Boss 20th Anniversary Comp
Thursday, March 11 2010
Posted by brockp

So on the first day off in 17 during the recently-over Olympic run at BC Place (Ceremonies) I, Instead of sleeping like a sensible person would do, spent a good eight hours in the studio with Johnny Stew and Brian Minato. Jesse was at the helm (thanks Jess) and we plowed kamikaze style through a version of Fountains by The Nils (from their Sell Out Young ep) and Apart (for my forthcoming EP).The impetus for this thing was Aston's (Boss Tuneage) 20th Anniversary Compilation which is due out in a month or two. The theme for the release is bands that have been on the label covering other bands who have been on the label. Since I missed the Nils tribute record that Mag Wheel put out, I wanted to do something that Alex (Soria) wrote.

I have been listening to Alex's various recordings a lot lately, and recommend that you do too, especially if you never got to hear any of those bands when Alex was still around.

Anyway, so Johnny Stew was a hero and Brian had, of course, made a chart the night before.Things went pretty well and it only took a couple of takes to get used to playing fast-ish, get out of stagehand mode, and into drummer mode again. We put a coupe of mics way down the hall and at the bottom of the stairs and then put the Garnet and a 2x12 cab just outside the door, firing down the hall. We tracked the song a tad slower than the Nils version, but it kinda sat right.

Anyway, I've handed those files off to Brian for mixing and overdubbing the harmony vocal Johnny and I failed to pull off, and it will be delivered by the end of this month.

its that time again
Thursday, December 17 2009
Posted by brockp

And by that I do not exactly mean Christmas, although it is certainly that time again as well. I am of course referring to the annual Nasco Christmas Party and the obligatory reassembly of the Ramones cover band.

This year's version features Dirty Kurt of Real McKenzies fame, as well as myself, Tim Hewitt, and the ringleader Zabo (aka Mike Price). Our first of two rehearsals (gig on Monday) was last night and we charged through about 15 Ramones hits, pausing only to tell Kurt a different key, or to um, learn the song with a community listen from the iPhone (thanks Tim).

Those of you who are of the opinion that Ramones songs are easy have obviously never tried this. Of course they ARE easy in a way, but just physically demanding to play properly. You've gotta do all downstrokes on the guitar, none of this uppy-downy strumming allowed (except when absolutely necessary due to torturous pain and cramping). High points of the evening for me were watching Kurt's facial expressions as he approached this point of pain, and getting past them myself.

Kurt has only just recovered completely from breaking his leg onstage in Germany. We asked him how in the world he did that and his response was, "Punk Rock Jump". Only guy I know who not only breaks his tibia onstage, but then finishes the song on his back AND the rest of the set while propped up on a stool. See it for yourself thanks to the wonders of youtube!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upNgY_aMyqc

next in line: the battle of the bull$hit
Wednesday, November 11 2009
Posted by brockp
Hey everyone.

If you have actually visited this page enough times to find that i have blogged again, welcome back. I think the last thing i wrote here was on Constructivism and Punk Rock, from back when I was in design school.

That leaves an awfully long gap in the sequence of events blogged about here. I realise also that as this site has bounced around from server to server, that the archives of past blogs are not exactly complete or accessible, and there may be a bunch of 404's lurking and so on.

For shame for shame. Anyways, its time to inject a little energy into this sphere. At some point I will prolly write more about what all has been going on with me over the last few years but for the moment, it is this moment that I am concerned with.

I have been working in the IATSE realm since July, on a TV show called Smallville. Its a Warner Brothers production which is in its ninth season. Up until recently I had never seen a complete episode, so I'd be surprised if any of you had either. It has been a welcome (though difficult) change from my life as a stagehand, a path I set foot on many years ago in an attempt to earn extra dough on the side to finance recordings and, well living expenses, etc. Those Doughboys royalties stopped rolling in years ago for me, and they were never exactly plentiful to begin with. Somehow, being a stagehand on the side turned into being a stagehand as a regular gig, and before you know it, I was doing less and less music, aside from the odd gig at the Nasco Christmas Party with Zabo and his Ramones cover band. While loads of fun (mostly) this was not exactly what I had in mind when I set out on the road as a skinny 20 year old, or enrolled in Berklee College of Music a few years later.

Somehow, the jump to working in film actually seems to have partially liberated me from the claws of resistance and creative lethargy. Its not much different from being a stagehand. In fact, at times it is harder than stagehand work: I'm no rigger, so the amount of calls I've had to show up for at 6am I can count on... well I never had to show up that early. There is also absolutely no connection to music whatsoever, unless you count the fact that we are still in the entertainment business, and a$$-ki$$ers still seem to get ahead. I think it might be this fact (no connection to music) that actually allows me to begin to consider that I love playing in bands and making records. Duh.

