Fresh Breath of Mint - Spring 2008

NARDWUAR VS. THE KLAXONSNARDWUAR VS. CYNTHIA PLASTER CASTERBRENT COOPER: SCHOOL OF ROCKA CAROLYN MARK TOUR STORYHOW TO MAKE A BELLA WRISTBANDIMMACULATE MACHINE COMICSMINT BANDS GOING TO CMWNARDWUAR VS. THE PACK A.D.MINT XMAS PARTY REPORTA VANCOUGAR PUZZLEDEAR SHANEMORE!

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CD out now – 160g LP out March 4th

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free! vol. 4, no. 1 (aka issue #8!) spring ’0807 Nardwuar versus the Klaxons!11 Dear Shane!12 Mint Bands at Canadian Music Week!15 Brent Cooper: Rock ’N Roll School Teacher!17 A Carolyn Mark Tour Diary!21 Mint Victoria Xmas Party Report!23 A Vancougar Xmas Party Report!24 Nardwuar versus Cynthia Plaster Caster!28 How to Make a Bella Wristband!30 A Vancougar Crossword Puzzle!

31 Nardwuar versus The Pack AD!35 Venue Profile: Vancouver’s Biltmore Hotel!36 An Immaculate Machine Comic!37 Retail Profile: Pr. George’s Meow Records!38 Indie Retailers Map – Canada!40 Indie Retailers Map – USA!42 A Mint Discography!44 A Select Mint Discography in Colour!46 Happy Bats DVD Reviews!

The Choir PracticeDecember, 8, 2007Mint Xmas Party at Logan’s Pub, Victoria, BCPhoto by Shena Yoshida

Cover: The Pack A.D. at the Mint Xmas Party – December 14, 2007, The Railway Club, Vancouver BCPhoto copyright Adam PW Smith www.adampwsmith.com

Above: The Choir Practice at the Mint Xmas Party – December 8, 2007, Logan’s Pub, Victoria, BC – Photo by Shena Yoshida

RADIO SHOW!

EVERY FRIDAY3:30-5:00 PM PST4:30-6:00 PM MST5:30-7:00 PM CST 6:30-8:00 PM EST7:30-9:00 PM AST

LISTEN ONLINE!www.citr.ca

www.nardwuar.com

MintZineCAN_Mar_p03 1/26/08 8:02 PM Page 1

CBC Radio 3 Sessions features songs chosen from several Buttless Chaps releases andversions of tracks from their most recent studio release Where Night Holds Light.

Joined by Jesse Zubot on Violin & Peggy Lee on Cello & featuring the songs “Fresh Horses”, “Migratory Birds” and a cover of The Echo And The Bunnymen classic

“The Killing Moon”.

Buttless Chaps 10th Anniversary ShowApril 4th @ The Biltmore Cabaret, Vancouver, BC

with special guests The Parlour Steps

.com

Available exclusively at iTunes Music Store and zunior.com

from April 1, 2008


vol. 4, no. 1 (aka issue #8) spring ’08

F resh Breath of Mint is published at least three times a year by MintRecords Inc. We welcome feedback and submissions. Please

email [email protected]

The views expressed in Fresh Breath of Mint are those of the authorsand do not necessarily reflect those of Mint Records Inc. © MintRecords Inc. 2008

Made with 30% recycled paper and produced with sawmill waste. Nochlorine is used in the paper making process. The pulp is producedwith a steam process, thermal mechanical pulp process.

Mint Records Inc. PO Box 3613, Vancouver, BC Canada V6B 3Y6 www.mintrecs.com www.myspace.com/mintrecords

zine inquiries: Shena [email protected]

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We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through theDepartment of Canadian Heritage (Canada Music Fund).

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Mint Records releases are distributed like so:Canada: Outside Music www.outside-music.com and Scratch Distribution www.scratchrecords.com. USA: NAIL Distribution www.naildistribution.comUK: Shellshock www.shellshock.co.ukBenelux: Sonic Rendezvous www.sonicrendezvous.comGermany: Broken Silence www.brokensilence.bizSpain: Junk Distribution www.junkrecords.esNorway: Tuba www.tubarec.comNew Zealand: Global Routes www.globalroutes.co.nz

Also, be sure to check out iTunes Music Store and Zunior.comwhere more and more Mint titles are being added all the time!

Mint Records Inc. is a small indie record label based out ofVancouver, Canada. Since 1991, we’ve put our more than 110

releases by such bands and artists as The Organ, Novillero, The ChoirPractice, Carolyn Mark, Neko Case, The New Pornographers, TheAwkward Stage, The Evaporators, Immaculate Machine, cub, P:ano,The Smugglers, Duplex!, The Pack A.D., Young and Sexy, Corn Sisters,I Am Spoonbender, Vancougar, The Buttless Chaps, Bella, HuevosRancheros, Ramblin’ Ambassadors, John Guliak, Atomic 7, and others!

If you are a fan of indie pop, you simply must have tohave this record in your collection. All Music Guide

Boasting classic boy/girl harmonies combined withinsatiable hooks, bella will leave you humming theirinfectious melodies for days afterwards. NME

www.bellamusic.orgwww.myspace.com/bella

CD/LP out now

“delightful and uplifting” (Rocksound UK)“immaculate, hook-laden pop” (Pitchfork)


Glee clubs: not just for twee kids anymore –Pitchforkmedia.comnostalgic, wise, inspiring stuff –All Music Guide

something beautifully akin to the Mamas & Papas in 3D –TV Weeksunshine pop choral group –Now Toronto

could be a church number, in a really cool chapel –The Province

www.myspace.com/thechoirpractice

It all started with...gassyjack.com


Nardwuar: Who are you? What arethe Klaxons? Who else is in theKlaxons?

Who am I! (laughs) I'm Jamie from theKlaxons You got your Simon, you got yourJames.

And what about the drummer?And you got your Steffan as well. He'sabout somewhere, yeah, he's sniffin' about.

Do you sometimes forget about thedrummer at all?No, I'd never forget about him. He's hereevery moment. How could I forget abouthim?

Thank you so much for phoning into theNardwuar The Human Serviette RadioShow on CiTR 101.9 In Vancouver, Ireally appreciate that.That's OK, you're more than welcome.

We were just playing — because you werea bit late phoning in — a whole bunch ofBonde Do Role. What do you have to sayabout Bonde Do Role?What a band. We just did, like, 10 gigs withthem. And they just essentially kicked it offevery night. They warmed up the crowdperfectly. They got everybody right readyfor when we went on. They're perfect.They're all a bunch of good kids. Gorky'shilarious.

There's some amazing stuff there fromthem. There was a review from when youplayed in Toronto, do you remember the

Toronto gig at all?How could I forget the Toronto gig? Ofcourse. Yeah, well I was hanging out withmy good friends Crystal Castles before weplayed. Yeah, it was great.

Some Canadian content!There we go!

How would you describe the CrystalCastles?I'd describe them as a bunch of demon lordswho are incredible! They actually make com-puter music. They're a bunch of demon kids.They're my favourite people on the planet.

And just to remind everybody, who areyou again?I'm Jamie from Klaxons.

Jamie from the Klaxons, who are comingto Vancouver, British Columbia, Canadathis Sunday! You're coming to Vancouver,British Columbia, Canada.We are, I can't wait.

To play Richard's On Richards. And areview from Toronto, of Bonde Do Role— how do you pronounce the name,Bonde Do Role, how do you pronounceit?I think you got it! It may be some sort of —"Roll," I think, yeah.

The review from ChartAttack.com said,"Lead Singer Marina treated the audienceto an anatomy lesson while doing a cart-wheel and used her microphone as a phal-

lus..."(laughing)

"...and dry-humped her fellow band-mates."She's a sexy girl. She really is.

"All set to deep breakbeats and samplesranging from Daft Punk to 'The FinalCountdown.'"Yeah, sorry about that one. But they did it.It went off. She's great!

You were also down to the east coast ofUSA -— you filled in for Lily Allen.What happened there, Lily Allen justgave up and the Klaxons came a-calling?Yeah, you know that's how we do. She gaveus a quick bell and told us to jump on in,and we're never shy of doing it. No prob-lem. She's knocking around at the moment.She's in L.A. here. We gotta find her. She'smissing.

What was going on there? She was play-ing a gig and then she couldn't make it,and you guys just happened to be there,and you played to her crowd? What hap-pened, Jamie of the Klaxons?Oh, it was great, you know. But it wasn't asgood as we played the other night, after. Weplayed at Studio B in New York the firstnight. That's a great crowd. It went downvery well thank you very much. Crowdwent absolutely ballistic. It was just likebeing in London. It was great.

I was curious about Lily Allen's rider,

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FRESH BREATH OF MINT Spring 2008 9THAT MAGAZINE FROM MINT RECORDS • www.mintrecs.com

because there's a rumour out there thather rider — now what is your rider? Isn'tthe rider for the Klaxons just postcards?You like to have postcards in your rider.Postcards, some decent wine, some cheese,some fresh underwear.

I think that's great! Postcards!Clean living boys! Clean living boys whowant to say hello to people from all over theworld.

I've heard that Lily Allen's rider con-tained a small dog to play with. Like, shedemands having a small dog to play with.Is this true at all, Jamie from theKlaxons?As it just so happens, I know that we, Ishare a dog with Lily Allen! She has a dogthat she has back home and I own its broth-er. We share dogs. I don't know if she takeshim on the road with them, but I knowshe's very fond of him.

So there was no dog back-stage when you filled in forLily Allen? I was just won-dering if there was a smalldog perhaps backstage.That would have been nice.We'd have looked after it forher. But sadly, no.

For riders and stuff, Jamieof the Klaxons, I heard —do people call you the Klax-ons a la The Klingons? Doyou have any Klingon fol-lowing?Surprisingly not, consideringour sci-fi reach. No. You'rethe first person to mention it,but I like it.

So no Klingons have comeup to go see the Klaxons,cause there's a whole mar-ket for you to get into, isn'tit?There are, there are thousands of them!Humanoids as well. We get them.

Well, some of the fans have talked aboutseeing other bands, and you guys havetalked about other bands and other rid-ers. For instance, the Black RebelMotorcycle Club, is it true that-(laughs)

Yeah, is it true that they have JackDaniels bottles onstage filled with applejuice?I have absolutely no idea about that.

Cause you know, they're up there rocking— you laugh when I say Black RebelMotorcycle Club. Did you enjoy their lastalbum?Yeah, no I like that band, great band.Particularly their first record. Fantastic. Iknow they've taken out a good friends bandof ours from the U.K. called The Horrors

on their next tour to the U.S., so that'sexciting.

How do you bond with The Horrors?How does your music fit in with TheHorrors? Do they like you guys? Causeyou're more "modern age" than TheHorrors, aren't you?Well, we're very good friends with them.We've got exactly the same trajectory: camefrom the same place, played the same gigs,and you know, we're very tight, very goodfriends with them. Very good boys they are.

Did you guys use any vintage organs onany of your recordings like The Horrors?No, but we used I think mostly old amps. Ithink we have one of those knocking about,you know. We've used an old '60s lazy amp,gives you a whirl effect.

'Cause they're big on the Vox keyboards,aren't they? The big Vox SuperContinental…

Where the keys are reversed. Yeah, they likeall that. Spider web!

And Jamie of the Klaxons… right nowyou are Trout fishing in America, aren'tyou?Yeah, I'm just like Richard Brautigan.

And he is from Tacoma! What can youtell the people about Richard Brautigan?He's from Tacoma, Washington, not farfrom Vancouver — well, a couple hun-dred miles.Really? OK, there you go. I did not knowthat. I've been a big fan of his work foryears. I got introduced to him when I was18. We borrowed from some of his work towrite one of the songs on our record. Bigfan.

Trout Fishing In America. Now what arethe U.S. audiences like? I've heard thatyou guys describe the audiences as

French, that the U.S. audiences areFrench!Well, they just came across in a very Frenchway in some of the towns that we played in.They've been quite studious and they'revery interested in trying to work out exactlywhat it is that's going on onstage. Whereother places we go, they don't care what'sgoing on and just go mental. But we appre-ciate that. We appreciate their appreciation.It's good.

Is that holding true? Last night youplayed a gig, didn't you?We did, yeah. Last night we were in Denver.Fantastic.

Was it a French audience or was it aDenver audience?I think it was very much a Denver audiencelast night. It was quite a small bar. And weplayed quite an intimate gig, and we didquite a lot of talking up at the mic, andincorporating a little comedy act into the

gig. Yeah, it went very welllast night, funny gig.

Jamie of the Klaxons, whenyou played in Toronto, Iheard that scalpers whowere selling tickets wereselling glowsticks alongwith the tickets. Like youbuy a scalper ticket and youget a glowstick!Really? I didn't see too manyof them. I've not seen toomany of them acrossAmerica, actually.

