Derek K. Miller - Penmachine words music comment - Vancouver, Canada

It's not exactly a brilliant piece of photographic art, but it is pretty funny: this is the 10,000th picture taken with my Nikon D50 digital camera since I got it pretty much exactly two years ago. I didn't even take the photo, which is of "Bongo Neurotic," who was playing percussion with us yesterday; guitar player Sean borrowed my camera to snap it.

To reach 10,000 photos in two years is around 13.7 photos per day, on average, every day. Every. Single. Day. So while I like my film camera too, I'm glad I haven't had to pay for a roll of film (plus processing and printing) every day or two during that time.

Interestingly, the shutters on modern DSLR cameras are often tested for 100,000 or 150,000 or even 300,000 actuations—at my current rate, I'd have to keep going for between 10 and 30 years before the shutter wears out. I expect I'll probably replace the camera a few times in that span, assuming I even live that long.

Labels: anniversary, band, nikon, photography

I haven't cried for awhile. Back when doctors first found my cancer, more than a year and half ago, I cried frequently. Later in the year, after I'd been through chemo and radiation and surgery and catastrophic weight loss and side effects, I would sometimes wake in the night and sob in my wife's arms, "I don't want to die."

I still don't, and I still have cancer. I'm still taking chemotherapy every two weeks, lying in bed for a couple of days and throwing up. But it has become a grinding routine, a long, protracted war against my body's own mutant cells, rather than a fierce battle.

I wish I cried more. I'm not holding it back. When it comes, crying is a great relief. I feel alive.

But I think I'm a bit numb to the threat of death now—I could still die soon, but it seems less likely, since my medical team and I seem to be fighting the disease decently, and I feel pretty well most of the time. My family and I talk about the future, and such talk no longer seems hollow.

I also laugh, especially with my kids, and my wife, and my band. I played another show with them this afternoon, and one thing I enjoy best about it is that pretty much every show, I laugh uncontrollably at least once about something.

It's true that I'm more sentimental now, and get misty-eyed at times when I might previously have been stoic or cynical. Sometimes it's just when I look at my daughters. Sometimes it's when I see pictures from Mars. Sometimes it's when I'm writing a blog post.

Labels: band, cancer, death, family, music

Back in the '90s there was a popular Vancouver rock band called The Odds (or just "Odds"). They and their cover-band alter-ego The Dawn Patrol inspired my cover band, The Neurotics, and our former original-band alter-ego, The Flu. And, oddly (ahem), since 2003 bassist Doug Elliott of The Odds has been (as "Swingy Neurotic") one of the rotating cast of yokels who play in The Neurotics.

Anyway, The Odds broke up in 1999 after four albums, tours with The Tragically Hip, and some pretty decent commercial success, but have now returned with a slightly different lineup as The New Odds, releasing a booty-shakin' new album called Cheerleader a few weeks ago. They've been touring across Canada too.

As part of the revival, I just spent a bit of time with Doug setting up a Facebook page for the group. If you're on Facebook and like the band (either in its old Odds or New Odds incarnation), or if you think you might, why not head over and become a fan (the link is on the upper right of the page), so you can find out when they're having shows, what they're up to, and so on? It's way less nasty on your eyes than MySpace, I tell you.

Labels: band, facebook, music, odds, vancouver, web

I don't play drums as often as I used to—I did it as a full-time job in the early '90s—but I am glad I still get to do it for money on occasion. Last night my band, The Neurotics, played a wedding in Chilliwack, one of Vancouver's eastern suburbs.

And you know what? When you play drums only occasionally and get home at 3:00 in the morning, your hands hurt the next day.

No, I was not actually stoned in the photo. I do notice that the wig fits much better now that I have very little hair.

Labels: band, music, neurotics, pain

No, I didn't end up seeing Expelled. Our Aussie friend Leesa and I caught the Adam Woodall Band in West Vancouver instead, and it was a fun time. I'm sure I enjoyed myself more than I would have at the movie.

