The official Wonderbro top 5 albums of 2010

Well, I've decided to go a bit lighter on this post - no rants about Wikileaks or war, the awful goings on in the world.  Christmas is gone, new years approaches, and as I write this I'm ratcheted up in bed with a serious throat infection that's not only giving the sensation of swallowing broken light bulbs when I have a glass of water, it's been squeezing an invisible vice grip of pain around my frontal lobe since Christmas Eve.

Frankly, I'm just not in the mood for any heavy shit today, 2010 is DONE, and not done quickly enough for my liking, so la la la la la! I'm going to do a post about something that makes me really happy.  Music!

In the spirit of High Fidelity (a great book by Nick Hornby if you haven't read it, and the movie is actually not bad either) and in no particular order, I present to you my top five albums released in 2010.


1. Massive Attack - Heligoland

Once again the boys from Bristol are back.  What can I say?  I've been a huge fan of these guys pretty much since 'Blue Lines' and every album they put out is worth the wait - and with Massive Attack, it can take five to seven years for them to come out with something new, which means you have to wait a while.  In the time between their last record and the time it took for this album to come out, I'd folded my previous company, started a new one, moved 5,000 km across the country, got married, acquired four more dogs, and bought a house.  A lot can change in between their recording schedules!

Needless to say, this was totally worth the wait.

I love how they're constantly evolving their sound; Heligoland is almost certainly a departure from the more computerized electronic tones of '100th Window', released back in 2003.  They still maintain much of the dark ambient tones that they're famous for, and despite their notorious attention to detail in recording, I'd say they used a pretty big brush to paint this masterpiece.

If you were expecting 'Mezzanine' - their commercially and critically acclaimed 1997 release (and which if you haven't heard you really should crawl out from whatever rock your under and go listen to) - well, you shouldn't.  I'm sure they're sick of comparisons to that record, but it certainly is the bar against which all their other works will be measured as far as I'm concerned.  That being said, what's great about Heligoland is that the more I listen to it, the less I'm inclined to compare it to, well, anything.  It really is something new and exceptional, of which I have come to expect nothing less from with Massive Attack, but at the same time, they still use a lot of the tried and true formulae for coming up with material.

One element they use very well on every recording they have is the guest talent that they pull.  For this album they found some outstanding contributors - TV On The Radio's Tunde Adebimpe has vocal duty on the opening track 'Pray for Rain', setting the tone quite nicely for the rest of the record.  Trip hop guest alumni Horace Andy (I mean, he may as well be in the band at this point) does vocals on 'Splitting the Atom' and 'Girl I Love You', and Martina Topley-Bird of Tricky and Gorillaz fame lends her vocal and writing talents to 'Babel' and 'Psyche'.  Guy Garvey of Elbow fame bends his range quite nicely on 'Flat of the Blade', Mazzy Star's Hope Sandoval sings the track 'Paradise Circus' and Damon Albarn of Blur / Gorillaz fame lends his London lean to 'Saturday Come Slow'.

A quick side note: Albarn vocally has always been pretty hit and miss for me - I can appreciate his more energetic vocalizations in Blur and some in Gorillaz, but when he gets more emotive he tends to get a bit too nasally for my liking - I often find it distracting.  Nothing against him, I really think he's brilliant (see my review of Plastic Beach below) in a lot of ways, it's my own personal preference.  However on 'Saturday Come Slow' he pulls off a vocal performance of really genuine sincerity that I think is rare for him in this style despite the fact that the song is obviously pushing his range a little. 

Of course Robert '3D' Del Naja and Grant 'Daddy G' Marshall do vocal duties as well, on 'Splitting the Atom', 'Rush Minute' and 'Atlas Air'.  'Splitting the Atom' really is the standout track on this record for me; they put a swing in this song that Sinatra or Tony Bennett could have sung over, and then combined it with what sounds like a lounge organists worst nightmare being played by members of 2Unlimited.  Believe me, this actually WORKS.  Throw in Horace Andy doing his haunting vocals in the chorus with Daddy G doing his standard stoned out snarling whispers in your ear and Del Naja skipping through the track like a sinister and demented shifty eyed con-man and you have the makings of a seriously cool piece of music.

