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.

I know we are not two ships passing in the night.

There's a riot goin' on and it’s all appropriately set to the tune of NS’s own Construction & Destruction,
featuring audio recorded by Mr. Corey Bonnevie at the recent instalment of our 5 Seconds Of Decision
series at Peppers Pub on July 23, 2011. Photo by Nick Cameron.

AUDIO: Construction & Destruction - Nine Houses

I suppose one might also call this posting Creative Violence Pt. 2, but I like the prescient sense of connectedness in that Construction & Destruction lyric myself. At any rate, for all intents and purposes there were two intimately entangled yet worlds apart riots taking place across England last week.

The popular kids' riot featured your friendly neighbourhood hooligan opportunists, puppeting themselves in a display of the worst social theatre, mainstream media coverage constructing and capitalizing on the banality of pillaging, practically encouraging them along. The now infamous Darcus Howe BBC interview is a perfect illustration of the systemic disregard that has only contributed to the fertilization of tensions. Watch that above link to the end; the juxtaposition of  the riots' effects on the world of sports is a nice patronizing touch Beebs.

 

Simultaneous to this and stemming from the genuine impetus for Tottenham's initial conflict, the murder by police of Mark Duggan during an arrest gone awry, these riots have an ancestry. Spreading quickly throughout Linton Kwesi Johnson’s Bitch Inglan following escalation from Saturday's peaceful local demonstration, the more potent purposes for these riots are not being completely lost in the knee-jerk villainizing. This is the latest offspring in a genealogy going back decades, to Notting Hill in ’76*, Tottenham itself in ‘85, demonstrations by and against the National Front, Inglan’s immigrant and marginalized communities continuing to be caught in the crossfire all that time.

Penny Red writes, "Riots are about power, and they are about catharsis." Both groups above are arguably exorcising the means of power and catharsis in their action, know it or not as Penny admits, however I would add a desperately important third qualifier to her position: purpose, principle. With great power comes great responsibility and all that**, and the public can wield a great and just power for seismic change when such times arise. The tragicomedy of public violence without purpose or principle might ignite the politics of a burning a nearly century-and-a-half old family business in the observant minds of some, but for most it will only validate the very caricature that such rioters themselves adopt in doing so.

Ensuring some principle in one's actions, some purpose to create something new and to spin some kind of social narrative, is imperative in justifying the severity of public violence. To leave this element of accountability out of the equation only undermines any constructive consequences such a destructive display of power and catharsis can bring about.

And whatta solid gold segue into Construction and Destruction, eh?

David Trenaman and the Big Bad Wolf,
compliments of Gillian Dykeman and
Shawna Waterall. Photo by Nick Cameron.

I have no extensive personal history with the dynamic duo from Port Greville to draw upon as I do with Mr. Chenier (although having met them I can say they're both real swell folk!), but I have enjoyed in recent years ongoing revelations of their strange performances and stranger records. Chugging, crawling, cascading, cradling, Colleen and Dave conscript musics from an impossible democracy of dirges designed for delicacy and/or dredging depths as desired.

I also just kinda really like how their songs swear pretty much any old time they fucking like.

But really kids, the music is just really rare junk and treasure, which I think you'll find right here with this live recording of Nine Houses. You got Colleen on drums and vocals, you got Dave on the axe, and you got a time, muscling up this already sinister number from 2009's Video et Taceo.

Stay tuned right here in mere days, not only for two - count 'em, two! - tracks, but also sage utterings from Mr. Adam Mowery himself, in the next exciting blogstallment, coming soon compliments of yer friendly neighbourhood 5 Seconds Familyhood.

*Before cannibalizing the band years later, Bernie Rhodes told The Clash to write what they know, so when the West Indies community's Notting Hill Carnival they were attending erupted in violence, they documented the event in the song White Riot, urging for a multiracial uprising with the same will to action they saw there. Photography from the riots is on display behind the band in the linked video, also having been used on the rear of their debut. Another is used for the cover of Black Market Clash. Police and Thieves was a contemporary, topical reggae single from Junior Murvin and Lee Perry which they hesitated to cover for fear of sounding 'naff', a term then applied to white blues singers, but they were well received. Strummer said it was as if they had brought their own records to the party.

