Tonight A/V will be performing at Reflections in downtown Halifax with very special guest: Hoju. This show will start around 10:30 and is supposed to wind up by 12:30 after which Reflections will turn into a gay dance bar until 3:30AM but I hope you will be so drunk dancing to A/V that you will barely notice the transition.

I am going to attempt to get drunk tonight. I’m going to set up my gear early, and drive my car away and drop it off, and walk back, and pick up all my stuff tomorrow, when I will be in severe hangover pain, and will swear not to drink again for another two years. Every now and then you have to do this in order to remind yourself of why you never do it. I keep trying to get drunk but after a couple drinks I just sort of forget I’m supposed to be drinking. To all my alcoholic friends, please help keep me on the low road to depravity.

Tomorrow I will be performing live house music for your dancing pleasure at some party in the North End that’s so exclusive, I don’t even know where it is.

You can all relax, Richey Manic is alive and he’s housesitting at my place in Gaspereau Forks.

We found a bunch of old fluorescent light tubes in the basement. First thing we did was have a swordfight with them in the backyard. You can guess how long that lasted.

Afterwards I held the broken hilt of the white light source. Richey held out his arm.

“Cut me.”

In this world, there is a logic, which is hard to argue with, whereby if a man goes around asking to be cut, sooner or later, someone is going to cut him.

So I dragged a white flame of glass down Richey’s arm. And we watched as it burst into blood.

His arms, his face, his chest. Every visible part of his body, crisscrossed with a maze, a dark mesh of scars.

He collects them wherever he goes. Souvenirs.

Every place is a scar.

swordfight-mondayjuly32006.mov [3MB QuickTime]

It’s 7am and I’m just about to leave Montreal. There’s a radio interview scheduled in Fredericton between 5:30 and 7pm Atlantic Time on the Fredericton campus radio station and I aim to be there.

The Action City graffiti from where I usually park on Rue Clark has been painted over.

Has this city lost a bit of its lustre for me? The weekend was still a great time and yet there were a few ways in which this visit was just slightly off. It’s good in the sense that Montreal has been a place I was considering moving to–now I know that won’t be happening.

The big city has an awful lot of stuff but most of it I do not need.

Millions of people for example. Don’t need those.

Shows this week:
Wednesday July 19 @ Elwood’s in Saint John opening for Holy Fuck
Thursday July 20 @ The Capital in Fredericton with The Trick

Look at how awesome this poster is:

M-M-M-MONTREAL TONIGHT

I’m giving Fritz The Cat a lift to Montreal and he’s going to get me on the bill for tonight’s party at a club called Vinyl.

Details in the Montreal Mirror.

So all my Montreal friends–I hope you’ll come out for some A/V and DJs and hiphop.

A/V has been featured on the CBC Radio3 podcast alongside a bunch of people who are way more famous than me. I haven’t had a chcance to check it out yet but try this link, look for podcast #60 ~

http://radio3.cbc.ca/podcasting/podcastplaylist.aspx

Citadel Hill, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Wax Mannequin says: “Fuck gravity.”

swordfight-fukkgravity.mov [2.3MB QuickTime]

soundtrack: Animals Jump

Tonight: playing The Paramount in Moncton with OK Cobra

I have had some tiny amount of sleep since my previous post, sufficient to reactivate the punctuation centre of my brain.

This afternoon I woke up in the early afternoon in St. John’s, Newfoundland to the sound of the Harbour Symphony. Orchestrated music for the horns of ships in the harbour. Pointed my video camera out the window of this apartment and hit ‘record’ just to capture some of the audio. I’ve heard about this phenomenon and can scarcely believe my good fortune and timing at being able to experience it. One of many many highlights.

We also drove past a sign advertising the “Dildo Bed & Breakfast.” Apparently Dildo, Newfoundland can boast of having the most-frequently-stolen highway signage of anywhere on the continent.

Last night I stood on the oldest street in North America. I saw rap star Frankie Deluxe shuffling by in the late night. “Hey is that Frankie Deluxe!”

Remember the track those guys did, “How can you rap in a burlap sack on the bottom of the ocean when the sharks attack.” That shit was dope.

Last night’s show was so good, fifty feet of mic cable took me from the PA system of The Spur all the way out onto the sidewalk of that oldest street. Tonight will be the culmination of it all, live at The Basement–wound up at that place for a late night afterparty last night (my god, we caught the last two songs of a band at The Ship, the dance party was in crazy effect there, kids going off all over the place, it felt like Gus’s Pub times 50, what a scene). I ran into Craig Francis Power at The Ship, a most excellent fellow, everybody in Halifax say hello, he’s been thinking of you.

Every telephone pole in this place has 900 posters for all the bands that are playing. Wax said the city feels like it combines all the history and humanity of Saint John, New Brunswick with all the culture of a mini-Montreal. It’s true.

So many images and memories from the last couple nights are flooding my brain all fast and furious, I’m exhausted but happy and we need to get a bite to eat. I shall now sign off from borrowed internet to say “Come to Newfoundland.”

hi…just a quick note… i’m on tour in newfoundland with wax mannequin and internet access ahs been very limited. it’s 5am and we just played corner brook. getting up in a few hours to drive to st. john’s. hello to all our new island friendst

sat july. whatevertodayis @ the spur in st. john’s
sunday july whatever tomorrowis @ the basement in sst.john’s

newfoundland is fucking beautiful, got some videos i’ll post later ok gotta crash
muchlove

fuck this reads like a shittymyspace blog
p.s. “lol”

I suppose the smart thing would be to not even call attention to it. But a couple people have pointed it out, so I’m just going to come out and say it: don’t be alarmed when you see all the mosquito bites on my hands. There are tons of them. I look like I have some dreadful disease.

I just saw Lukas P. and he said “That’s a reason right there to get away from the country.”

So yes I am in Halifax. I’m crashing at Gerry’s and I plan on hanging out for a little while, possibly looking for a job, looking for an apartment? Looking for opportunities. I haven’t ruled anything out for this fall, including staying out in the country, or moving to Halifax, or to Montreal or Newfoundland.

Tonight at Reflections in Halifax will be a show of radness with A/V, Hotshotrobot and Wax Mannequin. Doing A/V with double drummers tonight, Sean Macgillvray and Jon Epworth. It’s going to rock so you should come down.

You city folks take the internet for granted, but I am excited to have high speed wireless access all over the place so I can upload any little video I feel like. I just got done jamming with Sean at the Rock Garden–outside on the corner I whipped out my video camera in order to namedrop some of my Halifax music scene band van knowledge:

swordfight-halifamousvans.mov [2.3MB QuickTime]

I don’t talk to myself unless I’m alone in the country, so I am silent on this video, but commentary is provided by iMovie’s handy caption function. You’ll just have to pretend some music is playing over top. Pretend I overdubbed “Jaws Of Life” by Wintersleep.

On the remote chance that you have never heard them, go to the Wintersleep MySpace and listen while you watch the video. There, now you’re a fan. I love Wintersleep.

MySpaces all around
A/V
Hotshotrobot
Wax Mannequin
Ermine
Jon Epworth and the Improvements