Subpoena The Past were a post-punk project that existed from 1997 to around 2001, in which time they were sporadically active from various urban centres in California such as San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles. They released two EPs: 1998′s “This Year’s Eclipse” and 2000′s “Conjure Itch”, both of which contain different line-ups and have notably different sounds in instrumentation. All incarnations of this project featured Sonny Kay, who was the main mover and shaker of Gold Standard Labs (GSL), a label that captured the zeitgeist of the post-hardcore scene of the late nineties and early naughties. It was one of those go-to labels and one of the first to feature bands interpreting classic darker post-punk sounds with bands such as Beautiful Skin, The Faint, Get Hustle, Chromatics, etc. – all a number of years before that sort of thing was more common place.

This is also is the second entry of this Journal that I’ve dedicated to reflecting on some previously released recordings. I’m labelling these under the banner “Slightly Off Track“. Acting as some sort of digital filing shelf for audio gems of the recent and distant underground, these entries will offer up some stuff that have been lost in the ether over the years, and in particular stuff from the mid to late 90s and early 2000s. I just happen to have a good amount of that sort of stuff laying around — some of it almost impossible to find — and happened to be there in some respect as it was all being released. Slightly Off Track will be a sporadic venture. I don’t have any aspirations to rise in the world of music journalism or on-the-pulse blogging.

The two releases for Subpoena The Past came into consideration for a re-listen through my friend Ryan, whom I’ve only actually met once in the summer of 2001 in a show in a cafe in San Pedro CA while on tour. I’m not really sure what we talked about or how we connected but to this day we’ve been keeping on an off correspondence over the course of over ten years. I’ve moved overseas in that time and he’s moved around the US numerous times. He got in touch again with me recently after a year or so of being off the radar. We caught up on what we were going, with one entry from him going as follows:

“Oh! & You probably would be the right person to ask, but do you have any Subpoena The Past? Please say yes, I have been looking to start a blog that focuses on the more obscure releases of the nineties/early 00′s, & I feel that those bands always kind of got the short end of the stick.”

Short end of the stick. Yes, to some degree. It came out at a time riding on the back of the ‘zine and underground music magazine culture of the 90s and before the easy “click n’ browse” underground music enthusiast of the internet-saturated naughties came to a full tilt.

I had recently had all of my vinyl 12″ and CD collection shipped over from some dank place of storage back in Canada and decide to give both EPs a re-listen.

The first release, “This Year’s Eclipse”, was a co-released on GSL and Hymnal Sound, the latter a San Francisco label responsible for releasing the first 7″ single by the now well-known DFA group The Rapture. It contains five tracks of cold and sparse electro-industrial in the classic vein, with moments sounding like early Coil or the more electronic moments from “Nada” by Death In June. At this point the group were consisting of Kay and Joseph Karam from The Locust. The EP was produced by Helios Creed from the legendary Chrome.

For the time the tracks sounded very alien positioning themselves in the primarily guitar-oriented landscape of the nineties. For me it was like a red beacon of strangeness flashing in the corner, or perhaps like Robert Drake’s character in Lost Highway attending a party a Gilman Street or The Che Cafe*.

“Who’s that guy?” Most of the party-goers are unphased or slightly confused but one or two take notice and are attracted by the presence.

Nowadays “This Year’s Eclipse” wouldn’t too sound out of place with newer artists like ///TENSE/// or White Car — although this EP is far less funky and less dancey, lacks the same development but offers more unsettling discord. All in all it was an pretty good starting effort but it always felt like the best was to come with that sound as this release to me was a group finding it’s footing with the full realisation to come.

And a follow up came, but it was quite different. Shedding all of the electronics and taking up a more guitar oriented approach, Subpoena The Past came back in 2000 with “Conjure Itch” on the GSL label. This was a 12″ vinyl only release, with four tracks on a single-sided slab of vinyl. The reverse side was a complex geometric etching done by guitarist Julian Myers. The artwork within were collages done by the well-known US collage artist Danger.