Have you seen people sell-ing the glowsticks outsideof the gigs?I did, I did. I once shouted ata man in London, and healmost beat me up, for tryingto sell glowsticks outside ofthe gig. And then I sawanother man in Chicago who

was very fond of it.

You've tried to ban glowsticks. Why? Andhow hard is it to ban glowsticks? It'spretty hard to ban a glowstick. You canconceal it, but-Not true. The ban could — I mean, wevery well could be spared someone flashinga mobile phone, taking a picture right infront of your face. People enjoy them. Ithink it's a fine thing. It's not disrupting theband in any way, they're just having alaugh.

Jamie of the Klaxons, how do peoplereact to glowsticks? They bring glowsticksto the gigs because they think theyshould bring a glowstick to a Klaxon gig,don't they?They truly do, yeah! Especially in the U.K.they do, yeah. Not so much across Europeand not so much in America. But in theU.K. they're absolutely loving it, yeah.


10 Spring 2008 FRESH BREATH OF MINT www.mintrecs.com • THAT MAGAZINE FROM MINT RECORDS

Now, how long do people last with theactual glowsticks? There was a reportfrom Chicagoist that said people broughtglowsticks to the gig, and waved theglowstick for about four songs and thengave up. How long do you see peopleusing the glowsticks before they get tired?When does the novelty wear off once theyget to the gig? How many songs in?Oh, in the U.K. they make it all the waythrough. They go home, they put them inthe freezer so they don't fade, and theybring them back to the next gig. It keeps ongoing.

Jamie of the Klaxons, you've also said,"We encourage people to bring ravememorabilia to gigs."No, no, no. We did that at the first ever gigwe did for fun. And then all of a sudden itsnowballed out of control, and we've neverencouraged anybody to do anything butcome along and forget about themselves andenjoy themselves.

Jamie, what sort of ravememorabilia did peoplebring? I'm curious. Youmight have got some inter-esting stuff there! What sortof memorabilia did you get?Well, the first gig we everplayed in the U.K., it's verypopular there, they take apopular brand and theyreplace the wording so itwould be referring to early'90s culture. A popular bag ofcrisps in the U.K. calledQuavers, and they'd marketT-shirts and take away the Qand replace it with an R tomake a T-shirt say Ravers. It'sactually ridiculous.

Jamie of the Klaxons, wasthere a Klaxons truck atSouth by Southwest? I sawsome video of a Klaxonstruck. What was that?What's that?

It was like a big truck, like some sort ofpromotional vehicle that was drivingaround South By Southwest in Austinthat had, your videos playing on it . AKlaxons truck. Do you know what I'mtalking about here?I've heard about it, yeah, I've heard aboutit. (groans) I can't believe anybody saw that.

It sounds amazing. There's a clip of it onthe internet, a truck driving around withyour videos playing! And I wondered howthey did that. It looks incredible!It's really dark isn't it? Really dark!

Jamie of the Klaxons, who is Steve? Youcall everyone Steve. Who's Steve?Steve's everyone you meet in the street.Steve's the person you bump across, youcome across everywhere, doing anything.

You can easily call anybody Steve and they'llrespond to it. Fantastic.

Who is the original Steve? Like, who isthe first person you called Steve?I'm not sure. I think they're still out therelooking for him. I think if they keep usingthe name he might just crop up.

Has Harry Potter been to any of yourgigs?No, but we've got word that he's a big fan.It showed up in his monthly newsletter,telling his fans what he's been up to thisweek, what music he's listening to. And heput our album on there! He apparentlyenjoys it. There was talk of him coming tothe London gig, but if he did, we didn't seehim, which is upsetting. We'd love to meetthe boy.

It's really great that you guys slip in allthese great historical references. Forinstance, you mention Caesar in one of

your songs! You mention Caesar!Julius Caesar…

And you're originally from Stratford-On-Avon. Is that where you're from, Jamie?I'm from Bournemouth on the south coast.No, the other boys are from Stratford.

Yeah, 'cause I said I was curious about,have you guys met any of Shakespeare'srelatives or anything? Who's from yourtown, Bournemouth? Who's from there?Have you met any historical figures or thedescendants of historical figures?I think Tolkien spent a bit of time inBournemouth! Alex and James from Blur arefrom Bournemouth. I think that might beabout it. You know, there's not a lot goingon down there, if you know what I mean?

Jamie of the Klaxons, what is a TateTrack? What is a Tate Track?Oh that. There's an art gallery in London

called the Tate Gallery. We recorded a pieceof music which we taped onto one of ourrecords specifically or a piece of artwork byDonald Judd. That's still playing currentlyat the Tate Gallery in London.

What other bands were asked to do that?Were you guys pretty stoked that thathappened, that you were asked to con-tribute something?Oh absolutely. Yeah, Chemical Brothers,Basement Jaxx, Long Blondes, you know,big names, and they asked us to do it. Wewere thoroughly excited about it. Sadly, Ihaven't been down there and put down my$20 to see the piece of work yet.

Jamie of the Klaxons… you've playedgigs in London, many gigs, and one ofthem was the Camden Crawl. What's theCamden Crawl all about?It's a festival that they put on every year inCamden, in good old London, where theysort of gather the best of music from around

the world and put on the fes-tival in a small town. Asmany bands play in as small aplace as possible. I think it'sgoing on right now.

It's like 90 gigs in about 48hours.Yeah, that sounds aboutright, yeah. My friend wentto three of them last night,said she was exhausted. It'salways a lot of fun. A lot ofpeople descend on Camdenand it goes wild for two days.

What gigs did you checkout, aside from playingyourself at the CamdenCrawl? Was it hard to checkout all the gigs? How muchdid you party?It's very, very difficult to seeall the bands when you go tothe Camden Crawl 'cause

they're all very small venues. I was upset notto see the band Supergrass at Dublin Castle.But we kind of stayed at Koko, which is alarger venue and saw Futureheads. It was abig night.

Well thanks so much Jamie of theKlaxons. I really appreciate it.You're more than welcome. It's been fun.

Why should people out there care aboutthe Klaxons? Why should people care?People like excitement. We are excitement!

Well, thanks so much, Jamie. Keep onrockin' in the free world and doot dooladoot doo...Doot doot!

To hear this interview, be sure to checkout www.nardwuar.com/vs/klaxons! Also, check out Chart Magazine, www.chartattack.com!



So, let me get this straight. You were born asensitive, talented individual. You cultivated

your talent with years of sacrifice and hardwork, doing a variety of soul-crushing day jobs,putting up with incredible amounts of externaldoubts and pressures. You've been shunnedand marginalized as a degenerate by society atlarge. You have traveled the land at great per-sonal cost and undergone much hardship alongthe way. Only to share your music with peoplewho can't shut up for 30 minutes.

Well, all that I have to say is, where do you getyour nerve sir?

I mean, sure, you may be the one on stage withthe sound-system and all the lights pointing atyou. And you may be the one advertised in allthe local papers and on posters all over town.You may be the one that several people havepaid a cover to see. But those poor people talk-

ing through your heartfelt songs are trying toget drunk and laid. Do you know how rare anexperience that is for them? They only haveevery night of the rest of their inconsideratesoulless lives to do that, where as you sir, candrive to Humpaduck, Wisconsin every coupleyears or so. Shame on you sir, for trying toenrich their pathetic, amoebic, tick-ridden, date-rapeing lives with your music.

So I hope everyone has learned a little some-thing from that. And for those of you out there,who wish to leave me a message for a futureDear Shane episode, you can do so on our tollfree line 1 877 955 6565 and I'll do my best toblow your minds.

- Shane NelkenThe Awkward Stage and CBC Radio 3'sAmateur Rocktologist

This is Jim Bryson, from Ottawa.When you're out traveling thelandscape of Canada, alone in acar with an acoustic guitar and youend up in a loud rock bar whereeveryone is talking — how do youget them to listen, Shane? How doyou get them to listen?

- Jim Bryson

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IMMACULATE MACHINEmembers: Brooke Gallupe (vocals/guitar),Kathryn Calder (vocals/keyboards), Luke Kozlowski (vocals/drums)from: Victoria BCMint releases: Fables CD/LP, Les Uns Mais PasLes Autres CD-EP, Ones and Zeroes CDlittle known facts: Luke’s favourite karaoke songis Young MC’s “Bust A Move”, Brooke’s sister,Caitlin, created all the artwork for ImmaculateMachine’s Mint releasesURLs: www.immaculatemachine.comwww.myspace.com/immaculatemachine

PERFORMING AT TORONTO’SCANADIAN MUSIC WEEKTHURSDAY MARCH 6 @ THE HORSESHOECHART MAGAZINE SHOWCASE



THE PACK A.D.members: Becky Black (guitar/vox), Maya Miller (drums)from: Vancouver BCMint release: Tintype CD/LPlittle known facts: Becky’s favourite Karaoke song is “Happy Birthday,”Maya likes seeing people puke on TVURLs: www.thepackafterdeath.com www.myspace.com/thepackad

PERFORMING AT CANADIAN MUSIC WEEKFRIDAY MARCH 7 @ SNEAKY DEE’S, 11PMSOUNDPROOF MAGAZINE SHOWCASE


Carolyn MarkNothing Is Free CD out now

Like her close ally Neko Case (with whom she once traded as The CornSisters), Mark is a country girl with a wild streak. Nimbly assisted by

members of Canadian folkies Po' Girl, the settings for these songs are stan-dard acoustic guitars, mandolin and strings, but she fills them with enoughdevilry and sly humour to draw you in to her bittersweet world completely.In a wondrous voice that's half Kentucky hick, half Rocky Mountain draught,Mark sings of blonde nymphs in lace panties, tedious wives, racy mistress-es and knives driven chestward. –UNCUT

www.carolynmark.com painting by Kelly Haigh


THAT MAGAZINE FROM MINT RECORDS • www.mintrecs.com FRESH BREATH OF MINT Spring 2008 15

Mint: Where do you teach?Coop: I teach at the Calgary Arts Academy, apublic charter school in Calgary, Alberta,Canada. I teach grades 3, 4, and 5.

Where did you start?Earlier this century, I went back to universityand completed my second degree, a Bachelorof Education. I have been at the ArtsAcademy since I graduated. This is my thirdyear.

How did this all begin?We all know that indie rock is the world'sbest hobby, but it's a tough way to pay foryour kid's shoes and the mortgage and gro-ceries. Especially when you live in Calgarywhere the inflation rate is 47 times thenational average. I figured that teachingwould be a career that would let me retainmy essential Brent-ness, and teaching schoolis a pretty positive position.

Is it a private or a public school?The Arts Academy is a public charter school.In Alberta, a charter school is a school thatoperates separately from the Public orCatholic School board on the basis of howthat school provides the education for its stu-

dents. Our school feels that children canlearn best through arts immersion — mean-ing that the curriculum is drawn out of theArts rather than using art to accompanytextbook-type learning. We still have to fol-low the Alberta Education Curriculum thatall schools follow, but we deliver it in aunique way.

Who can attend?Anybody who thinks that this is the style ofeducation for them or their children. Wehave a waiting list!

How old are they?Kindergarten to grade 9, but my grades areusually 8 to 11 years old or so.

Ae they all budding musical geniuses?We have kids who dance, sing, act, playmusic, or might be the next Michelangelo.We also have lots of kids who simply learnbest through art. Imagine Degrassi meetsFame. (but throw in a little more ADHD)

How do you determine what to teach?We work in teams, and each team workswith an artist who is on staff. The staffartists are visual, dramatic, and dance artists,

and all the teachers have a performance orartistic background. We divide up the cur-riculum according to who want what or whois best suited for that particular subject.

We can also hire artists from the communi-ty. Tom Bagley (of Forbidden Dimension)worked for a while last year helping kids ingrade 2 create comics.

I worked with a local author, Nancy JoCullen and the grade 5s wrote Italian Sonnetsabout Canadian History.

Have there been any approaches that didnot work?We made kinetic sculptures out of donatedstuff (i.e. trash) and my classroom lookedand sounded like a demolition derby. Wegave the kids hammers, and screwdrivers, andpower tools. It was like Tokyo and Godzilla.But for two weeks.

What works the best?I always like the music stuff.

What received the best response?I taught a unit on patterns and relationsusing the 12 Bar Blues and the grade 3sended up scoring 10% higher than theprovincial average on that section of theIll

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Provincial Tests. We listened to Howlin’ Wolf and Bo

Diddley records.As part of a novel study, I was able to

draw a straight line from Balkan folk musicto Dick Dale and to the Black Eyed Peas.

Turntables and records are great for sci-ence, too.

Do you bring your guitar in with you forevery class?Last year I had a vintage Gretsch and myHofner Beatle bass under the desk, just incase of emergency! We had an artist on staffwho was a great singer and guitar player, andevery chance we got we’d make up a Mr.

