Tag Archives: The Matinee

The Smugglers ‘at Japan’ pod-idio book (+ audio cameo, train mayhem & storytime foreshadowing)

Gist: My occasional co-conspirator, CBC dude and fellow mixed-media storymaker Grant Lawrence is reading his stellar book “Dirty Windshields – the best and worst of the Smuggler’s Tour Diaries” as a rock n roll enhanced *pod-idio book* (which is a dude who spends a lot of time stuck in bed, is a format i totally dig).

Grant and I at a CBC open house, *yeeeeears ago”

I spread the word about recent segment which chronicles their misadventures in Japan in the chapter called “Sushi and Squats” or is it called “Lost in Japan” or “Bishy Bishy”…? I’m so confused

Ears On!
Listen via Grant’s “Super Feed”: Dirty Windshields – Ch 34 – Diode City &/or Apple Pod

In the subsequent episode,

“More tales from highways & alleys of Japan ~ mayhem and good times with @GrantLawrence & @ItsTheSmugglers / still getting lost but because of a lousy tour manager driver but fun with Supersnazz makes up for it / plus a special hello for “ole pal Dave Olson, from Vancouver, living in Japan”

https://twitter.com/uncleweed/status/1703288235567571019
Dig even more goodness: Dirty Windshields – Ch 35 – Bishy Bishy! (Apple pod)

and no, i am not the Canadian Dave who got lost in the previous story

And about all the Japan oddities:

It’s so hilarious!

The whole slipper routine is still a constant source of confusion for newcomers to Japan. And even folks have been around a while, will accidentally wear the toilet slippers out into the “other room” or heaven forbid wear any kind of slippers into tatami room. #shock!

{Important to note that if your feet are bigger than I like size 5, you can really only jam two or three toes into the slippers and you waddle around like a penguin.}

And the mistaken word for that ‘bowel conundrum’ does have a pleasant rhyming repetitive feel but it’s definitely a different word.

Aside: Now that Japan’s borders opened up for several months, (they were hard closed) for several years, a barrage of “legacy” western artists are back on the tour circuit from Bob Dylan to Sting to Jackson Browne to Howard Jones (yup)… All finding great receptive audiences despite almost no promotion that I ever see.

And like you talked about in the Tokyo show when the audiences are singing along to every word, there ain’t no fans like Japanese fans which is why so many bands record their live albums here.

Also noticed Wilco are coming but only playing two shows… I’m no promoter but it seems like the cost of the logistics of flying across the vast Pacific to play only two shows in a country with three times the population of Canada and a highly efficient transportation networks and super eager audiences and loads of venues is a bit wrongheaded but what do I know… I’m just a guy who folds laundry and writes postcards in a minor provincial capital that no one’s heard of (but has a great jazz, reggae, etc. music scene).

PS thanks for the kind name check in the last episode. Makes my virtual friends in Japan think I’m somehow relevant ????

Long and stumbling Road:

The book spends lots of time in Vancouver of course but also another one of my “hometowns” of Olympia Washington (especially for the international Pop underground event in 1991) as well as European tours (which reminds me of my time tagging along with the Bad Yodelers in Germany).

As such, pals on both sides of the Pacific (and maybe some across Indian and Atlantic oceans) will dug it big time. Hooray!

Bonus Riff from Uno Port:

I wrote about reading this Dirty Windshields book, and some of the memories associated with his adventures, with Nardwuar, Beez and others, while on a trip to Uno Port en route to Naoshima art island (which has a dossier of its own coming, also eventually).

Coffee and dirty windshields, appropriately about to catch a ferry

Also: there is apparently a DIY documentary called “The Smugglers at Japan” floating around on VHS… trying to get my mitts on a copy – which might require buying a VHS deck at (splendidly named used goods store chain) Hard Off, but I need to get one anyway… (I’ve got projects, you know)

Usual digression, this time from a train:

Grant and I both rolled on the now-semi-legendary “Tracks on Tracks” trip – am indie rock Festival Express of sorts on Via Rail from Vancouver to Toronto with “whistle-stop shows (which like the original Festival Express, all went “horribly wrong but just right” somehow.).

Not the Rosie part but the Matinee part and of course there’s Grant but there’s also me tucked in there

During the trip in a late night dining car sign-a-long, my pals from The Matinée pulled out “Rosie” – probably the closest The Smugglers ever had to a hit I’m not sure – and encouraged Grant to sing… When he said, “but I don’t remember the words” they even had a lyric sheet ready for him.

