Thursday, March 30, 2006

ravenous bears, gold medallists & slush....














spring is in the air, the sun is getting hotter each day, eagles are flying around the neighbourhood & the local paper has a half page ad warning us of the impending awakening of the local grizzly bear population

said bears will be ravenously hungry after 5 months asleep, well you would be wouldn't you?, and anything at all edible must be securely indoors by this weekend - i'm off tout suite to buy some bear spray on Saturday!

other local news is that the Canmore Olympians arrive back in town tomorrow night for a victory parade - should be a good night & I aim to post up here some pictures of the girls who brought us home gold & silver medals - & who knows - exclusive shots of a marauding gang of half-starved Grizzlies helping themselves to the complimentary BBQ & salads

well as i type this i can see the sun setting on the mountains opposite & i'm inspired to post up a song from Under The Skylon by the inutterably brilliant Candidate

the track is Mountain Snow & as you can see from the shot i just took above, there ain't much left in this part of the Bow Valley - if it stays this warm the Cross Country skiing will be over soon & mountain bikes will be every where...

the other track i'm adding today is by another folksey outfit, Espers & a traditional folk song called Black is the Colour - an altogether more sombre affair, strongly reminiscent of Fairport Convention in their heyday - i can't get enough of this band & this song

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

sounds familiar?

driving home last night i was listening to an album i just got hold of by a band called Maplewood

their self titled album is excellent & a great addition to any folk/alt.country conoisseur's collection

however i couldn't help notice the similarities between their song "Be My Friend" & the old Byrds classic "Wasn't Born To Follow"

see what i mean (both tracks are on the radio player to your right)?? i'm gonna post up some more close relations from the wonderful world of pop as they spring to mind.....

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

art or porn?

we watched Nine Songs last night on DVD - this is the film that caused such controversy a couple of years ago - basically it's the story of a brief relationship between an Antartic scientist & a young American girl - the film is interspersed with 9 songs shot live at various Lomdon gigs that the couple attended during their fling

oh & there's lots of sex scenes, real sex with nothing at all left to the imagination

a lot of people in need of a life, moaned & whined that it was simply porn & that it was revolting, disgusting etc etc etc - others stated that while not the greatest of films, it was a valid piece of cinematic art

well i thought it was a good little indie film, the sex scenes were certainly very graphic but the story, such as there was, was quite engaging & nicely acted - if you haven't seen it, i recommend doing so - just make sure your mum isn't there or you will be truly embarrassed

the live footage of concerts by bands like Primal Scream, Franz Ferdinand. Elbow & The Von Bondies is great - in fact me & Pete from Toronto were at the VB gig & undoubtedly were in some of the audience shots - scarey indeed to think that me & him star in a sex flick!!

Monday, March 27, 2006

two photos..............



i took at Lake Kananaskis last weekend, the ice sculpture sat in the middle of the frozen lake. The bird is a Whiskey Jack, voracious appetites drive these birds to any length to get a bite of your sandwich - in fact they will land on your hand & snatch a bite if you turn your head for one minute!

flourescent romper suits

all kinds of confusion yesterday after i mistakenly thought the clocks had gone forward on Saturday night, seems that they go forward next week & consequently we are for a while 8 hours behind the UK - which means your work day in London is over before i have even finished my latte - harumph!

i eventually spent the day skiing, downhill Alipne skiing that is - i had a pair of fat, carver skis strapped to my ski boots which were great - i bought my boots in 97 and wore them once before converting to snowboarding full time, for some reason i had in my mind that they were a hideous shade of day glo orange, but when they arrived from the Uk last week they were black - what a relief - they go with my all black outfit - colour co-ordination is essential on the slopes as these people don't proove

8 years since i last skied but it came back quickly, i took one tumble in the first 5 minutes & that was it for the day - i was gliding down the black runs by close of business - amazing how the body & mind remembers

other than that not much to report, i have posted a new song on the radio player - it's from the bard of Barking - Billy Bragg & highlights the plight of Rachel Corrie, whose sad story you can read here

Saturday, March 25, 2006

Buck's done gone..................

news today that 60's country superstar Buck Owens has passed away - i like a lot of his work from the mid to late sixties, he had a slight edge to him which elevated him above some of the saccharine that Nashville poured out back in the day

couple of tracks on the radio player, including his song later covered by the Beatles, to commemorate the man

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

the queen of the north.......