Cooper and Mr. Andy show! This year, one of the grade 2 teachers has

a nice Elvis suit, so look out!I also wrote a dramatic retelling of "The

Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" for ourgrade 5 performance. I played guitar andthe kids acted and sang the song.

For our Christmas concert, I wanted thestudents to sing "What’s So Funny ’BoutPeace, Love and Understanding" but weran out of time. Instead we went with theol chestnut "If I had a Hammer"—I didn’tchoose that one, but I played guitar withthem.

Do the students "know" who you are?!

Some kids figured out that they couldGoogle me. I’m not sure if they found every-thing, but one girl brought a picture of mefrom a Huevos Rancheros article. Most ofthem don’t expect a teacher to have a lifeoutside the class. They either think it’s cool,or they don’t connect it to the guy who istrying to convince them to do long division.

I’ve had a few parents look me up, andsome even ask me for CDs. It’s not so far offfrom the character Jack Black played inSchool of Rock. Sometimes it’s a bit like hav-ing a double life. Mr. Cooper—elementaryschool teacher, and "Coop" rock and rollguy. (Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the thirdlife—father!)



Day 6 – Hamilton **1/2

Had a T.C.B. afternoon in Toronto andthen went the wrong way down the 401 fora couple of hours. I was navigating.

Full moon + low pressure system = nobrain.

Actually, I'm not sure if I should reveal this,but I have this thing where unless I REAL-LY concentrate, I naturally believe that sincealphabetically East comes before West, that,when looking at the map, East should be onthe left side of the page.

Yeah. It's a bit of a problem.

We played a different place in Hamiltonthis time. I was thinking of takingHamilton off my trap-line altogether butGeoff thought maybe we should give it onemore shot.

And it was a cool place. There was a smok-ing patio, which won me over and thesound was good and people came. Startedraining like crazy, huge thunderstorms, butthere were umbrellas and the oppressive lowpressure feeling lifted.

This wicked DJ played great music inbetween our sets.

My friend Lindsay took us home to themodern family home and made us snackwraps and introduced us to Scamper theCat.

And somehow, at the end of the night,when I was sitting outside on the frontporch, I became covered in thousands oftiny green larvae.

Day 11 – Montreal CM *** GB****1/2

E,Hey, I just bought a surprise pack from aQuebec gas station and discovered that“Surprise Pack” equals “Old Candy”.Very disillusioned right now, however theshow last night was so filled with loveand people who “got it” and friends anda million laughs that I’m still too high togive the whole “world is shit” notion asecond thought. I guess that‚s why theydole out the good times incrementally.DD just ate a whole role of candy tapeand now her tongue’s all blue and she’sfoaming at the mouth. Geoff and Li’lAndy are up front railing about the “stul-tifying atmosphere of Ontario”.rock and roll.xoC

Day 15 – St. Andrews-by-the-Sea

St Andrews-by-the-Sea is so pretty. Hugetides and sunset oysters and caesars for din-ner. It’s hard to feel shitty like that. Felt likeCHAMPIONS for a couple of hours. Themoysters are powerful. Played our drunkensets between two drum factions. I think Imay have played drums myself duringGeoff ’s set before passing out on a couch inthe bar. Across Diona’s lap, actually. Somedudes wanted her to go somewhere to dosomething but she put her finger to her lips,pointed down at me and told them I was alight sleeper and they backed respectfullyaway. Light sleeper! The bar was crammedwith the two drum circle factions having ashow down and there I was snoring anddrooling in my coat in the middle of theroom.

Was chauffeured ’home‚ in a big black lim-ousine to a fifteen room sprawling maritimemansion called Salty Towers, only Geoff andDiona claim that we all walked. The mosttroubling thing is that I left my writingbook in the imaginary car but it’s ACTU-ALLY gone. It felt like a visit to the spiritworld. I don’t usually get that far out but Ireally really did get a ride home in a longblack limousine. Maybe this is one step pastblacking out where your brain starts CRE-ATING memories.



Kind of spooked myself a little. Felt sym-bolic. Like the Elvis song Long BlackLimousine where the guy in the song wantsto ride in a long black limousine and movesto Hollywood and gets famous and eventu-ally comes home dead in the back of a longblack limousine. As in, it’s a HEARSE.Eerie.

Day 17 – Halifax, NS CM *** GB ****

E,We are trying to leave Saint John quiteunsuccessfully. It’s like theydon’t want us to leave!Last night we playedin a mall andstayed at apirate’s house.He made usseafoodomelets thismorningand KraftSingleswereinvolved!Geoffbecamebriefly pos-sessed by theghost of StanRodgers and I wasin full atonement modefrom the night before’sshenanigans. Heard about anyoneneeding a place for November? Tonight’s thebig Saturday night in Halifax.

You know what’s a funny gag? Referring toit as “The Future”.

Please don’t ever make me live in NewBrunswick but I’d like to keep drivingthrough it looking at the pretty trees withsome good friends.

xocm

Day 43 (Phase 5, day 5 or Phase 6, day 1depending how you look at it.)

E,Just leaving Olympia. Played a pool hall lastnight. Dozens rejoiced. Got here by trainand was feeling kind of shy (turns out if Ihad announced myself I could have had freebeer and hung out with the cute girl whocame from Portland to see me play who wassitting in the corner all afternoon, who Ithought was way too cool to talk to. See?No matter how you slice it shyness doesn’tpay!) Kevin the drummer showed up andthe opening band were this tiny tiny couple— she on banjo had 1 dimple and 1 miss-ing tooth, which is an award winning com-bination in my books. My new captorsBenny and the Po’ Girls materialized fog-like direct from Alaska right when it was

time to play. The bar let us stay late whenit was over playing pool and the jukeboxand indoor smoking. Ah the night life ain’tno good life but it’s my life.CPS Guemes Island rules!

Day 44 (Phase 6, day 2 — okay enoughof this, we’ll just go by days again)

E,We stayed at the sketchiest motel last nightin Grant’s Pass. (The “P” is silent.) This

girl who was partying in theparking lot came through

the sliding doors to seeif she could pee in

our toilet soDiona made her

sell us weed!And when Dspilled wineon thecouch cush-ion we didthe ObviousThing and

flipped itrevealing how

many timesbefore us the

Obvious Thinghad been done.

Yeesh. The place stunkso bad I was grateful for my

clown nose. We need to play a show.Yours going south on the 5,C

Day 45

E,It’s Hallowe’en so I’m in the van dressed asBooze-O the Clown in honour of the day.(Red nose, fishnets, sparkle Converse,hearts on my cheeks and lips). Our destina-tion? DEATH VALLEY AT MIDNIGHT!What can happen?C

I’ll tell you what happened: We drove forlike 16 hours or something, stopping onlyonce in Reno to eat dinner at a place calledTerrible’s. I had mentioned at breakfast (inOREGON!) that my friend Lily had beento an amazing opera house in Death Valleyand Ali and Awna looked it up on the nowubiquitous laptop they had been given bysome Seattle Microsoft fans.

“Here it is! The Armagosa Opera House.And Hotel!”

“Ooh! Can we? Should we?” we cried.

“It is Hallowe’en...”

“Oh my god. It’s only $45 a night!”

The girls used the also ubiquitous cel

phone to book a room. I kind of thoughtwe should maybe wait to see if we made itbut having fallen through the cracks fromboth lack of planning and too much plan-ning I chose to remain mute.

Well not mute.

I was probably yapping about something.Just not that.

The highlight of the day was stopping at agas station somewhere near the Californiaborder and hearing the guy behind the tillgo “AHEM!” a few times and some giggles.I turned around and discovered that the guywas dressed as a clown too! I made himcome out to the van with me, introducinghim as my cousin Tony! (The Clown). Biglaughs.

We drove and drove and drove. And thosenew mini-vans? If you open a window going100 miles an hour, it feels like your eye’sgonna pop out your forehead. I’m still deafin one ear from the trip. I really like air.Most people I travel with don’t seem tomind if it’s not around which tends to con-firm my suspicions that they are aliens!

We really did drive for ages. Probably thelongest one I’ve ever done. I even thoughtabout quitting. I kind of snapped too. Theseatbelt was strangling me. I couldn’tbreathe and my skin felt hot and prickly.And my ears were killing me. I found outlater that Death Valley is the lowest point inNorth America. Matched my mood. Maybeit was a reaction from eating out of the buf-fet at Terrible’s. Probably it was past wineo’clock and smoke-thirty, which is kind ofscary. They girls said later that if that’s mysnapping then I’ve got nothing to worryabout which was sweet of them. I guess Ihave high standards.

After Reno the road got small and dark andwe passed some cute spooky towns. Stoppedfor a night neon photo outside The ClownMotel. I had to. Stopped at another casinoto pee. Nevada seems sketchy. I was pleasedto see indoor smoking but it seems to bepartnered for life with gambling, highlight-ing the addiction part under bright lightsand making it not look sexy at all. I guesswe went through Nevada from California toget back into California, getting caught inthe Bermuda Triangle known as Cal-Nev-Ari. It doesn’t make sense but by then wewere past all rational thought.

We got to the Armagosa Opera House andMotel at 5am. We were the only car in thelot and it was huge. Good thing we madethose reservations. There was an envelopeon the office door for us with two keysinside. We opened the door to the firstroom and it was cute. Old. But cute. NoTV. No phone. A bed with a chenillespread, an ornate gold edged mirror and apink tiled bathroom. I picked the firstroom because it had an outside door but



then everyone used it as a hallway to get tothe van. For privacy I had to lock myself inthe bathroom. And then someone usuallyneeded that too. Okay. Fuck it. Got out thewhiskey, weed, wine and smokes and took astroll with Awna and D out into the night.Found the opera house and a few white-washed buildings. In my memory, it seemslike the moon was bright but maybe it wasthe dawn. Probably was. Ended up outsideour room on patio furniture huddled in ourcoats solving the problems of the universeand making grandiose plans. Awna, whohad disappeared for a while, returned, hereyes twice their normal hugeness. “Oh mygod you guys!” she stammered, shaking,looking like, well, like she’d seen a ghost.

“What?” we said, the hairs rising on thebacks of our necks.

“You HAVE to come with me to thelobby.” She said. “I heard something. Therewas a huge bang. It sounded like it wascoming from the kitchen.”

“Okay,” we said.

I mean Death Valley at dawn on the Day ofthe Dead. What could happen?

At least we were out of the van. And ifsomething happened, whatever it waswould be better than having to get back inthere again hung over tomorrow. We creptdown the hallway. Felt like there were 7layers of carpet under our feet. Felt kind ofnice actually. Halfway down the hall wefound a square cut into the carpet. Dionalifted one edge of it revealing a trap door ofsorts. It was just a hole so we put the carpetback down and continued to the lobby.The lobby was beautiful. We found allthese old newspaper clippings about thewoman who runs the opera house. MartaBecket. She’s in her eighties and has per-formed every weekend for the last fortyyears or more. Apparently, she was a dancerfrom New York and her car broke down inDeath Valley Junction right outside theopera house and she and her travel com-panion decided to stay and buy it. She isalso a painter and has painted a hugemural of an adoring audience on thewalls, so even if no one comes she’sgoing to put on her show goddamnit!

I fell in love with her just from the pic-tures. In a fading New York Times articlefrom the ’80s, the interviewer asks if she’saware that she could be viewed as an eccen-tric. She answers that if making a space inyour life to follow your dreams and makeyour art uninterrupted, industry bedamned, then colour her an eccentric! I hadfound a new mentor. I mean, first theElvira movie and now Marta Becket. I don’tfind inspiration easily these days so when Ido I fall hard. We found postcards showingthe inside of the opera house and a flyerannouncing the show times and prices andthis: “The content of Marta Becket’s per-

formance (whether dance, singing or mime)may be altered at any time due to her backinjury.” We also discovered, which I think ispart of the experience of coming here, (ithappened to Lily too) that we were going tomiss her final show of the season by twodays. We also found out that armagosa isSpanish for “bitter”. Ha. Awna found aspinning carousel music box and wound itup. Felt like Stephen King had suddenlystepped in as our guest director for thenight. Awna waited for us to finish checkingout the lobby. She’d probably done all thisalready while we were outside. We asked herwhere the noises she heard were comingfrom. She pointed at a white door and said,“From there. From the kitchen.”

We slowly crept towards the door like itmight explode in a Ghostbusters shower ofgreen ectoplasm the second we touched it. Ipushed on it and realized it was paintedshut and locked. Hmm. We looked for asecond door and found it also painted andlocked shut. While we were looking for thethird door, all huddled together holding aflashlight a man came up behind us. What’sinteresting is that he didn’t scare us. I thinkwe were too out of it to be frightened. Helooked tired. He exuded tired. He had greyhair that stood up like a mad professor,worn Levi’s and a macramé necklace. Likean old surfer kind of.

“So YOU’RE the partiers,” he said. He hadour number.

“Are we keeping you up?” I asked innocent-ly.