Massive Attack craft their records as if they are their last - they might argue that at the time that they really thought they were working on their last record, as their occasionally difficult relationships are often cited as the reason why they take so long to make - and it shows, because they are executed fearlessly and exactly the way they intended to make them.


2. LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening

James Murphy, the brains and talent behind pretty much everything LCD Soundsystem is I think quickly becoming my musical hero.  Some would liken them to the 'new disco rock' scene that bands have been riding as of late over the last five or so years, but unlike some bands in this vein like the Killers, (who have been nothing put a painful and festering annoyance of disappointment since their debut album) there's something more tangible to them.  Maybe because they are not a disco rock outfit, they're really disco punk, which I think has allowed them to be a little less serious, at the same time smarter lyrically, and enabled them to go beyond expectation every time.  The Killers?  I don't think you can compare really.

They have always had a great production style - I LOVE the sound of their records.  Trashy and yet... not... well... shitty.  There seems to be a really bad misconception with some people that to make a trashy 'authentic' sounding record that it has to actually sound, well, bad.  James Murphy and LCD Soundsystem prove that this is not the case on every record that they've done, and set the marker for really good trashy and fearless production.

According to rumour mills on the interweb, 'This is Happening' will be the last album for LCD Soundsystem - I seriously hope this isn't the case, as this album is probably their finest work.  I love how the opening track 'Dance Yrself Clean' throws you for a loop; giving you the impression of a quiet start and then when you least expect it, explodes into a beaty ecstasy that these guys are known for.  It feels like if you were told to go to a deserted warehouse, and as you're nervously wandering through the darkened passages, BAM! Someone throws a breaker and you're in the middle of your very own surprise party.  Even the cool people are there!  It's a great effect; something that none of the more generic artists of this ilk would probably ever conceive of.

The next track is no disappointment either - it's no coincidence that 'Drunk Girls' was the first single off of this record.  The classic tongue in cheek, take the piss out of the party people lyrics that Murphy has been so good at writing really take this, along with the songs' main hook (a glorious shout out style 'Drunk - Girls!') over the top.  Perfect party music no matter where the party's at.

If that wasn't enough to rope you in, the follow ups in 'One Touch', 'I Can Change' and 'Pow Pow' are sure to pull you into some sort of a mad NYC drug make out throw down.  Every track is awesome, but those are my standouts.


3. Sex With Strangers - The Tokyo Steel

I have to do a couple Canadian acts in my top five - not just because I'm Canadian, but because there are an awful lot of really solid Canadian acts out there. Oh, and they don't all sound like Stompin' Tom or Gordon Lightfoot and play a nylon guitar.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I've found with my own experiences over the years, that a mythology of what Canadian music is perceived to be is often pushed to the fore at the expense of other really excellent talents who don't often fit into this idiom.

I think the band Sex With Strangers out of Vancouver are no exception.  Maybe its me but I think these guys are awesome, but when I was looking around at other reviews for reference I found a few (not all) that weren't particularly flattering, which really surprised me.  I don't happen to think that Canadian reviewers should give positive reviews to an artist just because they're Canadian (we have CANCON for that), but I think a lot of reviewers in this country, along with people actively working in the industry, tend to pigeonhole their preferences and wear them on their sleeves.  I don't think that's very fair, especially to a band like Sex With Strangers.

You could look at it another way.  When I watch an Ingmar Bergman film, I expect a deep, introspective reflection on humanity and the characters within the story, which can be a very special thing.  When I watch a Roland Emmerich film, I expect to have my eyes pop like grapes filled with M80s at the sheer spectacle of his movies.  I am not watching for any sort of deep reflection within or of myself, I am only in the mood to be bombarded with bombastic visual entertainment, which like him or not as a director, Roland Emmerich has always provided in spades within his films.

