3am, a good hour.

...I've always been a nighthawk, a nightowl, a nightanimal. And I've always been fascinated by late night radio. It's always had a weird kind of mysterious, melancholy magical appeal to me. Even songs or genres of music in which I had no interest gained a strange kind of appeal, took on a certain emotion when I heard them in the late night/early morning hours. The DJ's on the nightshift sounding like they were talking to me from far far away, off in the darkness, yet intimately close. Ethereal, sinister, comforting, nostalgic are all words that come to mind thinking about it now.
     When I was twelve or thirteen I would listen to 640am and 680am as I went to sleep. I was naive to music then, and didn't care what the stations played(top 40 mostly). I just enjoyed the sounds of the radio in the quiet of the night.
     About the age of fifteen, having discovered Guns n Roses, Jimi Hendrix and The Doors, I began listening to the Overnight Show with the legendary Andy Frost on Q107. I'd sit in bed, in the dim glow of the light coming from the display panel of my stereo receiver and listen for hours every night. Songs by The Doors, Pink Floyd, Tom Petty and Bob Seeger took on a whole new power in those early hours. But the real treat was listening to Andy Frost and his deep baritone voice. Telling me stories and strange interesting facts about the songs and bands he played. Telling me what was coming up, just talking to me really. In those hours, in the warm darkness, it felt like only me and the radio exisited. I could picture the radiowaves travelling through the night sky, through space, across the sleeping world. And I can't describe how peaceful it made me feel. Listening to songs like The Crystal Ship, Radar Love, Breakdown, and Time in the dead of night,in that warm Toronto summertime air.
      Around the time I was seventeen or eighteen I began listening to late night radio on my walkmen. I remember finally trading in my old clunky black walkmen with the equaliser on the front, for a fancy silver superslim sony walkmen. I'd put in the ear buds late at night, round 2am or 3am and scan the channels for something interesting. I had discovered that if you scanned the edges of the dial a little bit, late at night when the world was quiet, you could find pirate radio broadcasts and obscure college radio broadcasts, that weren't on at other times. I was completely fascinated. I'd listen to dance music shows, hip hop shows, classical music shows, talk radio, it didn't matter. Good signal or weak fuzzy signal, that didn't really matter either. I was totally and completely under the spell of this beautiful secret world. I loved discovering weird music I'd never ever heard of before. Listening to people from a seemingly different world from mine discuss things I never understood or at least never knew the context of.
      Going down this road, it wasn't very long till I discovered what will probably always be my favourite radio show ever, the brilliant CBC radio 3 late night show, Brave New Waves. Tragically, since 2006, no longer on the air. When I first stumbled upon this show, hosted by the great Patti Schmidt, I never even understood what I was listening to. She'd play hours of music by artists from all over the world. Japan, Iceland, Sweden, France, England, Canada. Music I'd never ever heard in my life. Weird experimental noise, electronic soundscapes, obscure hip hop. Whatever genre she played, it was always cutting edge and experimental. Groundbreaking. It blew my mind open. I purposely started staying awake in bed even later just to listen to more of the show.
       A couple of years later when I was working as a security guard in a head office in west Toronto, quite often doing the midnight to eight shift, I'd relish the hours I spent in the main office, or in the gatehouse alone with the radio on. Still Brave New Waves every night. Quite often Patti Schmidt would take a whole section of a show and play the music of a single artist. It was in this way I discovered the music of Amon Tobin. Then known as Cujo. She played a selection of songs from his groundbreaking album Adventures in Foam and I was excited(It was about this time I became obsessed with the Ninja Tune label.). Not long after I heard Buck 65 in the same way. I'd only recently discovered his music, first through the song Pants on Fire, having watched an interview with him on the great Muchmusic television show Mucheast. During the interview Buck gave the interviewer a tour of a pants factory, directly afterwards Terry Mulligan played the video for Pants on fire and I was in awe. Hooked from the first line. I still am to this day. I immediately, the very next day after watching Mucheast, ran down to Rotate This and bought a copy of Man Overboard. Goddamn I was excited in that moment. I felt like I'd really discovered something. Anyway, it wasn't long afterwards, maybe a few months, half a year, that Patti Schmidt told me over the radio she was about to play a selection of Buck 65 songs. That really cemented it for me. Both my love for Buck 65 and Brave New Waves. I also first heard the Japanese mad geniuses the Boredoms on here too, but it would be many years later before I really understood what I'd been listening to in those late night hours.
       Finally, the last great late night radio show I remember listening to, in genuine excitement and anticipation, was Little Stevens Underground Garage, on Q107. A different kind of radio show to Brave New Waves in terms of the music it featured, but really very similar in terms of introducing me to music I'd never heard before. Music I drank up just as eagerly. He'd play, and actually I think he still does play, garage rock from the sixties and seventies, mixed with old soul and a few songs by new bands. He'd play obscure songs by Sam the Sham, The Zombies, The Kingsmen, and The Troggs, as well as new songs by bands like The Mooney Suzuki. But aside from the great music, the real treat in Little Stevens Underground Garage is "Little Steven" Van Zandt himself. The legendary guitar player for Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, the man is a fountain of musical knowledge and has a natural talent for storytelling,
       Unfortunately in recent years,I have (I am very sad to say) grossly neglected late night radio. For several reasons, travelling and the dawn of the digital music age being the two most obvious. I can't remember the last time I purposely stayed up till 4am just to listen to a great radio show, or to merely scan back and forth across the radio dial in search of the weird and the strange. The ever declining quality of radio programming in general hasn't helped either, it must be said.
     But anyway, somewhere in thinking about all this, an idea came to me. This was way back in September or October. One night I sat down at the computer about 12:30 or 1am and started compiling a mixtape, with the idea of late night radio in mind. I was thinking about the feelings I used to get from late night radio, and what kind of music I'd play if I had the opportunity to host a late night radio show. With each mixtape I tried to create the feelings one gets from listening to music at 3am. I thought about different situations, the comedown after a great house party, late night highway driving(another passion of mine, but we'll talk about that another time), working the night shift, sitting around with good friends, laying in bed with a girl, laying in bed by yourself.
     I've made five of these mixtapes so far, since October. And I've simply named the series Electronic Night Music. I don't have the technology or the knowledge required to actually put the tracks on this page for you to listen to, but I figured what the hell, I'll put the first mix in the series on here for you to take a look at, and if you want, you can search the songs down. I think the song names alone make interesting reading, but I'm weird like that. I'll put up the rest in the series over the next few weeks. Hope you enjoy.


