As an Englishman relocated to Canada just seven years ago, I cannot help but find this recently posted video rather fun and charming. It's a bullet point account of a young English guy's visit to my country, seemingly mostly, if not entirely, in Ontario. He revels in what he may feel are some 'typical' Canadian experiences and, indeed, on my first visit to Canada back in 1996 - briefly taking in destinations in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia - I understandably sought out the very same. Like young James I also saw the Toronto Maple Leafs play, visited (several) Tim Horton's and ascended the (terrifyingly tall) CN Tower, but I am amused at the thrills he gleaned from decidedly non-Canadian, somewhat universal experiences - such as visiting a mall, riding the subway, eating pizza and, bizarrely, welding! Oh well, all that matters is that he had a good time and went home high on Canada.
But it is funny what the general perception of Canadian life appears to be from those that have never visited the country. I've had people back in England ask what it's like living in "the wilderness," when I live in a relatively modern city; they picture some kind of frontier existence in which we have to hunt our food and chop down trees to heat the cabin. Of course, many people in the more remote areas of this vast country do live this way, but the romantic vision of Canada is that we all do. Although, of course, some of it was said in jest, a friend who visited from the UK some years ago said he envisaged that it snowed year-round, that lots of people on Vancouver Island live in igloos and cabins deep in massive forests, that maple syrup is served with every meal, that every Canadian says 'aboot' and 'eh' all the time, and that all we listen to is Rush and Gordon Lightfoot.
That's pretty funny, eh? And aboot all I have time for today.
Despite the fact that I'm immersed in music most every day of my life, it's inevitable that some bands or artists will slip past me and remain off my radar until one day I trip over them by chance. Occasionally I'll fall hard for a band or artist that's totally new to me, even though to many others they've been around forever. Such is the case with THE LEN PRICE 3, who released the first of their four albums ten years ago, yet until last week I can never recall having heard the name.
Oh my, what a band! Taking the classic sounds of such as The Who, The Kinks, The Jam and all things Billy Childish, they create magnificent, ultra-English garage-pop songs that I'm having problems shifting from my brain. I can see The Len Price 3 acting as the catalyst to spending plenty of time with the above and their ilk this year, which certainly won't be any kind of hardship.
I know of at least one reader of this blog who will likely already know and love this band, but to any others out there also new to The Len Price 3, it is my pleasure to share a few of their cool videos and punchy little songs here. Enjoy...
An old UK music business associate of mine named Graham Jones produced a book and accompanying documentary called "Last Shop Standing." Graham's latest book is "Strange Requests and Comic Tales from Record Shops," the content of which is self-explanatory. It's extremely funny but, as someone who has worked in music stores for a good portion of my life, I regret not having the opportunity to contribute to it.
I've had some hilarious requests, like George Thoroughbred & the Disasters, and bizarre encounters like, in my current employ at Fascinating Rhythm, a guy wanting to exchange some of our stock for 20lb of ground beef and a rusty showerhead. True story. "Sorry sir," I said, "but if I agreed to this transaction I'm not sure my boss would be too delighted upon returning to work tomorrow to find a bunch of meat and a plumbing accessory in the till." Oh, how I laughed. Particularly side-splitting was how, after rummaging around in his tatty backpack in search of it for an eternity, this madman considered the rusty showerhead the irresistible deal clincher. Awesome. In truth I could write an entire chapter of a very long book on the ongoing insane antics of this loony customer, yet he represents just a tiny fraction of the comic tales I could call upon.
One story I'm fond of telling concerns a classic music snob I had the great misfortune to have an exchange with many years ago when I was working at Rounder Records in Brighton. A guy I would guess was in his early-60s came in, nose elevated with an air of superiority about him. He was wearing a long-sleeved tie-dye granddad shirt, purple flares and flip-flops, with his lank grey hair in a ponytail. He didn't so much walk as slowly waft around the store, as if floating on air. He came up to the counter and in a plummy voice asked me, "Where's your Norwegian Jazz?" Answering truthfully, I responded that we did not subdivide genres to such an extent, but that he would find the general jazz section over yonder. Seemingly aghast, he screwed up his face in disgust, looked me up and down as if I was a leper or bad smell, flashed one final "how very dare you" sneer at me, then turned on his heel to waft out of the store, never to reappear. The experience with this tool goes a long way to explain why I can't be arsed with much jazz.
