The Super Robertson Supper Show

the last review... because you know i might have some points to make in the future

2012-01-09T23:29:00.000-08:00

Life is good, the SRSS experience is over and we went out like champions. That's all you can ask for and the champions is like whip cream on a blueberry pie. Speaking of pies and toppings, my mother use to always say "a pie without cheese is like a kiss without the squeeze"... I kind of always thought of that as nonsense, and believed it was all about the ice cream, but later I learned a good apple pie with a slice of old cheddar does have a particular brilliance to it.

You see in my own mind, months ago i thought "nobody will want to come to a show over the holidays so I'll just give a talk about the pro's and con's of the SRSS to nobody and it will be, as a whole a pretty neat piece of art". Kind of Monty Pythonesque... giving a talk on something nobody really cares about to nobody... but really getting in to it... making those points, and then asking for questions. Ahh the dream sequences...

But of course i got busy, 3 kids, full time job, 2 hockey teams, this albatross, and of course i never properly prepared. Well i did lie awake at night, or in the morning for that matter making points, in mumble form, to my pillow robbing me of needed sleep... if it wasn't this then it would be something else. But another amazing thing happened... it was like that movie "field of dreams"... people just came, they came to play, they came to be there... it was an actual event!

The band, people who i have collected, by the fate of making music, were going over chord changes before the show, I'm sure because they heard about the seminar, and knew that any seminar given at the SRSS can be done over music... its a solid law, much like the first law of thermodynamics, which of course states that energy cannot be created or destroyed it just moves from one form to another. It's the energy management of the SRSS that is the real trick... i speak in terms of band energy... if we were a band in the sense of a band that had a band mission statement there would be so much energy going into friction, persuasion and totally inappropriate assumptions that there would be little energy left for playing.

so it was like: this is a chance to play lets kick it:

Probably one of the more stressful moments for SR... a promise of wisdom, a good groove and a deer in the headlights imitation... i reached inside and tried to remember all the things i had thought about, and i remembered some of them, and i think i stayed on topic for the most part. The key thing was a few points were made we sounded good musically and we got out of the bastard before it got too old. That's the one thing people have a hard time doing... shut this down and do something else... keep the show moving. I learned that in a number of ways but the key one that was the fang that burst the bubble was after i published my paper "The Lynx Paw Courier", and all i heard was that the articles were too long... people don't have time for that, and then 24 hours came out and people were reading fresh copy after fresh copy. Now I'm not saying one should give people swill rather give them what you think quality in a format that is recognizable... but rather a little of the old in and out if you know what i mean.

******* KEY POINT **********************

I'm a way off the deadline and have forgotten much of what i felt, or the views from my perspective. Because it was the last show i thought i could really deliver one KING HELL blogaroo, but of course by not adhering to the deadline i did nothing, and now i sit among packed boxes wondering why i fell into the trap again. Much like all the big events i tried to do that just suffered from the differential of my dream state and my reality state.

Lets face it... I'm a supper show kind of guy... know your shit, have some skills and hit it unprepared over and over again. It's like moving... are you ready for the big moving day... no fucking way, shit's all over the place... but can you live with it? Sure no problem, it's only stuff, recovering from disaster is my strong suit... I go down with my ships, but I'm a marathon swimmer, so I'll find shore again build another ship, until a high rock and a low tide causes a new predicament.

All in all it was a great era, great highs, mind boggling lows and much real love from many fine people. When the going gets weird the weird turn pro is one of my hero said (H.S.T), and to adapt that to our city we could say When the no fun city gets no fun like, fuck it, have fun anyway... in the end it's your life, who cares what "the establishment" is looking for, they just want your money anyway, don't give them your spirit. Laugh hard and carry a big stick, and don't be afraid to use it, do unto others before they get a chance to undo to you... OK OK just being silly here.

Wishing Machine with Jack Freelance:

He got all the words right, which is king hell as far as I'm concerned... great job singing as well, but delivering and leading the song to it's proper place... that's teamwork. Wasn't even sure he was going to be there, but he came and he came correct... well done sport!

The Voters choice:

How bout that egg shake by Billy Johnson!

The Recurring Hurrah:

Johnny Wildkat finds his bass line in a few passes... the one he made up in the studio on the fly during the recording of the CD "One Little Dream"... when memory and ears work together.

Never Wanted to be Anyone:

The classic 21 tandem repeats theme song "I never wanted to be anyone I just want to be like myself" with Wildkat bass solo, and powered by the vocals of Sandra Bouza.

Mr Greenie:

Wildkat leads on bass after not playing the song for 2 years... SR does 60 push ups and 60 sit ups, 20 of them up on the street.

Dish Pig:

King Hell save by Christopher Johnson at the end of the song... or last song, almost went out on a train wreck but instead when out as listening musicians. Classic WB guitar solo, grand boogie piano by Jason Jones, total pro drumming by Shockk and a great lesson by Sandra Bouza. What is the lesson? It has to do with bands and people and parts... Fire-Man had a nice part repeating the dish pig that became part of the song... which you can actually hear the audience doing, so the part has been absorbed into the culture of the night. But Sandra missed those years and did what she did and at that part sang "I must be going crazy" in a most excellent fashion. Sometimes in crews when roles and parts are established you can miss the opportunity to reinvent songs and their nuances

Bent:

a good song to hit early... let people find their groove... get Sandra singing... good sharp ending by Shockk "the leader" on drums... don't let it go on too long, i believe we talked about that earlier.

On frozen Pond:

An ode to growing up in Canada before global warming destroyed the opportunity of pond hockey for the community... no worries you can always watch the made for TV NHL special around New Years to get your "modern" dose of Pond Hockey... and you can tweet about that one.

Round of solos for all
1st star- audience clapping solo
2nd star- Tambourine solo
3rd star- Sandra Scat solo

Thanks to everybody for being there and participating

that's it, cat's ass, no more

SR

OK one more thing, since we are a community and all i think somebody should have checked to see if the camera was framing the band properly... that said the right person got cut out of frame.

December 21 re-cap

2011-12-27T22:33:00.000-08:00

GoGo Bonkers, not Gongo Bonkers opened up the night... I hate it when i get a name wrong... such a simple thing to check and get right... but i failed.
GoGo Bonkers was set to play in November but there was a conflict where they received a paying gig so i threw them into this night... unfortunately there were many things set to happen so they only played for 13.5 minutes... but they took it like pros did their thing, and what a good thing it was. I was delivering mail the next day singing "green slime", although i didn't have the harmonies down like they did:

Next up was Chris Rzepa, a Vancouver cellist and scene builder herself. She had a looping pedal and set up some loops and played to them and then sang over them... very delicate and brilliant. I was sitting in the back with Rob from "Devilsplender" trying to enjoy the show while a couple of dudes were talking loudly over the show... i felt conflict. I believe i was barking on about stage volume and audience respect last week, and truth be told i have seen this shit for a long fucking time and in my heart i was just like... "enough is enough"... so panicked, nervous and conflicted i went up to the table and in my most polite manor asked the gentlemen if they would mind moving to the back room where their conversation would be less disturbing to the performance that was happening. they looked at me incredulously and suggested i move closer to the stage so they wouldn't be between myself and this apparent performer that it seemed so fucking important for me to be able to hear... i tried to re-explain but there was nothing... apparently they were done anyway and they left but they made sure to let me know that i was way out of line.

Oddly enough a few weeks ago... after the 30th show there was improv acting crew and i was at the back and king Dinosaur was telling stories and a lady came up and told king Dino that his voice was a very dominant presence in the room so we immediately moved to the back... it is what it is. You know people do things, and it's one thing to not listen but it is another thing to put up competition for sound waves... and believe it or not i think most people might want to catch the performance than rather hear about what happened between you and your co-worker and why you feel crossed by their actions.

After they left some patrons thanked me saying "I didn't realize how much that was annoying me"... It is an unfortunate part of the Vancouver Music scene... almost like an irremovable culture... one that i will not miss.

Chris Rzepa was was solid on the loops, killer on the melody, and sang like an angle... and then Shawn Killaly joined her and put on a clinic himself:

Next up it was the 21 Tandem Repeats collective marked by the return of Alvaro Rojas on bass... forgot what a treat that is! He really is a Bobby Orr type player... solid defensively on the bass but yet easily able to shift into offence with a quick bass run and then back patrolling the blue line holding it all together. Shawn Killaly on drums never hurts of course, neither does Sandra Bouza singing, finding spots and harmonies like she has heard the songs a hundred times. First time 21 tandem repeats had Cello, and Chris Rzepa was totally solid... did i mention Johnny Wildkat and Willingdon Black on twin guitars. Kind of going out with a line of Division 1 hockey players for a division 8 game... total control, good passing collecting your own rebounds.

We had decided to play "Hey Rock's Living room" before the show and Super Steve and Willingdon Black were going over some old western Hockey league trivia book... there was mention that it might be a good idea for anybody answering and questions to know some Portland Buckaroos trivia... i snatched the book out of Super Steve's hands and tried to remember that "In 1960, Portland was granted a franchise in the minor league Western Hockey League (WHL) for its newly-built 10,500 seat Memorial Coliseum, and the Buckaroos name was reincarnated. The new Buckaroos were composed mostly of players and coaches from the New Westminster Royals, including its head coach Hal Laycoe. The Buckaroos went on to beat the Seattle Totems in the league championship and win the Lester Patrick Cup in its first season of existence.That 1960–61 Buckaroos team was inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame in 1990.

But that proved to much so i made sure that WB was too far away from a mic and that he would have to shout questions to Sandra who had never heard the song before and in the chaos i would slip the noose of being embarrassed by those who carry themselves as Western hockey trivia elitists. I wonder if Harper would know this stuff? The press releases say he has an encyclopedic knowledge of hockey, but the press release might just say that to make him feel Canadian to the average consumer... i mean voter. Hard to know for sure but you know it's bad when you are doing a song and wondering if Harper could help you:

We also did that hockey song written by that nobody:

King Hell thanks to GoGo Bonkers for letting us use their bass amp and guitar rig and Rob for doing sound when Johnny was pulled from the soundboard and on to Ian's guitar rig.

Tomorrow is the last Super Robertson Supper show for sure... I know there has been some confusion... i kind of did the last "big one", on November 30 cause i knew we had a good band and i also knew that December is a very busy month haunted with all kinds of sickness, obligations and debauchery... so i didn't want to try to rally the troops at such a time, but it appears that the troops have rallied themselves and we have a good crew coming out to play tomorrow... Oh yea i was going to give a seminar on how to run a SRSS... i do have some notes... and at a supper show you can always improvise something over improvised music... as the sound man from the old Malcolm Lowery room use to say... "It doesn't matter nobody is listening anyways."

A Spectre was blasting the Railway Club

2011-12-19T22:26:00.000-08:00

From the boys themselves-

While that show was the tightest we've ever been, the first chords still cleared the room. A Spinal Tap is Haunting A Spectre Is Haunting Europe...so much for Railway Club patrons who wanna talk to each other over a quiet beer.

After the show one of them members asked me if they lived up to the "ace freak show" billing? I said that they had and it was mentioned that they are not usually that self deprecating... which was odd seeing that their review of their summer show started "Our first live show in two years went off like slightly damp firecrackers in a rented paper bag..."

Who can tell anything anymore... at the show on the 30th there happened to be a woman from the garden who got called out for inadequate watering and happened to read about it in the S. Robertson Man Gardening Blog and was perhaps a slight bit offended... apparently certain blogs have been known to bite... from time to time. Never be hurt by the truth, the truth is your ally, the truth needs to be circled like a prey and eaten, digested and absorbed.

So what about the show?

You want the truth?.. Can you handle the truth?

The band was really good, Wildkat loved them, Tyz loved them, Super Steve was diggin' it, some people came to see "the gig" that the band didn't know because they heard about it and liked the band.

On the negative side they emptied a room full of people hanging out... who moved to the back, but it was mentioned by one server that the band is driving away customers. The rock and roller says "fuck it... you don't like it fuck off", but the supper show kingpin says " A SRSS is about playing to the audience that is there".

A number of factors have me saying the word "meh"

1) I'm fucking out of here in a few weeks
2) Last time a band blasted a room clear it really bothered me and i tried to resolve it, but nothing was heard... as we say in the business, "it is what it is". Know what you can control and live with what you can't.
3) It was billed as a gig... i kind of saw it coming, but as John Candy said, or his character said in the movie "The Blues Brothers" ... "Now hold on I haven't even seen these guys play... alright"

I found it... It's the looking over the glasses on the "alright" that kills me.

Now again i feel sidetracked... Just spent some time watching John Candy clips on Youtube... Where was i? I think i was dancing around the idea that in my version of a perfect world it is totally unacceptable to play high volume at a Supper Show... you want to play nice and quiet so all the fucking ass holes can talk over your whole set... the dilemma. I go for low volume cause i like my hearing... it seems insane that people who go into music because apparently they love music and end up going deaf as a result. Very human... full of spirit but yet dumb as a post.

For Wednesday December 21 2011:

We have Gogo Bonkers, Chris Rzepa, and a retro 21 Tandem repeats line up featuring Shawn Killaly, Willingdon Black, Alvaro Rojas and Super Robertson... perhaps more...

December 7 re-cap

2011-12-13T22:16:00.000-08:00

The Last Super Robertson Supper Show done by Cam and Jesse under my watch… and the time was ten to eight, Brian and his lovely wife all finished their dinner and NO FUCKING MUSIC!

But hey things happen, we are all imperfect… no point going to town over this issue and ruffling feathers blasting ultimatums and such. The good news was there was no Super Steve, because he would have been looking at me and then looking at his watch and then insinuating that there is a clear leadership issue going on that is bringing peril to the SRSS in general. Have no fear... peril is coming to the SRSS, or perhaps it will finally take off once it looses it's human anvil.

In the end the world didn't stop, the beer didn't turn into arsenic water, bats didn't fly into the club shooting lasers decapitating the patrons… No no, Cam and Jesse just played a Supper Show, it was just a bit shorter, and considering a lot of the songs had words changed to things like Super Robinson and xx-censored-xxx , perhaps a shorter set was in order… what the good doctor ordered as a matter of fact.

Actually Cam and Jesse were really (as we say in Vancouver) "pumping my tires", while Shawn Killaly and myself heckled from the back… good times.

I requested the song "Wake up, Wake up" by Jesse Matheson which always reminds me of a song called "Movie life" which gets played on the radio a lot... i know i heard the Jesse Matheson song a few years before the other... very similar... hit song:

I played the Dave Hind number "Jupiter" after chickening out of giving the Cam Owens song that i have been working on called "None of these things mean that much anymore" a try. Truth be told I wasn't actually thinking of playing... i was tired and only went down to keep my streak alive. But the boys gave me a fine tribute... that was the "pumping the tires" bit i mentioned earlier, so i couldn't pass. In good Cam and Jesse SRSS fashion i forgot the song and had to take a restart...

On Wednesday December 14 2011 we have A Spectre Is Haunting Europe:

Best quote i have about them is from the Mule "ace freakshow"... I love it!

http://www.facebook.com/events/284763774884948/

November 30 Re-Cap

2011-12-06T22:23:00.000-08:00

I just uploaded the videos for the night, and i think i can say we stomped some balls. I had a great time, perhaps because i aborted my attempt to try to do a high quality video with audience interviews and all... that's the kind of thing that surely would have thrown me into a classic Robertson "Failure" complex. For the record I think I have mined some good material out of the failure concept... Hobbs once said that "Failure" and "Wishing machine" are the same song looking from opposite sides... i can see that.

I didn't put much effort into putting this show on, besides the 6 years of setting the standard, but for sure it was in the top percentile. As a songwriter first, the elements in need were all in place... King hell drummer (Shawn Killaly), siren singers (Sandra Bouza and Genny Trigo), ace bass and piano players (Christopher Johnson and Jason Jones), overzealous tambourine player (Billie Johnson) and a contingent of volunteer singers from the crowd when needed. There was heavy representation from the V5T postal code, and the word i got was "why didn't i come out to this sooner"... perfect. No Super Steve however, he was flying to Las Vegas the next day... i doubt he made a 100 dollar bet for the Leafs to win the Stanley Cup, but you never know. I know he was thinking of betting on L.A last year, but didn't, which turned out to be a good thing for him.

We took a request that i wasn't expecting to play, but hey ask and you shall recieve:

First time i played bass in a long time... I knew it was going well when i saw King Dinosaur by the side of the stage... that's where he goes when it is a real 5 alarm show... when the back bar just ain't cutting it.

Did i mention there was a mosh pit at then end of the night? Not bad for a Super Robertson Supper Show... And then of course we had an english and spanish version of the song "Never wanted to be anyone":

I had the camera set up but it got knocked over on the opening curtain pull so i threw it back up randomly as i was in mid song or early song for that matter... it could have been better, but as we all know i could have been worse.

On Wednesday December 7th 2011, we have the Cam and Jesse Show... they have yet to email me with their plans, but i have yet to remind them to email me. I wouldn't doubt if we saw Santa suits and blue humour.

Lets call a spade a spade...

2011-11-29T21:27:00.000-08:00

It was a really good time last week @ the SRSS, but there was a certain fuck up I made that i believe should be analyzed and put in print for the world to see. I really shit the bed on the song "Nothing is heard"... one of those ones where some said it will be interesting to hear after... kind of like it would be interesting to watch a hernia surgery... on your own personal abdomen!

Since it was such a failure on my behalf i decided to post it on the Internet:

Classic musician on stage fiasco... I was busy worrying about my guitar picking pattern matching the pocket of the groove... over focusing on it... and then i sang the words at double speed, which opened up a whole series of what we shall call "secondary errors". The good news is that the band was king hell, so, when the leader was self administering the proverbial swirley, we basically sounded OK. So to turn a negative back into a positive, i think we sounded pretty good with me sucking the big one. I don't think i have ever been mistaken as a good singer, but it is very rare for me to get lost in phrasing like that. I'm glad it happened... it's like an attack that penetrated various levels of security from within my "stage mind". The result of course is to go over the things you think you know as an absolute and be aware of various things that can go wrong. One of our strong suits over the years was coming out of a train wreck, or dealing with an improv. I guess that's why the disaster was marginalized... i subliminally improved us into a train wreck and they were like "yea man water off a ducks back".

Should we analyze the version of "On Frozen Pond"? It should be noted that Westworld magazine has on the cover the words "On Frozen Pond" because of course Pond Hockey is making a great cultural come back... apparently. I'm always a few years ahead of the curve:

The interesting part of this one is that after the show certain members of the band asked me what i was thinking during the drum solo when we took a very bizarre turn... they were worried i was annoyed. In my own mind i was thinking "what line am i going to sing when we come out of this and back to the song"... if we come back... i need to make it look natural. For the record i should always go with the Edmonton line... a genesis thing. In my original blog the Super Robertson chronicles that was set inside the Roadbed website i wrote a post about this song, which came to me in a dream in probably summer of 2001. I had gone for one of my patented afternoon naps... one of the ones where you wake up with drool on your face, your arm is asleep and you are wondering what day it is and did you just sleep in for work, but in fact it is just early evening and everything is A OK. I had this dream i was in a classroom and the teacher was playing an auto harp and all the kids were singing "In Edmonton it's the same as it's always been, and i hope the Pond freezes over" and with each recurring turn i moved farther away from the room. I think that's the way it went, you can look it up, if you give a damn about total accuracy... in my mind that's what blogs are for... to capture the reality of the perspective of a moment in time. If you catch me trying to powder coat a post to make myself look good and hide the reality make sure to send an insult my way... perhaps something like "You poorly bearded scene sucking consumer!".

Should we keep analysing? I guess I'm calling the shots and I'm the one who has to wake @ 5:40 am for a savage day of labour, child minding and then the upcoming supper show and piss tank session.

Lets break down One Little Dream:

Total Pro on Willingdon Black for spanking down the guitar parts. I wish i knew and had developed the relationships that i have now way back when when Willingdon Black joined me as the first member of 21 Tandem Repeats, other than myself of course. He took a lot of hard years and showed up the only way he knows how to... correct! The first year of 21 Tandem repeats was basically a duo, we even played on the radio one time as a duo.

There is a certain guitar line i added to this song that I wanted in there that was added it after the recording was done... actually WB played it and of course it then becomes part of his library of song parts on 21tr songs. I do love improv, but part of it is i can't stand to manage people and what they play... but to hear the part i want to hear at the point in the song i want to hear it is a thing of beauty. Never hurts with Shawn Killaly on Drums... Jason Jones, Christopher Johnson and Jan Toren are no slouches either... nice vocal By Jan.

The Voters Choice:

I like this tune... i like it better when Sandra Bouza is singing it with me, but you can't always get what you want EH! I find the song relevant and a smart woman I went to high school with years ago helped me rephrase the opening line while in a facebook chat.

For Wednesday November 30 2011... 21 Tandem Repeats with a full band for a full hour rocks the Super Robertson Supper Show for the last time. Shawn Killaly on drums, Jason Jones on piano, Christopher Johnson on bass, Super R on guitar and Vocals, and Genny Trigo on Vocals... there might be more, you never know what's going to happen when you do a Supper Robertson Supper Show.

A couple back to back 21 Tandem Repeats shows coming up...

2011-11-22T22:10:00.000-08:00

Super R and his crew will be rocking the SRSS this Wednesday and next Wednesday (23rd and the 30th) for probably the last time (Shawn Killaly on drums)... well there might be a little session on December 21 but it's so close to Christmas and i have yet to nail down a drummer for that show... but alas... I can't think to far ahead. Write, drink, chuckle, sleep, wake, bike, work, bike, kid, supper, other kids, eat, skytrain and then SRSS...

Lets not get too far ahead of our protocol here... Last week it was the LFM Horn Orchestra with good old Super R on guitar, but playing it like a bass. I had a pretty good time sitting in the back finding the note of the song and letting er rip. I stomped balls on the song "Aliens" just nailing the main riff in d minor and played 'the cat came back" pretty good too. Of course the comedy of me on stage holding down a song for a horn band when they lyrics to the said song describe how the maker of the horns and his honking nearly put me in the loonie bin. Full circle indeed, now I'm playing for him... but it is easier... one can get away with hitting a lot of bad notes in the horn band... in fact you could spend a whole song trying to find the right thing to play and then after the show have people telly you that you fit in seamlessly. I brought my electric guitar and forgot to put my little recorder in so we have no footage of the show... we definitely had some good moments.

Great story in the SRSS and the LFM: The Moral is that you are not always doing somebody a favour being nice to them, and sometimes a little tough love would be the best response. As you may or may not be aware... "In the beginning... " I had this show and a band and i set out to play songs, involve people, and try to jam a bit. Well there was always one jammer that cast a threat and stormed the stage to add the same C or D or perhaps F "like" honking to stymie and overpower whatever we were doing, as well as alert any other jammers that there was no point trying because the end result is a solid constant. This went on for fucking years, cause I'm a nice person, and i didn't want to harm a friend even though the friend was seriously wounding me, my team, and our will to play. Finally i had to ban him after a series of mind boggling jam spoils... he was angry and it hung heavy in our social circles for like half a year, but then he shook it off and got his band in order learned some cool original tunes and is now a fine strong artistic branch of the SRSS collective and actually has a busier more successful band than myself.

It's a problem i have, constant through my life, i let people do whatever the hell they want and just try to make it work... I come from an insane family of non listeners... apparently I'm insane and what the TV tells you is on the money, otherwise it wouldn't be on TV right? Some people like me for that because there is a sense of freedom, and most people who write songs have exact ideas they need people to reproduce in order for them to be happy. My system can work great but to really optimize it you need to hand pick each person and set them up in a role, which is hard to do in a live show that is making turns left right and center. So long as people can play... have ears, and some chops we can roll for the most part. And you need a really good drummer... don't forget that.

Same story happened with Eric Eyes years ago... terrible improv drummer but wanted to play drums so badly and could sense i was weak and all he had to do was show up and pressure me and he would get a shot... next thing you know you are on stage sucking and you see some people you know walking out perhaps waving at you as to say by by, we came down to see you but clearly you suck, I'll never come again. So i banned Eyes with the same speech and he put something together and came back with a band and played a set, and they did pretty well. I could see it was important to him when he got off stage and he came over and asked if that was OK... yea he done good. They rehearsed and had some songs and played them... improv drumming live is not an easy thing at all... it's fun however.

For the record i still have people that meet me and say "your the guy in that crazy horn band right". If only i could move to a new town and start all over again. Then it's up to me when i meet that talented insane overzealous "want to be involved" person, i become the person who lays a rigid framework to help bring the best out of everybody... or i go soft and suffer another cycle.

Before the show last week Super Steve said to me "I see your Oregon Ducks beat up Stanford last weekend". Super Steve is a classic sports fan a man with the real Tim Russert Philosophy... You cheer for your home town. I remember reading some stories about Tim Russert and how he would phone friends in the middle of the night... should they be working on the wrong coast, because their home town had won a big game, and he was excited for them and wanted to share in their joy.

Speaking of games, i had to jet after last weeks SRSS as the Crown Royals had a game @ 9:30 in North Vancouver... our line put on a clinic racking up 7 goals... I think we won 7-5.

Anyhoo, let's rock tomorrow... did i mention that some woman from the choir i sing in came up to me after choir on Monday and asked me if i was playing with the Legion of Flying Monkeys Horn orchestra @ the railway last week... she was there and so was I.

Also if there was any confusion and you were thinking that Classical Revolution was playing this week, they are not. I had booked them but then, as the SRSS goes, things often change and it falls back to me and my crew... which works just great for me in this instance. Odd thing that on this event the Globe and Mail called the Railway club, which then emailed me, to whom i forwarded to my contact... the article has gone to press and we missed a chance to get a supper show a national nod. Another good lesson: you can't choose your audience, and you never know what a show might bring. I know it says in various places on the Internet that Classical Revolution is playing the SRSS tomorrow at the Super Robertson Supper Show, but really I can't change that now. I try to be organized and get the word out, but you can't take things down off the Internet. Not like the old days when a poster you put up on the street would survive a record 3 months and you would get excited every time you would see it thinking what a good thing you did putting it there and having it survive for so long. Now there is enough damming irrevocable evidence of my incompetence on the Internet I'm screwed. My policy was always let the truth sit, but the problem with my policy is that people aren't like me...

A Local Musician named Randy Ponzio disappeared and was found dead last week. Terrible shame, and now many hack news sources are posting youtube videos of him playing that were shot live and have levels peaking out with just plain bad sound, making him appear not as good as he really was. It just got me thinking about what you really want out there... If i died i would rather be linked to a solid version of a good song, but there are clips of me in a woman's dress hitting a cowbell... could cast a different light on my existence.

So for Randy, who i didn't really know to well, lets put this one up:

Good solid stuff and in the end he goes on to preach compassion for the kids involved in the Vancouver Stanley Cup riot. When it happened i thought about myself as a 17 year old caught up in massive disappointment and a mob mentality and how, yes it might have been possible for me to end up in a smashing frenzy. I'm not saying it would have happened for sure, but it is possible i could have got swept up in the festivities, and in the end i turned out to be a good member of society (pay taxes, donate time to neighbourhood improvement, raising 3 responsible, aware children). So perhaps vilifying kids for a moment of insanity and punishing them so severely might not be the best thing for society... given that the people who run society do a lot of pre-meditated damage and all. At the same time, anybody who came to incite riot should spend the rest of their lives in a cell with the shady bankers and war profiteers.