A couple of years ago I took a long, overnight boat trip on "The Queen of The North" from Prince Rupert to Port Hardy, through the inside passage down the coast of Northern British Colombia. It was a beautiful, scenic trip despite the increasingly drizzly weather - down through the uninhabited & mystical islands of the BC coast.

The ship was a bit rickety, practically empty & when we hit open water tossed around like a rubber duck in a bath tub - i remember hardly sleeping in my tiny cabin as we lurched about in the darkness.

Imagine my suprise then to read the news this morning of the fate of this ship!

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

1988 ahhhhh...........

1988 - the year before Madchester broke & I was a scrawny, raggy arsed student in that self, same great, grey, rain sodden metropolis halfway along the M62 'twixt Liverpool & Leeds....

...The Smiths had just split, Morrissey was the new pop idol & a host of bands were itching to take his late band's thorny crown

Bradford - who remembers them? The Railway Children - yikes, The good old solid Weddoes. The Primitives, the Darling Buds all battling against the ever present student disco goth-thrash of Pop Will Eat Itself, The Sisters, The Mission & countless other flour coated Goths!

Two great things about 1988 - John Peel's radio show - a shining beacon amongst The Hairy Cornflakes, Simon "Master" Bates, Steve Fuckin' Wright in the afternoon & countless other dross

the other thing - The House of Love - little did we realise then that Guy Chadwick was already about 75 years old & that they would split acrimoniously pretty damn quick

so here combining Peel & Chadwick are two tracks from The HOL's 1988 Peel sesh - ejoy.

Friday, March 17, 2006

a willing king virgin fool........






















Oh well, a week of outdoors fun & games turned into a week of suffering but i read a coupleof books, listened to a backlog of new CD's & most enjoyably watched The Wicker Man (Director's Cut) which i bought recently & hadn't seen since my old VHS copy bit the dust a few years ago.

It's a great film, beautifully shot, scripted & acted & the old fashioned grainy film only adds to the underlying strangeness of the story - you can shove all your modern CGI bollocks, for me films like this (i.e. A Warning To The Curious / The Signalman) convey more dramatic tension than a years worth of hollywood dross.

The underlying tale is establishment (prissy, uptight christianity) vs. anti-establishment (hippy, free love paganism) - but you can factor in any contrasting belief system here & the story remains the same. Who wins in the end - well you'll have to watch the film.

The film was shot mostly on the west coast of Scotland & there is an excellent guide to locations within the film here.

Finally the soundtrack is stunning, I got my hands on Nuada by Candidate recently - an album inspired by the film. Again hunt it down, it's a gem & the music created by this highly under-rated band on this & other albums ( I particularly like Under The Skylon) deserves a wider audience.

unbelievable....

first week off in 5 months & i have spent most of it in bed with something close to bird flu

harumphhhh!

Thursday, March 09, 2006

all over the map..........

i have been tracing my family tree off & on for a while now, with both my parents no longer about, i never really knew much about my family history beyond grandparents - so thanks to all the census sites now about, i have traced back so far to the early nineteenth century

it's fair to say that the wanderlust that has brought me here to Canada is evident in my forefathers - my dad's side of the family is all over the map - Ireland (I wish I knew where), Lancashire, Staffordshire, Leicestershire, Gloucestershire & in recent times Durham feature

my mum's side is much more resolutely London - although she was born on an RAF base in South Wales during the war - both sides of the River Thames feature with Camberwell, Peckham, New Cross representing the south east!

