wavelength

	November 2001 Radio Berlin Femme Fatale Bodega Longitude Signe Miranda 122 Greige Cool Trout Basement Snailhouse Fembots
	RADIO BERLIN WAVELENGTH #88 Sunday November 4, 11:30PM Purveyors of: The "new" in new wave web: www.thewaxmuseum.bc.ca/twmu/radioberlin/ email: radioberlin@thewaxmuseum.bc.ca Tell us about Radio Berlin, who what why where when. We're a four piece band from Vancouver BC. Jack Duckworth (me) plays guitar, bass, keyboards and sings, Chris Frey plays bass guitar and sings, Warren Hill plays keyboards and Josh Wells plays drums, cymbals and synth percussion/drum programming. We started the spring of 1998 and played our first show in Sept 1998 with The Audience (now the band Vue on Sub Pop). We started mainly as a reaction to the current drought our scene was in: there were a lot of hardcore/emo bands around at that point and we wanted to try something different and challenging. Plus we all in the band had a mutual affection for the large gamut of post-punk/new wave bands from the early '80s and we thought using that point of reference would allow us to go in a new direction. Who is the Patron Saint of New Wave? And why? That's a hard question to answer. I guess in a more popular view of the subject, bands such as Ultravox and Devo were the more recognized forerunners of that style, but people's opinions will vary. Those bands were to some degree influenced by bands before them such as Kraftwerk or Neu! and then those bands were influenced by bands before them. There were scenes happening in the late '70s that were more recognizable as startings for new wave, like London and New York, so I'm just going to say the scenes in those cities as they are the most recognized. If Canada is charactized by distance, and Europe by proximity, how does that bode for Radio Berlin world domination? Living in Vancouver BC is pretty awkward for touring. In terms of just touring Canada we are pretty isolated from the prairies and eastern Canada, divided by hundreds of miles of mountains. And below us are cities like Seattle, Olympia, and Portland but they're in the U.S. so there's customs and the border to worry about. So yeah, we're in an awkward spot for short band trips and stuff like that. I mean, we get out there and tour like most bands and I think people are starting to hear about Radio Berlin. There's just the distance factor on the west coast (Canada and U.S.). Cities are further away. On the east coast and in the midwest, cities are relatively closer and you can play more cities and cover less ground when touring. If Radio Berlin could eradicate any other style of music, what would it be and why? Well, we all listen to different styles of music so it would be hard for us to pinpoint any style of music that we would be allowed to get rid of. I mean, I don't really find a lot of the alternative rock and most radio rock that interesting and it does puzzle me as to why it is revered as "great music" but I don't think it's anyone's right to eradicate it. There's also a lot of more independent music I find not that interesting or compelling and the same thing applies to those genres as well. It's there and things will pass over into the next banal trend of mainstream contemporary music. The Vancouver scene is _____? ...promising but relatively unknown to the rest of the world. There is a special place for rock critics in _____? Well, they can do whatever they want but not everyone is going to listen to them or take them word for word. Radio Berlin fully endorses _____? Radio Berlin embroidered bomber jackets. Does Radio Berlin ever double date with Jerk With A Bomb? Radio Berlin played one show with Jerk With A Bomb. It was a final house show at this long-running punk house here in Vancouver where the band Submission Hold lives. There were like six bands and everyone played short sets. Josh, who plays in both bands, likes to avoid the possibility of playing shows with both bands as the energy to put out two taxing sets does not wash with him that well. Understandable. I play in other bands too and the thought of doing a double bill is even tiring. Any favourite Bill Murray films? Mmmm... What About Bob? was pretty ridiculous. Does that guy ever give up? I think that one is his shining big Canadian goof moment. - interview by Nora Charles
	FEMME FATALE WAVELENGTH #88 Sunday November 4, 11pm Purveyors of: Brevity and volume in seven distinct pieces Pictured: Mouthpiece Jesse F. Keeler and unidentified Fatales web: www.femmefatale.cjb.net You cats look loud on top of your insane stage volume. Has any thought been put into the actual physical appearance of the band? We wear uniforms whenever we are playing live or being photographed. The uniforms we wear are our way of removing individuality from the band members. We act as a unit and want to also be seen as a unit. We may start wearing masks as well as a further attempt to remove individuality. When we are in uniform, we seem to act differently and think differently, and I've found it makes us play better as well. So the answer is definitely yes, we have put thought into the band's appearance. Should hardcore/post-hardcore, hell maybe even metal and grindcore acts give out lyric sheets before shows so people can understand the vocals? I could give out lyrics but I have been advised that it's probably best if people don't know what they are. The songs are all very personal but also very violent. Not in an attempt to be shocking or controversial, but as a way of dealing with my violent feelings and ideas. It allows me to live out all the things I would like to do without actually doing them. If I was singing about politics, then I would want