From what I was told this recording was recorded in a cold, cold warehouse one winter and it shows on the recording. The chilly guitar shards with heavy chorus pedal effects over top of a menacing dub-influenced rhythm section that invoked barren landscapes. “Revelations”-era Killing Joke, early Modern English or Virgin Prunes come to mind, as well as an injection of some 90s stuff like Quicksand or Jesus Lizard.

As Subpoena the Past came across more like a project than a band, likely due to the other monumental commitments of those involved, there was never the big tour or the massive push behind either record. Both releases were more exercises in experimenting with sound and style based on collected influences rather than a standard band trying to break through to an audience. Shortly after the release of the second EP the group dissolved, with those involved moving onto such projects as Year Future and Ghost Orchids, both who have long dissolved. The year is now 2012. The fictional plotlines of both 2001: A Space Odyssey and it’s sequel have already passed.

Sonny is currently a visual artist tied with strong ties band The Mars Volta and Omar Rodríguez-López. Julian as far as I know still in on the staff roster at The University of Berkeley.

Well, pens down at this point. Here’s the music:

*Both were examples of notable venues in California for touring punk and hardcore bands back in the 90s.

SUBPOENA THE PAST : This Year’s Eclipse
1. Altitude on Ice / 2. Ripe Trial / 3. A Red Decree / 4. Last Year’s Ghost / 5. Patience
Released 1998 on GOLD STANDARD LABS / HYMNAL SOUND

RIPE TRIAL

DOWNLOAD EP

SUBPOENA THE PAST : Conjure Itch
1. Sphere of Influence / 2. Holding Pattern / 3. Rats of Indulgence / 4. Ghost
Released 2000 on GOLD STANDARD LABS

SPHERE OF INFLUENCE

DOWNLOAD EP

It is true, my dad had a very extensive collection of LPs and chock full of a lot of the common classics from the 70s and 80s. For some reason I didn’t gravitate toward direct absorption of that music like what it seems others had done. My dad also had a collection of Omni magazines as well and the cover art for some of records were stranger than the music itself. “Slow Down World” by Donovan comes to mind: sort of a psychedelic man in space – lights burning and a name written in that glowing “calculator” font above his head. And films — yes, films and their soundtracks. This was a large contributing factor as well.

The first piece of music equipment I really had a play around on was some mid to late 80s Yamaha Portasound keyboard. I have no idea what model it was it. It had about 99 voices in it all trying in some fashion to emulate some “real” instrument: woodwinds, brass, guitars, Asian instruments — of course which none of them sounded exactly like the real thing. There were a few “synth” styled patches, mostly designed for the purpose of coughing out some sort of ghetto Rick James electro-funk (ie: Funky Clav, Fat Fifths, etc.). The Portasound also contained an Accompaniment section in which you could pick from a number of beats distilling various genres into some hammy backing track where you can execute chord changes to the whole backing track by pressing different root notes on the lower half of the keyboard.

I’m not sure what happened to that thing; it sort of lingered around for a few years afterwards but after that things took a slightly different route when the household acquired a Tandy computer in the late 80s. It was from Radio Shack and contained a really clunky operating system called Deskmate which was comparable to what Apple and Microsoft were doing at the time. I seem to have a memory of the mouse movements being highly inaccurate, therefore making it a somewhat frustrating physical experience to get the pointer to move around correctly on-screen.

In this clumsy operating system there was a program called “Music & Sound”. When booting up the program a pixel-mapped cartoon chacacture of Beethoven waited with while the hard disk clacked and whirled during it’s loading. Once up and running, it was a very basic program with a musical staff and four voices to choose from: strings, bells, piano, and I think clarinet (?). The sound quality would lead you to believe that these sounds were recorded on an extremely low bit rate and they probably were. Information about this Music & Sound program is a bit patchy and the old references to it on the vast expansive internet are in websites that look like they’ve been frozen in time since 1997 or something. There is one clip I’ve managed to find, which is a rather awkward sounding Xmas medley no less:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK4JqnfkDjI

