Snow-Motion

Merry Christmas to all from snowstormy Vancouver. This pic was taken Christmas Eve, 3.35pm. In the past 12 hours, another 10-20cm has fallen. Most unusual, but also, kinda nice and white! Happy holidays everyone! And from our friend Hubert as well (who used to have arms and a hat, but we were worried about him losing them).

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

This week Vancouver has been hit with an unprecedented amount of snow and a cold snap that, by Ontario standards, is perfectly normal (-12 degrees-ish), but by Vancouver, IS THE COLDEST EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE! No, seriously, it was actually the coldest temperature on record.

It was nippy yesterday when Dan and I went on our search to Granville Island market for the Baby Cheesus (for our cheese board on Christmas).And last night, the white stuff came dumping down and hasn't stopped. So we got hammered, had our mate Gregg over and watched ELF.

Anyways, Happy Solstice everyone - methinks we'll skip going out to the Solstice celebrations in town because it's a mite frigid. Plan now is to stay in, drink mead, hover round my witchy cauldron and celebrate the first day of winter and the longer days. From inside.

Cool Runnings and 'Ting

It's not often you're waiting at the airport to pick up your mum when you hear something like this coming over the tannoy: "Would everyone joining the Jamaican Bob Sled Team event, please make their way over to carousel number 6."

So you go over, curious, 'cos really, wtf? The Jamaican Bob Sled Team? They're like stars, mon! They had a film made about them! It's not like it's some lame Khazakstanian Women's Curling team (no offense), but JAMAICANS. WHO ARE BOBSLEDDERS. Awesome much?

So being a consummate professional/snoop, I got chatting with the welcoming committee - a mostly Pembertonian crowd, some Jamaican fans and a few airport staff waiving dem flags. Pemberton is close to Whistler, where the boys are, apparently, training for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. Keeeewl.
Wearing my offical BC jacket, we started talking tourism, natch. I met with a consultant for Pemberton's economic development and the owners of the town's Copper Dome Lodge, Ian and Michelle Porter. They're hosting the team during their pre-training and were pretty excited about their arrival - that and the fact I told them I would update Hellobc.com with this crucial bit of trivia, of course. ;-) They even invited my team up to stay or use their lodge for our meetings when we got round to doing our Pemberton visit as part of the community content project I'm spearheading for Hellobc.com. Nice folks. I hope they wave flags when we arrive.

Anyway.... I dispatched Dan to fetch madda (hmmmm, Mother v. Athletic Jamaican Guys Who Wear Lycra. Whom to greet first? Decisions!) while I hung around. Shameful, I know. But in the end, we collected mum, all her bags, and headed back to carousel 6. We had made it back in time for the arrival of the fittest.

Rrrrree-spec'!

The Puck Stops Here.

A few weeks ago, Dan and I put in a single request for one pair of tickets to a 2010 Olympics event. Sure, it's just the Men's Ice Hockey Qualification Playoff, but it's one step below bronze and a big step above the prelims.

And it's MEN'S HOCKEY. Anyway, I figured we'd have a better chance at getting tickets in the ginormo national lottery for the lesser-prio games as only 4,000 tickets were made available for the men's gold game (last count: 170,000 ticket requests were made). Plus, those were stoopid expensive.

Today, we won our little piece of the lottery. We're going to an Olympics hockey game. Of course, it'll probably be a playoff between Outer Mongolia and Khazakstan or something, but still. Dan and I figured that if we're going to be living in the hometown of an Olympics, we should *gulp* Share the Excitement. So we are. We are stupidly excited. And just had to share. ;-)

Kimberely and the Canadian Rockies

Reviews You Can Use

Dan and I watched a French man twiddle his knobs last week. Read all about M83 in my live review.

Oh and if you haven't had enough Eagles of Death Metal (and really, who can have enough Eagles of Death Metal? They're retardedly genius if you're a drunk biker!) - read my interview and live review with Jesse Hughes, thisaway.

Also last week, I went to see OHgr. Who's really Nivek Ogre (who's really Kevin Ogilivie) from Vancouver's industrial godfathers Skinny Puppy. (Basically, Skinny Puppy birthed Nine Inch Nails, but NIN took the credit).

Anyway, I used to be a big fan of the Pups. They were how I "revolted" against my middle-class upbringing - I used to drunkenly request their noise at highschool dances and rail against the "system" by quoting lyrics from "Smothered Hope", "Icebreaker" and "Assimilate".