i was born in Gloucestershire, brought up in Wiltshire & Brighton, went to college in Manchester, lived in Liverpool immediately after graduating & latterly lived in SE London for quite a few years - no wonder i'm confused

i like to think this broad base has enabled me to travel & adapt to new places with ease - i remember once travelling in Idaho, we met a family in a bar in a little hick town one evening, after talking for a while i asked one of them where else they had travelled in this fair world - i was startled when she replied she'd been to Moscow once, i commented about how exotic that was for an American & she looked at me rather strange

we drove through Moscow the next day - 30 miles up the road from where we had been staying

two more tracks for the Rocky Mountain Radio tonight

in proud celebration of my Irish ancestory i am putting up a track by Planxty - recorded in 1973, the self titled album is full of wonderful, exhilirating Irish music - the usual smattering of Republican songs, teary eyed laments & breathtaking reels - the album is a joy. I have actually selected one of the reels - a disturbing song about a beggar, who invited into the farmer's house, deflowers the (seemingly willing) farmers daughter! - not sure it would pass muster with the PC police these days, but the playing is breathtaking, epsecially the closing minute or so.

i have by way of contrast selected another song by Sandy Denny's Fotheringay, from 1971 - another trad. song (of Scottish origin I think) - this tells the tale of a reluctant soldier & his heartbroken wife in 1800 - as he is drafted & sent off via Portsmouth to fight against Napoleon in Egypt - a sadder song you would struggle to hear, especially with the beautiful voice of Sandy Denny telling the tale.

it's strange to think that 140 years after this song was set, my grandfather himself would be in Egypt fighting a war

Planxty - The Jolly Beggar Reel (1973)

Fotheringay - Banks of the Nile (1971)

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

no bear cull in canmore...........

great news from the provincial government this week, the grizzly bear hunt is not going ahead this season & not for the next two either

the "sportsmen" will have to find something else to kill, because the bears are now protected & hopefully in 3 years time they will become permanently listed as a threatened species

i just cannot see the sense or the pleasure in shooting such an intelligent creature & with numbers in the protected zone estimated to be as low as 53 (previous guesses had put the number closer to 700!), allowing the slaughter of these animals for "fun" would be crazy

so for the bears, waking up soon, it's a safer world in some ways this year - that's not to say there won't be unfortunate bear/human encounters this year, and thats why the Bearsmart program being introduced is such a good thing

it's refreshing for once to see a decision come out in favour of the environment & it's wildlife

Monday, March 06, 2006


Mountain View Country (just west of Cochrane, AB) Posted by Picasa

neither here nor there..........

Red Deer today, about halfway up the Highway between Calgary & Edmonton - kind of neither here, nor indeed there.......

It's funny - I found out last week that Greenwich Market is under threat from developers who want to turn it into an office complex or somesuch nonsense. Spitalfields Market in East London, one of my favourite places in the City was also facing the same peril the last time i heard. We have so much history in our buildings, yet all the time faceless town planners & their corporate cohorts are thinking up novel ways to turn them into glass fronted offices for Chartered Accounting Companies & the like.

On the other hand over here, there is no history, (well apart from thousands of years of native history but no one ever mentions that) - so if a building is over 100 years old, there will be signposts from hundreds of kilometers away proclaiming "Historic Building Ahead" - I even drove past a farmyard barn today, which had "Built in 1924!!" proudly plastered all over it - I half suspect that even old coffin dodgers who hang around too long on the local park bench, will end up with blue plaques & Historic Site status about their person.

I do like the old station wagons & farm trucks that you see often round here, people seem to preserve them as antiques & park them at the front of their ranches out in the back country - they look dramatic in a kind of rustic way. Not sure it would work with your old Bedford Van though back home - one day I am going to photograph some of these relics (and probably get shot by an irate redneck at the same time for tresspassin' on his homestead).

