June 22 Re-Cap

Call a spade a spade and use a favourite term to call it. That was one KING HELL Cam and Jesse Super Robertson Supper Show. The classic mixture of music, comedy and "off the cuff" art. I was at the back with Daniel Scott, the flute player from Yukon, and one of the first things he said was "I could learn a lot about stage presence from these guys". I believe he was referring to Jesse's ability to play a song and stop the song like 15 times to explain something and then go back into the song and have the whole thing work like magic.

The boys had a theme that happened to be "graduation" and there was of course a song written for Jesse's brother, who apparently just graduated from Chiropractor college. Cam brought out a guest who happens to be an old school SRSS alumni by the name of Danny Vallee, who was as good as ever, and Jesse used telepathy to let a person he had never met before to come out and be his guest.

That's the kind of professionalism we need around here...



Now is the time in the blog where i would usually go off on some tangent for some reason or another... but do people really need that?

On June 29 2011...
This Thing - http://mysp.ac/lwZ8Hl a solo project led by a man named Richard Fordham

and 21 Tandem repeats- http://www.21tr.ca/, with Tim Watson on drums, perhaps Mo on vocals, Jason Jones on synth and Christopher Johnson on bass... and Super R as Super R.

Also pleas come out to the Railway Club on July 13 2011 for a full night of entertainment...

There was no SRSS last week, and all hell broke loose... see a pattern.

I guess in this new era of citizen remorse it is my turn to apologise to the city of Vancouver.  Dear city, and Canucks fans alike, I am truly sorry for creating that jinx hex song, and then releasing it and then making a video for it.  I realize i tried to make up for it by offering my head for public ridicule and a sever cream pie beating, but once the hex is set, the hex is set.  Never fucking say nothing... i even forgot my own routine and went and ate olives on a sandwich at lunch on the fateful day.  To my credit, my song never stated that we WILL WIN THE CUP,  that part was very clear... mine was about hopes and dreams ans believing in yourself to reach your goals.  Perhaps i should have had a line about going hunting in the Serengeti and bagging me a few Zebra's.

Anyway, the home team lost the damn game and every ounce of hope that the NHL mercilessly made the people carry over a long drawn out playoff schedule turned into a black hole of hate and rage.  So naturally the crowd wanted a chance for something different, a fresh new vibe so to say, so I believe they headed on down to the Super Robertson Supper Show to get their groove on.  Unfortunately the show had been canceled due to hockey, like all life events over the past number of months, and next thing you know there were riots out in the streets.  I mean, for sure i took a few emails from angry tax paying law abiding citizens who's furry was directed at the fact that hockey takes president over art, but i never in a hundred years expected the citizens to riot over a canceled Super Robertson Supper Show.

It got even weirder... people burned cars and then stood on them posing for photographs, Unarmed lunatics tried to engage armed riot police into battle... and then people smashed windows and looted stores in front of an army of photographers.

Let's call a spade a spade, smashing windows is fun for young people, but the fun part, when i was young, was getting away with it.   So it would be unthinkable to smash things, especially other peoples property while hundreds of people are pointing video cameras at you...  to me that is the real mind boggle here.  As a matter of fact, smashing, in general is a grand old time... When i was in high school myself and a buddy would go out "smashing"... he'd call me up and say "hey you want to go out smashing"... Of course i do. I remember looking for wasps to collect for "operation sting" and finding a TV in a field... then it was "operation smash"  Have you ever worked in demolition?  Here son take this 16 pound sledge hammer and take down that structure... and it's not till it's down that you notice that you are sweating profusely and exhausted... because you were having fun.  As a parent i would recommend rock and roll, loud amps, drum kits and face melting bass rigs as an avenue for your children to work their craft in the art of smashing.

Mob mentality- another word for consumerism?  Isn't that the mindset that we train all our sheeple to believe in... baa or be left behind?  The only important thing is the economy, isn't that  the message that has been on auto play for the last number of years? Perhaps there are consequences to massive public insanity.  What is a Mob Mentality?  Is that like when fiercely religious (apparently), old male politicians declare war on sovereign nations to stomp out "evil regimes", dropping radioactive bombs on innocent citizens to gain control of oil reserves.  Do we even need to go into people looting public treasuries and then being rewarded for that?  Perhaps if, we as a society weren't so fucked up, our children would be able to think properly.