Being restricted to writing bizarre, attention-deficit classical music influenced compositions, Music & Sound quickly ran out of steam as my interests developed and a strange, predatory pace into the teen years. I had been thrashing out noise on a newly acquired guitar and although my attentions were starting to turn to harder music, I thought I could give that Tandy the equivalent of a punk hair dye job. A few years into the Tandy’s service a newer, more robust (for the time) soundcard was swapped out for the old, default one. It was an Ad Lib Soundblaster but don’t let the name fool you. “Blasting sound” was hardly a feature as it’s poorly constructed FM synthesis model was the equivalent of sound coming out of speaker cones made of generic range toilet paper. I did have a lot of fun though; writing these sort of industrial/punk/thrash compositions on them. I’d record them by plugging Walkman headphones into the rear of the computer and taping the earbuds over the internal microphone of a cheap Sanyo ghetto-blaster. That made the audio quality ten times worse with a sonic range matching the width of a coffee stir stick.

Once again, documentation is limited but here’s what remnants I’ve found online of that thing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UcZrrTNp8Q

Eventually I moved out of the family home and the Tandy took up retirement shortly thereafter. By that time those fancy coloured iMacs started sneaking through pop culture’s back door and I think we know the general story of where things went from there. I have recordings on tape somewhere and should I somehow fall victim to house arrest and have a lot of time on my hands, there would be consideration to digging them up and taking a re-visit to those primitive recordings.

The Cast: Don Ameche the Narrator, Joe Schmoe the anti-establishment yet commercialised teenager, Henry Who the land developer, Grechin Green the enviro-activist, Ted Tasteless of XXX Lawn Bowling, Suzy Homemaker as well…, and Bud Bitter as Head of Tourism.

PART I : “…the whole plan is a powerful ingredient to replace millions of years of woods with buildings — building that protect our physical well-being and enhance a sensual lifestyle of affluence. The career of neon lights could be lovely. Tearing town a four billion some-odd year ingenious masterpiece for our picky needs of convenience and (quote/unquote) fast service…”

It is the twentieth century. It is the year of nineteen hundred ninety-seven. Another brick in the mosaic of a dark dollar. The emotionless structures of monetary transaction sprout up like stupid, witless weeks through the pristine land (or not as pristine as it was). And to accentuate this weed-y mayhem; a sexless contractor’s masterpiece: the strip mall in the language of the English impostors. A tinkling hood ornament of this sleek, well-oiled machine of capitalist tomfoolery. Not even the apparent “purity” of (now a commercialised endeavour) all the children’s Rage Against The Machine albums could topple this Turkish Delight machine. For everything is a product.

“…and now that the populous have been introduced to this haberdashery,” cried the narrator, Don Ameche, “we will now look at one such incident of the creation of one of these vessels of misfortune: the strip mall. One such insight of one incident will allow us to – in the future – alarm and make us aware of such incidents. The birth of the strip mall occurs when the mall-loards cut a great cesarian gash in the fabric of the community, creating elusive advertising to make their minds to wish they could suckle the lovely products of the strip. “Pass a drink, we’re thirsty!” the citizens would shout to the mall-lords, who know the citizens are in their eternal grasp.

“Wine or champagne?” the mall-lords would query, “or maybe a dry vermouth?”

And so it came to pass that in the spring of the aforementioned year that the Universal Council of Mall-lords and Government Officials sent a commander to Everytown U.S.A. to add another addictive strip mall (or a bad habit as the locals called them) to the countless, infinite roster. Henry Who was the lieutenant contractor in the agreement.

Before H. Who left to attend seminars in the distant city, he and other U.C.M.G.O. members did extensive research on social and economic patterns in the city within the comfort of the Council’s super-fortress located underground. After research, H. Who was bestowed, by the Council, a new identity and documents to confirm H. Who was local in that particular city and for “all of his life” so that his given knowledge of local goings on could sway the locals of that city to be on his side. After all, he should know what was going on after years of living there (supposedly, but you and I know otherwise.

PART II : The reporters of FATE News grabbed their notepads, pens and sedatives before running off to their respective automobiles. The Editor was barking at the top of his lungs. Such a drill sergeant!

“Get this story! Get to the deadlines! Get me my coffee! Somebody give me a hand job!”

