July 14 Re-cap

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

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

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

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

and i had so many good ideas earlier...

Last week it was a Cam Dilworth and Jesse Matheson show, and i became Super Albertson they sang a song called poop machine and Jesse dropped the worst death bomb i have ever smelt which left me tear eyed and dry heaving in the other direction. Never mind fart jokes this was the real deal... I was there standing talking to Chris Rippin before the show and that bastard said something about his diet lately and then it was fucking insane... some friends come in and said "hi super" and i come close to dry heaving on them... not supper show material dude.

On the bright side they played some good music and had a few excellent guests one of them being Caleb Stull who has a great songwriting and song execution skill.

this was from a long time ago when he played... I'm going to solve my video problems soon... promise:



So for this week which would be June 9 we have a fine collection of talent assembled. The band Connoisseur Casino, a band who has made some verbal noise about wanting to be more involved in the participation of the Super Robertson Supper Show, is set to act as the SRSS all star band... meanwhile i have made inroads to a community of magicians... so we have magic shows, and show rhymes with Mo, so i called Mo to bring a female voice to the evening and then the CC drummer couldn't make the show, so now we have Slick.

So the way i see it, is that we have kick ass magic, a king hell drummer, one spectacular up and coming female songwriter and vocalist, one tight band, one Super Robertson with a few tunes that should be good for all to participate in... and then there are the wild cards... people that come from time to time and may get called to the stage.

speaking about that... this is one of the good ideas i had... the other being that i should pick some salad from my bursting garden and you can have SR Man lettuce in your salad as the side for your supper... the other idea i had was tooney CD night... that's right for 2 bucks you can get a Canada Lynx Records CD... I'll bring down a few. But the big idea (not to get off topic while staying on topic... if you know what i mean) was that from now on we will have the Super Robertson Supper Show Choir. If you sing or care to sing then you come down and say "I want to sing in the Super Robertson Supper Show Choir", and i will make it happen. Hopefully over time we can grow a "songbook" and find out, what the Super Robertson Supper Show Choir is all about. I'll print some words out and we can start simple... this is a good idea people, singing is fun and it is community and it is belonging and it is sharing. It is physical and it is personal and when done together it represents the manifestation of the human spirit, and who can't get behind that.

and i should note this is a singing choir and not a priceless horn honking choir.

OK also for show notices:

Cameron Dilworth is having a CD release party at Little Mountain (Main and 26th) on Friday June 11


And my man Fire-Man is having an exhibition of his horns on Saturday, June 19, 2010 at 7:00pm @ Ironworks gallery - 235 Alexander Street (at Main)... i did just take a poke at him as he is the leader of the Legion of Flying Monkeys Horn Orchestra, which actually reminded me about the show notices portion of this here blogaroo. Anyhoo the Horns are serious works of art and the guy has been working at this for longer than i have had kids, which seems like a fucking eternity to me anyway.

Fire-Man Blog

Just a touch of pepper may May 26 re-cap

OK people, our man smash has condensed the show by 1/3 ,  so you can review the show yourself... send your reviews to canada(at)canadalynxrecords.com for your chance to win an exceptional Canada lynx records prize pack consisting of Canada Lynx wear and a collection of various Canada Lynx Records releases.

I realize nobody is going to do that, but you know me, i like to provide people with opportunity, that's my thing... here is an opportunity for you... perhaps i am the fucking Robin Hood of opportunity in the  Vancouver "no fun city" music scene.  Don't worry i don't believe that shit either.

I know i had one King Hell time, and a certain swine bastard regular told me he felt guilty not paying for the show.. so i went for his wallet and grabbed a few greenbacks to cover the band bar tab that happened to be rather large on this night due to a serious "business" meeting that happened in the back bar.

We are all business men and women remember... for the record, the cat in the song "Bay city kitty" was actually named busy so we could say "lets get busy" and take the cat somewhere... but busy didn't like going places under other peoples direction so there was always claws and bloodshed.  Busy was a good cat... i hope she did OK.





**** the great comedy and professionalism of this part 2 video is that we have the sound man (JLS) up playing guitar around the 3:20 mark... that is community baby.


So tomorrow, which is almost today, but if you read this damn shithole blog you know that our hero is always working lake Tuesday night in a savage effort to shit together something semi coherent about what is happening soon so I'm sure you have planned your week with the true option of knowing that the SRSS will have something going on on Wednesday night and you will find out on the morning of the day... unless of course you are a real man/ woman who knows how to burn the midnight oil properly.

It is the first Wednesday of the month, meaning it is the Cam and Jesse Supper show... by the way
Cam is having a cd release party at Little Mountain (Main and 26th) on Friday June 11.The show starts at 8:30 with Aunts and Uncles  www.myspace.com/auntsanduncles  Cam at 9:30 www.myspace.com/cameronjohndilworth  and then Greenbelt at 10:30 www.myspace.com/greenbeltcollective .

I got that all in an email on Monday to which i replied "what the fuck is going on at the supper show this week", too which i got the reply "i haven"t thought about it", so i gave him a mini ream out and told him the the SRSS has been on a roll lately and we need effort on promotion and organization.  He said "word", so i am looking for a good show.  I'll go down and perhaps play a song you should to... bring something suckers.


And in another great victory it looks like we might have a 40 piece choir coming to sing once a month in the fall... and a group of magicians... hell even I'm starting to believe in the Super Robertson Supper Show.  Just don't be that fool that sat in that town for years and never stood up to be counted.

May 19 re-cap

Well if there is one thing for sure left from the monster jam at the Super Robertson Supper Show last week it is the truth that a man called Shine and seriously rock the didgeridoo.  Once again i find myself going back to that description "King Hell" as he and drummer Steve Lazin stomped down some serious grooves.

Sara Ciantar  was a delight to have at the SRSS as well, she has some wonderful songs made up of strange chords, intricate picking, and  the voice of a siren.

Then it was Super Robertson and the lot also joined by Simian Special and when they got off the stage they were toasted for the fact that what they did was beautiful.

should have recorded

tomorrow we see the return of Hey Rock, who happened to come by Super Robertson's house today for a little mixed purpose session... should be good.

May 12 re-cap

Well if a picture tells a thousand words then a video must do it to the power of 3... or something like that.

this is what happened:



extra thanks to Smash for the video... pre-thanks to smash for making it happen.

It was very special to have some of the songs i have written and or co-written over the years be celebrated in a class operation like what happened on this night.  Another highlight of the evening was to see King Dinosaur walk into the club in his Hab's sweater and Jean jacket... you see Montreal had just finished off Pittsburg in 7 games... a fate that few had predicted.  To see a hard core Hockey fan in a glaze of glory is always a treat... big smiles and casually throwing off sayings like "Yea, i though i might come down and raise a few toasts".

The grand fiasco of the evening occurred when i went to put the drum kit away and i tripped on the stairs and fell forward to be stopped only by the drum hardware on my groin.  It was an insane blow which put me on another planet and to be truthful half of my groin as of this writing is a deep purple.  I'm almost tempted to post a picture... for pure scientific value of course, but i have learned, slowly, over time that nobody wants to see my groin.
OK

this week (May 19) we have the fantastic drummer Steve (from the LFM horn orchestra) and his buddy Shine on digeridoo.  Also we have a wonderful folk singer  Sara Ciantar , and then all of those suckers will get sucked into the world of Super Robertson as i force them to take part in a journey though my songbook.

There was no Super Robertson Supper Show Last week

So you would think i could get away without doing a blog, but you know me... what would Tuesday night be without a little musing on what could have been.