Help Help an Evil Cult Leader is Ruling us...

2011-11-15T22:24:00.000-08:00

Tonight's headline makes reference to tomorrows act but since distinct SRSS blog protocol requires a review and a few tangents before we get there lets hold the horses.

Always a stickler for insane bad ideas... but you know the more i fray from smiley faced PR piggybacking on the tide of fresh new catchphrases from pop culture the better I feel. AS a matter of fact, I came very close to submitting the latest 21 Tandem Repeats album One Little Dream into the Juno nomination pool. I believe it can stand with anything and hold it's own, but that's my opinion, and i was thinking of testing my opinion and even spending close to One Hundred Dollars to do so. Of course you know you need to pay to win... the industry is a hungry monster that needs blood to declare a victor. But i was even OK with paying... slims down the pool. It came down to the forms and "Band shots" and answers to questions that i don't really know the answer to... career accomplishments, upcoming tours... on my end that translates to a pile of shit or a string of bagels. There was no real form to write "I'm just a guy with three young kids who made this record with the help of a bunch of friends, and all i do is play a regular gig in a club in Vancouver where i try all kinds of different things, some of them work and some of them don't, but slowly I'm getting better at understanding what i need to do and i hope that by the time my girls are teenagers and my wife is in Menopause I'll be able to hit the road with this act".

You see my answers don't jive with industry forms. In retrospect i probably should have sent that note in with a CD, but you know those damn forms... you get that error message that you didn't fill in one of the necessary forms and you can't move on. Paying money for opportunity to shine in an industry spotlight really doesn't sit well with me on a spiritual level... I almost used the word "religious level" but i really have a negative aversion to the word "religious".

What has the Music Industry done for Super Robertson... Nothing
What has Super Robertson done for the Music Industry... Nothing

Nothing lost Nothing gained... i still have my hundred bucks and when the winner wins i won't have the nagging doubt "did anybody actually listen to my record?". And I'm not saying I should win, I'm just saying on artistic, production, and performance merit it is not insane to suggest "One Little Dream" could be in the conversation. Like i said first question- Are you a band or a solo artist?... what is the answer? and if you go band you need to define how many of you there are and list people.

Egad did i actually just go on that tangent? OF COURSE I DID it is right there in some font i can't name off the top of my head.

OK

So Last week it was Tiny Tim Overdrive the Super Robertson Supper Show's favourite all ukulele band. It was TTO's third appearance at the SRSS and this time the bar was flooded with students from the foreign exchange school from across the street. The TTO layed down a fine set:

Unfortunately Joe had a scooter accident and was essentially maimed for the show which cut into my grand idea of having the ukulele orchestra sit in with myself and the coalition of the willing. We did hit the song Bent with 2 ukuleles but then we were on our own... it was myself, Jason Jones and Jan Torren with a drum kit a bass and a piano. I was big on the concepts on this night... it was going to be great to test our metal in all of these situations in where we are in different roles... how will we respond? Well the power went out during "On Frozen Pond" but that didn't slow us down:

I went into a drum solo and tried to do Rick Jeaneratte calling a Steve Dykstra Vs. Bob Nystrom fight, and for some reason name dropped the actor Bill Bixby. I should have said Don Digby to keep the quote accurate. The things one gets wrong in the middle of a drum solo... that will haunt me for some time.

You see i often listen to Rick Jeaneratter "Roll the highlight reel" @ work on the ipod. Rick Jeaneratte calls the Buffalo Sabers games, and let's just say he is one excitable hockey announcer, and for some reason that came to me at the time but i fucked it up.

Hot damn, just spent a lot of time listening to various calls researching the Don Digby call... of course this is a SRSS blog right. It is actually all important, music needs passion and passion can come from all sources. They tell you to write about love the universal passion but since everybody else is doing that... actually love is love, i shouldn't give ground here... if you love something you should write about it, or if you believe in something then you should write about it... I'm talking songs here not blogs filled with errant puffery.

So for tomorrow.. Wednesday November 16 2011 we have the Legion of Flying Monkeys Horn Orchestra:

Apparently the LFM will be a little short staffed on this night, so as leader of the SRSS in general I will be called into duty... i tried to sucker Johnson into bass duty as I'm not sure in my ability to hit the same bass notes as the rest of the band for the set. Ace bass player Chris Hixen is in Las Vegas, and nobody can play bass like him for the LFM... Guy can take a walking bass line with authority and make it work like honey in an ale.

I had great ideas moments ago...

2011-11-08T22:53:00.000-08:00

But now there is a maniac behind me going through things saying words like "cleanse" and "throw out" and "I don't want to move all this crap with us"... which can be very hard on a mind like mine. We happen to be talking about the early years of the SRSS VSH tape collection, that i actually think i might need if i were to say... try to make a documentary about the SRSS. Perhaps it would be better to throw the bastards away and just move on with a clean slate calling a failure a failure and not having somebody mad at me for having all this useless junk that i "never use". Kind of busy the last few years for some reason, so archiving artistic adventures for good or ill, has kind of been on the back seat. It's all i can do to make the show, which perhaps is my first mistake, the second mistake is playing it, and the third mistake is trying to document it's very existence. Clearly it's not important, we live in a town obsessed with calling itself "no fun city" and harping on all the things that don't happen. And then every once in a while some megalomaniac comes along and thinks what he is doing is so important that he has to analyze and document it and then put it on the Internet as his "own personal vanity project". None the less i know there is some fine footage of a band jamming and then being joined on stage by some long haired bearded hippie blowing into a large wooden horn, or a drummer with glasses thrashing away on many different rhythms at various intervals... and if we are going to make a film, we need to teach the lessons.

Probably just best to throw the bastards out... what i really need to do is get the hell away from... but you know me i like to bury myself on as many levels as possible.

What happened last week you ask? OK how bout i pretend you ask and then carry on... Cam and Jesse come correct... i was kind of late for the show due to the insanity of life and the certain knowledge that i didn't have to make it on time... actually all logic screamed at me to skip the show all together, but i went down, cause that's the way i roll. I have to say Cam and Jesse put on one fine show... the place was packed and the entertainment was very tasteful. Shall we say "they came correct". It's always easier to play in front of a full house... which is easier to get in November when the sun is down and it's raining so the idea of catching a sunset on a beach is off the list and going down to the super Robertson Super Show is far more palatable. But you can't choose your audience, so when you get a good one swing for the fence. I came in the door and JLS was working the board like the seasoned pro he is, to my left stood Super Steve... i mean right... Super Steve was not working the door he was leaning against the back bar enjoying the festivities. Then i ran into Andrew and we talked music and hockey on the way to the back bar to quench the old thirst. The show was going strong and no performers were in the toilet... they were on stage playing great art, singing killer, strumming strong... keeping it real family like. A packed house and there wasn't even a Facebook event announcement... How can that be?

You know I'm just busting balls, I give it to Cam and Jesse from time to time, so i think it's only fair to give high praise when they do really great. Great banter, great playing, great songs... somebody call Vegas!

My daughter.. well the oldest, is getting into reading an writing and has posted notices all over our yard (thumb tacked to fences and trees) asking if anybody wants to join a "club' she is trying to start... there are some requirements... you need to know how to write, is one of them. So i asked her how it was going and she replied "not very well"... apparently she only got one reply and it was from herself and she had to answer "no" to the question "can you write" because apparently she keeps doing everything wrong.

Pretty funny, but then i thought "Chip off the old block"... weird ideas that most people want no part of, advertising at great effort at all the wrong places, Bizarre requirements that one believes they themselves are not fit to serve with... Next thing you know she will be commenting on her own website or itunes page under some "Parrishberg" alias pointing out the shortcomings of each project. Never lose the comedy of the big picture people... life as we know it is a fast food industry and we are being fleeced of our money, our time, and our freedom... don't let go the comedy and the spirit of just doing things.

Walk in the woods while we still have woods, listen to what you really like musically... there is tonnes of great music out there... don't believe the hype, and if the heard is moving in one direction go the other way.

OK

Tomorrow we have:

Tiny Tim Overdrive
and then 21 Tandem Repeats and Tiny Tim Overdrive in MONSTER JAM.

This is SR and T.T.O doing the Van Gophers song "Bathroom Squeege" on March 11:

OK where did the day go...

2011-11-01T23:05:00.000-07:00

Hot damn, only like 8 more Super Robertson Supper show blog posts left and i can shed this Tuesday night gig like a python moving on. Why python? I don't know, first skin shedding organism that came to mind as our hero watched the clock on a couple of levels...

Ok how do we do this.. should we take a tangent first or review last weeks show first... heads show, tails tangent... I just got a Polar bear, I don't know what you got but since I'm running the show, i believe it means tangent. A 2 dollar coin in Canada has a head on one side and a Polar bear on the other side... the Polar Bear would be the tail then... BTW did you hear some loon Senator proposed some idea that Canada lose the Beaver as a national mascot and run with the Polar Bear. All i can say to that is that I need a gig as a Senator, I would be one King Hell Senator, just sitting there incubating my golden egg. Hell why not the Polar Bear? It's a pretty sure bet that the Polar Bear will join the Javan Rhino which is now extinct in mainland Asia. Polar bears are great and Majestic... I like Polar Bears... from a distance. Sorry Bears, we fucked up, but it was necessary because we needed a strong economy, except we kind of fucked that up too, but nobody could have for seen that... unless of course they were an unpatriotic fucking ass hole, and who listens to those people?

Ok so the show was a King hell show... packed to the tits, King Dinosaur, out there dancing up a storm to the song "wagon wheel" by Old Crow Medicine Show, which apparently is a rework of a Dylan song, or an in completed Dylan song.. we did it in out choir and i think i remember something like that. No Super Steve however... a rare absence by the Key SRSS stalwart... i Believe the Canucks even lost, but for the record they stomped the balls of the lowly Flames tonight. Speaking of Hockey and the SRSS i should have to note that two weeks ago when the Toronto maple Leafs had a great 3rd period comeback and SO victory over the Jets the damn bar played the Worlds Series instead... completely unacceptable!

Opening the show was THE BEVELED EDGES:

Great band, nice tight set, great vocals featuring Ginger and Moonshine drummer Mike Swallow on guitar.

Followed by the one and only Ginger and Moonshine... a SRSS 5 star band:

I got to stomp down the classic SR reggae rap from "a touch of pepper" and another song from the 4 track album "the Ocean is Life". Every once in a while the stars align and a man gets to go back to his roots and appear to know what the hell he is doing.

There was a massive turn out, the bands played great, we started on time thanks to the early arrival of our kingpin sound man Johnny Wildkat (AKA JLS the destroyer) and all went well in the universe. Perhaps SR and King Dinosaur had one too many pitchers of beer but i shook that off by the time i delivered the mail on 10th avenue to the comedy of listening to the song "Famous Person". Not everybody in the universe can deliver mail on their own street listening to a song about a mailman delivering mail on their own street.

Should we flip for another diversion?

Polar Bear again... As a Leaf fan, nobody will ever call me a Senator, but what the hey, i have a few points left in me tonight... why? Why not I say. In the end it's all just memories and who knows maybe next year, i will miss the chance to go off to nobody in particular about the world in which i see it... sure it's my own little world, that is non popular... hot damn, i like that term! What kind of music do you play sir? I play non popular music shiteyes! It's just the way it goes, i dry my garlic cloves, remind me to write about my tomato harvest in that other blog...

OK here is the next diversion.. MOVEMBER! I did the Movember movement last year and it was a serious scar to my relationship with pro facial hair... hanging out with my "team" with all those sissies whining about their pain with regard to their moustaches... I'd rather go back to kindergarten, and in the end i only raised 20 bones and that was donated by 2 friends who were also in the movement, and i donated back to them... so OK we put some money in the pot. However seeing that my wife is one of the leading cancer researchers in the world i saw my contribution as rather lame and i did it going against all my principles with regard to proper facial hair, and respect to the moustache. So here is the deal... In November buy the song "Moustache man" by 21 Tandem repeats and i will give all the money i make to cancer research. If it takes off, which given my history of having things take off, i doubt it, I'll go to a Movember meeting and let all those sissies shave my pro moustache off and ridicule me as an non moustache chump... Give me a number of downloads and you know I'll answer the bell... that's the kind of guy i am and you know it. I feel safe on this ground, it's win win, i Keep my pro moustache and carry on, or you guys make the challenge and we raise some money at my expense. I'm good on either road... either way I'll donate the money even if somebody accidentally downloads the song. If i was a celebrity i could and would raise money for a good cause, but so far I'm just another jackass in a bar with a guitar playing songs nobody wants to hear (for the record I don't want to be a celebrity) . On that Note i must say CT has a really good idea on the cancer front... It's not my deal to spill the beans on a blog... because science in the new "money first" world is not about sharing, but rather patent this and then profit from it platform.

Tomorrow we have the Cam and Jesse Supper Show... apparently there will be cake.

Duelling bass solo last week

2011-10-25T22:35:00.000-07:00

Because of course we had triple bass... that's right a double bass, and a single bass equals triple bass last time i checked, but hey they call me the square:

An old Knockin' Dog song that never saw the light of day, but seems to be shining bright these days, some songs have their day after years of trying to reach the surface. I like to see a song as an individual being... it just needs the right environment to thrive. In the wrong environment it just sits there being criticized with all it's apparent flaws being the reason for all the world's ills... you know what i mean. For the record i don't want to knock criticism, one of the greatest tools an open mind has available for it's service.

The Rev D Badcock wrote the words for the most part... always with the American automobile reference... smart idea really. Me i never write about cars... I really don't care for them too much, the Rev's identity is tied to his automobiles... he was always telling me what i should drive... I was like "who gives a shit"... put people really do. Tonight people were grooving to this song in the gym that was so soaked in auto tune it was absolutely ridiculous... all i could think was "How did that get out of production without somebody kicking the shit out of the person responsible for the soaking". But the reality is, for the bottom line they did the right thing... their song is playing making money and CONSUMERS are loving it.

How bout this version of square boy from September 2009, which was actually the first time i played the song in over a decade, contrary to what i told Jason Jones a few weeks ago, which was an honest memory malfunction. JLS on skins, Younger on Guitar and K Nazo on trumpet:

This should be the SRSS blog not the history of the song Square Boy blog... It was written in a bedroom in a few minutes by some kids who had mountains of ideas in their heads but no confidence.

WHERE WERE WE... well we didn't have the caps lock on... it was Jovana Golubovic and Cameron Lewis who opened up with a fair clinic... guitar bass and voice... and of course crowd chatter. You can't have a show in a WORLD CLASS city without lots of crowd chatter, it's the way we roll around here. I wonder if people listen in Portland?

with a band you can fight the chatter a little better:

it's still there, but you can compete which is what you need to do, if your going to be in the "business"... Me, I'm just a gibbering fool 41 and drumming, sometimes it's hard to find the right words, it feels like your just strumming, i did some things that i wish i didn't but i wouldn't trade me for nothing... ah hell lets call it embed night:

weird processing on that... years have passed since the upload, and the way computers process things leaves old relics in the dust... perhaps time for a new upload... which makes a case for why a crazy kook woman shouldn't throw out a man's good collection of cassettes even if they are leaving the country an it might appear to someone on an insane tangent that it is indeed "useless junk".

but that's another battle that needs a secret tunnel to a secret room to really survive.. and in the meantime we have some Super Robertson Supper Shows to do:

On Wednesday October 26 2011

Ginger and Moonshine is back! With Special guests.... THE BEVELED EDGES!

This is Ginger and Moonshine from their March 23 2011 Super Robertson Supper Show

They actually make a cameo in the "Bold Point Road OFFICIAL VIDEO" from that night when they rose to the occasion and learned the song and we grabbed a drummer named Doug from NYC and spanked down a pretty decent version:

word from the Internet is that there are close to 50 people coming to this show, let us prey the sound man comes on time, as it is a Vancouver City Limits night.

Bloggerson strikes again for the 284th time...

2011-10-18T21:18:00.000-07:00

AHH Nothing like a little nostalgia before settling in to a routine for good or ill.

I thought last weeks Super Robertson Supper Show was just fine and dandy, there perhaps was an element of cartilaginous fish... sharks that is. Sharks of course are great for oceans and metaphors alike. Just when i get all happy about closing down the SRSS and calling a good run a good run and letting the memory grow into something bigger than it actually was it seems there is a pack of hammerheads eager to try to keep the SRSS going in my absence... as if it was some fertile waters, a glorious feeding hole, or just another free gig and a chance to play music. The more i think about it, the more i realize, What the hell am i thinking about it for?, I'm done.

But what if a show were to go on in my name and the people running it didn't have the good sense to cane themselves after they loose their fucking minds... ahh all the little things to worry about. Who's writing the blog, who's filming other people and spending their time posting it, who's going to go lead a crew of people that have never met into a 3 chord song with a 2 chord chorus, who's going to leash the horn band, who's going to listen to complains from performers and audience members, who's going to tell people not to worry and just continue in the face of sure doom... I guess somebody will, or they won't and nobody will ever notice anyways.

quick fact: anybody could do a Supper Show any night of the week at any number of venues by just asking to try it.

quick fact 2: doing a regular gig is one king hell curse on your time and your psyche... it worked for me because... well you will have to wait for my lecture on "how to run a a Super Robertson Supper Show"

quick fact 3: the best thing for me is to kill this bastard... memories grow stronger with time.

quick fact 4: I never do what is best for me.

quick fact 5: Cast iron skillets used to be the leading source of iron in the North American diet!

That's a bad thing when you think of Teflon fry pans... cause that shit is toxic. I kind of want to punch myself in the face for using that Teflon pan that was all scratched up that i got from a garbage can when i went to university... I should have just got me one good cast iron pan... but then one of those idiot roommates of mine wouldn't have cleaned it properly or left it in the sink full of water and that would have caused all kinds of problems. A good cast iron skillet needs to be oiled and clean and free from water or it will oxidize... fancy word for rust. That's why iron skillets don't work with small minded mouth breathing students that believe they don't have time to clean properly.

A Super Robertson Supper Show is like a cast iron pan... solid and durable, multifunctional, it can make all kinds of dishes but if neglected will rust and become useless. Just another awkward weight in the cupboard that some crazy dame thinks needs to be shipped to the salvation army.

So the Supertones opened the show... the Supertones who were formerly a band with a name i could never spell, and then for a brief week were called "James Toren Johnson"... but now for this week seem to be called the Supertones.

This song is called "In this town again"

And then the 21 Tandem Repeats collective took the stage with the lineup we have been going with for a bit and we seem to be coming into our own... same bass and Guitar as the Supertones (Jan and Christopher), but we had Shawn on drums, a man who can play with me anytime anyplace always... and Jason Jones a versatile no maintenance "roll with the punches" piano player... also King Hell Player.

In a lot of ways I'm kind of glad we are coming to a peak as my time is coming to an end... all my other bands died a slow miserable death of broken promise and lost hopes, where this one could just stop playing when we are killing it and I'll be able to look back and think about that really wicked period that might not be marred by something rather negative (i should watch it there is lots of time left). Actually to be honest i think the 21 Tandem Repeats experience has really gotten it's shit together in the last couple of years and the big thing is that i now put people in positions in which they can succeed... that and playing with king hell drummers like Shawn Killaly and Tim Watson. Everything else is just choice of clothing kind of stuff. And by the way that all happened as a result of the SRSS... the lesson for me was, don't play a regular gig like the SRSS with a regular band, but rather have a "willing coalition" of people who can (very important) and want to (also important) play.

I think this is BOB STYLE, a song I wrote with Simian Special and we put on the Supersimian album "How the Tiger got Lionized". We basically wrote that album to have material for the SRSS lead by the track "70's rock @ the Railway", so i figured it a good idea to play some of the songs every once in a while:

And the song Nothing is heard, which will will always be hard to duplicate considering the version we spanked down on the album "One Little Dream"... that said good character on this version:

You see what happened was that my neighbour who actually wasn't my neighbour at the time but just a good friend gave me a wooden frog and told me to get down to the peace rally. Now i was always one who believed that protesting was a waste of time because nobody listens anyway, but i went down with my wife and young daughter. We got in near the Carnival Band and i got grooving on the frog and we started marching and there were such good vibes, good grooves, and i couldn't believe how many people were there... it was incredible!... a packed street for miles and miles chanting no blood for oil, "weapons of mass distraction" signs... just nothing but numbers and truth. i had the time of my life.. i even watched the news that night which made slight mention that the world had millions and millions of people out protesting the great war for oil... and in the Vancouver Sun the next day on the front page there was a blond woman on a picnic bench wrapped in an American flag and and the background was blurred so you couldn't tell it it was 3 or 4 people behind her... the caption read "People in Calgary joined in a pro George Bush Rally".

SO a few hundred thousand people march for peace and 4 people sit apathetically in a park, and one is an anti war and the other is a pro George Bush and who gets the front page? alas nothing is heard.

As we know the war happened, who knows how many were killed, orphaned, maimed... counts seem to be in the millions, and it cost billions... probably a whole generation will never get over it.

What's happening @ the SRSS this fall...

Wednesday October 19- Jovana Golubovic playing with a double bass player Cameron Lewis will share the night with the 21 Tandem Repeats collective.

Wednesday October 26- Ginger and Moonshine with Special guests.... THE BEVELED EDGES!

WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 2- THE CAM AND JESSE SR SUPPER SHOW

Wednesday November 9- Tiny Tim Overdrive and the 21 Tandem Repeats Collective.

Wednesday November 16- The Legion of Flying Monkeys Horn Orchestra

Wednesday November 23- Classical Revolution Vancouver

Wednesday November 30- Gogo Bonkers and the 21 Tandem Repeats Collective.

Wednesday December 7- Cam and Jesse Super Robertson Supper Show

Wednesday December 14- A Spectre Is Haunting Europe

Wednesday December 21- Chris Rzepa and the looping cello to join in the 21 Tandem Repeats Collective. Also give a homemade gift to a fellow human night.

Wednesday December 28- How to run a SRSS, a lecture by S Robertson.

October 5 re-cap

2011-10-11T20:39:00.000-07:00

Hard to know where to go with this review... they started 20 minutes late, and then they gave a reason which was totally unacceptable to the SR mindset, but hey, what you going to do. Did i mention Cam did "The Man from Nantucket" poem again... move come quickly!

There were some good times for sure, and the intimate audience enjoyed the show. Jesse made up a birthday song for Ivan:

Classic Matheson... no denying he held court and entertained the audience, and that's what we are looking for... the less one hears about fecal matter and fucking ears with your own large male member the better I say.

If you want to do a burlesque show then i think mild nudity is acceptable... actually i have no problem with nakedness. I think in me it is a matter of rebellion... wear a suit look respectable... but the people that just stole all the money wear suits... shut up you, and look respectable, and don't be so paranoid and foolish, obey the laws for your protection.

Then the next question is why put on a show, and then review it, and then give it a bad review? That makes no sense in terms of expanding one's brand... you know building a following, a following you can sell stuff to, or get to vote for you in an exposure competition. Like a room full of people and you throw your ideas against the human mosaic and see what sticks and then refine that idea focusing on the ideas that brought people into the fold. Smells like shit eh! I'm just being facetious... and I'm sorry Cameron Dilworth was 20 minutes late starting the show because he had to take a shit, but in that case i think it is up to Jesse Matheson to play some music for a while until Cam comes out of labour and can join in like a normal human might.

Back in the old days of the SRSS when Alvaro had a gig we would just start playing the show @ 7:30 with the bass on stage and when he came he walked up on stage and started ripping it to what was going on, which was then shut down by a certain horn... ha ha ha we like to laugh. You see I'm almost mentally in Portland now and I'm on the yuk yuk express... lets bury this scene like a cat might do to something the size of a few batteries.

Why do I not care? I do, i just don't believe anybody else does, and i know that's not accurate, but what you believe and what is accurate can be miles apart. If what everybody believed was accurate then we might not have the problems we have with humanity... you know those little problems that fester, hidden, in plain view.

It's like Nothing is heard:
Nothing is Heard by superrobertson

For Wednesday October 12 we have James Toren Johnson and the 21 Tandem Repeats review. Essentially 2 hybrid bands sharing certain members... what could possibly go wrong. Tune in next week to find out!

On that note i have an idea... when James Toren Johnson hits the stage lets call it heckle night... also make sure you strike up a fine conversation with the person beside you.. sports people on the left of the bar, pop culture center, and conspiracy theorists on the right... really get into it, and if you are in the middle of a conspiracy theory and you think something sports related don't feel shy about shouting across the room to make your point. And then when 21 tandem repeats goes up lets call it listen and respond night. You will listen quietly and intently to the show and perhaps we could have a mild conversation about the song subject after much applause. Then and only then will we have collected our first data for our study on the effects of crowd attention and random volume to live performance satisfaction.

A Grade "A" SRSS last week.

2011-10-04T22:43:00.000-07:00

Always great to have Genny Trigo out... Imagine a singer who knows all the words to all the songs, and gets it all right... almost an alien version of the Super Robertson Supper Show... why bother learning something when we can just wing it tends to be the way we roll... given everything I'd say we do OK. For the record, I have no problem with people learning things, I just gave up a long time ago and tried to focus my skills on adapting. Like playing guitar, you see, I could never find a pick when i needed one so i just learned to play without one always so that i wouldn't be inconvenienced by such a silly matter. I like a pick when i play bass however. Suits my bass style and saves a savage beating of the fingertips.

I have 2 videos and one is Genny's whole set, and the other is 21 Tandem Repeats with Genny whole set. The band this night consisted of Shawn Killaly, Willingdon Black, Christopher Johnson and Jan Toren... I guess I was there too... that's right Super R writing this blog right now... but who knows Earl Parrish or Sleuth Reporter Oalk Reece might write the next paragraph.

Genny Trigo:

Hear that fucking compressor on that god damn Zoom Q3... I hear it and my mind snaps into a rage and i think "I have to go back to analogue". Speaking of that i wonder if anybody takes old school 70's recording equipment and makes it stamp out digital... you probably need to hit a tape for real and then transfer, which turns the whole process into a monster job that's not worth doing. On that thought the Zoom Q3 has saved me a tone of time and made it possible for me do do this thing i do, for some reason. 3 More months of Super Robertson Supper Show for this old sport... it's funny all the response is "your going to have to do a supper show in Portland". To which i would have to say, there is really no point in doing something that you have already done. I did it cause i wanted to see what would happen and i got my answer... The big question is... Should i become Portland Al the 2nd? My given middle name is actually Allen, it was my Grandfathers middle name, but he used it as his name because his first name was Watson, and for some reason he didn't like that one... I guess he grew up in the Sherlock Holmes era and having the name Watson could have meant you were some second fiddle, or more likely he just got sick of fucking idiots coming up to him trying to quote Holmes when he was just trying to have a nice peaceful day.

The 21 tandem repeats Juggernaut:

We hit the song "The Voters Choice" off the top without Genny and then spanked down some songs I haven't played for a while. I'm really digging the Voters Choice lately... should probably record it being that it is election season, but as we say in the business "who the hell is going to listen to the shit SR is playing".