** Geez Steve, ya drew the webs backwards.

Troy sings, "Follow me, baby," and the boys and girls all go, "Doo, doo doo, doo doo, doo doo doo..."

Troy Charles Chenier (2nd from right) and co. perform at Peppers Pub, July 23, 2011 as part of FOUR,
counting down our fair 5 Seconds of Decision. Audio recorded by Corey Bonnevie. Photo by Nick Cameron.

AUDIO: Troy Charles Chenier - Stoppin' In

So poor ol' Vincent Gallo is retiring his rather precious films from the public eye, if we are to believe the enigmatic auteur's recent declaration to this effect.

[Note: In light of rioting in the UK, this all seems painfully trite this morning, but celebrity certainly affords people the comfort to do aesthetically audacious yet relatively meaningless things with great safety. Rioting is a much more seismic and complex act already familiar to these pages, and is something we'll likely be discussing later this week...]

No doubt eliciting a range of responses amongst the filmic masses, from rolled eyes to gnashed teeth, the infamous director continues to baffle and entertain, even if arguably indulging in little more than a bout of temporary bathos. The greatest thing about this announcement however is his eagerness to not participate.

Now waitasecond, I thought all this 5 Seconds Familyhood business was all about participation? Well, yes, it is, but more importantly we are all about agency and the will to act. Announcements such as this, however you might interpret it within your own thinking, are if nothing else refreshing when placed alongside the conga line of shills and cuckolds of commercial oligarchy, especially within the hyper-magnified mis en scene of celebrity.

The devil director made me do it.

Too often, celebrity agency and authenticity are rare things to behold, apparently even requiring quasi-legal action to facilitate, as was the case recently when Julia Roberts' airbrushed maw was thankfully banned by watchdogs in the UK due to the inherent deceit of mass advertising, not to mention her own hubris. Personally, I jockey between stifling a laugh and holding back my lunch when I hear tell of celebs bemoaning their scrutinized lot on one hand, while enthusiastically pouting and posing for the camera on the other. The only thing that makes it all the more embarrassing is when such celeb fiction befalls the pups shamelessly nipping at the likes of Robert's heels (here's looking at you Courtney Taylor-Taylor*).

Sometimes it feels as if celebs are actually intentionally illustrating Marxist estrangement, but that would only make them somehow interesting. Hell, it even happens to folks right here at home, if you can imagine. It's like some kitchen sink Sisyphus, but instead of mythos it's just your trendy neighbour. How fucking sad is that, huh?

So it is with great pleasure that we share the above Soundcloud posting with you, the 5 Seconds Family Massives, the first recorded nectar of such agency, the morning dew precipitating a wellspring of audio liquid rushing soon to fill a pair of ears near and dear to you (yours, of course!), in this case celebrating one of my own local heroes (and I say that with the straightest of faces), Mr. Troy Charles Chenier.

From the glitchwerk desk of jeTprojecTlabs.

For as long as I can recall seriously playing music, Troy has proven himself nothing short of innovative, ingenious even. My first exposure to Troy being his anti-pop trio Jet, I soon learned that music was a subjective experience when filtered through the mind of Troy. Over the years, I watched Troy evolve through numerous personas and projects: the glitchwerk door-slamming-sampling of jeTprojecTlabs, the electro-shapelessness of The Weird Guy, the quiet campfire serenity of T. LeChe, the avant-stoner enormity of Stabby Dancers and, most recently, the improvisational narratives of The Way Down.

Even the posted track, Stoppin' In, a longtime dreamy refuge in Troy's repertoire, flared up at his sudden behest as this snappin' little toe-tapper.

Troy has always represented a bastion of agency and musical bravery in Saint John, ever pursuing some unknown muse, often to the utter confusion of those watching agape, but knowing it or not at the time, absolutely always to their benefit. I was terribly lucky to have the opportunity to perform with him at this show (playing a typewriter no less!), and from inception there was a clear need to feature him in this series. Please enjoy this track, also featuring local talents of Luc Gagnon, Anthony Debly and Matt Benoit, recorded live at Peppers Pub July 23 at FOUR, the most recent 5 Seconds of Decision event.

Look for more audio in the coming days and weeks with compliments to Mr. Corey Bonnevie, as we upload music from Construction & Destruction and Adam Mowery leading up to our next ever descending display of dynamic electric spectacle, at THREE this Friday, August 19, featuring Moncton's Cop Shades, locals The Wayouts and the return of yer erstwhile hosts, Wooden Wives.

