Welcome to Episode 29 of From the Void – CKMS’ Experimental Music Show
Tonight will feature Mike Patton, john Zorn, Secret Chiefs 3, Estradashpere, Orange Tulip Conspiracy, Atomic Ape, Free Salamander Exhibit, Boris and Noxagt.
ALSO!!! I released ANOTHER new album. Eye, Robot Vol. 1 Spotify,You Tube and Bandcamp or where ever you stream your music!
This week’s show features music not heard previously on this show, selected from the #PunkandNewWaveClassics tournament on Twitter that can be found on the “Everything 80’s” feed curated by @Oliver_Shergold. Check it out by clicking here!
Today’s show is a mix of protest music, KWCon music by musicians from Waterloo Region, and some live reports from the #NoFighterJets protest rally outside MP Bardish Chagger’s office in Waterloo.
Bob Jonkman introduces the show, talks about the #NoFighterJets protest rally in Waterloo, lists the KWCon musicians in the playlist today, and introduces the first song.
Tamara Lorincz at the Hon. Bardish Chagger’s office
Protesters at the #NoFighterJets rally
Photos courtesy of Tamara Lorincz.
At @BardishKW's office in #Waterloo, Govt of #Canada shouldn't buy 16 F-35 fossil fuel-powered fighter jets for $7 billion that's $430 million/warplane, when homeless people are living in tents in our community & we need investments in healthcare & climate action. #DropTheF35Dealpic.twitter.com/aKOeFC7N7H
Don’t you like the way I move when you see me? Don’t you like the things that I say? Don’t you like the way I seem to enjoy it? When you shout things but I don’t care
Public Service Announcements: Doug Ford is forcing unsustainable urban sprawl on municipalities.
11m27s
Thanks to listeners at CFRU-FM in Guelph! The concerns of youth with climate change. Henriette tells how she got involved in social and economic justice. The organizations in Waterloo Region involved in climate justice: Faith groups, a group to write letters to the editor, there’s an e-newsletter that goes to over 100 members, TransformWR workshops and webinars, and Bill-23 rallies. And Henriette still has time for other interests like music! Introducing the next song, in recognition of climate anxiety affecting all ages.
Public Service Announcement: Doug Ford is threatening to override our sustainable Regional official plan.
23m20s
Kevin gives his background, how he got involved in environmental justice. How Waterloo Region set up its own environmental protections. Kevin helped set up a greenbelt area in Europe, from Finland to Bulgaria. Now the provincial goverment is coming to take away Waterloo Region’s protections. Kevin still has time to raise his children in the outdoors. Kevin introduces the next song.
Kevin has seen Sarah Harmer in concert, Henriette hasn’t, but loves her music. Jeff introduces the next PSA.
35m28s
Public Service Announcement: Despite our unique global success…
35m58s
Henriette explains how these PSAs address the issues in fighting Bill 23 in three ways: 1) There are real-world effects of political decisions, eg. housing shortages. 2) These real-world effects are not just affecting people, but creatures and whole ecosystems. Bill 23 is undoing the work that has been done to see how interconnected we really are. 3) Bill 23 is undermining trust in government and politicians. Without trust the fabric of society comes apart. Kevin says over 41 individuals and community groups provided funding for producing the PSAs. Fighting Bill 23 has brought together groups that have never worked together before, that were at odds with each other over other issues. The previous PSA was specific to Waterloo Region like our Regional Plan, a bold document which has set the tone for the entire region. It has done things that were rarely done before, eg. the Blue Box program, the LRT, the Countryside Line. Other areas like Hamilton are now emulating our success, eg. the LRT and stopping urban sprawl. Our plans were unanimously supported by the Region’s municipalities, but the province just overrode that by requiring growth on farmland and the Greenbelt. Henriette acknowledges the support of the Small Change Fund, how it has enabled their group to communicate broadly and deeply about important matters. Kevin says we’re lucky to live in this community with groups to bring their resources together: Kevin’s environmental contacts, Henriette’s faith-based groups, Jeff’s agricultural people. The entire community needs to be involved, there are opportunities for everyone, eg. submitting comments on the Environmental Registry of Ontario to give suggestions indicate concerns. Some consultations are getting tens of thousands of comments from people across the province, almost unanimously opposing these plans. Henriette says Indigenous leaders are saying that the provice has not exercised its duty to consult with First Nations. She finds it inconceivable that governments can trample over people’s rights. Kevin is disturbed by the lack of response — protests are held in front of empty offices, where the politicians and staff have been told to not come in to work to avoid the protests. Henriette introduces the next song, which provides hope that another world is possible.