“Oh no.” he sighed.The way hesaid itmade

it seemlike hehad resignedhimself to being eter-nally exhausted.

“I was just looking for coffee. Breakfast’sbetween 6 and 9am and it’s almost 6. Justlooking for coffee.”

“Well Awna heard lots of noises in thekitchen a few minutes ago. Maybe that’s agood sign! Should have some coffee for youright away I bet! “ I said turning into ahostess on acid like I do sometimes, relievedat that perfectly good explanation for noisesin the kitchen. Breakfast is a perfectly goodmotivation for noises in the kitchen. In factwhat better reason for noises in a kitchenthan breakfast right?

“Kitchen? Huh” he half laughed, “Thatthing’s been shut down for years.”

Cue the ominous music.

“B-b-but the noises?”

We wanted him to give us a soothing expla-nation but he just turned and went back tohis room. Then of course my mind flashedto the parking lot. We were the ONLYCAR. We were in the middle of nowhereand the only car in the lot was ours so howdid he get here? To make matters worseDiona — of course it was Diona — said,“Did you see his foot? He was missing likethree toes. Looked pretty fresh too.” All of asudden an expert on the subject.

“No I was looking at his face. He seemed sotired.” I replied quietly.

Day 46

Of course we slept fine and only thing thathaunted us was morning. The desk clerk,immune to our pleas, wouldn’t let us in tosee the opera house as Ms. Becket may havebeen rehearsing. (So CLOSE!) We cased

the joint but the doors were lockedand finally backtracked a bit

into Death Valley to findbreakfast.

There’s this place. It’sgot food and a barand a sort of atown and a postoffice but it’s allkind of fake andtouristy as hell.I’d heard therewere horses so Iput in my orderand went to find

them. On the way,past the 200 room

motel, I ran into aGOLF COURSE! All

green in the middle ofthe desert. “Golf below sea

level!” the signs said. Ithought about all the water and

how ecologically, this wasn’t just “leav-ing a footprint” it was “tearing the desert anew one.” On the way back I stopped forpostcards at the Ye Olde Wilde West muse-um and the woman refused to take myCanadian penny! “Oh no we can’t havethose here.” Fucking bitch. I got back to the



restaurant and the food was decent, butexpensive. I couldn‚t wait to get out ofthere. We drove and drove and made it toFlagstaff, AZ well after dark. The promoterwas putting us up and he lived in a loghouse up a hill and there was food waitingfor us on the counter and dogs to pet.

Day 48

I made the mistake of reading this healthbook I found on the shelf at our host‚shouse. The book said alcoholics have dou-ble the suicide rate as “normal” people.Made me so depressed I felt like killingmyself. (That’s my new banter! Like it?They loved it in Albuquerque! If by “lovedit” you mean the sound of one guy cough-ing, some crickets and stony silence!) Dueto some excellent booking, we had aSaturday night off. Lucky for us theFlagstaff promoter happened to have a sec-ond house in Tucscon we were welcome tostay at and Calexico was playing a free con-cert in the park with a full mariachi band!!!

It was a great show. They had this guy onstage that just sang and danced with hiships and did this rhythmic tongue clickingnamed Salvador who was mesmerizing.(Like me, he seemed about ten years olderthan the band so I vowed to become the Po’Girls “Salvador” for the rest of the tour.)The trumpets sounded amazing. It was sucha great show. I’m so glad we went. Met upwith my paleontologist friends, Gavin andDestiny, and went out to The Grill after.

The Grill is a bar attached to a dinerfamous for its stiff bourbons, unmannedgrand piano and unpredictable photobooth. There seems to be a huge Gothiccontingent in Tucson these days. I find thisamusing because it’s mostly so hot thereand wearing black PVC everything in thesummer is hard work. Ah well, we all haveour crosses to bear.

Day 54

We played this AMAZING Wild West

opera house in Pinos Altos. The “town” ofPinos Altos is three buildings. There’s thebar, the opera house and the place across thestreet. The opera house was all wooden withbalconies and gaslights and a total saloonytune piano with lights inside it.

I loved this place. Best show ever! NowTHIS is why we do all that driving around!

A lot of our pals from the hot springs ranchcame to see us. I love seeing them “out.”

The people putting on the show gave us anoxygen tank backstage because of the highaltitude. (Or “alcitude” in my case.)

I took a few good huffs, doing my bestFrank Booth from Blue Velvet “Don’t youfucking look at me!” and felt great.

Day 55 – Albuquerque, NM

EGuess where I am? In the van! Woo! Woo!All we do is drive back and forth across NewMexico. Oh yeah, and eat and play showsand drink. Lather rinse repeat. It’s stillsunny. Played a cool old Wild West operahouse last night. I like it when the jointmatches my outfit!

Need any sage? There’s shit loads outside.Hey you wanna feel not so bad?

Motrin and weed. Motrin and weed.

Yours stuck in traffic mouth breathing,C

Day 56

“Maybe tomorrow a bullet will find meTonight nothing’s worse than this pain inmy heart.”Marty Robbins

E,STILL in New Mexico. The clouds aredoing that thing where they look like a reli-gious pamphlet. D’s driving with her finger

on ice on account of a freak smash ballaccident in the hotel parking lot. Looks realbad. Luckily it’s her bow finger. Well maybeluckily’s not the right word. Looks like ithurts like fuck. I’m wearing a dress Ibought for J. Bright Eyes on the stereo.Everyone else is sleeping. This could beSouthern Alberta. This could be Africa.Guess it don’t really matter. Only 12 morehours.... Hey, you know anyone in Flagstaffor Needles we could stay with tonight? I’mhoping for a cabin on a river round dinner-time.C

Day 58

“It cannot be overestimated, the effect of anactual marvel on a mind already unhingedby delusion.”Clifford Chase

“Occasionally, Carolyn, reputations are jus-tified”Ford Pier

E,So, OH MY GOD!!! Yesterday we went tothe freakin’ GRAND CANYON!!!

I can see why it’s so popular. It really issomething.

Some little big horn sheep walked with mefor a while and I apologized to them for theAmerican I saw poking one with a ski poleto get a better picture. Felt so good to walk!And now it‚’s breakfast in Needles, AZ.Hmmm do I get the tuna melt or the saladbar?C

For the exciting conclusion, continuationand beginning of these tales go to carolyn-mark.com or mintrecs.com for more moremore!

xo CMJan '08

PS I heart Austin!

Carolyn Mark & Po’ Girl


This past December, my close associateand occasional Scrabble partner Shena

Yoshida asked if I would accompany her toLogan's Pub in Victoria to help out withthe Mint Records' 2007 Just in Time forXmas Party. I gladly obliged because 1) any-one ambitious enough to single-handedly organize that manybands over two nights was goingto need all of the help she couldget and 2) it was an excuse to getdrunk in an exciting new locale.

My job seemed simple enough.The only thing I really neededto do was to work the merchtable and maybe throw a fewMint-related boxes in mytrunk.

All of the bands had made itover intact by the time werolled in to Victoria.

Everythingwasgroovy

until anirate,semi-homeless alco-

holic woman in a yel-low hat punched my

car and accused meof trying to break

her legs. It

was hard to get a word in, what with all ofthe abusive screaming and seemingly ran-dom patterns of fist, arm, and leg flailing,so I feigned narcolepsy and curled into thefetal position until she finally went away.

I noticed a man in a bicycle hel-

met snapping pictures ofShena and I as we hung the last bits of tin-sel on the stage backdrop. At first, I thoughtthat he was a photographer, possibly for theUniversity of Victoria's Martlet or some

other fine local publication. He kepttelling us to smile and insisted that

we looked "fabulous." I was alittle puz-

zled when he snagged a dozen or so Mintsamplers from our merch table, demandedthat we sign them, and distributed them tothe Logan's regulars. Scott, our soundmanextrodinaire and unofficial guide toVictoria's wildlife, told me that The Man inthe Bicycle Helmet was kicked out ofLogan's regularly, and that he probably did-

n't own abike.

Maybe itwas theexcitementof eightbands in twonights, ormaybe it wasthreats againstmy life com-mitted by acar-punchingsociopath, butI was feelingpretty festive bythe time every-thing was readyto go. Shenabrought me asteady stream ofbeer and some

cough syrup (I'd been fighting off the flu)as a morale booster. The beer was good, butmaybe the cough syrup wasn't such a greatidea.By the time Carolyn Mark saunteredon stage, I was wasted. I knew that I musthave been pretty out of it after I swore thatI saw Carolyn's drummer whipping hissnare drum with an industrial-sized lengthof chain for a good song and a half.

I don't remember much else, but the nightprobably didn't end well. I woke up coveredin tinsel. My head felt like a cactus. Butnow was no time to languish in bed; we hadbands to take care of. After much consulta-tion, Shena and I decided that a LadyMarmalade's breakfast would capably feedour charges.

Maybe Lady Marmalade likes to make her

THAT MAGAZINE FROM MINT RECORDS • www.mintr com FRESH BREATH OF MINT Spring 2008 21

Jason & The Choir Practicephoto by Shena Yoshida

Illus

trat

ion

by S

hena

Yos

hida

!


customers cry, or maybe she just keeps aroost of hens and an incubator next to thekitchen. Either way, we waited an hour forthree mixed grills, a plate of tofu, and somewaffles. That gave us plenty of time towatch Vancougar, seated nearby, sit down,have coffee, eat breakfast, pay their tab,leave, come back, laugh at us through thewindow, and take off for Nanaimo, allbefore we even placed ourorders. It'shard to con-clude thatLadyMarmalade'sservers couldhave forgot-ten about ourtable, seeingas how sevenof us satdirectly acrossfrom thekitchen.

It's tempting towrite swearwords all overyour table withthe Heinz andmake handmadeweapons out ofthe cutlery and napkindispensers when you suf-fer from poor service atan eatery, but Minties area stubborn, hardy lot. Wewere getting our food,dammit, even if we had tosit there until next year'sRidiculously Late for XmasParty. We were also too weakfrom starvation to put upmuch of a fuss.

The Awkward Stage frontmanShane Nelken had started utter-ing threats of arson when thefood finally arrived. He stormedout after three bites, and leftbehind two slices of toast andsome tomatoes. Shena was a little worried.She glanced over her shoulder in betweenbites of waffle. I eyed Shane's toast, asked ifhe was coming back, and slipped it into my

coat pocket for later.

Set-up went a little more smoothly onSaturday night, probably because no crazylady punched my car. Still, the life of a tem-porary Minty is fraught with peril. Nobodyhad brought a drum stool for Saturdaynight, and The Pack A.D. were set to playin less than

an hour.Fearful of drummer Maya

Miller's wrath, we high-tailed it to the hotelon a quest for a throne worthy of Zeus him-self. We didn't procure a drum stool, but wedid get in a nice visit with Young and Sexy,who had decided to nest in their room for a

little while before heading over to thevenue.

Shena made several fruitless phonecalls.Things looked grim. As a secondarysolution, I suggested that we prop Maya ontop of a pile of phone books. Shena didn't

say anything. Thankfully, Logan'sown Mihkel Kaup came to therescue, so nobody had to resortto anything drastic.

The Victoria air must have beengood for me, because I felt justswell by seven o'clock. My fluhad cleared up, and The Packwas ready to rip, drum stooland all. Some people gatheredaround the merch table, and Ishowed them some VancougarCDs. More people flockedaround. A nice chap evenbought a Bella record. MaybeI'd finally found my niche.

All of those years in theRoyal Conservatoryhad been worth it. Iwas a merch tablechampion, slinging7"s, homemadewristbands, one-inchbuttons andButtless Chapstick.I also managed tounload every lastMint Recordscorn-based coffeemug. Even therough-and-tum-ble Logan's reg-ulars werestoked abouttheir Mintsamplers andfree 'zines,judging by

the wink and thumbs-upfrom the biker gang sitting in the corner.

In the end, I knew that I'd lived the highlife of a full-blown Minty, and left Victoriaan older and wiser man. The oversized F150that took up two lanes in the ferry car porton the way home made a great garbagecan.

Young And Sexy

photo by Shena Yoshida

The Buttless Chaps

photo by Shena Yoshida



Friday, December 7Logan's Pub, Victoria BC

So now that we've made it big and signedto Mint, touring is a piece of cake! The

hot tub limo picks us up at our individualmansions and our personal assistants lugour valuables into a separate vehicle wherethey and the other 'staff' ride. Did youknow that you're not allowed to sit in alimo hot tub sipping martinis while theferry is in transit? Well, we do now!

Anyway, eventually we made it toLogan's Pub, where all theparty people in Victoriacongregate, and the showwas ready to begin. Firstup was Carolyn Mark,who's saucy countrystylings had the crowdentranced. You could telleveryone was in love withher by the end of the set bythe way they were swaying andgazing dreamy-eyed like teenageboys at the Playboy Mansion. Rowr!

