Remember the movie Office Space? Of course you do, it’s a freakin’ classic.
Remember the scene where they steal the printer and exact some awesome revenge upon it?
Remember the song that’s playing during that scene?
That’s what was playing in my head when I stomped on this little bugger.
You can blame this one on my former band mate, Steve. He posted something about the band Triumph on Facebook the other day, and now I can’t stop listening to them.
They were the first band I ever saw live. My uncle took me. It was 1985, I think. It might have been 1986. They were, of course, the other three piece band from Toronto with a singer whose voice was so high only dogs could hear it. The difference between Triumph and Rush was that Rush seemed completely uninterested in the mainstream, while Triumph pretty much lived there. In the 70’s they were one of an infinite number of straight ahead heavy rock bands, but in the 80’s they got steadily slicker and more radio friendly. Back when I was in junior high and high school, I thought Thunder Seven (from 1984) and Allied Forces (from 1981) were the best records. I still think that’s true, but we can throw in Just a Game (from… ummm… was it ’78?) in there too. I think those records, mostly, still stand up. I was never into their first US record, Rock and Roll Machine. That was actually a compilation of their first two Canadian records. It just didn’t sound very good and at that time the recording quality meant a ton to me. Today, I give it a listen and think it’s okay and then put Thunder Seven back on. Never Surrender was another big one for them, but it seems to be a little weak to me today. The Sport of Kings (the album the were touring when I saw them) is just way too glossy 80’s for me now. There are a few good songs, but most of it sounds like the sort of thing Journey would have been pleased with. I can’t even listen to the last album they made, Surveillance I think it was called, but I couldn’t stomach it back when it came out either. Progressions of Power was from… 1980 maybe? That one seemed weak back then, and it still seems weak today. It’s not that bad, it just seems like a step down.
Here’s a video from the US Festival back in 1983. As I watch this, I recall that they had a stage show that was so huge you kind of imagine Pink Floyd looking at them and thinking, we got some work to do. I remember lasers and explosions and a flying drum set and all sorts of crazy arena rock stuff that Nirvana and Pearl Jam thankfully flushed down the toilet. At the time it was okay, I guess, but it took so much attention away from the music that I never missed that sort of thing. In this clip though, it’s a festival and they didn’t have their own stage show. They just played the music. Novel thought, eh? I remember Rik Emmett being one of the guys who wore his guitar up very high. That is actually the correct way to hold a guitar, even though it’s not nearly as cool as slinging it down by your waist. I don’t remember the way his hands were positioned though. His left hand seems to be holding the guitar WAY out in front of his body, and his right hand is almost coming at the strings from underneath. It looks weird and uncomfortable to me, but I can’t argue with the way he plays. Lightning fast and impeccably clean. Then there’s Gil Moore (was it Gil or Gill? Can’t remember. I think it was Gil). He also looks weird as he plays. I can’t quite put my finger on it. It’s almost like he’s seven feet tall and the drums are down below his knees. As for Mike Levine, he’s exactly as I remember him. He often looks like he’s going to fall over backward, but that’s just a good old fashioned 70’s rock posing for you.
Triumph – Fight the Good Fight at the US Festival in ’83.
On Wednesday or Thursday night we had a nasty little thunderstorm come rolling through town. The wind was really high and the rain was coming down in buckets. It didn’t last long, but it was pretty tough while it was here. At one point my wife and I were sitting next to each other and I heard a loud crack. I said to her that I think a tree limb just came down in the back yard. When morning came there was nothing.
Until yesterday morning.
It must have hung on as long as it could and then came down when no one was around to notice. I saw this for the first time shortly after waking up on Saturday morning. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to move this one on my own. I might have to invest in a chain saw (and then be too terrified of it to ever use it).
Nerd boy tries to get all clever with his macro setting.
This is the spot it broke off of.
Check out this pig of a bird.
At first he was all calm and cool. Sitting there with a seed in his beak.
Then out of nowhere he gets all rude and flings a seed off of the feeder, onto the ground. How uncivilized.
Then he just goes nuts and flings a whole pile of food to the ground. He’s just doing it to piss me off at this point.
Now he’s just sitting there all smug, trying to act like he’s innocent or something. What a jerk!
Yeah, you better run away. Don’t let me catch you acting like a sloppy pig at my bird feeder again!
Have you ever wondered what a squirrel sounds like? Here’s a video of a noisy little bastard in our back yard. It’s pretty quiet, so you have to crank up the volume a bit.
Oh happy, glorious day!
I can finally post my alonetone playlists onto my blog!
The solution is to use gigya shortcodes. This is the greatest thing ever!
Enjoy the CD I made with Break Even, called The Right Place!
(note, for some reason alonetone playlists tend to start in the middle. Scroll up to the top and click on the first track to play them in order.)
So yeah, I can post audio files on wordpress.com without having to go through soundcloud or anything like that. Granted, the browser needs to support HTML5. That means that this blog now officially endorses Google Chrome as it’s browser of choice. Hurrah.
It’s not much, but it seems to work. Hows about I share a Break Even song as a test. This is “Black Mark (live)” from the CD The Right Place. Fortunately for your ears, I didn’t write it. Unfortunately for your ears, I did way over play.
http://alonetone.com/robertjames1971/tracks/break-even-black-mark-live.mp3%20While mowing the lawn, the birds stayed away. As soon as I ran out of gas and the noise stopped the came flocking out again.
The following comes from the wikipedia.org entry titled “Scofflaw”:
Scofflaw is a noun coined during the Prohibition era meaning a person who drinks illegally. It is a compound of the words scoff and law, meaning one who mocks or ridicules the law. The meaning has since been extended to describe one who flouts any law, especially those which are difficult to enforce, and particularly traffic laws.
“Scofflaw” was the winning entry of a nationwide competition sponsored by the Boston Herald in the year 1924. The word was submitted by two separate entrants, Henry Irving Dale and Kate L. Butler, who split the $200 prize equally. The term scofflaw was deemed the best and most suitable out of over 25,000 entries.[1] The word was from the outset frequently used until the eventual repeal of Prohibition in 1933. It experienced a revival in the 1950s, as a term for anyone who displays disdain for laws difficult to enforce. It is still used frequently in reference to cannabis prohibition. The word itself remains a symbol of the Prohibition era.
Now thanks to me, my lovely wife, Ken Burns’ documentary on Prohibition, and wikipedia, you too know what the word “scofflaw” means and why it was ironic to see an alcoholic beverage named after it.
The drink is called a Scofflaw and we know what that means! Thank you, Ken Burns’ Prohibition documentary !
Inside the Red Head's Head 