Electronic Night Music: Vol. 1 (October 2nd, 2009, 3:20am)

1. Windowlicker - Aphex Twin
2. Cendre - Fennesz & Sakamoto
3. Sixtyniner - Boards of Canada
4. Radio Void - Chris & Cosey
5. Happy Ending - Manitoba
6. A Letter From Home - Ulrich Schnauss
7. 2/1 - Brian Eno
8. Radioaktivitat - Kraftwerk
9. Rhubarb - Aphex Twin
10. Electricity - The Avalanches
11. Last Night Over Norway - Funki Porcini
12. June 9th - Boards of Canada
13. Temple Bar - Chris and Cosey
14. Idioteque - Radiohead
15. Red Light - Tomas Jirku/Robin Judge
16. I Wish You Could Talk - Squarepusher
17. Gwely Mernans - Aphex Twin
18. We Have A Map Of The Piano - Mum
19. Understars II - Brian Eno
20. Dundas, Ontario - Manitoba
21. Aware - Fennesz & Sakamoto
22. Sprig - Emily Haines and the Soft Skeleton
23. Inside - Moby
24. K/Half noise - Mum

I also made a shorter version that would fit onto cd, this version has been reduced from 24 tracks, down to 13. And contains mostly instrumental songs. I aptly named this version Vol. 1.5 less vocal short version.






     
  

...

...been kind of productive recently. I got involved with this production company in town called Signal Films. Doing a bit of volunteer work and participating in a little film festival a couple of weekends ago. Did a workshop in Directing Actors for the Screen. Had a lot of fun and met a lot of cool people. Doing a Digital Art Workshop at the moment, playing around with Photoshop and Final Cut Pro and really enjoying myself. With those two programs alone, a whole new world has been opened up. The possibilities of what you could complete by yourself is staggering. I've been thinking a lot, looking at the environment around me in a different way. Brainstorming, thinking up ideas, makes me giddy like a child...
...I think things are finally on the move now. Plans are afoot and the wheels are starting to turn. We're leaving the wilderness,metaphorically speaking, just in time for spring. Its been a long winter...
...watched Irreversible for the first time since I saw the premier at the Toronto Film Festival in 2001, in the now, tragically, gone but never ever forgotten Uptown 1 cinema. It really is a staggering film. A brutal, unflinching, emotionally draining masterpiece, and a tour de force of technical filmmaking. Not for all tastes but definately worth the effort. Gaspar Noe is an astonishing filmmaker.
...I went to see scottish indie-rockers Idlewild perform Saturday. A decent concert is a rare thing in this town and they were fantastic. Even better than I expected. It's been a longtime since I saw a good old fashioned indie-rock show. Too long...
...and finally I caught a random episode of The Wire the other night. I go on about that show a lot on here but it really is the most satisfying television show I have ever seen. Every moment is the honest truth. And anybody interested in storytelling or television or life should sit down and watch it...
...oh and I'm really digging the new Massive Attack record Helgioland. Its incredible.

