Hey there, every and anyone! Some time has passed! It has been some time! Lots going on, both hither and yon! And so in the somewhat distasteful tradition of Canadian Thanksgiving, here we are with a good smattering of what we are (uh… were as of a week ago!) listening to! Presently-ish and/or concurrently and/or contemporaneously!

We are sending this episode out to the memory of the one and only Ryan Hoben! Words fail us! Rest in Power!

We’ve got leftovers! Take a plate, yo! #bogmonstermusic

Ryan Hoben and I hadn’t really talked in years, just exchanged a couple of Facebook  messages here and there, with the last time probably around the time that he had first publicly announced he had cancer and that he would be documenting his journey with the disease through his podcast, “Surprise, You Have Cancer”. I don’t think I’m ever really properly communicated to him him what a huge impact he had on my life during those childhood and early teen years when were were still close, but let this be all the more reason to encourage you to tell the people who are imports t to you just how much they mean to you while you are able to do so and don’t be a dumbass like I have been. You see, Ryan was probably one of the first people I would call a friend when my family first moved to the North Side of Fredericton when I was 41like maybe four years old I think? We lived in the bottom half of a duplex on Gibson Street next to the train tracks and Ryan and his family lived upstairs, and we stayed friends throughout elementary and junior high school long after our families both moved out of that duplex. He was loud and wild and usually always the smartest, funniest and most creative person in the room but with no time for bullshit which led him into frequent conflict with all of the authority figures an elementary-school aged rebel would run up against in day to day life. He was friends with EVERYBODY, and was basically every kid in the neighbourhood’s social common denominator and was just as comfortable talking Dragonlance novels with nerds like me as he was running around with the elites of the Devon Junior High school social set or partying with the Neighbourhood dirtbags. His frequent conflicts with the teachers at our school led to him being transferred to another school downtown, where he discovered skateboarding, and eventually the local all ages music scene and a radio station at the university run entirely by volunteers that had a pretty killer all-punk show on Sunday nights. This was probably around the time he and I started growing apart as friends but not before he began sharing his discoveries of this whole other world of what seemsed like prettty mind blowing alternative culture to a bunch of young kids from the much less cool side of town. He was the one who encouraged me to start listening to CHSR and the check out local all ages shows, and he the one person I would credit as being my gateway to the whole punk rock scene, something that hat would have a massive impact on the rest of my life and even though we both took that whole thing in different directions, I can’t imagine what life would be like fire,e if he hadnt done that. Of course he became a teacher because he was smart as hell and loved an audience, and was always the center of any room he was in. Even if we did grow art over the years I still love him for the impact he had on my life and for being a friend when we were young and making friends wasn’t something I was very good at at all, so please please please don’t be like me and let the people you love know you love them while you can. Oh yeah, and while Ryan was living out west in the 00’s he fronted a pretty great rootsy indie rock band called Minto so I’ve included a couple of videos of theirs above. Rest In Power, brother.

I had originally been planning on including Sparkmarker on my list for another upcoming show but have ended up revisiting their music in a little more earnest this past week due to getting news of the passing of their guitarist Kim Kinakin this past week after a five year battle with cancer and kidney problems. The band started in Vancouver in 1990 and released a series of EPs in the early 90’s each named after the person responsible for the cover art (ie the Scallen 7” feature a photo  by noted Ottawa music photographer Shawn Scallen on the cover) eventually collected on the Products And Accessories CD, followed by their sole full length album 500wattburneratseven on Revelation Records’ subsidiary Crisis Records in 1997. They mixed the shouty emotive sounds of bands like Fugazi with heavier chugging but melodic post hardcore a la Quicksand, and were probably the first band that I remember seeking out solely based on a mention in a regional scene report column (in En Garde Quarterly zine). They were one of my favorite Canadian bands during that whole Ebullition-adjacent 90’s hardcore era and I was fortunate enough to meet their guitarist Kinakin a few times over the years, including him selling me a copy of the Neighbourhood Watch 7” he had in his distro for a toonie at a show by his later band Samsarasevin, so it was a major bummer to hear of his passing this past week, not long after our friend Ryan left as well. He had been sick for some time and ever the community organizer ended up spending his last days helping create helpful information resources for folks looking into medically assisted dying according to social media posts from his friends this week. So yeah, rest in power to Kim Kinakin of Sparkmarker, another good one gone and i suggest you crank up their best song (in my opinion) ”Kansas” and pour out a little of the beverage of your choosing in his memory.

