stoke: stuff

New tune in the music section called 'Sweet American.'

Not sure if this one will be on the new record, but here it is.

Blacknblues proprietor ACM, from his porchlike perch overlooking a ramshackle riffyard of musical parts and pieces, wishes to announce the formation of a new musical enterprise known as the Snake Island Salvage Company.

"I'll see if I can get some of this stuff up and running," said ACM dubiously. "It may not be slick, but it will hopefully be durable, and it might have a bit of style as well."

New tune in music section.

Track 4: "Stoked" (B. Wilson)

- Instrumental
- Recorded: Tuesday February 12th 1963

The first Brian Wilson instrumental to appear on a Beach Boys album, and one of nearly a dozen to be included in the Capitol years' albums of The Beach Boys.

Visit the music page for another one off the upcoming record.

I've been down to the Railway Club a couple of times in the past few days. There are an awful lot of good musicians around.

Here’s an extract from a recent UNCUT magazine article about Toronto’s Broken Social Scene:

“It’s difficult to pinpoint the moment it started, but it’s obvious by now that Canadian indie-rock is experiencing a major awaking.... The question is: were excellent bands there all along, toiling in anonymity... Or are we witnessing a sudden, unprecedented explosion of great new music?”

Well, I’d say the excellent bands (and musicians in general) were there all along, but then I’m biased. What I especially like about an outfit like Broken Social Scene is that they’re demolishing the idea that a group must be run through some variation-on-a-hip-new-theme makeover boutique in order to get their music out. Just be a musician, and realize that your best allies are always going to be other musicians.

More (mostly) live off the floor stuff in the music section. This one will be on the new CD. Recorded by Ken Logan in the Marshall-panelled confines of South Burnaby's 'Dope Room.' The vox (and the...ahem...vibra slap) was dubbed in later.

As promised, some fresh stuff in the Music section. Basically a live-off-the-floor version of a tune from the first Stoke CD called 'Spider in a Jar.' Recorded in a one-time recording school just off Main St. in Vancouver that's seen better days. Some 'atmospheric' overdubs were thrown in later, mostly in a house belonging to the mother of my pal J.R. McClelland, the 'Phil Spector of the Basement' (sans gun collection).

"A mix, in those days, was a performance, every bit as much as doing a gig."

Pink Floyd's David Gilmour on recording 'Dark Side of the Moon."

Tim Commerford, bassist for Audioslave, did a recent interview on the Fender website with the 'Fender News.' Here's an excerpt:

TC: When we played in Canada, we did a lot of Rush tribute stuff. We had little Rush bobblehead dolls on our amps and stuff like that. It seemed like the crowd didn't even know who Rush was.

FN: Was this in Toronto?

TC: This was in every city in Canada! They don't know. They don't realize that Rush is the biggest band to ever come from Canada.
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Lots of recording and mercenary gigging over the past year or so. Now it's time to start releasing.

New STOKE CD entitled 'Willingdon Black' is in the mastering stages. Also, a few alternate versions of older STOKE staples will be up on the site in the next while.

Finally, blacknblues.com will be the home of the new Stoke-ACM/Charles Cole project known as the Snake Island Salvage Company.

"I wanted to fundamentally alter the theatregoing public's perception of motion pictures."

-Bob Guccione, 1980.

"Sometimes it seems like every asshole with a soldering gun, a can of spray paint and a Radio Shack within walking distance of his house feels qualified to build a boutique fuzz box and charge an arm and a leg for it."

Tom Beaujour in 'Guitar World' magazine, reviewing the Blackstone overdrive (which he actually likes very much).

"See, I don't really suit the music business. Or, indeed, any business. I'm incompatible with the way things are done."

Van Morrison

"I think we're going to have to forget about the radio and just go back to word of mouth."

Joe Strummer

It was noted here recently that 'Back in Black' had reached the 21 million mark in sales. Just to clarify, these are U.S. totals only. Worldwide sales of the record are somewhere in the 42 million range. While it is tied in 5th spot as the biggest selling record in American history, it is, according to some estimates, in 2nd place overall worldwide (perhaps America is lagging a bit on the cultural front).

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."

Hunter S. Thompson

As we approach the 25th anniversary of the release of AC/DC's 'Back in Black,' the Recording Industry Association of America informs us that the album has reached the 21 million mark in sales. Or, as Canadian writer Colby Cosh puts it, 'henicosatuple platinum.' According to the RIAA, 'Back in Black' is now tied with 'Billy Joel's Greatest Hits Vol 1 & 2' as the 5th largest selling album in U.S. history.

"'Back in Black' doesn't sit very comfortably beside Billy Joel's Greatest Hits,'" says Cosh, "but it does permit us to observe that between Angus Young and Billy Joel, it's Billy who ended up as a corpulent, half sane burnout."

"It's time to recognize," he adds, "that 'Back in Black' has transcended its genre and time."

"I'd like to say something about all the fuss being made about changing an amp's sound by changing tubes. I get calls all the time asking what tubes someone should use for a darker sound, or a brighter sound, or whatever. The truth is, the changes you get by changing tubes are so subtle that it's hardly worth the effort. You can do much better, and have more options, by experimenting with different speakers instead. Speakers can do more to color an amp's sound than tubes could ever do."

Guitar amp guru Mike Soldano.

"...me and Bonzo walked in with a TV dinner in a tin foil tray to put in the oven while we watched 'Hawaii 5-0.'"

Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant describes his first night in the United States, staying with drummer John 'Bonzo' Bonham in an L.A. hotel in 1968.

The Legion of Flying Monkeys is ostensibly a band. The ringleader is an artist named Fireman, who includes in his array of creative projects the ability to craft horn-like instruments out of small tree trunks. Some of these horns are upwards of eight feet long (for instance the 'motherhorn,' which Andrew Parker uses to deftly drone on root notes…no pun intended), some are smaller, V-shaped devices. Each has a letter hanging from it, denoting the key that the horn is best played in.

The LOFM is currently rounded out by Super Robertson on drums and myself on bass. I've occasionally fantasized about being Cliff Williams, and I suppose this is the closest I'll get.

Now, I don't think I'm being offensive when I say that these horns, while undoubtedly works of art, sometimes stray outside the bounds of recognized musical tonality. I'm not sure what it must be like to be on the audience side of this type of thing. But after experiencing the event last night at the Ironworks artist studio I suppose that the music, to coin an old Bruce Allen phrase, is the least important part.

What you also get, among other things, are exquisite metal monkey signet rings, fantastical poster art, cult mantras, and a trio of sexy nurses taking tissue swabs and asking unnerving personal questions (to determine your suitability for recruitment into a life of simian subservience). The whole package is more entertaining than anything I've seen on Much Music in about a decade.

What are some of the greatest rock songs-in-movies scenes? Bill Haley's 'Rock Around the Clock' in Blackboard Jungle? Steppenwolf's 'Born to be Wild' in Easy Rider? Hendrix's 'Voodoo Chile' in 'Withnail and I?' Or maybe Mohammed Rafi's 'Jaan Pehechaan Ho' in Ghost World?

STOKE will get its kick at the can when the horror flick 'The House' is released later this year. One of the scenes will feature a tune called 'Hotrod Sinner,' off the upcoming album 'Ethyl.'