Two tunes for the radio player today, both from a really good Box Set I picked up off e-bay recently. The Harvest Festival Box Set compiles the best recordings released on Harvest, the "progressive music" label that had it's heyday from about 1968 to 1980 - as i have said before Prog is a four letter word, thanks to ridiculous, overblown orchestral mini-rock operas & the like pumped out bythe likes of Rick Wakeman, Mike Oldfield, Genesis & other such truly tiresome bands - however beneath the surface there was a whole canyon of interesting left-field music, some folk, some psychedelia, some heavy rock and some just plain fried - Harvest was one of the labels putting out such music when flares & tank tops were de rigeur.

The Move - Do Ya (1972)

Michael Chapman - It Didn't Work Out (1969)

Sunday, March 05, 2006

an eventful few days.............

well i took a trip over to Saskatchewan this week to visit a few clients, i flew into a very cold, snowy Saskatoon on Thursday morning & rented a 4x4 to get me safely! around this snowbound province

Saskatoon seemed like quite a picturesque town, with bridges crossing the frozen river at various points & a hip(ish) little strech of shops, bars & cafes on Broadway - it was friggin' freezing mind you so opportunities to explore were limited & anyway I had a 4 hour drive east to Yorkton to consider after i had done my work

see route here

about halfway into that cross-province journey i pulled off the main highway with the intention of stopping to eat a bit of lunch & have a short a rest from the fairly monotonous drive, which offered few scenic highlights other than a flat landscape muffled by deep, white snow

as the snow covered road i pulled onto seemed quite narrow i thought i better pull over slightly in case anything like a tractor came past - BIG MISTAKE - the car suddenly lurched off the road & into a deep, snow filled ditch & there got itself well & truly stuck, four wheel drive/off road type thing or not - all i could do was spin the wheels & throw up big chunks of mud, grass & snow

swallowing my pride i called 411 (directory services) and asked for a nearby garage, and sure enough i was put in touch with the local towing company - 20 minutes later a tow truck driven by the obligatory baseball becapped old guy turned up, him no doubt thinking to himself what the bejesus is this idiot doing?! Then amazingly with his battered up old tow truck he was able to winch me & modern, shiny new 4x4 out of our sorry predicament - he then charged me a few bucks for the privilige & no doubt drove off laughing to himself - oh well , lesson learned!!

the rest of the trip was happily uneventful, but i would have to say that Saskatchewan is not going to set any pulses racing for sight see-ers - the words, flat, white & dull summed up the route i drove pretty succinctly

yesterday we had the pleasure of strapping my 16 month old daughter into her first pair of skis - she took to it immediately & had a whale of a time slippin' and slidin' round the piste - in fact she did wail when it was time to take them off & leave

pictures here - password is my surname (lower case)

last night was a bit of a blur, booze, booze & more booze in Bannf - where i met the proprietor of the local sex shop, she told me in great detail about her range - which was nice. To make matters worse though I had a 7.30am start this morning to get over to Sunshine for a days snowboarding with the gang, it was good fun though - very cold, but the snow was perfect , really quick & plenty of terrain to explore - i am now absolutely knackered though & the week hasn't begun

other stuff - Charlton defended doggedly & dourly to earn a point at Anfield, certainly not pretty or good to watch but a good result & 4 points off the European Champions this season - nice - great to see the odd plastic scouser moaning over on Netaddicks

i have only just, 6 years too late discovered what a good comedy series Black Books was - watched the whole of the 1st season on DVD recently - i should have known it was good with Graham Linehan involved, he of Father Ted - have aso been downloading & watching The IT Crowd recently - similar kind of humour & better than a lot of the stuff that passes for comedy these days

music wise - well The Broken Family Band album has been played pretty much non-stop this last week but to keep the mp3 blog going here are a couple of other songs i'm currently enjoying

the ramones - let's dance (live in LA 1976) - classic punk rock from Da Bruddas

fotheringay - the way i feel (1970) - Byrds inspired British folk rock from a short lived cult group featuring the immense talents of Sandy Denny

Oops! Posted by Picasa

Broadway, downtown Saskatoon Posted by Picasa

Typical Saskatchewan Landscape Posted by Picasa