Labels: band, music, vancouver

There's a certain type of rock-n-roll song that bypasses your intellect and goes straight for the gut—or a bit lower. One that makes you want to shake your ass, or your head, and sing along, even if you don't know the words, because the words don't matter all that much. They're dumb and sophomoric, anyway, or at least unintelligible—probably about sex or cars or girls or something.

Such a song features guitars, bass, drums, and singing, but probably no keyboards and definitely no strings, horns, or children's choirs. It probably has about three chords, or sounds like it does. The guitars are distorted and loud, and there's almost certainly a guitar solo too, but a short one. You want to turn it up. You know what I'm talking about.

Here is my top 10 list of such songs. Yeah, they're all very mainstream, and you may disagree with me, but I don't care—go ahead and leave a comment if you have further suggestions. I'll include some of my own runners up in a later post. It's a stupid list of stupid songs, which is the reason they're great to begin with:

More, with the also-rans, next time.

Labels: band, linkbait, lists, music, radio, video

Sometime in 1983 or so, I got really into the band Genesis, after the release of their self-titled album of that year. I still look back at that record and its two predecessors from the turn of the '80s, "Duke" and "Abacab," as their best, where they managed to mix art-rock and pop deftly, without turning silly.

Yes, I turned into a pretty big fanboy: I went back into the old catalogue and bought the Peter Gabriel-era prog-rock sets too, and I enjoyed them. The later stuff, like "Invisible Touch" and "We Can't Dance"? I think I picked those up more out of duty than pure enjoyment. But I never tired of Phil Collins's drumming, whether on "Selling England By the Pound" or Gabriel's epochal third album or his own solo work. He remains one of the reasons I'm a drummer today.

I saw Collins play live a couple of times, once on the final pre-reunion Genesis tour in the '90s, and once at an arena tour with his solo band. He always put on a good show, with great lighting. At his solo performance, his then-teenaged son sat in on drums, despite having recently broken an arm.

It's not a huge surprise that Collins announced his retirement (via Paul) from recording and performing this week (although whether it will be a Cher/Celine Dion–style retirement or a more real one is an open question). He's been in the entertainment business for something like 45 years—as a child actor he was an extra in A Hard Day's Night—and he certainly has little left to prove.

He's taken his share of slagging over the years, especially when you couldn't avoid him during the '80s, and as he slid into mellow late-period Elton, Rod, and Sting–style music a decade later. But put on a track like "Turn It On Again," "No Self Control," "Misunderstanding," or, of course, "In the Air Tonight"—you can't deny something brilliant there. And he was a pioneer with drum machines and electronic percussion too.

One interesting thing about his drumming: his drum kits have always been set up left-handed. That's unusual even for left-handers like Collins, since so much in drumming requires a kind of ambidexterity. (Ringo Starr, conversely, is also left-handed, but has always played a right-handed kit.) In my case, with a regular right-handed set, I hit the main beats with my left hand, on the snare drum, and my right foot on the bass drum. My right arm handles the hi-hat and most of the other cymbals, and both hands work the tom-toms.

I'm not sure how Collins's reversed setup has affected how he plays, but it certainly hasn't hurt his career. If he doesn't retire fully, I wonder if he might return to his early foray into jazz fusion with Brand X (not that I would actually enjoy that) or something equally strange?

Labels: age, band, music, retro

As I mentioned a few days ago, my band The Neurotics played, for the 15th year in a row, at the Vancouver Sun Run, which as of this year appears to be the largest fun run in North America. There were over 59,000 registrants for the 2008 race.

As part of the photos I took downtown today, here's me behind the drum kit, with Swingy Neurotic (a.k.a. Doug Elliott) on bass:

Thanks to Dilly Neurotic (a.k.a. Sean Dillon) for snapping that one. We all look a bit chubbier than usual because it was freaking cold for late April in Vancouver (just above freezing), so each of us had at least three layers of clothes under our costumes—I was wearing a T-shirt, a long-sleeved shirt, and a chunky sweater underneath my Union Jack shirt and glittery jacket.

Rock on, Sun Runners!

Labels: band, music, neurotics, photography, retro, sunrun, vancouver

Back in 1994, I was making a go of it as a full-time rock and roll drummer, and my cover band The Neurotics managed to snag a spot along the route of the annual Vancouver Sun Run, where we got paid a bit of money and had the chance to entertain tens of thousands of people as they ran 10 km through Stanley Park.