The Supper Show was canceled last week because of the hockey game, and perhaps that was the beginning of the end.   Now as you may recall Vancouver mounted the comeback during the SRSS in the Vancouver /L.A. series...  remember even Super Steve who was watching the game in the front room didn't come back to the back room to watch the game on the big screen because everything was going well and he knew not to disrupt the order of the universe.  But he is a hockey guy in tune with the realities of sports curses, jinxes, superstitions and routines.

I was a bit worried about the Canucks fate when the SRSS was canceled but i figured i didn't want to be the guy trying to make a point like that  (the Canucks win when the SRSS happens) and have on my side the fact that it could seem like it is I wanting to do the show and using positive routine re-enforcement as a a crutch to not have the show canceled. Then i would have exposed myself to the possibility of the Canucks playing a great game and the SRSS playing to a few  patrons all while everybody is wondering why they are not watching this great game... but rather this folk jackass on stage... oh wait it was a Cam and Jesse show... make that 2 folk Jackasses.

it's over now and we can all go back to sleep until next year...

tomorrow: The Mo Trio

The Mo Trio consists of Slick, Smash, Mo, and the Cobra.  If that's not enough to inspire your attendance, know that their repertoire consists of 21 Tandem Repeats and Roadbed classics done in ways which will be wholly unfamiliar even to the SRSS faithful.  There is icing on this very substantial cake - Super Robertson will take part too.

Opening the Show will be Cameron Dilworth and Jesse Matheson as they missed last weeks show.
come early stay late

No Super Robertson Super Show on May 5 2010

You see the thing is the Vancouver Canucks are in a key playoff series and the game is in Vancouver starting at 6:30 PM. Now nothing brings out beer drinking bar patrons better than a hometown big game, so you see, the Railway Club will show the game on the big screen, and the Super Robertson Supper Show can wait for another day.

what does that mean? well tomorrow was to be a Cam and Jesse night so we are going to have them join us next week, and us would be a night of tunes and jamming organized by band kingpin Smash, who has organized a few Supper Shows over the years and they all had moments of greatness, originality and community spirit.

And last week we had The Legion of Flying Monkeys Horn Orchestra:

it's fair to say that good times were had by all

April 21 Re-Cap

Another fine night for the SRSS (short for Super Robertson Supper Show)... I know I Know you probably knew that but one of the fine comedies of this whole effort is to write as many Super Robertson's and Supper Show's as possible. Recall when i first started the show way back when and it was called the Super Robertson King Show... which was the same comedy taken too far, and the show was on a Monday Night which was the cooks night off but he decided to come in for the show for a while but of course there were super thin crowds and then there was no kitchen open, so one week i brought down a tray of sushi, then steam buns and then the next week some frozen pizzas but they wouldn't let me use the oven... Geese i wonder if I'm insane. Bar staff to cook on phone "yea some guy wants to use your oven to make some pizzas"... i know i wouldn't let some guy use my oven if my oven was needed to be in fine working order. Clearly a veteran chef like myself would have done the right thing but alas that was a long time ago... then we got the show moved to Wednesday when the kitchen was open and we started cooking with gas.. as the saying goes.

Where was I... Connoisseur Casino came down and played a fine set... they started 15 minutes late, which of course is totally unacceptable but the game was on, so i was fine with it. I do need to mention these things as the leader in an effort to make sure that we don't become slack.

Musically Connoisseur Casino were not slack at all... they were tight and slick, they sounded so fine i started feeling a little nervous about going up after them after a while i went back to check on the time and Super Steve was there watching the game... Connoisseur Casino sounded great at the side bar i was watching the game and the Supper Show... how fantastic is that. the problem was that the Canucks were down by one... i recalled that SRSS theme song i wrote a while back and forgot about:
one line was... "at the SRSS it's the place where my friends all go, like Super Steve and King Dinosaur with one eye on the stage and one eye on the score..." I was playing King Dinosaur.

anyhoo Connoisseur Casino announced their last song and during that song the Canucks started their comeback with a fine goal... i tried to convince them to play that song again but no dice... don't want to poke too hard at the hockey gods anyway.

So then i took D Rocks place and D rock took my place and we winged it... i think it went OK and at the end the band led me in a fine 4 chord song. It was fun fulfilling and very supper showesque.

And then we went to the back room where the big TV is and watched the Canucks bring home a huge Victory... turns out they never lost another game in that series... perhaps we can thank Connoisseur Casino for that tune, or maybe it was Super Steve who heard us hooting and hollering in the other room and figured that our feed was about 5 seconds ahead of the feed his TV was on but decided to stay put because things were going well with the balance of the universe at that moment.

On April 28 get ready for Vancouver's one and only handmade horn band "The Legion of Flying Monkeys Horn Orchestra"... there will be a puppet booth, audience song participation, high comedy and high art.

the SRSS is run by a sane man who appears a lunatic in this world

that's one of the things that happened last week.

I decided to lock antlers with my computer and video camera in an effort to lesson the strain on the blog... what if this show didn't really happen and i just made up some nonsense in a blog and said it did? Clearly i have proven myself... that the show exists and everything i have ever written on the fabulous Internet is absolutely accurate. Well glad to get that out of the way... it's funny you know years ago i bought the camera and an state of the art computer (Mac G4 tower) and i set out and made some videos for the band ROADBED...



that was my first effort and i remember people thinking i was incredibly talented with computers to be able to to that... for the record i never believed the hype... in those days of digital video the possibilities were just so grand. and now about a decade later i can't work the fucking basic program that comes with my operating system (which would be I movie)... i use to be able to use it until i accidentally upgraded to a new version. Well i can use it obviously... just not very well and strange things happen when i try to do basic things. Perhaps my computer is fucked, or perhaps they just figure any ass hole still recording to tape deserves all of the problems he gets trying to import his fucking shit art to express his inner hammerhead non important bullshit... spend the money and upgrade... it's good for the economy. aint it time you got rid of that fool tape collection anyway... all the new programs come with auto tune and a bunch of pre-recorded schlep so you don't even need to think anymore.

shit what blog am i in... did i just black out into another rage?
No No No... I'm just kidding it's all good.

last weeks Supper show was great... i chipped my tooth... you see there was a band sound checking so i waited for that and i guess in that time by beard grew like fucking 20 feet because they had to get it right so when i went to go to the bar i tripped over it and chipped my tooth. Ok that was untruthful... it's just that i have played with the truth before so i wanted to see what it felt like and i needed to clear my head of the rage from the computer "incident".

We had a good crowd out... a lot of the old Super Robertson Supper Show faithful came out and ate dinner and drank beer. These are the folks who helped the show survive in the start, and have surly seen me go up there so many times they must have nightmares from time to time.

Tomorrow on April 21st we have a band i need to nickname.. and they are going to play and then they are going to back me up... or at least some of them are. They have a name but i think i need to come up with an alias for them.

I am a man with a number of 2 and 3 chord songs (as well as others with more complex arrangements) and i kind of like that as a possible SRSS format. so if you are reading this and you are in a band and you want to play a show and being blindly led in to foreign territory sounds like a good exercise for you the perhaps you should get in touch with me.