Sex With Strangers does Roland Emmerich with their albums - and it is really unfair to expect anything otherwise from them, because that's not what they're pitching.  They have a strong 80's influence in their sound to be sure, but unlike a lot of the re-anim80's bands today they don't fuck around with all this poser hair and well, posing in general crap.  They get right to it, with no gimmick, a lot of whisky and a no-apologies-get-your-ass-on-the-dancefloor-and-feel-the-thick-throbbing-thunder-of-my-robot-rock, then explode all over your face like a...well, I don't have to elaborate, lets just say it's all about the money shot.

As I grew up in the 80's listening to a lot of the stuff that is influencing bands like SWS today, I can tell you there's one thing that most miss that Sex With Strangers get bang on every time: the notion that just because it's made in a computer with a lot of synthesizers doesn't mean that it has to be cold.  There's nothing chilly about their production, the band or the feel of their records.  The howling opera that is lead singer Hatch Benedict's voice removes any notion that they're just trying to relive the glory days of Sigue Sigue Sputnik. The guitars and bass conjure up more Clash than Cure, and just for shits and giggles, they throw in vocals by Isabelle Dunlop, the UK ex-pat modern equivalent to Debbie Harry.

So really, how can you NOT like that?

They take moving your booty seriously, they instantly demand pogo action, and will achieve both of these objectives by any means necessary. They do it extremely well, which is just as valid in terms of music as any in my mind.

Their second full length LP, 'The Tokyo Steel' is all of these things and it shows (if you've listened to any of their previously released material) that the band has been expanding their horizons musically.  Sticking to their album title theme, they included three musical segway tracks named after three different Tokyo subway stations.  If you're looking to be taken to electrosh-rock paradise, this is the album that will get you to the destination.

Standouts for me on this record are 'New City Anthem', 'We Want the Fire', 'Sharpen the Knife' and 'We Are the Ones'.



4. Gorillaz - Plastic Beach

I'll start this off by saying that I don't think that Plastic Beach is the strongest of the three full length albums that Damon Albarn and co. have released.  I see it kind of like the original Star Wars trilogy: the first one hooked everyone in, the second one kicked monstrous ass, and the third just couldn't live up to the expectation the first two established.  That being said, like Return of the Jedi (and ewoks aside), Plastic Beach is a better record than 99.9% of the music making population could even CONCEIVE of (yeah, that includes you Kanye), and in my mind, does not signify any significant reduction in steam for the creators of this virtual band, which ultimately puts it in my top five.

Like Massive Attack's Heligoland, this album reads like a Jools Holland wet dream: Clash alumni Mick Jones and Paul Simonon (who also were playing on their recent tour), Mos Def, Bobby Womack, De La Soul, Snoop Dogg, Swedish band Little Dragon, Mark E. Smith of the Fall and the legendary Lou Reed.  Combine all of these talents with Albarns' impeccable pop sensibilities and symphonic arrangements and you've got one hell of a record.

Although in my opinion, the music is not quite as accessible (ie. top 40) as the previous two records, this should really not be held against it.  It really is a rolling sonic masterpiece that perhaps leans just slightly more towards Albarns' later 'Blur' days than the other two Gorillaz releases - 'weird' quirky as opposed to 'cute' quirky, which if you can appreciate Blur, you should have zero problem with on this record.

I also think that if you're not familiar with Gorillaz, the best way to appreciate them is to try and watch their videos - I rarely encourage this with bands as most music videos are frankly way too self indulgent and suck massive donkey.  However, Gorillaz were formed as a concept more than a band; Damon Albarn is only half of the original outfit, the other half being UK artist and cartoonist Jamie Hewlett.  So with along with all the great music, Gorillaz have built some really creative visuals into their mandate as a virtual group, and it's best if it's experienced this way I think.

Stand out tracks include: 'Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach', 'Stylo', 'Superfast Jellyfish' and 'Some Kind of Nature'


Caribou - Swim

Okay, if you don't already know this about me, along with the many other things that I do with my days, I also produce music.  My background actually is mostly in electronic (synthesized if I may be more specific), but I try to work in as many genres as possible.  So when an 'electronic' album comes along that is:

• made by a Canadian artist 
• made by a Canadian artist who sounds like he just got his hands on his first synth / sampler
• made by a Canadian artist with a really unique musical sensibility

...well, I'm just all over that like my Boston Terrier on a poo nugget.  And Bez loves his nuggets.