Public Service Announcement: Doug Ford has just used his majority to force Bill 23 into law.
50m30s
Kevin brings a positive message, other countries are making good environmental decisions. Henriette gives tribute to the young environmental leaders, Indigenous leaders, and land defenders from East Africa, and partners from Kairos who spoke at COP27 and the biodiversity event in Montréal. Henriette stongly encourages everyone who has been hesitating to get involved to do it now: Write your MPP, write a letter to the editor, submit a comment to the Ontario Environmental Registry. Do it now. Contact, reach out, learn, and get involved. Don’t delay.
Henriette and Kevin tell us what they will be doing in the next two hours, two days, two weeks, two months, and two years, Jeff says goodbye, and the end credits play.
CKMS Community Connections Hour One airs on CKMS-FM 102.7 on Monday from 11:00am to Noon, and Hour Two airs on Friday from 3:00pm to 4:00pm.
Welcome to Episode 27 of From the Void – CKMS’ Experimental Music Show
Tonight will feature Mike Patton, Electric Wurms, The Octopus Project, TABACCO, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Modest Mouse, Talkdemonic, Oxbow, St Paul and the Broken Bones….Deaf by Design
ALSO!!! I released a new album. The Carnival Creepshow! Spotify,You Tube and Bandcamp or where ever you stream your music!
Walk out to winter, swear I’ll be there Chill will wake you, high and dry You’ll wonder why Walk out to winter, swear I’ll be there Chance is buried just below the blinding snow
Talking with Brian Chris about the Christmas album, the book that goes with it, and the origins of the song. Introducing Chris Collins, Brian’s producer. Talking about Brian’s trip to Nashville, and the song he performed there, Now Or Never.
Chris Collins performs the vocals on Now Or Never. Talking about Chris’s studio, Sonic Alley Studios. Discussing Brian’s process for writing songs, and producing them.
Talking about live performances, needing an agent, connections in the music industry. Chris Collins has written music too, but hasn’t recorded any. Working with other artists, like rapper Li’l White Lie. Shoutout to Street Hop for local Hip Hop music. Talking about some of Brian’s older music. Introducing Something About Christmas.
Talking about Brian and Chris’s musical background. Brian’s musical instrument collection and album and CD collection. Learning music from the Internet. “Practice makes permanent. Perfect practice makes perfect.” Chris has been collecting instruments in his studio, and keeps stuff like lava lamps around for inspiration. Brian gets inspiration from everywhere.
37m00s
Talking about Brian’s books. They’re inspirational books for kids. Brian reads an excerpt from Play Your Way, illustrated by Brian’s wife, Brittany Barr. The Broken String is the first book Brian wrote. Brian gives a synopsis of the story, and his aspirations as an author.
Chris’s son heard the lyrics “It’s the worst time of the year” and didn’t realize that it was a joke. But Brian says Christmas is tough, and hopes this song resonates with that feeling. Introducing Special Stuff, and Bob gives the end credits.
Andrew explains the setup of the installation Music For Trees on Roos Island in Willow River Part for the Open Ears festival this past spring. The origins of Music For Trees originated in an idea to emulate the sun and the moon. Synthesizer isn’t Andrew’s main instrument, that’s the harp. There’s 47 strings on a harp! And some have 50 strings! And seven foot pedals! The harp isn’t a chromatic instrument, so you use your feet to access the black notes. Other harps use levers. Andrew has four harps, the pedal-operated 47 string harp, a 26 string wearable harp, and two harps he built from a kit. Those are good to have for kids when Andrew is teaching. The strings on a harp are colour-coded, Cs are red and Fs are blue.
17m13s
This Garden is Andrew’s album of music primarily written for harp that sets four poems to music, poetry by Eli Sokoloff Harris. This was the capstone project for Andrew’s degree. It’s available on Bandcamp! Andrew likes quiet, prefers hearing the sounds around him (but not cars). Does Andrew listen to his own music? He writes music out of necessity, when nothing else scratches the itch. He looks for music that doesn’t pollute with its soundwaves. Music that slows things down. As an example, You Always Loved The Water.
Bob thought it was Andrew doing the narration, but it is Andrew’s friend Eli. When Andrew was looking for material for his grad concert, he asked Eli to send him some poems. It reminded Bob of a Vangelis piece called The Little Fete. Andrew’s thoughts on the piece today are not the same as when he wrote it, or heard the poem for the first time. It talks not so much about the garden itself, but what happens between people.