One of a couple of newer hip hop artists I’ve been digging lately and wanting to highlight, and this NY duo, part of a larger collective of emcees and beatmakers called Taze Grip, are definitely the less commercial of the two. While Phiik and Lungs (who also makes a lot of their beats under the alias Lonesword) are both only in their 20’s, these two guys channel the spirit of the abstract dusty underground hip hop of the 90’s and 00’s with artists like MF Doom, Anticon, and the Def Jux records roster as closest points of comparison. I first got exposed to their music via a video of the two freestyling hypersylabic verses over a weirdly ambient drumless beat that went viral in certain circles on Twitter over the past year or so. Their songs are short but lyrically dense, with little regard to catchy hooks or choruses, just verbal gymnastics that explore all corners of the pocket over head-nodding beats. They have been making music together since the mid 2010s (when they were;still in high school) and have a pretty great album from earlier this year called Carrot Season that you can find on all of the streaming services so I would strongly advise you check it out!

Ever listen to an artist and wonder “Why are they not one of the most popular in the world?” That is what I feel about Florida-born rapper/singer Doechii. She has been kicking around for a few years new, since releasing her debut EP Oh The Places You’ll Go in 2021, which featured her killer single “Yucky Blucky Fruitcake”, and after a few more EPs and singles, signed with Top Dawg Entertainment, the label that you might be familiar with thanks to a guy named Kendrick Lamar who released the majority of his discography through them. Since that time she has had a couple of songs hit the pop charts collaborating with folks like her TDE labelmate Sza and JT formerly of The City Girls, and even popping up in a guest verse on the cursed new Katy Perry record. The thing is though that Doechii is probably one the top younger rappers going now and deserves all popular accolades she gets in my opinion. Like seriously, her new mixtape Alligator Bites Never Heal may be more a sonic sketchbook than a fully baked album, but her sketchbook is still miles more interesting and engaging than among other artists’ finished works, you know? It would not surprise me to see her really break out as one of the top stars in hop hop in the next couple of years as her lyrical skills and vocal delivery are miles ahead of the majority of her current cohort in the genre on top of her ear for a pop hook and artful choreography skills, so yeah this is a real “get in on the ground floor” situation of someone I could see being a huge artist in the future, who also has a pretty great new release to give you an introduction to their skills. 

I have been really enjoyIng the new single “Run it” by LA-based experimental hip hoppers .clipping, their first new music since their 2021 album Wriggle on Sub Pop, and marveling at how they may be one of the most extreme cases of a member of a long-running band having a side-gig vastly overshadow their main project. Clipping was started by William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes, a couple of dudes doing harsh noise power electronics remixes of popular hip hop songs in the late 00’s, eventually adding a vocalist named Daveed Diggs and creating an edgy, experimental turn on rap music mixing abrasive industrial synthesizers with smooth vocals in a very original enjoyable blend. The thing is though, with the band being from Los Angeles it should be no surprise that Daveed also did a bit of acting on the side, and in the middle of the last decade, after clipping had released a couple of albums on Sub Pop, ended up using his rapping skills to land a dual role of General Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson in the original Broadway cast of a little musical about various American founding fathers rapping their way through the Revolutionary War and its aftermath that was fucking inescapable for a while there (and in retrospect emblematic of a certain kind of pre-Trump centrist liberal cringe on par with “Pokémon Go To The Polls”), fucking Hamilton. This should not be held against Diggs or used as any kind of example of what his ongoing “real band” does in any way, as they sound more like a more abrasive take on the Soul Sonic Force more than any show tunes, and I’m hoping this new single is maybe a herald of some upcoming new full length and I’m looking forward to hearing what this long running act has coming up next.

A case of giving people their flowers while they are still around….Ian Hart, Halifax scene stalwart and internet music archivist. 

With all of the thought on recent notable passings I wanted to show some . appreciation to someone who is still around, who has not only made a ton of great music on his own over the past few decades but has also been doing his part  preserving out of print independent music from Atlantic Canada and beyond online via his blog and YouTube channels, Ian Hart. I’ve known Ian since back in the 90’s when I was a fan of his old bands The Chitz and Equation Of State, shared a jam space together for awhile in the 00’s when I first moved to Halifax  and we were even coworkers for a while in the 2010s where it was not uncommon for him to sneak up to my desk and quiz me on things like “top five favorite bands from (whatever random city)” on breaks. For years now Ian is also been preserving the music of the regional scene via his Atlantic Canada Hardcore And Punk blog site and accompanying YouTube channel with recordings of bands going back decades. Recently he has even uploaded demos by friends of the show like Fredericton’s EI (RIP Drew) and a bunch of old early 90’s era tapes by Saint John bands like Lizard, NYD and Dead Corps, and even an album by glockenspiel-wielding prog-metalers Hemlock who used to let me sleep in their practice space when I would hitchhike to do poetry readings or catch shown in SJ. In recent years Ian has started another channel dedicated to demos from outside the Maritimes, something he has collected over the years of touring in bands like Envision and Risky Business and just being a guy who travels to a lot of shows and festivals, more on the straightedge side of things but still a valuable resource for fans of “the scene”. Hell there are even old bands of mine that I didn’t have recordings of that Ian has preserved on his channels recently. This guy does the good work and I wanted to give him a shout out because of it so here’s to you, Ian, you are doing important stuff.