We had a good time for sure and i only really remember one time we went off the rails... not bad for a crew that had never played together before as a said unit. King hell props to Christopher J for standing in on piano, man started out on bass, went to guitar, and then stomped down piano... He actually kicked ass on drums one night if i remember correctly... I think it was Me, Him and Wildkat on a rotation of instruments... It's hard to remember what happened this morning... actually you know what happened this morning? i left the house on my bike @ 6:00am biked down the hill from Glen and 10th to Glen and Great Northern way and then realized i forgot my damn ipod and was looking at sorting mail for 2.5 hours listening to the atmosphere of the Post Office, and not A Ghost to Kill Again, or Bob Dylan, or Feist or Jim Guthrie... which is what i happened to listen to after i biked back up the hill to retrieve the said Ipod... of course i was sweating like a bastard at my sortation case, but i was in control of my audio destiny. That's the key folk's... being in control of you audio destiny... that must be how people survive commutes... well people who commute in cars are insane so who knows what they are thinking... do they think "Oh i can have more here and all i have to do is sacrifice a few more of my precious waking hours to get it"... "I'll just get on this highway and inch down a never ending line of vehicles for hours every day so i can have more".

I was actually in a line up coming back from Aldergrove the other day... solid cars from Aldergrove to Vancouver all of them stopping and starting, idling, and every once in a while a chance to accelerate for like 8 seconds, just enough to give a crazed brain hope that there might be motion only to be shut down again and see a shoe by the side of the road, and wishing you were that shoe with your rubbery sole turned upwards on the asphalt and not some fucking id jet idling in a car in a line with 200,000 others... all this energy and nobody going anywhere... nothing like a pack of individuals.

Where was I... i had so many points earlier today as i was skipping through the neighbourhoods getting Mail to the fine folks from the V5T postal code. Ok Fall lineup for SRSS almost complete...

For October 5

I'm rolling the dice on my guest. It's a couple of kids that I met at the Jonathan Richman concert. Can't remember there names but they seemed like the kinda go-getters that are going to make it out. As far as a theme goes....how about Thankful for Thanksgiving an ode to the hedonistic celebration of thanks.

-Jesse

Shindig and SRSS review!

2011-09-27T22:34:00.000-07:00

There is no way one can have a battle of the bands in our barn and us not represent...I threw in the band SR JONES and got in to CITR SHINDIG. Personally i thought we stomped balls and it appeared the crowd did too as i actually sold some CD's and such. The other bands were great and I'm not here to judge or put down any other band... I'll save my self deprecating comments for myself, and other people who step over the line too many times. Anyhoo it appears we came in 3rd out of 3 bands... not bad seeing that we had dancers and some people wanting us to play until the bar closed, which we could have done, but i thought against it... and it was my first week back as a Mailman. So i was up @ 5:40 am did a route and managed 3 kids and did 2 free shows on this week... and i came in 3rd out of 3. I am a failure and i know it... btw that's a song reference, so I'm not just casually dissing my total lack of success, but rather referring to the etched in stone version.

Ahh fuck it, it don't matter I'm a leaving this town next year as fate should have it. Super R is going to live in Portland Oregon, so you all won't have to put up with my shit anymore.

This is what we did: (all 36 minutes of it)

It should be noted that this particular crew has never played together before...

The great part about Shindig is that you get the wisdom of the music industry "to be" professionals.

Let's for sport, critique the judges comments... why not?

I tended to like the faster songs more. You seem to change styles quite quickly song to song, which might be good for gaining a wider audience, but it confused me a bit. You're all very good at your instruments, as was displayed in possibly a few too many solos for my liking, but I also see that it fits your style of music... but the style could be more consistent.

I guess that was some good advise... play faster songs, and cut down on the diversity so that you can become more of a cookie cutter band, so that you are not confusing people who really aren't sure what it is that they like, and definitely can't make that call on their own and stand behind it. I mean I'm glad you thought we could play, even though perhaps we played too much for your liking even though you thought it fit our style of music, which ultimately confused you.

Hell, I'm glad we made you think, and you seem like a good sport. I'll give you some advise for life... don't worry about things being a way in which they should, because in the end they never are, even if they are disguised to make you think they are. Science is precise and defined, and it needs to be to work, and that's a great thing... In life if you end up looking to hard for your happy place thinking it has to be a certain way you might miss it when it comes and stands in front of you... you might actually like what you think you don't.

Next:

OK Pretty cheesy banter. Why doesn't the girl play something in the band? You guys seem pretty stoked & are super posi vibes, so cool. Just watch tuning between instruments a bit inconsistant. Kitchen party, Great Big Sea, Dave Mathews B.,east coast vibe!

Fuck you... The girl is a singer who sings very well... and I kind of liked her dancing. Thanks for the "posi vibes" bone... does that mean we were positive? Now some advise for you... you should do the world a favour and never be in charge of anything because you are clearly a hammerhead... Could your advise be any less useful? What is east coast vibe? Seriously wondering about that... the quote in the province was were were "North West whimsical sounds indeed"... when did we get to the east coast feel? I'll actually defend the banter... funny cause i was talking to JJ about the fate full awards ceremony the other day, and he said, after i was hammering myself again, that if he could do anything over again it would be to get somebody to MC it that wouldn't be me. What a fucking great idea... that would have solved so many of my problems and allowed the potential of the night to be achieved. Probably people wouldn't tell me that, cause the might think they are saying something negative about me, and that's never good... for the record if there is anybody who can take negative feedback it is me, in a decade when my book comes out i can explain why, but for now i will actually defend myself. SR JONES Facebook alias... i wanted people to tweet and post status updates in between songs... I was fucking serious, and i feel on solid ground to ask that given that i know dam well what the average tweet and facebook update contains... My brother-in-Law used the term "errant puffery", which i took a great liking to... so get this you play a song under the name of a facebook alias to a bunch of people talking and texting and you ask them then to text something silly to the world and you are then "cheesy"... is that an industry "no go term"... perhaps "Pretty ironic banter" could have been a more comedic way to phrase it, or maybe you just needed to write something and you thought some biting negative comment might be a cool way to start followed by a bit of nonsensical gibberish.

Next:

Vocals were a little off at the beginning. Other than that you guys were great! Love the reggeash rhxthms.

OK, thanks for finding the hole in our game.

I realize Shindig comments are what they are... years ago we played shindig and a judge mentioned that SHOCKK should learn to play a stringed instrument. As i said to the crew before we played... we will lose but we won't fail... and Jan, the bass player said "we are going to be the band that has the most fun", and i think we were. It was great playing to a full house of people that had a few pints in them... the good times in music. What people like is what people like and the judges liked one of the other great bands more than us... it's all cool, And i can go to bed early on November 15.

OK,

And then there was the SRSS where i brought down the table hockey game and spanked Ian 10-3, and then Paul spanked Ian 10-6, and then there were a bunch of other games and in the end i lost the championship match to Rilcof 10-8, which was really annoying because i was up 8-7 at one point... i think... that was the score we seemed to agree on when the crowd gathered... you see at that time we were using 2 bottle caps taped together because we lost the black puck on the dark floor and then we found the puck and Rilcof found lady luck... hell i had 2 breakaways when i had 8 but his goalie make some scintillating saves. On the bright side my wife will be glad we got rid of one more SRSS trophy out of the house.

Ian Played

James Toren Johnson played:

And we played the song Internetting on Chatroulette:

The Next Super Robertson Supper Show:

Special guest Genny Trigo,

who will play some Spanish numbers and then Join 21 Tandem Repeats with Shawn Killaly on the drums.

Catch the Super Robertson Supper Show while you can... the end is near!

mixed meduim show last week

2011-09-20T20:01:00.000-07:00

It was the Jam band with a DJ on drums that got the crowd @ the Railway club moving... I'll just leave it at that as that is an accurate statement. Minor problems with hearing things in the monitors, but that's what happens when Johnny Wildkat is not on the case. Worry about the things you can control and accept the things you cannot... is that called the serenity prayer or something like that. For a rage hero i am actually a fairly serene fellow. If i were to throw a minor criticism at our performance it would be that at the start of the show we perhaps failed to fall back to the basics to find the group, mind you there were some king hell technical difficulties, but that was the purpose of the SRSS... Like Inspector Jack Clouseau being attacked by Kato... always without the possibility of calling off the attack... stay sharp. In the end we turned it around and had some good times for sure.

DJ Chris Hixon from the Baboon Torture Division and the core of SR JONES, Jan Toren, Christopher Johnston, and Jason Jones keeping it real. DID i mention SR Jones is playing SHINDIG @ the railway in a few hours... there are 3 kids screaming things behind me and i have to be up @ 5:40 am tomorrow but for good or ill we will stomp some balls tonight... the additions of Tim Watson on drums and Sandra Bouza on vocals is sure to help our cause.

On Frozen Pond... with fixed Winnipeg lyric.

I also love the Will McGuirk line that has become part of the song. He happens to be a music critic that tared and feathered the music in press, which was a good thing because critisism like that helped "One little dream" become a stronger record... One of his suggestions was that a certain line be sung in French, and that that should be clearly obvious... We had actually discussed this, but since the said line was sung by a wonderful woman it was pointed out that any Frenchman worth his salt would rather hear a woman's voice any day of the week... anhyway i like the new line much better.

One Little dream

Shindig tonight in a few hours, a decade after the Motorcycle Man 2001 Shindig run.

For the SRSS on Wednesday September 22 I'm a bringing down a bubble hockey table and we are going to have some matches... you see myself and Rilcof are part owners of a hockey table that we scored years ago on a Mailman pre garage sale bounty haul... and we always wanted a tournament, so lets have the damn tournament.

Music as well, 2 bands, Jeff younger presents later... OK horses water is over here.

The word on the street in the street and the City.

2011-09-13T20:11:00.000-07:00

for security reasons, i can mention not what i am doing now but only confirm that late night hammer time blog postings will have to move into the area where by they can be categorized as early night hammer time blog postings... I did go down to the Supper Show Last week, as per usual, but i had a late night Hockey game, in which i sucked turtle cocks i might add. I was on a line with a light weight finesse player, and a heavyweight non finesse player, and i think we thought we were going to light it up, and the defense were changing the way you play defense to try to alter our game to get us scoring but all the scoring happened at the wrong end of the rink... everybody blaming everybody else... a classic collapse. There are lessons in Hockey and Music if one wants to take them... Anyhoo it was a Cam and Jesse show with guest Chris Kelly... Cam and Jesse played some songs and sort of played some others with breaks and random reflections... Chris Kelly played the song Kristofferson, which I enjoyed immensely.

I talked to Super Steve before i left for Hockey and he gave me the lowdown on the last SRSS's that i missed. I guess you have noticed that every fucking thing that i am writing is in italics and is now underlined... This happened when i checked to make sure i spelled the word "Kristofferson" correctly and essentially i have lost fucking control of the text issues in this blog... i was dealing for a while but the bastard kept doing those squirrely things a computer does until i got to the point and said fuck it because this was seriously hindering my concentration in laying down the facts as i saw them, or in this case how super Steve saw them ... Its super fucking annoying for sure, but lets just forget about it.

Super Steve thought all 3 nights were excellent except for the fact that he missed one of them, but he was sure it was excellent as well... He really thought "a spectre is haunting Europe" with Johnny on sound was king hell. He was also very impressed with King Dinosaur, very much so indeed that he approached KD after the show and asked him if he had been rehearsing... apparently the answer was "I don't rehearse, I perform"... Classic King Dinosaur.

What about classical revolution... Super Steve missed it but he was sure it was good.

damn straight: (will an embedded video play if for some fucking reason italics is on... lets see

hey it works, and on the blog it doesn't actually look as annoying.. the italics... black on white, as i see it typed on the back side of this web apparatus, is rather disturbing. Not the worst thing that happened to me today... did i mention the route?

No lets not... this is a SRSS blog... where was I... Last week cam and Jesse, I sucked at hockey, i suck at computers, i have liver spots and rectal dysfunction.

A little levity people... one day you won't have the SRSS and accompanying blog to think what you think about, and as Mike Hawes might say... "yea man, and somewhere in Squamish a Mountain Lion yawns"...

Speaking of that I would like to see a Mountain Lion... I saw a Canada Lynx, actually 2 x in my life... nothing like wild cats... for the record Mike's Quote was Africa instead of squamish and there was no Mountain... and his quote was almost exactly 10 years ago today, for what it's worth. It was more said like a scientific fact from the mouth of a literal badman... the word "badman" i use in the 90's dance hall reggae sense... "him Kick a 2 chairs real mean like a badman"... probably not following me.

OK So for tomorrow Wednesday September 14th...

SR JONES shindig rehearsal...

Jason Jones - piano
Chris Hixon- electronic drums
Christopher Johnson- Guitar
Jann Toren- bass
Allen Robertson- acoustic guitar, vocals
Sandra Bouza- Vocals

That's right.. next Tuesday CITR Shindig comes into our barn and SR JONES is representing at fucking 11:30PM... we will come correct, i expect to fail but i will not be defeated... my Vancouver music scene motto...

I'm looking forward to this show... what could possibly go wrong?

BtW... after the show my man Jeff Younger has this free show, if you perhaps don't want to stay at the railway for free...

WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 14 - THE UNSUPERVISED @ GOLDIE'S PIZZA 605 W. Pender @ Seymour (downstairs room) 2 sets, 9-11pm, no cover.

That's right, no cover, really killer slice, tasty beer, and 2 sets of voracious, pepperoni devouring music by the hungriest crew of modern jazz mayhemsters this side of the other side, where people play polite music and audiences nod off in appreciation. Goldie's downstairs room is a cool space and we'll be playing some new tunes while gearing up for the implementation and destruction of some new musical gears. I would suggest you might want to catch the free Super Robertson Supper Show at the Railway 7:30-8:30, then saunter the block up to Goldie's for 9 to make a night of it... Thincrust! theunsupervised.ca

No re-cap to report as there was no show...

2011-09-06T22:45:00.000-07:00

That said there were no embarrassing moments at last weeks SRSS, because it didn't happen... nobody went over the line, no insane bad calls were made, no train wrecks, nothing impossible attempted, nobody was dragged out of the audience to sing "98 bottles of beer on the wall", hell i don't even remember what Super Steve looks like it's been so long.

Indeed. The good news is that the Super Robertson Supper Show is gearing up for a strong fall showing. If you have ideas or want to play get in touch with me... I would like to see some instrumentalists come out play for a bit and then sit in with the SRSS all star band and try to bend some shit. I would love to see a comedian or a person give a 20 minute lecture on a subject that they find interesting and are very knowledgeable on. i need singer songwriters like i need a gallstone... but if there were a bunch i wouldn't mind breaking out a fake campfire, make a circle, and share some songs for the night. I would like an instrumental jazz band to come and kick it... i want to have a bubble hockey tournament (have table) set to fine grooves... there is so much i want to do. I think beer Yoga needs to come back around Oktoberfest.

so tomorrow:

Hello Friends of the SRSS,

This week Jesse and Cam will be celebrating a small friends Birthday at the Railway.
Our special guests this week will be Chris Kelly, David Suzuki and of course JEANIE the birthday girl.
There will be serious discussions about Vancouver's crabbing scene, a real life alien abduction story and songs about the future.

Jesse and Cam host the Supper Robertson Supper Supper show on the first Wed. of every month. 7:30 to 8:30 @ The Railway Club, the kitchen is open and there is no cover charge.

Here we go again

2011-08-30T23:24:00.000-07:00

SR is back so we need to review 3 shows:

August 10th:

"Our first live show in two years went off like slightly damp firecrackers in a rented paper bag, and for a much shorter time than anticipated. The performance itself was great, the venue staff great, the sound was great, fun people came, and there were no electrocutions. However, we had a series of gear failures that prevented us from starting on time.

I am one of these people that does not own his or her own guitar amp. Super Robertson kindly lent me the Fender amp he keeps at the Railway for people like me. I'm guessing it's never used, as one jack proved to be mangled, and the non-mangled jack crackled like hell. So I rented one from our local instrument mecca. It also didn't work, but I didn't find that out until five minutes before showtime.

Lucky for us drummer Ciaran is in a very musical family that has offices stuffed with piano amps all over downtown. His father furnished me with a small Roland amp, and we cut our set by six songs. Some sort of private grip-n-grin function ushered us out at the end.

Nothing caught fire. I think we played quite well. Audience had maybe 30-35 people? Thanks, Super! Thanks, Johnny! Thanks, Jan (that's Ciaran's dad)!"

-Jean H

Hank Languish happened to catch the Classical Revolution show on August 17th:

"I heard the word revolution and i was in the mood for blood so i went down to the Super Robertson Supper Show, but there was no blood at all just some beautiful people riffing on some classical classics. So i put my grenades away and got me a pulled pork with salad and a hophead and settled into a wonderful evening."

And Fire-Man recounts the August 24th show:

A most fun set last night at the Super Robertson Supper Show. My thanks to King Dinosaur who ripped out a killer opening set. For the rest of you who played and sang along, if that was the height of my achievement, I will be content.

At the same time Fire-Man could get shot on stage and as the paramedics wheel him out of the venue he would be saying "still buzzing from that great show"... good to have positive people around.

On that night in Toronto this happened:

There is no SRSS this week as we have the International Pop Overthrow Festival. A festival that amazingly has all of the same headlining bands on all of the same nights as they did last year... great bands for sure, but what do they do look at last years schedule find out who wants to come back and then fill the new spaces from the glut of bands that paid $10 plus the cost of a sonicbids membership to "apply". Ultimately they should all be good nights of entertainment and I'm happy to have the night off, but it bothers me when festivals charge money for people to apply... you are essentially selling an aspiring artist hope so i think there should be at least a bit of hope there. That's what i think anyway . Camille Miller will play on August 31 and she is most excellent and she is new to the festival and Captain A will be there tending the bar and the fine selection of great beers are waiting... I think I'm better at criticising myself.. i have no guilt after it.

August 3 re-cap

2011-08-08T23:59:00.000-07:00

I biked down to the SRSS and promptly lost the basket on the front of my bike... I remember taking it off so it wouldn't get stolen but then i lost the bastard... it wasn't until the very next day after i had gone over the failure time and time again even going back to the scene of the crime that i think i figured it out. After i got off my bike i went to the 7-11 as they have a CIBC bank machine there... i believe i put the basket down beside the machine and left it there. That would explain why all the people that saw me walk in couldn't understand why i was obsessing about this damn basket... they were sure i left it on the bike because they didn't see me with a basket. I remember clearly taking the basket off, but then became distracted trying to hide my pin number from the scruffy varmint trying to rest an eyeball on my shoulder.

Knowing the basket was lost raked my concentration and stymied my ability to focus on the show even though i closed the show with a version of "what's in the bag". Haven't played that song in a long time, but since it was a Cam and Jesse night it appeared like i knew the material well. Christina Rzepa played some fine cello this night with a particularly scintillating version of the Bob Dylan classic "tangled up in blues". She was no slouch on "what's in the bag" either and she hung tight on Jessy's song "on a boat" after multiple docking and sailings and a crew of folks working the bailing buckets.

Ahh we like to laugh, yuck it up old sport... Did i mention i was acclaimed poet laureate of China Creek Park South? So in the fall, If I'm still in this town the SRSS will have some skits and one of the themes i shall explore will be the adventures of SR Jones... Poet Laureate of China Creek South Park. For a man who once had a motto, and had he been a man who believed in tattoos, might have had this ingrained on his body... Poetry is a jackass sport, it's a rather stark change. But not really... positions are all over the maps, but ideals can find a way to string those positions into a working situation. You are confused right? That's because politics uses the words "positions" and "ideals" so you have in fact learned that those words are meaningless. Position in politics means a way to identify with one's base, and ideals means a way to identify with a wider base. Suddenly feeling ill.

To me the phrase Poetry is a jackass sport was a nod to all those fools that made me sit in hot rooms listening to flowery language that had no point but endless imagery, and none of it being funny, so i thought i hated poetry, but i don't... i actually like it... i would gladly listen to a good poet for hours giggling and chucking to myself at the metaphors presented. hell if i went out to see local live music and i walked into a room full of people shouting at each other while some racket was screatching away on stage i might take up the opinion that i didn't like music either... Perspective is everything.

SRSS Listings

August 10th- A Spectre Is Haunting Europe, a prog deathrock band from Vancouver, Canada.
http://www.aspectreishauntingeurope.com/

Aug 17- Classical Revolution- Classical Revolution is a global phenomenon, revolutionizing the way live classical music is programmed and heard. http://www.classical revolution

Aug 24th- King Dinosaur and the Legion of Flying Monkeys Horn Orchestra... King Dinosaur doing Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, the Kinks and others followed by the Supreme Janitor leading an elderberry Horn Orchestra.

July 27 2011 re-cap

2011-08-02T23:33:00.000-07:00

OK, nothing negative to say about this show... as Super Steve said later in the evening when everything became blurry "I know I have said it before but one of the best Super Robertson Supper Shows ever".

On Super Steve's request... in which he was forced to make, he requested the song "wishing machine" a song at one time i thought i would never play again. With Shawn on drums the problems I once had are no longer, so I feel no pain anymore.

It wasn't bad for sure, minimal errors, great spirit, communal involvement, ball stomping band (Jason Jones, Shawn Killaly, Christopher Johnson and Jan Toren), fair turnout... even the legendary Jack Keating was impressed with the show with emphasis on the band's final number called "Square boy".

I had promised on facebook earlier to try to find something negative about the show to keep the streak alive, but in the end, here we are shooting blanks. What is it about a blog that focuses on the negative... a sure loser in today's market. But remember today's market is tomorrows failure, a boat with a million leaches suffers too much drag to sail properly, a facebook promise is like a brown wad of toilet paper, logging into myspace is like crushing a testicle with a 3000lb press.

Have faith in yourself and continue even though their not with you.
- Super R

In the end most people talked through the whole show, but this time we were blasting loud to overpower the bastards... that's how you do in in Vancouver... if you can't get them with words, groove and melody then melt their fucking faces with volume.

Check out this version of the song Bent... singing is Chris Rzepa, and Earl Peach... Chris plays cello in the band The Gentle Infidels, and Earl Peach is connected to me through many people and community projects. Most noteworthy is that Earl is a member of the same community garden that a certain man gardener belongs to, and both suffered tragic loss at the hands of incompetent city workers.

Hot damn i love when people can just step in and make some music together... fucking accessibility... music shouldn't be built up it should be ground down... was it perfect?... it becomes a debate... i was originally going to say "no it was not perfect"... but considering everything in music now a days is auto-tuned to perfection, i think i need to make a stand. For 7 people who had never played music together before doing an unrehearsed original song, sure I'll go perfect... fit the needs and all had fun.

And since our man Simian Special was @ the Pow Wow getting in touch with the grand spirit i decided to do a Supersimian classic titled "Bob Style" from the Supersimian CD "How the Tiger Got Lionized"

On August 3 2011, it's the Cam and Jesse Super Robertson Supper Show

Hello beloved fans,

The theme this Wednesday August 3rd for The Jesse and Cam Super Robertson Supper Show is...

ANIMALS, us and them.
Our guests this Wednesday are...
The lovely and talented Christina Ludwika Rzepa of the Gentle Infidels
http://www.myspace.com/gentleinfidels

Singer song writer, voice actor and all around outstanding individual John Clayborne Lind

The Super Robertson Supper show is every Wednesday 7:30 to 8:30 @ The Railway Club, no cover.
The Jesse and Cam show is the first Wed. of every month,

Thanks very much, hope to see there.

Jesse and Cam

Before I go I would like to re-enforce the dilemma that happens when the voters elect fools due to apathy and a misunderstanding of money related matters. In a certain town in this great country a couple of brothers who "run the town"... lets call them the "hammerhead brothers" admitted to not knowing who one of Canada's most prominent authors was in a dubious attempt to belittle that said author for their support of public libraries and literacy, and then went on to say that if that author wants a voice then they should run for election...

THE VOTERS CHOICE

The voters choice doesn't coincide
electing business is always suicide
Status Quo knows
sad suckers stand in sympathy

it's kind of like we all just losing our minds
not like serendipity came calling 
i'm like you and your like me 
can we live together

Dolpy Walters fell down to the ground
Got an email from the head of the company
said sorry Dolpy we have to set you free
Bygones be bygones be

it's kind of like we all just losing our minds
not like serendipity came calling
i'm like you and your like me 
can we live together

Zyiop P. he tried to plant a seed
said you already have all you ever need
pass a law you can pollute for free
Pass a law you cannot use your seed

July 20 re-cap

2011-07-26T23:23:00.000-07:00

I actually took a round of applause when i walked in to the club on this night as people were still buzzing from the SRSS 6 year anniversary show... still yet to recover from the numerous failures i tend to see i was awkward as per usual. Super Steve noted that i did make only one large error in not recognizing my wife (although she hates being called that)... let's call her CT.

On the clip I put up last week you will notice that there was an award for most scintillating woman in the audience... and it was actually a trophy award... CT was nominated, but a woman who wasn't there won, and i somehow managed to keep one of my old trophies around the house for a while longer. There was actually a fair amount of comedy involved in that gag... there probably wasn't the proper set up like there might be if this was a popular show like say "the office" where character developement was taken care of. The problem was that the show was running a little long so i tried to take a break and that turned into a sound set up clown show and about 20 minutes down time at the peak of the evening... next thing you know it was getting late and a lot of people were wanting to play music, others were tired and left, so i never got back to the awards. Am i still going on about this? Fucking rights I am... it burns my ass that in our own barn, the stage we own... our fucking canvass, I let that happen. Totally unacceptable. It's like playing a game of hockey and playing 2 real good periods but then in the third you make an idiot play and cough the puck up in front of your net and it ends up in the mesh... You are not sitting in the dressing room pumping your tires about how good you did in the first two periods.

No matter what you do i find it insufferable to not learn from your mistakes... and sometimes that means going over and over them locating every loose nut, refining the system, seeing where and why you failed. You can also win and fail... you could cough up the puck and have your goalie bail you out but it is your responsibility to understand where you went wrong.

It's a weird gamut: art music and failure... pointing out failure is like shiting your pants in a packed stalled elevator... nobody wants any part of that and perhaps will violently resist it. But it's not shit when you are a scientist.. asking the questions what when wrong? is how you solve the problem. Art and music people sometimes don't see it that way... perhaps too much fragile ego and not enough working man toughness. Thing about the Wright brothers... their first flying machines didn't fly but i bet you they didn't spent their evenings trying to blame the wind for their failure... they probably obsessed over their failure and then got it right... or wright for that matter.

Now that said numerous people told me of what a grand time they had and why they had such a grand time... i see there were numerous successes, real successes... people going home feeling alive and inspired.

Salvador Dali: 'A true artist is not one who is inspired, but one who inspires others.'

That is definitely good because the high praise came from those who were inspired. Good times were had by many and i don't actually believe anybody had a bad time... i trust all those people who were busting my balls for not winning an award were speaking in jest.

But this was to be the July 20 re-cap.. it said so in the title... OK Cam and Jesse kind of mailed it in and there was a table of people that were so loud and boisterous you could barely hear anything. Some dinner guests glared over at the noisy table and i sat there wondering why i bother. I should have just walked over and said "hey do you folks know there is plenty of seating in the back", but i didn't cause i didn't want to be a bother. I just sat there pondering the total disrespect for people making music on a stage that is part of the culture we have in this town. I have been on both sides of the quagmire (the loud guy talking and the quiet guy trying to present a song) and it is equally depressing when i think about it. But as Ruth Minnikin sings "you can't chose your audience"... and then i believe it goes something like you wouldn't want to if you could. For me i have developed a few tricks over the years to engage a tough crowd. Sometimes you play hockey against a team with better players, but if you team works together they can overcome.