Anyway, my former-Goth mate Gregg convinced me I needed to relieve my angsty teen years by attending this big-deal homecoming with him, so there I was, on a Sunday night, amongst the ageing freaks. I was black of eyeliner and evil of heart.

But 'lo how I laughed when the actually still-entertaining Ogre came out in a typically theatrical costume - a gruesome rubber mask and outfit -which faced out from his back (he eventually stripped the kit off and turned around to reveal a V for Vendetta-y face mask and makeup). Under a fab light show, he proceeded to sing this delightful little ditty about poo:

Awesome stuff, purile repetition notwithstanding. I felt truly among my freakish people that night. *sigh* Gig season seems to be over now. Franz Ferdinand are headed this way, but I can't be arsed, really. Just seems a bit too top-40, really. And so we head into darkness until Feb.

Chillin' in Bella Coola

So, I recently got back from Bella Coola, BC. I spent a day longer there than I'd expected as my plane out was cancelled due to rain/fog/general crappiness. By "my plane" I mean "the only" plane, a 10-20 person prop plane that requires (obviously) a clear look at the runway before it zooms all willy-nilly over and past glaciers and forests. Something about safety, landing in between mountains, deer running at the side of the 3-inch long runway, you know, the usual. Bah - what a pain. ;-)

Not that Bella isn't insanely, well, bella. Still, I was holed up in this tiny place...
You know, your usual Hav-a-Nap Motel type. ;-) And while the place didn't have a bar, I got an extra day to admire the views of Valley, even in the chucking-down rain. It was hardly "Survivor" as my boss pointed out - but I still felt a bit weird being trapped with nothing but the satallite TV, wireless, warmth, a full kitchen, king-size bed, baked goods in the morning and grocery store a full 20 minutes WALK away. Shocking, really, how I had to struggle. The things I do to get good web content. ;-)

The Coola thing about Bella is that it's so bloody far removed from everything. Have a look at the left-hand side of this Cariboo Chilcotin Coast regional map and you'll see where I was, in Hagensborg, near by the bustling metropolis of B.C. Bella Coola itself is pretty high-traffic. Here's a pic from rush hour:

Wildlife count: 1 giant eagle a meter away from us, 3 x deer (2 of which decided to run across the road as we were driving), 2 x crazy squirrels, 1 x fox and 0 x bear. I. Am. Never. Ever. Going. To. Get. To. See. Wild. Bears. Even. Though. They. Are. 10. A. Penny. In. Bella. Coola.

I drove out with the awesome Shawna Ludwig from the CCC Regional Tourism Association. It was a five-hour drive from Williams Lake and to get to the Bella Coola Valley (situated between stunningly coloured "rainbow" mountains of epic proportions), we had to go down a ruddy great big "Hill".

By "Hill" I mean enormomountain.

An 18% change in elevation doesn't read like much on a computer screen, but believe me, after dozens of crazy tight S-bends on a ONE-lane dirt road hand hewn by the locals (apparently - they call it the "freedom highway". Freedom from what? One's sense of calm?). One on side, bits of shale going straight up. On the other? Bits of shale going straight down. After plugged ears for 30 minutes, I was glad to hit bottom in one piece, it has to be said.

And when we did, the rewards were plentiful. We met with the locals - our region-based writer, and various tourism experts who showed us around town. We hiked through old-growth forests, checked out many a river bed (which are normally crawling with Grizzlies) and hiking trail, bought stupidly good fresh prawns from a local fishmonger, ate at the one restaurant, admired the local Nuxalk native art and generally had a (tiring) but good time. Stranded or not, I am lucky to be able to visit some of these spots. Take, for example, this horrible and dodgy campground. Rubbish innit?

In fact, I suggest you check it out sometime. If the plane doesn't make it in, there's a ferry that comes over from the Island. Sometimes. It takes either 12 or 36 hours.

Next stop, the AMAZING AND WONDERFUL suburb of Vancouver, known as New Westminster! WOOHOO! I hear the views are of, umm, Richmond and the Vancouver airport. But stay tuned, I could be wrong!

Mikala Meets the Eagles of Death Metal

Watch the video. Jesse has an important message for you. :-)

It's undeniable. EoDM Rock. They're simple, uncomplicated, cliched, trashy fun. They just (does the double-hand devil signs) RAWK.

