I think I saw you in an ice-cream parlour, drinking milk shakes cold and long, smiling and waving and looking so fine...

I heard telephones, opera houses, favourite melodies: 5 Seconds Family members
Linda Minor and L.C. Wayne aka Nick Cameron DJ at the recent Local 107.3fm
Fundrive Callahan's dance party. Photo by Brian Cleveland.

You may not immediately recognize the soul siblings pictured above from the monthly 5 Seconds photo parades, but they are two amongst the many without whom this series of spectacle would not have been made possible. In fact, in those very photos, you've been looking through the electric eye of the fellow on the right all this time...

It is fitting then, in putting the final nails in the coffin, that we do so not only on an out-of-body Halloween weekend this Saturday, October 29, but that we also wrap the Local 107.3fm Fundrive, campus radio being yet another of the ironically silent partners in this, our constant muse and the means to dissemination of counterculture in our fair Port City. We've lost great loves in Independent Pages and Ceilings before, and those are heartbreaking moments that leave true and genuine voids in a community.

You can call DJs the rest of this week and pledge your support to your Local programmers at 648-5925, and to your Local staff at 648-5667 and cfmh@unbsj.ca. These are your Local people, and oftentimes, they may even be you.

Most especially this weekend, we bid adieu to our main man, Adam Mowery, who leaves us for new city streets. Please enjoy a wonderful parting shot from Mr. Mowery's recent collaboration with local all-star Adam Kierstead, the live CHSR session They Won't Know Where We Are. Flanked by comrades Hospital Grade and Splooge, we Wooden Wives look forward to a final, epic performance with our fast friend. Our family stays together forever, but personally, I will miss having you stand in my living room whilst records and beer and words flow and swirl like all the world's milk and honey...

We may have further correspondence via these pages, but this weekend will certainly be our last dastardly dance. Please enjoy yet more exclusive audio captured by Mr. Corey Bonnevie (who you hear performing here with his group, Little You Little Me) and please go forth, occupy your own lives, and get your hands filthier in the dirtshit of your communities than you could ever have imagined possible.

Thank you from the pit of our hearts to the literally dozens of people who have collaborated and colluded over these past 5 months. Let this last one be for all the nobody and all the somebody people. Let this last one be for the airwaves.

Fin.

 AUDIO: The Strawmen - Sour And Vicious Man 

 AUDIO: Little You Little Me - Setting Sun 

 AUDIO: Little You Little Me - Read My Mind

In the immortal words of 5 Seconds sister and Tune In Tokyo growler Dawn Collins,
all you gotta do is put your foot in it and swing...

Remember remember impending November, or Don't mind me, I'm just hearing the screen door in every dollar bill that could kill me

Lawdy lawdy, look who's tardy. There have been a great many social gatherings and public smatterings and passings ons and things and happenings. As can be the case, much water has passed since last we met. As always, Mr. Nick Cameron galvanizes and we queue up and we remember nonetheless.

We sound on down to The Resource Centre for Teens this Saturday for All Age, and pledge allegiance next Saturday to the end of things as One. Join us won't you, before the next Hallowed Eve and the end of We.

Host: I took the law and threw it away, 'cause there's nothing wrong.
Hostess: It's just for play

Wooden Wives. Wake up in the morning,
fold hands, pray for rain.

The Strawmen. Bedroom window made out of bricks.

Little you little me. Little me little you.
[At left, Chief Engineer.]

Kelley Consolvo and Shawna Waterall.
Two projectors. Two Projectors.

Good night sweet heart, it is time to go...

My little Cop Shades, or Shitting does not a sensible children's lyric make.

Cop Shades strut, shit ponies. Nick Cameron photo.

AUDIO: Cop Shades - I Shit Ponies

Joe Strummer's pre-Clash squat boogie outfit The 101ers were the game to beat in London in their day. As Joe and co. were sat watching their opening act on this particular night, reactions in the band were polarized. Most of the group saw something brutish, a yowling distortion of pub rock, an amateurish Stones pastiche at best. What Joe saw though was the writing on the wall, the numbered days for the old guard, and an exciting redefinition of rock & roll counterculture set to a brazenly unrefined caterwaul.

They were watching the Sex Pistols, and take a wild guess at which camp in the 101ers had the prescience of foresight?*

In any event, these are the types of paradigm shifting experiences I have had repeatedly seeing Moncton's Peter Parkers, who are belatedly represented here by preponderant frontman Remi Cormier, though Remi comes to us sporting Cop Shades these days.

The Parkers were transformative for me each and every time. They were a multi-headed beast, arguably a whole group of front-people, a synergous outfit in the classic sense with Remi as ringleader. They were absolutely epic, constructing squalling obelisks and impermeable walls, and often vacating those rapturous electric confines to explore vast serenities and almost silent soundscapes. Best of all, they were local, so no big city mythos required. My new pals from Moncton were the alchemists who concocted this collision of rock and the avant-garde, delivered as though every moment impossibly meant more than the last.