And tomorrow we have the last 21 TANDEM REPEATS SRSS until September... come on down and pick up the latest CD and pay what you want for it. Shawn Killaly on drums, Jason Jones on piano, Chirstopher Johnson on bass and guitar and Jan Toren on bass and vocals.

August SRSS listings:

August 3- The Cam and Jesse Super Robertson Supper Show
Cameron Dilworth and Jesse Matheson bring songs mixed with awkward dry wit for an intimate hour of acoustic entertainment.

August 10th- A Spectre Is Haunting Europe, a prog deathrock band from Vancouver, Canada.
http://www.aspectreishauntingeurope.com/

Aug 17- Classical Revolution- Classical Revolution is a global phenomenon, revolutionizing the way live classical music is programmed and heard.

Aug 24th- King Dinosaur and the Legion of Flying Monkeys Horn Orchestra... King Dinosaur doing Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, the Kinks and others followed by the Supreme Janitor leading an elderberry Horn Orchestra.

Aug 31- No show

SRSS 6 Year Anniversary Recap

2011-07-19T23:12:00.000-07:00

The curtain draws on 6 years of the SRSS... people do look happy.

I hate putting on Shows... I really do. I was ill with regret for 2 days after... people were like are you crazy! That was a great show everybody had a blast!

Some of the things in my loath list were... actually on revision i just deleted this part.. probably best.

From the song One Little Dream (21 Tandem Repeats):

"art is a line and it follows a spine and you know when you know when it works , regret is a step and you should not let all the things you did wrong get you down".

I think i need to remember those words.

Oddly enough i was over at the Dawson post Folk Festival party this weekend hanging with some pretty sucussful music people, and of course being me i get into it and they all tell me i am crazy to worry about that... everything is always going wrong to your vision but if people had a good time then that's why they go out to be entertained... and then i got on the snare drum and played beats while Dan Bern and Sam Parton sang duets and they looked over and smiled and said "right on here we go".

I do need to give grand props to the band... Shawn Killaly on drums, Jason Jones on piano, Christopher Johnson on bass, Willingdon Black on guitar, and Sandra Bouza on vocals. They improvised the show the whole way and were on the money the whole time...

So i think photos tell the story... thanks to Moustachman who won the gold for photography... wonder why? The photo's are up and ready to go when i need them. And to those dozen or so people who i asked to bring me a list of five people in the audience when i was up giving awards and you all failed... but worry not, in my mind i failed worse.

The Legion of Flying Monkeys Horn Orchestra stomps down a solid set while the audience salivates over the awards... all hoping, praying that they might get a chance for glory.

A happy table of folks tries to make small talk to keep their minds off the riveting excitement of how the awards will go down.

Jesse Matheson and Cameron Dilworth come correct and serve up some excellent recognition plaques.

Wanky wins an award for best human.

Genny Trigo could have won any number of awards and best female vocal on a recording (One Little Dream, 21 Tandem Repeats 2011) was one of the first ones she picked up.

Should have won best dressed couple but the guy running the show is an aggressive hammerhead and he dropped the ball on many key points.

A round of high fives from the winners circle.

Cameron Dilworth takes home best male Vocal.

Well we were about to give out the happiest drummer award... so i believe Shawn Killaly was lobbying at the last minute.

The Johnny Wildkat "Multitask award"

Super Steve had a big night raking home a tonne of medal, while King Dinosaur remained shut-out until the wee hours

One of the great failures of the night was the fact that CT didn't get an award either... unbelievable, she baked the cake, made the awards and looks after the kids every night during the SRSS. So if you feel cheated for not getting an award give your head a shake.

Multiple award winner Simon... don't know his last name.

Who has fun the the SRSS? Curtis and Pockets do!

Who is the seenster drinking PBR hanging with all the winners?

i believe she won "person who bought the biggest piece of shit automobile"

On July 20 2011 the SRSS will be done by Cam and Jesse who had this to say about the show:

I think our theme for this one will be the "Cure for the Summer Time Blues". Were going to be exploring ways to deal with this cloudy,rainy summer and the depression that it brings. Should be informative and educational. It will turn frowns upside-down.

Well well well, here we go again...

2011-07-13T00:28:00.000-07:00

The Super Robertson Supper Show 6 year Anniversary Gala event. Right now, above me, 2 beautiful women are working diligently on a massive cake that has a guitar and my head so far... apparently i just ate my nose. For the record it was moist and delicious. The awards are all hanging on the wall looking regal with their sharp red ribbon and glinting gold medallions. There are even trophies, the only thing left is who will take them home.

SRSS blog follower hawk eye- can anybody beat Super Steve?
Most stylish head- Super R has short hair and huge sideburns... going to be tough for Casey.
Pro side burn award- seriously people
Agent of chaos- I wonder
Best hockey mind- Can Willingdon Black retain the title?
Best local release- Pineapple (pineapple) , One little dream (21 tandem Repeats), Insolents and Indolents (the Gentle Infidels), In (Land of Deborah).... among others
Delinquent award- Shockk's moment to shine... Chris Cruse or John Tweed or Winkler?
Lyric hawk award- could be Jen Kopp, could be Wayne or King Dinosaur
Satellite award- who lives far away but is in touch with the SRSS...Greg Pohl the reigning champion.
Best poem- so many to choose from, and some may still come
Stalwart award- meet Super Steve
Best keyboards- is an accordion a keyboard? Will Fire-Man steal this from Jason Jones.
Best spoken word or interpretive dance- Nathan Baker had a good one last week, but Pockets did do the meditation dance.
Best guitar player- acoustic or electric?
The "Pavel Bure" energy injection award - Jacey and the crew from Bellerose Composite High School... or is it Sandra Bouza, or Chris Johnson or Tim Watson.
v5t award- so many candidates
Best stringed instrument player- Chris Rzepa, Aaron McKinney, Johnson, Robertson, Dangworth
Best instrument builder- Fire-Man or Ed Bond
Mid week hammer time award- super R has earned that, but possibly Ed might be in the house
Avaunt guard award- LFM, BTD, This Thing
Top producer- Caleb Stull, Jesse Gander, Nick Tyz, Brodie Smith
Top female scientist- heavy competition on this one
Top journalist- can Mule Hughes keep the title... a little bird told me no...
Happy person award- see who's smiling
Best female vocal- another huge one... so many candidates...
Top dog mail person- I believe Rilcof won this last time.. which is insane... can't repeat.
Best blog- can the Super Robertson Supper Show blog win on home turf... will there be a riot if it doesn't.
Best Horn player- plenty on hand
Best sign language interpreter who is non licensed?

Other questions remain:
Can Joe Rotundo trump any of the SRSS hosts and take home best regular night host of a Railway event? And who will win best bartender and what will the fallout of that decision be, and will some pseudo award need to be invented off the top of our fearless leaders head to soothe the soul of the losers club.

Of course this is all just a cover to trick people to come to the CD release party for my latest record titled "One Little Dream". I think it is really good, but I have thought that before like a dozen times so what do i know. The past couple of releases i hired a publicist but this time i wasn't pushy enough to get on the train... that and the fact that staying home to raise kids for 3 years can take a pretty good hit on your pocket book. I'm not complaining, i have a good life with enjoyment coming from many different regions. In fact i feel good about tomorrow night... in the past i would worry about how things will go but now all i see is a chance to play with some great people that i have had the good fortune to play with over the past number of years. We even had a few rehearsals and sounded fine, and i remembered some things about myself... don't get trapped behind some ideal of how you think you want something to go. Because it is a record release and a 6 year anniversary party i want it to go well, but what is it that we have been training for all these years?... working on the fly. I have confidence that on the songs that have many chord changes i can put people on instruments that know the changes, and the rest we need to embrace the spirit of the path we have forged.

Lastly, for those who read this, and have been part of this whole experiment... Thanks! There was a time i didn't know we would survive 3 months. I remember going into the club with my Loyal Order of Water buffalo hat on... because it was the only hat i had that had horns thinking i have to come out strong tonight or we are fucking dead. I just have this vision of walking up the stairs terrified that i can't even play music for free and succeed. Success is a matter of opinion, and i know that now, and in the end it's all just memories... I don't even play the song "I am a failure" anymore... why buy into the game you don't play.

Come on down to the Railway on July 13 2011, have cake, win awards, and see people playing music on their own terms... not a bad deal i say.

And download this you cheap bastards

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/one-little-dream/id436188791

July 6 re-cap

2011-07-12T00:10:00.000-07:00

Hey Rock came and Hey Rock played and Hey Rock had a grand old time.

And then the band got bigger changed places and banged out some tunes...

By the end of the night i was in an underground parking lot with Hey Rock trying to record a "heavy on the reverb" version of the song "disappear". Listening back on the recording i realize that perhaps the recording device was a little far away from the point of acoustic origin as the claps and reverb registered at the same level of dominance as the main punch of the song. Live and learn, recording is a fine art and it doesn't help much that the medium and the devices keep changing. I remember recording with the old tascam 4 track machine and you could just sit in the chair (drum stool) and read the meters and have a pretty good idea of what you are about to get. Now it's all fuckery, machine levels and machines built to cater to people who have no intention of ever creating (which is fine), but there is a difference.

i loved making tapes, which reminds me... i should digitalize "8 minute man", but in all seriousness why make more plastic? But then again does digital make more plastic... it actually might, it would make sense that something that appears on first sight to make less makes more... phones are pieces of shit that need to be replaced every half year and tapes were good for decades. If i make a tape now then it's Mule, Smash and Shockk are the only people listening to it, and that's not good for the brisk sales juggernaut of the Canada Lynx Records express. Good to note CD's are plastic as well, because the facts are good things to remember. Sometimes convenience get's in the way when it comes to feeling good about ourselves.

Anyhoo I have to prepare for the big SRSS 6 year anniversary show blog for tomorrow.

some might say negative

2011-07-06T01:13:00.000-07:00

Create Blog, it's free... meaning it cost's nothing provided you have the infrastructure and stamina. Summer is fun... I like summer... And it will end when it's over. Sorry I just got back in from Quadra Island and Cumberland and such and then the car got unpacked and then i remembered about the SRSS... well it has been haunting me so i just chopped last weeks show up and it is going up on the Internet as we speak... except we are not really speaking. I am writing stuff and it shall be on the Internet until the apocalypse, which i imagine should happen rather shortly given the total insanity of the way we react, interact and check facts. Anyhoo the point being is that a blog is not really a conversation... I guess it could be if it came down to comments, but comments on the internet often leave orbit.. which is perhaps what i have done here... which leads us to our next question.

The next question is "why start a blog with this horse shit"... like shouldn't i be "RA RA BANGING IT ON THE GOOD TIMES TRAIN". I guess if i was really smart i would take a social media course... like that one a few years ago that said get on the myspace train... hell that's why we need a new course.

So last week we had our special guest This Thing:

A unique show for sure... there was spoken word with garbage can drum accompaniment, a Frank Zappa cover, backing tracks. Good times for sure.

The 21 Tandem Repeats compliment had a good time as well with Tim Watson on drums, Sandra Bouza on vocals, Jason Jones on Piano and Christopher Johnson on bass... SR as SR of course. Super Steve and King Dinosaur were in the house, there were push ups done by the youthful Jacey Gibb and an interprative dance done by a man named Nathan. Works for me.

Tomorrow or I guess today for that matter we have Hey Rock set make his return to the Super Robertson Supper Show after a long hiatus.

What do we know about Hey Rock?

Hey Rock had the distinct pleasure of living under Super Robertson years ago on the 900 block of west 15th avenue in Vancouver B.C. Hey Rock will let your cat out and water your plants but he won't clean the litter box... I understand... i never wanted a shit machine either, I just had the bad habit of getting together with crazy loon girlfriends who's spiritual side dictated they needed a cat and of course they would "always clean the litter box", except when they couldn't because of some other loon idea.

Hey Rock's first band was a king hell tight pop unit without a name... Naturally Shockk and I recorded their debut tape and dubbed them "Champ and the Harmony Brothers". Now being blind like a mole Hey Rock didn't see the pure genius behind this bold Canada Lynx Records move, and he changed his name to "Tim" got all serious and they changed the band name to "Rubicon" and recorded some "more serious songs". It was around that time Roadbed wrote the song "hey Rock took the bait like a hungry bass on a rainy spring morning" which was later shortened to "hey rock took the bait". There is also an unreleased 4 track song called Hey Rock blew it about the time Hey Rock was in a bar with us when we were talking with some ladies and he tried to get all fancy with the lingo and weirded the women out.
Clearly, Hey Rock needed to be taught a lesson, so it became our life goal to give Hey Rock a "swirly". That of course is head in a toilet and then a flush, given his hyper aversion to fecal matter it seemed appropriate. The song "Hey Rock's Living room" is about the time i went over to swirly the man myself to just get it over with, but Hey ROCK WASN'T HOME so i ended up hanging with Hey Bill and Hey Greg the Vino Brothers who happened to live with Hey Rock at the time.
Later Shockk and I were waiting on his front porch to jump him for a swirly and we noticed that he put a bunch of clothes out for Big Brothers, so we took some of his shirts and then would wear them to "Rubicon" gigs and stand in the front row and let his brain digest that during the show. I had a small novelty piggy bank toilet that had a great flush sound that i followed him around town for a few weeks eyeballing him with every flush. And then on his birthday i gave him a pet of his own... a beautiful lobster named "pinchey", and i might add he seemed most ungrateful when Pinchey got a hold of his torso... Mr. serious himself on the sofa leaping over the coffee table yelping like a hound.

Hey Rock went on to form the band Ross Vegas and now lives in the interior of B.C. He is a good sport, a solid citizen, and pretty good on skates with a puck if you know what i mean, and he will be playing @ the SRSS on July 6 2011.

don't believe me we had an interpretive dance:

SRSS anniversary show. You will win a gold medal for being you. 7:30 pm -12-30 am on july 13 2011.

June 22 Re-Cap

2011-06-28T23:40:00.001-07:00

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.

2011-06-22T00:23:00.000-07:00

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

2011-06-15T00:04:00.000-07:00

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

2011-06-08T00:38:00.000-07:00

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"

May 25th re-cap

2011-05-31T23:53:00.000-07:00

So a couple of fellows from the band Pure City, from Calgary, were in town and at a party and a guitar came out and they were really good and Shockk heard them and said you guys should play a show in town... but they couldn't find one, so Shockk called Super and next thing you know this happened:

On the 21 Tandem Repeats end it was Shawn Killaly, Christopher Johnson and Super R holding it down:

And then it was Jacey Gibb on stage to close the night with an expert curtain pull from Cody Klyne... no hesitation... that's the kind of thing we like to see at the SRSS:

All and all a fine Super Robertson Supper Show... I wasn't sure how to prepare for the show seeing that you never know what might happen come playoff time in a hockey mad town should a game be scheduled on a SRSS night.

Strangely enough i did receive multiple emails from overzealous music fans all bent out of shape that hockey takes precedent over art and music. Boo fucking hoo eh! The joy in music is playing music and as a result you need to pick your spots... I think anybody who plays music has all kind of opportunity to play music on their own time for their own enjoyment, as do people who like to listen to music. If you like hockey, or jumping on bandwagons for that matter sometimes you have to get what you can while you can because playoff runs are often few and far between. Sure the whole league is a corporate shill tank but last time i looked so was rock and roll, and the banking system, and the ministry of environment... in fact i can't think of anything human that rages with popularity that isn't driven by money. I think that's why, in part, i feel great seeing my hometown team compete for the ultimate prize... it takes my mind off loathsome senate appointments and tragic agricultural legal defeats. Not only that... i have loved hockey since i was born and this is actually the first time in my life that my home team has made it to the finals ( i moved to Vancouver the year of the last run to the finals, but in fairness i couldn't actually call myself a Vancouverite). One thing I'm big on for some reason is cheering for your home team... I'm like a salmon that way... go back to your home stream or die.

Luckily NBC calls the shots with the NHL and given the population of hockey fans is greater on the east coast then the west coast the Games start @ 5:00PM... meaning some sucker who paid top dollar to sit in a stadium for an event staged for TV has to skip off work early just to make it to the game... you didn't think you were important did you? But barring long overtime there will be a Super Robertson Supper Show after the game.

This show will be run by Super R.

Win win eh!

The SRSS blog strikes again

2011-05-24T23:41:00.000-07:00

I actually wrote a blog last week when I stayed home to watch the game... the plan was to save myself time tonight. I was just going to review the game as I would a show (show was canceled due to game) but then I tried to explain my historical hockey origins.... reading back on it i see it got late and i took a few too many extra tangents and began to reminisce about a certain Kerry Fraser non call that scarred my Stanley Cup run home team psyche. The blog post turned black and some ugly rage came out to the point where i was in France pointing at draft beer levers, to fictional bartenders, rather than learning the language... then i think i actually mentioned Hitler...

Who needs to read that, besides the Canucks, just a short while ago, advanced to the Stanley Cup finals in a strange and exciting game so I think we are feeling pretty good right about now.

This is good news, but lets not get overzealous... there is still plenty of time for heart crushing failure... it's all i have known in my 41 years on this planet. It is important to stay subdued in times of apparent triumph as the battle still has another chapter.

The Unthinkable Dream

I have this hope in my heart but I don't want to say
Because the hockey gods don't play that way
A full 60 minutes one shift at a time
You play your game and everything will be fine

Might this be the year it happens
Go Canucks Go
Might this be the year the stars align

There is talk on the street and noise in the bar, and a message from Hey Rock who is off afar
Solid in the net and all the other other positions, this team has the right disposition

Might this be the year it happens
Go Canucks Go
Might this be the year the stars align

We all have different hopes and we all have different dreams but this one here has a common theme

Those are the lyrics to the song i wrote just before the playoffs began and as you can see i was very careful not to taunt the OMEN HOCKEY GODS. I intentionally steered clear of name dropping players and making any fool predictions that could come back to haunt me... I just tried to capture the mood of a city of rabid hockey fans as they pray their hopes are answered. With a quick search on the Internet you should be able to find the song if you care to hear... it features Shawn Killaly on drums, Jason Jones on Piano, Alvaro Rojas on Guitar, Sandra Bouza on vocals and SR on guitar bass and vocals.

On Wednesday May 25 2011
From Calgary Pure City
http://www.myspace.com/purecitymusic

and from Vancouver 21 Tandem repeats
http://www.21tr.ca/

oh wait video... it wasn't the SRSS but we played a Mall on the weekend:
Super R, Shawn K, Jason J representing 21 TR

Me and Sylvester down at the Supper Show

2011-05-18T00:33:00.000-07:00

Yes it was a fine gentle Super Robertson Supper show last week with the youthful Jason Sylvester and the gracefully aging Super Robertson standing on stage trading songs armed with acoustic guitars.

It was a hard Super Robertson Supper Show to prepare in advance for as there was the possibility that there might have been a game 7, for all the marbles, hockey game on that night, which could have put the show in jeopardy for sure... that said we went low key which is good to do from time to time. i was actually excited to play solo for a bit and i did a fair bit of rehearsing for the show getting my head full of ideas that i could pursue. Of course once the show started and we got on this "dream theme" i lost my mind and tried to play songs i haven't played for a year because they fit the theme, rather than play the songs that i had gone over earlier in the day... that happen to be on an album i am about to release called "One little dream". It's this problem i have with my brain... my brain is stupid... it thinks it's invincible and everything will be alright if we just follow this insane tangent we just got on and try to pull something out of our ass. Notice how my brain and me are now "our"... like we are separate... my brain makes a call and the appearance of the shell of my body gets further solidified as the shell of a jackass.

Good thing about playing one song and then somebody else playing a song is that it gives you a chance to talk to yourself and calm the fuck down. Kind of like a boxer might go to the corner after a round in which he was beaten severely, but he gets a towel and a drink of water and a little moment of time where he needs to look into himself and tell himself that he has got to get it together because he is not going to survive another beating of that magnitude. Of course i was just a song that i forgot the chords to the chorus for for like 15 seconds while i fumbled around the fretboard and not a savage concussion... so that's OK i guess.

Free show, you get what you pay for i guess... that said there were a number of people at the show and i had no idea who any of them were... which is a good thing for an Entertainment and Supper option. Later i did talk to one of the patrons and he said that he had heard about the show for a long time and decided to check it out, and apparently enjoyed it... I said "i noticed you ate, your supper was fine i trust"... he laughed and said it was great.

Lets watch a Jason Sylvester song:

What do i know about Jason Dallas Sylvester? He lives in Langley, he makes things happen, he plays an Ovation guitar with bolts holding the neck together that is his mothers guitar... his mother who went to the same University as myself about 9 years before me. He is in a band called The Kodiak Nightlife, He has a 6 song EP (on CD) out called "social juggernaut" and he loves WILCO. He found me and the SRSS by looking and he came and he played.

I throw this number in because it answers one of the unanswered questions that this here blog eluded to earlier for good or ill. Also this song is on the upcoming 21 tandem Repeats release called "one little dream":

On Wednesday May 18 there will be no Super Robertson Supper Show as Playoff Hockey will be shown on the big screen. A must win game for the Canucks... you either get that or you don't... i had sent an email to the club offering to call the play by play in the room but for some strange reason they never got back to me... i was going to try and pull WB as my colour man, or statistician with a keen memory for previous Canuck history. I thought it might be fun in a kind of paralyzing fear kind of way, but it could be disastrous in other ways... the key one being the game goes into overtime and I'm frothing away on the mic and the room is full of people there for the music and most of them already hate me and it is remembered that a live music show was held up because Super Robertson got it in his bone head that he needed to call a hockey game. In the end it's all just memories and lets just hope we all go to sleep tomorrow night with the memory of a fine Canuck victory.

Of course I won the election.

2011-05-10T23:28:00.000-07:00

I was in no mood to lose an election for the Prime Minister of the Super Robertson Supper Show. I had challenged Cam and Jesse to do more at their SRSS and so they answered with 2 great guests and an election with real ballots and campaign buttons... I had a suit and was shaved... the shaving was because i had to play the SRSS the week before with one side burn after my sacrifice to the hockey gods... remember? But my big bushy eyebrows helped carry the day giving me an aura of elder authority. I also made the point of cornering everybody and pressuring them to vote for me... I also bought some votes (with beer) and demonized the opposition with relentless attack propaganda predicting that an unreasonable cover charge would be instituted on the supper show if we were to elect a reckless coalition and not a strong Majority Super Robertson government.

Super Steve, who happened to be celebrating his birthday, kept his cards close to his chest and let me know that he was considering voting Cam or Jesse, because he "liked those guys". I considered wetting a rag with a little chloroform and grabbing his ballot but rather i feigned friendship with that old coot and we drank heavily and then i sprung the new 21 Tandem Repeats album on him and soaked the bastard for 20 bones... even better Drill happened to be walking by and i plucked him for a ten spot.

Lets just say i was on a roll for sure.

Chris Kelly played:

I think this might have been why Super Steve sent his Vote to the Super Robertson party... the Cam and Jesse slow dancing was a perfect working example of a joke that had far more time to run it's course than it needed... and then what do you do? Chris Kelly has a great voice and a knack for writing powerful songs.

Cam, Jesse and Chris Rzepa played a little number called "seduced by your flute"... or at least i assume it was called that as it was a recurring line in the song... good stuff.

And then it was Jenny Ritter- Live at the Super Robertson Supper Show

Apparently Jenny runs a rock and roll choir and actually came to the "queen Anna choir" that i belong to. No doubt about the fact that she is a monster talent. Unfortunately some Jackass from one of the bands that was going on later was jabbering away at the back about something that was totally not important at all. It's funny you go out to play music... most likely you have invited people out to see you play and you get to the club and some woman is on stage with a guitar just killing it and you decide that you need to loud talk to your band mates about how you are going to orchestrate your greatness on stage tonight totally killing a little moment for like 25 people. Here is a tip folks... there are 2 other rooms in the club... if you find yourself in one room where everybody is stone silent listening to something, then please go flap you gums in one of the other rooms. I realize it is Vancouver and that's what we do out here... but if you are in a band perhaps you could help lead the change by showing a little respect in these rare moments in time.

On Wednesday may 11th 2011 we have a guest by the name of Jason Sylvester: http://www.myspace.com/jasonsylvester

What else i have going on we will have to see... i was a bit wary about this SRSS as Game 7 was scheduled for the Canuck / Predators series and had the Canucks not won the other night the city would be in a different state. But alas Canucks won in game 6 ... so bring on the entertainment.

There was probably nobody more relieved than Mule Hughes when he found out he didn't have to lay another stick job on the 21TR juggernaut ...http://diffmusic.blogspot.com/2011/05/21-tandem-repeatsone-little-dream.html

That said i think i might play rage Hero episode #37 with a little rage in the delivery.

April 27th re-cap

2011-05-04T01:23:00.000-07:00

We had a very fine guest by the name of Jovana Golubovic come out and play at this weeks SRSS:

There was a jovial mood in the club even though the Montreal Canadians lost game 7 in overtime just before the SRSS started which pretty much assured that we wouldn't be visited by King Dinosaur in the mood to make a few toasts.

Of course the night before the Vancouver Canucks had knocked out the reigning Stanly Cup champs the Chicago Blackhawks in game 7 in overtime and for a moment in time the city had some hope... of course since then our country managed to elect a majority government led by a person who took not one single pre-screened question in his campaign and was bolstered by years of attack ads on the opposition and the fact that there was multiple opposition parties that fought each other for the lions share of the votes paving the way for a situation where we are now governed by a man who lead the attack against doing anything about saving the environment with the tired phrase "its bad for the economy". Somehow forgot that we are living beings and need clean oxygen and water and non polluted food to survive. We have given absolute power to a man who fired scientists who warned of disaster that didn't groove with his way of doing business and as a result citizens died from contaminated meat, lakes and streams were polluted and the companies that polluted them got richer. A man that came into power with a huge budget surplus and turned it into a huge budget deficit, and the rich got richer and the poor got poorer, and apparently he is good for the economy. He did spend billions building roads and on signs and on ads touting the economic action plan... but when the roads are built what kind of work is there for the road builders? Maybe they can pump gas to keep the cars on the roads. He is the same person who was furious that we didn't as a country join the Iraq war... it worked out so well for the countries that did join it wouldn't you say...

Its bent... that's all i can say.

And then we did 98 BOB:

On Wednesday May 4th 2011:

It's the Cam and Jesse Supper show so i asked them what's up:

Hi Super,

Here's our info for this weeks show if you would be so kind as to post it! Thanks man!

To our dear legions of fans.
Hello and warm greetings,
It is that time of the month again, it's THE JESSE AND CAM SUPPER SHOW!!!
The first Wednesday of every month Super Thornton generously allows Jesse Matheson and Cameron Dilworth take over for an hour of art, magic an music.
The show is @ the Railway club, it's free and the kitchen is open.

This weeks theme is, THE VOTE.
Who will be crowned Prime Minister of the Supper show, Supper Albertson, Jesse Matheson or Cameron Dilworth? Make your vote count!

This weeks very special guests are...
Chris Kelly (That Kelly Boy) http://www.myspace.com/thatkellyboy
Jenny Ritter (Formerly of The Gruff) http://www.myspace.com/thegruffband

Thank you for being you.

JM & CD

Hot damn... that means I have to win an election tomorrow... make no mistake people this is a serious issue... I can assure you that we cannot trust a reckless coalition of Cam and Jesse to be dubbed Prime Minister of the SRSS. In these tough times only a strong Majority Super Albertson... i mean Robertson can guide us through these difficult beer swilling moments.