The office was an ant colony of drone workers. For you see, at the the crack of noon there was going to be a non-public public forum at the cellar of the town hall regarding a referendum on the illustrious H. Who’s proposal for the strip mall. The town was a-buzz. So many different opinions on this skeletal product market to be produced. The TV punk kids lining the streets of the city’s X district would be in an uproar over the phone to their friend’s (business wrecks) over the phone:

“I can’t believe they’re tearing down our spot for some stupid mall! I won’t allow it! I will never allow it!” cried – to + “I wonder if they have any Rage Against The Machine trading cards and tea cosies there?”

TO BE CONTINUED?

I shot Coldplay from the bush on the hill
A laser guided rifle and a whole lot of will
Took five different shots and then the task was done
Frantic crowds flee behind Vodafone and O2 tents in the festival sun

I shot Coldplay from the open doors of the lift
Sort of like Valerie Solanas when Andy got sniffed
There was instant satisfaction but not sure about the mess
I’m sure Parlophone could smooth out that stress

I shot Coldplay disguised as a midget
Though the first shot missed through the arm of Chris’ faux military jacket
A second shot was fired – a success! – but it wasn’t from me
The odds must be high for those wishing to carry out the deed

I shot Coldplay but first heard the man out
Mr. Martin insisted they meant no malice to offend anyone
We laughed and shook hands and let down our guard
But I shot him anyway as I hold grudges hard

That song where the kids sing “Wa-ohhh wa-ohhhh”
I just had to get out and “go-ohhh go-ohhh”
A short time later Martin and co were taken out by a bus
I’d like to think the driver had kicked up a fuss

I shot Coldplay from the depths of a dream
If I hear “Yellow” one more time I think I might scream
Don’t look at me strange from the things that I say
Sit down, relax, it was all in my mind anyway

Just saying really…

It seems that my problems with a local rail provider would be worthy of this first post. As I’ve moved, my transport links have changed and I’ve had to make numerous journeys on an overground rail line that services parts of London I go regularly such as Hackney and The City. It has been no source of joy in my life, but you can read the full complaint letter I sent myself to the provider below:

Dear Personnel of National Express East Anglia,

My name is Jack Duckworth, a resident of Walthamstow, and I am writing you today regarding the bizarre, flippant spasms of activity that you publicly refer to as the Liverpool Street to Chingford line of your National Express East Anglia service. I guess you can say this is a complaint letter; one that I’ve been avoiding writing as I’m quite a busy man and feel it should only really come to a point of great distress that I should write such a letter. Well look, here I am… writing this letter.

I have recently relocated my place of residence to Walthamstow and have looked to rely on your London Liverpool Street to Chingford service as a fast and easy service to points in Hackney and The City. This service is scheduled to run every 15 minutes at the same times on the hour, every day Monday through Friday from any given station.

However, much to my confusion and astonishment, this service has not delivered on what I casually estimate as 35-40% of the time. I have arrived at stations in Walthamstow, Clapton and Hackney Downs to find trains delayed by at least 5-10 minutes or more, or even cancelled for reasons totally unbeknownst to myself, and upon my inquiry, to members of staff themselves. Notable extreme examples include a 25 minute delay (!) at Hackney Downs at approximately 9am on January 10th and a number of occasions at Walthamstow Central in the evening where the trains to Liverpool Street have been cancelled for cryptic reasons of “signal failure” with no further explanation or no prior warning.

Another example was a southbound train from Hackney Downs on December 14th at around the hour of 11pm. The display had stated the incoming time of the southbound train and then had stated all trains were cancelled. This cancellation was announced on the loudspeaker with no reason provided except to call an information number. I dialled this number and the pre-recorded message told me to call back during business hours, of which I forget now as at that moment my energies were mainly focused on quelling a brewing rage in the dumb, looming shadows of transportation incompentence.
The instances I’ve mentioned above were the most extreme in a somewhat more lengthy list of examples of poor train service.

Let’s assess the London Liverpool Street to Chingford line. It’s train that runs on quite a short length of track consisting of approximately 10 stops from end to end. I’ve taken the train from end to end and it’s about 25 minutes or so from what I remember. Aside from minor gradients in the track there are no challenging obstacles or features in this length or track; no obstacles which might actually vary train service: obstacles such as an insurgency of armed rebels obstructing track, sections of track running through sluggish quicksand or sections of track that may resemble sections of a rollercoaster (ie: a “loop the loop”) that one would find at a fun fair or carnival, which would obviously add an unpredictable element to the service and thus rightfully delay the service.