Had SUCH a great time last night. Did a mental interview with Jesse "The Devil/Boots Electric" Hughes who talks so much (good) sh*t. When I asked for my own EoDM nickname, he started out with "Red Genius" (cos of my reddish hair) but said it wasn't sexy enough and he had to think on it. And like the giant cheese-monger he is, he proclaimed me "smokin' hot" and gave me an all-access pass so I could hang out with the band. Wooooo!

I told him I was taken, of course, and he said "good, you should be, but you gotta let a man still try," LOL. Bless him, I think he found someone else to try out/on/with after the show, thank gods, and disappeared to the bus. My full Eaglette nickname shall have to wait. ;-)

After shooting photos in the pit for a few songs, I partied on the side of the stage with various hangers-on and UK openers The Duke Spirit (who are absolutely brilliant and sweet and have a hot girl singer). Then I drank beer, chatted more with the Dukes, laughed at the baby groupies and admired the insanely amazing arms of Queens of the Stone Age's drummer Joey Castillo.

I came. I saw. I rocked out. And it was good.

They're Creepy and They're Spooky

...and all together Ooky, The Addams Family!

Here Be Pirates

Happy Samhain!

Hope everyone had a fun Hallowe'en. Ours was pretty silly but super fun. My office totally got into the spirit, as it were. Half the staff were in costumes and a few of my colleagues went all out, creating their own version among their cubicles of Victoria's prized tourist attraction, Butchart Gardens, which they'd renamed Butcher Gardens and were dressed as dead staff.

The IT team set up video conferencing in our board room so the Vancouver and Victoria offices could compare outfits and Halloween potluck food, I ate far, far too many sweets and baked Squee-Nut Butter cookies, our Online team dressed as the work "Anti-Values" (we rewrote our Corporate values to be super sarky, made t-shirts out of them and sent them the values off to the whole company). Niiice!

Then we met Beth & Simon for dinner at Hapa Izakaya (Hapa Halloween everyone! Geddit?), where we applied our fake tattooes and gear and then headed down to Stanley Park for their Ghost Train - this year it was Pirate Themed, which of course that scurvy dog Dan was most tempted by. The 15-min long kiddie ride takes you through parts of the park decked out all swash-buckler like, and was actually a good laugh. It also helped that Simon had brought oodles of dollar-store Pirate goodies for us to borrow so we could look the p-yarrrrr-t. No, these are not pics from Dan's 30th birthday...

Following that, we took a really silly "Creepy Crawlies" night walk through the park by candlelight with the local ecology group, and met some rather odd creatures.....

This one taught us about how she flies through air and snuffles around for truffles. Or something. We also met a giant raccoon, a bat and a moth. (Oh and we saw some real Halloweeny raccoons scrounging for the organic popcorn on sale, too. The sly 'coons were perfectly disguised and had their own masks on.)

Tomorrow it's an All Saints Day (Night) party at Joy's where we really dress up proper (albeit a day late)! I do believe that Morticia and Gomez Addams may be making an appearance....

Parade of Lost Souls 2008

Vancouver really is the shizzle when it comes to creative parades and neighbourhood celebrations. The Winter Solstice, the Zombie Walk, monthly cyclist demonstrations, and this, the amazing Parade of Lost Souls.

This parade, held each year around Halloween (this year, Oct 25) is held to celebrate All Hallows Eve, All Souls Day and Los Dios del Muerto. Conveniently, it's also a big-ass street(s) party, held in our neighbourhood. Hundreds of artists, performers and local house owners along the parade route, get together to put on some amazing stuff for the costumed hordes as they amble by. We saw witches on balconies, dancers in windows, guitarists on porches, films on walls and many drummers drumming.

This year's top awards goes to: (Dan's pick) The Mondo Spider, a giant, robot-spider car that moved and which was created two years ago by local engineering students who have shown it off at Burning Man. We only saw the end of it moving, so it's only stationary in the video and sadly, because of the black of night, it doesn't look as impressive. But clickee the linkee and see more UToob vids of the thing. It's absolutely wicked.

My fave? It's not in the video, alas, but it was the house with "Elvis and the Scavengers of Regret" - a totally Halloweeny decorated pad teeming with adult-sized raccoons and vermin, inviting us to write our regrets down on a piece of newspaper, which the raccoons would come rustling about for, gather up, crinkle up, and hop over to their bonfire and burn for you. Genius.