I ask you this... have you ever heard Cam and Jesse deny that they have had relations with barnyard animals? No I haven't either, and if they are not going to come clean with the SRSS collective how can we trust them with anything. I, on the other hand have shown strong leadership and have numerous photo ops with me looking natural in various "Canadian values" situations. The Super Robertson Supper Show is an important institution of Canadian culture and should it be put in the hands of such vile cretins as Cam and Jesse it's clear that terrorist will be knocking on the door killing grandmothers and babies all over this city. For the good of god and the universe alike i urge you to come down and vote Super Robertson for prime Minister of the SRSS, because if you don't it is very likely that you will lose your home and have terrorists pouring acid on your raw eyeballs while they feed your living heart to sewer rats. You have to come out and vote for me or it is the end for sure.

April 20 re-cap, a reverse jinx, a full band coming to a show in a city that can breath again

2011-04-27T00:36:00.000-07:00

It was my Neighborino's (Baboon Torture Division) live at the SRSS last week and the paparazzi was out in full force... you would have thought it was a royal wedding or something like that. I saw Shawn Killaly working a big camera and all the old school SRSS peeps were out having dinner.

What is Baboon Torture Division? Let's just say that he band is well named as somebody near the back of the bar remarked. Older English gentleman looked at me and asked very seriously "and what kind of music would this be called"... "how about baboon torture division"... "i could see that, I like the fact that they are not raging loud".

This is a more professionally produced video than the SRSS is use to, but do remember i have only Imovie, a program which is as useless as a 4 week old dead cat under your pillow.

It was Hixon's birthday so i made a cake:

Fortunately i caught the Neighborino's before they were leaving in the Co-op car to go to the show to give them the cake to bring down which saved me from racing down Broadway in a pro Scarb Jacket with a cake and a guitar trying to catch a bus to the skytrain 1/2 hour before showtime.

Later Hixon and myself played a few songs as a duo, him on the computer generated beats and I doing me. We played the song "the flies"

I got to get me a screen cause the flies are getting bad
i need to pick up a mask cause the flies are getting bad
Please bring me a screen cause the flies are getting bad
I got to get me a mask cause the flies are getting bad

I am not a piece of meat to lay maggots on
I am not a fruit past due
I am not a lion

and then it gets a bit weird... legend has it that the people who wrote it were on acid and they were in a 4-track session in an apartment on the downtown east side in the summer with a window facing an alley with some bad smells, and of course the smells bring in the flies, and for some bizarre reason there were no screens on the window, so after they came back from the roof... which is a good place to collect ones thoughts the room was full of flies... just those ridiculous black shit flies that do circles and induce paranoia to the point where you try to torch the bastards with an aerosol can and a lighter... and then after a minor luxury pile couch singeing one had the idea that a screen might be better suited for ones needs.

After that we did the song Internetting on Chatroulette

And then it was time for cake.

On Wednesday April 27 2011, we have a special guest to play a few numbers Jovana Golubovic and a full 21 Tandem Repeats compliment featuring Shawn Killaly on drums, Jason Jones on piano, Christopher Johnson on bass, Willingdon Black on guitar and SR as SR.

SR will be sporting one large side burn as a result of a reverse jinx he called for the stunning and most excellent Canucks game 7 overtime victory.

You see, having been born in 1969 in Toronto and then moving to Vancouver in 1994 I have nothing but hometown Stanley Cup failure on my resume. So on the verge of what looked like it might become an epic collapse i put the word out that if the Canucks can win this game I will play the SRSS with one large side burn, hoping that perhaps the Gods might choose my personal embarrassment as a source of comedy over the fiasco of all fiasco's. I don't think I need to go into how painful it would have been to lose to Chicago for the third year in a row for the city's hockey heart. A good OMEN happened picking up my daughter from school today... as i walked in a nice little girl and her mother complimented me on my fine sideburns... it was a random and sincere compliment of the sort that i have never received. I will miss my pro sideburns, but i will embrace my pro side burn and play with heart and soul. Credit where credit is due... the Canucks played a great game and i think tomorrows SRSS will be one KING HELL time.

I have the new records back and you can have one for the price you feel is reasonable... all funds go back into the project.

I'll buy a plate of Nachos for the table of sexiest one side burned people who come to the show... they can be fake.

Hot Damn our dreams aren't dead yet.

GO CANUCKS GO

Unscheduled Bulliten- open letter to the SRSS collective.

2011-04-24T22:46:00.000-07:00

It happens every so often that I have to lay into somebody in the blog, and invariably it causes much distress... to myself and the victim.

You ever see The last lecture by Randy Pausche :

For sure worth watching... I mention it because in the lecture Randy talks about his life dreams and what he learned achieving them or attempting to achieve them. One of his goals was to play football in the NFL so he went out and was playing for the school team and one day the coach was really hard on him, kept working him over and over and as he walked off the field one of the assistant coaches noted that the coach really gave it to him, but then told him that that is good, because it means the coach still believes in him. The life lesson is that when you are screwing up and nobody is saying anything then you know they have lost faith in you... when you do something badly and nobody is bothering to tell you anymore than that's a bad place to be. He never made it to the NFL, but he learned a lot and did a lot of his best thinking walking in a field with a football in his hands

Unfortunately a lot of people go into art and/ or music so they can just do whatever the hell they want and not answer to a "Boss"... i have seen too many talented people pass on greatness because they couldn't be told anything by anyone. Now i don't feel like a Boss but i do have to look out for the people i have invited out to play. Lets create a hypothetical scenario... Say i were to invite a flute player out to play some tunes then i would feel responsible to make sure that the drummer doesn't play at 2 Million decibels so that the flute player can have a chance to shine. So if the drummer were to play at 2 million decibels, clearing the room for fear of ear damage... and then after the show happened to say... "oh well i guess i got a bit excited, and i had been drinking all day so you know shit happens". That person would need to be called out, or never called back for what they did to everybody involved... because it's not teamwork. As they say there is no "I" in Team.

The pattern has always been the same when the blog has gotten me into hot water... It's one of the people that's in the crew who spends time talking about how we are trying to build something here and that we should put on more shows and "make things happen", but yet come show time they do the thing they do that puts the rest of the team in peril and downs the plane...

Everybody has their strengths and there weaknesses, and at some point in time you need to figure out what are yours and how to play to your strengths and minimize your weakness for the good of the team.

It's not about me... i believe i have called myself out many times for "mind boggling errors", horrible singing and just plain "sucking turtle cocks".

It's OK to fuck up at the SRSS, just don't keep making the same mistake, or try to blame the mistake on other things. I think it's great fucking up trying to do something unique... better than regurgitating some common pap plucked from the tree of commercial success.

We are a collection of people, and we count on each other to do right and be better. Putting on a live show is different because things happen on the fly... you can't always have somebody giving you the green light or the red light. At some point in time you have to know the right call and make it, or we should just cancel the whole damn show and take up watching TV because that doesn't hurt so much.

When you play, or are even part of the audience at the SRSS, you have a very rare opportunity to affect the direction of the show... not a lot of people putting on shows will give you that opportunity. But with that opportunity comes a responsibility to use that power for the greater good of the show and all involved.

In the end it's all just memories... lets make them memorable.

April 13 re-cap

2011-04-20T00:23:00.000-07:00

The last couple of times Jacqui Brown played the Super Robertson Supper Show she brought the rock, but this time she has teamed up with John Burton to develop a different angle. John is one King hell musician and seems to be able to translate Jacqui Brown's songs into structures that allow her vocals to soar.

Good stuff for sure.

The Vancouver Canucks opened their playoff series vs Chicago, and all went well. John Burton was kind enough to allow Jason Jones to play his keyboard for a short set with the time remaining... a set in which we were "Fire-Maned".

"Fire-Maned"... a friend coined the term a long time ago... it happened that another friend was doing a set of some DJ music and i asked how it went and i was told... "oh he got Fire-Maned". I knew immediately what that meant... it means you are joined on stage by an surprise guest who feels it necessary to play a hand carved horn over whatever your artistic creation may be... and will not stop no matter how insane it gets. I remember the New Years Party where he grabbed a horn and inched towards the Jazz band and everybody took their spots with big goofy smiles waiting to see all hell break loose on the unsuspecting.

Basically I shouldn't have played that night, and I sort of felt that before the show... there was too much uncertainty, Jacqui wanted to play long so I should have just let them roll... but my neighbours were there and they wanted to hear a few of my songs. Also the SRSS and sporting events have a history of collision, and I'm fine with that. You never want to be a musician in the way of a sports fan... At least i don't want to be. Remember the Olympics... 2nd supper show was a disaster as we pulled the screen up and angered a pack of Germans who wanted to see the biathlon highlights, but the week before a table of Slovaks came up huge during poem moment, and the last week was the night Canada eliminated Russia from hockey and Canada won a couple of bobsled medals and the town was on fire... we could do no wrong. The plan was to play behind the big screen so people could hear the music and see the highlights, but the crowd wanted to celebrate, and they would have none of that.

So i didn't know what to expect so I brought a Children's story to read over some piano improv:

Around the 2 minute mark we got "Fire-Maned" which worked out OK, but of course he doesn't leave the stage like a normal person might once the story is done... you are now a trio for good or ill. This is where i really played it wrong... I had it in my head that there were a few songs i wanted to try... But knowing that Fire-man is in full Fire-Man mode i should have aborted and tried something really experimental, or better yet just left the stage and let piano and horn jam out the rest of the show. I stayed hard on my course and buried us.

The strangest thing is that after the show when we are all sitting at the back of the bar hanging out all the talk was about how good the horn sounded... WHAT FUCKING PLANET ARE WE ON! I'm sorry... Please tell me how? Now i know that there is being positive and all and i get that, but if there was ever a person who doesn't need to be encouraged to storm other peoples art and impose his shit on it this is the one time... he sure as hell wouldn't tolerate that on his art. But yet we are there at the table, not talking about how good the piano was... even though the guy playing it had to transpose keys on the fly and did so expertly, but we are talking about how good the horn was... absolutely incredible! It will be a good episode for the SRSS sitcom. I want to be a nice guy and embrace the unknown more than anybody but this road is getting a little tired. I meet professional musicians in town and they say.. "oh your the guy that plays the crazy horns"... i like the crazy horns, just not when I'm trying to deliver a pop or folk song.

For the record I don't hate Fire-Man, he is actually a very good friend and I have plans to live on a farm with him one day... and on that farm we will have separate music rooms e-i-e-i-o.

See the Legion of Flying Monkeys Horn Orchestra for the horns in their spectacular environment... it's great. I'm more like the guy in that story "the cat came back"... only the cat is a horn.

Next week we have cake and Baboon Torture division, DJ Hixon and SR Jones, and a screening of The Land of Deborah video "Pocket of Heaven".

April 6 re-cap and the obvious...

2011-04-12T23:52:00.000-07:00

A Gold Medal for Amanda Jane Lee for telling the world she was playing the Super Robertson Supper Show. I believe there were 36 people enjoying a fine free evening of professional themed music.

Cam and Jesse came correct... suits, songs and graciousness. There was a minor mention of a certain flap of skin contained in the anatomy of a male member, but it was more of an acknowledgement of the burr put under their collective saddle in a certain bog over last months write up.

Amanda Jane Lee and Elda Pinckney came up and laid down fine version of a Be Good Tanyas song called "Littlest Bird". They did an original before that, but i missed capturing it on video because we had a lengthy turn over which is totally the fault of SR. Considering the amount of conversation that went into this show i failed to be on top of this issue. I was sitting beside Christina Rzepa and she had a good suggestion to make out a sheet of points for people who play the SRSS to see so they are able to know what they need to do... simple communication. My only problem with that is that I tend to be a real sucker for the option of the unexpected, but as a pro one should always be able to work the unexpected into structure. Anyhoo to make a long story mid-sized I shut off the camera to help give some suggestions on what to do, and then when they got going somebody else was filming the show and I would have had to walk in front of them to grab my camera, and since the song had started I figured that there was no point walking in front of the one camera that was capturing the whole song.

There was a lot of people eating Supper last week and I met a few new friends, some of them I see now make fine music in their own right. I must say, very pleasing seeing people taking in and getting into a free diner time show.

There I was in the back and the show was closing... I was happy not to play and I was enjoying the show very much so... but then I had an idea, so I presented my idea and it flew past the members of the SRSS April 6 security council and I was granted clearance. I grabbed Christina Rzepa, Amanda Jane Lee and Elda Pinckney and we tried an experimental version of the song Saskatchewan. I chose Saskatchewan because it tells of the journey of 2 people who moved across the country to start fresh because the legend of their collective Jackass was too great to overcome to ever be thought of as a "professional band". The comedy being of course, that they eventually decided they needed double neck guitars and then released the Chicken EP.
The song also has a repeating guitar line that I thought we could just sing instead... we added a few extra notes but that's what happens when you roll on the fly.

On April 13 2011, which happens to be my fathers Birthday, we have the wonderful and talented Jacqui Brown. It appears that she will be much more Jazz orientated than Rock orientated this time around. I'm not sure what i will do as all of my best drummers are unavailable and I was somewhat worried about what might happen with this show given that the Canucks playoffs starts on this night, so i didn't want to involve a whole bunch of people and then have the show pre-empted, by the game...

I do kind of want to read the Children's book "Giraffe's can't Dance", which tells the story of Girard, a clumsy giraffe who goes to the jungle dance party and gets laughed out of the dance circle to wander away sad only to look up at the moon, see it's beauty, and then meet a cricket who counsels him "sometimes when you're different you just need a different beat"... Girard listens to the grass and the trees and starts to "feel it" and starts dancing one king hell dance and then all of the animals walking home from the dance party see him dancing and declare him the greatest! The moral being everybody can dance when they find the music that they love. Sometimes i think it is important to hit unsuspecting SRSS audiences with some fine life lessons found in childrens books like that. The only question is... Should i read it to a stuffed animal?

Canucks vs Hawks... huge game! And a chance for me to film a video for my new single "The Unthinkable Dream".

2011-04-09T11:33:00.001-07:00

The Unthinkable Dream

Vancouver Canucks 2011 Playoff run

I have this hope in my heart but I don't want to say
Because the hockey gods don't play that way
A full 60 minutes one shift at a time
You play your game and everything will be fine

Might this be the year it happens
go canucks go
Might this be the year the stars align

There is talk on the street and noise in the bar, and a message from Hey Rock
way off afar
Solid in the net and all the other positions, this team shows the right disposition

Might this be the year it happens
go canucks go
Might this be the year the stars align

We all have different hopes and we all have different dreams but this one here has a common theme

Might this be the year it happen
go canucks go
Might this be the year the stars align

March 30 re-cap, and a pro woot woot...

2011-04-06T00:56:00.000-07:00

The band Igloo featuring Tim Watson (Slick), Sandra Bouza (Mo) and JC really helped bring this Super Robertson Supper Show into the pro zone. Nothing like a totally solid rhythm section with a easy grooving songbird who's not afraid to fly in all kinds of conditions for a free Jam.

Hot damn... that's the word I should never use... "JAM" a very dangerous word for sure... everybody uses it so you can be sure of a misunderstanding anytime you make the rookie mistake of using the word. The only way the word "Jam" can get any worse is if you put the word "Open" in front of or "Band" behind it... and if that were to ever happen you would be better off just getting your testicle pierced and going home for a nice soothing ice bath.

I should present it more like... come out and play with me and I'll keep it real simple adding proper thought through words at the right time to give the simple grooves the rite to claim "song" territory... and if you can really play I want you to soar. Stage time is a scoobie snack to all those shaggies out there if you know what i mean, and if you use the word Jam you will have all sorts of stage starved hammerheads ready to plow you with a never ending blues number, a butchered cover or a fucking ballad of their personal heartbreak that they refuse to get over.

So if i were to say "Jam" this is what i mean:

A known song in A and B, with room to groove, a repeating chorus that singers can sing (words printed) and some verse sections that i think are unique, relevant and interesting. Personally i think it was a great version and king hell thanks to all the folks for adding their individuality and coming together... Slick, JC, jason, Mo, Jocelyn and a guy on guitar i hate to say i can't remember his name... his guitar battery was dead so you can't hear him, and the camera cut him off... random placement nothing personal.

I have been thinking about my band 21 tandem repeats in terms of this whole scenario with respect to the way i make and play music. Being a longtime 'band member" person i have spent the last number of years trying to pretend that we are a band in the traditional sense... meaning that when i apply for things i try to pretend we are this band with members, or set members for that matter, in some bizarre effort to fit into the mold. In the end of course it comes off like a lie, because it is, and i end up leaving the great untapped potential off the table for discussion... my greatest strength goes into the closet, hidden like it was some bastard child in the early 1900's.

What is my strenght?
I can take a group of people who have never met or played together up on stage and pull off a pretty decent live show on zero rehearsals playing simple songs i have written over the years that leave room for people to be involved. I just recorded probably the best record i have ever done with a group of fine musicians that i know and many have been part of the band for some time without any rehearsals or discussion... people had a few takes for sure.

Every SRSS i play could be thought of as an open audition to the band 21 Tandem Repeats for external cast members... it is actually brilliant... a fluid band, a cameleon band, a band not hindered by conflicting schedules... as Darth Vader might say "It is my destiny". It is interesting, when i first started the Super Robertson Supper Show i tried to play the first 4 years with the band... it was our rehearsal, and i thought we did great and then we hit the point where the band collectively had more children than members and scheduling conflicts arise, but with all things in life a new dawn is always upon us.

I never wanted to be anyone, Just want to be like myself:

This song was born in a moment back in London Ont. when i was still in university and i was discussing my future in rock and roll with a roommate. He happened to be black so he figured he would be the next Jimi Hendrix, and so the question would be "who would I Be"... should i be Keith Richards? I replied i don't want to be anybody i just want to be myself which brought ridicule and scorn on my ass because of course as a matter of music business principle you should be like somebody. It makes sense... Lady Gaga is the new Madonna... find the niche and fill it... i say this with respect to all those involved, it's just the way it goes.

so on April 6 2011:

Hi everybody,

It's that time of the month again...
Jesse and I are hosting the Super Robertson Supper Show Wed. Apr 6 @ The Railway Club. We're on 7:30 to 8:30, the kitchen is open, no cover.

This week our guests are...
Vancouver's talented Amanda Jane Lee
also appearing on the this weeks Supper Show SSRI's Jo Hirabayashi and Pup McKinney

If you're in the mood for some good songs and charming hosts come on down.
This weeks theme is Professionalism.

Kind regards,

Cameron and Jesse

You have to like this "professionalism" angle and Amanda Jane Lee has actually done radio promotion and invited hundreds on social networking.

And in the end it's all just memories.

Think positive, and your dreams are there for the taking.

SR

A Light and fluffy 9:37 PM... March 23 Re-Cap

2011-03-29T23:40:00.000-07:00

I hate to start off another re-cap with the term "king hell" kicking at me like a fine bass drum tight to the beat, BUT THERE WAS A DANCE FLOOR at last week's SRSS. How about this... since it was basically an 8 piece all girl band (minus male bass player sitting in for absent base player), lets call it a "Queen Hell" show.

Super Steve and King Dinosaur, who you can't see because the Zoom Q3 is poor in low light, give the thumbs up... the place was packed, great energy... as they say in the SRSS business, what's good for the Super Robertson Supper Show is good for the Super. Not only that but Ginger and Moonshine are a class act of quality people through and through.

This song is called Reggae song:

It seems to be a little hot and distorting in places... one thing about the Zoom Q3 (recording device) is that it always finds a new way to fuck you... it might have slipped from auto to hi mic levels, but i do recall checking it... you would think a machine built to record live bands would be built to deal with recording live bands, but all i seem to get is cut outs, distorted levels or very minimal levels... if i could only hot wire the Sony DCR-TRV330 to record to a hard drive.

Isn't it incredible? The longer we are around as humans the shittier stuff we seem to make. How is that possible? One would think we would learn from our mistakes and not make shitty stuff that constantly fails you at it's moment of truth. I guess ideas like this are against the idea of the North American economy... if the stuff wasn't shitty then it might take one out of the consumer market for that product, and that would be un-democratic... oh wait a minute did i just confuse democracy with a wildly inaccurate view of the economy? Hot Damn i don't think that has ever been done before... nope can think of any examples from my trained 5 minute memory of history... so lets move on.

wow... don't need that kind of rage when the job for the night is to give grand kudos to the band Ginger and Moonshine for bringing it to the Super Robertson Supper Show with such grace and elegance. They actually learned a song of mine, which is not a real simple one (believe it or not) and played it with me. Fire-Man, doing his best Werner Herzog impression, attempted to capture the experience... but once again the Zoom Q3 fucked up the levels... perhaps he was too close to the vocal monitor, perhaps the switch was on hi and not auto... perhaps the switch is a cheap piece of shit plastic and doesn't really work... serenity now! On drums is Doug who was touring with Ari Hest (from NYC) and ended up doing drum tech for part of the night... And thanks to Erin Hope-Goldsmith who was on keyboards for making this happen:

How could I as a human be any happier... a group of young up and coming musicians learn a song i wrote and give it there all and have a grand time doing it. Truly blessed for sure... and I'm not even an religious pundit. It was one of those nights when for a moment i actually believed in myself... and then i drank a thousand pints and it all went sideways.

On the positive side it looks like i managed to talk a few of the singers from "Ginger and Moonshine" to come out again this week to the Super Robertson Supper Show King Hell Jam. I don't think i have played much this month but on March 30 i plan to rule the roost with a grand effort from the SR songbook. So far we have Slick on drums, Jason Jones on Piano, bass, Mo, and a coalition of singers + trumpet from "Ginger and Moonshine"... If i were to recommend a SRSS to come to this would be the one... but of course that would be smiley faced PR, and as an anti economy person i can't get behind that, except for the fact that the show is FREE... so it is exempt from economy bull shit... you can see the show without being involved in the economy.... power to you... although you might want to suck back a few cold ones or dine on the fine selection of eats... but that's up to you.

Part of the backing band for this show will be members from the band Igloo who will open the show. This is them earlier in the month on Commercial drive:

be good and act wisely

SR

It's fucking 1:32 AM

2011-03-23T02:30:00.000-07:00

In a perfect world the Blog would have been updated much earlier.. I could lay a long list of excuses that would all be very rational, and perhaps comical in their own regard... but why do that when it is time to get down to business? I could look at my thumb that is black and blue from some savage maniac slash i took playing hockey earlier tonight (which was late) and say "oh boo fucking who me"... i just won't do it tonight... the kids will be up screaming soon and i have to pick my Mother-in-law up from the airport so i should get some rest. that is nonsense of course... if you say you are going to do something then do it, no matter how few dividends the result may seem to pay... completion of what you set out to do is what is important... to hell with the reviews... speaking of reviews:

OK... sorry i had to pump myself up.

I think it's fair to say the the Legion of Flying Monkeys Horn Orchestra put on a King Hell Show last week at the SRSS. Puppet show, Movie, smart songs, dialogues, art horn Jam with real horn player, ringer guitar player, ringer flute player, ringer piano player delivering lines reserved for absent horn player, 2 great drummers, custom suitcase drum kit solid backup horn orchestra... proper promotion, full house... a super Robertson supper show clinic for sure. Imagine if everybody put in that kind of effort for a SRSS? Why should they? The classic difference between a scene creator and a scene sucker. Some look to create and some look to attach and get "what's coming to them". It happens.

check this horn jam:

John Korsrud and Daniel Lunn and Fire-Man doing what I'm sure Fire-Man always dreamed of doing. That's the way to do it. At the same time i know Fire-Man's mission as a horn maker, or at least one of them is to have community involvement... "hey you, get up here and try this... lets make some noise, don't be afraid..." That has serious merit in terms of community and as they say "Participaction".
That said, most of us in the room had only ever heard the horns honked in spirit but when John Korsrud played it folks were like "holy shit that's great i have never heard those horns sound like that"... Kudos to Fire-Man for holding down and staying on the nice bass reverberations.

LFM opened up with one of my favourite LFM songs (brilliant lyrics)... perhaps I could tell the story one day but it's getting late... the story is in the song... but remember people don't listen to words... the new generation of music fans are looking for something they can immediately grab onto and turn to their friend and start talking about why it is cool. Bizarre... i actually talked to a friend who went to some "music marketing clinic" and apparently less then 10% of people even bother to listen to words anymore... which begs the question? What is it that you are getting out of listening to music? Sure i love groove, and I love melody, but what about the purpose of song? Is that just a casualty of the new world order? Will we elect a majority Conservative Government... I mean "Harper Government" because all of the other parties are like a group of carps fighting for the same piece of food, while they sit back and chip in when it benefits them? And then we are all fucked because we never listened and remembered. Perhaps i should start spouting insanity (ha ha), and run as an independent "Conservative" candidate in a specific riding... could call it "strategic running"... lost my mind... here is the song:

In fact my plan a few days ago was to turn this dog into a VLOG and cover that song and then give a newscast report on the song and the supper show... but I forgot it was spring Break, which means i am with kids, which means we spent the day going off the diving board at the pool. I should note i nailed a King Hell can opener to keep my status as crazy father who can make huge splashes alive and well.

What happens tomorrow at the SRSS? Eight piece girl band called Ginger and Moonshine... once again we are into double digits with respect to confirmed "facebook" (http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=208816215801747&index=1) attendance.... whatever the hell that means.

March 9 Re-Cap

2011-03-15T22:48:00.000-07:00

The ukulele, (pronounced /ˌjuːkəˈleɪliː/ EW-kə-LAY-lee,[1] from Hawaiian: ʻukulele [ˈʔukuˈlɛlɛ]; variantly spelled ukelele in the UK), sometimes abbreviated to uke, is a chordophone classified as a plucked lute; it is a subset of the guitar family of instruments, generally with four nylon or gut strings or four courses of strings.

The Tiny Tim Overdrive were the very special guests this week:

So Tiny Tim Overdrive are a ukulele army that plays all your favourite hits from any musical era. They did a Sesame Street song celebrating the letter M, and of course there were game to back up the old Super Robertson for a few numbers. I was actually cursing myself that i turned down one King hell drummer and one ball stomping keyboard player because i worried that there wouldn't be enough room on stage and it could be a sound nightmare... Last time in December TTO played the Supper show and they were a 5 piece... on this night they were a 3 piece. My error not contacting them and finding out what was happening... when you assume you become and ass as my grade 7 teacher always said. Not that there was anything wrong with what happened... it's just that i had a chance to put TTO with drums and piano (in very competent hands) and i passed. Wasn't i going off ad nausium the other week about being a form to explore these interactions and the whole time i was barking i had my head up my ass chewing colon.

Perhaps i need more lists... things to not forget... it's always hard talking up a Super Robertson Supper Show... the guests ask "what is the format", and they get the answer "well it changes every week... what can you do and we will work the show around that"... most then say "I play songs" and then when they are hit with "could you do poetry over some improv grooves"... and then things become confusing. Having Tiny Tim Overdrive on the show before i felt comfortable... they are good people, have a cool thing going, and are good sports to try things...

Super Steve had the comedy comment of the month so far after the show talking about the song Bathroom Squeegee... in his low baritone voice he mentioned that Tiny Tim would have liked that number. Why i decided to play that song was probably because it was an easy g-d-c song... i don't believe i had played it for 15 years and i forgot the 3rd verse and i screwed up the 2nd verse (employment's packed up to me the deck is stacked). One can only wonder why i would attempt to lead 3 backup ukulele players into a song i hadn't played for 15 years and couldn't really remember is beyond the grasp of most. That is probably why it is dangerous to have too many conversations with your guest before the show on what will happen lest your guest becomes spooked.