In the end it is all just memories, and memory is cheap... flash memory that is, and i guess that's where the game has gone.

also of note... the Super Robertson Supper Show and hockey playoffs can all co-exist at the Railway Club in Vancouver B.C Canada.

go team go

speaking of "auto tune" i happened to be at the gym tonight and i have to say, does every fucking song have to be soaked in auto tune? Seriously have we completely lost our fucking minds? what the hell is wrong with our species when we keep accepting this nonsense... mind you the same gym was playing on the TV a basketball game and Much Music with the sound off but the captioning on. And of course there are 2 playoff hockey games going on. So i get on a bike and there is a guy on another bike by the TV and i say "isn't there a game on" and he looks back at me agrees and looks at the Much music channel in exasperation... i say i'll fix that and go up to have a talk with the people in charge... he says "you are a good man"... I also might add that i was cheered on by everybody that happened to be by that TV. What i found out was that it was strict policy that in the gym 2 channels will play (every other TV down the club) and having sports on both channels is prohibited... which is nonsense of course because a few days ago i was on the bike beside a fellow and we switched bikes to catch portions of Detroit/Phoenix and then San Jose/ Colorado. i smartly didn't point that out as to make an issue of it because clearly people are napping over this issue, and it's happened before, so the last thing we need is a rage hero making a point that people remember which will remind them of their policy... one TV on sports (basketball seems right for Canada) and one TV on much music and then you can listen to a dance track soaked in auto tune. i don't even have to do the bike i can just stand in the club and get my heart rate up.

the Date is April 13

It's 10:30 PM and it's time to get down to some serious blogging... right now I'm listening to Devilsplender in an effort to provide the proper enthusiasm for Supper Show Blogging... almost a little taste of 13 Engines in there. I remember when i was in University (UWO)in London Ontario and 13 Engines were set to play the campus pub.. this was after the release of "A Blur to me now"... so we were pretty stoked. I had developed a particular dance for the song "Mothra" which was a song from an early release... the problem was that there was some weird law about promoting events on campus and nobody knew about the gig so there was this band playing all your favourite hits and the crowd was like what you might see at one of my shows... not to put down my shows, but just saying i saw the same band months before at Wonderland Gardens and the place was packed, and on this night it was the band playing and me on the dance floor on a table i had moved to the dance floor standing on it with one shoe and one sock off trying to separate my toes as if to be a set of talons on a killer mutant moth... but that was a long time ago.

Last week it was Cameron Dilworth's birthday... well it was actually on the weekend but there was a cake and a celebration. It was a fun show and there was cake.

For the supper show on April 14 2010 we have an excellent guest in a duo from Graham Brown & the Prairie Dogs... and on my end I'll have a fine mutant version of 21 Tandem Repeats ready to flog any horses that happen to be in attendance... there is an outside chance of some other weirdness but i'm still not too sure. It's a problem running the SRSS it's kind of low key so people say yes and then later they say they are not sure but they will try and in some ways randomness can be good but yet in other ways it can reduce potential. In some ways it can be like Nuclear Physics... makes sense on paper but in the lab it could blow heads off... i don't argue i just continue.

wow like 200 posts.. or blogaroo's for that matter

Last week was one king hell show... that mean i think it was good.

Genny Trigo and myself ran through 5 of the songs that we play together and there were some eager listeners for that set. I beileve i mentioned the set list somewhere on one of these internet media promotion tools... and as i walked in a table of fine folks told me that they were excited to hear the song "4 feathers". I guess the lesson is if you dig long enough you might find some water. Nothing is etched in stone at this point but i looks like i might have picked up a few gigs in the future as a result of the show.

Next up was Connoisseur Casino, which is an impossible name to spell but i'll get it right one of these days (for now there is spell check)... they played as a duo and brought fan's in from Castelgar B.C., well Pass Creek to be exact.

And then it was Owen Steel and his pal Mumble playing a drum box who is on tour from Fredricton New Brunswick promoting his CD Owen Steel et al. It was another great moment for the Super Robertson Supper Show... it' on the record that before he went on to become a major player in Canadian music scene he played the SRSS... It's moments like that that make me glad i do the show... i wish he played for longer but it was all good in the end.

after the show i was actually kidnapped and brought to a jam space for what we in the business call a "forced Jam"... the forced jam is a necissary component of any healthy life and only a fool would see otherwise. In a "forced jam" scenario the Jammer has no time to put his mind in perhaps the wrong frame and comes in to the room like some one who has just climbed a mountain and looked over the top to see a beautiful and vast scenery. the person was of course looking down at the surface of the mountain to secure their footing and then suddenly realized that they had arrived.

In my particular situation i had a few or perhaps more than a few beers in me and it was stated to me that i should get a ride home with a man who found a free parking space in Vancouver... i can't tell you where that is for obvious reasons, but what happened was that there was a detour and then a Jam... which is fitting because often jamming has similar features to detours. Detours can be great... i remember on time while on vacation with my family in British Columbia we were off on some road and there were whispers of us being lost and my dad said "Oh let's go down this road, they say it's really nice", which of course was hilarous to my sister and myself as we asked the two obvious questions 1) what is this road called and 2) who recommended it... in the end it doesn't matter. I believe the best way to put it is "Buy the ticket, take the ride".

I got on the drums and had fun... had some trips down memory lane looking at the jam space, and then i led a version of "Nice Bucket" and went ape on the song... i believe i was feeling it, it was fun... shortly thereafter i walked home and next thing you know i'm walking my daughter to school packing up the car and i was gone to RECOMPRESSION 2010. On saturday night at recompression i walked into a jam space and managed to get on the drum kit again and we had a monster Jam there was drums guitar bass keys, violin, vocals congas... it was KING HELL and i believe that late night after Supper Show Jam was just the homework i needed for that event.

Off topic again..

Cam and Jesse tomorrow (wed April 7)... always a good show.

Ok

SR

This is the poster made by Owen Steel who is on his Eh Canadian Tour, March 7- April 12... he is from Fredericton, New Brunswick and he lands on the left coast @ the Railway Club to play the Super Robertson Super Show on March 31... lets show some class people.

Also set to play are Genny Trigo


We are not set to play hat particular song but rather some others:
Rage Hero episode #37
Broken Record
One Little Dream
four feathers
Wishing machine



and the boys from Connoisseur Casino...

Last week what happened... Oh yes.. i remember now it was the Legion of Flying Monkies Horn Orchestra, and the 21 Tandem Repeats sextet. Good times indeed... there was actually 3 singers in the 21 Tandem Repeats sextet... and come to think of it the LFM were a sextet from time to time... hot damn i missed a real opportunity for some wacky t shirts. Two all male bands who are sextets! amber alert baby.

So many distractions on the computer these days... we had a script for the show opening... that is pure professionalism i say.

March 17 re-cap

March 17, otherwise known as St. Patrick's Day a good time to be in a bar... if you can get in, because bars are fun when they are full of people celebrating and having a good time, and that's what happened.

And for once i have to give myself a clap on the back for making a series of calls that were in fact the right calls made at the right time and of course i must also give another slap on the backs of all of the performers who did so at such a high level on this particular night. We worked a ton of people on the stage and kept the flow going... everybody played great and good times were had by all. Extra huge Kudos to Shawn Killaly on the drums who was right for every situation thrown at him and for playing with style and groove and not volume and volume.

And for tomorrow we have Legion of Flying Monkies Choir practice doing that thing that they do and i have the pleasure of being joined by Shawn Killaly and WB again... and who knows others may show up and be worked in somehow... actually come to think of it it's kind of hard not to get roped into a LFM show for good or ill. An example would be the last time LFM played good old Super Steve was trying to pass by the back bar and escape into the "safe" zone otherwise known as the side bar... but just as he was rounding the corner he got the call to get up and join in the crowd participation portion of the song "aliens"



so I'm looking for a good show just like last nights Super Robertson Chatroulette show that had its moments

March 10 re-cap

The 21 Tandem Repeats trio of Super Robertson, Willingdon Black and Shawn Killaly led a jam packed railway club in one of Vancouver's sexiest parties of the year. Although it was not their idea to hold a "wet t-shirt" competition it was that kind of action that the solid grooves inspired.

Word has it that there was a national Pole dancing competition in vancouver that week and i guess through the power of the internet and the glow of the supper show the citizens of the earth gathered for an awesome party.

what a night to forget the camera?

somebody must have some pictures... do post.

today the Land of Deborah, King Ian and the 21TR trio.