We were pretty silly (as we always are), and the runners liked us, so somehow the next year we were recruited to play on the scaffold above the starting line for the race, downtown at Burrard and Georgia streets. We've been the band there ever since (among numerous others along the route), and next Sunday, April 20, 2008, marks our 15th appearance at the Sun Run. (The band's lineup varies a bit each year, but for once the group of four musicians will all be guys who've done this show before.)

It's a strange gig, and one of the reasons the organizers keep calling us back is that we've honed our ability to play what guitarist Sean calls "heads-up hockey" up on the temporary stage. We have to show up before 5:00 a.m. to beat the road closures, haul our gear up some rickety scaffold stairs, do a very quick setup, and then go get some breakfast. Once we start playing around 7:30, it's pretty much a continuous performance until all 50,000-plus runners and walkers have gone by. That takes several hours.

But while we're up there playing much of that time, there are a lot of stops and starts, dictated on the fly by the race organizers and announcers on the platform with us—and we get little warning. Sometimes we only play 30 seconds of a song. Others we get 10 seconds (or less) of warning that we'll have to stop another, or just as much notice that we have to start. The mayor might speak, or other local celebrities. There are speeches and announcements, and each group of runners has its own starting announcement and air horn. A group of Fitness World aerobics types helps everyone get warmed up. We need to fit into the gaps, so we learned years ago that a set list does little good.

It is an awesome thing to see tens of thousands of Vancouverites thronging the streets below. It's also a huge load of fun. I was unable to play last year because it was early in my combined radiation and chemotherapy treatments. This year the timing is better, so while I'll be tired, I expect to be able to play the show without a hitch.

If you're in downtown Vancouver early on Sunday morning—especially if you're running by on Georgia Street in front of the RBC tower—look up, way up, and maybe you'll see me bangin' like Charlie Watts. But I'll probably be too busy to wave.

Labels: age, band, history, music, neurotics, retro, sunrun, vancouver

The new video sharing features of the formerly photo-only site Flickr are different: the designers obviously thought a lot about how to implement video without just cloning how YouTube and everyone else does it.

The key thing is that videos uploaded to Flickr must be less than a minute and a half long, and no bigger than 150 MB. That's a limitation, but also a gift. It forces you to think about what to upload, and if you have a longer video, to edit it down to its essence.

My first video upload there is a good example. I had to take a video of my band that was already only a few minutes long and make it even shorter. I had to cut out non-licensed music and any other extraneous bits. In the end it's only one minute, but it still gets the point of our act across, even without any singing at all.

I think the time limit will generate some creativity in the Flickr community, as well as avoiding those interminable videos that take forever to get to the point. Even if a video is bad, you'll only have to waste 90 seconds on it. We'll see what happens within the well-imagined constraints.

Labels: band, design, flickr, geekery, music, neurotics, video

As always, there are some people who think those darned kids today are taking us all to hell in a handbasket with their ignorance and filthy habits. However, I seem to recall titles like this only in my university statistics course textbook:

But that's not where it comes from. It's a school math worksheet for my younger daughter, who is eight and in grade two. I'm not sure "data management and probability" were words I could even say at that age. (Then again, I did know what "carbon monoxide" was from my first favourite book.)

As for my other daughter, who is ten, she drew a picture the other day. It's taped to her bedroom door:

I liked the Beatles at that age too, but she loves them. I had no idea who the individual Beatles were, never mind what instruments they played—especially that Paul played piano as well as bass.

Notice that while John and George are playing their guitars left-handed, which isn't correct, Ringo's drums are frighteningly accurate. And even though his kit didn't have one, hers has a soundhole in the front drum head as most do these days. I guess my work as a drummer has rubbed off a bit.

Kids today. Too damned smart.

Labels: age, band, family, neurotics, probability, school

Last night I played drums in my first gig with my band since back before my cancer surgery in July. It went quite well, even though this particular lineup (Mark and Adam on guitars, Rick on bass, and Christian and I swapping drum and percussion duties in case I got too tired) had never played together before.