My “story board” from the tracks on track train trip

There is always a reunion tour: the events on the train possibly subsequently kind of sparked a resurgence of the band in part and anyway Grant who was on a roll with his stories from desolation sound book and another one about his life in hockey, then rocked out this great dirty windshield and then did ‘reunion shows’.

“Lonely end of the rink” on a bookshelf made from an old canoe on a tiny island near Bali Indonesia

First at a Lookout Records (tip: read Larry Livermore’s “how to ruin a record label” book) event in Berkeley, another at Amigos in Saskatoon (coincidentally where I was born), and an event – which doubled as a book release party iirc – at the Commodore Ballroom with Chixdiggit and The Muffs (might’ve been their very last show, RIP, Kim).

I was there, groggy from just arriving from Nepal or Sri Lanka, or Istanbul or something. Anyway, click the things above and dig the stories and the garage rock and “colorful” to say the least characters met along the way.

Coming, Eventually:

So funny figuring out how we were constantly crossing paths around the world but slightly different years… I was in Japan in the early 90s but by the time you were there on tour, I was in Guam then Olympia (where I became the Internet provider guy for K records, Kill Rockstars, Subpop, Ladyfest, yo-yo a go go, Sunnyside music fest, Capitol theater, Tropicana > Metropolis, east side club, and well… Every other music going on

We crisscrossed CBGB’s (which was past its prime and I spent most of my time at Wetlands with emerging “jam bands” in 1989), later in Europe where I was a “roadie” (freeloader who didn’t do anything) for the Bad Yodelers on a similar circuit as you all – plus seeing Gwar and staying at punk rock squats extolling stories of DOA, No Means No, SNFU who were all legends in Germany.

When you were in Olympia for the international Pop underground, i split two weeks before (after getting sent to attend evergreen college which turns out got put on hold for a decade or so) & had split for Jerry Garcia and Grateful Dead show in California – but earlier that same year I was watching Beat Happening in Salt Lake City (as well as Nirvana opening for Dinosaur Jr at a converted church) – maybe was that the same run of shows you promoted the Nirvana show with Screaming Trees etc.?

Even back in the 80s in Vancouver, ‘you can cross one river/inlet but crossing two is quite literally ‘a transit bridge too far” – so I was also sneaking in to Commodore and Town Pump (never could get into the Buddha) but reveling in the all ages shows at the York theater / so many!… but getting up to the SeyLynn hall for shows was a literal transit impossibility from Whalley (though I saw Fugazi around that same time you were promoting them but in Washington DC – on a meandering road trip in yup, a VW bus, which took me from Harvard to Sun studios and all points in between).

Anyway, I made a long rambling video that kind of talks about these weird connections pulling out all kinds of artifacts, handbills, records, ephemera in a freeform stream of consciousness riff and maybe I’ll eventually edit it and put it out into the world cause the connections are kinda hilarious.

We were however, in the same gymnasium at those Mudhoney shows at UBC but strangely I have no recollection of the Smugglers (definitely my fault, not yours I was probably in the parking lot having a safety break).

This is just a long way of saying “I’m really enjoying the podcast, (especially as I am laid out with that “popular public health conundrum plague”) and seems like lots of my pals in Japan are getting a good kick out of it too”.

Rock on etc

Me, elsewhere
Addendum:

Diary: blue dress, typhoons, tidying up – wait, didn’t i tell you this before?

August 14:

Since wife didn’t go to Tokyo for niece’s b-day, was able go to meet up with school chums (obv hasn’t happened for a few years)

So she switched from grubby work clothes to a cute cap-sleeve light blue dress, stockings/sandals, Tiffany necklace & ring / even perfume. So cute!

[note to self: take a snapshot ya know!]

Earlier today: After tidying up all the carport & yard of tools, landscaping supplies, inflatable pool + miscellaneous hazards // we did a bit of sign painting and a spontaneous charcoal barbecue on a ceramic smelting stove. I was so smokey smelly / took bath, pills & now in cool dark room.

Ryoko took snaps of the spontaneous barbq and made a IG post, my 2 darling are both so cute, brilliant, creative and courageous:

Later that evening: Kiddo is gratefully at grandparents for a few hours. Planned for kura session to rock out one of the audio/video/something projects on my list but barometric pressure is dropping and my little head is crushing so leaving the list untouched & maybe a black-and-white movie instead (Our Man in Havana?)

Not in the above list screenshot are many sundry tasks like hanging art, deconstructing backpacks, removing scrap screws and compost bins from pallets.