If you've ever heard any previous Caribou (aka. Daniel Victor Snaith) albums, like the Polaris prize winning 'Andorra', then 'Swim' may be a slight departure for you in some ways.

I dunno, something about how he puts his synth lines together - they're so un-polished.  I think in the world of electronic music, this is not necessarily a bad thing, although more than any other style, the expectation is to clean up all the loose bits as much as possible.  In a genre where every note can be (and is often demanded to be) quantized down to the last micro-fart of time, the actual 'feel' of a track can often times go right out the window simply because it's easier than trying to just get it perfectly right in ways beyond the meter of the machine no matter how long it takes.

And like in my previous review of LCD Soundsystem, sounding trashy does not mean sounding bad (or vice versa), and nothing on 'Swim' is at all bad in the slightest, quite the opposite.  Although trashy is not the word I would use... It's sloppy, but in a great and musical way. I really like it.  It's very rarely that you come across a record that is almost exclusively synthesized and at the same time can breathe.  An album that has a pulse beyond the tac-tac machination throb of the drum machine.  'Swim' really does this exceedingly well, and I can tell you from my own experience this is a very difficult thing to do with this style.  I'm trying very hard not to use the word 'organic' to describe it, which has been applied to this album quite a bit, but I'm stumped on the fact that I don't think there's a better word for it.

To add to this, according to an interview he gave on CBC Radio a couple of months ago, Daniel Snaith almost happily (he sounds like a really nice guy as well) considers himself something of a newby when it comes to this style of music.  Something that if his record weren't so damn good would send me reeling into my own filth ridden pit of gut rotting jealousy and rage, make me become belligerent on Whisky that I would still in my bathtub, take up smoking again and make fun of his name via catcalls from the floor of the bar.

And maybe that's how he got the result  - and no, I don't mean he did it while being yelled at a by a drunken keyboard player.  I mean it's probably pretty freeing to not be burdened with the technical, which a lot of this genre is; it's often swamped into sterility by it.  And although I'm sure he's more comfortable having made a record now (he did study Mathematics at U of T, I'm sure he can figure it out), to just be able to really hone the ideas in a song and be creative in a free flowing way as opposed to whittling out a rigid sequence in a program must have been a pretty sweet gig, and you can hear it in every tune on this album.

If what you're recording at the time sounds right, well then quantizing it after the fact would just be making the song conform to some sort of lame dance music standard based on software, instead of making something uniquely your own.

I think he achieved this balance of technical and soul here, and I think it's a better way to look at music in general; from newer eyes, that constant voyage of undiscovered places. A lesson that a lot of us could probably apply better in our musical endeavours and something that is really refreshing to hear on this album.  Totally love it.  Damn him.

Stand out tracks for me are 'Odessa', 'Sun', 'Found Out' and 'Hannibal'.

So that's my top 5 best!  I'd love to hear what everyone elses' top five albums of 2010 are, especially if it's stuff I've never heard before.  Feel free to comment, and maybe I can review your picks in another post.

Truth is Terrorism or: The Selective Definitions of What it Means to be a Journalist in the Mainstream Media or an Elected Official

Definition of Journalist (jour·nal·ist):

1. One whose occupation is journalism.
2. One who keeps a journal.

Definition of Journalism (jour·nal·ism):

1. The collecting, writing, editing, and presenting of news or news articles in newspapers and magazines and in radio and television broadcasts.
2. Material written for publication in a newspaper or magazine or for broadcast.
3. The style of writing characteristic of material in newspapers and magazines, consisting of direct presentation of facts or occurrences with little attempt at analysis or interpretation.
4. Newspapers and magazines.
5. An academic course training students in journalism.
6. Written material of current interest or wide popular appeal.

Definition of Diplomacy (di·plo·ma·cy)

1. The art or practice of conducting international relations, as in negotiating alliances, treaties, and agreements.
2. Tact and skill in dealing with people. See synonyms at tact.

(definitions courtesy of thefreedictionary.com)


"He [Julian Assange] is an active, willful enabler of Islamic terrorism. He is as much a threat as Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahri. In short, Mr. Assange is not a journalist or publisher; rather, he is an enemy combatant - and should be treated as such."

