Plans and Schemes

Battle of Queenston Heights, War of 1812

I read an interesting Wikipedia article the other night.  Something I remember reading some time ago, but it was a good refresher.

In the 1920s, the US had a plan to invade Canada should they need to butt heads with Imperial British Aggression again.  Seeing as Canada was so conveniently located just a stones throw from the border, the Americans felt that if they needed to teach King George (who whoever runs that Empire) another lesson, it would be best to do it in Canada.

Read: War Plan Red

pretty basic plan, seize all the major ports and industrial cities of the east to cut us off from Britain and wait for our hippie sensibilities to take over and capitulate.

Victoria would be invaded from Port Angeles… hmmm, not sure if their war department ever visited PA, but that would be pretty comical, a bunch of logger skids invading the Pride of the Pacific Fleet and one of the few militarily protected and defended regions of Canada… but yeah, the rest of the plan makes sense.

BUT whoa there beatnik, put away the white flag!  Canada isn’t just going to roll over to the Yankee invader!  Somewhere buried in a bureaucrats drawer in Ottawa we had a plan errr scheme of our own for just such a plot to overthrow our collective Socialist freedom!

Read: Defence Scheme No. 1

Not so much a plan, it was called a scheme.  Zoinks… a scheme is something your uncle comes up with to “get rich quick.”  AND the plan was drafted by some military mucky-muck that had the word “Buster” in his name.  Yes, quotation makers, “BUSTER.”

But not a bad plan.

In a nutshell, Canada gets wind of the impending invasion… so we pull a George Bush and drop a little preemptive strike on the ole Red, White and Blue.

Not too insane, there’d still be a little of the World War One Can-Do attitude in the ranks of the Canadian Military of the 1920s.

We’d all be called up, packed on a boat and sent to Seattle to catch a game, do some shopping, and blow up every bridge between Tacoma and the border.

Armies would head  south from Alberta to Montana, from Quebec into New York State and New Brunswick into Maine.  The bulk of the Canadian Forces in Ontario would repel the American Invasion into Ontario (we WIN!) then counter punch into the US.

The plan wasn’t to hold any position, but strike, destroy shit, retreat to Canada, wait for Britain.

We even sent spies… well “Buster” to Vermont for a holiday ski trip/recon.  he found the people of Vermont to be, well kinda nice.  Didn’t drink too much and were looking forward to a trip to Canada to enjoy a fine micro brew!  WHAT?  was that the loose lipped Vermontians letting the invasion plan slip?  no, just Prohibition era citizens thirsty for some suds.  If there is not a statue for “Buster” on Parliament Hill, then what exactly do you have to do to get one in Canada?

Our possible second dance of the War of 1812 sounded like fun… but then Hitler invaded Poland, we collectively had bigger fish to fry and wah wah wah… we’re all friends and cheer on Dancing With the Stars together, as BFFs 4 lyfe!

I joke about “Buster” but he was actually an accomplished soldier and served Canada during some trying times.  He retired in Victoria.

Read his bio: James “Buster” Sutherland Brown: Canadian Hero

Go with youself.

Interview: Ko

Toronto singer performer Ko is in Victoria to perform tonight at Element.  If you have never had a chance to see this guy, you must take the time.  A talented performer with an exceptional life story.  He is a genuine, humble person and he sounds good singing about blazing.

Download: Ko performs “Capable” and “Kurt Cobain” on The ZAS
Link: Ko Nation dot com

See you at the show tonight.  Go with yourself.

For if civilisation was scarce in the Western Vancouver of ‘63, savagedom was all abounding

I am slowly beginning work on my epic historical podcast and step one is reading John Jewitt’s first person account of his stay on Vancouver Island.  Luckily his book is over 200 years old so it is free on the internet.  I have only read the introduction written by another Doctor years later.  He traveled to Vancouver Island in the 1860s, and his account of our region is amazing.  So worth the time to read.

The Adventures of John Jewitt

Go with yourself.

Capital Rock City #82 // Kuba Oms, The Blue Violets, The Paper Cranes, Eric Harper

This week’s CRC dives into some Kuba Oms. A man making some waves in Vancouver on The Peak 100.5FM and every Wednesday at Darcy’s Pub. Blue Violets got a great review in Exclaim magazine, talk about that, then go into MTV’s Peak Season. A recent episode featured Victoria rockers The Paper Cranes on the soundtrack.  Show ends with a new artist to tuck into.  Eric Harper, singing about something we Garden City kids know lots about: RAIN. Thank you for finding my show, tell a friend about it and help spread the word.