One great thing that happened was that the Tiny Tim Overdrive took home the words to "On frozen Pond", "98 BOB" and "Last Call" as they are always looking for Canadian artist to cover. To my knowledge, Simian Special (Hey rock took the bait) and Zoe trio (everything) are the only ones to have covered songs i have had a hand in writing. I would love to be just a songwriter... hint hint!

One thing for sure there will be no spooking the Legion of Flying Monkeys Horn Orchestra for the March 16 2011 SRSS. Myself and the Supreme Janitor got into a good tanking last week after the Supper Show... there were many drunken statements and earth moving discussions. I do take a fair number of shots at my good man Fire-Man in the blog with respect to his ability to jam on the horn with instruments that have range and a distinctive tuning, but you have to respect balls.

Truth be told The Legion Of Flying Monkeys Horn Orchestra are easily the best drawing regular acts of the Super Robertson Supper Show. There might actually be 20+ people committed to coming to the show (march 16 2011) on Facebook, whatever the hell that means... 10x more than the usual. It's amazing what can happen when you make the effort to tell your peeps what's happening. That's the beauty of the SR supper show.. it's free and it's over by 8:30 so you you can get to work the next day (barring you don't get into a good mid week hammer time session with our fearless leader)

Fire-Man works hard at his art and it comes off, a lot of folks pluck a few chords and sing a few cliches about love and think they are artists. I spent a lot of my life struggling with the concept of "artist"... am i an artist for real? is it presumptuous to call yourself that? You know what? Fuck it, I'm a trained scientist and nobody listens to scientists so what is a fucking label anyway.

The Legion Of Flying Monkeys Horn Orchestra steals bits from the corporate world to sell people on fun insanity... parallel to consumer insanity. If you can write a great song and work a custom wood crafted horn into it so that during the song you have forgotten that there is an army of people on stage all honking original works of art then that's OK in my books any day.

Puppet Show! Horn Orchestra! New evil cult video. Special guests: Daniel Lunn and John Korsrud. All this at the Super Robertson Supper Show on Wed the 16th of March at 7:30pm. Free! Free! Totally Free!!!!

March 2 2011 re-cap

2011-03-09T00:58:00.000-08:00

It was a Cam and Jessie host the Super Robertson Supper Show night... they try to call it the Cam and Jesse Supper Show but they are far too poor promoters to get away with that nonsense. I had emailed the boys earlier in the month asking them if they still wanted to do the show, as it seemed to me like perhaps they had lost interest and were only doing the show because they said they would. As a leader i have to ask these questions. I have been in bands with people that have long since lost interest in the band but yet refuse to quit because they don't want to lose an option... sometimes artists are worse than children (which i have 3 of) when it comes to understanding what you have and what you want. For the record they want to keep doing it, and I'm happy to have them.

I believe in Cam and Jesse, and to their credit they have kept up their end of the bargain... they do on original show every month. Now as the leader i need to understand that doing super robertson supper shows time after time is no easy operation on the psyche of your average aspiring songwriting performer dude... I get that. So they are not good at promoting the show. Not a reflection of the talent needed to host a supper show... most good artists are shitty at promoting themselves, and it is a hard cycle for sure. It goes like this... do a whole tone of work to get your shit out there and get no response what so ever leaving you with questions of your own validity. And then every once in a while you get some review where some person tars and feathers one minor aspect of what you do and you are left to digest the everlasting internet ramifications of the whole fiasco, and you start asking yourself why do you do this.

So just playing a supper show is easy even though it is hard... you have the stage and your songs and you can ridicule great drummers until they swear to never come back and play with you and you can talk about your fore skin and how to grow it back as people come in and sit down with their dinner... different and entertaining in an Andy Kaufman kind of way.

The Music psychologist in me has a plan... i have been laying out of the Cam and Jesse supper show planning. I think it's time for me to start booking guest for them to help "rattle some chains". I always found on my end that when we play with somebody we don't know then the band is on their best behaviour... it's that classic first impression game. You and be a total ass to a loved one but yet be open and loving to a complete stranger... very human.

Obviously i have dreams, and i have big plans for the Super Robertson Supper Show, and one of the grand themes i hope to explore is musical conversation with complete strangers. Part of me is thinking of trying to pitch a radio show to the CBC about having various Canadian musicians come together to share in improvisations live on stage and then perhaps talk about the experience after wards. Perhaps Cam and Jesse should handle the singer songwriters within their form and i can deal with the singers and instrumentalists from the SR and collective songbook.

Am I an insane maniac? A worthless toad who should just be ignored until he hops away to another scene? A visionary trying to breath life back into the idea of local live music?

Meh... I'll do what i do.

Cam and Jesse and Shawn were rocking it:

they also had Caleb Stull out to play a awesome original number:

Caleb is an immense talent and Kingpin of the band Parlour Steps... Cam and Jesse get him out to play free live music to the people of Vancouver... just to focus on the positive for a bit... although to me it has all been positive, understanding what is happening and what needs to be done and why is always positive.

They called Johnney Wildkat up from behind the soundboard (aka JLS) as a guest and then before you know it it was JLS, SR and Shawn Killaly doing a version of Saskatchewan, but of course the Camera cut out... i will not blame the camera this time as i was aware that the batteries were almost done. After we played the song some fellows clinked glasses me and said well done... you have got to get what you can while you can, i always say.

So the next Super Robertson Supper Show on Wednesday March 9 2011 will have The Tiny Tim Overdrive:

I'll bring the lyric sheets this time

The Super Robertson Supper Show a one hour a week music scene feb 23 re-cap

2011-03-01T23:57:00.000-08:00

Tanya Davis was one king hell guest for sure... always good to see people do things that they are very good at doing, that being playing wicked original tunes to intimate audiences.

Here is her whole damn show :

I got a congratulations notice from YouTube that said my account has now been authorized to post video's longer than 15 minutes. Normally I'm a shorter is better kind of guy but the facts are

1) not sure of all the names of the songs
2) it was a kind of neat show
3) it's easy
4) it might be preferred for somebody who wants to see the show.

I guess we will see... or as i like to say "time is the hunter and it will show the truth".

Then it was time for the Super Robertson Supper Show chameleon band "21 Tandem Repeats". We started out as a trio and ended with six performing a poem that the gracious audience wrote in the hour of the SRSS (Super Robertson Supper Show). We ripped through the song "wishing machine" from the 2004 release "the ocean is life", followed by a version of "Nothing was heard" from the soon to be released album "one little dream".... then it was time for a ROADBED classic a song called "bent". I invited some singers up but then a strange thing happened... one of the singers turned into a horn player, who played this beautiful looking original wooden horn that played a few notes... nobody is quite sure what the notes were, but that didn't seem to matter to some.

Then it was about time for the East Meets West artist fusion series, a Canada Lynx Records "fabric of culture" ongoing experiment. For this version we had Tanya Davis with an original poem and 21 Tandem Repeats with a simple musical canvass.

For sure we need a monitor feeding louder vocals to the camera... work in process people.

Now speaking of cameras and technology that fucking Zoom Q3 recorder cut out a few times and it cut out when we were killing it on the final number of the night. It was Poem Moment (audience writes a poem, performers perform it), but it was also cake candle lighting time.

Did i mention i baked a cake for the show? Hot damn i don't think i did... I was going to buy one but they were all too shitty and that would have been a kick in the balls to the celebration. Why the celebration? Well the Super Robertson Supper Show has been going for like 6 years now and in the early days when it looked like it might not fly, but there was one woman Kristy who came to all the shows... i believe she had 2 months of perfect attendance, so i got wind she was coming down and that it was her birthday, and i was also aware that Francis and Ed are leaving town so it was so long to them... it's also hard to be against cake, and Tanya had to be welcomed to town... in fact once you get it in your head that you need to make a cake the cylinders start firing. Lets just say 2 of my young children were overjoyed that it was cake making day which in turn caused certain problems and one of them being that i cooked the cupcakes under the cake, which i believe created a problem with heat distribution, which gave me cake paranoia... OH my god my cake is going to fall... THE SUPER SHOW WILL BE RUINED! and then the other problem was that the cake wasn't quite done by the time we had to leave to pick up my other daughter from school. Luckily when you are dealing with cake kids will listen and work with you. Flying down Glen avenue was sighted a large scruffy man in lumber jacket pulling wagon with two 3 year old twins screaming cake and a 6 year old girl pushing the wagon from behind to keep pace and "save the cake".

The things i do for the Super Robertson Supper Show... so you can understand my disbelief that the camera cut out for the improv birthday, welcome, fair well song and the beginning of poem moment, and then again at the end of the song. Once again i don't think it's the greatest show in the history of the world but if your going to do it, and you decide to capture it then camera malfunction is bull crap.

The horn sounds as good as it has ever sounded on this one...

So that's what one little Canadian music scene did last week.

Feb 16 re-cap

2011-02-22T22:47:00.000-08:00

I think the show was actually a CLINIC! In the sense of the way Roadbed would have used the word Clinic... Large emphasis on a loud long CL followed by a faster sped up INIC that ends sharply leaving only two bug eyes to stare down the one being spoken to.

Now I'm not saying it was the best show that ever happened on the history of Earth, but rather, if you had a collection of 6 performers who had never before played together... then how could you get through a live show, have fun, groove hard and work together? Well the answer to that query was demonstrated on this night. A veritable how-to seminar.

I went through my collection of power adaptors to see if i could use less batteries on my recording device now that i am an expert on memory management with respect to SD cards... hey i had one... good thing we didn't donate that to Big Brothers... when Junk becomes useful... it just needs to wait for it's roll.

I was so pleased with my smartness i forgot to press record so i missed all of Gem Andrews and a version of Bent with a king hell Mo ad lib part. I hate myself... I don't mind missing things i just hate failing at simple tasks.

so yea it was jam night.

Tomorrow it looks like we have cake to honour the birthday of a lovely woman who at one time had perfect attendance to the Super Robertson Supper Show... back when it was called the Super Robertson King Show and it was on Monday nights.

Also:

From Halifax
Tanya Davis is a poet. She is a storyteller. She is a musician and a singer-songwriter and she fuses these elements together in a refreshing matrimony of language and sound, side-stepping genre and captivating audiences in the process. With the release of her third album, Clocks and Hearts Keep Going, in November 2010, she affirms her well-earned place in the ranks of thoughtful and hard-working Canadian Artists.
http://www.tanyadavis.ca/fr_home.cfm

And another fine 21 Tandem Repeats trio with Shawn Killaly, Jason Jones, and Super R.
http://www.21tr.ca/

http://social media baby/

February 9th re-cap

2011-02-15T23:03:00.000-08:00

If you have a flash memory card and you throw it in your computer and grab the stuff off it and then throw the stuff in the card in the trash you need to empty the trash while the card is connected to the computer or your card will appear to be empty but actually be full of stuff on "hidden " folders.

Because i didn't know that i was busy swearing my head off wondering why nothing electronic ever works for me... it is usually because i don't know how to operate it and don't really care to find out because i know if i do then they are going to change everything. I move from digital tape to flash memory to save myself some vital time and then i end up screaming bloody murder at a chip.

As a result i was a tad bit late for the show, and it was actually going when i got there. Nick on sound, Legion of Flying Monkeys Horn Orchestra rocking (or should i say "honking") out. There was a great crowd faithfully following the instructions of the Supreme Janitor and good times were being had by all.

Super Steve was minding the Canucks / Ducks game... everything was under control. Except for the fact that i couldn't operate my camera and the 2 people in the room that could help me were busy with Legion of Flying Monkeys duty. I did sort things and as a regular pro i learned on the fly... or did i just bum another card, like an addict with a problem?

before the pledge we were all given candies, i immediately scarfed mine down, because of course i was busy solving problems and didn't realize what was happening... even though i should know... remember the time i led the skytrain cab in version of this song.

It was a grand evening for sure... I got up and tried to carry on the participation vibe

finally got some of those videos from Jan processed:

On February 16 2011

Gem Andrews- solo folk artist
http://www.facebook.com/gemandrewsmusic
And a spanking version of 21 tandem Repeats featuring Slick on drums and Jason Jones on Jazz piano.
http://radio3.cbc.ca/bands/21-Tandem-Repeats
( i will not create a facebook page for my band... and i will not ask people to like it... it goes against all reason either way... I would recommend people do, so I'm not trying to come off like some self righteous chump, i just can't have another page on the web, each page i have scrapes at my will to carry on)

I wonder if those links will work?
Things seem different... the internet has changed again.

OK OK OK... let me guess

2011-02-08T22:21:00.000-08:00

Something strange happened right... The Super Robertson Supper Show blog was not updated for 2 weeks. 243 weeks in a row and then all of the sudden strike one and strike 2... Why did this happen? What went wrong? Have the rails come off the wagon? What is Super Steve to do on those long Wednesday mornings?

No No.. It's just that i was in Barbados and for security measures i felt it was not prudent to mention the fact that i was leaving the Country as that would put my personal property in Vancouver as risk of easy burglary. It was an easy common sense call that unraveled when the guest the first week failed to show up... how do you fail to show up for a gig? I don't know but then remember i am the guy with the 243 week streak... lets just say it's not that we are on a different page, we are in a different book.

The last time i was at a SRSS i believe it was Shawn Killaly, C.S Rippin, Super Robertson, Genny Trigo, Simian Special and Fire-Man on stage ending a show with a ruckus version of 98 bottles of beer on the wall. It was a strange show with another strong lesson for our fearless leader... Odd too because i touched on that lesson in the show before but it was from the other side of the problem. I believe at that time i put it like "nobody knew what was going to happen so that was perfect" because people would then react. Well for this show i had a stage piano and C.S. Rippin and Genny and a Mic so i got behind the idea of doing the damn record. Just like last month i was going to get a tattoo that read "why ruin a perfectly good album with a live show". And then there was the issue that an artistic director for a large summer festival came to the show and identified himself as such shortly before we played saying that he was there to check us out. Of course we were a group of people who had never actually played together before and i had my mind wrapped around trying to do songs we didn't really know. We were actually in a perfect position to wing down a number of easy 3 chord songs but i failed to see that right off the top. After some time i clued into the situation but not before i led us into a few train wrecks. Afterwords i tried to point out to the artistic director how well we recovered form the multiple train wrecks and how we learned so much from the journey....

I brought a guitar down to Barbados and did a version of the Knockin' Dog song "Chicken" for some locals and they had a real knee slapping laugh and then we drank a lot of Banks beer. In the second week i met a kitchen worker who told me he could sing to any groove so we had a pretty good kitchen jam... Otherwise i just plucked patterns while children slept and scientists discussed. A little summer in winter never hurt anybody... also while i was away i got an email form Jesse Gander with the final mix of the song "Nothing was heard", and news that the latest 21 Tandem Repeats album has been mastered. All i have to do is figure out a way to release an album on no money and we are all set... i think it's been done before.

On February 9, 2011 we have the legion of Flying Monkeys Horn orchestra playing the SRSS and to my knowledge there are 3 different facebook gig reminders with double digit confirmed attendance so for sure i feel good.

Jan 12 2011 re-cap

2011-01-18T22:30:00.000-08:00

Poem and piano night all rolled up into one fine show with a great group serving as the nights 21 Tandem Repeats trio. Shawn Killaly on drums, Christopher Johnson on piano and guitar, and our hero Super Robertson on piano and guitar as well... And then there was Allie Bunt a beautiful young poet from the suburbs who answered and ad placed on craigslist that read:

Looking for some adventurous poets to come and share some words live at the Super Robertson Supper Show. We will provide some simple backing grooves (live and improvised) and you see what you can do live on the stage of the Railway Club.

The add had more information but for the purposes of the blog, lets just call it a "buy the ticket take the ride" kind of moment. In a lot of ways it was a near perfect Super Robertson Supper Show... why was it perfect you ask? The key indicator was the fact that shortly before the show was about to start none of the performers had any idea what was going to happen, and a lot of the people had never really met before... this is key. Then you ask the questions; What do we have? Who can do what? Anybody have anything they want to do for sure? What is prepared and what does the prepared need for backing?

In the end we had a king hell drummer (Shawn Killaly), a multi instrumentalist and songwriter (Chris Johnson), a poet with 20 prepared poems (Allie Bunt) and a Super Robertson... also a drum kit, a piano, a guitar, multiple mic's, a sound man (JLS), beer and food.

Ok I'll say it... if you can't make that happen get out of the business... if that's not fun then go file some paperwork... if that's a bad vibe perhaps one needs to volunteer for jury duty... if that's a waste of time the one should pave their backyard.

In the end it's all just memories... flash memories:

Johnson on piano Shawn on drums:

Poem with Allie SR guitar, Johnson piano, Killaly drums:

Wishing Machine with the 21TR trio of the night:

A little fucking dark i would have to say we need somebody on lights... for christsakes can't a man get some production values around here... I'm Joking OK.

Do yourself a favour and don't miss tomorrow night... it looks like we will play the new album with Shawn Killaly on drums, Chris Rippin on Piano, Genny Trigo on vocals and Super Robertson as Super Robertson. If you want to hear the new album check this out man.

what would you rather be doing? watching television? You can catch the tail end of the Rangers Leafs game at the bar just before the SRSS.

Last week re cap... and my grand plan for tomorrow night.

2011-01-11T23:42:00.000-08:00

You ever hear the poem "There once was a man from Nantucket..."

Well if you came to last weeks SRSS you would have heard it twice... which gets you in the ballpark of what went down. It was the Cam and Jesse Gong show and lets just say the bell was a ringing... but that happens when you do the Super Robertson Supper Show. I think there is some part of the brain that short circuits when you are on stage and you are thinking you have to be entertaining and do something different, and it's about that time you lose your fucking mind and forget that you are a person armed with an arsenal of songs and all you have to do is just fucking play them... they don't even have to be weird, they can be beautiful. Submit to simple groove and simple melody when the going gets rough is one thing i tell myself...

A little story... there was a time I got naked at the SRSS, actually a couple of times, and i might add i am loath to bring this back into the conscience of the SRSS collective but i believe it is fitting as an exercise to learn... the ideal job for me is the one of a teacher.

It was a Burlesque show I put on backed by some mates... at one point in time my man SMASH had it up on the Internet (the audio). I would say it went really well.. it was a pure comedy piece with the punchline being me stripping down to these haggard worn pair of underwear. I was trying to be all sexy (which must have been hilarious in itself) and then cut to the bad old worn ginch. Unfortunately I had a "wardrobe malfunction" and ripped the damn underwear in half with the final exposure. That was fine... there was guffawing and much laughter.

My mistake came the next week... at the time to make the show more interesting I was writing fake fan mail to myself to read out at the show, and I thought it would be funny to write out a letter stating how people were very offended by the nudity in last weeks show... so I got a phony host to read the letter and the gag was that I was going to walk out right about the time the letter was getting really heated, and I would of course be naked in the middle of a "wardrobe change", because of course the SRSS was so "big" we needed wardrobe changes in the middle of the show. The whole event was a mindboggling failure which essentially ruined any standing I hadn't previously eroded in this town. Perhaps %20 of the people were listening to the letter, but everybody saw me stark naked casually standing there wondering if anybody had a pen.

Point is I did it because I was desparatly trying to make the show interesting and different, and sometimes interesting and different isn't what the brain needs to be thinking while managing a live SRSS... the reason you are there is because you are interesting and different... now lets hear some of your beautiful compositions.

Oddly enough I have a very interesting and different show lined up for tomorrow... I put an add in the paper looking for poets and i found some takers. Also this is the year I play piano so I have been working on some grooves that will fit poetry, and we have 1 king Hell drummer (Shawn Killaly), so the poetry stuff should be good.

This means of course that we shall have a stage piano at the SRSS this week so I'm putting the word out to s few piano players I know, and Shawn and I and JLS will be there, and we just recorded a new album so there are some tunes to spank down.

I call it an interesting and different show with variables, but the varaibles will be put into equations where they can work and flourish. There will be no nakedness and it will be essentially a "family" SRSS, except for the fact that it will take place in a bar... where minors are not permitted.

Other notes on last week: earlier in the day the Canadian Junior hockey team suffered a tragic defeat, that really killed the soul of the country... but later on The Crown Royals, a team i play for went into the third period down 3-0 but ended up taking the game 7-6.

Re-Cap of the last SRSS of 2010

2011-01-04T23:41:00.000-08:00

C-Dub, also known as Constance White came down to play on this particular night. I asked her how she got the name C-Dub and apparently she has had some email correspondance with our good man Smash and he "dubbed" her C-Dub which is long for C W but short for Constance White... get it, got it , good.

C-Dub writes her stuff and this one is called My Opinion:

Then Super Robertson took the stage for some banter and some song playing... good old super steve was back there bobbing like a bouy in a winter storm in the Georgia Straight to the song "Famous person". It should also be noted that Super Steve met Super Robertson's wife CT, or partner as she prefers to be called, and the two of them were gabbing like teens at the roller rink. Good times for sure.

SR played a love song among others:

On Wednesday January 5 2011 we had the start of the third year of the can and Jesse show.... if you don't know what that means than I can't help you, I can only do what i do.

OK

Last SRSS Blogaroo of 2010... December 22 Re-cap and the usual diversions and rah rah propaganda

2010-12-29T00:31:00.000-08:00

Speaking of smiley faced... King Dinosaur had a good analogy to watching the Legion of Flying Monkeys Horn Orchestra... He laid it down as smiley face/sad face that keeps flipping every few minutes. Apparently and older English gentleman was standing beside KD taking in the show for about five minutes and then turned shook his head said "Utterly regrettable, absolutely terrible!" and then walked out the door and around the same time a local music journalist was telling me "I love these guys, this is insane". It all has to do with perspective. For sure a little horn jam goes a long way, but then again so few bands have anything relevant to say, some bands can play, and some bands play. I like the LFM horn orchestra... I like the concept, the words to the songs and the grand spirit in which they are presented. I like the interaction, the freedom, the art in the horns, the fact that old English "proper" folk are irritated by it and the fact that there are their are no horns playing with me anymore.

then they did a Christmas song:

For the 21 Tandem Repeats representation I grabbed Steve (drummer for LFM) and JLS (sound man)... and we laid down a set which I thought went pretty good. Reminds me of an interesting point and so why not a digression? Lucky or not? Am I lucky? I feel very fortunate to play with great people such as Steve and JLS. Let's research the word Lucky.

luck·y (lk)
adj. luck·i·er, luck·i·est
1. Having or attended by good luck. See Synonyms at happy.
2. Occurring by chance; fortuitous.
3. Believed to bring good luck: hoped to draw a lucky number.

To me Lucky is like finding a $20 bill on the sidewalk... your eyes bulge out of your head and you immediately fall on it feigning a stroke and then jam the bill in your pocket and carry on, perhaps stopping to get some ice for the new goose egg on your fore head. I have a little bit of a chip on my shoulder with the world lucky, but being a spiritual man (in terms of omens and jinxes) i don't want to appear on the wrong side of the fence when the great decision makers decide to exercise their wrath.

I should write a song about lucky... like the hockey player that puts on a hard fore check and the puck pops up in the crease for them to "bang one home" and the guy who never bothered to fore check once in his life calls the other player lucky... but the guy who scored the goal doesn't give a shit what you call it as long as the red light goes on.

I guess if somebody calls you lucky it means you are living the good life, so don't go changing, and if you detect a little sense of bitterness in the one calling you lucky just remember that that is something that that person has to live with.

in the end it's all just memories:
digital ones at that
what can i say? I'm just a wishing machine.

Last show of the year

we have C-dub from Calgary and Super Robertson from Vancouver as far as i know but things at the SRSS are subject to change... maybe i"ll get lucky and have a band tomorrow, or maybe I'll get lucky and have a chance to run over a few more complicated numbers as a solo artist.

Happy Holiday folks... and don't go changin', I won't.

SR

BTW i Noticed that some guy named Super Robinson is on some poster for the show tomorrow... quick tip from a borderline illiterate OK. There is this thing called Google Search... you can find who you need there... and then you can copy and paste the name of the person and then put it on your poster... It's amazing... you're going to love it! And ladies and Gentlemen that's why you tune in to the SRSS blog... you get real advice for this real world.

December 15 Re-Cap... some sissy gibbering and another shameless plug for the next show.

2010-12-21T22:56:00.000-08:00

Super Robertson and Tiny Tim Overdrive together at last... Yes it was another king hell night at the Super Robertson Supper show last week for sure. The Canucks posted an overtime victory... and the SRSS went into overtime as well with a fine set by the Gizbah himself. Mind you we only went into overtime because the sound man had to attend a pre game ceremony honouring the Super Robertson Supper Show greats from 2007 and hence was late getting up from ice level.

Tiny Tim Overdrive are a really fun band and they brought half the city with them. They play awesome cover songs with ukuleles... as you may or may not know I do have a reasonable paranoia of posting cover songs on youtube. My general policy is to record what I can and process what I can after asking artists if they want me to record and post their music... and then, after the fact when it is posted I can delete or alter things to make everybody happy.

It's funny, I bought this digital recorder to save me time but it seems like now everything is bizarre with the whole process.. I tend to be working out of Quicktime making all kinds of files some of them acceptable and others not so much, and I'll be a monkey's uncle to know which is which. My cousin reminds me of the time I declared that "computers will be the downfall of society" as a friendly jab to point out all the damn time i do spend on a shithole computer... point taken and point still made I say.

Anyhoo it's late and I can attempt to process no more video at this time so we will have to wish you all the best for the holiday season and serve notice that the Legion Of Flying Monkeys Horn Orchestra is set honk their hearts out at the SRSS on Wednesday December 22 as part of the Railway staff people kind of Christmas party. ( **** production note... I wonder what an autotune pedal would sound like on one of those horns). Then I will set up a bastard version of 21 Tandem Repeats after the LFM to play a quick slick set as a bridge into the later evening.

I do feel bad for only getting the one video done for the show and the blog... my commitment to caring about the show and the blog of the show is rather bizarre I would say... there could be a form of mental illness that I have. It's just a little free show!

Not that i always take good advise but here are 2 good reasons I should never be out too late:

December 8 Re-Cap ukulele bands and royalty from back east

2010-12-14T23:14:00.000-08:00

Tannis Slimmon and Lewis Melville came in and played a perfect supper show. All cylinders were operating and the crisp passing play of musical melody warmed the hearts of all of those Canadian kids out in the audience. If you missed the show you missed a real Gem of an hour... worth every penny of it's free.

Speaking of pennies I hear the Mint is considering stopping making them... they are worth a cent but cost a cent and a half to make and nobody gives a shit about them. Sure. i should probably stick to Supper Show material and not delve into politics... I believe people want to hear me talk about the Supper Show... because hey, I have won the annual SRSS "Observant Kingpin" award on 3 separate occasions. I Understand SRSS's and my opinion that "those rich, self serving, conveniently religious, fundamentalist quacks that run the joint" aren't going to spend the money they save on stamping pennies in a manner in which I approve of.

OK check this:

I feel better now. I knew the call of the Sandhill Crane, but for once in my life I just shut the fuck up and let somebody else take us down the path... which was a smart move by myself... and considering I had just nailed a rooster and hit a pileated woodpecker at perhaps an inopportune moment, I was already over the line if you know what I mean. The first time i saw a Sandhill Crane was over Thanksgiving weekend up at Tiny marsh... or in a farmers field by Tiny Marsh to be exact. It's near Elmville Ontario in Simcoe county. Three of them came flying in and at first I thought I was looking at Canada geese but as they got closer and closer they became bigger and bigger. One last fact: Tiny Township is next to Tay township and the two townships are named after dogs of some English royal couple.