36m38s
Bob and Andrew met at the Rural Rainbow Ride in response to a Woolwich councillor making some “disgraceful remarks”. The ride was so the city community could show that they support the rural Queer community even if they don’t live there. As with all activists, Andrew thinks he should be doing more; while he attends events, the Rural Rainbow Ride was the first thing he organized.
43m01s
Andrew is no longer on social media. It didn’t feel authentic, like he was trying to create a gobal audience. Andrew is trying to care about everything, but he can only act on so much. Geting off the Internet gives him more control over where he’s acting. Bob says the Internet is not Real Life, but Andrew says digital things are real, but which ones? The Internet is still new, and the odds that we got it right on the first go are not very high. Perhaps we need some public control over the Internet, because when we leave it up to profit it doesn’t serve the public. We need access to the Internet the same way we need access to electricity. Things that happen on the Internet are real. Meeting online friends in real life is also real, but in a different way. Being off social media hasn’t affected Andrew’s ability to market himself, he tries to be present in the community and talk to people, tries to stay hyperlocal. The pressure is trying to keep up with social media, to post daily, but Andrew is trying to make art, he can’t keep up with that or it becomes just “content”. Andrew had a concert at the Conrad Centre For The Performing Arts with support from the City of Kitchener as part of the NUMUS 2022-2023 season. Not so much a concert as a collection of installations all in one space. Andrew will try to make this project available digitally, on his web site “this fall”…
53m12s
Bob gives the closing credits, and we go to the end of the podcast with Postlude (I love the way it flows)
I had a one-way ticket and a little radio
I turned it on, heard the sound from twenty years ago
Somebody smiled and said, that’s the only way to go
He died at twenty-one, now nobody’s innocent in
Memphis! So where the hell is Memphis?
Loon Town is back in the studio! Bob Jonkman talks with Danielle Savage, Nic Hyatt, and Dave Lacalamita about their tour of Ontario and Québec, making their video for Silver Flowers, musical collaboration, and writing harmonies. And Loon Town performs some songs, Live, On-Air, In-studio!
Quick band intro. Reviewing the Ontario/Québec tour. Discussing Great Sorrow lyrics, and how collaboration works. The structure (and length) of the Slow Space album. “Bootleg” music from Dave’s previous visit. There’s some material for a new album, but for now concentrating on performing the current songs together. Nic explains why some songs didn’t make it to this album; they’re conceptually different. Discussing the artwork on the website and the album cover. Talking about the video for Silver Flowers that was shot in Québec the past weekend.
“It ends abruptly, right here.” Talking about the rhythmic structure of Silver Flowers. Shoutouts to the video production crew, discussing the complexity of shooting video and recording an album. Getting together again in the spring for more songwriting. Spread across Canada, it’s like Loon Town has four hometowns, with a home crowd at every stop.
Bob resists the impulse to sing along. How Ice Cream Shop was developed. Sharing collaborative works to perform them solo — is there a “proprietary” feeling to the songs? No, the members are attached to the results but happy to play them; there’s a generosity to it. Talking about rights and songwriting credits: Everything is shared equally. How about the public “sharing” Loon Town music? It’s unavoidable, and they don’t mind as long as it’s from the ethos of sharing, but not for profit. The music is copyrighted, but they’re open to sharing if someone asks. Drop them a note! Cover versions of songs are equally valid. All band members have jobs in the music field: Dave is a music teacher, Nic runs a record label, Danielle does sound installations, and Milli is a full-time drummer. But they’ve all packed boxes and cut staples in their off-season. But this month of touring has been a full-time music gig, and it’s slowly increasing.
How Black Crow here differs from the album track, and it’s more upbeat when played live with the band. Bob thought Dave’s guitar had been restrung, but it’s still wound nylon strings making a slidey effect between notes. Seeing what a song lives as — embracing who’s there, what instruments are there. The first album Exit Strategy was different from Slow Space, these songs have all existed as “B” sides or demo versions. Collaborating by sharing files might be time-consuming, with the danger of losing the creative spark. But Danielle says there wasn’t a lot of waiting; everyone had a shared repertoire and worked on it. There was enough material that if there was a lull they could pick up something else. Did some “distance residencies”, took a week to spend time writing together, called each other to work on material. Sometimes a song comes all at once, sometimes it can take years to finish the last 10%. The last 25% is the hardest. All members have other collaborators for different projects, creating different music. Lots of new material for the Radio Waterloo library! Shoutout to campus and community radio station, where interesting music is being played all the time. There is Loon Town merch, a vinyl disc of Slow Space! Hand-delivery by a band member if you’re in their hometown!