Most importantly, what in the world would ever keep anybody, myself included, from wanting to be in a band this fucking good? Any willing person can do this.

Today The Peter Parkers are a more ephemeral property, their split atomic structure survived by a sort of separation of Ego and Id, or more specifically, of Colonial Quarrels and Cop Shades respectively. Where Colonial Quarrels carry on the Parkers watercolour and delicacy however, Cop Shades are the stuff of their distilled dark, bodily chaos factor and sonic thrust.

This is essentially what I was telling Remi in the pic to your right, but I have no doubt it was something more along the slurry lines of, "I love your bands man. Man, I love your bands."

But I really do.

Remi and the Parkers were of a caliber that establishes a high water mark. You could carry on as you were and be good and fine and that's just plain nice, or you could aspire to taking your own music, and whatever form or function that music occupied, to the level. The only thing to restrict you in this is your own thinking, and if you failed, it was only because you failed, simply put.

The army does not own Be All You Can Be, you do. When you want to be better, you just have to do better. The Parkers were that good by execution alone, and I'll be damned if you'll ever find a better doom boogie dance party than Cop Shades. Enjoy this exclusive live track, I Shit Ponies, compliments of Corey Bonnevie. Buy their Hamburger Tapes live album if you dare.

Destroy the dancefloors of shortsightedness and bust the fecundating moves of freedom. It's always your turn, citizens. Can you do any less?

*Similar sea changing stories abound, like the time The Beatles removed the upstart Kinks from a revue tour for upstaging them, only to replace them with another young Shepherd's Bush R&B band, The High Numbers (soon after rechristened as the even worse 'Orrible 'Oo, or The Who, for those not in the nicknamey know).

From here to eternity, or The Wayouts, the truth and the eleventh hour lifestyle.

The Party Wrangling Wayouts. Photo by Nick Cameron.

AUDIO: The Wayouts - Let The Right One In

And the marathon goes ever on.

Stopping to catch our breath, dig this exclusive live track Let The Right One In, from one of the Port City's latest hitmakers and party bakers, The Wayouts. Recorded by series engineer Corey Bonnevie, Corey will be on the business end of the pistol this September 17 as he performs with another hot on the track gang, Tunnels, featuring folks from both The Telecasts and Riot River, which would seem to me to be a rather inspired kinda chemistry. Match that with The Strawmen's nervy death knell of country & western and your hosts, the wayward Wooden Wives.

In fact, the denouement of the series is upon us, and this coming penultimate chapter also anchors the  finale gauntlet. It starts as soon as this Sunday at the Queen Square Farmers Market, where you can find on the North side of the park Third Space Gallery's Bizarre Bazaar, which will feature local works by Amy Ash, Sara Griffin, Alison Gayton and more, along with screen printing (bring yr tees!) and a Hamburger Records merch table.

Zounds, let's cut to the chase and dig this itinerary style kids:

September 11 Third Space Gallery Bizzare Bazaar w/Hamburger Tapes at Queen Square Farmers Market, 8:30am-2pm
September 16 Motion Ensemble at Third Space Gallery's Market Square location wrap-party, 8pm
September 17 TWO w/Wooden Wives, The Strawmen and Tunnels at Peppers Pub, 11pm
September 20 Julie Doiron, Moonsocket and Construction & Destruction at Peppers Pub, 10pm
October 22 Reversing Falls, Wooden Wives, Adam & The Amethysts at Teen Resource Centre, 6pm
TBA ONE

Watch also for audio from Cop Shades and Wooden Wives over the course of the next week, always hopelessly leading us down that garden path of iniquity. Eat that fruit, kids.

Three's company, or With a science project this cool, the sun shines on you 24 hours a day.

And lo, the wooly, booly week did whitewash woesome words, whilst big pictures went down in small flames and precious gestures, and thus we offer this photogrifice on our fair electric altar. Stay tuned for more from your 5 Seconds Familyhood, and in the meantime dig these images below (compliments of Mr. Nick Cameron, both on Facebook and Flickr) and sounds (compliments of Mr. Corey Bonnevie and We Wives).

AUDIO: Wooden Wives - Subdural Hematoma

AUDIO: Wooden Wives - Fuckin' Up Love

Brace yourself for the next coming spectacle, The Fall of Five...

Three. Victory. Three.

Wooden Wives. Bedlam. Electric sweat.

Cop Shades. Sunglasses. At night.

The Wayouts. Bring. The party.

Scenemakers. Amy Ash. D'Arcy Wilson

Birthday Boy. Poster Girl. Where it's at.

Three. Victory. Three

I've given you a decision to make, things to lose, things to take. Just as she's about ready to cut it up, she says...

Gather round you children for a story about a brother and a sister and a tape, and dig this exclusive
audio compliments of your 5 Seconds Familyhood, featuring Adam Mowery and His Giants of Industry
piledriving through Violent Femmes' Add It Up. Audio by Corey Bonnevie. Photo by Nick Cameron.