*** Hey Super Steve (super steve has no sound on his computer)... that last paragraph had to do with the song that was played by Tannis and Lewis... The crowd was called to make animal sounds and then in mid song Lewis Broke it down with a sandhill crane call... you would have been proud of me.

Where was I?

I'll have to admit, was a bit nervous going down... I was walking in there straight faced and saying OK Lewis Melville your playing with me. Lewis Melville: Cell Biologist, Multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and producer who was born in Saskatchewan, immediately accepted that as the best idea available and we started the show:

Then i smartly go the hell out of dodge and let the people play:

Tell me that's not fantastic.

And then of course I made everybody finish the show with me... Notice Fire-Man, who had just come in from outside to discuss an issue with Ed.

And Tomorrow on December 15 2010 we have the Tiny Tim Overdrive:

As well as Super Robertson and a man called Ian.
this guy:

December 1 re cap and December 8 promo blast and perhaps a rage on technology

2010-12-07T22:22:00.000-08:00

Before i lose my mind let me start by saying we have a wonderful show for you tomorrow night on December 8 2010. From Guelph Ontario the Super Robertson Supper Show is proud to host the first stop on her western canadian tour: Tannis Slimmon who will be joined by Lewis Melville who is a Guelph, Ontario multi-instrumentalist (guitars, banjo, pedal steel, bass, mandolin), composer, and producer. He is also the man that has a Rheostatics album named in his honour... that would be the album Melville I believe.

I always like it when the SRSS gets to host touring acts: Ruth Minnikin, Jen Militia, Owen Steel, Khristian Mizzi, Tiger Prawn... to name a few. They seem to be some of the better shows... some new blood from out of town who are happy as a pig in shit to just have a gig to play. It is one of the things that i really like about doing the SRSS... a chanced to help people out and present some cool music to people who didn't know what was about to hit them.

What happened last week: I think i recall a Mason Raymond hat trick to power the Canucks to victory.

Some stuff happened on stage to:

Well probably not the best idea for me to go off on technology rage at this point in time... what purpose would that serve? The bottom line is that everything human is hopelessly screwed in order to fall in line with the mighty dollar. Now if you are smart enough or work hard enough or are lucky enough you can get yourself enough money and in fact insulate yourself from this reality... for a while... did i just start a rage? I guess i did.

I love my parents and they are great people and they worked hard all of their lives to provide me with the best of everything so that i could go out into the world and "succeed". Which i guess i did, somehow... some days i feel like the character in that Talking Head's song "Once in a lifetime". Anyhoo i just finished a record this weekend and i have been very pleased about what happened... i was so happy i mentioned it to my parents who then reminded me about "that thing" with the simple question "Do you make any money doing that?"... And i go from euphoria to mid life crisis... what happens when men hit their mid life crisis... do they buy a convertable and drive to Las Vegas? Even as a middle aged man i can't fit in anywhere.

SRSS Movember 24th re-cap

2010-12-01T03:05:00.000-08:00

Let me tell you a story... another one about "The Pike" AKA Super Steve. If you recall he was given that name because he likes to stay in the reeds (the back of the room) out of the "pressure zone" (Where one might be called to the stage).

When i came into the club, Super Steve was up by the side bar having a fine dinner and the lovely bartender Shannon said "Steve you should go and sing with the choir"... to which Steve replied "I don't sing"... But yet it was around the time we did "ride em high" and then "Let it be" that the old pike was taking to the choir like a flatfish but yet once hooked there was no fight. His baratone voice was gaining confidence as the night went on...

There were some other folks that got sucked into the sing along, which i guess is the idea...

On Wednesday December 1st we have the Cameron Dilworth and Jesse Mathison Supper Show as they finish up their 2nd year of doing the SRSS on the first Wednesday of the month.

Movember 17 re-cap

2010-11-22T12:18:00.000-08:00

First night with the new Zoom Q3:

I had big plans to try to get some company to sponsor me to get the use of a camera for this purpose. Sometimes it seems like a thousand miles of space between what i do and what i mean to do but that's the way we roll around here. What do you think of the quality? If anything it saves me time... like a lot of it... the old me had to load the tape footage into the computer in real time before i was able to cut it up... and there was increasing amount of errors most likely due to the fact that computers are designed to force you into the latest products by decreasing the support of older models. This fact enrages me to no end, but being a martyr at the expense of your own diminished free time is silly.

In the end it's all just memory... would you care to discuss that? ****

Quizz- Tell me where that quote is from and win a free copy of the upcoming 21 Tandem Repeats CD "One little dream".

Back to last week... Angela had to leave the stage suddenly so her band kicked into some grooves so i hit "It's just a touch of pepper":

And then JLS and SR kept the party going with a few numbers one of them being the latest SR Jones song The Choice of Voters.

Then we wrapped it up with a mash up... the audience determined that the subject be sex and globalization.

This Wednesday Movember 24th we have Queen Anna and the SRSS Choir also know as the Local Vocals Choir. Show from 7-8:30PM... band plays classic songs and all are welcome to sing... lyric sheets provided.

Movember 10th re-Cap

2010-11-16T22:32:00.000-08:00

Last week Shawn Killaly, Super Robertson, JLS, Chris Johnson, Fire-Man and the audience of poets put on a show to a full house... It was a double poem moment night, and if you don't know what that means i can no longer help you... how does the saying go... you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink? For the record "poem moment" is when the audience writes a poem by passing around a sheet of paper and the group has to preform it over improv grooves.

For the most part the show consisted of Shawn and I running through the set that was written on a coffee filter so that we would have proper preparation for our recording session that happened over the last weekend. Would you go into a studio without any rehearsal? We essentially did, which i believe worked in our favour and i'll blood any bastard that say's otherwise... To be perfectly honest i believe not being a band in the traditional sense is the way to roll for a guy like myself, and doing the Super Robertson Supper show for years has trained me well to understand the elements needed... a lot of philosophy for sure but i just remembered something i have to do.

On Movember 17 the SRSS special guest is Angela Latham and apparently she is up for some improv... so lets get some poets noses down and do this right.

Did you ever hear my poem about noses?

People who put their nose in things that break noses
end up with broken noses

A little bone Scarborough wisdom for you all... now i have to get me some free tickets...

Hot damn another week us upon us... Last week re-cap

2010-11-10T00:31:00.000-08:00

It was The Jesse Mathison Birthday bash as the young bastard only turned 30.

Caleb Stull, kingpin of the band Parlour Steps was there to play a few fine tunes

Jesse and Cameron sang along

Ben Mahoney played with a king hell drummer Robert Linton

Robert Linton also plays in Parlour Steps

Ben Mahoney wore sandals much like Jasper did when he was teaching Lisa Simpson's class for some reason and was warning the class about the things one could do to deserve a "Paddling" and one of them was "looking at my sandals".

There is Ben but the damn light wasn't on him i tried to fix it but it didn't stay... now i know how Snapshot and Moustache man feel.

Mule and Chris Scum enjoy some Smash / Greg Pohl banter

And this is the elusive Greg Pohl in town on an entomology conference... He was telling an animated story and i thought the flash was ruining pictures so this is what happened. Smash with pro facial hair as well.

I was given the business for a bit about my last minute, 11th hour supper show notifications and i had big plans but here we are at 12:23 am in the morning of the night of the next supper show. In a perfect world things would be different, but lets face it the world is far from perfect, and its imperfection is a thing that can bring great joy and entertainment if you look at it from the right angle.

TODAY... November 10th Shawn Killaly and I are rehearsing for a rapidly approaching studio session... I am about to test a few of my theories about how to make a good recording and it has to do with taking the old 4 track mentality into a place with greater clarity and more options than a 4 track recorder.

I heard they had a space program when you sing they can't hear there's no air
Sometimes i think i kind of like that place other time i think that I'm already there
-They Might Be Giants

October 28 re-cap

2010-11-02T23:34:00.000-07:00

It was the Queen Anna and the local Vocals choir doing band night at the Super Robertson Supper Show on this night... Super Steve was slowly digesting the fact that his team was going down to defeat in the World Series, and it would be Stan in fact that would take home the hundred big ones. There was some slight hand wringing and a few whispers of faint hope, but as a veteran sports fan you know when a good team gets the hammer it's a bad omen.

It was an acoustic choir band that was perhaps a bit more folky than the amplified version from the month before but there was a good group and good times were had by all. Some people like to sing and i think it's great that they came and had a great time. I was talking with King Dinosaur after the show about the evolution of the Super Robertson Supper Show... he is a man that has been around long enough not to react to changes on a week to week basis... it's all part of the grand scheme of things like when that GM of a hockey team goes into the free agent season but then looks in the mirror, dose a Fonze, and says aaaahh! everything is OK.
Prediction of the night from King Dinosaur... just so we get it in print: The next time the Boston Bruins raise the Stanley Cup the first man to touch it will be Milan Lucic.

In an odd note there were some members from my hockey team that came down to see me play some music, but of course it was Choir sing-a-long night so i told them to grab some sheets and get in on it... that went over like can i say a Led Zepplin.

Tomorrow Night is a Jesse matheson birthday Bash at the SRSS hosted by Camille Dangworth and Jose Mouthasin.

October 20th re-cap

2010-10-27T11:06:00.000-07:00

Rachel Davis started the Super Robertson Supper Show.

21 tandem repeats finished it

Thanks to Snapshot for the video and to the Rachel Davis film crew as well.

I was kind of under the weather and in one of those questioning why i even bother kind of moods, and as a result there were no curtain pulls and such. The old me never would have tolerated such insolence, but we did all right none the less. The old old me would have thought it necessary to put up 200 posters on the rainy streets of Vancouver for just such an occasion, so i like the new me just fine.

On October 27 we have Queen Anna and The Supper Show Singers... and you can be a Supper Show singer too if you want, just show up grab a lyric sheet and join in. Show from 7-8:30PM... last month was a blast so what could possibly go wrong? Later on our man D. Trevlon will be playing at the Railway as part of the Vancouver city Limits night... i don't know if you heard but D Trevlon was listed on craigslist as one of the Railway Staffs top picks when they got together for beers to define Vancouver's best live acts.

October 13th re-cap

2010-10-19T21:44:00.000-07:00

Wednesday the 13th, nothing unlucky about this night, 2 fine acts, 2 good hockey games... if i recall correctly it was a fabulous day as well. October kind of day... crisp and sharp... sun not too high but lighting the slight colours in the trees against the blue sky. Next thing you know it was time to feed the kids and get the hell down to the SRSS. Caught some of the Toronto Pittsburgh game at home(Internet streaming) and heard from Super Steve that they held on for the victory when i got to the club. For some bizarre reason there was a little bit of a late start at the SRSS this evening but when it got going Christopher Johnson put on a fine set of solo acoustic singer songwriter tunes... all great Fire-Man agreed, but Fire-Man also thought he should talk more and engage the audience rather than just being excellent at playing and singing music. Next thing you Know Fire-Man is on stage on the other Mic conducting an interview with the said performer in an effort to get the performer to enlighten the audience on the story of his life. It came out that Chris is about to go into a studio to record an album and this show was a chance to "road test", or should i say "SR supper show" test the songs. Shortly thereafter there was about 8 of us on stage 4 doing one part of a symphony, 4 doing the other, and Chris singing the song... then it was time for the LFM.

Old Fat religious White people rule the world, Burn the man (i jumped up and played a horn part), Aliens, a Jam, LFM SRSS theme song #2 were all hit and there were good time had by all. When Fire-Man made the crowd chant "Steve, Steve, Steve..." to encourage a drum solo i went back to hit the can and on the way out i ran into "the mole" and we got talking about song technique, and then i believe the Canucks went on a power play, and then i heard Fire-man calling me and then trying to razz me for watching hockey... but they were doing well and on a roll so i sat back in the reeds and let the show carry on letting my vocal symphony part and horn honking experience be my participation in the show... i think it's bad form to be up there every time all the time. That's my story for now and I'm stuck in it, but i must say the LFM had a wonderful flute player named Melissa out and she was playing some very cool stuff.

Tomorrow we have Vancouver/Chicago and on the stage we have Rachel L Davis and 21 Tandem Repeats. I believe Rachel L Davis will be a trio, and 21TR will be a trio or a quartet backed by ace drummer Shawn Killaly... depending on who shows up 21TR could easily be more (add a few singers or such).

Be good.

Big night at the SRSS on October 13

2010-10-12T23:11:00.000-07:00

Hell last week was one excellent show if i don't say so for Cam and Jesse. Good crowd, good music, good guest, good awkward comedy... the whole shebang. And let me tell you if the new imovie wasn't such a useless, loathsome program we would have more video up right about now showcasing last weeks Super Robertson Supper Show. How does it happen that a company could have a simple great little program with some very useful features, and then in time weed out all the good and concentrate on all the useless, and become suddenly user unfriendly?

Tomorrow, on the 13th of October there will be Christopher Johnson solo performance at the Supper Show and The Legion of Flying Monkeys perform at the Super Robertson Supper Show

Which means of course that Super R will be free to watch the Canucks game at the side bar with the Pike, and as the song goes "the Super Robertson supper show, it's the place where my friends all go, like Super Steve and King Dinosaur with one eye on the show and one eye on the score".

For the record Super Steve last week asked me about the Leafs this year, and i laid down my take on the events (Haven't had a goalie since Belfour, and they got rid of most of the indifference and replaced them with young players eager to prove, rather than the Leafs classic move to sign overpaid has been, so at least it's not the same old same old...) and i noticed Super Steve started laughing, not in an "at me" kind of way but rather in a way a sports fan recognizes another true fan and their relationship with their native home team. But alas, i pay taxes in Vancouver, and i have lived here for 17 years and there is always room in my heart for another team that has yet to win a championship in my 40 year old life. Could be one of the better years in a while for a guy like myself. It is kind of weird when you think of it, how the idea of the home team, has been diluted by professional sports league marketing. When was a kid everybody loved the home team, if you showed up to school in a "Mike Bossy" sweater you might risk taking the beats... now it is just natural to wear the merchandise of the team you have chosen to root for as a measure of your loyalty.

Would the kids today get this:

Hey another video has magically appeared... somehow the auto focus got taken off but Kevin Tuffy is good to listen to none the less:

Coming up next: Haggnm Dangworth and Jose Mouthasson

2010-10-06T01:20:00.000-07:00

Haggnm Dangworth and Jose Mouthasson are set to do another one of their patented Supper Shows and word has it that they have Shawn Killaly on drums. I happened to play a show with Shawn on the weekend so i got the scoop. I believe I'll head down and if i get the call I'm a gonna try out my latest number called "Bold Point Road".

Haggnm Dangworth and Jose Mouthasson came down to the Super Robertson Supper Show last week on my urging as i was trying to pad the Local Vocals Choir with more singers, but we had a good turnout so they were free to swill beer in the back... Fire-Man (my other plant, but a more natural schill) and myself were swilling up front with the lyric sheets and hearts full of love.

Which begs the question... what happened last week?

Stage piano, upright bass, slide guitar, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, accordion and banjo and 15-20 singers doing "You ain't going nowwhere", "those were the days", "ring of fire", "come together", "What a way to go", "nine pound hammer", 'angle from Montgomery", "las Mananitas" and "killing the blues". Our faithful Choir leader, Queen Anna, had lyric sheets ready to go for all and i believe we had a blast. The latest feature of the Super Robertson Supper Show on the last Wednesday of the month from 7:00-8:30 PM.

OK

that's it for this blog today... unless you want to hear a story about pike fishing and nude swimming north of Cochrane Ontario, years ago.

So Super Steve,

there was some Junior Ranger Jamboree happening when i was 17, which of course is the age one would be if one were a junior ranger, as was I. Of course that was a long time ago, when i was much lighter and a lot less defeated... but as the saying goes, "you can't change the bed you are in, so you may as well just get use to stubbin' in it". Now i am just confused.. blogging is a jackass sport...

Somehow i ended up in a pickup truck with a few people, rather than the big van with most of the Junior Rangers, and i believe we stopped by a typical norther Ontario lake (beautiful stuff) and then we tried 5 casts each in search of the monster Pike, or tasty pickerel. On around cast 3 i snagged a log with one of my "flatfish", an orange lure with hooks all over it that could snag anything.

Mine was like the one on the bottom:

I'll always remember being at the Racicots cottage and trying to walk through the woods to the lake with a flatfish on my rod... it hooks everything... trees, leaves and then you will get one hook in your finger trying to free it from leaves and then you will get hooked again trying to unhook yourself... next thing you know it is in your sisters hair and all hell has broken out.

So by around the third cast, as the story was going, i snag a log, and I'm down to my last few flatfish, and i think there is good fishing where I'm going and boats (canoe it would be) so you can get away from the loggy shoreline. Clearly you can see that i need that flatfish.... so i have to get it... so i have to go swimming and then the logical problem... do i want wet underwear in the truck for the next portion of the ride... clearly not... I'll have to go naked. Just to clarify one issue here... i was not worried about being naked but the debate was more over "did i want my exposed male member wriggling around in the reeds where the pike with their serious fucking teeth are ready to attack

I figured i could man it up, and did of course.. BTW the fish in the photo came out of the Congo River (as a natural scientist i needed to make that clear) but when you are naked in the lake out under water digging your flatfish out from a log and into your finger that is the visual image you keep thinking you see out of the corner of your eye. At least it keeps your mind off leeches and beaver fever bacterium...

So i got my lure back and all i needed was to dry off so i needed to be in the sun, and to get to the point, i ended up standing naked on a poll that supported a guard rail of the highway because it was the easiest on the feet, could keep the feet dry, was in the sun, could pass the drying time with some balancing exercises, could keep the feet away from annoying dirt... you get the picture right... all solid good ideas... so of course i was trying to sun the area between my legs when a ministry truck drove by with the head of the Junior Ranger Program, a big wig MP from Ottawa, and a few other bureaucrats... all on their way to the Junior Ranger gathering.

I don't think they really understood what was going on, and i too had my first opportunity to learn about the effects of being naked with regard to your career development. In my heart i don't believe that that alone was the reason for the cancellation of the Junior Ranger Program... they wanted to cancel it, they just needed an excuse.

September 22 re-cap

2010-09-29T00:34:00.000-07:00

Long day of harvesting and curing hops, (keep an ear out in another blog, if you know what i mean, to find out how our hero ended up reeking like a brewery with scratches and puffy red irritation on most of his epithelial cells as he picked up his daughter from the local school... and of course now every one rams into the school so we can be all packed in like sardines to do some sniffing and administer some skin exams... is it paranoia or do i sense an effort to form a further opinion of the ragged jagged side burned father?).

But that was then and this is now, and we have a show to review and another to promote and it's 11:44pm and the blueberry wheat beer has been bottled and the hops are a drying... what the hell, did i just sneak back off topic.

Vocal and drum LFM songs were for sure working... you could hear the words and singers were a bit calmer being exposed (or careful) and as a result we dialed in some nice harmonies, and by hearing the words carefully presented, the quality of the wordsmithing was more on show to appreciate.

We had a nice Bass drum horn jam... i played the bass and that's why i capitalized bass there... either that or my illiteracy is so obscene that i need to make up stories to work harder to try to cure myself from this wretched disease.

Then JLS and Steve and SR lay ed down a fine version of "One little Dream", and then we discussed the direction of the next number with the audience and ended up going with a version of 98 BOB, and had a whole gamete of singers including the SRSS stalwart land of Deborah who held down the soprano region of our new choir... that was super fun... i started the old countdown from 98 down (98 bottles of beer on the wall) at the end and i think we got to about 80 before we ended it in a drunken slur.

The Jason Harder played a few numbers, and original and a cover and he was joined by steve on drums and a few horn players honking away with enthusiasm... have to admit i was at the back of the bar tinting my fingers just delighted that there was no horn when i had the guitar in my hands... all i ever needed was a decoy guitar player :). Jason and crew did well and all seemed to enjoy it and it was enjoyable to watch... reminds me of the joke that went on when Roadbed was in it's prime, and we had this thing, this battle for superiority, a friendly one... i believe the official bio read "Roadbed are required by special pact to inspire each other with displays of creativity"... anyhoo somebody would have this idea and the others would look down at the vulnerable and say "that's a great idea for your solo project".

and then we hit a couple more tunes of the LFM and closed down the show, it was a great audience, i had a blast and i thought it was unique and bold and brilliant.

Next week you should all come on down to the SR Supper Show because we are about to start a new chapter... also this chapter starts at 7pm and goes to 8:30 PM.

it is Local Vocals:
our leader Anna Baignoche, backed by Simon Kendal, Steve Dawson and Travis Bernhardt and the Local Vocals choir are going to run through some classic songs and have the words printed out so that we can all sing along.

it is a chance for this choir to get out and sing in a bar:

the plan is to do this on the last Wednesday of every month... this is the first one... feel free to support and embrace this venture, and get your sing on.

who loves ya!

September 15th re-cap

2010-09-22T00:30:00.000-07:00

I Just installed a calender in my browser and it seems to have installed other things and with that news comes an immediate rage that may in fact produce some minor health problems for our hero.
Reminds me about one of the good elements of the Super Robertson Supper Show... just a free show for people to come and check out or be part of, free of some marketing web. Perhaps i should have somebody stand at the door and say "welcome to the show... now the show is free but I'll just ask you to fill out this 9 page form with most of your vital tracking information for our statistics base, and by simply filling out the form you will be entered to win a set of razor-tooth steak knives"... i just figured something out, i think... that's how you get the right information out of the consumer... you promise the chance of a gift and with that hope the consumer puts down the right information.

Not to get too far off topic here but i happened to meet a cell phone shill the other day who tried to sell me a cell phone and i replied "i hate cell phones, just the word puts me into a dark rage where i start punching people... in fact my rage medication hasn't been working too well lately", and after that i was free to carry on.

what happened last week:

Now the Pike has no sound on his computer, and he is a big SRSS blog reader... so what do we say about that? I have been in this Choir for a while and we sing this song

when you were born you cried and the world rejoiced
live your life so that when you die people cry and you rejoice

Kabir (1440-1518)

Trying to shit together some things that would be simple for us to deal with i threw some chords under the melody and tried to wing it... it has the philosophical element that the Super R tries to bring to the table in his songwriting.

and then we did a version of everything:

Pike has heard that song many times at the SRSS:

at the edge of everything i feel great inside nothing collides
and only headstrong are the winds in the north
Toronto is my place of birth and that will never change
evaluation of my worth
should always stay the same
if at the edge of everything
i am betrayed inside something collides
must more than headstrong be the winds in the north

Speaking of betrayed, this fucking new blog system has failed me severely as i was on a roll and the damn thing did something bizarre and i hit the space bar and then i was back at another page and a lot of clear wisdom was not saved

And then Pockets layed down some truth:

the unfortunate thing that happened was that i just failed to fully rewind the tape so we got shut off at this point in the show. I was preparing the camera (battery charge and rewind) all while trying to feed 3 kids 40 minutes before the SRSS was set to start and the cables that run from the camera to the wall were out in a region where a kid could bring a camera crashing to the ground so i moved it and thought i had rewound it but i didn't... taping your show and playing it is never a great combo, and i have had issues in the past, issues over the mental state of the whole process but i think with what i am trying to do here i can justify it from time to time. The unfortunate part about the tape run out was that we started the meditation and apparently it was one of the funniest things to happen on the SRSS stage since Earl Johnstonerbreath did a burlesque act in 2005, and i say this because a few members of the audience were actually literally rolling around on the floor exclaiming things like "this is so funny!"

It's too bad because Pockets was really on a roll that night, and then after Mo put on a fine clinic herself, and then we had Sim up... you get the picture.

In the end it's all just memories, memory is cheap... or is it tape or flash?

For tomorrow we have Super Robertson and a paired down version of the Legion of Flying Monkeys Horn Orchestra, I tried to call Andrew Parker back from his Vacation overseas for the occasion, but for some reason he never got back to me... i blame the telecommunications company.

I'm going to bring a bass and a guitar and a few songs to do with ace drummer Steve of the LFM, i have agreed to help with a round of one of the three part LFM songs, and I'll keep my head up and try to stay sharp and out of the way of errant horn notes.

As Fire-Man would say... life is good man, we don't know how good we have it.

I also went to the bank today to do a simple thing... sign a paper, but after sitting in an office of an incompetent fool for 20 minutes i just got up an walked out saying i just don't care enough, i though this should be easy but obviously it is not so i will go now, and the fool followed me out apologizing all the way... so i might have that story... the good news being that if you are completely incompetent then rest assured there is a job for you at the bank, a place where they nurture idiocy.

what was the date last week re-cap

2010-09-14T23:27:00.000-07:00

I use to have one of those things on my "dashboard" that would have a calendar so i could just look and figure out the date (i think it was the 8th) and then carry on with the old blogaroo, but now i don't and i might have a stroke trying to figure out how to insert it with this new "magic mouse" (which itself does all kinds of strange things that might actually be good for efficiency if you were one of those people who likes to know how to run their computer properly). Me and computers will never really see eye to eye but that's OK... i like not being able to figure out how to do something simple... i just come up with a different way around the problem... keeps me fresh and thinking. Sometimes this can be great, and other times it can be a rather disturbing... my version of hell... me in a room with 1000 computers and 1000 printers and none of them have the software to communicate with each other and i have to write a coherent book and print it out before i am allowed to change out of some raw wild sheep wool underwear.

OK lets say last week was the 8th and i know it was because i found a calendar online but not before Google calendars tried to make me create an account. What happened?

Started on time, full band, great sound had some highlight moments for sure. On drums we had the solid grooves of slick, so automatically the show was worth coming to, on the bass we had Fingers Johnston, and on electric guitar Mr. Willingdon Black... i made some crack to 'deuce" about him coming back to the show now that Willingdon Black was back but the truth is he has been at the SRSS a few times in the last little while... any chance to work the name Willingdon Black into the resivoir is one of the key subplots of my existence... as a side comedy note i invited WB out to the choir that i have been singing in and he came out and immediatly got put into a group to meet and greet and talk about why they are there, and there was some confusion because apparently some people were calling super robertson "mark" for some reason and then it seemed odd in a "funny" kind of way.

we had out Fire-Man who read a story about why he is a failed artist on the North Shore... reminds me of this conversation:

then he blew some horn over some improve lounge stylings and it was all good.

Tomorrow: wedneaday September 15th.

we have Cognac Robertson and the blue shirt band with Chris Hixon on computer generated drums, and Mo on vocals and other unconfirmed players at this point... our guest just canceled due to work related problems but i have no fear... as long as I'm in cotton underwear and there ain't no fucking printers in the house we are all good.

Cognac Robertson and the blue shirt band: last time:

Word to the bird is the "The Furniture" is playing the Railway later that night... which might mean Blue shirt band stalwart JLS will be there with electric guitar, probably doing sound as well and perhaps juggling flaming bowling pins.

since bio's are so fun from the band bio generator :

A history of modern global icons: Cognac Robertson and the blue shirt band

Originally from the savannahs of Vancouver, Cognac Robertson and the blue shirt band broke into the modern global scene in 2008 with their debut album, "Doucereux". The band's latest album, "Terroir" (a taste of), blends cognac Robertson's vibrant melodies with a visceral groove trio to generate undeniable good times. With standout tracks like "they don't call me Cognac Robertson because it sounds good," the music of Cognac Robertson and the blue shirt band appeals to the average guy and the non-average guy alike.