Download: Capital Rock City #82

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DJ Notes

01) Kuba Oms – “Ride On”
02) The Blue Violets – “You Said”
03) The Paper Cranes – Telephone”
04) Eric Harper – “Rain”

Thank you for finding my show.  Go with yourself.

Babies and Steam Engines

We are all living in a village and a terrible horde of Mongols descend on our hamlet.  So many Mongols that there is no way to fight them, we all have to go down into the cellar and hide.  Here we are, 100 hundred of us, huddling in the cellar waiting for the villainous Mongols to move on, if we make one tiny sound they will find us and slaughter us all!

And you brought your baby and the baby is hungry and is about to cry.

Would you smother your baby and kill her to save the village?

What a crazy question right?  I was listening to Radiolab tonight and their topic was “Abstract Thought.”  Have a listen, Killing Babies, Save the World.

If we asked our little village of 100 what they would do, it would split down the middle 50/50.  Half of us would kill the baby and half could never.

That split would likely fall down the line of who has kids and who does not because if the question is, “Would Jeremy kill Madelyn to save all you fuckers?”  then my answer would be no, I would not.  Sorry folks, but you’re all target practice for those murderous Mongols’ arrows.

However, if the question is, “would you kill A baby (no baby in particular, but just A baby) to save the lives of 100 people?” your (and even my) rationale brain would say, yes it must, sadly, be so.

weird stuff to think about.  The podcast goes on to discuss this abstract scenario.

You’re walking along the Sea Wall sporting a mighty fine $1,000 suit (or you ladies might be rocking a signed R Patts T-shirt) and you happen upon a drowning woman in the ocean.  Do you jump into the sea to save her but ruin your new suit?

The answer for almost all of us is, yes I would jump in the sea and ruin my $1,000 suit to save the life of this drowning woman.

Now you feel like a hero and you get home and in your mailbox is a letter asking for a donation of $1,000 to save the life of A girl somewhere else in the world.  Do you cut the cheque and drop it in the mail?  The answer for most of us is… no.

Why?

To quote Pearl Jam, its evolution baby.  The woman we know, we see drowning… we save because basically, she is part of our tribe.  We have an emotional attachment to the situation.  The woman dying of starvation in Ethiopia is an abstract thought.  What lady?  who? where?  never heard of Sierra Leone… and we move on.  Am I bad guy?  Kinda when you think about it, but not really because my simple brain can’t comprehend it.  I have no emotional connection to the starving lady across the world but I have an emotional connection to $1,000 err $300 in my bank account.

This is a super duper problem because right now, the biggest issues facing our planet, pollution/global warming/war/starvation are global abstract problems.  neat.

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I love listening to the radio.  When I am not working on the radio and I am driving around I enjoy punching around the dial.  I find that I am more likely to find something I enjoy somewhere on the FM dial than I am am poking around my TV.

Today I was listening to the CBC and they had this great documentary about the history of the Steam Engine.

Listen to the Story of Steam. amazing bit of radio both sonically (sounded great) but also a mighty fine story.  Basically it talks about how huge the invention of the steam engine was for all of us today.  If you’re a dork like me, it’ll be worth your time to listen to the show.

Go with yourself.

Wayback Guy Hates the Punk Rockery

The Wayback Guy reflects on the first band to be labeled “punk rock,” and as you can imagine, he does not approve.

Download: The Wayback Guy hates the punk rockery

Thank you to Zone producer Sheldon for helping to put together the Wayback Track each week for The Modern Rock Countdown.

I can see for miles and miles.

There are many reasons why I love the internet, but the most important for me is the randomness of discovery.

The last few days I’ve been jiving on lots of garage, mod, protopunk and 60s pop.  Reading about protopunk took me to discover and download some music from a band called ? The Mysterians.  They were the first band to ever be described as “punk.”

I was talking about about ? and the Mysterians on the radio last week when a Zoner far wiser than I called up to say, “The Mysterians might have been called the first punk band, but the actual first hard rocking punkers were a 1960 garage band from Seattle called The Sonics.”

The Sonics?  Sure enough, they have a groovy harsh punker sound.  I went to iTunes to try and find one of their classic records, either ‘Here are the Sonics’ or ‘Boom.” Sadly, neither were available.  But searching led me to a podcast for a theatre sound technician form the UK named Steve Brown.  Steve’s blog/podcast is nothing but audio soundscapes and weirdness.

I ended up poking around there this evening listening to the sounds of streets in Brighton or Seoul or wherever Steve decided to plant a mic and hit record.  One of my favourite posts is this audio/visual collage of Cold War era radio transmissions.  Very geeky stuff for you audiophiles find my blog.  I subscribed to his podcast.  Lots of great stuff to inspire and maybe one day sample for a project.

