Filling this light blue page with a spot of stupid humour; the remnants of an inside joke — or non-joke. I suspect everyone has a shared library of puns, one-liners, or running verbal gags with their mates. Yesterday I was doing some light music research on a short break from a particularily grueling work project to come across the band Clan of Xymox. I have their first two albums on vinyl LP and they are the only two that I’ve heard or own. They are a good listen and the oddly-titled track “Muscoviet Mosquito” is a standout, also being part of a 4AD compilation from around that time. “Stumble and Fall” is notable as well. These are both from the first LP.

Sometime in the early naughties I was travelling through the middle of British Columbia in a beaten up old van. This trip was taken for the purpose physically bombarding patrons at venues with amplified soundwaves. They actually paid money to have this happen to them. During this trip, as with many trips around this period, there was a large shoebox with grungy cassette tapes positioned between the driver’s seat and the front passenger seat. One of my fellow musical travellers had an eclectic taste in music ranging from old delta blues to synth-pop and he pulled out a Xymox (note the lack of “Clan of…”) cassette. The cover was considerably more techno influenced than their 80s dark romantic leanings of previous albums. I don’t really remember the music as that whole time in the van is usually in my head mashed up into one great blur but as we all became victims of “van mouth”, an infliction that causes the infected person to spout non-topical garbage as a result of many long mindless hours in a van, we started wondering what a “Xymox” was? It sounded Greek. Was it greek? Was it a beligerent alien from some foreign planet, covered in scales and slime? Perhaps the letters X Y M O X were chosen for aesthetic reasons.

Timing would have it that this conversation — I think — popped up in our travels through the aptly titled Shuswap region of BC. Co-incidentally there’s a small village — er, gas station and bridge — a little bit east of the town of Chase called Squilax. Similar sounding to Xymox, no? For some reason it was incredibly funny at the time. A band of romantic goths coming from a small intersection of a village; their band’s name a direct reference to their location. I think I accidently referred Clan of Xymox with this name a few times afterward. This is obviously not going to be funny if you weren’t there. The Loopfax, however, is a different matter and perhaps I’ll come to that next time…