We set up at 4 p.m., finished that by 6, went out for dinner, returned and started the show by 10, finished at 12:30 a.m., and then packed up and hit the road by 1:30. However, as expected, after getting home at 2 a.m. and then running a bunch of errands after I got up today, I crashed out for a three-hour nap. My wonderful wife took the kids swimming while I was asleep. (Notice how, for two and a half hours of actual playing time, the band actually spent ten hours on call?)

It makes sense that I would be tired only a day after my latest chemo treatment ended. I'm certainly in no position to play as often as I used to, for the same reason I'm still on medical leave from work: my body is taking a lot of punishment from the cancer treatment, and is very slow to recover. I was sore all over today, as if I'd been skiing, and my hands in particular—which seem to be showing the brunt of the chemo side effects right now, with dry skin and strange discolourations—are particularly thrashed. (Part of that is that I've hardly played drums all year, so my usual callouses are gone.) I had to take off my rings today and have been slathering both of my mitts with moisturizing cream.

In fact, my hands somewhat resemble the heavily worn 1966 Fender Jazz Bass guitar that Rick, our bassist for the night, has owned since 1979. It's pretty much stock, with the same body, neck, pickups, and hardware installed at the Fender factory during the Beatles' heyday. Rick is the third owner, and the bass has always been his main instrument since he bought it, seeing thousands of performances. The sunburst finish is almost entirely worn through, front and back. There are actual grooves in the body from where the coin he uses as a pick has made its mark, but even more astonishing, Rick's fingers have very gradually dug channels into the wood over the years too.

Rick's bass is probably the most beat-up playable instrument belonging to any musician I know. It's quite beautiful in its own way, with the history of over 40 years of heavy playing (almost 30 of them Rick's) etched into its surface. It's a player's bass—some collectors would weep at its condition. Other people are happy to have Fender make them a brand new bass and then bang and bash and wear and scrape it up as if it had been played for decades. But as Doug (our other bass player, who has his own beat-up basses, both vintage and artificially "relic" treated) says, it's not the same.

Labels: band, cancer, chemotherapy, guitar, music

A bunch of stuff I've been accumulating over the past few months:

• Types of coffee beverages
• U.S. regional pizza styles
• Build your own Apple Store
• Google Maps mashup of how Greater Vancouver would be flooded by a 4-metre sea level rise (move around to check out your own area nearly anywhere in the world)
• J Allard's thoughts on the first year of the Zune
• Very useful Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) reference for web developers
• How well does restoring from Apple's new Time Machine backup work?
• Intro to Fully Flared features slo-mo skateboarding, explosions
• When you post to your blog, where does the information go?
• Tips to give presentations more like Steve Jobs
• What other sites are on your shared web server?
• How Microsoft would reveal it hasn't done its homework in school (see?)
• New Apple instructional videos
• Long Radiohead video that features all the songs on In Rainbows

Labels: apple, backup, band, blog, environment, extremesports, food, google, linksofinterest, macosx, microsoft, music, publicspeaking, web

If you're still looking for some good Christmas music for the 24th or 25th, I recommend the new Colin James album Christmas, made with his Little Big Band. (It may only be available in Canada for now.)

Colin lives here in Vancouver, and his sometime bassist Doug Elliott also plays with my band, but that's not why I recommend it. Christmas is the latest in a long series of Little Big Band projects stretching back to 1992, and Colin has a deft way with the jump-blues guitar-horns-organ format, which he revived long before Brian Setzer.

What that means is this album, though it contains both traditional chestnuts ("I'll Be Home for Christmas," "Let It Snow," "Baybe It's Cold Outside") and some swingin' alternatives ("Cool Yule," "Boogie Woogie Santa Claus," the gospel-style "Go Where I Send Thee"), is remarkably refreshing in the sea of sappy-sweet versions you hear this time of year. Colin swings and shimmies and leaves a smile on your face. If that sounds up your alley, pick it up.

Labels: band, colinjames, holiday, music

I managed a respectable 37 out of 58 (63.8%, or "Whiz") on Rolling Stone's Almost Impossible Rock 'n' Roll Quiz (via J-Walk). That surprised me, because the questions span the decades, and as is typical for someone like me, my musical tastes and pop-culture knowledge start to peter out around 1995.