Then we played and it was seriously theabsolute loudest stage sound we've everheard. I'm still deaf in my left ear. It wascool though 'cause we got to play like wewere flippin' Led Zeppelin at WembleyStadium or something. We obviously madesome new fans 'cause at the end of thenight I got to autograph my very first manboob! It was a career highlight, I must

say. I look forward to seeing that celtic crosstattooed next time, buddy!

Next up was The Buttless Chaps, who hog-tied and threw us in a van back to the eight-ies. Once I stopped struggling and let theVocoder do its magic it was kind of likebeing reborn into my former banana-clipand jelly shoe-wearing self! Thanks for theride, guys!

Then our new lovers The Awkward Stageplayed and it was all over (in our hearts).

Shane Nelken is one funny guy andhe sure as hell writes a good pop

song. The rest of the nightwas spent in a gruesome

Battle of the Witsbetween Shane and ourown Witmaster, EdenFineday. It's not over,Shane! You'll see the likes

of us again!!

After the show we all wentback to our penthouse suites at

the hotel and dined on lobster andfoie gras. The ice sculpture was nice, Mint,but don't forget the rose petals on our pil-lows should be pink, not red, ok? Geez.

Saturday, December 8The &Loan Gallery,Nanaimo, BC

On the way to the show in Nanaimo, wemade an all important stop at Gina's, a

delicious and kitschy Mexican restaurant,where we dined on chimichangas and tookpictures of parrots in sombreros. Then itwas time to hit the &Loan Gallery, a lovelyart gallery/live music venue now bookingbands courtesy of Ms. Amy Honey, whorecently moved to Vancouver Island, orwhat we like to call, Paradise.

The show went smoothly as expected, every-one played superbly again, the crowd wasenthusiastic without being boorish, andthere was a general all-around chilled-outvibe going on that we all fell gently into likea hammock on a summer day. Sigh.

AND THEN WE WENT DANCING!!The local hip hop/top 40 bar was packedand probably expensive and with only anhour to go before last call we had to make acrucial decision. TO THE GAY BAR!! Acouple of local sweeties took us to the mostfun dance party in Nanaimo on a Saturdaynight and we had such a good time! It wasespecially fun to watch a dude rock the polelike it needed a good polish! (A dancingpole, of course, what did you think Imeant?)

Well Mint, we have to say, thanks for thegood times, we thoroughly enjoyed our tripto the island, especially getting to know ourfantastic labelmates, and we look forward tomore good times in 2008! (By the way, fornext time, we prefer if our dressing roomcontains no less than 4 hot-bodiedmasseuses, alright? That poor hunk Paolowas run ragged! Thanks. Thanks a lot.)

left to right: Megan, Becca, CC, Edenphoto by Shena Yoshida



Nardwuar: Who are you?Cynthia Plaster Caster: I'm Cynthia PCaster. The "P" stands for plaster.You're Cynthia Plaster Caster! Do youhave any ID to that effect at all,Cynthia?Yes, I have a calling card,right here. It's my latest.Now, Cynthia, you area key-punch operatorby day, but really forthe people that don'tknow...I capture as manyhard-ons as possible ofsuper heroes and cre-ative, talented men's penis-es.You are in the molding busi-ness!Uh, business? It's more of a hobby rightnow.How did you get into the moldinghobby?It was the result of being a horny, unbrokenvirgin in the '60s that wanted to get laidand had never seen a penis before and had ahomework assignment from my art teacher

Cynthia Plaster Caster... Pretty self-explanatory. What can Isay? She has been making moldings of rock cock for over thirtyyears. I talked to her on November 27, 1997 at the Velvet Elvis

in Seattle where she was doing a spoken word performance accompa-nied by Miss Murgatroyd on accordion and Russ Forster (of 8 TrackMind ’zine) on keyboards. Thanks to James of Up Records for settingup this encounter. By the way, after the interview, Cynthia didremember casting some Canadian dink (the roadie for the late '60sToronto white boy r'n'b combo, The Mandala). I find this veryimportant! Who else would have cared about these lonely Canucks'cocks indirectly helping document the real unsung history of rock 'n'roll... but, drum roll please, Cynthia Plaster Caster!?

to make a plaster cast of something hard.And the very weekend that Paul Revere andthe Raiders and the Hollies were in town,me and my girlfriend were looking around

for a way of getting ourselves singledout from the crowd. And we

thought, why not combinemy homework assignment

with achieving this? And,uh, well we didn't suc-ceed in getting my cast,but I did succeed in los-ing my virginity.To Mark Lindsay?

As a matter of fact!He was a hot one!

Yeah, "Kicks" was numberone in charts for five weeks

when i broken so settled himinstead of a Beatle or Stone as originallyplanned because the hit single factor.So Mark Lindsay was not #001 then.Oh, not cast, no. Maybe he was the secondor third person that I asked if they'd posefor me, without knowing what I was goingto use for a mold, because my art teacherhad told me to use sand and water, and Ididn't think would be too conducive to a

hard-on from what I'd heard. You see, I hadnever seen a penis until that very weekend.And, uh....Were you the first person to do this?When you told your art teacher that youwere going to be doing this, had anybodyever done this before?Well, um, I didn't wind up telling my artteacher that, but I believe that men havebeen casting themselves with plaster or othermolding materials for years. I think theEgyptians were probably dipping their dicksin sand and water. I knew a bartender atGino's Pizza that cast his dick in algenatesbefore I did. As well as an insurance sales-man I worked with.How do you decide who to cast? I guessat first you thought, "Hey, I want to meetMark Lindsay." But how do you decide?What do you look for in a person youwant to cast? Because I know there's thatsaying that you can look at somebody'shand, when you look at their hand, whatare the hints, Cynthia Plaster Caster?Well, first of all, I am not a size queen, so Iam not looking for large penises. I am onlyinterested in capturing the dicks of talented,creative, super-heroic people that made mylife better, that are really cool in some wayor another. Mostly artistic people, but itcould be a certain basketball player.Are there many non-musicians that havebeen plaster casted?There are a few too many roadies in my col-lection that snuck their way into my... forexample, the Who's roadie told me that wecould do Roger Daltrey if we did him first.And, Roger conveniently snuck out of theroom before the mold was set.Have you ever been able to hit him forthat afterwards?I haven't. They ascended into superstardomso I could never get to him backstage. No, I

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haven't confronted him with that.How do you approach your subjects? Yousaid you are not necessarily looking forlength. How do you approach your sub-jects? What exactly do you say to them?Um, well, because I'm so shy, my partnerusually gives the subject a calling card. Orlately friends of mine in the music businessintroduced me to people. I don't look forpeople anymore because my collection is bigand beefy enough. I do it for fun now and...In the olden days, what were you lookingfor back then?To get laid, originally. That was the solepurpose of casting cock: to get laid by thesegorgeous...You love cock!And I do love cock. I have such a good asso-ciation with cock.Cynthia Plaster Caster, take us through a"plating." What happens during a "plat-ing"? Like, there are "platers," aren'tthere? Some people might know "fluffers"but there are "platers." What is the differ-ence between a fluffer and a plater? Whatis a plater?A plater is a person who gives someone ablowjob. It is an English slang term. I usethat to refer to any kind of stimulation doneby a person on my subject, whether it is ablowjob or not. So you want to know theplating or the plastercasting process?Well, just thebeginning aboutwhat happens inthe sense of, like,the plater gets thesubject... aroused?Who have beenthe platers overthe years that youhave used, andhave you everdone any platingyourself?Um, partnersI've worked withare Diane, Lexy,Harlow, Dana,and lately,preferably, sub-ject's girlfriendsor wives. Butalso, strangely enoughlately at my advanced age, I have been dou-bling up on roles.So people do bring their own platers withthem.I would prefer that actually, because the jobof mixing plaster is really detailed andintense, requiring lots of concentration.Okay, so, how do you determine whenthe cock is hard? Like how do you knowit is time to plate? What happens at thatpoint?God. Well, sometimes we don't have muchchoice about when to dip the dick becausethe algenates are this really tricky dentalsubstance that has to be mixed very carefullyand for X amount of time, like for aminute, and once the ingredients have been

added, that mold is going to set and thatmold will be history. So I just want the sub-ject to calculate how long he's going to hardfor and... shove it in when the time is right.We're going to get what he's got, unfortu-nately, at the moment in time and space.Were there any people that you didn'tthink would have a hard time get-ting it up, but who did have ahard time getting it up? Orvice versa?You learn a lot about asubject while they're inthe mold. The shy onesusually have the leasttrouble getting it upand are the least para-noid. But the morecharismatic and mouthykind of superstars reallypanic and lose it and freakout because they're afraidthey're going to lose their penis,that it is going to get dissolved or some-thing.Cynthia, what else do you do? Do you oilthe pubes. When the cock goes down...there's hair and stuff! What happens?Yeah yeah. The pubes get oiled, usually byme and the plater. Jimi Hendrix's, for exam-ple, were not oiled enough and he got stuckin the mold for fifteen minutes. But he did-

n't mind. He seemed to

get off onthe fact that he had this impression of hispenis that was just the right size for him tofuck, so that's what he did while we pulledone pube at a time.Hendrix fucked the mold while you werepulling out the pubes?Uh huh.Have you experimented with many differ-ent types of molds? Like you mentionedalgenates. Like, you are putting the cockin this stuff, like you are putting it downinto a bowl or something and it's a bowl,like, algenate, what are some of the, likeyou used wax before? Like, what have youused? Like eeewwww!We actually tried wrapping aluminum foil

around a penis but it didn't hold its shapeenough to contain plaster. We were going totry wax on Keith Moon, melting it by drap-ing over a lampshade with the light on, butit didn't get melted enough. We were goingto try clay on somebody but that never tran-spired. But actually, algenates is the only

mold I've ever worked with. Allthose other art molds or

those wrap-aroundones... I need some-

thing that you candip into. I thinkwrapping some-thing around thepenis mightdestroy the hard-on.

So, CynthiaPlaster Caster, it's

kind of like going tothe dentist then! Like

dentists use algenates. Isn'tthat the same thing? People going

to the dentist get molds taken of theirteeth. And you do the same thing withcock, don't you?Well, you have to make an appointmentwith me. Um, because there is a time ele-ment involved. And hopefully it is not aspainful.How do you grade cocks, Cynthia? Likehow do you know it is a good looking

cock when you look at a cock orwhen youmake a mold?Well, the onlygrading I do ison capabilitybecause I wouldlike for futureviewers to knowthat these penisescould get harderthan how they areusually captured.And godammit,let's look at oneright now. Overthere is one ofyour famousmoldings. Whichone is that?Well son of a gun,so to speak. LongDong Jon Langford,known as Jimi

Hendrix in Australia. He is a singer-song-writer with the Mekons, the Three Johns.He is a fabulous cartoonist and artist andpainter and...How would you describe that cock there,Cynthia Plaster Caster? Lots of veinaction happening there? What is yourdescription of this actual cock, CynthiaPlaster Caster? What makes this a nicespecimen?Well it is very lifelike and true to his capa-bility. I would say this is about 75 percentor 80 percent of what he is capable of. Andthere is some fine detail and vein action spi-ralling around here. See this big glob here? I



think that's a comet. I think he probablyswirled around in the mold. So that's whathappened there. This is kind of the roughside so I probably wouldn't exhibit that. Ialways like it when a nice guy has a big dick.What about length versus girth? Like,what's important: length versusgirth?For me person-ally? I preferthe length formy own per-sonal needs.So what num-ber is that?What numbercasting is that?How many cast-ings have youdone, Cynthia?Well, this isattempt number39. That is whatthe serial numbersays. I've only gotabout 42 and 3/8cocks but I've triedit about 58 times. Idocument eachattempt with a serialnumber and a descrip-tion.Right over there, actu-ally, is a friend ofmine, Ronnie Barnett of The Muffs. Canwe just take a look at that one? Wouldthat be okay, Cynthia Plaster Caster? Howdid you meet Ronnie of the punk rock 'n'roll band from Los Angeles, The Muffs?How did you meet Ronnie?How did I meet Ronnie? Let's see...How does Ronnie stack up? Let's have alook at Ronnie. How does Ronnie stackup?Well Ronnie has a fabulous long dick. He isa wonderful bass player and human being.However, this happens sometimes with long,curved dicks. As the mold was setting...Don't tell me he went soft!Well he did start to soften as the mold wasgoing hard. Instead of shooting back downin straight fashion, he twisted and turned afew times.It's kind of like dog poo, isn't it?Or like a doorknob. I think it's cute. I loveit when these come out that way, but thesubject isn't too thrilled.What happened there?Well, like I said, he was going soft and hewas, he didn't really have a plater. He wasn'tgetting any indirect stimulation. He hadsome pre-stimulation. I was, ahem, doublingroles that night and....Has anybody else looked like Ronnie's?Did anybody else's turn out like that,Cynthia Plaster Caster?Yeah, Noel Redding's turned out like that.Clint of Pop Will Eat Itself...So he is in very good company then?Yeah, and in fact, FR Forster has a twisted...My latest cast.Russ Forster of 8 Track Mind ’zine?