This was a truly amazing night, but don't take our words for it! Pumpkin Bill has a video for you:

Anarchy in the UK

This pretty much sums up our trip the UK. In this video, Dan, his brother Dominic and I sit in a Kebab Shop on Old Street at 2am as Dan explains the meaning of the Latin written on the one-pound coin and itemizes the amount of booze we ingested during the evening.

So what else did we get up to while in Londinium? Not a lot, really...

After we arrived at the new house of our awesome and gorgeous mate Suze, we were fed and watered and napped and then headed straight up to our old 'hood of Maida Vale, dahling, where we arrived in style to our private room at the Idlewild pub (which Dom had redesigned). We were joined by many mates, as well as bro Dom and sister Gab, the latter of which had come in from Zurich. My Biggest Loser-style reveal went swimmingly and mouths were agape at the halfness of me (okay, I gained most of it back by the end of the trip, but hey, it was worth every 1kg-Cadbury's Dairy Milk bar) and the reunited Taylors were very happy to see each other...

Dan is clearly so excited (read: drunk und jetlagged) to see his friends that in this picture below, he can hardly contain himself and thus has his eyes closed... (Thanks for pics, Gab!)

Though Dan did fall asleep when he decided to go back with Dom and girlf Kelly and pass out on their sofa (in their awesome pad) with snuffly Stanley the Dog. A dog, I hasten to add, is so bizarre-looking he's actually really cute. And he wheezes and burbles like a coffee percolator...

I went back home with Suze, only to be awoken early on Sunday by a clearly still-drunk Dan who had arrived back home with Dom and was insisting we leave NOW to go to their Mum's place to see her, the aunts and uncles and all our cousins. About three hours earlier than we'd agreed. So we got in Dom's posh ark (for it was flooding with rain), picked up Gab, Kelly and Sir Stanley Who Farted A Lot, and headed out to Wisteria Lane/Bedfordshire.

On Monday we were kindly escorted to Nottingham by Dan's dad, to see the Grandparents, eat at an old man's pub (Ploughman's Lunch for me, ta!) and have dinner at Eakely Grange with the family, including Dan's erm, excitable other sister Rachel who was sprung from her boarding school Stowe for our visit. She'd only been boarding for a few weeks and had much hyperness to share, bless her.

Tuesday we came back from Ye Olde English Cun'ree Side and headed into Hoxton. I popped in to surprise an old colleague at his office, then had dinner with Dom & Kelly. Dom then took us to a FABULOUS tiny basement-you-wouldn't-know-it-was-there bar in East London, called Lounge Bohemia. It was a fab night - the place was classic. Sits 40, is in a cavern, with elegant, minimalist 70s styling, an ice-cool EasternEuro who owns the place mixes some of the best martinis and cocktails with enormous care. AND they had absinthe dispensers....

Awesome presentation. As well as two twats who both hate the taste of licorice but thought it'd be fun to order. ;-)

Wednesday we had lunch with our workmates (well, I did, all but one of Dan's were too busy to see him, which totally bites), then asssembled for pie and mash at the infamous mashery, the Newman Arms. We were joined by Suze, Geoff and Tom. Why pie? Here's why pie:

Deeeeelish! Can you tell we were lard-asses on this trip? Speaking of food...

Thursday was dim sum lunch at yummy Ping Pong with John & Mayumi who were both eerily and entirely devoid of pre-wedding jitters. After a spot of extra shoppage around Covent Garden, we headed over for dinner to the home of ma famille, Martin and Kimberlee McCarrick. They are still stupidly good-looking, heelarious, adorable and talented.

On Friday, Dan left homebase at 6am to get into town to preside over John's stag do. He will fill you in on on what craziness they got up to, later, but here's a taste:Nice! So I took the day to bimble into Victoria, have a quickie (lunch) with my mate Alex K, then wandered down the King's Road, and bought $80 worth of the best chocolate salted caramel balls in the universe plus a dark-grey version of this t-shirt from criminally sexy/gothy All Saints for roughly the same amount. Then I met up with Suze for a trek to Twickenham to see a very-pregnant Meave for a tapas dinner.