There is an island of plastic garbage in the pacific ocean bigger than the state of Texas.  I say rather than donate to war machines let's go clean that shit up, and take all that plastic and  with it make a massive tower as a beacon of our wasteful and unfortunate society.  Perhaps people can go there and see the massive size of it and think that humans just threw that shit away without even thinking and it was destine to become part of the food chain for good or ill, and ill it would be.  I could go over the science but the raw fact is that science is now something that is thought of as a belief, like religion... you either get it or you don't, and if you don't get it then you can say it goes against your beliefs. 2+2 =4... well i don't know about that math jargon, I have my beliefs and all... but get this... due to science this missile can fly across the world and kill within a foot of accuracy... Oh good, with our technology we can't fail.  Anybody see a big steaming shit sandwich on their plate, as the waiter dressed in your money say's Bon Appetite?

OK this is getting dark:

It's the Cam and Jesse show on June 22 2011:
Hello dear friends and fans,

It's time once again for the Jesse and Cam Super Robertson Supper Show!

We're back after our successful USA/Thailand tour. We're refreshed, tanned and ready to hold you in our sweaty palms for another captivating evening at the Railway this Wednesday June the 22nd at 7:30 to 8:30.

This weeks guests are...

All the way from Montreal, a fine piece of smoked meat, Danny Vallee, his voice will sooth your craving, I love this guy!
You can hear Danny at http://www.myspace.com/valesongs

Jesse doesn't know who his guest is yet so it's gonna be a surprise, who doesn't love surprises?

This weeks theme is Graduation.

Hope to see you there,

And mark your calendars for July 13 2011 is the Super Robertson Supper Show 6 Year anniversary Gala Bash and 21 Tandem Repeats "One Little Dream" CD release party.

Game 7... No Super Robertson Supper Show

That's right folks Game 7 Stanley Cup Finals for all the marbles... a hundred thousand people expected downtown and some of them will be "security checked". When the game is over it will either be "all time high" or "all time low". I have put word out to the Hockey Gods that the following Wednesday, a SRSS hosted by Cam and Jesse (we traded from their usual 1st wed of the month), that, should the Canucks win it then I will be there with a half a head of hair, one side burn, taking cream pies in the face after every song.

If what I wrote makes no sense, don't worry about it, just do what you need to do to have yourself a happy life and I'll do what i can on my end.

High stakes hockey watching is kind of like a severe gambling addiction... it's that rush of victory that one craves and one craves it more and more after a life of continual defeat. In some ways one would think you would get better at getting over disaster, but you don't... you just file it in your memory bookmarked with all of the crucial errors, refereeing indescrepancies and missed chances because your memory becomes one of "what if".

So what happened at last weeks Super Robertson Supper Show?

Ginger and Moonshine put on a fine clinic and had the dance floor a grooving. The ladies no longer have a drummer so they have taken to drumming for themselves. It looked like I might get a gig drumming for them in July, but against my own self interest I encouraged them to learn to drum for themselves, because they do have talent and rhythm. I might have even gone into a long patented SR monologue about why it is important to never be in a situation where you have to rely on somebody who may or may not feel the same about your music as yourself, or for that matter have other life situations that don't allow them to bend with the fickle whim expected of somebody who "wants to make it". A veritable "coalition of the willing" i guess.

Me and the girls and a drummer and Daniel (the flute player from Yukon) stomped down a version of "Bold Point Road" which caused a bizarre "love in" of sorts... people were dancing and kissing, i saw a lighter and perhaps smelt the faint whiff of sweet grass.

After the show i was approached by a filmmaker and an apparent music label rep. The music rep talked fast, shook firm, and declared the possibilities, and the filmmaker smiled wide and mused. Having my own label "Canada Lynx Records" and being allergic to sales people I went hard at the filmmaker. "You want to make a film about this scene" i asked... "how do you do that?"... again nothing concrete. I figured a good point to start is to gather a list of a bunch of people who have been around for the 6 years and film them in an interview situation asking them questions,  and from the answers to those questions the stories of the story might emerge... there will be comedy in the differences of the answers to the questions, and then there is footage, but i figured at that time you would only know where you might want to go with it, and by then once we get amped up we will need to try to pull something insane off... we will know what it is when we get there. It might only be a 15 minute movie but there is no reason it can't stomp balls.