So as far as that is concerned, I am planning a contribution to a compilation that Aston is putting together in honour of Boss Tuneage's 20th anniversary of "fashionably not selling records". Johnny Stewart and I have been talking about doing something for a long time now, and since he also works on Smallville in LX, we seem to no longer have an excuse unless willing to finally concede to ultimate lameness. John also plays with 16mm and Black Halos, although I'm not sure if they are up to much these days.

Anyways, all this is kind of to say if you are still reading here, or are one of the many who have posted to my myspace, facebooked me, emailed out of the blue over the last few years, thanks. I've heard you, and hopefully you will soon be hearing me again too. Later!

-B

Constructivism and Punk
Thursday, March 13 2008
Posted by brockito

So I have been embroiled in school for the last six months, which is one of my excuses for not-so-frequent blogging during that time. Among other things, I have been studying Russian Constructivism as it pertains to graphic design, and this term I have been attempting to hybridize that style with the North American Punk aesthetic.

Last night was my final portfolio class of the term and I and my fellow student designers were asked to give a presentation of our work. As I scrambled to get everything finished, mounted, documented, etc., I was struggling through moments of feeling very ill with some kind of flu-type thing. Fortunately I had been given some kind of medicine—I don't know what it was but it seemed to work. I wasn't really able to eat so well though so by the time I got to school (late again) I was pretty light-headed and a little shaky.

While driving earlier this week, I had had the idea that the best way for anyone to get a feel for the look I was going for was to just play some music from that era while showing the images on the projector. So I brought some speakers from home and when it was my turn, I just played an excerpt of Naum Gabo reading the Realist Manifesto and then played Something I learned Today from Zen Arcade, followed by Black Flag My War.

Unfortunately I forgot to include some key images from my roughs when combining PDFs earlier so I got through most of what I had to show before Henry Rollins was going off with his, "You're one of them, Them, THEM !" so i had to skip to that part and then took the cover off of my mounted print. I guess I didn't feel like talking so much, so I just let the music and the images do the talking. At one point i looked up at some of the faces and I'm not really sure how to gauge the reaction. I think at least one of my two instructors was less-than-impressed. I guess in that sense it was a success, in that maybe some didn't get it, or felt alienated by it, or pissed off by it, or at least had some sort of reaction provoked out of them. I dunno. It sure felt better than trying to explain in a BCIT classroom what is punk about ANYTHING.

Here's one of my comps, trying to figure out how to let the Exclaim! type hang off the edge of the page size with some sketch marks...

Mike Conley Dead
Sunday, March 2 2008
Posted by brockito

I just checked my webmail a few minutes ago to see if my latest portfolio assignment was graded, yeah I know, I'm in school again—and along with "Just Added: Bold Spicy Flavour" from Sonicbids spam, there was a message from John K. I don't hear from John that often unless he is in town or something bad happenned, and unfortunately, this time he is not in town.

He was messaging to relay the news that yet another person we knew from the heydey of touring in a van with the Doughboys has met an untimely end. We first met Mike Conley in Sumter, South Carolina at a gig in some VFW hall or something. We were travelling down the east coast towards Florida at the time and were due to meet up with MIA and the Descendents for a bunch of gigs. Sumter was our first gig with MIA.

Now being from Montreal, this was my first encounter with California boys, and I think had we played just the one gig with MIA, I might have laughed at them and found their styley clothes and hair product kinda ridiculous.

Living in a van, I was quite amazed at how much attention went into the right shoes and clothes and so on. Drumming for them at the time was Chris Moon, whom we eventually just referred to as Moon. Last I heard he was married and selling vacuum cleaners or real estate in Vegas. There's a wild guess, vacuum cleaners OR real estate. Anyway, what I am trying to get at was these guys were all characters. Playing guitar was Mark Arnold, whom we eventually referred to as Santa, and on bass was Frank Daly. Frank and Mark went on to form Big Drill Car after this incarnation of MIA broke up, which was right after this tour if I remember correctly.

Anyways, Mike Conley was the ringleader, the lead singer and main songwriter. He and John K took to each other in a flash and their friendship lasted until yesterday when Mike was found dead in a Chicago parking lot. I don't really want to say much more right now but the link John forwarded me is here. Have a listen to Boredom is the Reason and think of him.

Goodbye Mike.