Being that I’m in my third province within two-and-a-half years, and back in the classroom for the first time in nearly a decade, the life has shown that there is absolutely no telling what’s on the way!

And so, in such pseudo-#deepthoughts fashion let us descend debasedly (sic) and undeterredly to these here track-toids!

Note to selves: I’m going full meta with these comments, which is always a sure sign that I started writing these weeks ago and left them abruptly for quite some time!

The best way to get something done is to get something done! You can thank me (much, much) later!

Here’s what I’ll start with: if ever there was a dude who cares about his audience, it is this guy.

You don’t go beat the boards in the UK with just an acoustic guitar for a couple hours a night absent opening bands or backing musicians, playing two sets of sad bastard music…

Unless you are legitimately a sad bastard.

And in that regard, for those of us who wallow in the sad bastard Americana realm… like, habitually, and at length… this guy has songwriting ability going out the sleeves of his denim jacket.

I sometimes wish that somehow alt country had really caught on as a genre in the 90’s and 00’s more than it did! Rock music would be better! Country music would be better!

This dude, on various songs, and specifically for me, on this album… articulates pretty directly what it’s like to grow up lower middle class or some version of that… and enjoying folk music and punk and metal and pop variously and with great ardor… so, relatability is there… the me who was twenty-five and broke and not up to much of ostensible social value… reaches out and gives the forty-six year old dad and teacher geezer a high five, somehow!

And, since we’re there, the guy writes sharp, incisive songs with top-rate delivery through awesome touring bands and session musicians.

But I digress!

Americana was a thing for me moving into the fall! I have the Apple Music algorithm to thank for even being aware of this at all!

Americana influenced punk music is an awesome genre, and I won’t hear otherwise! I am a deep and abiding fan of the Gaslight Anthem!

Anywho!

I have literally zero direct knowledge of this band! I glanced at Wikipedia a few weeks ago and remember none of it! Essentially, what I get is Oklahoma sad bastard bar rock going full Westerberg-via-Jawbreaker! I love the Westerberg-via-Jawbreaker thing anytime, anywhere!

Basically anyone who digs Hot Water Music, Leatherface, the Lawrence Arms, Avail, Samiam, or any similar or associated acts should dig the shit out of this!

I love the too smart to be dumb, but too habitually-bound to be smart genre of punk music a lot, and these guys do that and then some.

Like if Tim had been recorded for Epitaph and the Mats were from Appalachia instead of middle America. Or some goddamned thing!

This triple tribute LP has landed on me like a tonne of bricks!

I bothered everybody who I both on Instagram by sending them a screenshot of part of the track list!

Not only is every single artist on here highly fucking lit, the renditions of the songs slay in every single instance!

Like, Counting Crows doing Oh Sheena is tied with Mr. Jones and Round Here as world class pop music! With the PMA! Followed by Bruce Springsteen doing She Don’t Love Me Now in the most 60’s soul crooning style you could want!

You have Dinosaur Jr on this thing! You have Frank Turner on this thing! You have Tommy effing Stinson on this thing! Right after a killer party rendition of Death Star by the Hold Steady! That’s right: they put a direct Minneapolis connection into this record!

Rancid is on this thing! So is Agnostic Front! All the punks and all the folkies and troubadours agree that Jesse is among the best to ever do this thing! Lucinda Williams is on this thing! We are all, none of us, worthy!

The Wallflowers are one of the best low-key anthemic pop bands Gen X has! Billie Joe from Green Day is going full California pop! For fucks fucking sake!

The two tracks that I keep listening to the most incessantly are Turn Up the Mains by Alison Mosshart and Wayne Kramer and Stevie Van Zandt and Tom Morello! It is just the most rocking shit in the world! And what it means is, I have to check out Alison’s other stuff! And… Spoon do an utterly nasty, mad bastard stomp through The Way We Used to Roll.

Who even are these dudes? This whole thing smokes!

I honestly don’t know where I’d be without the Lawrence Arms!

I have bugged the shit out of their Instagram admin for the better part of a year! They actually respond!

I am truly a proponent of engaging as directly with musicians and writers who I admire as directly as I can! I’ve had to explain punk tattoos in an academic work environment fairly recently!

I may have worked Alkaline Trio, the Falcon, the Lawrence Arms, and Samiam into a lecture recently… legitimately! But potentially gratuitously!

And so, I’ll direct you to the awesome Red Scare Industries 20 year anniversary comp, cause Beex would want you to!

Here’s hoping they can share the deets on the War on Xmas 24! If such miracles could even be considered!