Pick Up The Phone has three-part harmonies, how do you write harmony? Dave is a natural-born harmonizer. There are techniques, but sometimes they just try stuff out.
Bob gives the end credits, and Dave Lacalamita plays us out.
CKMS Community Connections Hour One airs on CKMS-FM 102.7 on Monday from 11:00am to Noon, and Hour Two airs on Friday from 3:00pm to 4:00pm.
Hide all the antiques
And put all the paintings away
Now it’s my turn
To heat up the RCA
Open up the fridge
And put all the food to the rear
Make a lot of room
For another couple boxes of beer
Welcome to Episode 21 of From the Void – CKMS’ Experimental Music Show
Most of what I’m playing tonight will focus on the Rock in Opposition movement.
Tonight will feature Mike Patton as always, Debile Menthol, The Book of Knots, Estradasphere, The Residents, Weirdorje, Eskaton, The Thinking Plague and the Free Salamander Exabit.
Introducing Dave Lacalamati from Loon Town and his travelling bandmates. Introducing the band: Danielle Savage from Penticton, Nic Hyatt from Whitehorse, and Milli Hong from Montréal. How they met, how they manage to have a band scattered across Canada. Using Ableton to collaborate remotely. Upcoming shows: Cameron House on Thursday; at Sephora Catana’s studio in the old Boehmer Box Factory building in Kitchener. In Ottawa on Saturday, and Montréal on Sunday. Then band members are doing some playing and writing together, playing in Sarnia a week later, and then Dave follows the others to play in British Columbia. This is the first tour and playing live since the start of the pandemic. And the Slow Space album has just been released on 4 November. Going to play a track from that now.
Identifying the genre of Loon Town music, Dave identifies it as “Synth Pop”, the Exit Strategy album is “Psych Synth Rock”, more heavy guitar, busier drumbeats. Dave is playing an acoustic guitar today, and composes on guitar with a little bit on piano. Nick, Danni and Dave are all songwriters, one goal of the new album is collective songwriting. Bob is surprised that composing is sometimes accidental. New songs are shared with the band by audio clips, written out only to figure out details. Not all the chords have names! Dave and Nick like improv, Milli is a jazz musician. Hoping to incorporate some improv in their live performances. This will be the first time all four musicians have played together in person!
The album version has differences from the live version. Examining Dave’s guitar, which he uses to write music. Talking about how the rest of the band composes. Doing some group composition now that the group is together. And shooting a video when they’re in Montréal, something “upbeat”. Dave is a music teacher at St. Mary’s high school, his students describe all music as “upbeat”. Composing professionally helps teach music to the students; some teachers lack that context. Dave teaches “Music and Computers”, using computers to record, compose. There’s a computer lab, not unlike the CKMS-FM studio. Maybe get some student compositions on the air! So much local talent and local music being produced. A little local community radio history. Dave taught drama during the pandemic, and plays a song about the process of “getting out of your head” and being a bit over-confident.
Maybe this song was autobigraphical? Dave didn’t write it with himself in mind. It’s a fun song, and the chords are simple. Talking about what’s happening in the world of education today. Kids are not in school due to an education workers’ strike. Discussing the government’s treatment of hard-working but low-paid workers, which has said that human rights don’t matter here. Dave knew education minister Steven Lecce from their university days, not surprised he’s a politician. Does Loon Town have protest music? Not as such, there needs to be a chantable chorus. But all members of the band are politically engaged, and comment on the state of the world; music is a way of recapturing some of that power. Recap of upcoming performances. Discussing the Loon Town website, a animated map of Loon Town. Clicking on the icons will play music. After Toronto and Kitchener the tour continues to Ottawa, Montréal, Penticton, Nelson, and Vancouver. There are some unused songs for a new album. But Dave is interested in pursuing music with specific sounds that exist in the band. Dave would like to revisit the sound of Exit Strategy, there’s a lot of energy in that album. Dave has done a bit of solo work, an improv piano set, and has been playing a bit with Alison Corbett and Grady Caplan. Dave introduces the last song.
Discussing Great Sorrows, recognizing people’s needs over the last few years. Talking about a future CKMS Community Connections episode with Loon Town, and Bob gives the end credits.
CKMS Community Connections Hour One airs on CKMS-FM 102.7 on Monday from 11:00am to Noon, and Hour Two airs on Friday from 3:00pm to 4:00pm.
Once I knew a man in love with money He said it solved his worries and his cares Then one day, I heard him say Something I hear everywhere “Tell me now to find true love and happiness In the present day”
https://nofighterjets.ca/
https://worldbeyondwar.com
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