March 3 re-cap

Cam and Jesse play a few songs... Jesse say's "it's been a month... what's been going on with you Cam", to which Cam replies "well, I've grown resentful of a co-worker"

Later as they finish up a song a band playing the late night show comes in... Jesse "Hey here is the band... Hi guys where are you from..." "Vancouver"... "Vancouver.... where abouts... we need exact addresses and a copy of your keys, and a schedule of your whereabouts" I don't think the band enjoyed that one as much as i did.

And near the end of the show Cam played a really nice song and then said "That was a pretty song... a bit choppy in places but i did pretty good"

Feb 24 re-cap

Canada stomped the balls of the Russian Hockey Team much to the delight of the sold out crowd and when it was over Chris and myself walked over to the Railway and the first thing we did was run into a "giddy" Willingdon Black who was enjoying a fine scotch. I think he might have even tried to initiate a hug there for a second... Canada had just won Gold and silver in the woman's 2 man bobsled. Come to think of it it was right around then that Canada took off going on a medal tear that set records. It was in the air for sure... so we had no drummer and set up and left the big TV on (no sound) with Super Robertson on one side, Genny Trigo on the other, and nestled comfortably behind the screen was WB.

Right off the top a woman was shouting to get rid of the screen... some folks wanted it... i explained what happened the previous week and we carried on... then another man cam up and said "why don't you take the screen down while you play your set"... he looked concerned. And then CTV news came on and there was Lloyd Robertson so i dubbed the show the Lloyd Robertson Supper Show which sent the crowd into a riot and put the end to the screen once and for all. By then the room was endeared to the show and all you had to do was mention victory to get rapid cheers so there were good times had by all. It was just the three of us so we played all the numbers Genny could sing and then WB and SR played a few and when it was over we got our glassed clinked and filled and the crowd said how they loved the music... then the bar played "Never wanted to be anyone" and some folks were asking the bar about the music indicating that they loved it. People bought drinks and thanked SR... love was in the air for sure. People even offered up seats to our crew.

It's an interesting philosophy although given the great Canadian performances on that day it's hard to compare. AS King Dinosaur said Feb "24 is a good day for Canada", and there is history there... it was a good day for the Supper Show that's for sure. The point i was thinking about was the idea of the TV screen... take it away from people and they hate you, make them take it away and they love you. Simple reverse psychology in a world where everybody values their right to choose (for good or ill)...



Looking back on it February 24th that was the day the great wave came out of the horizon, gaining momentum exploding on shore in overtime on the afternoon of February 28th... and we happened to be in a place to feel all of the good in the Canadian spirit at the moment things became aligned.

next week Cam and Jesse...

always a good time... Super R will go down and perhaps play a song if he gets the call up.

what's it called when you write an mention yourself as if... refer to yourself in first person?

February 17 re-cap

Funny how things go. The idea of having a show in downtown Vancouver in the middle of the Olympic party might seem like a grand opportunity. So much so that i have received a lot of inquiries from people to play the Supper Show on these weeks. I even considered doing a "medal ceremony" of my own... see the Super Robertson supper show Anniversary show clips on You tube for reference. Basically the idea was that you would make up a category and give out a "gold medal" for it... great idea on paper. But there was this thing in the back of my mind that sort of said "OK Robertson how does this golden opportunity blow up in your face"... so i laid back called out my crew of ace friends and musicians and said "lets see what happens". I can't begin to put into words how happy i was that i didn't have a Gung-ho band on my hands thinking that their big break was upon them when i walked into the room... one can only imagine the conversation one might have to have... overzealous band member complaining to me over the fact that they might have to compete with a TV. Remember that time i tried to insist that we have a TV on stage for the Canuck playoff run... people weren't to keen on that one

Bar packed full of patrons, big screen on the stage with CTV projected... a Canadian soon to be presented with a Gold Medal... we rallied at the back still unaware we were without a bass guitar instrument about what we were going to do.

I made the announcement that the Supper Show would go on and the TV would be on in the back room.

Our real problem then became the break to get the drum kit all ready and then to realize that no we did not have a bass guitar, which caused an unfortunate delay giving people an opportunity to re-locate and wonder what the hell was going on.

Given that the sound on the TV wasn't really on, we could have played the whole thing better, and once we got going we had excellent versions of Bob Style, Everything, and Mr. Greenie (with a complete set of push-ups and sit-ups) and we had a special guest (Cameron Dilworth) who played a fine number. We had a few tables of our own "regulars" who came and had dinner, or supper for that matter and they quite enjoyed the snowboard crashes that projected on the back curtain behind us. We pulled the screen up but left the projection on... could be that Pink Floyd moment the SRSS has been waiting for.

Tomorrow Feb 24 should be an interesting night... you see Canada Plays Russia in a quarterfinal elimination game just down the street from the Railway Club 3 hours before the SRSS and myself and another member of "21 tandem Repeats" (may as well work the band name in) will be at that game, so by the time the SRSS starts the City will either be in an insane frenzy or struck down with an new all time low... what to do? time will tell. we have some stuff lined up and i hope to use some sporting visuals as part of the show.

time will tell, and i get nervous just thinking about it.

OK on that note i should mention that the Railway Club is an excellent venue to watch Olympic sports.... good big hi def screen, beer and good pub food... and perhaps the comedy of sports fans being subjected to independent local art.

OK

the poem and what it tells

the following is the poem written by the audience at the SRSS on Feb 10 2010:


Yellow banana on a banana stand
Airplane flies... where it will land
I don't know where it will go,
I just know where i will go
As time goes slippin' through my hands

the Guitar falls and crashed to the floor
the girls come running through the door
And she has way too many Cats!
The dogs are running wild,
who let them out.
And life will open up again
All i thought I wish I had,
I lost it all today
Amongst the glitter glare
of the lights in Robson square
I searched under the patio lanterns

Wrestlested 2 men 1 bobsled
who ever is left in the sled at the end of the run wins
And now we are drinking beer at the Railway
And doing cartwheels
And we came over the long way Just to see

*** GO SLOVAKIA GO***

Haiku's are easy
But sometimes they don't make sense
Refrigerator
We should just sing covers
then we don't have to write songs...

read into it what you like and know that of course i started the bastard with the banana talk. The first table was hesitant to the point that i had to make like a school teacher and stand over them but slowly things built. The Slovaks were into it for sure and you know things are pro when you have a few ladies who had read the poem and realized that the ending that sat should stay so they were looking for a line to insert somewhere in the middle of the poem.

No that's the kind of commitment i like to see at the SRSS, so you can imagine my dismay when the lead singer of the rock band that was playing (for a full hour) tried to get out of doing the whole poem. Totally unacceptable and defies logic when you think about it... the same guy who was there at the first Supper Show back when it was called the Super Robertson King Show... this man came in a different disguise every week to change up the hosting pattern. This man enrolled in a dance class and wrote a column about it when i was publishing my newspaper "the Lynx Paw Courier".

In some ways I'm at a loss for words to why he tried to say "OK that's enough of that... lets get back to something else", but at the same time i know why.

He lacks poem moment experience... and i as the leader I failed him with lack of direction.

The big problem was that he started trying to sing the poem... I have done that myself and it always leads to confusion and despair. The dead give away was he got about 7 lines in said OK lets start from the top again (the logic in the mind at the time, i would guess, was, now I'll really nail it thinking it was going sub par).... So he started again and gave up around the same point trying to slide the poem backstage.

Might have worked except for the fact that i was at the back with the Slovaks, and they felt, quite fairly, that they had paid there dues... So i had to commandeer the stage and finish the damn poem.

