SRSS 6 Year Anniversary Recap

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...

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/id​436188791

July 6 re-cap

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

OK this is getting dark:

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

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

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

This weeks guests are...

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

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

This weeks theme is Graduation.

Hope to see you there,

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

Game 7... No Super Robertson Supper Show

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

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

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

So what happened at last weeks Super Robertson Supper Show?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

June 2 Re-Cap

check this:


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

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

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

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



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

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

King Dinosaur filmed us live at victory square last Sunday:



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

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

May 25th re-cap

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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...

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".

 

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...

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