A little clarity.

Man, rereading some of the posts I've put on here makes me feel decidedly self-conscious. I think some times a lot of what I'm saying here comes out sounding contrived and cliched. Which is exactly the opposite of what I want.
      I need to clarify a couple of things. While I do believe our civilisation is in decline, I believe the world we live in is an amazing and beautiful place. I don't want to come off here as being too cynical, it doesn't do anyone any good and it's something I'm really trying to improve on.I hate cynicism. And even more,I hate preaching.The world has enough preaching cynics as it is. So if I do it, slap me.
     Also I don't want to compare this blog to art at all, in any shape or form. Not great art or bad art or anything. Let's face it. This is a blog. Nothing more glamorous than that. One of a million on the world wide web. This is simply a place for me to talk. To put ideas and other silly things like that.
     So hopefully, with a little more care and practice I can improve the language and make this sound a little less heavy handed.
     On the plus side, Canada performed wonderfully at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, culminating in a truly great moment last night when the Canadian Mens Hockey Team beat Team USA 3-2 in overtime to win Canada's fourteenth gold medal. The winning goal, assisted by Jerome Iginla and scored by Sydney Crosby will be remembered with the all-time great Canadian hockey moments.
     I would also like to congratulate the Canadian Women's Hockey Team on their gold medal, and for embodying everything that makes ice hockey great. Their skill on the ice and especially, their sportsmanship, are unparalleled.
     Oh, and St Kev, you are a champion.
 

World Issues and Stalker.

     I've been sat here in front of this computer thinking. I intended to write about the state of the world we live in. About celebrity worship. How celebrities are now becoming politicians and politicians are becoming celebrities. How overhyped empty stories about celebrity weddings and break ups have been given so much weight and importance they now overshadow vital world news. (I'm sure there was a devastating earthquake in Haiti recently...wasn't there?)
      I was gonna talk about the dumbing down of music and movies but that's nothing new. It's simply happening on a grander scale now. Thanks a lot George Lucas, James Cameron and reality television.
     I was gonna talk about the continuing reduction of human rights in the guise of national security and terrorist threats and the state of children today and the pope once again spewing hate on minorities and the precarious environmental state in which our world lies. About the damage political correctness has done to our society and blaw blaw blaw. But surely everyone already knows this? Or at least anyone who: can read/owns a television/or leaves the house.
     The world is a cesspit. A sewer. A wasteland. And people write about it all the time, ram it down our throats. And some people ignore it, and some despair, and others just don't care anymore. Either way, writing about it is becoming pointless,so I'm gonna stop.
     Thinking about this shit isn't doing me any good. Emotionally or physically. You want my advice: be media savvy, learn how to tell the truth from the lies, and turn off the goddamn news. That shit definately ain't doing anybody any good.
     Get outside, go for a walk. Appreciate the little moments. Now that I'm done not talking about the state of the world...
     I wanna tell ya about this great film I watched last night. A masterpiece by the late great Andrei Tarkovsky called Stalker, from 1979. It's an epic philosophical, existential, science fiction story set in an unknown time in an unnamed place in Russia. An industrial wasteland. All broken buildings and ruined earth, abandoned machines and pools of stagnant water, and fog and smoke everywhere. A good portion of the film is in black and white and looks absolutely gorgeous. It genuinely took my breath away when the film faded into the opening scene. Has a delapidated russian bar ever looked so good?
     The story goes like this: at some point a meteor has crashed to earth and somehow created an area called The Zone. In this zone is a room that can make your most secret wishes and desires come true. No one really knows what's real and what's not regarding the zone, the government initially sent in a group of soldiers to explore the area but they never returned. So they sent the police to fortify the area and build a fence around the zone to keep everyone out. We find out though that there are certain individuals called Stalkers who can safely enter and exit the mysterious Zone.
      The film opens in the house of one such Stalker, a man who gets paid to take people into the Zone, and to the room that grants your inner wishes. Through the course of the film we follow him as he meets two men, a writer and a scientist, leads them into the zone and guides them to the room. The film, up to the point the men enter the Zone is filmed in black and white, it switches to colour the moment they enter the Zone. The area outside the Zone seems to be made up entirely of abandoned factories, burned out automobiles, and dead streets. Inside the Zone we are shown glimpses of this world but most of it has been overgrown with grass and trees. We are told the path to the secret room is a perilous one. That they must navigate a kind of labyrinth and that failure to follow the Stalkers instructions will have grave consequences.
      Because of the locations Tarkovsky uses, his startling use of both black and white and colour, the long slow(often ten to fifteen minutes at a time) tracking shots, minimal dialogue and sparse music, combine with the lack of action on screen to create a film of mesmerizing intensity and beauty. We follow the characters through this empty dying world. A place that feels like some kind of purgatory. A world that is simultaneously a dream and a nightmare.
      Stalker is an allegory for mankinds dying wonder and growing cynicism. We see this mostly in the actions of the writer and the scientist(the intellectuals). The stalker, described as a dirty louse, a nobody, we learn is the one who truly cares.Who believes. And who is genuinely horrified by the actions of those around him.
      This is the third film I've seen now by Andrei Tarkovsky. Ivan's Childhood and Solaris being the other two, and he truly is one of the great directors in the history of cinema. A visionary genius and master of his craft. He effortlessly mixed reality and dreams, conjuring beautiful heartbreaking images, creating films that challenge the viewer, that question our world and our civilization, films that question memories and love, and ultimately films that transcend the medium entirely.