Saturday, an exhausted Dan chilled chez Casa Suze while I spent a day in Islington. Had lunch at my fave gastro pub, The Elk in the Woods, and caught up on three years with my much-missed, and now preggers, mate Sabina. A truly blissful day, followed promptly by a visit to my favourite restaurant/bakery/shop, Ottolenghi, where we both purchased their stupidly divine passion fruit/meringue tarts, which Sabina and I ate in a church yard while the sun shone.

Best. Dessert. Ever. Best. Foodie. Shop. Ever. Ever. Ever.

Saturday night we went to see two bed-wetters from Bloc Party "DJ" at what was a very entertaining sarf-east London student pub for the kinda well-known Dirty South night. I think we purchased 112 alcoholic drinks in plastic cups for about a tenner and the highlight of my night is when the 16 year-old singer of one of the opening bands motioned to the six people in the crowd to part so he could jump off the stage in a huge rock dive with his guitar, only to try leaping and then getting caught on his too-short guitar lead. Classic. This is also the same kid who said if we didn't dance he would "rape us in the face" - while wearing a Cookie Monster t-shirt. But despite the sheer highschool dance absurdity (and hilarity) of the student wasteland that lay all around us, we had to leave (and I stormed out) when the Blocheads put on The Smiths.

FAIL.

Sunday, of course, was wedding o'clock for the amazing, formerly Fluffy John and his now good lady wife, Mayumi. It was an apt opportunity to see all our closest friends: Al (who did a reading during the ceremony and was best man at our wedding) Tom, Geoff (who MC'd and was also best man at our wedding), Roz, Enmin, Suze (who was a witness and a best woman), Matt, Lauren and Dave (who was the DJ and was also the DJ at our wedding...see where we're going here?). Needless to say, our tables rocked out. Albeit in a very day-timey, don't-we-all-look-posh-sort-of-way...The ceremony was lovely, Dan's speech was awesome, John & Mayumi looked happy, the food was good and the Barbican was a pretty nice place to watch others get hitched. And when it was all over, all-too-early, we headed to the only pub open in the City on a Sunday night: the one at Liverpool St station. There we had the London combo: pints, pasties and teary, bleary goodbyes with all our mates.

Monday was last-minute shopping, curry for lunch with Dan's mum Janine and then a really awful, dirty curry (double curry action on Dan's insistence) for dinner. Then it was over to meet up with Martin & Kim, who were playing a wee gig at a Hoxton pub. Then it was back home, to bed, up four hours later and back to Heathrow. And with that, our London trip came to a close.

So, like I said, we didn't get up to much. :-)

Rockies and Bullwinkles

My BC tour continued last week, taking me to the last region on my list: the Kootenay Rockies. I'd always wanted to see the Rockies, and got a taste when work took me to visit the fine folks at Kootenay Rockies Tourism. This time I went out with my office roomie and colleague extraordinaire, Sarah, to a little town called Kimberley. It's a quaint, oddly Bavarian-themed town at the foothills of the Rockies, about three hours' drive from Calgary, Alberta. Sun was shining, our meetings went well and we even managed to squeeze in a quick drive over to the Fairmont Hotsprings. I stayed in a ski resort, hiked up a small bit of Kimberley mountain and had a bison steak for dinner. Awwww yeah! These are not bison. And they were not for dinner. But they bolted like they were going to be.

But not Baby Bambi! There was a wee deer, just snuffling in among the leaves at the side of the road. Mmmm, road leaves...

Soon, Dr. Doolittle and her sidekick came up upon the Hoodoos That You Do So Well. The Hoodoos are a cool bit of curvalicious slate rock that weirdly jut out en route to Fairmont. They're quite a bit different from the lush green alpiney mountains and so we dubbed them "pretty neat".

Then it was time for a quick dip in the Fairmont Hot Springs - which S. and I dubbed "The Fountain of Anti-Youth". Either a bus load of codgers had dumped off its cargo straight into the pool, or the pool's properties, combined with sitting in it for hours, caused many young people to turn old, flabby and wrinkly. Can't be certain. We escaped, though, and here, S. waves about her bikini - for it was, in fact, the only bikini to be seen amid miles of Size 20 crazily-flowered one-pieces.
In all, a fine jaunt to another corner of BC's verdant land!

