Music Notes: June 2023
Sparklehorse – “Evening Star Supercharger”
Another track from the forthcoming Sparklehorse album. Fantastic stuff.
Greg Graffin – Cold as the Clay
From 2006, Graffin’s second solo album, and likely a shock for many Bad Religion fans. A collection of traditional American folk and country along with originals with a country rock sensibility. Well worth a listen.
The Vaselines – The Way of the Vaselines: A complete History
Most people, myself included, know the Vaselines from Nirvana’s covers of their songs, which is a shame as they are a great band in their own right. This compilation of Sub Pop contains two EPS and their first album (and yes, the Nirvana songs)
The Dream Syndicate – History Kinda Pales When You and It are Aligned
A fortieth anniversary repackaging of their debut album The Days of Wine and Roses as a 4 CD bookbound set. It’s hard to digest in one sitting as there is so much stuff, much of it unreleased. The original album, demos and EP tracks, rare singles and loads of live recordings from this primal period in the band’s history. Amazing.
Boygenius
My daughter had an extra ticket to the Boygenius show in Toronto last week, and asked if I wanted to go. I accepted, and was glad to have done so. I like some of Phoebe Bridgers work, but hadn’t listened to Boygenius before the show. Checked out the album, and yeah, some good things. Still, I’m not exactly the demographic the band draw. A good show (I like the louder rockier songs better than the slow ones), but the sound as a little muddy. Not that that anyone seemed to care.
Ilsey w/Bon Iver – “Heart of Gold.”
A lot of people will hate this. “You can’t cover Neil Young.” It’s a countrified version buy with subtle electronica too. Curious? It’ll cost you three minutes of your life. (NB, it’s worth it)
The Concert Hall
The Concert Hall (AKA the Masonic Temple) at 888 Yonge Street is back! Saw loads of bands there – The Cramps, the Replacements, Billy Bragg, Sonic Youth, Pearl Jam, Echo & the Bunnymen, the Jesus & Mary Chain, the Beastie Boys, Ice Cube, and probably more I’m forgetting. Then it became a TV studio and who knows what after that. I’ll be seeing Black Country New Road in September.
Lucinda Williams – Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told you
Williams’ autobiography is a must read for anyone who is a fan or her music or rock autobiography in general. It’s a great read (and a good gift), equally, hilarious, fascinating, and poignant. My favourite anecdote is the one where she met Bob Dylan for the first time.
The Undertones – “Mars Bars.”
In 1979, I bought a copy of the Undertones third single, “Jimmy Jimmy.” On the b-side was a song called “Mars Bars.” For 44 years, I though one of the lines was “There’s like a Mars” meaning they (in this case, Patrick Moore and David Bowie) liked a Mars. I thought it might be an Irish expression and Feargal Sharkey had a pretty thick accent. Driving in the car the other day, and I finally realized what the line actually was. Still a great song either way.
To Patrick Moore and David Bowie
And all the other stars
There’s evidence here to show
That there’s life on Mars
Teresa Taylor
Goodbye to Teresa Taylor, drummer from the Butthole Surfers who died on June 18th aged 60. Saw the Butthole Surfers many times, but the most memorable was the first date with my wife. Amazing show. Gone too soon.
Till next month.
Toronto Picks a Mayor (Special 2023 Edition)
In 2014, John Tory, Doug Ford, and Olivia Chow were the three leading candidates for mayor of Toronto. Tory won that contest, and two subsequent elections. Ford turned his attention to provincial politics, first becoming leader of the Progressives Conservatives and then premier of Ontario. Olivia Chow attempted unsuccessfully to return to federal politics, and then taught at the now renamed Ryerson University. for a while. But in February of this year, Tory resigned after his affair with a staffer became public. By the time nominations closed, 102 people had put their names into the ring including Olivia Chow.
Since entering the race, Chow has led the polls by double digit margins, and despite her rivals attempts to cut into her lead, no one has really been able to do so. Enter, her former rivals, both of whom previously promised to stay out of the race.
Ford is supporting Mark Saunders, the former police chief of Toronto whose most notable achievement while chief was to not pay much attention to a serial killer operating in Toronto’s gay village. In addition to supporting Saunders, Ford has recorded a robocall for him.
John Tory, meanwhile, has endorsed former deputy mayor Ana Bailao (and yes, there’s a robocall from him too). Bailao has positioned herself as the continuer of Tory’s legacy, which everyone seems to agree has put Toronto in the sorry state it is in now. (She’s also in favour of moving the Science Centre – boo!)
Both Saunders and Bailao, and also Anthony Furet maintain that they are the only ones who can prevent the socialist apocalypse that would occur should Chow be elected. (On the face of it, only Bailao seems to be capable of pulling off that upset, but even then it’s a long shot) The centrist candidates Josh Matlow and Mitzie Hunter seem stalled around ten percent support, and poor Brad Bradford has slowly slipped further and further behind, along with Chloe Brown who placed third last time.