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Coral and I took Mads to Coquitlam this weekend for a little visit.  Coral bought a book on the boat called “The Book of Negros,” by Lawrence Hill.  Coral can’t put it down.  I’ll need to get in line to read it when she’s done.

The book basically follows the life of a young girl who is captured in her village in West Africa.  She is 11 years old and sent to the Americas to become a slave.  She gets freed during the American Revolution and is resettled in Nova Scotia before returning to Sierra Leone.

While reading, Coral occasionally pops up to ask me about some historical event that they mention in the novel, like Saint Helena Island or the old French colony of Saint Domingue.   I’d find it for her, do a quick read then have to keep poking around.  Saint Domingue is now Haiti!  One of the poorest countries (and THE poorest in the West) in the world.  But in the colonial times, it was the wealthiest colony.  Haiti was the site of a slave rebellion that led to its independence, the only successful slave rebellion in Earth’s history.  And yet 200 years later, the country is in shambles.  Its sad to think about.  In the late 1700s and early 1800, these black slaves are besting the armies of Britain, Spain, and Napoleon’s France… but get successfully manage their resources, and today the nation is broke and the people are poor.

The book isn’t about the slave rebellion of Haiti, but they mention it in the book… the whites in British colonies are freaking out, “what if it happens here?”

Go with yourself.

Capital Rock City on CBC’s The Hour

stolen without a gun from Cory Monteith's twitter @frankenteen

Last night (11/17 2009), Glee star Cory Monteith was the guest on Strombo’s The Hour.

If you click the link you can watch the episode; around the 38 minute mark George and Cory talk about his Victoria band Porchlife and Cory sends out some love for my podcast.  Thank you Cory!

Listen to the Segment: Cory Monteith Talks About Capital Rock City
The Original CRC Podcast: CRC #80

During the little segment, Cory couldn’t recall how I came up with Porchlife demos.  I got an email from a Zoner named Nick The Viking who sent me the demo files.  Thank you Nick! and thank you Cory for the mention on the CBC.  It may not have translated to a rush of hits for the podcast, but it made me feel like a rock star late last night.

Go with yourself.

Capital Rock City #81 // LIVE from the Black Stilt

Capital Rock City #81 was a fun and special production.  This week the show comes to you live from the Black Stilt Coffee Lounge.

Download: CRC 81 LIVE From the Black Stilt

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DJ Notes

Sadly, I don’t have a set list, but the order of performers goes like this.

01) Jason Walsh – Download his set
02) Doc Currie – Download his set
03) Liz and Simon – Download their set
04) JP Maurice – Download their set

Cast of Characters:

Principle Organizer: Tyson Elder
Sound: Scott Lougheed
Poster: LadyMix
Door: MissAllyB

Thank you for all your work and help in putting on the event.

Tyson is already dreaming up the next live event.

I hope you enjoy the production and if you like any of the tunes please share the link with a friend.

Go with yourself.

Children Behave! That is what they say when we’re together

My head actually hurts tonight from trying sop up all this fine music I’ve been jamming.

Coral and I went to see the movie Pirate Radio on Friday night.  A very groovy film about the years of pirate radio in the UK in the mid 60s.

The film was entertaining and as a broadcaster, mind boggling.  How could radio stations in the 60s have been so rad, but you punch up an oldies station today and no one is unzipping their pants on the air or broadcasting live on remote from a deflowering of a virgin?  (heck why isn’t my show doing that now?)

The movie had an insane soundtrack of mostly 60s classics.  One song that I downloaded after the film that is changing my world is Tommy James and The Shondells – “Crimson and Clover.”

This guy was a capital R rock star.  Collapses on stage in 1970 because of a drug overdose, is pronounced dead medically… and uh, wakes up?  Continues to rock?  Priceless.

The man has an autobiography coming out in 2010 called “Me, the Mob, and the Music: One Helluva Ride with Tommy James and the Shondells.”  Put that on my list of books that must be read.

If you’re thinking, “sure Jeremy, I’ll bite.”

Download “Crimson and Clover” for sure, but also consider “Mony Mony” or “I Think We’re Alone Now.”  You recognize those titles, because they were covered in the 80s, but the originals are mighty.  “Hany Panky” is kinda quirky fun too, and the song that shot Tommy to rock and roll fame.

I better pick-up my lotto max ticket this week.  After I win I’ll be buying one of those second (or third) rate AM stations in Vancouver, doing a ton of drugs and spinning vinyl records on a radio console that looks like it from the set of Star Trek.

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In other news, what is up with that chick Ke$ha?  She is dominating top 40 right now.  Why do we all love her?  Oh right, she puked in Paris Hilton’s closet when she was on the Simple Life.

Well done cute popster, well done.

Go with yourself.