Vancouver 2010 Olympics - Brought to You By Mikala

I'm pretty chuffed with myself today. A number of pages I created for the incredibly-busy-weirdly-designed OFFICIAL Vancouver 2010 Olympics website has gone live. I was responsible for working with the Olympics Games Secretariat and helped to coordinate the pages about, you guessed it, British Columbia. What this meant was cobbling together info from a billion sources, editing and rewriting existing copy and getting together one million approved photos. It's pretty cool to see one's copy on the VANOC pages actually, even if we did have to wedge in information about the province's economic development.

The sections I was responsible for were: British Columbia, Multimedia Gallery, History of British Columbia and Discover BC. I wonder if that means they'll reward me by giving me tickets to the Men's Ice Hockey Canada games? No?

From the Pit at Spiritualized

Free ticket. Awesome show. Borrowed camera didn't cack out. Awesome Saturday night.

Totally Random Musings About Music

It's been a monumentally dry summer for gigs (okay, excluding the enormo pop stadium bands that wheeled through. Bah, I still wish I'd seen the REM/National/Death Cab circus).

Still, for months now, nothing has grabbed me and made me want to hang out by the side door, knock on the tour bus window and lick the bassist...;-)

At least the silly season for gigs has hit once again. It's September and EVERYBODY knows that from September until the first week in December, the good bands are back on tour. They've grown fat and demanding from the summer's Yurpean festivals and they're now dithering about whether to hit the studio or...you know, just keep touring. Autumn is an excellent time for gig-age in Vancouver and pretty much all major cosmo NorthAm cities.

So why am I worried?

Tons of bands are heading this way. Tons of good indie bands. The cool kids with fans that have ironic mullets. The flavour of the mini-moment. The darlings of the NME (this week). But anyone I'm really, really retardedly excited about? Mooo, nothing yet. I haven't had a good drool in a long time and I'm bored.This past Sunday, I even found myself admiring Dave Sitek from TV on the Radio's glasses as he spent far too much time with his guitar and sequencer and avoided all audience eye contact. Boo. Read my TVOTR live review here. (And help contribute to my "get me a new camera body and zoom cos I need it so mutha-truckin' badly" fund ;-)

And Saturday night's Mogwai/Fuck Buttons gig? It's not like you can stare wistfully at Mogwai and then think "ahhh, there's a sexy band'. Sexy, dark, enormously loud and droney music? Yes. Fanciable? I'm thinking...erm, NO.They still blew the stacks out the venue windows and were - as usual - rather mesmerising. Feel like reading a Mogwai review? Okay.

I'm also awaiting word on whether I get review passes to this weekend's Spiritualized gig. Should be good if I do but I'm losing hope daily as I've not yet heard anything. Songs in A&E is fucking awesome and Vancouver will make, what, the FIFTH city I'll have seen the band in?

But that was eons ago and I find it tiresome having to chase people down who only remember you if they're prodded to remember you, you know, those five times in....anyway, not sure I'll buy tix if I don't get passes so digits crossed. Here's what I thought about A&E..

I've also plowed through and reviewed Primal Scream's latest recently. Struggled with that one but it's grown a bit less moldy with each passing day. Still can't get over the handclaps. Clicky the linky for the review.

So who's going to be the band that gets me really excited? Not a bloody clue. But I hope they come soon. After having front row seats to the Cure this past May, and giving great massage to the lovely and harmless Louis XIV boys (honestly, Jason Hill's hair smelled SO nice!), having a 10-year-old loose end get tugged when Mike Doughty came to town, meeting Howlin' Pelle from The Hives and getting hopped up on happy juice when Hot Chip exploded all over the Commodore Ballroom walls...well, plain old indie bands just won't hack it.

Like I said, it's not that there aren't a million cool little bands coming, and Dan and I just caught wind of a possible TINY venue DJ set by Moby in November (sent to make up for the fact that I'm missing Nick Warren AND potentially my Icelandic DJ friend who I haven't seen in 10 years, who may be touring with Sigur Ros, because we're in the UK and there are no good bands playing WHILE we're in the UK...)

But the bands I adore and implode over? Where the hell are you?

Rockin' and Writin'

Done did two new (though very belated) album reviews on Suite101.com this week, check 'em out. There's also a second Hot Chip interview thingie up, too, which I threw up about a month or so ago. Even got me an "Editor's Pick", w00t!

