the secret service comin' at ya.................

i spent yesterday in the company of Canadian Prime Minister, Paul Martin - Paul is up for re-election & is touring Canada touting for votes - so he found himself here in Mississauga at the same hotel as me

actually i say i spent the day with him, i spent the day in the same hotel as him & i could for all i know have shared a lift with him or queued up behind him for the buffet lunch or even stood next to him at the urinals!

unfortunately i would not know him from Adam so i can't say for sure that any of the above events did or didn't happen

however he is obviously an important figure because the hotel was flooded all day with mean looking, dark suited, shades wearing Secret Service guys who eyed you suspiciously even if you dithered between choosing the egg salad or the chicken kievs

in the evening we headed to downtown Toronto for an enjoyable evening meal in a bizzare Cluedo style, it was a dinner mystery murder where you spent the evning in the company of a load of hammy actors in a kind of whodunnit theatrical performance - it was all good fun but my tired mind couldn't follow the plot & i was lost long before it was revealed that the butler did it.

so as a result i neglected to post number 18 & 19 in the BCR Top 26. So without further ado:

No. 18 Black Mountain - No Satisfaction

No. 19 Son Volt - Six String Belief

SonVolt have been around for years of course, ever since the great Uncle Tupelo fractured into Wilco & SV back in the 90's. Jay Farrar has had a hit & miss time since with some top LP's & some patchy one's too. However this years Okemah & The Melody of Riot was generally above par. We saw them live in London in about May & they rocked - obviously in an alt.country way & the track I have selected reflects the pleasure this album & that performance in May has given me this year.

Black Mountain provide an altogether heavierbrand of psyched out rock, they come from Vancouve. No Satisfaction is desrcibed in one review as "nodding gently to the Stones and Velvet Underground" - it's certainly one of the lighter cuts from the disc. A band with a huge amount of potential & evidence that Western Canada has as much to offer as the incredibly hip bands coming from Toronto & Montreal at the moment.