stoke: stuff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGGTMDo1kAM

"I'll be watching you, like a mongoose watching a snake...and remember, the mongoose always wins."

...as Presuming Ed here has consistently pointed out, we have failed to paint it black.

New song called 'Like They Knew You' now uploaded.

It's been awhile, but the Salvage operation has been proceeding. New SIS song uploaded, and more coming in the weeks ahead.

A few live Salvage appearances have taken place around Vancouver in the past few months.

We don't need no intervention

Only your creator will know that you've been here.

An unannounced, pseudo-Snake Island Salvage gig at the Railway Club on June 6. A frontman-less 21TR hit the stage, but the set morphed into a SIS show. Tunes included 'Varispeed,' 'Difficult Music,' and a cover of the Stones' 'Paint it Black.'

Aiming to post some of the newer SIS stuff in the next few weeks.

Willingdon Black now available on iTunes.

Special thanks to those who have bought the Willingdon Black CD, both locally and via CD Baby.

Congratulations to Stoke bassist Smashing, who married lovely and talented Mai Azur over the weekend. Truly a musical and artistic power couple.

New Stoke record 'Willingdon Black' now available on CD Baby. Go to 'BUY' section and follow link for more information.

"I can't see the sun, but I know it's there."

"If I need something, I'll invent it."

Mickey Spillane

"I never kept up with the fashions. I believed in wearing what I thought looked good on me."

Bettie Page

Stoke guitarist/vocalist ACM will be playing with 21 Tandem Repeats (on guitar) and Supersimian (on bass) at Vancouver's Railway Club, Thursday October 5th. Also on the bill will be local guitar maestros Jeff Younger, with his band The Family Stump (he'll also be sitting in on Supersimian), and Alvaro Rojas, with the much-lauded A Ghost to Kill Again (and he'll be playing bass with 21TR...got all that?).

Here's an excerpt from an interview done with rock critic Lester Bangs in 1982:

Q: Do you think there's a danger of rock 'n' roll becoming extinct?

LB: Yeah, sure. Definitely.

Q: What would there be to take its place?

LB: Video games. A lot of things we don't like to think about.

It's a rough draft, but there's a new Snake Island Salvage song called 'Intertidal' in the music section.

"This show might be just another step on rock music's journey toward cultural obsolescence and empty pantomime..."

Tom Breihan of the Villiage Voice in his 'statusainthood' blog. (villiagevoice.com/blogs/statusainthood).

I'm afraid he may be right about the state of rock, but I'm not convinced it's a bad thing. If the industry end of popular music is going to give itself over to pre-fab celebrity making, so be it.

We may be returning to the age when musical 'stars' simply popularized--or re-popularized-- tunes written by others.

In those days, songwriters peddled their wares in New York's 'Tin Pan Alley,' a Big Apple enclave full of music publishers. Nowadays the internet is Tin Pan Alley.

I still think there's a role to be had for some enterprising types to match homespun tunes from the net with established 'rock stars' like TV Supernova. But in any case, the withering of the Rock God infrastructure might clear the way for a new type of rock 'star,' one that acts locally and thinks globally.

At the risk of tackiness, I'll quote an old Stoke tune: 'some stars don't need limelight to shine.'

I'll keep this up for a limited time...send me a mailing address and I'll send you a copy of Stoke's 'Willingdon Black' disc free of charge.

(Hurry, before we change the name to 'Rock Star: Stoke.' The early copies will be collectors items).

"I just love the shape of the Strat. I love the three pickups, the shape of the head, the neck. Even if it wasn't a guitar, if it was a door stop or something, it would still be a great piece of design"

....but this quote rings pretty true for me:

"I'm used to playing in front of empty beer bottles and ashtrays."

Lukas Rossi, Rock Star Supernova contestant.

"He had originally wanted to study music, but his grades in mathematics – then a requirement for the subject – were deemed not high enough to qualify for a place on the programme."

From a Wikipedia entry on writer Anthony Burgess ('A Clockwork Orange,' among other works). Burgess is quoted in the same article as commenting that he started writing "as a sort of gentlemanly hobby, because I knew there wasn't any money in it."

A bit like music nowadays in that respect.

Anyone been watching Rock Star Supernova? When Gilby Clarke asked one of the contestants if she was 'ready to be a rebel,' she responded: "Hell Ya! I'm getting a tattoo tomorrow."

The thing is, when did tattoos become a hallmark of rock'n'roll? Did Elvis have any? Or Mick Jagger? Keith Richards? Hendrix? Any of the Beatles? Keith Moon? Any member of Led Zeppelin? Angus Young? Kurt Cobain?

Maybe some of these guys have/had tattoos in places you can't see, but if so they're not really serving as any kind of rock statement.

Nowadays rockers are preoccupied with looking 'dangerous,' but usually it's only a skin-deep brand of edginess. What about the idea of making the music, or your creativity, the edgy part?

In the music section, on the anniversary of the first STOKE gig (to the month, not day), the tune that opened the show.