Trick to poem moment : Speak the poem clearly so that people can hear their creation... hit the throttle when you are riding easy.

Later on i ended up in a dart game... 501 i think it was called i was getting tarred and feathered people were trying to "double out" while i was still in the 200's... i kept telling them i was a "third period player" and i was just a few good tosses away, and quite remarkably i was right i spanked a few money shots and a double three and crossed the line like a dark hoarse out of nowhere.

anyhoo this is Connoisseur Casino from last week:



Tomorrow February 17 we have the reunion of the Super Robertson Supper Show Stalwarts Willingdon Black, Great White Shark, Simian Special, Super Robertson and some more great folks to play under the all inclusive 21 Tandem Repeats Banner.

FEB 3 re-Cap... and other notes

One of the finer moments of the Super Robertson Supper Show occurred last week at the Cam and Jesse Supper Show, if that makes sense, and it does. Super Robertson was in attendance, there to enjoy the free show and suck back a few ice cold beers, and he was called up to the stage. Andrea SUPERstein, a Jazz singer, and female Super was in the house as well, and she was called up at the same time. The two "Supers" met for the first time on stage and were challenged to define chemistry with respect to the art of musical collaboration. Cam was the man that made it happen, and this is precisley the kind of thing that one had hoped would happen with the genesis of the Super Robertson Supper Show all those years ago.

They stayed smart, had a curtain pull and a quick huddle. Shawn Killaly was there and ready to groove so they picked a few chords ( i believe it was Am C and G) went with a picking pattern and made a song up on the spot called "we are the SUPERS" that took off like a spark in a powder keg. They even managed to work in a few lines about "poetry that you grandfather composed", which was one of the themes of the evening.... what the hell was the other theme? Shit i can't remember, i guess that's why you have 2 themes, one might be remembered. Cam and Jesse called up a number of guests and proceeded to mis-pronounce all of their last names properly, some things never change. That's one of the great things about Nick-names... easy handles.

Tomorrow, which is almost today the SRSS presents "Connoisseur Casino", or i guess i should say Connoisseur Casino presents themselves at the railway club for a full hour show... no cover. Minor details... Shockk tells me that they can rip the "blues" pretty hard... perhaps the audience should rise up and challenge the band to do something that they weren't expecting... it's good for the live "chops". I'm just saying... i mean they are a great band with a lot of things going for them, but can they manage "Poem Moment", or something of equal derangement? Time is the hunter... it's all love, just how you see it.

signed

Earl Parrish

Jan 27 Re-Cap

Last weeks SR Supper Show was about as perfect as a SR Supper Show could get in terms of the fine mechanics and diversity of entertainment. I was also up too late sipping beers until a Raven Bird that serves as a Tap head gave me a good peck to let me know that my time was up.

To start the show Shawn Killaly, Willingdon Black and Super Robertson (21 tandem repeats) played a pretty neat little set of tunes... tight quiet and fluid. There was no bass due to a scheduling error on behalf of our fearless leader, but i personally didn't mind it. On paper and with regards to the low end it's good to have bass, but i have to recall the first band i was ever in... it was guitar guitar and drums... we had excellent rhythm good melodies and smart words... we were also naive, and suffered from that fool affliction where you end up listening to chumps who think they know everything. A bunch of experts told us that we needed bass if we were going to make it "big", and the result was that we shut down a very functional, highly creative unit to try and write bass into the equation. We spent a year trying to find bass players and in the end the two of us (who played guitar) ended up both making "custom" double neck guitars with "bass" and "Guitar". My man put a raven bass neck on a Jimmy Page double neck, and i screwed a Horner headless guitar on the bottom of a "mockingbird" bass.

We ended up making one more record which could go down as one of the more purely insane recordings ever made and it took us the rest of our "chemistry" "Money" and "time" that was left on that particular band and when we were done we failed to record all of our finest material. Was it the quest to sound "full", and be like the rest, to run with the best? Fuck that shit i say. If you are playing songs play them.

The second half of the evening had the Legion of Flying Monkies Horn Orchestra who were also down a man... A bass horn for that matter, but they were awesome. The Drummer really holds that shit together, not that there are any flies on the rest of the crew... just saying. Of course the songwriting is the other thing that the LFM have over your average bar band... it's like the leader (Fire-Man) is in front of a camp fire at a summer camp leading a sing along, but yet the lyrics deal with the here and now of our society. It's hilarious, refreshing, smart and insane... did i mention ridiculous? After seeing like a million fucking bands try to imitate some fucking sound, the LFM is a breath of fresh air... or at least a change for a bit... i wouldn't listen to it at home on my stereo but 1/2 hour show in a bar made my day that's for sure.

Tomorrow its Cam and Jesse.

world class baby.

I pulled this photo from facebook... i believe snapshot took it



speaking of facebook somebody who is a "friend" of mine sent somebody else to the Supper Show and they had a "GREAT TIME", which i guess is good... should i sent them an email asking them if they want to be a FAN of the SRSS on facebook?

What has this world come to? Now the artist makes "friends" with people and then suggests that they should become fans of their product. doesn't seem right... i mean i have never really been much of a "fan" kind of person... i appreciate shit and i get excited about things but being a "fan" is something i don't really understand. I never wanted to be anyone, just want to be like myself.

January 20 re-cap

Nothing quite like strolling into the club and everybody being ready to go... JLS and I put the finishing touches on sound set up while some of the other band members socialized and or watched the Canucks / Oilers game. I went back to get the beers and Super Steve looked at his watch and announced rather loudly that it was in fact 7:29 PM at which time the members of the band quickly raced up on stage as if some fear precedent had been set over this issue. It was kind of like the time i was on Pender island looking out at the water over a cliff and i noticed that all of these sea lions were jumping up on shore like it was a fucking major emergency... which of course it was as then next thing i noticed was a pod of Killer Whales out on a hunting mission.

Perfect.

We started with a strong version of Mr. Greenie... punching hard, not like that sissy version on the album, some might say. The reason we punched that song was because of course our bass player was the sound man... JLS "Dr. Multitask" got a line on the bass sounds while old SR stomped bass on that tune.

Next up Genny Trigo and JLS to join SR and WB and Shawn Killaly. We hung tight on a completely unrehearsed set of songs some people knew on others didn't and sometimes when the person thought they knew the song we changed the key just for laughs. There was actually a beautiful tension in the air... a high wire act of ears pouncing from note to note with lynx like reflexes... sometimes the hair got away, and other times it's bloody carcass was eaten on the snowy white field.


I remember loving the shit out of the end of "Never wanted to be anyone"... i goaded JLS into a bass solo and WB followed and Shawn was on fire. To me that's all i ever wanted out of playing music... moments like those.

I didn't tape the show as it is just too much fucking work on many levels... it is an emotional shit kicking to watch yourself suck turtle cocks week after week. And it goes back to my desire to stop doing the SRSS... just too much fucking work if you become "video guy" and it becomes, i believe, impossible to maintain the right attitude to play the show when you have just spent the previous weeks free time re-witnessing a train wreck you led a team of good musicians into on a lack of your proper preparation or perhaps some insane bad call you made on a whim without really thinking... which perhaps may be some of the charm of the Super Robertson Supper Show, but it's a hard road and one which I'm glad to abandon. The other real problem is that you are the guy taping your show like it is something really fucking important... Mr. fucking hammerhead with the picture breath and his oh so important vanity project.

Don't get me wrong, I'm having fun... I'm just a scientist working as a starving artist observing truths.

Tomorrow Jan 27 we have another version of 21 tandem repeats with The Legion of Flying Monkies Horn Orchestra.

Kick ass folks, we are alive lets fucking live!

Oh by the way i went to that concert with Smash last Friday... Smash won the free ticket give away... Imagine that go to a free show and win a free ticket to another event.. who does that shit... that would be Super R.