*I will, without fail, eternally respect those who ritually sabotage themselves whilst maintaining some tragic sense of integrity, over those who overextend and out their corporate selves reaching for the low hanging fruit of success. For all its faults, the film DIG!, featuring the unfolding rivalry between Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols, is a grand if flawed exploration of such dichotomy.

And the shutter goes click...

Ladies and gents, in preparing a posting featuring the audio of Mr. Troy Charles Chenier from 5 Seconds installment FOUR, I realized we had not yet even shared the wonderful photography of Mr. Nick Cameron from the very night in question!

How uncouth! How morbidly long overdue! And yet, how much better late than never! Watch this space for audio from Troy, Construction & Destruction and Adam Mowery in the coming days, and in the meantime, find all of the below gems and more in Mr. Cameron's Facebook photo album...

Adam Mowery and His Giants of Industry.

Construction & Destruction.

Troy Charles Chenier.

Scene Maker Crew I: Zale Burley & Nick Cameron (aka, the photographer and therefore not pictured),
with 5 Seconds Family Sister Linda Minor looking on.

Scene Maker Crew II: Gillian Dykeman & Shawna Waterall.

The Host With The Most, Mr. Mike Landry.

Four: The End...

Clever title connecting themes of populism, collaboration and many-headed beasts, to a glorified pile of links. Probably some kind of pun.

Little dawgies, there've been a few moons over the open range since last we spoke, and good land, there has been much afoot. We are staring into the chasm of FOUR, the second installment of 5 Seconds of Decision: Summer Love-In 2, counting down to ONE this Halloween.

That's a lot of math up there, huh?

Rather, all those names and numbers reflect the many-headed nature of the series, as we discussed last posting with regards to you folks in the audience. We have multiple points of reference for a multitude of participants. This nameless yet many-named, shapeless yet oddly categorical, serialized electric spectacle is like Revelation's leviathan, rising from the deep of our fair Port City, gate keeping the underworld, representing legion. Theological implications aside, it's all about the decentralization, yo.

What you see above is another wonderful element of our liquidity, the first in our artists' variant posters, which we'll feature each month compliments of our kin-folk at Third Space Gallery. Created by local dynamos Amy Ash and Gillian Dykeman, we will be featuring work from Geordan Moore in the future, among others. We will also be offering screen printing and more original mobile art to go for each work.

More multiplicity comes to us through yet more Third Space activity. Tuesday, July 26 will feature a Third Space Heel Burner Dance Party at Callahan's Pub, featuring music spun by Sir Lord Bobby Babylon (aka this hack writer), along with Adam Mowery and perhaps more 5 Seconds Folk. You can also visit the new Third Space location just inside the main entrance to Market Square Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, from 10am to 1pm, for members' work, workshops, artists' talks and, in late August, the Bizarre Bazaar, which we'll be flying our banner as a part of.

But of course, the main event on the docket right this minute is this FOUR business, taking place this Saturday at Peppers Pub. You've got all the goods from our various images and resources, so now it's up to you to do something with it. Please join our ranks and come celebrate the release of Mr. Adam Mowery's epic new retrospective on Hamburger Tapes, 4 Track Mind, the visitation of one of Eastern Canada's most creative compactors of lo-fi avant-garde pop detruis, Construction and Destruction, and a rare performance by the Port City's own architect of impressionist folk, Troy Chenier. You can also tune in to Local 107.3fm this Saturday from 1-3pm to catch the rebroadcast of the Wednesday Morning Mash-Up, featuring an interview with Construction and Destruction's David Trenaman in the latter half of the program.

Audio visual feats and a veritable East Coast avant-psyche-rock & roll market will be present and in full effect compliments of the 5 Seconds Family Unit, and all are welcome within our evening's hallowed halls to add to our numbers...

"I quit my job because the idea burrowed into my mind that, on the long list of things I could be doing, television news is not the best use of my short life."