Then again, it is Rolling Stone, not exactly the hippest of music magazines anymore. I was also surprised at some of the obscurities I knew, such as who first recorded Prince's "Nothing Compares 2 U."

And speaking of oldies, evidence from YouTube and Google Video indicates that Led Zeppelin (with Jason Bonham, son of deceased original drummer John) were in damn fine form yesterday. Check for "Kashmir," "Dazed and Confused," and the opener of "Good Times Bad Times" (always one of my Zep favourites) in particular.

Labels: age, band, ledzeppelin, music

Back in the '60s and early '70s, musicians were expected to release albums at a blistering pace. Consider The Beatles, who released at least 12 or 13 albums (being conservative by not counting repackagings and compilations, and depending on which ones you count as "real" albums) in a little over seven years between 1963 and 1970, plus various singles (like "Penny Lane"/"Strawberry Fields Forever") that didn't appear on LP before they broke up.

CCR were more prolific, putting out seven albums in just over four years—three of those in 1969 alone. Led Zeppelin's first four LPs emerged between 1969 and 1971. And so on. Even R.E.M. reliably put out an album every year through most of the '80s.

Contrast that with someone more contemporary, such as our hometown girl Sarah McLachlan. Her recording career spans close to 20 years now, since her debut Touch in 1988. In that time, excluding remixes, re-releases, compilations, live albums, and other side projects, she has put out five (yes, five) complete studio albums of new material. Six if you include last year's Christmas disc (I don't usually count "very special" holiday releases of traditional music as real albums, but you can if you want). That's something between 55 and 70 new album tracks (again, depending on how you count) over her entire career, or an average of three or four new songs per year.

Fall Out Boy are still in the initial bloom of their career (work with me here, I'm sure many people think they're totally passé by now, but I need to talk about bands that are more than a year or two old), and they've put out four albums in almost six years. That's pretty quick these days, but in their heyday Creedence would have lapped those emo cuties several times by now.

Peter Gabriel exemplifies the trend. After he left Genesis, he released solo studio albums in 1977, 1978, 1980, and 1982, not a bad clip (especially considering how groundbreaking some of them were). Then came So in 1986, which seemed a long wait, but Us took until 1992. Up didn't show up for ten years, in 2002. And his fans are still waiting for the next one.

I understand that the industry has changed. Fans don't expect a new album every few months anymore, singles have come back thanks to iTunes and other download services, tours are more extensive, there are videos and DVDs and other projects on the go. Digital studio technology means artists and producers can obsess about and try to perfect tiny details of tracks for months or years on end (hello, Stevie Wonder?). Bands back in the '60s often burned out from the relentless pace their customers and managers and record companies demanded (the Beatles included—by the time George Harrison, the youngest of the group, was recording his parts for Abbey Road, he was only 26, but he looked a lot older).

But you know, if I liked a particular artist, I'd feel a bit cheated if they couldn't put together more than three or four decent new tunes a year. These people are musicians, this is their job. In the mid-'60s, Bob Dylan was probably putting down three or four great new songs before lunch some days.

Labels: band, music

You know what's worse than having a hangover? Having a hangover when you didn't drink any alcohol. Last night my wife and I trekked to a pub in North Vancouver to see our pals in the Adam Woodall Band—I've played in other bands with Adam over the years, and also used to run the AWB website, so we like to see them when we can.

It was my first outing to a bar in a long time. We had lots of fun at the Queens Cross Pub, and the band was excellent, as usual. In addition to being designated driver, I'm still on chemotherapy, so it's not wise for me to get drunk. Indeed, I chose not to have any alcohol and all, sticking with Diet Coke and coffee, plus some fine Buffalo chicken wings and a steak sandwich.

Yet today I feel like complete crap. I woke up near noon with a headache, low blood glucose, body aches—all the symptoms of a hangover. So I'm paying the price, though I'm not sure what the price is for. The chemo makes me less resilient to staying out late than I used to be, I guess. Still, I'm glad we went.