I personally thought that if you were going to approach somebody about doing something that it would be ideal if that person had a head full of ideas on how to do it... Hovever I think I might have put them off. But then again how do you tell the difference between a filmmaker from a guy with a camera and a bag of weed and a dream?

I guess i feel weird even writing this remembering somebody telling me that the Roadbed site was not a band site but rather a personal vanity site. I remember being shocked hearing that thinking in my mind i was just trying to have fresh content because apparently that is the 1st rule of a site.

It's not my goal to have the SRSS to be documented in a film, but if it were to be i would be naturally curious about the process to ensure opening all the angles.

Note: if you have a band meeting, you should take notes... otherwise it just a bunch of hammerheads hearing themselves talk.

June 2 Re-Cap

check this:


I have to flog flog flog you know... mostly I'm happy that it got completed as i have had many times in my life where i had this idea and i didn't follow it all the way through... which left me with... shall we say savage regret. I have to say i felt pretty nervous and very small on the skytrain ride down to Rogers Arena in an effort to capture the footage. It's at times like that when the project is just a "dog's supper" as they say in science lab jargon and it's hard to see the point.

Much like a Super Robertson Supper Show... there are many nights when self doubt and self loathing rule the roost, but you just need to take it and carry on.

For example last week we lost our drummer and our keyboard player to separate last minute emergencies. So i left the house after the first period of a bagel bagel game thinking that it was just me and the bass player with JLS set to do double duty on sound and an instrument. I step into the club that has a nice sign in front saying "enjoy the game with super robinson" and the club is packed to the tits, and then i get a call from JLS... another emergency... we are back down to two. I set the drum kit up in the intermission behind the big screen and then Christopher Johnson comes in with bass and amp with him and his brother a drummer named Billy... I then secure a drummer.. but the game is still without a goal and the third period is ending... perhaps overtime... perhaps no show... and then yabba dabba doo the home team scores with 19 seconds left to go in the game... we play shortly.

So we are setting up and next thing you know Daniel appears... A fellow visiting from the Yukon who happened to be at the last SRSS because he heard the Railway Club is the place to be and he dug the SRSS and he plays flute and i told him to come out next week. You never know what will happen when you tell people to come out next week, but he came and suddenly we were a quartet:



I think we had a really good time, and that's the thing you have to remember about playing music... it's easy to get bent out of shape with the nonsense regarding the music industry because the goal is to be trapped into trying to "make it" to achieve "fame" and "stardom" and i guess obviously a "record deal with a major label". It's all rubbish of course... well maybe not all of it but most of it for sure. Every day emails offering you the opportunity to pay for a chance to be considered for some great opportunity that could launch your career.  As an aspiring musician/songwriter you are essentially a different class of consumer... and the product being sold to you is hope.

When i was a kid my Neighbour and I use to spend hours setting up domino's to fall down... we had domino's climbing stairs and swinging on "temple of doom" like ropes to knock over the next domino. It was fun... now imagine if we had to spend hours trying to promote our "domino falls"... to make it to the big leagues. Translation: a guest appearance on "That's Incredible" hosted by Fran Tarkengton... surly a big deal for a couple of youngsters, but it would have meant hours in university gymnasiums setting up for the domino fall competitions eating poor cafeteria food, suffering competition sabotages and wondering why we ever left the living room where great popcorn was served every afternoon. As you can probably tell i really despise the fact that the world we live in celebrates this artificial and unsustainable relationship with the concept of "what is important".  That said i just had a good idea and then i forgot it but then i re looked at another situation and had a fresh idea... I think one needs that freedom.    For example: so last week we played with a crew the had never played together before and we did a version of the song "the recuring hurrah" that perhaps had moments where not everybody was playing the same song which brought the bass player to tear with laughter and i believe the quote was "oh my god i have never seen anything like that in  my life you have to send that to me".. so i posted the bastard on youtube and sent it to him and i hope and know he will get a king hell laugh from it... for my career it's an insane thing to do... one would recommend only showing the highlights, but i really feel in my heart that is wrong. 

King Dinosaur filmed us live at victory square last Sunday:



again a band that had never played together before... it's the 21 Tandem Repeats experience

on June 8 we have game 4 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs and then barring overtime we have Ginger and Moonshine and SR with perhaps a version of the song "bold point road"