Yes.Who is actually here with you today inyour band with Miss Murgatroyd.Correct, known as Sir Loin.8 Track Mind ’zine!Mmm hmmm.

What happened to Ronnie's cock? Iunderstand it is a garden ornamentnow? What is the deal with that,Cynthia Plaster Caster?Well, yeah, I have a copy of it in a bedof petunias at home.So if people were in Chicago, theycan just wander through your gardenand bump into Ronnie's cock?If they know. If they know where to go.Yeah. They might mistake it for a cutelittle worm poking its head outthrough the flowers but in fact it is asuper-talented, heroic person'favourite part of my body. Or my

favourite part of their body.CynthiaPlasterCaster, I'vealways won-dered, isPeter Torkbigger thanHendrix? IsPeter Torkbigger thanHendrix?That's therumour that's

always been around. This is the one timethat we can get this verified, CynthiaPlaster Caster. Well, what I got to see waskind of pink, but... and not that erect. Infact, not that erect at all while he wasplaying piano. I really don't know but,you know, you can't tell...While he was playing piano! What do youremember about doing Peter Tork? Well, Ididn't do much. I was going totry and cast him but whileI was opening my can ofalgenates I cut myfinger on one ofthose old fash-ioned keys thatyou open canswith. I almost slitmy finger in halfand missed out,but it was a goodthing that hap-pened because I hadnot experimented withalgenates at that point. Ididn't know that you can'tjust mix it like plaster, and Ifound that out disasterously with ProculHarum how not to mix algenates.Left to right: Mary Mary of Gaye Bikers OnAcid, Bryan St. Claire of Triple Fast Action,unidentified dick, unidentified dick, RonnieBarnett of The Muffs, Bart Flores ofPigface/Wreck, Ivan of Flying KarimozovBrothers, Jon Langford of The MekonsSo Peter Tork is not the biggest? Hendrixis the biggest molding?

Oh, I didn't cast Peter. I was about to. Hewas in the habit of walking around hotelrooms playing piano nude. There was apiano in the room and he was not erectwhen I saw him.How about Jello Biafra? I heard he hadthe biggest helmet. The helmet part of thecock, Jello Biafra being big. How aboutRonnie? Did Ronnie have a bigger dickthan Jimi Hendrix, Cynthia PlasterCaster?Mmmm. He may have been longer. Youknow, the curved ones in my collection areusually the longest, but not thicker. This isJimi.Because I heard that Jello had the biggesthelmet but Ronnie had the longest dick.No, I don't think Jello's helmet is all thatbig. I think it's fairly average. Maybe FritzRichmond of the Jimmy Question Jug Bandhad the biggest helmet.Have you done many punks at all in themoldings, Cynthia Plaster Caster? Haveyou done any punk molds? I was wonder-ing, punk molds versus metal molds. Thepunk guys versus the metal guys!Yuck, metal. I did attempt to do PeteShelley but sadly that was a mold failure. Allmy fault. Again, doubling roles.Plater and caster!Yeah, a much better caster than a plater, I'mafraid.How about Ricky Fataar of the Rutles? Iheard he was the smallest.Well, he came out the smallest but he didn'tnecessarily have a small dick. He just wentcompletely soft. I mean, not the least biterect. That one you can only hang on a wall.You can't display it sitting on a table.How about Wayne Kramer?Um...Was he the smallest? Wayne Kramer,Cynthia Plaster Caster?I only captured his head because he and

Dennis Thompson insisted onbeing done simultaneously. At

first they wanted to bedone in the same con-

tainer and then theyagreed to be...You mean theywanted to be cockby cock?!Yeah.The brotherhoodin the MC5. All

right!That's right. All truth

to that rumour. Waynelost out and Dennis really...

shone. He came at themoment of mold-setting. So his head

is kind of like a mushroom cap.Excellent. So you actually have the stuff...Oh, no. That fluid is long dissolved.Unfortunately.And what's the deal with Hendrix's cast? Iheard Hendrix's cast broke. Hendrix'scock broke, Cynthia Plaster Caster, andyou had to piece it back together. Youremember like that famous story aboutSid Vicious' ashes ended up all over



Heathrow Airport when his mom spiltthem when he died. Hendrix's cock endedup in all these pieces and somebody hadto piece them all back together.Mmm hmmm. You see, I was so anxious tosee the cast, I prematurely opened the moldand it was still wet and about to crumbleinto all these pieces so I very carefully closedit back up and let it sit for a few days andwhen I reopened it, it was in three divisions:the shaft, the head and the balls. All I need-ed was Elmer's glue.So Jimi Hendrix, was he the biggest? Iknow we are dwelling here on the biggestand the smallest. So Jimi was biggest.Who was the smallest?You really are dwelling on the biggest, aren'tyou? Who is the biggest? The biggest cast?I really want to know who was the biggestand the smallest, just to set the recordstraight, finally.I would say we captured the least of WayneKramer and the most of.... volumetrically itis really hard. It's like a tie between ClintPoppy for length and Jimi Hendrix forwidth, I think.Who was that? Clint...Clint of Pop Will Eat Itself. Also verycurved.What is the deal with Keith Moon andhis pant leg?Oh, when we were experimenting with waxand he heard I needed an apron, he veryobligingly ripped off his pant leg, this reallycool flowered pair of pants, and gave me theleg to wear around my waste.And you're still wearing it today? Andyou've never washed it?That's true. Well, I'm not wearing it today,but I've never washed it. It's at homesmelling up my apartment.He got casted then?No. That was just an attempt. Before I start-ed taking notes, before I knew aboutalgenates, it was in the days when we wereusing casting as an excuse to get into hotelrooms, claiming that we didn't know how todo it but we needed to experiment on some-one.So, Cynthia Plaster Caster, who is onyour Want List right now? Who is onyour Want List? Jonathan Fire Eater?Whaaa...I heard a rumour!I just heard that rumour today too. I didn'tknow what everybody was talking about.Holy fuck! I went to their hotel a fewmonths ago with my friend who was drivingbecause I don't know how to drive and sheproceeded to carry on with the singer in thebathroom and I couldn't leave. I wastrapped in their hotel room so I was havinga nice little talk with them and this big oldcompletely distorted story has appeared inDetails magazine, I discovered. It's not trueat all.Dennis Rodman?Um, Dennis, I'm kind of losing interest inDennis. His record wasn't very good lastyear, but, oh man, I was really hot to gethim last year. I would love to get JarvisCocker of Pulp if...

Jarvis Cocker's cock! Great!Exactly.Have you got Iggy's cock?No, unfortunately I'm afraid I waited toolong. I'd still...It's shrinking now, right? Do cocks shrinkas you get older, Cynthia Plaster Caster?Have you done somebody twice, like earlymold and late mold, just to measurethem?No, not over the years. You guys are proba-bly too young to know. I guessthere isn't anyone hereright now who cananswer that ques-tion for me.CynthiaPlasterCaster, whataboutRupaul?Would thatbe the ulti-mate plastercasting?Rupaul wouldbe cool. Sowould VaginalCream Davis. Areyou familiar with him?I've heard that name before.Well, he's a fabulous great six-foot-tall blackpunk rock drag queen.And Kiss have the song "Plaster Caster"but they haven't actually been plastercasted! What's the deal on that?I personally think Gene wrote the song tomake people think that he had actually beendone when in fact I was never interested inKiss until long after that song came out andEvan Dando covered it. He claims that thesong was a fantasy about him being casted.Yeah.That's cool that you were down with theMC5 and all these garage bands. Do youremember the New Colony Six out ofChicago?Oh, yeah, but it was harder to get to thelocals because all their girlfriends lived intown, you know.So you didn't do the Shadows of Night oranything like that?I think Jim Sohns would have been a candi-date but we lost touch with him after westarted casting.Winding up here with Cynthia PlasterCaster, do you really like everything phal-lic? Do you love everything phallic?Everything phallic? Umm...Like what do you have at your house?Well people for some reason give me pres-ents, like souvenirs of long tall buildings andlong tall objects. Yeah, I guess I do have afondness for that shape. And I like penises. Ilike lots and lots of penises sitting togetherlike a gorgeous long chorus line.The Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, I under-stand, wants to get ahold of these but youdon't want to give them to them? What'sthe deal with that, because your mommight find out, Cynthia Plaster Caster?Oh, that's a big old fat question. A lot of

answers. The Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame...I'm not sure but it might kind of suck, but Ithink I might have to go to Clevelandmyself and find out but it just seems to havethe biggest exhibitions of the wrong people,from what I've heard. I've heard thatNirvana's (which I really adore) exhibition isbigger than the Velvet Underground's, andFrank Zappa took too long to get inducted.They did call me and ask me if I would beinterested in...

You do have Frank Zappa's moldingback. Did you get it back?

Frank never posed for me.He was kind of straight

and normal.But didn't his man-ager take some ofyour plaster cast-ings?He withheld themfrom me. He didn'treally take themaway from me. He

was keeping them inhis vault for safe-

keeping for me for afuture exhibition and I

wanted them back but hedidn't want to return them. He

believed they belonged to him. So Ihad to take him to court to prove otherwise.And you won!And I won, talking dick on the witnessstand for two days!And you're here today, Cynthia PlasterCaster. But what about your mom? Lastly,does your mom know about your mold-ing dicks after all these years.No, and she must never know. I can't afforda body guard right now. I just called myanswering machine. She left a 15 minutelong psychotic message.So she has no idea about the dicks. Noidea.No, no, no. Well, she was reading about theevolution of the idea in one of the manydiaries of mine that she read.All right then, thanks very much for yourtime, Cynthia Plaster Caster. We reallyappreciate it. Is there anything else youwould like to add to the people out there,you know, in listening to this interview?Like any Canadian memories of plastercasting? Like Zal of the Loving Spoonfullives in Canada now. Any Canadian con-nections?No, I don't note any difference between theCanadian and the American dick. Um, andall I can say is, "Never judge a cock by itscast." And, um...As Ronnie is witness to!Hee hee.All right. Thanks very much. Keep onrockin' in the free world. And, doot dooladoot doo...Who who!

To see this interview, pick up Nardwuar’snew “Welcome to My Castle” double DVDin stores now! Also check out www.chartattack.com


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1) The delicate task of creating your very own Bella wristbandstarts with your most favorite pair ofjeans. Maybe not your very mostfavorite pair, let's say your mostfavorite pair that you now loathe andwould like to cut into 4 million pieces.Maybe you felt bloated and soft thelast time you wore them and youunlovingly threw them to the floor ofyour closet.

2) Now, pick them up, dustthem off. You're never going to wearthem again, so, take some sharp scis-sors and cut the jeans into 4 millionstrips that will fit nicely around one ofyour wrists. This might take a fairamount of time.

3) Take a break so you don't geta cramp in your hand muscles. Have aglass of chocolate soy milk. Pet yourcat. Whistle your favorite BritneySpears song. Wave at your neighbourwho is pruning a rosebush. This is key.Feel the love around you. Channel itinto your Bella wristband.

4) Now, find a safety pin,or some velcro. Look for something tokeep the two ends together when it isaround your wrist. Even chewing gumwill work if you're really in a bind.

5) Sew or crazy glue bits ofmaterial onto your jean wristband. Isuggest purple bits of material. Add asequin or two for extra dazzling effect.

6) Then write "bella" some-where very visible with some kind ofpaint. Practice on some paper first ifyou tend to have messy writing. If youhave the kind of paint that gets puffywhen you iron it, your wristband willbe super-amazing and all of yourfriends will be jealous. Be a nice friendand show them how to make theirown Bella wristband.

7) Lastly, put on your completedwristbands and dance your hearts outwhile listening to, "No One WillKnow." Go see Bella play the next timethey are near your town. And comeover to show me, Cameron or Tiffanythe wristband you have made...maybewe can swap ideas or I can hire you tocome work for me if you are a speciallygifted wristband maker.




Across:1. Label that released Losin’ It!3. Becca’s favourite author5. Milwaukee band that toured with the girls in 20078. One of CC’s Favourite bands9. Megan’s annual family concert

12. Battle of the bands that Vancougar won in 200413. Vancougar’s tour van’s nickname14. Megan’s favourite food

Down:1. Eden Fineday’s place of birth2. One of Vancougar’s favourite local bands that features

a former member of The New Town Animals4. The name of Vancougar’s latest album 6. Studio where the band recorded their newest record7. California city where Eden and Becca first met

10. Studio where the band recorded their first record11. CC's favourite animal


Nardwuar: Hi! It's Nardwuar the HumanServiette and you are listening to CiTRFM 101.9 Vancouver, BC, Canada andit's time right now for the Nardwuar theHuman Serviette Radio show and who dowe have on the line right now? Who areyou?Maya: I am Maya, and I play the drums inThe Pack — but now The Pack A.D.