people to know and understand. If someone asks me about the lyrics, I will tell them, because in that setting, I can explain the songs and remove the possibility of people misinterpreting them. What side of the say what you mean/mean what you say debate does Femme Fatale endorse? In our songs, I don't say anything I don't mean. I was unaware there was any debate on that issue. Is there ever a time when people should say what they don't mean? Femme Fatale endorses brutal honesty at all times. Is it cool to make fun of straightedge kids or is it cooler to bait them with caffeine and cigarettes? Although I don't feel the need to be straightedge, I understand why people would choose that lifestyle. It's not for me, but I'm not going to be disrespectful. Being as how there are 10,000 people in your band (OK, seven), how the hell do you organize practices? With a great deal of difficulty, usually. I write and record the songs myself and then send the music and recordings to the members of the band so that they can learn them on their own time. When we actually get together for practice, everyone already knows what they are doing and so we can usually accomplish a great deal in a short amount of time. - interview with Jesse F. Keeler by Buddy 1078
	BODEGA WAVELENGTH #88 Sunday November 4, 10pm Purveyor of: Popwise psychedelia and a wicked serve Photo of Andrew Rodriguez and doggy by Jennifer Rowsom web: http://bodegamusic.com email: bodega@bodegamusic.com Bodega seems to be inheriting a well-established pop tradition, but at the same time I have a hard time placing influences or reference points. I'm curious to hear who you think your forebears are. Whose tradition are you actually inheriting? I don't know... Louis Armstrong's? I've heard people say Beatles, Neil Young, Kinks, Fleetwood Mac, Zombies, Robert Wyatt, Syd Barrett... I've never been compared to anyone I didn't like. The band as "songwriter + hired guns" seems to have become the rule rather than the exception in indie-rock. Has democracy failed us? Is this the triumph of the individual spirit or of divide-and-conquer capitalism? What do you think? I don't think that is necessarily true. There are plenty of great "democratic" bands and such. It can really be tough going keeping a group together but those who do, I think, really gain a lot from it. It can be really taxing and lonely doing everything yourself. But I think a lot of it comes down to timing and luck... especially when trying to find creative allies. Sometimes, though, the individualism informs the music directly, through the songwriting. In my case, for example... although I have tried in the past to assimilate Bodega into a band unit, it has never really been democratic. It has always been my project in terms of writing and producing, and when the original line-up ceased to be, I just realized that being someone who is driven and creative, I should just do my thing and not exhaust myself by worrying about things that are beyond my control. But I would be lying if I said that I never had fantasies about being in a band like Led Zeppelin. It's always rewarding working with other people and I love the musicians I'm playing with now, Clive McNutt (guitar), Steve Barber (bass) and Daryl Stevenson (drums). They understand how I work, and that Bodega can and will be whatever I want it to be at any given time. That's what I've always felt and in that case I guess it is a "triumph of the individual spirit". I don't think capitalism fits into the picture at all... I've never heard of anyone purposely "going solo" for financial reasons... that would be sad. I mean to even think about that kind of thing when deciding what kind of musical adventure you'd like to go on! I say, just create good music and don't pass judgement on anyone's situation that you know nothing about... just see if you enjoy their tunes. So you've recently had the chance to work with a "dream producer," Dave Fridmann of Mercury Rev fame. If you could choose your next dream producer, who would it be, why, and how far would you go to get them on board? To be completely honest, I'd like to continue working with Dave. Why? He has all the qualities I admire in a producer: creativity, patience, musicianship, focus, experience, competence, talent and lack of ego. If he wasn't available, well, depending on the record I wanted to make... Bjorn and Benny from Abba would be cool, no? Maybe I'll have my "peeps" give them a call! Brian Eno would be nothing short of interesting, I'm sure. Quincy Jones. Tony Visconti. Dust Brothers... I wouldn't go further than giving them my music and having a conversation with them about what I wanted out of the collaboration. Tell us why tennis is (or is not) the new indie-rock pastime. Good one Jonny! You are aware of my passion for the game. Definitely NOT the new indie-rock pastime. (I am out on Toronto's courts and I don't see nearly enough indie-rockers for it to warrant that tag.) It should be though! Everyone looks a little out of shape! There are shining exceptions of course. I have played with Randy Ray (Randwiches), Nick Taylor (Blackeyes) and other musicians. I love tennis and I go to the Open every summer. Compare your experience with London/Polygram and the plight of laid-off Nortel workers. I see what you're driving at... "corporate agenda steamrolls innocents," and essentially you're right. Things happen and decisions are made at big companies, and no thought is given as to how the outcome will affect the employees they've hired. It's 100% business, and unless you are personally responsible for making the company richer, you are nothing to them. At the end of the day all companies are out to make