Ladies and gents, the 5 Seconds Of Decision family will be meeting up at 8pm on on Tuesday, July 12 at Callahan's Pub to kick planning into high gear for the coming next installment of our fair Port City's ongoing electric spectacle of the same name. The event will take place Saturday, July 23 at Pepper's Pub, and will feature the release of a new record from Adam Mowery with Hamburger Tapes, as he performs with his Giants of Industry. Also in cahoots are Port Greville, NS's lavishly lo-fi duo Construction & Destruction (pictured above) and creative wellspring Troy Charles Chenier (the brain behind local wonders Jet, jeTprojecTlabs, Broken Boy, Mimic, The Weird Guy, Stabby Dancers and more), not to mention our partners, CultureHub.ca, Third Space Gallery and more, who will bring their own fruits to bear, including new 5 Seconds recording engineer Corey Bonnevie.

As has been discussed on this blog and elsewhere with regards to this event, we want to transform concepts of club culture, public perceptions of music and entertainment, the public's (realized or unrealized) fundamental participation therein, and generally explode the idea of concert performance and leisure into something much more subversive, playful and exciting through blurring distinction between the content and vessel of spectacle. We want you, the audience to take ownership of your role as the actual chief architects of public happenings through your very presence within such situations. You are the impetus kids. You are the heartbeat within any framework. You are the stuff dreams are made and all other nitwit hyperbole you like. We are relying upon you...

In the meantime, please enjoy this wonderful testimonial from yet another seemingly kindred spirit, CTV's Quebec City Bureau Chief, Kai Nagata (right), who recently resigned his position in an effort simply to take the reins of his own life and thought, and to take ownership over his own means of production, of his own ends, of whatever context you want to see one's personal actions in. The bottom line is, here is a person who has taken great responsibility upon himself purely by choosing to be honest with himself, which is a wonderful gesture. That he has openly shared these thoughts is something to be relished and appreciated.

In response to feedback on his initial posting, which quickly went viral, he writes:

"I had two very simple motives. I felt I owed it to the colleagues I would be leaving to explain my decision. And I needed to save my energy for driving, rather than telling the story to each and every friend and family member over the phone. When I was done digging a shallow grave for my TV career, I swung my pickaxe and stuck it in the ground. Then I sat down to rest.

"When I took my eyes off the horizon and looked down at the ground, I realized something was seeping out around the blade of the pickaxe. A tiny bit of sweet, clear water trickled out over the rocks. But it didn't dry up, like I thought. Now there's a little spring gurgling along, winding its way through the dust, carving a little channel as it goes along. It tastes amazing."

Watch this space soon for announcements on the next installment on July 23rd, new additions to the 5 Seconds family, and much more.

We have swung our own axe. We have rested. We now have work to do and play to indulge in. Please join us as creators, as artists, as audiences. The single most important thing however is simply that: Please join us.

"Suppose I smash your face in and slit your nostrils with this, right? Well if you don’t learn anything from it, then it’s not worth it, right?"

Creative violence.

In typically tragic-Clash fashion, this was one of their early mandate-defining slogans. It was offered with the best of quasi-tough-guy intentions; three quarters of the band came from an art school background, with bassist Paul Simonon in particular, who coined both it and the band’s namesake, showing great savvy in his own design and sartorial sensibilities. Hinged as it was upon such posturing and jargon, The Clash was a constantly fermenting idea of what a band might be as much as it was an actual working band. As such, the idea was that acts of such guile or impact as could be called violent – or broadening our etymology, in violation – could serve creative, positive purposes over destructive ones (even there was some form of destruction involved).

Marcus Gray is hilariously succinct on the subject in his bio The Last Gang In Town, quoting a presumably knife wielding young Strummer:

“‘Suppose I smash your face in and slit your nostrils with this, right? Well if you don’t learn anything from it, then it’s not worth it, right? But suppose some guy comes up to me and tries to put one over one me, right? And I smash his face up and he learns something from it. Well, in a sense, that’s creative violence.’ And in another sense, it’s almost unbelievably stupid.”

As an aside, I love how earnestly and enthusiastically uncouth the early Clash are.

While clumsy at times in their efforts to cut a brutish front, the germ of the idea is compelling, coming especially as it does from the mouths of a pop group, which punk bands were taken as in England. It reflects the “spirit of invention” that Georges Sorel sought to instill in his readers, in celebrating a potential for proletarian violence. Strummer’s thuggish caricature has an odd clarity however, speaking to violence for, well, I suppose discursive and educative purposes as opposed to those of aggression or personal gain. As noted, why not broaden this to include a variety of public violation, unrest or disruption? Why not demonstrations? Vandalism? Performance or street art? Mischief and the disposal of mores? Perhaps Ms. Brigette DePape and her “Stop Harper” stunt should qualify as a phenomenal act of creative violence considering its sheer gall.