The high comedy of that was witnessing what a concert veteran Smash was ans what a concert Rookie SR was... Smash knew what was going to happen before it happened, where he wanted to be content and focused with his decisions while SR was clucking like a decapitated chicken second guessing and re-locating... when you go to a concert you have got to "BE THERE", if you know what i mean. it always helps to know the music... I'll be going to "The Great Lake Swimmers" this Friday and I'll be sure to bone up on the tunes for proper enjoyment... live and learn

win tonight! Jan 20th...

SMASH WON!!!

It was a brilliant final curtain pull... first time in some time the final curtain pull wasn't a case of the back curtain momentum having too much mustard and over-shooting and creating a "stage left" opening thus exposing the flank of ace guitarist Willingdon Black.

Flanking maneuver
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In military tactics, a flanking maneuver, also called a flank attack, is an attack on the sides of an opposing force. If a flanking maneuver succeeds, the opposing force would be surrounded from two or more directions, which significantly reduces the maneuverability of the outflanked force and its ability to defend itself. A psychological advantage may also be present, as flank forces usually do not expect to be attacked.

A larger scaled tactical flanking is called a strategic flanking, where the targets of the flanking could be as large as entire divisions.


Well done sir.

I'll see you there.

time to post

Note to bloggerson's... if you hit the return key after writing your title what you do is publish your blog. Nothing too serious of course, not like you spilled you "dry hopped" amber ale on your mouse pad in the middle of a serious blog or something like that. That would be a disaster... lime cordial in the laser lines is not what you are looking for under the most serious of blogging conditions.

Last week S. Robertson wowed a packed house with his song smithery, and tomorrow, or i guess today if you want to be technical we have a full band featuring Willingdon Black, Shawn Killaly, JLS, Super R and Genny Trigo... should be fine but if it's not I'll be sure to give it a smiley faced PR review because shoveling shit is what you are to do in the business... make it all fluffy and right... take the "a" out of "shat" and turn it into "awesome". What could possibly go wrong? Put it to you this way. Super Steve had to work @ 6:00 last Thursday morning, but it didn't stop him from celebrating last week's full clinic in the back room with SR and JLS until the wee hours of the morning.

I remember at the play gym the next morning i met a woman from the neighbourhood who mentioned that i looked tired that day... and i was worried that she was focusing on the vomit in my beard... Oh come on I'm just joking... It would be impossible to take care of twin 2 year olds while hung over... If Super Steve can be at work by 6:00 AM old Super R can hit the play gym for 10:00... even if his eyes can't yet focus.

Speaking of drinking and blogging and hockey analogies check this:



That's me refereeing a game at General Motors Place last night... or Monday night if you want to get technical... that right those are Levi strauss & CO jeans to go with my Ref garb. The big question is why mention this in the SRSS blog? It comes down to leadership and being on the other end of the line. I played a game of hockey the other week and i took a "phantom" high sticking call that put me in the box for 4 minutes and we lost the game on account of it which left me insanely enraged as a result. Well some of the guys i play with decided to rent GM Place for a pickup game... a very expensive pickup game i might add, and one that was too dear for a guy like myself who is on leave without pay from work so he can stay home with his 3 kids... but of course as a natural idea man i volunteered to ref the game... i would get to skate on the ice and be part of the experience and hopefully help out... make it feel official.

WE decided that if there was a penalty then it would be a penalty shot so that people that paid top dollar wouldn't be sitting... and for the rest we would try to keep the puck moving... if the goalie froze it there would be a whistle and then the defensive team could rush the puck out...if there was a mad scramble we could have the occasional face off... same with off sides... if you blow it then they have a chance to dump it in and clear the zone... failing that it was a face off.

The bottom line was that i did a poor job as a ref. The key problems were timing and positioning. First my instincts were to chase the puck which are not good instincts if you are not wearing equipment. It's more a matter of predicting where you need to be to cover and follow the play. My other major problem was having the balls to call shit and call it when it happens... which is our major SRSS analogy point here. I called a few and took aggressive resistance from the perpetrator which stunned me into being afraid to call shit... the other problem was sometimes something would happen any you would think "that should be a penalty" but then a few steamboat counts would happen and it would be too late to call it, and then you let it go so you have set a standard to let things go, which ultimately I'm all for as a player but perhaps in retrospect it would have been OK to call a few more, have a few more penalty shots for fun and a bit of a rest for the players.

As the Ref of the SRSS i have some similar problems... and in the end it's all just memories.... memory is cheap, would you care to expand on that?

WE had 2 hours and they cleared the ice after an hour... for the second hour i tried to film the action with my camera following the play... i guess we will see what that gave us


Timelaps of the game by Peter Lolley:

week 187

You see when you sign into these here blogs you see how many posts you have and this is # 187 which roughly translates into this blog being 187 weeks old... or 3.59 years old... why mention this? Well i just wanted to take my mind of the whole idea of what to write this week... an old writers block trick... just start observing random things and next thing you know you are pecking away at something that Super Steve will be looking forward to on his no sound computer.

Where was i... procrastination. This blog has been causing me a lot of trouble lately, which is good in a sense because now i am thinking about the show... I have a set list for tomorrow... and hopefully my new story series "Me the Nannys and the Grandmothers" doesn't bomb like a led Zeplin... or i guess i should hope that it does. The Show has to be done by 8:00 PM tomorrow... it was requested and i happily agreed... speaking of that we are now on the Calendar at the Railway Club... MOVING ON UP! (I used the Jefferson's theme song for my version of "Moving on up"). I should really put a hyperlink to the song that would play while the blog continued... except what would happen is i would do a search and then sped the next 5 hours watching old Jefferson's clips and accidentally drink too much and come back to the blog with a bunch of fine points that get lost in translation. The other Bizarre thing, well i guess the first is that i actually spelled bizarre correctly for perhaps the first time ever... its one z and 2 r's... all my life i tried to throw two zed's... sometimes there would be a couple of r's and I'd always try it with one r but the red line never went away. Which is Bizzare (fuck me)... Which is bizarre because i liked the T.V. show Bizarre.

But this Blog is about the Super Robertson Supper Show, and last week Cam and Jesse kicked off their second year of doing the first wed of the SRSS. It was a fine show with some excellent guests... Super Steve gave the show 5 stars and he's the most discerning regular since 2008. During the end of the set a few bands came in with a couple of tonnes of equipment and a drummer asked in mid song if he could set up his kit, too which Jesse replied "yea after i finish my set".

Now, me being at the back of the room gave me a new perspective on the old band walks into the Railway thinking they are about to play their big gig and some fucking lunatic is on stage and panic runs through the folks. In all fairness to everybody he could have though that they were doing a sound check and since there was no drums on the stage maybe he could get going. I know it's always good to get your shit up on stage... it's part of a religious ritual of playing music. Come in get set up... take your time, be at one with your instruments, spatial arrangement, power source, mic placement to pedal arrangement, tuning... I'm starting to feel it!

But at the same time if you play music and you play it live, often there are certain things you are hoping to achieve, and sometimes sharing stages is not one of them, or perhaps it gets lost in the struggle to be heard. Now with the slightest observation skills one could have seen that the room was full of people who came to watch the supper show and who were watching the show when the person did what they did which in some ways leads to a crack in the moral values of the Vancouver Music scene in general.

People want to be heard but they don't want to listen. It's almost a fundamental problem with our whole concept of society. I guess you could word it people want to buy but they don't want to pay... that is if you wanted to identify the same cancer in the human dynamic.

It's fucking midnight what the hell am i doing with my life?