Nardwuar: And who else is in The PackA.D.?Maya: That would be Becky Black who isthe singer and guitar player.

Nardwuar: And you guys are fromVancouver, British Columbia, Canada areyou not?Maya: Yes, we are.

Nardwuar : There are some other Packsout there. And I have actually mentionedthis to your previously about all the dif-ferent Packs that are out there.Maya: Yeah.

Nardwuar: There are a lot of other Packsout there. Aren't there?Maya: Well, it seems to be a really popularname — which we didn't even really thinkof when we came up with it. But there areonly two really big The Packs that we hadto concern ourselves with. And that was arap group in California and a punk band inGermany.

Nardwuar: Now, you've never actuallyheard the punk band from Germany. Iunderstand you've got a cassette of thepunk band, The Pack, from Germany butyou have not actually listened to themyet. Is that true, you have not actually lis-tened to them?Maya: I am a heel. I have not listened tothat tape yet.

Nardwuar: Well, we are going to solvethat right now for you. I have The Pack,from Germany all cued up here, Maya,from The Pack A.D. Now, we should tellpeople, you did change your name, you'renow The Pack A.D.?Maya: Yes, we are the Pack A.D. now.

Nardwuar: You're not The Pack, but, ifyou had gone into the CiTR recordlibrary, there's been this record here, inthe CiTR record library since 1978. ThePack from Germany has been sitting in

the CiTR record library. It's a mint copyand was actually released on a major labelin Canada on London Records in 1978.The music director at CiTR wrote on therecord, "German Pseudo Punk Rock.Germany's answer to the Pistols. It'sfunny as hell."Maya: That's awesome.

Nardwuar: What's interesting about ThePack is, years later they were discovered

by the band, The Rip Offs, from SanFrancisco, friends of The Mummies, fromSan Francisco. And the Mummies proba-bly influenced, well, many differentbands up and down the west coast. Andme! Anything that The Mummies hadsomething to do with, I was totally into.And so the Rip Offs are into The Pack, soI discovered the Pack years later. But, lit-tle did I know that this record of ThePack had been sitting, Maya, from ThePack A.D., in the CiTR record library foryears. Just like you didn't know that therewas another band called The Pack outthere!Maya: That is bizarre.

Nardwuar: I had to go and order therecord specially from Europe — arepressing of it. And it was right here inour my own back yard — the CiTRrecord library. Just like you didn't know,but you had to change your name to ThePack A.D. so I thought Maya, I'd play alittle bit here of The Pack from Germany,who actually, I think are pretty god-damnamazing and maybe you can possiblyconsider them someone you could coverdown the line because, The Pack A.D.,you have been known to do a few covers,haven't you?Maya: Yes. Yes we have. That would besomeone we definitely should cover if theydon't mind or know or we'll pay them adollar, I don't know.

Nardwuar: Who have you covered, Maya?You've covered Leadbelly?Maya: Leadbelly. Billie Holiday.

Nardwuar: Blind Willie Johnson?Maya: Blind Willie Johnson, thanks forreminding me of what we've covered; you'rebetter at this than me! We've worked on alot of other covers but they have kind offallen apart.

Nardwuar: Well, I found it interestingactually, in the Province newspaper yes-terday, you mentioned that System of aDown, possibly was an early influence.Or you guys might have been into theSystem of a Down. Do you do System ofa Down covers?Maya: Oh no! Know what, I would have togo to a major drumming school for the next20 years. Oh no, wait, I'd just need to get adouble kick. Point is, it would be a very dif-ferent cover. But it would be pretty awe-some because I still think that they are anincredible group.

Nardwuar: Well, that made me smile,when you said that you were influencedby System of a Down, that The Pack wereheaded in that direction, but some mem-bers left and you ended up being theband that you are now today, The PackA.D. from Vancouver, British Columbia,Canada. Right now, let's listen to ThePack from Germany, 1978.

[Nardwuar plays a record]

[Song lyrics are " What wave... whatwave... what wave...."]




Nardwuar: oh, actually, no!

["What wave.. what wave what wave...."]

Nardwuar: Actually, I made a slight mis-take, as I always do. I was actually play-ing The Gruesomes from Montreal,doing the theme song from the legendaryWhat Wave fanzine from the compila-tion album, "Mister GaragersNeighbourhood."Maya: Oh What Wave!

Nardwuar: so although I played that bymistake, it actually does tie into thestory of how you got the Pack cassetteisn't it, Maya, of The Pack A.D.?Maya: Yes it does actually. No, that's fabu-lous that you mistakenly played that. That'sDave, from London, Ontario who we metofficially when we played a few shows therethis past fall. And that's his magazine.

Nardwuar: And he used to have a fanzinecalled What Wave fanzine. And they putout a compilation, so that was theGruesomes doing the cover of Batman,only inserting What Wave. And now, thisis the Pack, from Germany — not to beconfused with The Pack A.D. fromVancouver

[Nardwuar plays the Pack fromGermany]

Nardwuar: So there we go Maya, fromthe Pack A.D. Welcome to The Packfrom Germany with their song, "Nobodycan Tell us." And that wasn't their theirbig hit, "Looking for Danger." Maybesomething you could integrate possiblyinto The Pack A.D. lineup there.Maya: I think so. We should definitely do"Looking for Danger." Last night we wereplaying at The Media Club, and Beckyfound some, like, danger tape. And waswearing it. So if we cover that song, weshould wear danger tape.

Nardwuar: You guys are kind of fascinat-ed by the word "danger" too aren't you,in The Pack A.D.? You guys like theword Night Danger, don't you?Maya: Oh yeah! Night Danger. NightDanger is pretty awesome. That's allbecause of Ontario; God bless Ontario. Wewere driving through there and constantly,in the middle of the night, there would bethese signs, every once in a while, that say,"look out, Night Danger" with a picture ofa moose. So I just pictured this picture thismoose named Night Danger, you know,who is marauding the countryside. That's asong right there.

Nardwuar: What is Night Danger?Maya: (Laughing) I think night danger isjust supposed to be just, "watch out for theanimals." But I think Night Danger is justthe, one moose.

Nardwuar: And you saw that on tour,when you were out East and met the

What Wave guys who gave you The Pack.I can't believe I had to force The Pack onyou. You had this cassette and youweren't getting to it. What's with youMaya?Maya: The tape player that I have is at ourband space so that we can record ourselvesand I have to remember to bring it home.And I haven't remembered to bring ithome, and that's where the tape is. Andthen you see the problem.

Nardwuar: We have a phone caller. Caller,are you there?Luke Meat: I am! Maya, I love your bandand by the way, we did receive the actualPack — the band that made you changeyour name…Maya: Oh you did?Luke: Based Boys. Yeah. Featuring the sin-gle, "In my Car" and the smash hit, "I'm aShinin'" and "Vans." Awesome.

Nardwuar: Luke, let's clear this up for asecond, the band I played is The Packfrom Germany 1978, and there is anotherband. The German punk band wasn'tcausing The Pack A.D. trouble was it,Maya?Maya: No no no no, I don't think we'd everhave a problem with them.

Nardwuar: It was the American Pack whowas causing trouble?Maya: We had our MySpace deleted, like, 3or 4 times before we changed the name sothat they stopped deleting us and contactedMySpace and had them promise that theywould leave us alone.

Nardwuar: And, now, Luke, the PackA.D. participated in the CiTR Shindig,battle of the Bands. Did they not?Luke: Yes they did.

Nardwuar: But, they did not win. Didthey?Luke: They were the only band that sent usa cassette.

Maya: Arrgh!

Nardwuar: Oh, so she sent a cassette, andyet she cannot play a cassette. She hasThe Pack, from Germany, on cassette andshe was saying she couldn't play itbecause she didn't have a cassette player.And yet, she loves cassettes!Luke: Funny.Maya: You know what it is, I'll tell youwhat, we made that tape for CiTR when Istill had my stereo that had a working tapedeck. Soon after, that tape deck broke whenI started making copies. We recorded copiesin our bandspace and made cassettes to sell,to raise money, to make the cd. And in theprocess of making all of those dubs, I man-aged to finally break my tape player.

Nardwuar: Ok, I believe you. Luke, howdid the Pack do in Shindig battle of thebands?Luke: Well, I believe they didn't get thecurse of Shindig by winning. Meaning, thecurse that has happened in the past coupleof years is that the bands that come in num-ber one, who win, don't go on to do asmuch as the bands that come in 2nd or 3rd.

Nardwuar: Well, I mean if you don'tcount being on David Letterman like 3or 4 times or Conan O’Brien show 3 or 4times or playing with Nick Cave.Luke: Were the New Pornographers aShindig band?

Nardwuar: No, I'm talking about NekoCase — Maow, they won Shindig!Luke: Well….

Nardwuar: Well thank you very muchLuke. And doot doola doot doo…Luke: Baa hhhhhh!!

Nardwuar: So Night Danger are thosesigns that you see on the road when youare on tour. But, what are the pictures onthose signs, I understand that theychange as you go from province toprovince?Maya: I've only really ever noticed theMoose I might have been sleeping duringthe other signs.

Nardwuar: It goes from a moose to adeer. It kind of goes back and forth.Maya: Yeah, whenever I was driving it seemslike the moose was always there. You'reright, there are other ones. I should havetaken better note. But then there would beseveral animals named Night Danger andthat wouldn't be quite the same thing.

Nardwuar: And Maya from The PackA.D., you played the Apollo bar inThunder bay?Maya: Yes.

Nardwuar: What was that show like,because it seems like an Uber Fan,CCJohnson22463 has uploaded almostyour entire set from your Thunder BayApollo Bar set onto YouTube.



Maya: Yeah, yeah, which was really great ofhim. Actually, that show was awesome, itwas one of the best venues we've everplayed. They treated us like gold there. Youcome in and they make you food, likethemselves, and you've got a place to stayand you play the show. There were not somany people were there at the show as itwas a Monday night, but, Chris Johnsondrove up from Wisconsin to specificallymeet us and tape the show. He actually runsa festival that is going into its second yearnext year starting next year that we are play-ing called the Deep Blues Festival in,Minnesota.

Nardwuar: So he runs it? That's amazing.I thought it was some Uber Fan, but it'sthe actual guy who running the festivaland he put up all of those clips of you.That's great because there's tons and tonsand I was wondering, like, who theUber Fan is. And the Deep Blues Festsounds very interesting, they havesome interesting acts that have playedthere over the year and I love theword interesting because The Pack arevery interesting. We have the Packfrom Vancouver, The PackA.D., not The Pack fromGermany. And rap pack isfrom where?Maya: Well, I think they arefrom Sacramento. I know theyare from California.

Nardwuar: Here is The Packfrom Sacramento, not to dis-criminate against any Packs onthe Nardwuar the Human ServietteShow, with their tune,"Gimme Racks" by ThePack!

[Nardwuar plays theSacramento Pack]

[Lyrics are "I'm in the club, I'm baked upin the back…" BEEP! BEEP! ]

Nardwuar: That sucks, they censored allthe good words out. Back to The DeepBlues Festival, who else is going to beplaying that? Who are you looking for-wards to playing with?

Maya: Well it's basically a who's who of thePunk Blues down in the USA. RememberImmortal Lee County Killers, well Chetcame up with a new band and they arecalled Silver Lion's 20/20 and they are awe-some. They are playing. Left Lane Cruiser,Black Diamond Heavies those are twobands who are signed to Alive Records.

Nardwuar: That must feel really coolwhen the actual guy who is putting onthe festival drives up, films every songyou do and puts it up on YouTube. Youmust have thought it was pretty cool.Maya: It was a really cool thing that he didthat. And the whole response that we'vegotten from the Punk Blues community in

the States they've really kind of, embracedus. He told us at the very beginning, whenthey were a little less known, he actually fol-lowed the Black Keys around Ontario.

Nardwuar: But you brought him toThunder Bay…Maya: Well we didn't know!

Nardwuar: You were the bait; you got himto Thunder Bay. The Thunder BayChamber of Commerce should give youan award. You guys in the Pack A.D. arepretty fearless?Maya: Pretty much. You don't have muchto loose if you just try your best.

Nardwuar: Well, there were some photosfloating around on the internet of youguys on the Mint Records balcony.Maya: Well I'm not sure, but there

were some photos.

Nardwuar: There's the Mint Recordsbuilding downtown and they have a veryantiquated fire escape.Maya: Yes, which actually terrifies me morethan most. But after numerous drinks, thefire escape is not so scary. Especially 14floors up.

Nardwuar: And you're not afraid to liedown on the fire escape. Upside down!!Maya: I'm going to give that kudos toBecky.

Nardwuar: You wouldn't go upside downon the fire escape though?Maya: No, no. Becky is a little more fearlesswith the fire escapes than I. Although I didstay out there the entire time, so props tome.