Anyway, articles are here:
Spiritualized - Songs in A&E
Primal Scream - Beautiful Future

Goin' to see Mogwai and (hee hee) F*ck Buttons on Saturday night - my free plus one to review the show means that never-heard-of-Mogwai-before-not-really-into-drone-rock husband will be attending the gig with me and mates Gregg and Anita. I'll be interested to see what he makes of it. And Sunday is tres exciting: TV on the Radio, wahoo! Excited for that one, fo' 'sho, and hoping to get some interview time with the band. Then next weekend is Spiritualized. Glad to have some gigs coming down the pipe...it's been a slow summer.

Props To (And From) Williams Lake

Guns for Show, Knives for a Pro

If it's Monday, I must be in Williams Lake, British Columbia.

Today's business trip has taken my boss William and I deep into the heart of "Cariboo Country" - a patchwork of a region stitched together from three very distinct BC areas: The Cariboo (middle of BC, and east towards the Rockies), Chilcotin (more central) and Coast (a tiny snippet of seawall out west that encompasses islands you can only get to by ferry, floatplane or packmule. Okay, that last one I made up). Williams Lake is in the Cariboo part of CCC, accessed by us via 20-seater prop-plane.

Unlike other regions in BC, this one stretches sort of sideways. Williams Lake is the sort of place where they sell guns and saddles in shops. They have a history of gold panning. Our "Overlander Hotel" overlooks the mills and about 80 billion logs. The universal uniform is jeans and a baseball/cowboy hat. At 15,000 people, this is a big town. But the folks here sure are friendly...

...take, for example, the guy William and I met today. Let's call him "Crazy Redneck".

Following our entertaining meeting with the CCC regional team, William and I sat chatting outside the hotel, which comes conveniently with an attached restaurant, Carmen's, and a "Cold Beer and Wine Store".

A truck pulls up and out staggers a 30-something guy, reeking of beer and carrying two un-sheathed, evil-looking hunting knives, a grindstone and a bag of dark somethings. It's 2.3opm. He mumbles: "Yup, cigarette. Good idea" and then sits down on the bench and proceeds to burble at us. He's absolutely, unapologetically wankered. He does not care for our silly big-city "debriefing" bollocks. He wants to chat and slump at us.

And he's got two knives, so he wins.

He mumbles something about being on time. "To do what?" I ask. Of course, it's a TREMENDOUS idea to engage a pissed-up redneck with two knives in a full conversation.
"Whatever Pat tells me to do," he says.
"Who's Pat?" I ask.
"You don't know Pat?" he shoots back, disgusted.
"Erm, no, we just got here. We're tourists". William and I point to our suitcases, which we're not sure he's acknowledged. Along with the date, the year, his name or anything else that might be pertinent.
"Oh," he snorts, and seems tickled by this. "I thought you guys worked here. It's my first day,"
"Doing what?"
"I'm the chef at the restaurant. I cook stuff".
OF COURSE YOU ARE, we think, and make a mental note not to eat at Carmen's. EVER.
"That's why I have this," he sort of slumps towards a large ziplock bag.
"What are they? Dried mushrooms?"
"Chipotles"
"Ah, of course."
"Yeah, my buddy just sent me 1200 lbs of them from Chiapas"
"1200lbs?"
"He owed me money so he paid me in chillies."
OF COURSE HE DID.
"So you now have 1200 lbs in your one-bedroom apartment?" William jokes.
He laughs. "Yeah, well, sort of."
"So what's your specialty? What sort of food do you like to cook?"
"Ummm, I really like doing Japanese and German stuff."
OF COURSE YOU DO.

William and I ate at Denny's instead.

Admittedly, the potential chipotle-sashimi-bratwurst special could have been enticing. But I have to live long enough to get the hell out of here. ;-)))

Frack me! Part Le Deux

Pity poor Canadian actor/Vanhoover native Alessandro Juliani, out for a morning stroll with his girlfriend, coffee in hand, ready to peruse the Trout Lake Farmer's Market in peace, when whom should accost him?

"You see that guy with the curly hair," Dan sez as I'm haggling for the last two pieces of The Iron Maiden's albacore tuna, "that's the dude who plays Felix Gaeta on Battlestar Galactica."

And she's off!