Go buy the AWB's album Silver Ring, by the way. It's good.

Labels: band, chemotherapy, music, pain

When I was learning to play in a band, back in the mid- to late '80s, there was a 1960s revival going on. We even had an AM radio station in Vancouver that played almost nothing but sixties music, from the British Invasion to the weird one-hit wonders like the Trashmen's "Surfin' Bird." So it's no surprise that I ended up even today playing in a faux-sixties cover act.

But despite Austin Powers, that revival did fade in favour of seventies and eighties revivals. And while there is no grunge revival yet that I can see, there does seem to be another small sixties revival underway. It's most obvious in TV commercials.

The new "Joe" clothing line has a full-on go-go dancing crowd shimmying to the Kinks' "Everybody's Going to Be Happy" (not a particularly well-known number of theirs). Similarly, Canadian retailer The Bay has a new "Boom" line of women's clothes and accessories, and the TV ad includes a Yardbirds-esque version of John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom." Even Mini Wheats cereal has gotten into the act, with moppy-haired psychedelic retro animations behind its catchy singing wheat square belting out groovy Scooby-era pop.

I don't know if it will become more widespread, but commercials often plant the seed for new musical discoveries by kids who buy music. My nine-year-old daughter (who admittedly already calls the Beatles her favourite band, and wants to meet Paul McCartney someday) discovered the Kinks through that Joe commercial. And of course there's the success of Amy Winehouse singing tunes that sound like Dusty Springfield.

If Apple adds an old track from "Nuggets" to an iPod commercial, you'll know the sixties are going mainstream again, baby!

Labels: apple, band, ipod, music, sixties, television

For an old-time fan of the Odds like me, this is really interesting.

Labels: band, media, music, odds, web

I've been listening over and over to Stevie Wonder's 1970 version of "We Can Work It Out" since I grabbed it on iTunes earlier today.

I think it could be the greatest Beatles cover anyone's recorded so far. Fantastic gritty keyboards, then, boom, straight into a superfunky, harmony-laden version so very different from the original, yet at least as good. I love the "hey!" background vocals, the frantic Motown tambourine, all that.

For everyone who's grown up after Wonder's peak in the early '70s and is puzzled at what the hype is about, "We Can Work It Out," like "Superstition" and many other tracks from that time, is the evidence you need.

Labels: band, music, recording, steviewonder

Back in the 1990s, you could occasionally spot Robert Plant wearing a Dread Zeppelin T-shirt. With good reason. I saw them play a concert here in town once, and it was one of the best shows I've ever been to.

If you want to find out why, listen to Tortelvis's caterwauling lead vocal on the most recent edition of the Coverville podcast, performing "Whole Lotta Love." They were even better in person. Uh-huh. Tortelvis even played the drum solo on "Moby Dick"—very well.

Labels: band, cover, dreadzeppelin, ledzeppelin, music, podcast

I'm just lying here on the couch, reading my RSS feeds and listening to The Who's 1971 "Who's Next" album for the first time in a long time. Holy crap, I'd forgotten what a great piece of work that is.

As Dave Wilson wrote in Salon a few years ago, somehow even infinite replays on classic rock radio have failed to dilute these tracks. Pete Townshend magically turns out not only to have created some of the greatest, most muscular guitar sounds in the history of rock 'n' roll, but also to be a genius with the primitive analog synthesizers of the era, which no one would have expected. Roger Daltrey makes his case to be among the best rock singers—powerful without being shrieky, cheesy, or slick. John Entwistle uses his bass both to anchor the rhythm and to fill in the melodies behind Townshend's power chords in marvelously creative ways.

And Keith Moon, well, what can you say? I've written about him before, how he's always been impossible to emulate because his drumming reflected the same unhinged personality that led to his early death. He was, it seems, incapable of playing quietly or subtly. So on "Who's Next," even the softest ballads seem on the verge of a complete train wreck, which is just the sort of tension rock music needs.