"News reports say the WikiLeaks founder is hiding out in England. If that's true, we should treat Mr. Assange the same way as other high-value terrorist targets."
-Jeffrey T. Kuhner, columnist at The Washington Times and president of the Edmund Burke Institute

"Everybody is freaking out over this WikiLeaks stuff. And, frankly, the WikiLeaks guy bugs me because he looks like a waif.  He looks like he ought to be in a Peter Pan stage play rather than on the world stage affecting things.  He's a little wuss, Julian Assange.  Need to find this guy and string him up."
-Rush Limbaugh, radio personality and broadcaster

"Well, I think Assange should be assassinated actually (laughs) I think Obama should put out a contract and maybe use a drone, or something."

"I wouldn’t feel unhappy if Assange disappeared."
-Thomas Flanagan, political scientist at the University of Calgary and conservative political activist 

"Hunt down the WikiLeaks chief like Taliban"

"He is an anti-American operative with blood on his hands. His past posting of classified documents revealed the identity of more than 100 Afghan sources to the Taliban. Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al-Qaida and Taliban leaders?"
- Sarah Palin, former Governor of Alaska and Member of the Republican Party


 

I admit, I've picked some of the more shocking quotes and the more high profile statements from people you may be more familiar with, but after having done a lot of scouring, I have to say I find it unnerving that there are more than just these tasty little tidbits of misdirected ire and knee jerk bullying out there on this subject; hell, I could copy / paste quotes all night and still not get them all in here.

These people are SCARED.  Okay, more dramatic than it needed to be, I mean, of course they're scared, they make their livelihoods off of being scared and deceptively sneezing their fear all over anyone who has their aural orifice open and within range of their infected gobs.  It's what they do, it's in their nature, and they are encouraged by their peers to behave this way on a daily basis.

My lament is over the redefinition of terms, particularly what defines a journalist (and through that journalism) and the definition of diplomats and diplomacy.  These terms really seem to have been drastically re-written.  I don't pretend that this sort of selective description modification hasn't happened before from time to time, or that there exceptions to the rules, but it seems we live in an era where this sort of thing has become the new norm.

What is astounding through all the bandwidth, broadcast time, airwaves and hot air spent on this subject, is that the opinions expressed by the aforementioned individuals are not expressed in any way that is actually truly constructive to: a) their desire for the resolution of containment of the WikiLeaks documents and b) the protection of members of the military or diplomatic community.  It's all just acid and vitriol, self aggrandizing and soapboxing and it really resolves nothing or goes anywhere. It's also no coincidence that several of the biggest media grand standers in North America are quoted above.

Mainstream media particularly are working very hard at distancing themselves from the actions of this organization by any means possible.  Gone are the days of associating with the likes people like 'Deep Throat'...  And well they should, because frankly WikiLeaks does things pretty differently than say, CTV here in Canada or CNN.  And I'm sure I don't have to say Fox News with this group without actually including them in the list.

From everything that I've seen, the big difference is WikiLeaks, for the most part, offers almost NO OPINION in regards to the content they publish.  They just put the facts out there and allow the reader to draw their own conclusions.  You cannot say the same thing about any other media organization that I have seen in the western world, and frankly it's quite refreshing.  This, from what I can tell, is as close to true journalism as you're going to find.

There is not a single shred of proof that anything that WikiLeaks has revealed in cables or via anonymous source has killed or injured a single person as a result of their release.

This, unfortunately cannot be said about the U.S. Government, and it's allies.

The fifteen minutes of leaked video footage of a U.S. military helicopter pilot who mistakenly identifies two Reuters photographers for insurgents in Baghdad, who casually mows them and a group of people down (including two children in a van) with his rotary cannon from the safety of his gunship is just one of hundreds of these kinds of assertions.

There is no coincidence between the attempted extradition to Sweden and arrest of Assange in the UK and the release of these cables.  This applies to the DDoS attacks on the WikiLeaks site as well.

This sort of thing is exactly what is often outlined with great detail in the leaked cables, and previous WikiLeaks releases, and from all the sources I've read, Assange was reasonably prepared for this sort of action.