The usual reasons for delay are vague and non-eventful at that such as “signal failure” or “adverse weather conditions” (read: “light rain”) or in some cases, “an on-going situation at XXXX station.
I can already predict a likely reply to this letter, and one “justifying” the poor service. It would be one stating that the trains or sections of track are old and need upgrading or some other pre-written bureaucratic stock answers that underpaid customer service agents will spend mind-numbing hours copying and pasting into countless reply emails. Considering the UK pays some of the highest fares in Europe — and to which one occasion a European colleague of mine had with tact referred to as “highway robbery” — it’s an extremely tall drink of nasty liquid that one has to ingest to side with that reasoning. Where is all of this money going?

What is even more frightening, or tragically hilarious — depending on what way you look at it — is that we are six to seven months away from the 2012 Olympics; an event that requires London to allow itself to become fat and uncomfortably bloated with the addition of at least five million people (estimated figures). And with this train service, as well as notable other examples throughout the London transportation network, coasting into this massive event on the same quality of service to me is the equivalent of a stereotypical dope-smoking teenager coasting along in cannabis-induced bliss, right until that moment he needs to pick up the phone and order one massively large, Olympic-size pizza and failing to even do that when going into mad panic seconds after picking up the phone.

I can already imagine the blind rage of commuters during those patience-testing two weeks as massively enlarged body of population attempts to smoothly use this service as it’s current level of quality. The biggest spectacles I can assure you wont be at the stadium or track, but at tube and rail stations themselves as angry commuters create new sports of their own such as synchronised turnstile hurdling, Oyster Card discus, the 100m platform dash, inner carriage boxing and much more. Perhaps all of these events would revolve around the “Olympic Flame” of burning effigies of Boris Johnson, who the public identify as the face and mouth of TFL. A man with all the charm and charisma of a soft, perspiring potato.

Anyway, I’m sure as you can tell by my tirade expressed the numerous paragraphs aboves there are serious faults to your service which you’ll need to pick up the slack on in terms of efficiency to validate the amount one spends in fares. In the meantime it’s a bit of a farce to say the least.

As I’m sure most of your staff are familiar with the popular animated sitcom “The Simpsons”, I’d like to conclude this letter with words that would like be quoted by that curmudgeonly, unshaven and borderline shapeless character we all know as “Comic Book Guy”:

“Worst. Train Service. Ever.”

Yours Sincerely,
Jack Duckworth

Perhaps there’s a sense of wonder and nostalgia lately. And it would certainly be present upon viewing of a feature from Japanese television about the macabre Swiss surrealist artist H.R. Giger. Although I’m never one to get to super die-hard fan status, Giger’s work has come and gone from focus in my lifetime, probably first discovered when I was a youth in the 80s through random science fiction magazines like Omni, battered VHS covers and album artwork — Perhaps I connected because the aesthetic and motives for his artworks very in tune with some of my own aesthetics and viewpoints on the human race — alienation, over-population,  the “cog in the machine” viewpoint and sort of the dark, um, sexuality of it all. Although somewhat macabre and terrifying many of his paintings have a sublime beauty and oddly a sense of calm (more so on the more abstracted landscapes).

Around a decade or so I had a brief stint, unschooled, with painting. There was some influence of that school of work albeit in a far more primitive, expressionist style. I’ll have to post some of that as I’ve pulled those items from out of three years of storage. We’ll save that for another time and get back to the documentary.

Opening up with a dark forest setting and a typeface worthy of 1970s psychedelic journey to Middle Earth, the documentary already moves in a more experimental direction with the deep space synthesizer sounds apparently provided courtesy by members of the kraut/prog group Brainticket. These druggy musical soundscapes lay a timeline to drape still fades of a great number of Giger’s painting from his Necronomicon series, many already familiar to those who may only have a passing interest in the artist.