The other odd thing i discovered when i went to the Railway Club website (hyperlink would be good here), was the the Supper show is listed @ 7:00-8:00PM which means I'm fucked like a cheap whore in a red light district. I was focusing on a 1/2 hour show... you mean i have to put a SRSS together at the last moment? Never happened before:)

March 8 2006:

I found this on a disc Snapshot gave me some time ago when i was looking for something else. he gave it to me as an AVI file but i had to knock it down to a .mov file for easy uploading.

Hobbs on drums... awesome!



OK

The last show of the decade= first blog post (or blogaroo) of the new decade

The last SRSS of the decade (December 30 2009) saw Super Robertson, Robert Malowany, and a fellow named Robin who apparently plays slide guitar in Robert's band devilsplender, to play some mellow acoustic singer songwriter kind of stuff and then a full attack from Buffalo's own TIGER PRAWN.


I didn't tape the show which is too bad because Tiger Prawn were awesome as were Robert and Robin... been having some serious computer trouble lately that has been cutting into my ability to render files, which in some way could be a great relief on the time saving front. If i could just find somebody to write the damn blog... think about it.

Next week is the Jesse and Cam supper show which is always a good time and then the week after we have to be done 1/2 hour early so it will just be a half hour show... provided the SRSS can start on time. It got me thinking though... perhaps the show doesn't have to be a full hour all the time... maybe as a listener or show connoisseur for that matter the show could be stronger if it was a more solid 40 minutes... i always end up in these bizarre traps i set for myself... the sequence usually goes i get something in my head in the way it should go and then try to stick to it with blinders on. So for the January 13th show i shall have ready a 25 minute show and just do the bastard giving myself a 5 minute window for errant puffery.

I did finally get the SUPERSIMIAN loaded... i accidentally upgraded to a new version of imovie which for some reason always causes guys like me a whole lot of problems.

We played a few songs from the album How the Tiger got Lionized that we don't often play when we get together to grace the Supper Show. We always play "Bill Von Bacon Tell" and have hit "Disappear" and "Fragile Day" a few times but i don't believe we ever tried "Bob Style" before...



The wink of an eye is hard to define like an unknown beast at the end of the line but the eye can play tricks and it's a long way to shore and I'm feeling sick stuck in a spinning door

By the time i came down i was drunk in a bar, the waitress was sultry i watched from afar she got in my head i thought i was there she left alone and i dragged myself home

The lights are all out the rain hits the roof and the peace of her sleep and me so aloof... now a slip of the foot brings a chair to the ground and the 4:00 AM lights cast a blue glow all around back to my corner my own writers nook i pick up the pen and take a stab at the book but the words are all sloppy and there's mud in my head i don't feel frustration but like a hero instead.

The Dilema

I love all the bands, or projects that i'm involved with... and that's a good thing because you don't make "Independent music" for money if you know what i mean. On the same idea i have never been keen on joining the ranks of the "starving artist" movement... really not my style. That's why i got up and went to work every day for the better part of my life starting with a paper route and eventually graduating to a Mail route with some detours in between. Now of course, or for the next 3.5 years i stay at home with my 3 children while my wife leads the charge to try to cure Cancer in a Lab.

Our life is busy, insane, rewarding, trying, joyous, impossible, special, fun, agonizing, hilarouis... you get the idea. I loath complaining unless it is put in a humourous self depricating way, in which case i encourage it, and i loath inaction and big talk.

It was exciting to get together to play some ROADBED... i remembered my parts, i love the songs, and it is a real treat to play your part in the song to make it one rather than playing the chord progression and singing the words and having people play along... which i have nothing against, for the record.. it's just nice to be a apart of something different and excellent (in my point of view).

For this show i was quite looking forward to it on some levels and for a while i was even excited about the supper show and questioning my desire to stop doing the Super Robertson Supper Show (which happens every Wednesday from 7:30-8:30PM @ the railway Club in Vancouver British Columbia). In fact i have had a number of people try to give me a hard time about this very idea "I don't know why you don't ask me to help you", "You can't stop doing it it's too valuable", "Anything you need any time"... is the usual kind of talk.

For this show there were big plans and lots of talk and multiple scheduled rehearsals... it was going to be the best of the best and Roadbed was a part of that.

On the day of the show as the last rehearsal was being canceled i mentioned to a few people that i would be running late because my wife was running an experiment. She had a "time trial" at 5:45 PM which means that at 5:45PM you look at your cells in and do an observation, assay, and then change the cellular medium. Now the show is set to start at 7:30 so i have to feed 3 kids (the 5 year old is no problem but the 2 year old twins are another story) have her food ready do some clean up and be ready to fly when i can... Keep in mind that i spent the day with three kids in science world and then raced to the printers to get a new batch of supper show posters because for some reason i was feeling good about the show and thinking of carrying on for good or ill...

Now i say this not to gain sympathy because i think I'm blessed... good family, get to play and all that... but in the sprint of the day i got the the Railway 5 minutes before showtime... just long enough to plug in my shit and go... i come up the stairs and see my neighbours sitting down having some food, the room is full... AND NO FUCKING DRUM KIT IS SET UP ON STAGE! OK let me get that... OK i'll get the beers now... OK i'll let everybody poke at me for being late... OK now I'll be engaged in a discussion on "should we do what we planned even though we found a way to get out of the planned rehearsals"... yes lets discuss that right now... perfect this is what i need right now.

By the time we started which was about 7:50PM my neighbours said good bye... you see they have a few children as well and they had a sitter and it being a few days before Christmas, sometimes these days are busy... they still had to go to a toy store, but they were downtown and had hoped to catch the first 20 minutes of this show i have been talking about for 5 years... "Oh yea we go 7:30 on the nose to 8:30 on the nose"

Well at least they got to seem me fly into the club like a maniac trying to take care of everybody, and get a show going against impossible odds. What a fucking joke.

For the record:

I fucking loathe starting late... it's the ultimate insult to everything. I realize some bands and scene sucking fuckheads often prolong their start time to "wait for a crowd to appear"... I don't buy that either... Ruth Minnikin has a song called "You can't choose your audience"... and you can't and in the end you wouldn't want to even if you could.

Who else was in that room watching that Clown show? I don't know and i never will... i do know that an opportunity to show something good became an opportunity to show something bad.

When the show finally got going, all was fine. SUPERSIMIAN started with 3 fine songs that my neighbours would have quite enjoyed... I'll take the blame... part of being the "leader" is to stand over everybody and make sure the do what they need to do to get the show on the Road... Bed time in the city of fallen heroes (that's a lyric i snuck in... first person to email me the song name gets a copy of the CD). I have songs on file but for some reason the "video" computer is down so we might have to wait a few days to see SUPERSIMIAN online... I dig the stuff Sim's got a great voice.

after SUPWERSIMIAN we had a visit from Santa... he did a few songs and on the second one he called me up to do some cursing... good old SR always trying to help out. Swearing my head off on stage is something i'm trying to get away from... i think i did a bad job... my focus wasn't there... too much childcare in this day and i was trying to get ready for the Roadbed show that was happening after that song, and i was also the guy that was solely responsible for the late start and everbody in the room seemed to know that... why do i do the SRSS?

Then Roadbed played... we cut Carolina as we were over time, everybody seemed to have a good time, except for me of course, but what else is new.



Remember the movie "Field of dreams"? If you build it the will come?

"Field of supper" if you build it they will appear with their thumb up their ass and say "whats going on"

You want to play the supper show? Get in touch with me... I'll give you what i can, the big thing being a stage in a good venue in a town where everybody is whining about "there is no place to play". For fuck sakes be ready to go for 7:30... if you can set up in a minute then come @ 7:29 for all i care... play your music, be brief and have fun. If you are doing sound be fucking ready... you are being fucking paid. Never fucking engage me in ideas that you are not fully and absoloutely committed to doing... if you want me to try something with you OK, maybe we bomb maybe not... we try. If this show gets lazy and starts late and goes late it becomes a pain in the ass to everything else that has to happen that night... NEVER PLAY MUSIC AND BE A PAIN IN THE ASS... that's as stupid as it is dumb. This show could be something, but it needs committed effort and accountability...

