crows to burnaby

Radiohead has a new album coming out in ten days.

I have already pre-ordered.

*waits by mailbox, heart racing*

Had a good show at Trees on Friday night. I nearly had a fit trying to find parking - I needed to be somewhere near the place so I could unload my amp and cabinet, but the block of Granville that houses Trees Organic Coffee House is currently a gaping pit where they're digging for the Canada Line. So forget parking anywhere in the area.

It all went well though. I traded spots with Jon Middleton, who did a lovely mellow acoustic set, and we all played to a pretty packed room. Felt good. The Gentle Infidels followed, and they were very good - you've always got to root for any group with a cello in it, plus their bassist Ferdy is an awesome musician and super nice guy.

I'm playing again on Monday, October 8 at Wired Monk in Kits (at Trafalgar). Not sure yet what time I'm on, but the music starts at 8:30, so either I'll be on then or one other person will be.

Shaun Applebaum was kind enough to come out and take some photos:

You may notice that my hair is bright red. This is not a camera effect, it really is that colour now. I'd been building up to this for a while, and a few weeks ago got it done. I've never dyed my hair so dramatically before (I've done various shades of natural red, and had one nasty henna incident in university). My hair has never seen bleach before, either. So it was a big bold move - but I love it love it love it. It just feels right, like this is the colour my hair needed to be but couldn't manage on its own.

I've been curious to see how people react. I've gotten many compliments about it, from both friends and complete strangers, which helps to confirm that this really is "me" and not some crazed delusion. I notice that people walking down the street look at me a few seconds longer than they ordinarily would. In contrast, sometimes I think it's harder to get attention from, say, a secretary or counter staff - like they're not quite sure what to make of me so they avoid eye contact. And a few people over 80 have just outright stared, which I find very amusing. Anyway, it's been very positive - some people have told me they're really inspired by it and it makes them want to change something, too.

Now, my wardrobe options are suddenly limited - I discovered that pale blue shirts clash horribly, for example. But I think I can deal with that.

I like to think of it as a changing of the seasons; as the trees change colour, so do I. But does that mean I have to go pink in the spring?

Next, Jeremy wants to know about wheatpaste.

From wikipedia:

Wheatpaste, or potato paste (also known as flour paste, rice paste or simply paste), is a liquid adhesive used since ancient times for various arts and crafts such as book binding, decoupage, collage, and papier-mâché. It is also made for the purpose of adhering paper posters to walls. Closely resembling wallpaper paste, it is made by mixing roughly equal portions of flour and water (some argue using more water or more flour), and heating it until it thickens.

In the past when postering for ARCTIC, I've just stuck up a handful of posters using tape. When you're postering on your own, tape is a serious nuisance, because you have to cut the tape, keep the poster steady with your elbow, wrap the tape around the post, cut another piece and tape the bottom, and then inevitably the tape sticks to itself on the roll and you have to pick at it with your fingernail to try to lift it off again and then it comes off in little slivers and you can't get it started and you want to rip it to shreds but you can't because it's stuck to itself. And then someone can come along and rip the poster down with their pinky finger.

So this time I decided to use wheatpaste. And it's fun! It's dead easy to make - I used 1 part flour to 4 parts water, and some sugar added in - and so much more pleasant to work with. You just paint the surface you're postering with the paste, slap the poster up, and paint over top of it. The paste dries and you've got a pretty stable poster that is much harder to take down.

...Which brings me to a new point. Postering in Vancouver is a competitive and ultimately somewhat futile venture, which is why we don't do a whole lot of it. The city is run by a sort of a poster mafia, and if you haven't hired the Poster Guy, your posters will be taken down post-haste. So my postering on Wednesday for a Saturday show was done with the full knowledge that I'd be lucky to have them last until Thursday. I put up a few more on Saturday morning, hoping they'd at least get some eyeballs for a few hours. None of the original posters in the area were still there.

The other question is what do you poster over? Because there's no such thing as a blank pole, unless you're following the city workers around who clear off the poles every week or so. (And apparently there's been some crackdowns on people postering on private property, mailboxes, lampposts, etc - there are occasionally fines.) My personal policy is this: if there's an expired poster, I paste over that. If there isn't, I go for the biggest, most corporate event that's furthest off into the future. If it's a show at the Commodore presented by Live Nation that is a month in the future, you can bet they have the budget to re-poster the entire city next week anyway. I won't poster over small local promoters & bills.

So my wheatpaste adventure was fun, but only because it was nice outside and I understood I was fighting a losing battle. A bit zen, I guess, when it comes down to it.

Jesse wants to hear about pirates, so here we go.

First of all, Wednesday was International Talk Like a Pirate Day. I hope you all participated.

Secondly, the other band that we played with in Duncan last week, Ursula, had a pirate song that was so catchy we were singing it in the van on the way back. They were a pretty interesting ensemble - three youngish people, armed with accordion, banjo, ukelele and washboard, truly living the modern hobo life and singing their tales. I hadn't been sure what to expect - accordion folk/punk? - but they were so warm and genuine and shy that it was a really wonderful performance. They sang some old folk songs about travelling and their own songs about riding bikes in the city and running away as far as you can get in one day, and it was funny and wonderful. They're playing at Hoko's (362 Powell) on September 27th if you're interested.