money. I think it's important, however, to realize that every situation is different. With Nortel, thousands and thousands were laid off as the company kept losing money, and to be honest I don't know too much about it. Sounds awful. I'm not even too sure about the whole Polygram/Universal merger and what my place in it was. To me, it just seemed like cold, big business and I know a lot of artists lost their jobs. I wasn't "dropped" but my A&R guy (who was gone shortly after) was advising me at the time that I should bail! Not the kind of advice I was looking or hoping for, but I took it. My impression was the ship was sinking, the captains were in a lifeboat heading towards a newer, more streamlined ship, they didn't care about me and I had to just grab what I could carry and get myself to safety. I ended up on a desert island for a couple of years. But I'm back now, and I'm fine. I did learn a lot. I'd sign to a big label again if I felt right about it, but the truth is they're rapidly becoming less and less important as they continue to feed the machine with crap and ignore the development of good music. Musicians have carried on without them for years, and there are great independent routes/roots. Is the title Without a Plan significant? Do you just "live in the Moment, man"? Very significant. By the end of my career, all my album titles will fit together to form a poem that will express the meaning of my life. It's the title of a song on the record as well, so there's that whole side of it and I thought it worked with the cover. It also seems to sum up the life of this recording. What a fucking title! As for living in the moment, I try to... things just keep getting in the way! What's next? A song. Maybe a hot bath. The new Bodega album Without A Plan is available at Soundscapes, Rotate This, bodegamusic.com, maplemusic.com and on Brobdingnagian records in Europe and Japan. - interview by Jonny Dovercourt
	LONGITUDE WAVELENGTH #89 Sunday November 11, 10:30PM Purveyors of: Dissonant cross-border dreamscapes web: www.longitudemusic.com Pictured: Ah, the diner shot. Tell me about yourselves! Well, we are a bunch of boys who sing sad songs. We all came from pretty different musical and familial backgrounds. Rob grew up in Toronto playing jazz piano; Joe moved around Canada and the States being as punk rock as you can be; and I was raised in Chicago listening to way too much Cure. But somehow, we got together and started writing music that while drawing from those influences, can't really be classified specifically under those genres. (Yes, I realize I made The Cure its own genre.) With members of Longitude from Ottawa, Toronto, Grand Rapids and Chicago, how the heck do you practice or write songs? Obviously it hasn't posed too much of a problem for you seeing as your second CD is coming out. We just recently became a three piece. Andrew got married this summer and moved to Boston. As it stands now, Rob and I both live in Chicago. Joe lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Almost all of the songs on the new record, ...by the things that light the night, were written with Rob and I in Chicago and Joe in Grand Rapids. We'd get together the day of a show somewhere and have a marathon practice. We'd learn new tunes and try them out that night. So far that has worked well. We are touring enough these days that we write and practice on the road. We wrote three new tunes on our last tour and I think they are some of the best Longitude songs so far. Who writes the lyrics? Is it true that they're just diary entries? When Andrew was actively participating in the band, he and I would split the lyric writing 50/50. Joe is starting to write more for the band, but right now, I'm doing the majority of lyric writing. Some of the songs come from journal entries. Songs like "Buffaloed" and "Best Time" from the new record were pretty much lifted right out of my journal. A lot of songs, however, come from that 3am-waking-up-from-a-deep-sleep-with-a-line-in-your-head syndrome. As much as you want to stay in bed, you have to get up and get it down... otherwise you lose it. You played at the El Mocambo on Sept 11. Was it completely eerie or just another day at the office? Needless to say, September 11 was not just another day at the office. We discussed whether or not we should play. Would it be inappropriate to go play your music and ask people to buy your merchandise on the same day it happened? Plus, we weren't in the highest of spirits, obviously, and weren't sure we even wanted to play. When we were loading our equipment in, George W. Bush's address came on the bar television. The only people in the club were the bartender and the bands. The multiple sets must have all been at full volume and it felt like Bush's voice was coming from all directions, bouncing off walls and coming back at you again. The club was dark and during the speech, the bartender kept asking what we thought the U.S. was going to do. That was probably the eeriest moment for me. But we decided to play because I guess part of the job of being a musician is to ease people 's minds at times. Hopefully, we did that for the people who were there. How do you and your band plan to celebrate Halloween? I'm going to dress like Rob, Rob is going to dress like me and Joe is going to actually transform into Michael Jackson. Then I'm going to see Spiritualized in Chicago. You know, our very first gig was on Halloween of 1998. We dressed up like the movie Dead Presidents. Jay Baird (from the Toronto bands Drummer and GUH) played sax at that gig. He and a friend dressed up as a bed... each as bed posts. So she had to stand up there with us while he