Around my neighbourhood in north Toronto, there are few signs on lawns. There’s one Mark Saunders and one Anthony Furey, but I haven’t seen any others. Sure there’s plenty of public property including the blitz of Edward Gong signs – his face is everywhere, but he still isn’t polling in whole numbers – so who knows? Is Chow’s support soft or will the NDP pull this off? Will the Tory-centrist vote harden behind Bailao? Whatever the result, things will remain, pretty much the same. Still, electing Chow will really piss off Doug Ford. So, maybe that’s a good reason. I’ll update tomorrow
PS: While I’m sure most people reading this are wondering why is he even writing about it, I’m kinda fascinating by politics and process of elections even I usually guess wrong who will win.
UPDATE: Olivia Chow has been elected Mayor of Toronto. Ana Bailao (whose name I have consistently misspelt , but have now corrected) ran a much stronger second than expected. Mark Saunders, who gave a surprisingly gracious concession speech, ran a distant third. Now we will see what happens.
The Titan and the Migrant Boat: A study in Contrasts (Updated)
Since its disappearance Sunday morning while diving to visit the Titanic’s resting place, the story of the Titan submersible has seemed like a movie we’ve all seen. A group of plucky adventurers or explorers are trapped in a seemingly inescapable situation and running low of air, food, water or whatever they need to survive. Sometimes it’s on a mountain. Sometimes in space. In this case, it’s at the bottom of the ocean. Somehow, due to their own ingenuity, the gang survive, although not all of them, and at the very last minute.
But this is not a movie. And no one is really expecting that miracle rescue. According to official reports, the air would have run out sometime between 6 and 8 AM this morning. That is, if they even survived that long. It’s cold at the bottom of the ocean with an ocean pressure of about 6,000 psi (about two tonnes), and the craft was essentially a cigar shaped vessel the size of a mini-van with a window that OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush (who is currently on the titan) admits he broke rules to make. He then charged passengers $250,000 dollars to ride in what now seems like a cheap death trap which reportedly uses a Logitech gaming console (retailing for about $50 on Amazon) to pilot it. (The last guy to complain about this was fired by the company)
The Titan is sometimes referred to as a submarine, but that’s like calling a bicycle a Harley and saying you can take it on the highway. Passengers on the craft are required, according to an article in the Hindustan Times To sign a waiver explaining that they are aware it is an “experimental” vessel “that has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body, and could result in physical injury, disability, emotional trauma or death.” And I’m sure we all shuddered when we read OceanGate also uses Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite technology during its diving operations. Memories of Ron DeSantis’s disastrous presidential campaign launch of Twitter came rushing back.
Make no mistake, this is a terrible death: Freezing in an icy tomb, starved of oxygen while praying for a rescue that is likely never to come. It is inevitable that ghoulish accounts of their deaths will appear (or most likely a movie) As I write this post, reports are beginning to fill my social media accounts of the discovery of a debris field near where the Titanic rests. Maybe it will be revealed in time.
But in stark contrast to these events is the response to the tragedy of a migrant boat carrying hundreds hoping for a better life in Greece or Italy. On June 13, the boat capsized near the Greek coast, and the response was markedly different. Despite the massive loss of life, perhaps in the hundreds, the bodies are still being recovered, much media coverage has carried the unmistakable scent of indifference. Migrants searching for a better life killed as boat sinks, suffocated in container ships, or meeting some other horrible end. Same old, same old.
Migrants are painted as parasites “flocking over here to have the good life.” And why shouldn’t they? More often than not, the countries they are fleeing to are complicit in the misery they were seeking to leave behind.
Instead of compassion, the Greek government and coastguard (on this occasion – other times, it will be others) did not aid the boat claiming it had insisted it did not need aid, seemingly implying they brought about their own fate. No one has suggested the five on the Titan deserved to die (nor should they), yet “adventure tourism” by its own definition is incredibly dangerous. Paying dubious elements for passage on an overcrowded and likely unseaworthy craft is also dangerous. One group because they had the money to experience something few humans could dream of experiencing (much like journeying to space), the other trying to escape something most people would not want to experience. Yet sympathy is only extended one one group.
It’s easy to say that as capitalism continues to cannibalize itself, these kinds of events will occur again and again. It’s easy because it’s true. As the social conditions that produce them remain, so will these tragedies. Only by the establishment of a different, a completely different, social order, will these things cease to happen.
Update June 23.
After yesterday’s post, reports came that debris from the Titan had been discovered including the nose of the craft. Initial indications are that the craft suffered a catastrophic loss of cabin pressure leading to an implosion which killed all of the people on board instantly. No doubt more will be revealed, but that death was surely better than the one that lay ahead for its passengers.
Still, when David Lochridge, OceanGate’s director of marine operations was fired in 2018, he alleged it was because he had raised questions about the safety of the craft’s shell. He further maintained that while the submersible was designed to go as far as 4,000 metres undersea, the viewport was only certified for 1,300 metres, and that OceanGate was not prepared to pay for a more expensive model.
