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Hey dudes. It’s Mar from the Pacific-North West. Bringing you some cross-country Canadian flavour this time. I’ve done a bit of traveling the last month. I went all the way out to the East Coast of Canada to Halifax, Nova Scotia for the annual Pop Explosion and last week I made my way to Regina, Saskatchewan (the Queens city) and home of. well not a lot, for some flat Prairie time action.

The Halifax Pop Explosion (the title being a play on the historical event of the Halifax Explosion) is a 3-day music festival at all sorts of clubs in Maritime Canada’s biggest city. I got to go out with the CBC and broadcast live from there, which entitled me to a full pass for the event. So this is my story of all-night parties, lots of bands, and even more alcohol!

The first night was the “Pop” night at the Marquee. The evening started off with London, Ontario’s poppyer than pop kids The Weekend. I unfortunately missed there set completely because I was talking on the phone in my hotel room while mindlessly watching the first Survivor episode. can anyone say Geek! Anyway, I got there just as Les Sequelles had started there purely French garage rock ye ye sound! Wow, I love this band! They make me want to learn French! And seriously I am considering it. If I ever want to work in Montreal I’ll have to learn our “other” official language. Four years of high school French hasn’t really prepared me for much. I met Les Sequelles after the show and talked to them about Quebec Separatism for about an hour, turns out they’re “real” separatists! I’d never met any separatists before. being from the West Coast and all where the official language is more like Mandarin than French. It was interesting to hear the other side of things. For all you non-Canadians reading this, I’ll give you some background: Quebec is the French province in Canada and has been teetering back and forth on whether they would like to separate from the rest of Canada (which has a majority of English speakers). Ok, enough of the Social Studies lesson back to the show! Russian Futurists were well just 1 Futurist, as the whole band couldn’t afford to come out from Toronto. Main guy, Matt, took a 30 hour train ride out just to play this show! That’s dedication.

He delighted the audience with his quirky computer driven pop sounds. Not much of a live presence as he just sits at a computer but the music was good. Last but not least was headliners, The Heavy Blinkers who I actually missed due to the aforementioned “separatist talk”. What I could hear through the ceiling of the downstairs backstage sounded good. The rest of the night I can’t really remember because at this point I was fairly hammered. Halifax has cheap booze and their bars stay open ’til 4:00AM! How crazy is that?

Second night was a very Winnipeg centered nite. Actually the whole weekend kind of was. All my friends from Winnipeg had come out to play the festival, Duotang, Novillero, The Weakerthans, Projector, etc. I almost felt as though I was in Winnipeg. Mint recording artists and professional party-animals Duotang headlined the bar downstairs from the Marquee known as Hell. The show went off seamlessly until Rod forgot how to play one of their songs from their second album, which was actually quite funny. In the audience for this show was Much East VJ, Mike Campbell, who I’d only ever seen on TV representing the East Coast scene. He invited us all to a party back at his house after the show. When we got there his house was empty and everyone was in the backyard in a makeshift Tiki Bar stocked with plenty of cold ones and assorted liquors only your grandmother would drink. I had already consumed like 9 drinks back at the bar so I wasn’t really up to more drinking but more into making out, which I got to do with an old flame. Woo!

Completely hung over the next day I went to the afternoon zine fair to see the wonder that is the Weakerthans. The kids were so into them and it sounded great but I had to cut-out early to go to CBC to get ready for our LIVE broadcast which actually went really smoothly. Tonight was the big headliner night with Chicks on Speed from Germany playing. What can I say those “chicks” blew me away! Cool dance moves, all my fav songs, lots of beats, insane bubble-letter belts, and matching white pants made for an amazing show! Peaches followed with her raunch-rock, which was entertaining. Oh and I forgot to mention Novillero played as well earlier down in Hell. It was nice to see the pop lovers again since I’d only ever seen what is known as their “worst show ever”, in Vancouver a while back. Everyone’s flights were super early the next morning so Novillero and moi stayed up all night in my hotel room and went to the airport together where I ran into Chicks on Speed going through security. They took away my plastic toy switchblade comb, which made me sad, but at least we were safe. I slept for about an hour on the plane and then went to the Strokes show at the Commodore. I know how to live the rock’n’roll lifestyle.

HALLOWEEN NIGHT – October 31, 2001 my dear old friend Jeff Mcloy from the New Town Animals and his (then) girlfriend, Ingrid, had a unique wedding. Set in the dingy underground bar Ms. T’s known for it’s drag queens, punk shows, and leniency on Ids, the bar was transformed into a Wedding Chapel for the evening. Monster attire was required, so I went as Alice Cooper the most monstrous rock star. There was Halloween candies, a dance party, and grandmas dressed up as witches. The Justice of the Peace was Medusa, one of the witnesses had a knife sticking out of his head and blood all over, but the best of all was the bride and groom who were Wednesday from (Addams Family) and Pee Wee Herman. The actual vows were done in Klingon (Sp??) that Star Trek language and they had plaque cards held up with the English translation. It was very entertaining and I guess. ah. very romantic? The Smugglers played dressed as a mob of Skeletons, which I thought, resembled the bad guys in Karate Kid. Anyone remember that? The best costume prize went to Tom Selleck (Magnum PI era) who isn’t much of a monster but does look scary with all that hair! It was a great wedding and one of the best Halloween’s I’ve ever had. Congratulations Jeff and Ingrid and good luck with all the fun years of marriage ahead of you!

Next up my trip to Regina, Saskatchewan probably one of the ugliest towns in Canada. But hey I had fun despite the beauty of the place. Sloan were playing the night I flew in which was cool coz I got to see my buddy Jay. We went to Value Village and I got lots of good deals on winter jackets and old Canadian 45s. The show was at a bar which when full holds roughly 400 people but tonight wasn’t sold out which is weird for Sloan but maybe it had something to do with the $18 tix. Ouch! Expensive but not as expensive as the $25 Vancouver ones! Anyway, it was awesome for me because I could actually enjoy their set in a small bar atmosphere. They played all the hits and during their last song “Underwhelmed” I got dragged onstage to play bass and I made a fool of myself mucking it up! Oh well, no one knows me in Regina. Everyone in Sloan and their crew went out gambling after the show and lost lots of money, except for Jay and me being the nerdy responsible people we are, we watched TV.

The next day I went to work and ended up hanging out with movie star Kevin Polluck (Usual Suspects, A Few Good Men, etc). He was in town with the Just for Laughs comedy tour and all the comedians, backing band, crew, etc were staying at the same hotel as me. They put me and my friend, Zach, on their guest list and after the show we all went out partying at a bar where I ended up singing “God Save the Queen” (Sex Pistols version of course!) on stage. 2 nights in a row I embarrass myself! But it was fun never the less and then we were all on the same plane the next day to Calgary. One of the comedians who was on the Just for Laughs tour and is in that new Blockbuster commercial for DVDs declared I was “a shit-bag full of FUN”. Wow, I guess I’m really fun. Werd.

So that’s it. I’m back in Vancouver now for a while. no traveling plans in the immediate future except a brief Vancouver Island stint with my band The Ewoks for our record release. As it gets closer and closer to Christmas touring bands seem to come less and less but there is one really good show coming that everyone must see.

Dec 8 – (International) Noise Conspiracy, The Hives, and The Smugglers Everyone knows (I)NC are amazing but wait until you hear the Hives! Also from Sweden the Hives are my band of the year. They’re so good! I love them even though their manager supposedly writes all their songs for them. They are not to be missed and this is their first Vancouver date. So don’t miss out!

Ok, I’ll catch ya later. And everyone stay warm!

xoxo Marski