Beau, a regular Fascinating Rhythm customer, loves this story so much that he likes to re-enact it whenever he pays a visit to the store. He'll wander in, look me up and down with an expression like he's sucking a lemon, and ask something like, "Hey, you, where's your Portuguese Blues?" and I'll answer, "It's over there, next to the Fijian Psychobilly, sir," or some other such nonsense. It's fun and helps pass the day, you know? Particular enjoyment can be gleaned from making up ever more ridiculous geographical variants on standard musical genres. They may even actually exist, but it still makes us laugh.
So, last Monday, this young man comes in. He's a fairly new customer and highly irritating DJ type who walks even more stupidly than Mr. Norwegian Jazz Fool. He kind of lurches around like a gibbon, with arms swinging, speaking in an infuriating, overly slow and deliberate manner. In he came and, no word of a lie, asked my boss Steve, "Where's your Italian Funk?"
It could be that Italian Funk is the music of now in the dance world. I've no fucking idea. Having toiled for many years in a store (Rounder) that sold a lot of dance vinyl, it always seemed that a) there was an offshoot or new variant of an existing dance sub-genre appearing every single week, and b) that most everyone who bought this stuff was an utter twat. So whether Italian Funk, Peruvian House, Turkish Speed-Ragga or Kazakhstani Tech-Dub is the big thing in dance music right now, I neither know nor care.
Steve, obviously amused, answered, "Er, we don't have an Italian Funk section," whereupon the gibbon recoiled as if he'd just received a cannonball to the guts. "Really? You don't? Wow!" Steve and I exchanged what-a-dick glances and I piped in, "No, sorry man, but we don't get quite that specific." He looked at me, shaking his head, muttering more wows as he ventured into the back of the store, where the majority of the vinyl is housed.
Who should walk in moments later? No, not the jazz idiot! Got you there! It was just Beau, but the timing was precious. With discretion I slid up to Beau to relate the incident of the minute before, and it was all he could do to stop himself exploding with laughter. With childish mischief we immediately launched into a frenzy of whispered "Where's your (insert preposterous national music genre here)?" for a minute or so, until it wore thin and the realization dawned on me that I was actually at the store to work.
It is interesting what we all expect stores to stock, don't you think? The two customers I mercilessly ripped the piss out of here are obviously passionate about particular, though extremely niche kinds of music, perhaps to the exclusion of any other kind. I guess it's perfectly reasonable for them to fully expect stores like Rounder or Fascinating Rhythm to cater to their tastes. To them the music they enjoy is normal, everyday entertainment, just as indie rock or alt. country might be to me, so in one respect I get it. Nonetheless, that they evidently don't stop and think about the impossibility of our merchandising the product we sell in such an individualized way truly boggles my mind. Did the one guy consider that if we did have a Norwegian Jazz section we would also devote space within the jazz area to every other single nation that produces jazz music? No, of course not, and the truth is that if Rounder had indeed created a Norwegian Jazz section, he would probably have been disappointed that we had pre-empted his visit by being one step ahead of him! He was just one of those guys that likes to go into music stores and try to act as if he knows more than the staff. We get them all the time, and I've discussed it briefly in this blog before.
Oh well, all in a day's work. Speaking of which, I'd better skedaddle as there's plenty to be done. Let's see what's on my list of tasks for today:
- Dust tops of racks - Process new deliveries - File CDs - Remerchandise new release rack - Set up new Estonian Bluegrass section - Lark about when Beau comes in
Before reading on, PLEASE watch the above video. It is only 1:16 long, so will not disrupt your day.