Included are these two paintings by John Ferrie showing glorious Vancouver in an enthusiastic barrage of delightful colours – each detail significant about a city i once loooooved.

note to self, get a better snapshot, and share with the artist

August 15:

And really good thing wife didn’t go to Tokyo as the train service coming this way was suspended for at least today on account of the #Typhoon. As for me, Im in bed all day listening to Theta meditations + black coffee and ice packs

All (albeit modest) expectations for birthday put on pause, –just happy to be safe, alive & visualizing the next “three big things” admit a not insignificant amount of pain. Better than before, right … [Insert question mark here]

“If I were confined to a corner of a garret all my days, like a spider, the world would be just as large to me while I had my thoughts about me.”

Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Indulge Me, Logistically – Postcard #86

Indulge Me, Logistically – Postcard #86 (at artist Yumeji birthplace museum)

Let’s not lose each other amidst the table cloth being pulled out from under glasses and dishes. Meaning: some technical jibber-jabber about claiming feeds sparks a history of these sporadic, occasional (yet somehow charming, right?) literary dispatches from hand-written XML to various blogs and feeds and meanderings. Plus, about me! My name is Dave Olson (hi, more below). So, let’s continue to spend time together shall we?

clickity-click: Indulge Me, Logistically – Postcard #86

A brief history and future at: Indulge Me, Logistically – Postcard #86
(64MB, 33:29, 256k mp3, stereo)

Special music from The Matinée who have new album coming out called “Road to Hell”. Consider supporting these lovely gents in their most enjoyable endeavours.

{more The Matinée in this archive}

Continue reading Indulge Me, Logistically – Postcard #86

Book, by post: Amy Chavez + chats, patch, tunes, poetics

Arrived, by post “The Widow, the Priest and the Octopus Hunter” by Amy Chavez. Lovely “just out” hardback edition from Tuttle.

Amy Chavez shares stories from a secluded island, quite nearby

Stories from an inland sea island (relatively close to Tsuchida cottage) by a long time resident and very interesting human it seems.

Noting: Amy arrived in Japan in 1993, shortly after my “Japan 1.0“ era, and years later, when reminiscing about my long distant past and curiousity about the inland sea, came across her writings (in Japan Times and other outlets) and some podcasts and whatnot… Little did I know that years later, I would end up in the area again (really couldn’t have guessed).

So far, the book is absolutely exquisite both in the design and the emotional yet somehow compact and efficient prose. I’m trying to read it slowly because I want it to last a long time.

Other activities/annotations:

  • Pleasant conversation with friend Neal in Metchosin, Plus a new local friend name Trevor stop by for a quick visit
  • Wrote 6 page letter to Ichiro for 2nd birthday #io
  • Sneak preview listen to The Matinée’s new music (yes!)
  • sweet Jerry Garcia designed Keen masks arrived
  • edited videos of ambient scrapbook sessions (trips to Shimane & Kyoto)
  • now dishes & laundry

Various evidences & annotations of above:

I figure 2+ years into all of this, might as well have a mask with a bit of flair. Acquired unused but secondhand from a shoe brand I used to use a lot and designed by a guitar player I listen to very much alot.

Noting, for various reasons my videos aren’t “monetized” just for mine/your amusement so playing records in the background (which thwacks the algorithm anyway ;)) hooray for punk rawk scrapbooking hangouts

While in the barn studio, started a new scrapbook with poetic letters and extra special correspondence…

It’s almost time to make another big batch of the scrapbooks, like the scrapbook themselves as most from last batch made on Ceningan are filled up or gifted

Of course all correspondence is special but some go into postcard folios, others into a special book for festive greetings, in this case, longer/larger form items from Topsfield, Victoria, Gifu and so on.

Typhoon weather

or thunderstorm, severe or otherwise

regardless, I’ve somehow become incapable

of even the most minor tasks

Pardon my delays i’ll try again

eventually

Also: Sprucing up the jacket with a Cascadia patch. Bioregionalism seems like a pretty good idea right about now doesn’t it?

there are some other patches on this jacket I’ll show you sometime

Fellowship of the Beards “The Matinée” – Tracks 10 years, part 5

ain’t nothing but a good time, all the time

Dealio: (Almost) cross Canada Rock n Roll Train / Flashback and Preview

Note: can you spot me in on the fun?