To me this proves two things: Journalists in the mainstream are not actually journalists at all, and that diplomats are not trained in and are completely unfamiliar with the concept or definition of diplomacy.

If you're a member of the news media and you feel like offering an opinion on a news article, the very moment you attach your opinion the accuracy of the article becomes tainted.  The amount of spoilage in the article is directly proportional to the ratio of the size of the opinion to the size of the facts.  By including any personal opinion, it is automatically boxed around the facts, repackaged, re-tasked, made to linger for as long as it can be held up, and eventually lost, pulled under by the weight of that opinion addendum.

Raw facts are truth; but adding a cooked opinion around fact has no nutritional value, it's becomes limp and soggy.  Eventually, inedible.  Like how most people eat their carrots.

So back to the definitions: A journalist collects, writes, edits, and presents news.  A diplomat practices the art of conducting international relations, as in negotiating alliances, treaties, and agreements. Diplomacy involves  TACT.

Tact, does not mean suggesting that someone have missile dropped on them remotely via an unmanned drone, or assassinated by a black ops unit.  Journalism does not dictate that you have to say what's on your mind every time you personally feel threatened by something that you actually do not understand, or dare I challenge, even read.

Without tact (and a reasonable level of empathy), the end result is called R.I.D., or Ridicule, Isolate and Discredit; long touted as a strong propaganda tool, and often used by many governments on the collective psyches of the public for years.  Personal opinion leads to generalization and half truth, personal attacks and finally, a hurried and pronounced attempt to move on from the subject and never speak of it again for the benefit of everyone else who just doesn't want to deal with it.  Fact and information is subverted for raw emotion and fear.

Instead of discussing the content of any of the disclosed information via WikiLeaks, the discussion of the fifth estate has become WikiLeaks itself, and the person who established the organization, Julian Assange, which, with the amount of information available, can only be opinion, with very little fact.  Which goes to show - as per the accepted definition of a journalist - that anyone not discussing the very important content of the cables is actually a glorified opinion columnist and not a legitimate journalist.

I'm not going to guess as to why this is, the only reasons I can come up with are a combination of the journalistic equivalent of penis envy, and the chronic practice in the last twenty to thirty years by the mainstream media of hiring Anne Landers types pretending to be Walter Cronkite with the intent to boost their ratings so they can compete with HBO.

And, instead of discussing everything BUT the content of the disclosed information via WikiLeaks, and by making the discussion about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, and the supposed threat he poses, the political powers within the documents who are trying to thwart the truth are, by their own actions actually denying themselves, and in turn, denying you and I, the freedom to have the basic liberties of simple truth. 

We, who happen to be the very people that put them there.

In power.

In the first place.

We really need to change things, beyond who's in office.  The idea of transparency and accountability of those who speak for us has to become something beyond the rally cry of those who want to get elected; it needs to be worked into statute and law.  Policy on checks and balance needs to be drastically rewritten here, because it's night time, and the freaks have come out and have taken up a squatters residency in the bureaucratic offices.

Everything so far in the cables speaks to this denial, this institutional double talk, which is really why they are working so hard to keep us from seeing it.  WikiLeaks is the only organization who, and in a very legitimate and necessary way, has opened up this political can of worms outside of mainstream opinion and laid it squarely in the lap of those who's opinion really matters - you.

And all you have to do is read them.  So don't listen to my opinion, go and review them, and get your own.

What do I mean by hidden?

Well, this is my first attempt at blogging.  I guess a lot of people who start down this path do the same thing - kind of like dipping your foot in the pool before getting all wet.  I've posted a brief description of myself but I feel I should elaborate on this first post, so if someone does wind up following my threads here, they'll have some context for my opinions and what it is that I'm writing about.

I'm originally from the outskirts of Toronto, Ontario - I grew up in a town just outside of the big city called Thornhill.  Quite a nice place to grow up actually.  I was never a great student - the pitfalls of high school really took it's toll on me, and I wound up with a quite a few startling hair cuts for half of my time in that stage of education, along with sporting trench coats, ties and Doc Martens on even the hottest days at school; when I was attending class anyways, which in the later years was almost never.