And if you are at the Supper Show and I'm not there and it's getting close to starting time, there is a very good chance i'm up to my neck in things that are far more important to me, and far more dependent on me than the SRSS... so get the fucking show on the road... if it's 7:30 somebody get the fuck up there and start doing something... it just occurred to me to leave a copy of "songs of the doomed" in the SRSS equipment stash for somebody to start reading at 7:30 PM if there is nobody in the house with the balls to go up and do something else but the reality would probably be that the book would disappear in a few weeks because some fucking peckerhead would think "what's this doing here".

Am i getting my point across here?

do we need a sports analogy?

FORECHECK! force the fucking issue... don't stand back an wait for me.

and tomorrow we have Tiger Prawn! and ROBERT MALOWANY and friend and Super R.

The Cult

The Legion of Flying Monkies Horn Orchestra put on a fine clinic last week... Horn puppets and a few group sing along tunes... in all seriousness what else do you need?

The version of "flying Monkey Cult" was just spectacular, and when i mentioned that to Fire-Man after the show, he was kind of like.... "well it better be we all know it by now". I'm sure in some ways he would see the show as a failure... the kid of failure i might go on about... you have these great expectations and you will always land somewhere short of them. But that's life as an artist and He is an old pro who has come back off the canvass many times before.

It was Fire-Man's birthday but for some reason we celebrated my birthday and i was presented with my very own horn:



It shall be mounted on the wall above the fireplace with the 2 Dave Hind drums on either side for symmetry. It will be easy to remove for proper blasting when the time comes but right now is is under the severe threat of children hands.

The real story of the night has to do with the ride home on the Skytrain when i Ping Ponged into a train compartment with my new horn and there was a large enough and eager enough group of people in the right frame of mind anxious to find more information on the Nature of my horn. I smartly opened with "I can only blast this beast under the conditions of a group song at this time due to an arrangement i have with the Supreme Janitor".

Fate was on my side... or was it just the natural way in which a Cult operates. I had no time for that inner discussion it was time to teach this car the "Flying Monkey Cult song"

Help Help Help Help Help Help An Evil cult leader is using us... UUUUSING us. And then the beat started (some rhythm folks in the crowd) and then i had to teach the other part of the song

Flying monkey Cult
Flying monkey Cult
Flying monkey cult

12345678

By then i realized i had to move into the center of the car so that i could easily group into 3 regions... for the most part they wanted it and i noticed that what happened on the next couple of stops was the those that didn't want to be involved left the car and those that did stayed... by the time we hit my stop we were just about to get rolling so i figured i would have to go long and come back later.... after all it's not every day you get to rock a Fire-Man horn on a skytrain car with everything going fluidly. So we were in Burnaby at Royal Oak when i realized it was time to shut her down... that became clear at about Metrotown, but none the less we stomped down a fine version and there were good times and high fives and hugs all around. Fire-Man would have been proud... so i guess if a show can do that... carry on and reproduce spontaneously on public transit later that evening it has some merit.

It became clear to me that rocking a horn is all together a different beast than rocking a guitar or a bass... it's all about creating the environment... well that's true with guitar and bass but it's just a little less obvious so i guess i should say that instead.

Tomorrow we have our holiday treat ROADBED, SUPERSIMIAN and THE MANX.

OK

a fairly major disaster ha happened

OK so i went to find some of the old SRSS posters... the classic ones with a cartoon version of myself eating a hamburger and the other one with my head with a fork in it, which spurred a massive search for my backup disks which came up empty handed... hours of time which then sparked me to get out the old tower and try to use it as a target dive to grab the file... to make a long story short so that later in the blog i can make a short story long, my main computer is now down and out and i have this paranoia that i reset the bastard by holding the start button down for too long, which of course will have disastrous consequences if i have indeed deleted our family digital photos... good thing i burned MULE that disk of 21 tandem repeats live album that sits somewhere in my house.

So there will be no email for this show... that's right i had problems importing my contacts... what simple tasks using computers do i not have trouble with one could ask... it's just not my thing.

Should have emailed Sim and gone with a new poster, but no Old Robertson can solve the problem... as my dad would say "1 step forward 3 steps back".

Last week was a fun Supper Show with Camille and Jose in Santa suits singing songs... i hit a few numbers one of them being "after the birth" a crude song on the birth of Jesus, which I'll probably never play again and a version of "Nothing is heard".

After the show i ping ponged down to the Roxy to catch "The Manx" and once i cleared security i was able to enjoy the end of their set which rocked hard. We should all go to the Roxy as a pre Olympic warm up... you want to pay to go see some entertainment... well then lets eyeball you use a medal detector on your ass and then scan your drivers licence and question your legitimacy as a potential consuming customer. The real comedy came when i tried to pluck a ticket out of the bowl that was on the desk where you pay and the woman snatched the ticket out of my hand and then moved the bowl of tickets away and placed them out of reach. Often with these roxy deals you get a free beer with your admission fee if you have a ticket... i guess you have to actually have the ticket before you pass the first level of security and the bowl of tickets is just there to say fuck you you cheese eating surrender monkey. Marty ended up buying me a beer which he totally didn't have to, and he didn't even know my problems at the door... he's just a swell fellow. i still feel cheated the the Roxy cheated me out of a beer and tried to make me feel like a criminal in doing so. Oh the time they are a chaingin'.

Tomorrow night or on Wednesday December 16 we have "The LFM Shareholders Report and Puppet Show" which will be a Fire-Man special:




OK we are back in business... there will be an email The computer is back from the dead... thanks to Reeserv on some chat line... hold down Command Option p, r and let it chime a few times.

Jesus Christ it's a quarter to midnight and the whole blog is a lie now that my computer genius has come through in spades... Lets talk about Super Robertson's professionalism for a little bit shall we. The man brews an amber ale and had 3 computers on a table all for the purpose of enriching the Super Robertson Supper Show with some classic Simian Special poster designs. The man runs into a snag but still keeps a focus on the goals: 1) brew properly 2) operate computers 3) Update the blog because you said you would 4) occasionally go upstairs to hush children 5) start working on how to break it to CT that the family photos are gone.

A smart man would now immediately backup those photographs, but I'm on a roll and smart has never really been the kind of word people use to describe me. It could be that i generally hang out with really smart people... which happens to be true, so a person with a reasonable intelligence backed up with actual logic,fine street smarts, creativity and a healthy paranoia of most situations goes unnoticed on the charts of "smart".

Where the hell am I?

My computer works again ( i did the first half of this blogaroo on a laptop, and in the process had to reset my password)... which reminds me Mule send me an email and we can get it set back right again... ie what the hell was the old password? everything is automated which is not ideal for major crashes. Passwords and security codes... there must be some major evolution going on in the human brain these days to deal with this.

December 16 is Fire-Man's birthday and as he is planning to announce on Friday is Super R's birthday... for my birthday i give myself a horn show. Death come quickly! Now that my computer is back up i have received a late email that apparently i will have to bring down a guitar after all, so i guess I'm playing... I'm highly allergic to LFM rehearsals but I'm a master of winging it especially when being in key don't matter.

The Plot thickens.

OK for the record... there is a puppet show written and i thing there are grand thing planned, songs to do. The LFM has made great progress in moving from errant horn blasting to something greater. For my part I'll do what i can which i believe is play a song and announce a few things.