In a Smithsonian Magazine puff-piece on OceanGate founder Stockton Rush in 2019, it was noted that Rush objected to the Passenger Vessel Safety Act of 1993 because it needlessly prioritized passenger safety over commercial innovation.
You could not ask for a better definition of capitalism’s attitude toward human life and its need for profit. Meanwhile the bodies of the Greek coast still wait to be found.
Lenin of the Rovers
A reply to my piece on selling leftist newspapers referenced Alexei Sayle. Reminded me of the old BBC radio series Lenin of the Rovers. If you fancy a bit of football comedy with countless communist references, this is for you.
Selling the Workers’ Press – A Brief Remembrance
I’ve spent a lot of time at demonstrations or outside public meetings selling political newspapers or handing out leaflets, and pretty much disliked most of it.
Let me set the scene. A lot of events in Toronto start at Queen’s Park. It’s in the downtown core, it’s the provincial legislative, and it’s on the subway. Typically, me or some other comrade would position ourselves at the north west subway exit, along with a number of other leftist newspaper sellers, hoping to snag the the people coming out of the subway and convince them to buy a paper. You saw the look: ” Oh no, not this lot again.” Or perhaps it was just a member of the general public. There was a look of either confusion or horror or both which came over their face as a phalanx of seemingly deranged lunatics tried to sell them a Socialist Worker, Action, Voice or Challenge, or perhaps a Fightback or a Workers Vampire or most bafflingly a 1917 .(Which was the one I sold for the period when I was an active newspaper seller)
The pitch line was usually the same: “Workers newspaper”, “Socialist press” or occasionally “Communist” or “revolutionary newspaper.” Some appealed to the aims of the demonstration “Defeat [whoever was in power] by workers action and…by buying our newspaper.”
Still…
I suppose the real reason I disliked it was that I wasn’t particularly good at it. I was never a very good salesperson. I was also repulsed by the nastiness of some of the left sects – there were more than a few who if they couldn’t make a sale would try to wreck yours by acting crazy. (You know who I’m talking about, and that path wasn’t that far for them to travel at the best of times).
Even though I’m mocking seller, there was a certain fondness for the action. I remember I would come home from a demonstration with my back packed with unsold copies of our press along with leaflets and copies of others organizations papers. (Life hack, if you don’t want to pay for other groups’ press, hang around till the end of the demonstration. Many of the papers will be littering the streets. Some people foolishly believed they could get rid of these groups by buying the press – that never worked)
But those days seems a long way off, and the public sale has declined.
The main enemy of a left newspaper? The internet. With it, you could potentially reach a far-wider, albeit disembodied, audience. But you’re also cut off from your audience in a direct sense. The dream of a seller was to engage in conversation, make a sale, GET A PHONE NUMBER to continue the conversation where you could persuade them to join the group and…sell the paper at the next demonstration. Er…
And on a certain practical level, why buy the paper at all? I read the Workers Socialist Web Site (published by the International Committee of the Fourth International) every day, whereas I seldom read their now discontinued weekly paper the Bulletin. At its peak, Red & Black Notes had close to 100 subscribers / trades. I had a number of people who sent more money than was required, who regularly bought from me at demonstrations or at book fairs, or mentioned they’d visited my website, but I never came close to breaking even. And every year postage seemed to go up. I wound up R&BN when I joined IP, but decided to start this blog. It costs nothing, but there are people from all over the world who read the things I publish (along with a dizzying amount of span), but oddly enough fewer readers than R&BN. Maybe if I wrote more about the Spartacist League…
Another example of this trend is my old group International Perspective. During the time I was a member, we used to produce a journal twice a year. It leaned toward a theoretical bent, and was often a tough sell at demonstrations (at least for me, but as noted above, I wasn’t a great salesperson), but at bookfairs, it had a regular readership.
At some or other conference, it was suggested that we focus more on the web site, and produce a “greatest hits” print edition once a year. It was never formerly agreed upon, but we just sort of stopped producing the print edition. (the last issue was published in the spring of 2016) BTW, I still think the idea of an Endnotes style book edition once a year is a good one. How about it comrades?
A more immediate issue was Covid. Not only did it drain activists, but it presented fewer opportunities to sell. Demonstrations became less frequent, public meetings became virtual. Many left groups seemed to stop published altogether.
Two weeks back, I was on a demonstration in Toronto in opposition to the Conservative government. There were three feeder rallies which converged in the centre of Toronto and marched to Queen’s Park. The event was between three and four thousand (it was hard to get an accurate count), but the thing that struck me was just how few people were selling newspapers. True, when we arrived at Queen’s Park, the timid Trotskyists of Socialist Action and Fightback were there to greet people although they didn’t seem to have bothered to walk the distant to get there (guys,this makes you seem more like parasitical hucksters than usual). Maybe things will change.
A newspaper reflects the priorities of the organization and to a certain extent the interests of its readership (there’s that old masses and vanguards argument I’ll get to another time). I can’t see myself being a part of another organization (at least for the time being – you never know!), so the odds of me selling any newspaper again seem slight. So there’s relief, but more than a little nostalgia.
Notes from Underground 