And then, of course, there is The Scream, 7 minutes and 45 seconds into "Won't Get Fooled Again." It should have become self parody after appearing in car commercials and following David Caruso's witticisms at the beginning of every episode of CSI: Miami. Yet still, when I listen to it in context, after the long, burbling synth interlude and Moon's edge-of-chaos drum intro, Daltrey's "Yeeeeaaaaaaah!" still gives me goosebumps every time (he sang it so loud that the microphone actually crackles with distortion), and the guitar that follows it is my own Platonic ideal of what overdriven chords should sound like.

Anyway, if you like The Who, or any band that owes them a debt, from AC/DC to Green Day to every emo-pop-punk group of today, go listen to "Who's Next" again and give it its due.

Labels: band, csi, csimiami, davidcaruso, music, recording, who

My birthday party yesterday was fantastic. Thank you thank you thank you to my amazing wife who organized it, and to everyone who came. The gig with the band this morning was fabulous. I am completely wiped out, but it was worth it. Some photos (click each one to see more from that event):

Labels: band, birthday, family, friends, music, neurotics

Today's my 38th birthday. Thank you to everyone who's wished me well, and to everyone who's coming to the party tonight (and to my wife, who's organizing the whole thing). If you insist on a gift, go to my friend Gillian's donation page for the Underwear Affair cancer fundraising run, which takes place next Saturday, July 7, one day after I get my major surgery. Send some money for research on cancers below the waist. That would be good.

If you missed the interview my wife and I had with Paul Grant on CBC Radio yesterday, I've now posted the audio to my podcast (MP3 file). Thanks to my dad for recording it. I think our podcasting experience pays off—we sound pretty good on air.

Also one more reminder that at the HBC Run For Canada tomorrow, my band will be playing at the start/finish zone on Coal Harbour near the north foot of Jervis Street in downtown Vancouver, between 9 a.m. and around noon. With upcoming surgery and stuff, it will be my last performance with the group for some time, so if you're up for some rock 'n' roll in the morning, that's a good chance for a free show and to see me play the drums.

Finally, thank you Alistair for finding the bizarre birthday photo that accompanies this post. I am not a walrus, but do I still get the bucket of fish?

Labels: band, cancer, cbc, music, podcast, radio

Mark Blevis of the Canadian Podcast Buffet just emailed me an audio file, a happy birthday message (I turn 38 tomorrow) from podcasters all over the place. Holy crap. Thanks everybody, I’m stunned.

Speaking of birthdays, Sunday is Canada Day, and if you're looking for something to do in Vancouver in the morning, my band The Neurotics will be playing near the start/finish line of the HBC Run for Canada down at Coal Harbour. We play from 9 a.m. till noon.

Labels: band, birthday, music, podcast

On bad days, like today, I feel like nothing but a generator. The only things I generate are pain and shit, and I pour them into the world—as if the world needs more!—spending the rest of my time sleeping, and eating when I can, and in today's case intermittently reading a book while lying cramped up in bed.

It doesn't seem fair. Yesterday was a great day, when I played drums with the band for the first time in six months, and had a wonderful time, and went to bed feeling good. But then today I was a total wreck, unable even to unpack my snare drum from the car, or read my email, or open the mail, or answer the phone. Or maybe that is fair: good day, bad day. But fairness is a human concept, and a disease like my cancer knows nothing of it.

I hope tomorrow is better. It almost has to be.

Labels: band, cancer, music, pain, radiation

Because of my cancer treatment, I haven't played with my band The Neurotics since December 2006, but tomorrow, with any luck, I will be in good enough shape to join them again. And you can even see us on TV if you're in B.C.

The event is the first of a series of Tamara's Block Party events run by CTV News, and hosted by weather anchor Tamara Taggart. (I went to school with her husband, guitarist Dave Genn, but that had nothing to do with the booking. Our friend Jill also made their wedding cake.)

Anyway, Tamara will be doing her channel 9 weather forecasts during the evening news on June 21 from a block party in East Vancouver, and we're the entertainment. We have a backup drummer (the excellent Christian a.k.a. Ringo from the Mop Tops) in case I run out of energy, but I'm hoping to play the whole show. The weather looks to be good, and it will be a fun time.

I had a crappy day today, not sleeping most of the night and making up for it almost all day, but the usual pattern these days is that the next day is better. We'll see how it goes. Rock on!