What made this film odd I found was the candid nature of Giger’s narrative (in this case, done by a burly voiced American sounding bass-y and somewhat wooden) overlapping footage of domestic aspects of Giger’s life; including hoovering his Siamese cat, serving guests what appears to be lasagna in his garden, brushing his teeth, etc.. The list goes on. It makes for somewhat of a naïve but interesting contrast to the landscapes found in his paintings. Giger’s thoughts and musings on his artwork and philosophy come across quite naturally and seem to be uninhibited as to what others will think.

In addition there’s also some interest inside from some very jet-setting “Euro” patrons, explaining their attraction to his artwork. I certainly think that the pacing of this “feature” is of one that you wouldn’t really see in today’s “cut to the chase” style of television feature. The slow pacing I think adds to the epic feel of consciousness in the artwork.

Anyway, don’t take my word for it. You can view for yourself below. Switch on the lava lamp, get a fondue nice and heated in an earthware crockpot and kick back…

GIGER “Necronomicon” Part 1 of 4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8Ce0G_lBYs

Receiving junk mail by fax is another phenomenon: bad, dot-matrix style ads spooling painfully to the out tray with garbled graphics of houses to let and tasteless clip-art. An old friend of mine worked at a paint store that made regular use out of the shop’s fax machine. Apparently the percentage of junk mail that that fax machine received prompted my friend to take action against the spam-sending aggressors. The result is where this whole story starts.

“I just took three sheets of paper, penned them up so they were all black, and taped the three sheets together into the fax machine,” he said — or something to that effect. “Once the chained sheets went through and started coming out the other side, I’d tape the three sheets again into a loop.”

From there one would get an infinite fax message; the three sheets constantly rotating and when received on the other side the fax wouldn’t stop until manually stopped. The blacked out pages added more nastiness to the deed, wasting up the recipient’s toner as well as their paper. Yes, harsh revenge for those shameless fax spammers. This trick was what we then called a “loopfax”.

This friend of mine had a knack for telling stories and things that happened in his life and his telling of it was hilarious. As we had also played in a band together, a short time later after a show in Victoria, the loopfax came up again — this time at a small party at a friend’s house. Fueled by a post-gig high, likely lack of sleep and alcohol — the loopfax story struck a chord with those that hadn’t heard of it as it seemed like the most simple yet ultimately damaging form of technology-based office warfare that there was. The conversation started picking up and as we discussed the repercussions of loopfax usage (or mis-use), scenarios worthy of science fiction were discussed. That and a lot of laughing our asses off.

Imagine a future where man is slave to the machine. It is the year 2056 and mankind has deforested the entire planet to make paper to feed into the Giant Fax Machine. It has been receiving and endless fax message for years. Giant monoliths of printed fax paper obscure the sun, standing hundreds of stories high. The sky is polluted with chemicals from pulp and paper mills. All is dirty with the blackness of toner soot. One day our hero steps forward and ends the madness by simply pulling the plug. Mankind rejoices.

Sounds like a plot as goofy as Spaceballs or Darkstar.  And even from there it went on, popping up sporadically over the following years. A friend of mine even did a small blog about it that’s still haunting the internet as a joke, full of suggestions for fax-based revenge and practical jokery — perhaps some modern Dada-style art.

To be honest, I’ve never even tried making a loopfax. If this short piece inspires you, try it at home and send your loopfax related adventures to me by email… or by FAX (scary ending music).

CLICK TO ENLARGE

I’d keep telling people about these: a ridiculous “urban-themed” hip hop snack but totally forgot the name and any of the details. It’s sort of like telling a joke but flailing on the punchline. No-one likes a flailing punchline — really.

The first time I came across “Rap Snacks” – as I’ve now found out – was in a non-descript (possibly derelict?) gas station off of the interstate in St. Louis, Missouri. We had spent the evening hanging around a venue in a not-so-good part of town and were now packing up to make tracks to our next destination: Memphis, Tennessee. The initial draw of Rap Snacks were the cartoon-ish illustrations of the endorsing “rapper” on the packaging and the bold colouring made by usage of only a few solid primary colours. There was sort of a Spy Vs. Spy or Dick Tracy vibe going on.