Anyhow,… 10 years ago, I was on a train going from Vancouver to Toronto with 10-ish rock ‘n’ roll bands, CBC Radio 3, mixed media documentary film crew and other free radicals + I was on board as Svengali-like guru ;) / advisor.  And finally, the documentary is coming out in chapter/band parts…, ergo:

The Matinée at the Gladstone end of the tracks blow out (i think this is my photo but if its not, just let me know)

Blurb:

“I know that wasn’t the question, but this is the answer”

The friendship and camaraderie of The Matinée is as evident as the affable gents provide cabin tours and compare Canadian landscapes to Lord of the Rings geography while wondering “what life feels like there” as places whisk past VIA Rail Canadian train’s window.

Beyond the witty banter, they play *so much* that Matt Layzell’s voice is almost tossed into the baggage car with the empty bottles ~ from 3 AM group sing-alongs, to Lightfoot/Dylan-esque poetics in the view car (including Kiana Brassett chiming in on violin), and breaking out songs sounding like summer FM radio in a convertible turned up to 11 as the throngs cheers their beers to slinging Matt Rose & raconteur Geoff Petrie on guitars, Pete Lemon switching between brushes, tables, shakers & sticks, and Mike Young swapping bass for mandolin. 

Indeed, The Matinee collectively brought the chops and the charm reminiscent of The Band on the 1970 Festival Express with easy-going sincerity, swagger & style and surprises for everyone – especially for CBC host and singer of The Smugglers, Grant Lawrence who was temporary speechless for the first time in his life.

So continues the Track on Tracks rock ‘n’ roll train adventure from Vancouver to Toronto with 10+ bands, dozens of music enthusiasts, and a documentary crew who were literally climbing the walls to capture it all. Hop on board for part 5 of 10 and see you in the bar car ready to sing-a-long.

by daveo for Green Couch
me auditioning to be “The Matinée’s honorary uncle with Matt Layzell

All the goodness at: Green Couch Films Tracks on Tracks
/ Track on Tracks playlist at YT

(Almost) cross Canada Rock n Roll Train / Flashback and Preview

Such goodness out now

10 years ago, I was on a train going from Vancouver to Toronto with 11-ish rock ‘n’ roll bands, CBC Radio 3, mixed media documentary film crew and other free radicals + I was on board as Svengali-like guru ;) / advisor.

It was our own 90 person indie rock Festival Express co-mingled with the usual passengers and doing ridiculous / ill-fated whistle stop shows along the way and ended up at NxNE festival for showcase and I presented a keynote talk about social media disasters…

Recursive/meta photo of a TV with Grant Lawrence of CBC showing a TV with a video of Grant, me and others on the train from Green Couch film YouTube

And finally, the documentary is coming out in chapter/band parts starting June 8th iirc. Consider yourself warned, amused and excited.

All the goodness at Green Couch Films Tracks on Tracks

Handy playlist at YT: https://www.youtube.com/greencouchfilms

Continue reading (Almost) cross Canada Rock n Roll Train / Flashback and Preview

Passports to Nowhere (for someone else)

lousy photo of interesting stack of passports etc (waiting to be) in process

I’ve started modifying old passports with ink, stamps, ink stamps, fake maps & assumed espionage… this means late night eBay buying Albanian passports. Just so many weird good items to remix i cant/wont/dont stop.

The paper is so tactile / interesting & with all the visa stamps, (stapled) photos (sometimes Mom & kids in one photo), stamps, visas, details of all kinds + occasional ephemeral papers slipped in.& almost-intimate details make such a starting point for stories. {note: takes a bit of daring to desecrate at first, however lovingly}.

I ones i purchase are $10 or so. Yugoslavs are cheap. CCCP/USSR and DDR can get more expensive. Lots of Romania, Bulgaria and old Kingdom of Greece stuff. Odd (in a way) how this sort of ephemera is abundant from some countries, scarce from others.

The US ones (above) are great, via Israel… perhaps/seems Israeli citizen(s) had applied for US citizenship, gone to US and other countries and eventually returned. these ones have a loads of country stamps so interesting to speculate on story. Again, feels rather intimate and mysterious.

Several i’ve picked up seem to be “the last one before emigrating”. Now i’ll continue the story with my odds and ends and alterations and possibly put up for sale/trade to continue their journey.  {i should probably do that etsy shop…}

Passport issued by The Matinée rock and roots band for Dancing on your Grave

Oh and while i’m passporting, had an extra “headband” photo so finally decorated up my The Matinee “Dancing on Your Grave” passport. Will be scribbling in poetry and usual inky stamps on the pages within.

