New Hat tunes and the return of 11:11

New songs here:

http://myspace.com/ruthshat

and here:

www.ruthshat.com

I couldn't be happier with this stuff. Do check it out.

Here's what Jack had to say:

"When I put the first copy of all 17 songs Mike gave me in my CD player, the disc length came up as 44:44. Divided equally between the four of us in the band, what we put into this year and what we got out of it comes to 11:11 for each of us."

Cool.

While you're on the myspace page, check out the story from the Klopecs. Maybe you had to be there, but it's pretty damn hilarious that this drunken lore still surrounds us (particularly at that festival). I miss Mutant Pop.

Best video ever

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4625086010116864625&q=lookout

Happy anniversary?

It's been exactly one year since I started this blog.

I guess I could do something to celebrate, but I probably won't.

yours to discover

"Hi."
She had been walking behind me for blocks. It was about 1 in the morning.
"Hey! Hi," she said again, this time slightly louder.
It appeared that I would have to answer her. So much for my precious late-night solitude.
"Hello."
"Where ya goin?"
It was one in the morning. Where would I be going?
"Just home, I guess. Nowhere in particular."
"I was just at my girlfriend's house."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah!"
She was oddly exuberant, and seemed really eager to hang out, for whatever reason. She was wearing a sweatshirt, about three sizes too big, and clearly didn't subscribe to the "less is more" credo of makeup application.
"So, umm...what are you doing out this late?" I asked her.
"I was just working."
"Really? What do you do?"
I can be really dim sometimes.
After pausing and looking me over, she said "It's 40 dollars or 60 dollars."
Oh.
"Yeah, uhh...I'm not really looking for that...sorry."
She looked genuinely disappointed.
"Sorry," I said again. "You know, you could probably get more than forty bucks."
I didn't know that she could. She wasn't all that cute.
She just mumbled something and walked away.

How was I supposed to know? Where I come from, the hookers look like...well...hookers.

caught in the water cycle

My high school English teacher used to say that rain is a sign of purification. But rain doesn't soothe, cleanse, or purify. It just weighs things down, making them soggy and waterlogged. Rainy days are just...heavy. I feel like a wet sponge, and rarely move from the couch.

Thunderstorms, on the other hand, are wonderful little blasts of natural fury. As I lie here in bed, listening to the rain violently pelting my roof, I'm oddly comforted. With each shotgun blast of thunder, I can picture the visual spectacle outside, the motion and the energy. The scene is tangible, something I can see, hear, and feel. Best of all, a torrential downpour of this magnitude doesn't typically soak in. Most of this rainwater will be runoff. It doesn't weigh anything down.

I feel lighter already.

Pics from the 901

Here are some pics from Sun Records in Memphis back in June. That small room with the drum kit is where we recorded, and where all those seminal rock n' roll hits were first put to tape. It's largely unchanged since the 1950s. Sun (http://www.sunstudio.com/) still does most of their recording live off the floor, and the warmth and natural energy of this bare-bones approach shines through in their final product, which you can check out here:

http://ruthshat.com

The other two pics are slightly less historical. I'm overdubbing my guitar solos, then forgetting about the bad notes I hit with the quintessential Beale Street beverage.

From the 313 to the 613

New city, same insomnia.

Instead of living just across the river from another country, I live just across the river from a province who would just as soon be another country.

Random observations made opon moving to Ottawa from Detroit:
*Where is all the industry?
*Paul Martin's house is nice; I'd rather live there than in Bush's house.
*I am NOT rooting for the Senators.
*There are far too many one-way streets here.
*When speaking of venerated local historical figure Colonel John By, people seem to prefer that you do not chuckle at his last name...even if the Rideau does flow both ways.
*The quality of poutine improves as you go East.
*The CFL is really, really boring...but even the Ottawa Renegades could beat the Lions.