Warren G., L’il Romeo, Pretty Willie… can’t say I’ve heard of these guys. They must have some clout in the rap world to get a snack with their name on it. Perhaps the snack flavour is a representation of their personality. Pretty Willie is a spicy yet smooth personality: therefore Salsa Cheese.

Knowing that ages young and old will pick up a bag, positive messages are printed on the packaging: “Respect Your Elders”… “Stay In School”… Looks like they’re taking a cue from Mr. T.

“Worry is a misuse of imagination” – quote by Chopper, a “rapper” that I’ve never heard of. This quote is from a bag of Hot Sauce Pork Cracklin’s.

Maybe this was a smaller, tight knit scene of bonafide rappers getting together and doing something positive? Who knows? The message is sure there. As well as a big potential for advertising. Getting the artists out to the rap music lovers… and lovers of dry, salted snacks.

We know musicians have been tied with food for a while: Greg Norton of Hüsker Dü owns a restaurant in Minnesota, Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand wrote a food book and I know various musicians of the punk/hardcore cannon that have written about food or pursue a career in food in tandem with their musical endeavours. Bands have even made novelty merchandise around food.

Maybe a genre-based snack could be launched on a more microcosmic scale.

EAST LONDON WAVE SCENE SNACKS
Many different variations, each with some sort of active persona on the packaging with a morally uplifting (or nihilistically sarcastic) message on the front of the bag/box.

If I had that bizarre opportunity to put my face on a snack it would likely have cashews in it.

This makes for using a lot less energy and staying indoors, amongst piles of things. A lot of these things arrived early this summer when a bunch of stuff I had lying in storage back in Canada were shipped over: records, books, clothes, old zines, cassettes, master recordings, photos and other odds and ends. One of the items is a tattered manila FedEx envelope filled with random photos and documentation from when my father passed away, which is now a month or two shy of ten years ago. I never really explored this envelope and for no real reason. It was a mess and always warranted “some time when I had some time” to look in it. I finally did. Odd postcards sent from his stint in the navy to the parents back home, tainted with his trademark humour, a yellowing university thesis, old photos from way back when of unknown men and woman. Some distant Duckworth relative would be my first bet.

I’ve been trying to document a lot of the notes, posters, artwork and other such things I’ve been pumping out on pieces of paper since I was a young school student in the early to mid nineties and posting bits here and there. Here’s a few bits I’ve assembled together from this manila envelope:

That’s it for now. Back to being ill. In these moments I get flashbacks to older times I was sick or just laying around. I seem to remember a long time ago being dazed on some sort of medicine or painkillers listening to this song from the Fugazi “In On The Killtaker” album — back when this album had regular rotation. I currently feel like the track from the 3.00 minute mark onward…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DInMgpg05SU

The first film, The Servant, is a British film from 1963 starring Dirk Bogarde somewhat hot on the heels of his controversial film, Victim. It mainly takes place in the apartment of a foppish and wealthy young man played by James Fox (Performance). Coming from a privileged background and not really having worked in his lifetime, he enlists the services of Barnett, played by Dirk Bogarde to be his “man-servant”. Throughout the film Barnett masterfully turns the tables on his employer and by the end of the film the relations between these two and their lovers become entirely twisted and into threadbare emotional psychosis, playing on a larger theme of class and privilege.

THE SERVANT (1963)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi8LukXkIaw

The second is a light-hearted, critically panned film adaptation of The Bonfire of The Vanities by Brian de Palma starring “family-friendly” 80s favourites Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis and Melanie Griffith. While the film has apparently followed Tom Wolfe’s book for the most part, it is somewhat common knowledge that the character of Sherman McCoy is painted in a more sympathetic light in this film — there’s something generally hammy about it but makes for late Sunday night “watch the wealthy white guy fall real hard” entertainment, and touches on some of the political reasonings for the basis of scapegoat type cases.

THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES (1988)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSWY_mA1LPw

The former struck me as a more masterful film and I admit I’m starting to get a Dirk Bogarde kick a stirring. Time to watch Sebastian at some point, Bogarde meets 60s drug movie!

SEBASTIAN (1968)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Lxj81G-Uhg