Note to self: finish tuning up Cascadia passport from & share here

PS since i’m typing… more random passport-inspired items in archive (i have almost all of my mine from various countries) plus other related: 

Artifacts: Signed treasures + international flair (in the Kura)

As i sortganize the kura (barn)/studio, so many treasures… i will document as years go in more elegant manner but sometimes i manage a snap of something extra special. Ergo:

Couple Nick Bantock (Griffin & Sabine etc etc) originals. #needframes

More special signed items coming out including: Mark Arm (Mudhoney), Tegan & Sara… (Frank Black is back there too)

… + Billy Bragg, Joe Shithead & Randy Rampage (DOA), The Matinée, many many more.

bits of international flair from Jordan, Montego Bay, Jamaica, California and Japan (more to come…)

Musing: Throwing Muses, Tanya Donelly and concerts in years past

Added as a riff on a Throwing Muses/Tanya Donnelly etc site, no recollection of context, archiving here for ummm… archival purposes

I was maybe a little “late to the party” learning about Throwing Muses as it wasn’t until 1990 and they came to play in Salt Lake City and I quickly kept looping through Real Ramona… {Realized most of my fave TM songs were primary by TD rather than KH}.

At the time I was listening to everything from Mike Watt’s firehose to following R.E.M. on Green tour and hopping on Grateful Dead bus in Eugene and disappearing on tour… 

Would rock out to Buffalo Tom, Dinosaur Jr (who have seen dozen+ of times including with Nirvana opening), Green River and then Mudhoney in between Grateful Dead shows, as well as pretty much any touring reggae band you can mention. Later hitchhiked around Europe with a scant assortment of cassettes in my auto reversing Walkman including Pavement, Sebadoh, Mickey Hart’s Planet Drum, Velvet Underground, Santana, Cornell 77… 

adding an image here, for no reason, not sure where it came from (Rolling Stone?) was in my “inspiration” dossier so hey, its shiny

“Grew up” with punk rock esp DOA & Nomeansno (im originally from Vancouver) and Dead Kennedys and other mostly west coast bands, but have tapped into *everything* from so-called college rock two free jazz to all the jam bands (saw Phish in a bar in Providence with maybe 75 people and little trampolines), followed String Cheese Incident around a bit, dug Widespread Panic and moe. Went to all five Grateful Dead 50 shows before “retiring”… Now live in Japan and especially big fan of Tanya’s sorta-recent Swan Song series.

Since I’m riffing, my first concert was David Bowie with Peter Gabriel of me and when I was 12, saw The Clash the next year and hopped on stage for the encore…  and just kept going since then… Got backstage for Oingo Boingo, R.E.M., played in a few small tiny bands in Salt Lake and other places, saw Gwar in Germany which was legit scary, saw so many big festivals at The Gorge in Washington, tagged along as a “roadie” – although didn’t actually do anything – for the Bad Yodelers in Germany and The Matinée in Ontario.

All right, I’ve reminisced enough, have a wonderful festive everything #freehugs

“Rock Train” Cross-Canada, 2012 / mixed media collage

paint-Static Montages-Rock Train Cross-Canada, 2012  mixed media collage
“Rock Train” Cross-Canada, 2012 / mixed media collage

June 2012, i boarded a VIA with 11 bands, a doc film crew, CBC radio 3, a bushel of photographers, a handful of fans and me as onboard community Svengali – complete a Bob Marley/Hunter Thompson inspired medical kit. Across the lands we bounded, each band performing acoustically in the glass act-deco caboose in car, they played a showcase in the “activity” car, then a rousing full rocking set at the Gladstone in Toronto for CBC Radio 3 NXNE showcase.

Along the way, we made 4 whistlestop performances which all featured lateness, weirdness and rampaging small towns before escaping back to the diplomatic immunity of the train. In those 4-1/2 days, we knew we were in a magic situation and no one wanted to miss a moment. “Every Night” we’d holler after another show where we packed in, climbing the train walls for a view of Adaline SingsThe MatineeTop Less Gay Love Tekno PartyJean-Paul MauriceBear MountainSidney YorkPortage and Main, Shred Kelly and more – always blown away by the variety and quality.

You probably know i made a 6or7 part podcast series  – tracking the trek and Green Couch are crafting a Tracks on Tracks documentary… which i think should be 10 hours long. I gathered all my paper-y bits and pieces and made another of my commemorative story boards AKA “static montage” with CDs, stickers, snaps, stubs, postcards and even a pic from my keynote address at NXNE Interactive about social media in crisis and revolutions. With John Biehler’s help, here is the static montage, hopefully in a size you can zoom in and catch each detail. Tag it up, wallpaper it, share it. Enjoy and let’s go again!