Nardwuar: Your relatives though, aren'tthey fearless; they fought in the Civil Waron the wrong side?Maya: No no no no, they fought on theright side. Let's clear this up right now.

Nardwuar: Which side is the right side?Maya: Well, it's complicated on both sides,but the right side would appear to be theNorth, and that is the side my relatives werefrom, in Illinois.

Nardwuar: How did you find out aboutthis?Maya: Well one of my aunts, she lives inIllinois and she spent a lot of time doing aproper family tree. And she had informa-tion, like a paragraph about every person,about everyone going back to the 1500's.And that is how I discovered that a couplerelatives actually fought in the civil war.

Nardwuar: Who is the Man Wolf?Maya: The Man Wolf actually is a comicthat we saw in the States somewhere.

Nardwuar: Would thatbe a good song to

represent The PackA.D.? Which songwould accurately repre-sent The Pack A.D.from Vancouver, British

Columbia, Canada.Which song would go up

against the heavyweights, ThePack from Germany and ThePack from Sacramento?Maya: Oh, man, ok, well, how

about "Gold Rush."

Nardwuar: Which track is that, oh it's #1.You're not beating around the bush.What about "All Damn Day Long."Maya: Let's do that one too.

Nardwuar: Is that a good one-two punchthen? It's like take that German Pack,take that Sacramento — actually, don'tget mad at the German Pack.Maya: No no, because I'm not mad at theGerman Pack and really I'm not mad at theAmerican Pack either. I think there's roomfor all of us and, can't we just all get along?

Nardwuar: As Luke pointed out, maybeyou could cover one of American Pack'ssongs like, "I'm Shinin'" or "GimmeRacks" or "Booty Bounce Bopper" butthat's going to be kind of hard for you tolearn those songs because all of the lyricsare all bleeped out. They're really goingfor it, aren't they?Maya: There is a song called "Booty BounceBopper?" I love it!

Nardwuar: Why should people care aboutThe Pack A.D. from Vancouver?Maya: Why should people care? Becausewe're just doing what we do and we're reallyhaving a great time. We like playing themusic that we play and think that peoplemaybe get it.

Nardwuar: Well, great! Thank you verymuch Maya from The Pack A.D., keep onrocking in the free world and doot dooladoot doot…Maya: Doot doo.

Illus

trat

ion

by B

ecky

Bla

ck!


vedahille.com


The Biltmore Cabaret is a new bar in Vancouver, BritishColumbia, Canada. It opened with a show by the ChoirPractice and the Buttless Chaps on December 10, 2007.

The bar is in the basement of what once was called the Biltmorehotel — its pink neon sign could be seen from most places inVancouver. The Biltmore is now a Howard Johnson and isowned by lazy people. Hopefully one day they will sell the hoteland it will relive its glory days. From what I gather the hotel wasbuilt in the ’30s and its basement bar was called “Pub 12,”because it is on 12th Avenue. It may have at some point alsobeen the home of a jazz club called the “Glass Slipper.” Manypeople in Vancouver (probably falsely) believe that the Beatlesstayed in the hotel when they played at Thunderbird Stadium in

1964. The Biltmore Cabaret has a legal capacity of 352, lovelyred velvet booths, a very good sound system and wonderfulstaff. One day we will have our own ’zine called Filth. There isalso a juke box which will have a Red Cat Records section in it,as well as a Luke Meat/CiTR mix CD or 2. And there are mir-rors, chandeliers and pin ball machines. Hopefully a photobooth soon too.

I own a bar in Calgary called Broken City and I started a festivalthere called Sled Island. I wanted to open a venue in Vancouverbecause I am foolish and I have not yet learned that live music isa difficult business. Also — I really like music.

Zak Pashak

The Biltmore Cabaret395 Kingsway, Vancouver, BC

www.biltmorecabaret.com





For all of its bad reputation (think air pollution, cold win-ters, and struggling public transit), Prince George is actu-ally a pretty cool place. Just slightly over a year ago, a

GVRD transplant and !Earshot charts editor, BryndisOgmundson, combined her love of the burgeoning PG musicscene and her desire to avoid working for “the man,” andopened Meow Records. Sporting a downtown basement loca-tion, Bryndis enlisted a Meow Army to help her put her storetogether and get it off the ground. In its first year, not only hasMeow Records thrived, it has shown itself as a promoter (Cananyone say private Chad VanGaalen garden party five timesfast?), a record label (2007: Hey Everyone “Broken Horse”;2008: Leigh Oatmeal “title tba”), a gallery/supporter of localcrafters, and the producer of a “Girls of Meow Records” limit-ed edition calendar, the store has become a hub for anyone look-ing for anything from a glistening Elvis vinyl to the newImmaculate Machine (Mint). 2008 will be an exciting year forMeow as we are preparing plans for more events to showcase theawesomeness of the local music scene and get cracking on the2009 “Girls of Meow Records” calendar (horror themed!).Keep tabs on Meow Records at www.meowrecords.ca

100-300 Brunswick StreetPrince George, BCV2L 2B5

53˚ 53' N, 122˚ 41' Wphone 250-564-MEOW (6369)toll free 1-866-964-MEOW (6369)

Bryndissnugglingwith the vinyl

Chad VanGaalensporting his

Meow Army shirt

Bryndis and Meow employees throwingdown the MEOW gang symbol


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CRIMINAL RECORDS (now in its 16th year) has become anAtlanta institution of all things "indie". Selling everything from

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NEWBURY COMICS has 27 stores throughout New England, filledwith everything from new and used CDs and DVDs to an eclectic

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BULL MOOSE — Hopefully as cool as this zine, with a huge indieand not-so-indie selection, crazy low prices, and an expert staff.

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The Burningby Guy Russell

OK... I admit it has been a really longtime since I wrote anything in The

Burial Ground and I have absolutely noexcuses for my actions. Honestly I havemy days when I decide to sit down andwrite about something and then I justdraw a blank...... Not today. The longawaited DVD release of The Burning isfinally out in all its gory glory, and itlooks fucking awesome. The movie itselfhad almost become somewhat of anurban legend, because it had been out ofcirculation for so long, and the VHSprints that were available had been cut sobad that it was almost unwatchable. Nowhere is the film completely uncut and it isdefinitely not for the squeamish.

Most people like me would probablyargue that the cover for The Burningmight not hit home like the original onedid, but at the same time it’s not all thatbad, the main point being that the filmhas finally seen the light of day (again).Asides from the Romero zombie films ofthe late ’70s to mid ’80s, Tom Savini hadfour of the most important and influen-tial slasher films period: Friday the 13th,Maniac, The Prowler, and The Burning.All of these films have that certain some-thing in them and that happens to beSavini.

So not only does The Burning mark theWeinstein’s first film, it also stars somepretty unknown people at the time someof which are Jason Alexander (Seinfeld),Holly Hunter (Raising Arizona), andFisher Stevens (Short Circuit, My ScienceProject). To me the release of The Burninggives me hope that a few other unreleasedtitles will finally get recognized and soonsee the light of day as well, I also hopethat people now a days that are lookingfor a film that’s different from a lot of thestuff that is coming out now, the so called“torture porn” then they should reallygive The Burning a try, and get takenback to a time when films were fun tomake. It has been more than a decadesince this has been legitimately available,besides on a PAL format disc that wasreleased By VIPCO in the UK, and Istress the fact that I am happier than apig in shit, so I think I will go watch itagain.

Guy Russell

Guy Russell writes and manages 'BurialGround' at happybatscinema.com

by Juan Farmer

“Poor White Noise” has taken a hit late-ly. The Happy Bats Cinema website

is under construction, looks as is, but has anew face coming up and all new entries of‘Poor White Noise’ have been on hold. Imention this because I review movies there,too, but only with a little more rambling,and personal thoughts. Then I reviewed thefirst couple of movie reviews for Mint, andrealized that they were rarely just about themovies, and never about just one movie, forbetter or worse...

This will be read after the holidays, thoughit is being written in the eye of the seasonalhurricane. Yesterday was supposed to be oneof the busiest shopping days of the year, andI thought about Schwarzenegger in Jingle Allthe Way, looking for a superhero toy for hisson. The movie is bullshit. He gets what hewants for Christmas and is a hero to hisfamily in the end. Sounds nothing like anyholiday I’ve encountered, and as I drovefrom a non-gift shopping related errand, Ifound I needed some clean underwear. Also,non-holiday related. I was visiting familyand took no change of clothes. I went into ashop for some cheap clothes and rediscov-ered the depths of inconsideration and self-ishness among men this time of year. HolyFestivus.

I went home, considered wearing a sari untilmy wet clothes were out of the wash, beforeborrowing my Father’s finest Arnold Palmerduds and set out for the cinematic links, asit were; a retreat from the madness and ElvisChristmas Carols that always make youwant to cry and be a better person. Therecipe is as follows, and can be subscribed tojust as well, I hope, in the post-holidayexcess Pepto-Bismal corpulance that was ’07.Amen. Here goes:

1. To Have and Have Not. The worstHemingway novel, in his own words.Howard Hawks directs Bogart as a skipperfor hire and Bacall makes her screen debut.Cigarettes and dialogue between Bogart andBacall were likely used as tools to directTravolta and Thurman in Pulp Fiction atJack Rabbit Slims. Tarantino says, “Ok guys,be half as cool as Bacall and Bogart and it’llbe unforgettable.” Knockout cool.

2. Ingmar Bergman’s Smiles of a SummerNight. The birth of the romantic comedy?It’s likely I’m not that versed to stake thatclaim, but the film actually presents itself, inopening credits that follow the title, as a‘romantic comedy’. What follows this is avery funny, turn of the century game of

romance and betrayal. Great cast and directionand a film that marked international success forBergman. The film won best comedy at Cannesin 1956, where Bergman didn’t even know itwas entered. (Bergman was on the toilet, took aphone call, and learned the film was screeningat Cannes). He called someone to borrowmoney for a flight and went to France. In theseason of reflection, and in a new year of prom-ises waiting to be broken, watch a good ol’ filmby a cinematic legend and see where ‘Rom-Com’ came from, not where it went.

3. Michaelangelo Antonioni: Passed away on thesame day as Bergman and similarily left an oeu-vre of films that collectively and individuallychanged cinema forever. To have some throughline in the reviews here, watch L’Eclisse, orL’Avventura. Both star Monica Vitti, anotherscreen beauty whose talent won’t be marred bylast minute actors doing a ‘scene study’, bywatching movies and playing ‘etch a sketch’forout of work actor/teachers. (Unless they arestudying in Italian, and even then, see Vitti anddiscover the incomparable.) Great films, mark-ing huge moves toward existential, lean cinema.European art film touchstones.

4. One pick here for the entertaining and dis-posable drawer, for a few reasons, is TheKingdom. Directed by Peter Berg, small cameo,good performances etc... It has the red whiteand blue prerequisites to put redneck asses inthe seats and the film actually finishes with afew statements to cynically drive that nail evendeeper. It touches on cool international espi-onage, FBI, terrorism, has a great openingsequence, a rock solid first 40 minutes, slows totake the expository curve or two, then drifts alittle before a proper ending. The film was agood example of the ‘global warming’ vs ‘kickthe sand out of their ass in the desert forSeptember 11’ attitudes, that leave me thinking:Is there anything else? Is there an in between, agrey? There are rednecks the world over. SeeThe Kingdom in case you haven’t seem the‘Bourne’ movies a dozen times each, yet. MATTDAMON.

All the holidays have come and gone, will again,and I would like to say to everyone in their ownrespective languages, Happy Holidays. But Ionly have one mother tongue, so ‘InternationalGreetings’, and as Bob Dylan also said, ‘It’s thethought that counts’.

With wishes for the same in return,Juan Farmer

Poor White Noisehappybatscinema.com


Poor White Noize


726 Richards Street, Vancouver, BC Canada V6B 3A4Tel: (604) 687-0499 • Fax: (604) 687-0488Email: [email protected]: Get in touch.EMAIL ORDER: [email protected] VANCOUVER? Drop by our store to sample the good times.

319 W. Hastings, Vancouver BC • vinylrecords.ca

Mint Records’ US distribution by

www.naildistribution.com

www.gorillafood.com

101-422 Richards StreetVancouver, BC

www.myspace.com/cnrs


NARDWUAR VS. THE KLAXONSNARDWUAR VS. CYNTHIA PLASTER CASTERBRENT COOPER: SCHOOL OF ROCKA CAROLYN MARK TOUR STORYHOW TO MAKE A BELLA WRISTBANDIMMACULATE MACHINE COMICSMINT BANDS GOING TO CMWNARDWUAR VS. THE PACK A.D.MINT XMAS PARTY REPORTA VANCOUGAR PUZZLEDEAR SHANEMORE!


CD out now – 160g LP out March 4th

www.myspace.com/thepackad

phot

o by

mar

yano

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.com


Documents

Fresh Breath of Mint - Spring 2008