AUDIO: Adam Mowery & His Giants of Industry - Add It Up 

He was a scoundrel merchant, I was heathenous clergy, or maybe it was the other way around. Regardless, it was Kinks at first sight. Ladies and gents, put your big hands together for your pal and mine, Mr. Adam Mowery;

Is there an album that sounds better when you’re 14 than the Violent Femmes’ self-titled debut? To me, there wasn’t.  I guess there musta been somethin’ in the air that summer in Wisconsin, 29 years ago, some kinda weird pent up youthful energy that the recordings capture beautifully, which makes Violent Femmes an enduring classic even today.  

The first copy of Violent Femmes I ever had was a tape that I swiped from my older sister at the age of 12. She woulda been about 16 at the time, which in my opinion is an ideal age for delving into the Femmes. As soon as I heard it, I knew I loved the sound of that Femmes record.  The reckless jangle of Gordan Gano’s acoustic guitar, Brian Ritchie’s sturdy, hook ladened acoustic bass lines, and the snap and crack of Victor DeLorenzo’s make shift drum-kit, comprised of garbage lids and other slim tin, do-dads. The band’s gear was trash. Literally. 

Groups on MuchMusic  at the time (mid-nineties), mostly sludgy alt-rock also-rans, dressed and acted like they just didn’t give a fuck, yet posed with big shit-eating grins next to shiny, expensive amps  in glossy guitar monthlies. One listen to “Kiss Off,” or “To the Kill,” and you can be sure the Femmes didn’t give a fuck, and when they recorded that album, they didn’t really have anything to lose. 

As for the songs, the lyrical content mostly consisted of snide, even confrontational, first-person rantings on loneliness, frustration, and the suffocation of family ties, all sung in an affected but youthful, nasally, scat-brat bluster. Like Lou Reed must have sounded in the summer before high school (and electro-shock therapy).  

Gano’s unsettling takes on familial relations, epitomized in songs like “Gone Daddy Gone,” “Kiss Off,” and “Add It Up” (the track covered here), dissect conventional domestic roles from the perspective of the angsty, attention craving, child. Part of the record’s effectiveness likely stems from the fact that the tracks were recorded when Gano had just turned 19, having written the songs years earlier and performed them hundreds of times by this point, busking with the Femmes in the streets of Milwaukee.  When my first group, the Port City All-stars, began gigging around Saint John acoustically on street corners and in Arts Centers, it was the Femmes who provided the palate or prototype, right down to the oversized acoustic bass.  

As soon as I heard it, I knew I loved the sound of that Femmes record.
The reckless jangle ... The band’s gear was trash. Literally.

2 years after I lifted that tape from my older sister, I borrowed a copy of the Femmes retrospective, Add It Up (1981-1993), from my friend’s older brother.  I quickly realized that the first copy of Violent Femmes I had was actually quite a bit slower that than it should have been. Who knows what happened exactly, but somewhere along the line of dubbing and cassette copying my sister’s version lost its tempo and punch. Now, hearing the tracks at proper speed, I realized the frantic energy of that debut album and became hooked for life.  Y’know its kinda funny that an album so harsh, and critical of conventional familial relations, has retained its appeal over the years mostly from being passed down and around by brothers and sisters. In fact, that’s the only way to explain how Violent Femmes went Platinum eight years after its initial release. 

Regardless, this cover of “Add It Up” with the Giants of Industry was a lot of fun to prepare and perform (as you can probably tell, I’m a bit of a Violent Femmes fan)! I hope you find the time to visit the 5 Seconds of Decision family, brothers and sisters armed with bright lights and big sounds, this Friday August 19 at Peppers on the Boardwalk. The excellent Cop Shades are performing and they have a new cassette out on the mighty Hamburger Tapes.  

Let me go on...

Adam Mowery

Rolling back home to the Golden Ball, drunk on a city Three Sisters tall, singin' one thousand songs...

AUDIO: Adam Mowery & His Giants of Industry - Three Sisters

We offer fleeting words today children to accompany two totems to our dwindling electric endgame. Firstly, feast your eyes on Mr. Geordan Moore's fowl is fair artist's variant on this Friday night's flight of fancy, featuring Wooden Wives, The Wayouts and the release of another tawdry Hamburger Tape, this time from Moncton's Cop Shades. Please visit Geordan's website WhoStoleMyBike.com, for more pulp and poster art, and watch for screen prints for sale at upcoming 5 Seconds and Third Space gallery events.

We also place upon the altar another exclusive recording from last month's serialized spectacular, compliments of Corey Bonnevie, this time featuring Adam Mowery and His Giants of Industry with local hit-with-a-bullet, Three Sisters, featuring the good Mr. Mowery on acoustic guitar, Pierre Cormier on drums and yours truly, Mr. Judson Crandall on the tip tapping trap.

Watch this space Wednesday morning for more (What?! More?! In a mere 24 hours? YES!!) live music from the inimitable Mr. Mowery, both a cover version and reflections from the man himself on a formative favourite of his own, the Violent Femmes.