West by heading East, but that's the kind of backwards situation you find yourself in every single day when you live in Vancouver. And I should know.
I first met Jesse Matheson on a blustery Tuesday in November. I remember it was the day Ronald Reagan was elected President. In a world like the one I could sense was approaching, it felt good to have another howling lunatic in my life. Eventually, he stopped howling quite so much, and even learned a few words. Before I knew it he was putting every word he knew into songs, and now he's got an album.
Pleasure Pounds won't be officially released until April, but the kind, simple folks of Western Canada are getting a sneak peek over the next week as Jesse Matheson & the Midnight Snacks take their rock & roll orgy to the people.
If you feel a little uncomfortable taking a recommendation of this guy and his band from me, if you question my objectivity, well, listen to what Craig Norris of CBC Radio 3 had to say about Jesse (and then listen to the song!).

mp3: "Son of a Gun" by Jesse Matheson (includes CBC3 intro by Craig Norris)


JESSE MATHESON & THE MIDNIGHT SNACKS TOUR DATES:

Thurs., Mar. 6: Grant MacEwan College Cafeteria, 11:30 a.m., Edmonton, AB
Thurs., Mar. 6: Wunderbar Hofbrauhaus, nighttime, Edmonton, AB
Fri., Mar. 7: McNally Robinson - Prairie Ink, 8 p.m., Saskatoon, SK
Sat. Mar. 8: Candor Music & Gifts, 8 p.m., Winnipeg, MB
Sun., Mar. 9: The Exchange (with Geronimo), 8 p.m., Regina SK
Tues., Mar. 11: Minstrel Cafe, 8 p.m., Kelowna

and then back in Vancouver on March 27 at the Astoria Hotel with The Attachments. The official CD release for Pleasure Pounds will be April 19, at Lime (formerly Rime).

mp3: "Orgy in Portland" by Jesse Matheson
mp3: "Make Out" by Jesse Matheson

Say what?

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Cities: Addenda

February's theme here at Bulldozer/Wreckingball was CITIES. Too late we noticed that Caleb Stull of Vancouver's Parlour Steps has posted an interesting essay on his blog regarding The Myth of the Creative City. This is why his band calls themselves thought rock. The Steps have just released their Ambiguoso album in the USA on Nine Mile Records. It's a pretty hot album, full of hot romance, and also "Hot Romance".

mp3: "Hot Romance" by Parlour Steps

These People Are Not Related To Me

Aaron Booth will be releasing a new album this month. He's a Calgary singer-songwriter I once called "one of the most promising Canadian singer-songwriters" in a nationally distributed mag. I am prepared to stand by that statement. The new alb is called Back Stories, and you get it from his website at your choice of cost. While you're there, you can snag some more free tunes from Booth's impressive back catalogue. Y'know what else is impressive about Aaron Booth? He has two sets of double vowels in his name.
Sadly, no tourdates yet outside of Calgary. But Christ, if you live in Calgary, at least you have something to look forward to now.

mp3: "We Don't Pretend" by Aaron Booth
mp3: "Couldn't Wait" by Aaron Booth


Steven Jesse Bernstein won't be coming to a town near you anytime soon either. He's been dead nearly two decades. I was first told I looked like him when I was 15-yrs-old, and trying to look like Lorne Greene. Then a couple of years later, I was told again, and so I got his amazing album Prison, produced by Steve Fisk. Dave at X-Ray (I think it was still ROW, then) had written on the wrapper, in white grease pencil, "Like Wm S. Burroughs in a knife fight with himself".

mp3: "No No Man (Part 1)" by Steven Jesse Bernstein


Okay, Lorrie Matheson might be related to me. Another Calgary-based singer-songwriter, he's originally from the Prince Albert area of Saskatchewan, where I have some family, or at least family roots. Matheson hasn't released anything since 2004's A Dime At A Time, which I quite liked. One Saturday afternoon, while I was doing a Spo-Dee O'Dee fill-in at CJTR, I played "Ribbon of Red Taillights" (see below), one of my favourite songs from the album. A listener called in and claimed it was "the worst song I've ever heard". When I went back on the air, I mused about what sort of privileged and sheltered life the listener must have been leading in order for that, a lonesome road song that references Gillian Welch, to be the worst song he'd ever heard.

mp3: "Ribbon of Red Taillights" by Lorrie Matheson
mp3: "I Think I See the Light" by Lorrie Matheson



If you've guessed that all of this establishing of who isn't related to me is just a prelude to something else, something about someone who is related to me, you have guessed correctedly. Stay tuned.

Things to Do in Vancouver: Spring Edition

Marc Maron is coming! I just missed him in 2006, but he'll be doing three nights in April at Yuk Yuk's (of all places).

The Raveonettes are at the Plaza Club March 8.
Ace Frehley at the Commodore March 19.
Acid Mothers Temple at Pat's Pub (of all places) on April 4.