Exciting new developments!!(well, not that exciting really)

I had doubts long ago but am pretty confident now that no one actually reads this,nonetheless I shall continue undetered anyway. In fact I've actually gone one step further and added a brand spanking new followers tool on the left side of this silly blog. So the great hordes of humans out there regularly perusing this cornucopia of muddled thoughts and half realized ideas can click on this new tool, letting the world know they are followers. I don't like that word though, so ingeniously I renamed the currently empty list of followers : A list of people sort of interested in what I have to say. I am nothing if not modest and have absolutely no delusions of grandeur. Anyway, if you care or are even vaguely interested click on the link.

     I have decided to make a concerted effort to keep this little blog updated regularly, to continue to tweek and play around with the format in an effort to keep this interesting. Because really, in the end, my only aspiration in maintaining this blog is to create something interesting. Something weird and different. I've never seen the point in creating anything that's not interesting and weird and different. Surely that's the driving force behind all great art? Not that I'm comparing what I'm doing here in the slightest to great art. Art is not something I believe blogging will ever become. Who knows though, if goddang Damien Hirst can preserve an entire sheep in formaldehyde, and call it art, I guess anything is possible.

     In an entirely unrelated but no less interesting topic, a friend of mine gave me this incredible book to read a few hours ago. It's called Ulrich Haarburste's Novel of Roy Orbison in Cling-film, and is a collection of short stories about, yes, you guessed it, Roy Orbison wrapped in cling-film. I can already tell your as fascinated by this strange artifact as I am. There's no point in lying to yourself. It sounds amazing and completely supports my theory about creating something interesting, weird and different. Ulrich Haarburste definately knows what I'm saying.

     I also had an idea earlier for a short story. Well, to be honest it wasn't so much an idea than an image. A man and a duck walking across a very long bridge, in the middle of a very long conversation, in the middle of very thick fog. That's all I have so far. Not sure where this could go, but you have to admit, the possibilities are endless.

      Really it's not that surprising I don't have any followers yet. I guess this goes back to that whole thing of creating for ourselves. I'm going for a walk.

   

colours.

Today I stood in the center of town, next to a bank. I ate a chicken bake from Greggs and three pigeons walked around me eating the crumbs. Throughout the course of the day I also consumed far too much coffee. Way beyond the suggested daily allowance. I spent the afternoon discussing films, football and New York City with a friend. On the way home I listened to Roots Manuva's latest record and managed to outwalk the rain. I briefly contemplated the glaring lack of discipline that's been a big part of my life from a startlingly early age. I gave up on that train of thought halfway through though. haha. I thought again about the fight scene in the middle of Mean Streets. It is a breathtaking piece of filmmaking. I spent sometime thinking about a new story idea. An existential day in the life surreal drama type science fiction sort of deal. I'll put that on top of the pile in the far corner of my mind. And maybe I'll get back to it one day. See: discipline problem a few sentences back. On a sunnier note I saw a hilarious picture of two pugs last night. One was dressed up as Yoda and the other was dressed up as Darth Vader. The Vader pug looked appropriately sinister. No small feat for a pug. Them being the only breed of dog bred solely for companionship. I could go on but I won't. I'm gonna go make some beans on toast(barbecue flavour) and relax before the men's Canadian Olympic hockey team begin their campaign tonight against Norway. In the meantime you really should go check out Roots Manuva's new album Slime and Reason. The first song on it Again & Again has this incredible horn sample that will blow your mind. Or at least it blew mine. Oh and I had learned the Russian word for cheers last week but I forget it now. That's not really relevant to anything but it frustrated me nonetheless.