What can be said of those failing scholastic years is I that I emerged from it as a huge lover of music - I'd been playing piano since I was 8 or so, (which was encouraged when I was found, at the age of four, standing on the couch and conducting the stereo with the Star Wars soundtrack on full blast) but, like a lot of teenagers, it was around this time is when I really discovered it's truer and personal meaning to me.

Skinny Puppy.  Nine Inch Nails.  Depeche Mode. Frontline Assembly.  Digital Poodle (okay, you may not have heard of them, but they were great).   Anything recorded or played with a synthesizer I was all over like syrup on waffles.  If it was loud and thumping, even better.

I joined my first band in 1991 and never looked back.  Because of it I never graduated from High School either, but I think I'm alright with that; I don't think that ever wound up being a hindrance for me in life.  I played in an electro-funkrock outfit called Acid Test, and I admit, that many of the things that I thought came with being in a fairly successful rock band were pretty much wrong.

For starters, it was a LOT of work, for really, nothing.  Not enough to move out of the parents place, but at the time, we were touring so much my home (if I can use what I think is a tired cliche) was the road for the most part.  But damn it was fun, and I was stricken by the music poison and there was no antidote.

Long story short, band got dropped from the label, band imploded, everyone moved on, I wound up playing and touring the world for a few different groups over the years as a keyboardist, including with industrial rock outfit Econoline Crush and tattooed wordsmith and singer Bif Naked.  Great fun, but my dad I think was getting a bit tired of me sponging when I came home from the road so I decided to try something that could keep the creative going and actually allow me to get an apartment.

So I went to school, got a diploma in multimedia and went on to, when I wasn't making music, designing and building web sites.

Then out of the blue, I met my wife online - on Myspace to be exact.  She was living in British Columbia but was originally from Ontario as well, and we had some mutual friends and started chatting.  Crushes revealed, visits planned and executed, and not long after we were hitched, I was living out west with her and her son, we've acquired five dogs, bought a house on Vancouver Island and it's been nothing but a great, positive and life changing experience.

Which is really why I started this blog I think - my life seems to have been played out in two major stages so far.  One, being a musician / developer of new media,  and two, my new and ever growing experiences with my new family.

I think that with all the travelling I've done over the years, many of the places I've been have shown me some amazing things and have taught me a lot about the world, but at the same time has made it other things about it even more enigmatic to me, particularly politically. 

My family reminds me of what I feel is my responsibility to make this world the best place for us (and everyone) to live, but with so many questions, what is the best route to take?  We seem stuck in a lot of ways, at least in western society, that some would say is heralding it's demise.  But who's right? And with information available to us in unprecedented quantities, who do you listen to?

It is frightening to think of where things are going these days. The fact that personally, I still see racism and sexism everywhere in many sectors of society. I see the regular abuse of power by those in authority as something to be concerned about. And the chronic and rampant political waffling, half-truths, and lets face it, outright lies by those elected to represent us and our interests, as they discard their charges for monetary and economic interests is unnerving to say the least.

Music has a lot of roots in social commentary and justice, and I've broadened my palette in terms of what I listen to as compared to my teenage years, and made an effort to listen to as much as possible, both lyrically and stylistically.  Being a step-dad also seems to have upped my social conscience as well and I feel I'm doing with my politics the same that I've done with music.  It's hard to try and explain to someone who's totally innocent, like my six year old stepson, why things are the way are, why they happen the way that they do, why some people do the cruel things they do.  Sometimes it's overwhelming, and I think writing about it will at least help me to try and find my own solutions and answers, if for no one else.

That's it in a nutshell - except for what I mean by 'As Hidden in TV'.  With my background in developing the technologies that deliver media to the masses has, over the years, left me rather sceptical of the message that much of the mainstream media, as a collective, put out.

The latest events in regards to Wikileaks in the last month, and the police action at the G20 in Toronto a few months ago has solidified my opinions even more.  But oddly enough, I think that the more that is hidden, the more the truth, if you look in the right places, can be revealed.

Marshall McLuhan was right, the medium really is the message.