As for the Duncan Garage Showroom - what a lovely venue. I bet you never thought you had a reason to go to Duncan, BC, but you do now.

If you need this post translated into pirate speak, please use this service.

I keep thinking of things to blog about while I'm nowhere near a computer. Then I come home and I do other stuff instead. So I thought I should give you a list of my excuses for not having blogged as much lately:

1. I'm on vacation. Technically. I decided to take the past two weeks off to decompress after the CD launch and get ready for some of the shows. And I've been away the past two weekends, once to visit family and once for a quick ARCTIC tour to Vancouver Island. I've done some enforced relaxing, but mostly I've just been filling every minute with fiddly little tasks.
2. ARCTIC stuff. This upcoming show is the first one that we've put on ourselves, and so there's more to do than usual, like printing and putting up posters, arranging details with other bands and so on. It's been fun, but it does take a chunk of time.
3. Heroes. An evil friend of ours loaned us the first season of Heroes on DVD. I had no intention of watching, but sort of half-followed the plot of the first few episodes while listening from the other room. Eventually I got hooked. Hopelessly. And so I've been devouring the remaining episodes. Just finished them all, and not a moment too soon, because the new season starts on Monday. I hate that I'm hooked on another show, but damn it, it's really good.

Here are the things that I would have been blogging about if I'd been blogging much. Maybe I'll get to them soon.

• Clothing swaps
• Wheatpaste
• Pirates

This Saturday, September 22 will be ARCTIC's first Vancouver show since the new CD came out. We're playing at Hoko's (362 Powell, in Chinatown), which is a sushi/karaoke restaurant turned indie music joint. I've been hearing quite a bit about it, and I'm really looking forward to playing there - it's just so exciting to see new venues emerge and I'm very glad to be a part of it. We'll be playing with Make the Lion and Orchid Highway, two local bands that have been solidly involved in the scene for quite a while. It's gonna be fun. Doors are at 8pm, cover is a mere $5.

Also, I've been so caught up in ARCTIC goodness that I almost forgot to promote myself. I'm playing a solo set at Trees Organic Coffee House (450 Granville St, near Hastings I think), on September 28, not this Friday but the one following. It'll be just me and my bass and my songs (well, maybe one cover). Sort of like what you hear on my myspace page (still haven't gotten to fix those mixes). Gentle Infidels and Jon Middleton will also be playing. Starts at 8:00, free admission.

for two ARCTIC shows, one that I'm not playing in and one that I am.

Here's a new photo of me to keep you company in the meantime:

If, on a mostly full bus, you have placed your backpack or bags on an empty seat beside you, OR if you are sitting in the aisle seat while the window seat is empty, I will make a point of asking for the seat you are blocking. I will do this even if there is another empty seat I could have taken instead, but not if the bus is largely empty.

However, if your jacket or bag happens to be covering the edge of the empty adjacent seat, I will probably choose another seat over that one, because I don't want to sit on your jacket or be squished against your groceries.

Portrait photography isn't my forte. I'm not generally that good or that comfortable taking pictures of people - if they're strangers, I always feel like I'm imposing, and if they're friends, I feel like I'm distracting them from whatever it was they were doing that made them interesting to photograph in the first place.

Oddly enough, my one photo that seems to be getting some attention lately is in fact a portrait.

While I was in Toronto at North by Northeast in June 2006, I saw this man sitting on the sidewalk on Queen Street. It was such a moment, but as usual I hesitated about taking a picture - he was asleep, and that seems like a vulnerable time to take someone's photo, and I couldn't give him change as a thank-you without waking them up. Marcus urged me to take the picture anyway, and so here it is.

Last year I got an email from Feeding Pets of the Homeless to use it on their website and newsletter, and I said sure. Then it was picked up by Paw Prints Magazine. Since then I've also had a request to use it in a deck of inspiration cards, a sociology textbook, and an online course. When it's a commercial publication, I've charged for it; otherwise I've let it be used for free. I haven't received my payments yet for the commercial items, but I intend to give a chunk of it to a local homelessness organization. Since I can't very well go to Toronto and find this guy and pay him, I should give it to someone who's trying to help people like him, at least.

The most interesting email I've received, however, has been from a woman who says this man is her son Noel Mathew Cowley who has been missing for almost two years. She's looking for any information about him, and wants to know if anyone has seen him since; she's posted her contact info in my Flickr comments so you can get in touch with her there.

It's amazing to think that one quickly snapped photo that I almost didn't take could reunite a man with his family. I'm hoping it happens. I can't seem to find anything else on Noel Cowley online, though, no missing persons reports or anything like that, so this is all I've got. But if you're in Toronto and you think you've seen this fellow with his dog, let her know, would you?

I've discovered a few times this summer that I am a delicious mosquito buffet, much more so than anyone else who might happen to be around me. In fact, I probably act as an insect repellent for everyone else, drawing the mosquitoes to me instead.

After the Kelowna trip where I came home with over a dozen bites while the five people around me got maybe two or three bites between them all, I had to look it up. Apparently I don't give off enough of a repellent odour, which I suppose is good news. But I need to work on not giving off as much carbon dioxide - of course, don't we all...