Canada: Rest assured, you're adored

A couple of months back I let fly with a barrage of insults towards the great nation of Canada.

I apologise. It was inconsiderate and ill-advised and I can only hope you will forgive me. If not, at least make sure my good friend David is treated kindly when he moves to your fine country in a month from now.

Where was I again? Oh yes, The Tea Party:



Answer me this - How is it that Nickelback infect our nation's airwaves and sell obscene amounts of records whilst fellow Canadians The Tea Party are forever judged as the Terry Malloy of the music industry?

First convincing answer wins a prize.

A call to anyone half smart in the music industry

I was watching (once again) a great little indie flick from 1990 called 'Cadence' starring Charlie Sheen, Laurence Fishburne and former President Bartlet.

One of the highlights of the film is the appearance of a Mr Harry Stewart who plays the role of Harry 'Sweetbread' Crane. Now 'Sweetbread' doesn't talk in the film but boy can he sing.

Here is a snippet from the film:



Now I'm not a religious man (Jeebus can back me up on that) but you must be dead not to feel the emotion in that song. A song mind you that Harry Stewart wrote himself.

With a song and a voice like that, he should have made it big in at least the Christian Music charts let alone the secular. Because Harry Stewart dropped off the face of the planet not long after 'Cadence' was released, the interweb is full of conjecture of his whereabouts but the most consistent story is that he lives in a shelter and not doing too well.

What an absolute shame that a talent like that is wasted to the world. If anyone out there has any sort of clout - find Harry Stewart.

We would all be grateful.

No correspondence will be entered into

Rock On
Originally uploaded by violent visions of setting sail

I'm not a hair metal expert (thank Christ) so perhaps I am not qualified to talk on the subject of power ballads. However they were created so that coked-out bands could get a hit on radio and as we all know, radio is the realm of pop music - a topic of which I can hold my own in.

Therefore I give you the 5 best power ballad songs from the years 1988 to 1992:

5. When I See You Smile - Bad English

4. The Flame - Cheap Trick

3. Wind Of Change - Scorpions

2. More Than Words - Extreme

1. To Be With You - Mr Big

Ryan Fucking Adams

I'm currently 0-2 with seeing Mr Adams live in concert. That's the nature of the beast when it comes to Ryan (sometimes he is on fire, other times you wish you were elsewhere) but somehow he never fails to deliver when he is on Letterman.

He marks his umpteenth appearance on the The Late Show with a cracking version of 'Fix It' from the new album Cardinology:

She'll make her way...

Besides being a kick-arse tune, 'Wonder' by Natalie Merchant immediately reminds me of Saturday Night Live in the mid 90s: Will Ferrell and Tim Meadows especially. The reason being, I taped the episode she appeared in as a musical guest (David Schwimmer was the host) and watched it to death thanks to her performance of 'Wonder' and 'Carnival'. The VHS tape is long gone but thanks to some searching I bring you October 21 (hey my birthday!), 1995 all over again.

By the way, the guitarist in her band Jennifer Turner is an absolute talent and it is a shame she never hit the big time. Like Kanye said: A&R's lookin' like "pssh we messed up":

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My Curtains Are Not Fading (A Sun Dance)

The decision to bring forward the start of Daylight Savings in my part of the world is perplexing. We are barely 6 weeks into Spring, what's the hurry? Besides, the first couple of days with an extra hour of light have been so gloomy we haven't had a chance to enjoy it yet.

Well you can't fight city hall that's for damn sure. So in order to help bring a little sunshine into the world and remove the dark skies I offer the following.

Hopefully it will do the trick (it worked for the Summer of '99):

25,000 words and a title

Please exit in single file off the roof
Originally uploaded by NathanaelB

Some of you may know that I have been writing fiction on and off for a number of years now. Some of it has been in my former guise as a journalist (I'm half kidding of course) but the bulk has been exposed to only myself and Microsoft Word.

Last Sunday I hit a milestone of 25,000 words, that's about a third of a novel done and dusted. My thinking is, if I get to roughly 70,000 words and send it out to publishers (who will be courteous and tell me to continue whatever it is I do when I'm not wasting their time) then that is the very definition of giving it a shot.

I am spurred on by the words of a much more talented gentleman than I could ever be. Jackson Pollock once said:

"The pictures I contemplate painting would constitute a halfway state and an attempt to point out the direction of the future - without arriving there completely."

Contemplate being the key word.

The title will be called 'Exit' and I hope that one day you can read it.