Which is exactly why the kids out in Van City have done nothing more than commit a sadly pedestrian act of civic pornography by rioting after the weekend’s Stanley Cup finale. No remotely creative element was visible in any of the images, texts, status updates or news on the subject. What I saw instead was a carnivalesque and predominantly male display of predation, homophobia, misogyny, hubris, celebrity and wantonness. I realize that sports riots are hardly a new phenomenon by any stretch*, but trending does not equal legitimacy. It is good that there is conversation arising from this, especially following hot on the heels of contemporary uprisings as Egypt’s recent ejection of Hosni Mubarak’s three decade presidency or the lack of a measurable public response to the election of the recent Conservative Majority.

I am hardly suggesting that May 3^rd should have cast a smouldering sunrise across a newly revolutionized Canada, or even that such a thing should come to pass on any sizable scale. In fact, I tend to imagine such an incident as The Last Poets did back in 1970 when they released the above track "When The Revolution Comes," a terrible and catastrophic event, and something which the smug villains of Vancouver would seem to take wholly for granted.

Instead I’ll keep my lot with folks like Ms. DePape or the fellow recently dubbed the Banksy of Bulgaria. During the wee small hours in the morning of June 17, an artist to whom someone has given an unfortunately lazy nickname, transformed a host of Red Army soldiers into a testament to the ubiquitous banality of America, inscribed with the message “Moving with the times”: Superman, Captain American, Ronald McDonald, etc., rebutting a longtime state imposed monolith in a way that is substantive, direct, harmless and clever. The act is steeped in what I would argue Strummer, Simonon and co.’s genuine intentions were behind this particular slogan.**

So void are acts like that of Vancouver’s sports fans of any sagacity that there is fundamentally nothing to be gained and no room for dialogue other than weak apologies. There was no seed of invention in slavishly reconstructing familiar images or scenes of protest. There is no just cause for this event to give meaning to fighting and fucking in the streets.

There is no kind of emotional resonance here, no artful defiance or social design, no decisive purpose in this whole wasted gesture. It is not romantic and it squanders the severity of public violence. It is politically impotent; a flash failure of self-control, an act of power, vanity and opportunity, a pornographic reflection of what a public uprising might be, a profoundly empty vessel.

*Personally, I love the one where Italian weekly Il Male caused a riot and three hour traffic jam in downtown Rome when they ran a cover deliberately mimicking a popular sports daily, the highest circulating paper at the time, misreporting the outcome for a recent World Cup match. This was a then trend in leftist European magazines, comics and serials to provoke and mislead for a time during the late 1970's.

**These guys didn’t slit nostrils. Sure they had punch-ups, but they also went out for ice cream together and painted “I’m so bored with the USA” with their cones on the parlour windows. By the way, that's actually now three Clash anecdotes for those keeping score.

A Connexion Is Made or The Countdown to Decision

Great thanks to all our partners and everyone who was involved in both shows this past week, crews, volunteers, musicians, partners, et al. Wheels are already well in motion for the countdown to continue on to Four Seconds of Decision on July 23rd at Peppers Pub, which will feature Adam Mowery and His Giants of Industry, Construction and Destruction, and the man who wears the shoes of Troy Charles Chenier, in our evolving avant-rock lo-fi electric spectacle.

Keep your eyes peeled for more media, and in the meantime here is some footage from Thursday's Gallery Connexion show compliments of the gents in the Lee Harvey Oswalds (check out their Youtube channel here), which also featured the amazing Quivers, straight outta Hallifax with some very fine and sharp psychedelic punky R&B. And while we're on the subject, lest we not forget to give a rumbling swampy round of applause for Tune In Tokyo, as well as Third Space Gallery, CultureHub.ca, Swagger Studio and Local 107.3fm.

I also want to officially welcome Hamburger Tapes as a partner, after realizing that practically every show of the damn series features folks who are on the label. You can visit Hamburger online here, and you can purchase fine Hamburger cassettes right here. God love weird bleak lo-fi homemade Maritime music...

Stay tuned in all over kids...