OK, have you watched it? Good. So, first and foremost, whether or not you are remotely interested in lacrosse (I very much am), you will recognize that play by Drew Westervelt as one hell of a goal. It's one of those beautiful sporting moments that leaves one in awe. When I first watched this, I was so dazzled by the play, even in the slow motion replay, that I somehow missed something truly bizarre. On the second viewing, however, I thought, "What the...?"
Now, watch it again. After enjoying the fantastic goal, keep your eyes on the replay, especially what is revealed at 1:05. Did you see it?
What in the name of hell are THREE BIKINI-CLAD WOMEN doing in the stands, SITTING WITH THEIR FEET IN FOOT SPAS?! There they are, as plain as day, enjoying the soothing water on their feet, refreshing beverages by their sides. But, erm, why?
Does anyone know if foot spas or hot tubs are common or standard in US lacrosse arenas? If so, considering that these particular women are, ahem, rather fit looking, might anyone know if they are present for the entertainment of the (presumably largely male) crowd, or is this a seating option, like a box in a theatre?
One obvious key to the success of a relationship (in our case, a marriage) is plenty of laughter. Susan and I laugh all the time, one reason being we both enjoy being very silly. Both at home and in the outside world, we try to have fun and act daft in the most mundane, everyday situations. There are undoubtedly times when people have thought us lunatics, like the neighbours who have surely witnessed us dancing like loons (usually favouring the 'disinterested indie hipster dance') to pop music in our dining and living rooms. But we don't care! Life is short and we're going to cram in as much fun as we can until our time is up or, as Jim Morrison so eloquently put it, "the whole shithouse goes up in flames."
In our silliness all sorts of things can pop up as the result of an idea, then continue unabated until whatever it is has run its course. Take 'The Fish Game,' for example. Like many folks we have an aquatic-themed bathroom, containing all manner of art and objects relating to the ocean. Amongst this stuff are three small rubber fish, which I cannot for the life of me remember the source of. There are two small goldfish and a blowfish that glows in the dark. Running around the middle of our shower wall is a small shelf where we keep the shampoos, and around the top is a narrower shelf. Until recently, the blowfish sat on the outside corner of the upper shelf; until a few months ago, the goldfish were sited on the middle shelf.
One morning back then I climbed into the shower to find that Susan had positioned the goldfish facing each other, lips touching like Kissing Gouramis. I laughed out loud, thinking how lovely it was, but spontaneously and immediately thinking what fun it would be to place them somewhere else that would cause amusement when Susan next entered the shower. So I put one on top of the soap holder, and one balanced on the showerhead. Long story short, this routine has continued on a daily basis ever since, each of us finding new and increasingly inventive places for the goldfish to go and consequently be discovered. Particular fun is had in placing one in an obvious, though never before used place, and one somewhere harder to find. I love hearing Susan laugh out loud when she finds a goldfish tucked away somewhere, as I sure she does me when I discover the elusive rubber creature.
I don't know why it took so long, but just last week I decided to introduce the glow-in-the-dark blowfish to these ridiculous proceedings. To announce his arrival, as it were, I placed him in a very obvious place on our clamshell sink. Susan was delighted, instantly proclaiming that he was in plain sight because he didn't yet really understand the game or know 'the rules.' She also lent him a very excited voice, saying, "Look! Here I am, over here!" As inflated blowfishes tend to, our phosphorescent little fellow has a fixed wide-eyed, open- mouthed expression, so his excited voice suits him well. When Susan placed him somewhere equally obvious for me to discover, she gleefully squeaked for him "Look! I was over there, but now I'm over here!" However, as you can see from the image above, by plonking himself in the soap holder blowfish is catching on by being a little more imaginative in where he patiently waits to be found out.
All this may sound utterly ridiculous from a man approaching his mid-50s and a woman in her late-40s, but it keeps us young and laughing. There can never, ever be anything wrong with that, eh? But bathrooms being of limited space and hiding places, we will in time need to dream up some other silliness, perhaps still in the bathroom, though maybe elsewhere in the house. Even when that happens, it would seem the fish may carry on regardless, as they seem to be having a whale of a time!