September 1 and a few other points

2010-09-07T23:25:00.000-07:00

Well well last week it was Jose Mouthason and Ham Dangworth and i can not fucking believe what happened... absolutely flabbergasted and i don't flabbergast easily... perhaps i was a little flabbered the other night at the poker game when some folks were trying to make some jokes about using a male member to penetrate an orifice that needed no penetration what so ever... boys just want to have fun i guess.

Still... i have a hard time believing what actually got pulled off at the Supper show this evening... in fact it is so insane I'm not even going to mention it because you probably wouldn't believe me. There is now 2 kinds of people in the world today... those that saw the Super Robertson Supper Show on September 1 2010, and those that didn't... and that's the way it's going to roll. Have no fear... if you are one if the silly fools that missed the free show on this evening, you my friends are in the majority... and that's is what ultimately makes people feel comfortable. There is close to 7 billion people on this earth and there was not even a million people at the SRSS on September 1 2010, as a matter of fact i would bet that there were less then 10 thousand... even a thousand would be a high estimate, probably less than a hundred if you want to get down to the nitty gritty... OK so we round up to 100 people at the SRSS on September 1 2010, and there are 7 billion people on the earth (rounded up as well for fairness sake). Since a Billion is TEN MILLION times more than a hundred, it looks like we are looking at 70 million x more people didn't see the show than saw it and i don't think it got recorded.. the only thing i do know for sure is that i just killed that SOB mosquito that has been pestering me since i started the simple math operation earlier in the paragraph, if you want to round up and call it a paragraph.

It's done we move on... where the hell was I
Tomorrow we take a page from the old school Super Robertson Supper Show... 1 King Hell Drummer by the name of Slick, one King hell bass player who's personal publicist told me i could go with "Fingers Johnston", and a rumored possible appearance of the legendary, the great, often imitated yet never duplicated, Jack of all Lords... Willingdon Black!

We have a fucking set list!

the reoccurring hurrah
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT9u0QE5LwM

One Little dream
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGRb3VdHnuo

Wishing Machine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlICSjyT-PQ

Hey Rock's livingroom
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3703Pik3Mo

Everything
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IRtWhu2WVc

Fuse lit bombs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kC4ybDsD4jM

The last honey and toast
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zdz8WzB7-YU

Bent
Nice Bucket
On Frozen Pond
Nothing was heard

Which gives us enough of a base where we should be able to avoid those awkward moments where our fearless leader stands on stage like a jackass who has been grazing on a field of catnip all day humming and hawing about what to play and then decides, due to one of those strong flashes of misguided energy, mistaken as as sign from the OMEN gods, to make a ridiculous call and take the band down analogous to some wartime anti-aircraft itchy trigger finger missile base that makes a mistake and writes it off as friendly fire. That's why we have protocol ... protocol in this instance meaning 11 titles written on a piece of paper that we can go to if what we are trying to do starts to loose it's focus... and i have a few ideas about "art based experimental deviations" but there is no point in going over that now for i wouldn't want to spook anybody over anything now... actually i shouldn't say anybody or anything when what i actually am talking about is the very real spirit energy of artistic creation... the golden rule is to never talk about something before you try to create it if you are going to use your wits and skills to to create it live... you don't want to force the wrong potential direction on the piece... your job is to find the direction and ride it cleanly to a destination that makes sense in a reasonable amount of time. Just to be clear.. if you are a n architect building a major dwelling you would most defiantly want to talk about it before you start to create it... this makes very good sense.

So come on down and if you want and if you think you can help us deliver the show then step on up... you got the set list, lets do it people. Special note: if you are hindering and not helping we would have to remove you from your position... remember "sweater guy"... some dude in a sweater who i allowed to get up on the Mic and try some shit, but then he stayed on the mic loudly and very seriously threatening and being rude and stuff like that... we are no into that... if you want a part I can give you a part, but i need you to do the part not some rouge estimation of the part with a never ending ad lib part... unless of course the never ending ad lib part is pure gold, but that is rarely the case... just saying.

lets do it!

SR

August 25th re-cap

2010-08-31T23:54:00.000-07:00

Another great turn out for the SRSS on this night, and it was my Australian friends Khristian Mizzi, Frank Pearce and Jess Moussi representing Khristian Mizzi & the Sirens who played the lions share of the evening. We had another late start due to a delinquent JLS and there was a festival (international pop overthrow) after the show so we were a bit cramped, but it didn't stop the good times. I ran through a few tunes and then had my buddy Simian Special up for a tune we call "Bill Von Bacon Tell" about a guy who has left the city to pan for gold in Williams creek. There was a gold rush there like a century ago, and you get the odd prospector who finds a good chunk of gold there from time to time. I did some gold panning one time and the thing i took away from it was how cold your hands get trying to pan gold out of a glacial fed Canadian river. Anyhoo the song is written in a way that parallels some fool trying to pan their music with some fool trying to strike it rich in the deserted mountains of the B.C interior. When we hit the words right i think it's great... even when we miss them Sim's vocals carry the load and the crowd is always happy.

Khristian, Frank and Jess then took the stage and played a great set and Pete pointed out that you could see the tendons firing in Khristian's fore-arm as he finger picked his guitar. Ahh the power of the human body so dexterous when trained properly.

It was a great night and i stayed a while at the bar knowing full well that Fire-man, Sharon and Smokey were doing the swim and i had filled my commitment to have members of the SRSS go swimming in the ocean for the July/August months. When they go swimming in the ocean there is never any issues... they shut out paranoia and embrace the path of least resistance. Sometimes you get a better story if you buy into paranoia and let it to power your stride against the current... i guess in a way, they do that in life (meant as a compliment)... and so swimming in dogfish infested waters and challenging the human hypothermic response is just casual recreation.

I guess it's Cam and Jesse tomorrow although i thought i saw in an email that Cam is in Europe.. time is the hunter.. i never get press releases from anybody... actually that's not true, Smash Supper Shows always come with a good press release... and a few emails to boot, and the LFM even makes it's own FB page and promotes heavily. That's one of the great things about being the SRSS kingpin... there are so many great people that come and add so many unique things to the show and they often come in waves and my job is to just find a spot for them to let their creations/concepts fly.

Be good, be fair, try hard, don't give up, and all that other crap... sorry i have nothing else.

August 18th re-cap

2010-08-24T23:14:00.000-07:00

There was a full house for this weeks SRSS, a perfect evening on a number of levels.. but no Super Steve... aka the Pike. The Pike likes to lay low in the reeds and watch the action and the Pike can get a little flippy when he is coerced into Monkey Cult participation. As Captain Lou Albano's character Frankie the Fixer said in the movie wise guys "I'm a little too well known down there", one can almost see the gears turning in the pikes head... "even if I'm in the back that crafty cult leader will know I'm there and perhaps call me up to chant some repetitious quasi religious rantings... and I'll have to do it... say isn't there a Mariners game i need to see"

The Pike knows what time it is... all the others in the room had to chant, cheer and sing... because it is of course, an interactive orchestra. The sound man was late but when we got rolling it was sounding crisp and smart... do note that the Legion of Flying Monkeys Horn Orchestra was just described in words as "crisp"... no turning back now... could have used the word "Organic". i remember trying to describe Knockin' Dog as Organic sounding in like 1996... i was more shocked by shilling back then so it left a rather strong impression on me. The way i live now is more "it don't matter, nobody is listening anyway"... as a matter of fact the bio/ one sheet for the last 21 tandem Repeats release was generated by a mock online band bio generator

Perhaps we need a Super Roberson Supper Show Bio:

Since forming in the Railway Club of Vancouver, Super Robertson Supper Show climbed to the top of the the indie rock scene in 2004 with their debut album, Live @ the SRSS part one. The band's latest album, live at the SRSS part 47, fuses Earl Johnstonerbreaths unabashed hooks with shoe-gazing Brit-Pop to slap together some seriously inspired crowd pleasers. With standout tracks like "King Super Robertson," don't be surprised if you find Super Robertson Supper Show at the top of the indie rock charts and beyond.

Where the hell was I...

Hailing from the Daily Grind coffee house in Vancouver, The legion of Flying Monkeys Horn Orchestra rose to the top of the folk scene in 2008 with their debut album, Help Help. The band's latest album, Aliens, unites Fire-Man's insightful intonation with pastoral orchestral accompaniments to produce simply stunning music. With standout tracks like "the means of production garden tea Party theme song", the music of The legion of Flying Monkeys Horn Orchestra appeals to folk fans and non-folk fans alike.

and..

Hailing from the smokey bars outside of Vancouver, Super Steve found himself at the top of the the blues scene in 1975 with his debut album, what happened. The band's latest album, Super R is king, weaves Super Steve's gut-wrenching lyrics with roadhouse slide guitar to churn out their most sincere work to date. With standout tracks like "I love the Super Robertson Supper Show," already certified platinum in Europe, Super Steve can count on loads of future success.

There was also cake at the SRSS last week to celebrate the genesis of CT and JLS, but for most of us it was all about the cake. I got it from Fratelli Authentic Italian Baking and it was on sale because it was a day old, but as the old saying goes "a day old fratelli's cake still stomps the balls off the the rest". Maybe that's a new saying... perhaps i should trademark it and send it to "Cake people new York new York".

what is happening with this blog? Hot damn we are losing focus, and i still haven't got to the swim that i thought i wasn't going on because it was cold that day and we had cake and a party in the bar... but then as i was leaving some fool tried to call me a sissy so i had to redeem myself, but i had no bike so i had to resort to doing a cannonball off the dock by the Olympic village but the only problem was that the tide was down and i cut my leg on a rock and had trouble getting out of the water and then it occurred to me that i was in the ocean with a cut... not a big one, but blood was dripping from me and the dock was a long way up, and i was naked and some people came to hang out on the dock so i had to lay low in the water bleeding and then all hell broke loose... i think a fucking pike tried to bite me, which scared the shit out of the couple above me and caused a whole wave of confusion and sudden alarm down by "Canada's great sustainable community".

I read this book called Monster of God, and it was about alpha predators, and one of the things i took away is that those who live in sustainable communities (mud huts by the river) take the greatest hits when it comes to attacks from alpha predators... say crocodiles. Well lets just say that our sustainable communities don't offer the same support to one of their citizens when they are attacked by a mud shark/ocean pike. yea go ahead an laugh Did you know that? Yes, pike do go into the ocean - as long as it is brackish enough... believe me it was brackish. rather than help they call the fucking police on me... but not even the real police... some useless security guard who doesn't even have a weapon to fire into the dark waters where i was pointing as the menace regathered for a second wave of attacks.

Tomorrow Khristian Mizzi returns with his art bus festival tour that started here a few months ago... then they are going down to burning man... if you need a ride it might work.

These guys are king hell, from Australia came to Canada to check it out bought a short bus sold tickets to cover gas and insurance (rides across Canada) and toured the country playing music. If you can't get behind that boo to you.

and as a final note we went late and were very slow getting our stuff off the stage... lets not get complacent team we need to be the gold standard... it is our destiny... lets play 7:30-8:30 keep it pro lean and mean.

2010-08-19T17:13:00.001-07:00

August 11 re-cap

2010-08-17T23:26:00.000-07:00

Hot damn it's late and my memory has been shafted by a hockey playoff victory and the requisite beers that followed. Luckily i managed to tape the show and it was one King hell show if i don't say so myself... luckily in the way that i can post a video and the video can do the speaking, and i can go on about the lesson from the swim.

we hit the swim, a nice little group and there was a female presence which was most excellent because she did the right things like bringing hot tea and emergency blankets to lie on so we could sit and muse and around that time there were 2 fires on the beach and we were tempted to go join in... but we had tea and blankets and the woman logic reminded us that everything was good where we were. Right right... there was a lot less chance for regret if we stayed where we were... i was initially thinking in terms of personalities that i might not want to have to overcome should i impose myself on a party. Soon the cops came and shut down the fires and we watched from a nice safe distance very happy that we were not one of the people around the fire when the party was busted.

Next week or tomorrow for that matter we have "The legion of Flying Monkeys Horn Orchestra", and even better there will be Cake. A double birthday celebration for 2 unsung SRSS heroes... 1)JLS (soundman and multi-instrumentalist) and 2)CT (stalwart who minds children every wednesday night so that this can happen).

Swimming is always an option, and i have been reminded that perhaps if i tried to sell it more like a wonderful experience and less like a dangerous shark ridden hypothermia blast i might get more takers... sales was never my strong suit... I'm very proud of that.

get in touch with me if you think we need a limo to take us from the club to the water... could be a good option.

i have no idea what this blogasroo is about... it's choppey

2010-08-10T22:28:00.000-07:00

So somebody made me a new poster for the Super Robertson Supper Show... guess who? I'll give you a hint... he makes horns and plays in the Legion of Flying Monkeys Horn Orchestra. That's right it's Fire-Man... I like it... not sure about the "blasphemies" concept as i see my self a more of a simple songwriter who's songs try to be about being a better person living in a better world, but as they say, nobody is listening anyway.

So i sent some posters to the printer and we will have those bad boys down to the club like tomorrow to join the collection of stellar Simian Special posters.

I remember when i use to spend a lot of my time "postering"... my efforts were legendary.. what a waste of fucking time... i have met people that saw my posters for years and never made it out to a show... this is back in the old days when i would cover Vancouver with 750 posters myself and all i got was a dental bill to fix some chipped teeth from biting tape. In my head i saw it as a process to prepare for the show... practice is a better one.

Having posters in the club is a different animal all together... they are not getting rained on, nor is the person putting up the posters... they stay up because they are where they should be, which means printing in colour is worthwhile. A poster can then be viewed and enjoyed by a patron who might need a moment to muse about it over some beers.

Shit where was i... aren't i here to shit together a glowing review of last weeks show and then try to get all you chicken shit land lovers to come down to the show tomorrow for some early drinking and then a naked ocean swim out at 3rd beach to cap off the evening and remind yourself that it is summer and you are alive.

I actually missed last weeks swim (due to a hockey game our team won 7-0), but Fire-Man and Sharon kept the summer tradition alive and had a lovely little swim that went without incident, so i am told. Of course i had to get the swim report... what kind of a jackass blogger would i be if i didn't get the swim report... if i am going to bark on about how important it is to go swimming naked in the cold dark ocean as a matter of some applied principle then i have to get the report. that is one of the problems with those guys... they are natural night ocean swimmers, so there is no problem, no fear...

So it was a Cam and Jesse supper show and Jesse's Mom was there and so was CC sit-down, and SRSS inspirational man award winner Dave Parchumchuck... actually there was a nice crowd and the boys were on that night... cam was singing exceptionally well was what i had written in my notes. The boys invited Ogden Hammerstein up to play some music and added some gargle water harmonies to a supersimian song titled "bob style"... Odgen was kind enough to give the audience a choice of 3 songs and they went for that one, i believe because it was presented as a song about a guy who gets hammered in a bar and falls in love with a waitress and he strikes out goes home wakes up his wife club footing around the house and then goes tr try to write a novel... yea we all been there they said.

Tomorrow we have Cognac Robertson and the blue shirt boys featuring JLS on guitar and Shawn Killaly on Drums... we may or may not have more. I have a call and answer song to do so it would help if there were people there, but as i said earlier in an email... i couldn't draw a crowd if i was a fire hydrant in a city blaze. i say that in jest for the record, don't want old Super Steve reading this tomorrow feeling sorry for old Robertson, cause Robertson is doing A OK... Robertson will do what he does and you can take it or leave it... it's not a bet, more like an offering... that said i predict an old school ball stomping at the SRSS tomorrow... come for the music supper and spirits and then do the swim... soon it will be November and we will be looking back to that night when we went swimming after the SRSS.

Swimming after the SRSS... could be a good song title... by the way we are going to do our version of "Double Rainbow" tomorrow and I'll be taping the bastard.

July 28 re-cap

2010-08-03T22:03:00.000-07:00

It was time to get out the damn drum kit... no more of this acoustic night shit... not that there is anything wrong with acoustic nights, it's just that we haven't seen the drum kit in a while.

Super Robertson, Christoper Johnson and JLS the destroyer held down the fort as the trio for the night doing songs from the Robertson, Johnson and Fire-Man songbook and making up a few as they went... it was rough and edgy but remember that is what we were looking for... it was time to step outside the box and challenge ourselves, try to do something a little different. hell even some people came down to see the show... Dan brought some people and they had supper... Brian brought Dan a few years ago and they come from time to time and it was Mule who brought Brian a few years before that... so it looks like we might have that thing happening:

cross pollinate that with this:

Did i mention we had "hand carved jazz horn" and story time... that's right Fire-Man was there honking "Myhorn" one of his original horns that he cut in half and folded to make transportation easier. I was going to do that play where CIBC totally fucks up on the RRSP payments and then continues to make the same mistakes over and over again completely un-aware of anything that happened before and each time calling me a different name but doing it in a manner that would suggest were were bosom buddies... But in a stunning turn of events i lost my fucking mind and tried to re-cap the shopping trip to Superstore with the kids, but for some reason witty words were eluding me on stage... and Fire-man is always good to honk on, which worked out well, at this time... later i got on to a thing about sharks, hopes dreams and wanting to be important, and after the show people wanted to talk sharks with me, so they were listening. Then we did dish pig and JLS the destroyer really ripped it up on guitar... it was a good finish.

Then it was swim time... after some mild drinking of course... a few pitchers of beer and some shark antidotes make for very pleasant night time swimming if you like that kind of fear... damn fireworks were blasting which worked out well because you can't see them from third beach which means nobody was there but Fire-man and I... the only problem was that Fire-Man was in the water first and then started ridiculing me about getting into the water... which made the water seem colder than it actually was... then he started blathering on about some "mammalian face response", and that i was meant to be in the water, which i suddenly had to disagree with... i have lungs and lack a dorsal fin or a blowhole (perhaps I'm leaving myself open for a zinger with that blowhole comment)... so the mammalian face response is that you put your face in the cold water and you body feels warmer than it actually is... probably induces some form of vascular dilation to conserve body heat... and then probably some neurotoxin to help with the "you are warm" lie.

Tomorrow we have Cameron Dilworth and Jesse Matheson... i may show as "Odgen Hammerstein" ... i guess we will see.

July 21 re-cap

2010-07-27T22:43:00.000-07:00

musically the SRSS went pretty well but we were late starting and it seems that people would rather be out in the sun that come to the SRSS on days like last week, which you can't really blame them... got me thinking... should the supper show even happen in the summer? why stack greater odds against yourself... but then maybe one needs to see things from another angle.

None the less Stephen King had a man on stand-up bass and they sounded fine... i was suffering from "SSSD" (supper show stress disorder), but managed to lay down a set and it was a distinctive honour to have Land of Deborah up to sing "Blue skies"

Remember i had called the swim out at third beach after the show... well i went and did it, and it was King Hell. Unfortunately there was only me... the closest i got to an offer was one of the bartenders who lives near Jericho and she told me to flash a light her way and she would flick her light on back to say "yo have a good swim". Then i pressed her about her husband and to drag him out but apparently he won't go into water when it's dark... then i smelt paranoia and pressed harder. You see i had been working myself up into a fine shark paranoia all day in preparation for the swim... and it was odd because a couple times that day people i know, out of the blue, without prompting mentioned that there are no sharks in the water here... which is clearly a foolish statement. The scientific term is "accidental migrant" and it is used to describe an animal that has strayed from a geographical location where it is expected to be to a geographical location where it is not expected to be... and following that bone logic the animal... or alpha predator for that matter is going to be hungry after the journey. This is totally clear to any straight thinker out there... oceans have no boundaries and considering all of the intense pollution and stressing factors that are going on in the ocean habitat as a whole it is completely reasonable that there are confused, lost and irritable sharks out there looking to settle the score.

Apparently these people aren't the kind of people who like to challenge their late night ocean paranoia's, like say myself... who after quaffing a few pints and having a few laughs set out on the journey... it was firecracker night so everybody was leaving the beach, and biking thought the crowds was kind of annoying but i was going out to the more secluded 3rd beach located in Stanley Park... a good little ride but by the time you get there you are in the frame of mind to strip down and swim... it was fantastic... i just floated on my back sculling looking at the trees and had a few moments where i weighed the magnitude of life and how lucky i was to be there and living it.

So swim again tomorrow... you should come... i remember being on Mayne island one time and a friend jumped into the water and was looking back at me as i cowered over the idea of the cold north pacific... and he told me "it's just what your body needs" when he said it i thought it was bullshit but when i did take the plunge i had to agree.

July 14 Re-cap

2010-07-20T22:19:00.000-07:00

There was The Land of Deborah and Super Robertson and JLS... JLS was originally the sound man for the evening, but as per SRSS protocol "when in doubt pry the sound man up on stage to play lead guitar and then lead the final number of the night" which happened on this night to be a number about fathers, our destiny, and of course PARANOIA.

It wouldn't be like SR to not play the paranoia card when it is time for a little improvisation... which is rather a re-hashing of some of the great stories in which a certain Robertson elder takes paranoia to provincial heights all while JLS lays down a foundation clinic of groove and melody.

there was a small but courteous audience that wore faces with smiles and then we swilled beer and watched a girl band who's mother was in attendance... this i know because i was talking to her about her daughters band... she was very proud and i remembered that note i found in my stuff my mother saved for me... it was a note that was written by my father, my wife (who was not my wife at the time), and a friend...

the note was written in SAMOO'S pub during a festival called Localpalooza like a decade ago... it was so loud in there nobody could talk so they wrote notes to each other to communicate.

Dad- can we leave after Knockin' Dog, i have suffered enough ear damage already
CT- good idea
Mike- you don't know ear damage until you hear Knockin' Dog

My parents are troopers... i think my dad helped carry the mutant double neck guitar into the gig.

anyhoo

Stephen King is coming down on July 21 and SR will make something happen on his end.

anybody up to biking to second beach for some late night swimming after the show?

summertime will end when it's over, but now is the time to swim.

June 23 re-cap

2010-06-29T22:52:00.000-07:00

It was a king hell night for sure and it started with S Robertson running over 3 songs
"Nothing was heard"- a protest song about how we as a society never listen to logic and as a result gladly suffer disasters.

"Famous Person"- a funny little song that looks at the concept of fame and plays with it's context as our hero delivers an autobiographical number

"Disappear"- a Canadian classic song by Super Robertson and Simian Special

Then Genny Trigo took the stage and demonstrated her brilliance with a classical guitar and great voice and some south American classic folk songs. She can really stop the patrons in their tracks as they head in the door and then send some of their party to get drinks as others find a good seat. We call it the GT special... Genny Trigo starts singing and then people just appear out of know where with looks of intrigue on their happy faces.

Then Genny and Super got up together and played some fine versions of some songs they put together last year.

"the last honey and toast"- a song for the bees, but it is a bit sad, as it can be for things that aren't money

"Moustache man"- an ode to a photographer friend

"4 FEATHERS"- inspired by the book of RUMI

"Rage hero episode #37"- a song about how our hero tries in vain to solve a problem with a shoddy makeshift security device that ends up blowing up in his face

"one little dream"- a song about having the courage to do what you need to do to follow your path, and the confidence that that path will lead you to where you want to be.

All in all it was a fine SRSS and some of the folks that were there expressed that they quite enjoyed the evening, and pointed out a number of songs that they enjoyed.

that's all we really need

On June 30 we have the Gentle Infidels
On July 7 it is the Camille Dangworth and Jose Mouthason supper show
On July 14 it would be The Land Of Deborah and the return of S Robertson

show's on supper seekers

June 16 re-cap

2010-06-22T21:14:00.000-07:00

Khristian Mizzi and Frank Pearce are on a mission of music. They bought a short bus and are going across the country in what they are calling "the festival art bus tour". They are charging passengers a fee to cover gas and insurance and all, but they are doing it and if you can't get behind that then i want you in front of me where i can keep my weasel spotting eyes on you. The bus left Vancouver on June 18 for Montreal but we got them down at the Super Robertson supper show on the 16th and set them up with ace drummer Shawn Killaly and the trio killed it:

And then Super Robertson went up with Shawn and Frank and did that thing he does... pick all the wrong songs and sing like a drunken goat.

I remember before the show it looked like it was just going to be Shawn and myself... (back to first person) and i said in my head "don't worry it will all work out"... which it did. Khristian had a heavy draw from the hostel community of world travellers which made for a great show. people who are travelling are always very interested in seeing things and embracing things... which i guess that is why they are travellers. They are new, open and excited and you can feel that... not to say that others are scene swilling ignoramuses... but you know what i mean.

there's good things happening.

on Wednesday June 23 we have the lovely and talented Genny Trigo:

and then Super R and Genny:

good times, come one come all... it's free, cold beer and good food.

June 9 re-cap

2010-06-15T23:37:00.000-07:00

I guess the big victor of the night was King Dinosaur who smartly took advantage of the Canada Lynx Records $2 CD sale and walked out of the club with "Supersimian- How the tiger got lionized" and the three 21 Tandem Repeats CD's... "The Ocean is life", "Never wanted to be anyone" and "No junk mail please" for the low low price of $8 in total. A King Hell deal by all accounts seeing that "the ocean is life" is almost out of press and might one day be worth more than $2... like maybe $2.20. If the price of plastic goes up with the coming oil shortage... don't get me started.

where was I.

OK last week the show was opened by the ultra-talented duo of Mo and Slick... a woman singer/guitarist and a King hell drummer, and they set a tone that said "showtime". After a brief set it was Connoisseur Casino (with Slick on drums) to stomp down some damage and in their set the song "knots" appeared, which happened to be a song they played last time they played the SRSS and when they played it (the last time) the Canucks scored a key goal that mounted a comeback in the L.A. series and they never looked back... until of course, they were suckered into a game of errors and were stomped out of existence by a bold and fortuitous Chicago Blackhawks team. Well when they played the song on this night, Chicago scored in overtime to win the Stanley Cup. A most annoying turn of events being that i found myself rooting for Philadelphia... for some bizarre reason... i know it makes no sense, but what does in this world... the good thing is i got over it immediately not like when one of my "home teams" goes down in savage defeat, annually, every year of my life. The good part about being Canadian... you can always count on Team Canada to win some major things and just ride those fucking coattails until the time when i am a grizzled old man (almost now) and perhaps my team wins and i just drop dead of a heat attack immediately.

did we just get off topic again?

And then we had Travis the Magician who wowed the crowd with some tricks... perhaps if i filmed it i could have slowed down the tape to see where we were fooled. It was a most excellent moment in the SRSS... real magician talent.

To close out the show i dubbed CC the SRSS all star band, called up Mo and we did the vocal centered version of the song "Bent". Bent is a key track on the Roadbed CD "Last dance at the shockcenter", but over the last few years i have developed a more vocal centered version where a series of repeating vocal melodies becomes the driving force in the song. The song works out well that way when you have a stack of good singers in the SRSS room. Originally the song was about guitar solos and to a lesser extent bass solos... whatever works right.

So for tomorrow we have the return of Shawn Killaly and a a couple of chaps from Australia who are on a quest to play music in Canadian clubs across Canada and they had the good fortune to find old super Robertson... khristianmizzi

there is a chance of more magic and others joining the quest to make the SRSS all it can be... not to try and steal an army slogan... because we are rather anti war over here... not that i don't think our troops are "king hell" in the admiral department