Mikala: Hello, I'm so sorry to bother you, but I just want to say (whispers) we're massive Battlestar fans.
Alessandro: (Beaming) Awesome! (Puts up a hand to high-five me, which I do).
M: Yeah, sorry about your X (plot spoiler not revealed for those who haven't caught up).
A: (Laughs)
M: You guys aren't still filming now are you?
A: Nope, it's over now. We're done for good.
M: Yeah, I know. Though I am waiting for Caprica, the new show. I actually met Michael Trucco here at George in Yaletown a year ago and managed to really embarrass myself by going all Comic-Con on him and telling him I'd be quite depressed when it all finished. Felt like SUCH a nerd.
A: Nawww, you guys aren't wearing costumes, you're not nerds! But be prepared to be depressed...
M: Yeah, I left my Spock ears at home and I'm not wearing my Klingon forehead pasty but anyway...although to redeem my geekiness I will say that..which episode was it, Dan?
Dan: "Season 3, Episode 4"
M: Yeah, that one. We were literally jumping off the sofa for that episode...oh shit, we really are nerds aren't we...I should really go...
A: (Laughs)
M: Anyway, probably best if we leave you to your market shop. Nice to meet you!

Dan to Mikala: "Battlestar guy said we weren't nerds, hurrah!"

And I thought that the most exciting thing at Trout Lake on a Saturday were the tomatoes...

:-)

Hot CHiPs

The Bear Necessities

It may have escaped your notice, but over 40% of Canada is covered in dense forest, full of cool Canadian things like chipmunks, beavers and, ah... grizzly bears. And so Mikala and I, not being the sorts who are deterred by the possibility of a gruesome death at the claws of a savage wild beast, decided to up sticks and spend a few nights "roughing it" out in the remote forests of Birkenhead Lake, just north of Whistler.

Unfortunately the most "extreme" bivouacking that we'd done was a few nights at the V2003 music festival, where the only thing we had to worry about being attacked by were crusty students too pissed up to find their own tent. Fortunately we had experienced Sherpas, in the form of Gregg & Anita, to show us the ropes. Anita can do the mating call of a caribou (I shit ye not) and Gregg is slightly French Canadian, which means he is genetically pre-disposed to enjoy chopping wood.


So, on a hot, sunny Friday evening we all bundled into the Gregg mobile, our camping gear wrapped in tarpaulins and lashed to the roof-rack like a big, blue burrito, and set sail for the great outdoors!

Birkenhead is usually three hours drive North of Vancouver. I say "usually" because this does not factor in some bell-end flipping his truck on the highway and consequently stopping traffic in both directions for an hour and a half (he emerged from the crash unscathed, by the way, so I can lay on the scorn guilt-free).


Whilst this was a minor inconvenience for our crew, the poor lady in the car in front had a wedding cake MADE ENTIRELY OF ICE CREAM to deliver. That'll learn her for deviating from the classic fruitcake. Anyway...

When we finally arrived at our site, a secluded little clearing, away from prying eyes, we set about making camp with great gusto. Unfortunately it was pitch black and I didn't have a torch; neither did I realise that we were missing a piece of the tent we'd borrowed. After about an hour of me mincing around like a twat, Gregg found the missing tent piece and our humble abode was swiftly erected. Anita cooked us up some Bison Smokies and much beer ensued as we munched our hot dogs and looked up in bewilderment at the beautiful night sky.

The next morning it pissed it down with rain.

And then it stopped and the sun came out.

And then it started raining again.

And then it stopped and the sun came out.

And then is started raining again.

And so on and so forth, for the entire bloody day.

What this meant was that we had to keep switching from combats and anoraks to shorts and flip-flops all day. I reckon we had more wardrobe changes than bloody Madonna.

Fortunately our stalwart Sherpas came well prepared with ropes, tarps and a handy-dandy canopy, so the rain was, at worst, a minor inconvenience. We even managed to sneak in a quick swim in the lake while the sun was out, the scenery around which was breathtaking.


Mikala, being the woodland freak that she is, managed to make a new friend:


That afternoon Gregg chopped wood, Anita made more awesome camp tucker and Mikala and I provided moral support while drinking beer and chilling out.


In the evening we snuggled round the camp fire and told mysterious tales of teen-angst and school embarrassment. Which I won't bore you all with... what goes on camp stays on camp, I'm afraid! After a warming mug of cocoa, complete with marshmallows we called it a day and retired to our tee-pees.

The next day was fairly uneventful.


We chilled out and enjoyed the majestic scenery one more time before striking camp and re-burritoing the Volvo before heading back to civilisation for a much needed shower.


We had survived our first foray into the great Canadian outdoors!