Labels: band, cancer, ctv, music, neurotics

Over on the other side of Canada, Mark Blevis of the Canadian Podcast Buffet and Sean McGaughey are each performing separate musical gigs in different cities tonight, as part of the Canadian Cancer Society Relay for Life. They say they're dedicating part of their performances to me and my cancer battle. If you're in Penetanguishene or Stittsville, Ontario (what strange names they give their towns there), why not head down and check 'em out?

Thanks guys!

Labels: band, cancer, charity, music, podcast

I'm sure anyone from Australia is sick of "The Hard Road" by the Adelaide-based hip-hop group Hilltop Hoods by now, but since I'm way up here in Canada I just heard it for the first time. Then I played it twice more in a row. None of their material is even available on the Canadian iTunes Store.

Leesa sent me the Triple J 2007 Hottest 100 CD, and "The Hard Road" is #3 on the list (ahead of The Killers and Gnarls Barkley). I have no idea whether it's so overplayed Down Under that it's a joke by now, but I don't care. It's a great tune, just a spectacularly awesome groove. Plus it samples Leon Russell, making it even cooler. Thanks Leesa!

Labels: australia, band, hilltophoods, itunes, music

Years ago, my friend Tara gave me a copy of The Manual by the KLF, which even then was horribly out of date, completely focused on the U.K., and still pungently accurate as well as funny.

It describes how, in 1988 or so, you could follow a methodical plan to get a #1 single in Britain with no musical talent whatsoever. In the intervening years several people in several countries have modified its instructions to do just that, or come close.

I loaned the book to my other friend Sebastien and never got around to asking for it back, but it turns out the whole text is online anyway, so have at it.

Labels: band, copyright, ebooks, fairuse, friends, klf, music, radio, recording

My wife recorded a couple of videos at the Police show too:

Labels: band, concert, music, police, video

I'm obviously still suffering radiation side effects fairly strongly. After the Police concert a couple of nights ago, I spent the whole day yesterday in bed, with a slight fever, unable to do much of anything at all. I'm feeling a bit better this morning.

It was worth it, because I had a great time at the show. I even liked that the band messed up quite a bit—missing cues, restarting songs, not quite reading each other's body language right. Most people in the audience surely didn't notice, but as a musician I did (and so did Stewart Copeland—here's his blog post about it), and that made the show more honest and fun and intimate for me.

In a time of prefab Disney-Nickelodeon pop stars singing through pitch-correcting software, with rigorously choreographed concerts, a stage full of backup dancers, songs sequenced and processed to death, and exactly the same set list and timing night after night, it was refreshing to see three guys play an actual rock show with their own instruments. On several occasions, Sting bypassed a chorus and moved into a second verse, and the other two had to switch gears quickly to catch up. And while he was in strong voice, I also noticed a couple of times when he hit a particularly high note and looked surprised at himself that he managed it.

There were a few subtle nods to modernity: the backing track for "Walking in Your Footsteps" was a synthesizer sequence, and some of Copeland's and Andy Summers's background vocals were artifically harmonized. But again, only real musical tech-heads would notice that it sounded like several people were singing backgrounds when only one was. And for most songs, what you heard was what they played, mistakes and all.

I also liked that they roamed all over their catalogue of songs, from the big hits ("Every Breath You Take," "Roxanne," "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic") to somewhat obscure album tracks ("Reggatta de Blanc," "The Bed's Too Big Without You"). Often the less-famous songs turned out better, I think. They played the first track on their first album, "Next To You" (with genuine fire, I might add, as their ending encore), and the last track from their final disc, "Murder By Numbers" (which turned out very topical).

Even if the band didn't think so, it was just the kind of concert I wanted to see. I hope they don't get too perfect for the rest of you who will see them throughout the tour.

Labels: band, cancer, concert, music, photography, police, radiation

So my wife and a couple of friends and I went to see this British three-piece combo play here in town last night:

Despite being grey-haired old guys, they had some catchy tunes and rocked out rather well. I hear they've had a few popular albums over the years too, which might be worth checking out.

While we were there, I took some more photos...