played... she just grooved. Would you consider yourself more of a werewolf/mummy character or the girl who wears all white and is drenched in blood, Steve? Well seeing as how I go as a vampire EVERY year... I'll have to say neither, but if I have to choose between those two, I'll go werewolf, because I'm bad at basketball and as we all learned from the movies: Werewolves are killer ball players. Additional Information. This tour is our first outing in support of our new record ...by the things that light the night. The plan is to tour as much as possible to get the word out. We have a west coast tour planned for the entire month of January and are of course hoping to share our tunes with as many people as possible. Our songs usually get described as sorrowful, yet triumphant; slow, yet infectious. Our first album alright landed distribution deals in North America and Europe. Rob and Joe are dual citizens of the U.S. and Canada. Steven is the only full blooded Yank, but has been granted honorary Canadian citizenship by the fellas in the band. - interview with Steve Longitude by Mandylion
	SIGNE MIRANDA WAVELENGTH #89 Sunday November 11, 10pm Purveyor of: Heart-on-cardigan-sleeve acoustic pop email: signe_miranda@hotmail.com One fine Wavelength, Jonny Dovercourt was at the bar trying to procure more Steam Whistle when he found something else being pressed into his palm. Looking down, he spied Stu Stout and realized the digits of his hand were being wrapped around a cassette tape. "Jonny, you have to book this woman," said Stu, then promptly disappeared in a cloud of cigarette smoke. Later, jolted awake at 4am by a strange dream involving a solar eclipse, a concrete city and The Shaggs (get your mind out of the gutter!), Jonny stumbled downstairs, put the cassette in the deck and realized Stu was right. Signe, there's seems to be a certain fragility to your songs. Are you a fragile person? Do you get easily frazzled by loud noises or sudden movements? Or are you expressing a whole other side of your personality which doesn't get expressed from day to day? Some of my songs are written as an outlet for stuff I'm trying to figure out (not all of them though). I guess it's those songs that exhibit fragility, because of the honesty. Explain why the Wavelength crowd shouldn't be afraid of the "open stage" scene. Or should they? The "open stage" scene is a great place to network with other musicians. I got my band together as a result of going to open stages, and most of my friends are people I've met in that scene. Each place has its own atmosphere. It's great to be able to play in all kinds of different settings, almost any day of the week. People are very supportive of fellow musicians there. The only thing to fear is "open stage addiction". Hey, it's guaranteed stage time. It's hard to turn that down. You've recently gone from being a solo artist to playing with a trio (I believe). Why the change? What do you find are the key differences between performing alone and performing with others? It has been a trio in the past, but now it's a quartet, called Signe Miranda's Veranda. Dominic von Riedemann is a great lead guitarist. (I play rhythm guitar.) I've been playing with him since the spring. Mark Roberts is my new drummer. He's adding a cool new sound to the band. Stu Stout (from the Patients) has rejoined the band for a little while. He's a great bass player, and was part of the original trio. I've always wanted to play in a band. I started out solo because I didn't really know too many musicians, and you don't need a band to play at open stages. I find that performing alone is much easier, but playing in a band is more fun. When you play with a band you have to concentrate on following each other, but you feed off of each other's energy; and that's great. Describe the perfect lunch. The perfect lunch is a tofu ice-cream sandwich with all-dressed chips and marshmallows, eaten under the summer sun, by the water, with someone you really care about. You were "discovered" by aspiring svengali Stu Stout of The Patients. How did you guys connect? Well, once upon a time, in a bar in Kensington Market, Graffiti's, at an open stage (where else of course?), I met Stu, and Tony Hamilton (the former drummer in my band). It was a cold January night in the year 2001. The first time I played at the Graffiti's open stage, Stu asked me about my musical influences, because he thought my music had a unique sound. The next week I went over to talk to Stu and Tony. They asked me if I wanted to have a band. Stu said he could play the bass, and Tony could play drums. Stu set up our first show, at Rancho Relaxo, with Tony, John Whitaker, and The Patients. The story continues to unfold. What's in store for Signe Miranda? I'm working on recording a demo. I'm going to keep playing some shows and open stages, and after I graduate from school in June, I'll spend more time on music, supported by hopefully an enjoyable day job.
	122 GRIEGE WAVELENGTH #90 Sunday November 18, 11pm Purveyors of: Old-school introspective drift-rock web: www.cs.yorku.ca/~matt/greige/ Pictured: Matt Robinson (guitar, voice), Chad Storie (bass), Adam Rosen (drums) 122 Greige have been around forever. They're the quintessential teenage basement band, that wrote their own songs and got dismissed by their peers as "too depressing," but they didn't end up getting all mad at each other and breaking up. Now they all have serious day jobs and are set to release their second CD, Travel Light (the follow-up to 1999's teenage USA opus Moving Away From the Sun), at Wavelength on Nov. 18. Karen von Baron interviewed drummer Adam Rosen, who also doubles as a Mean Red Spider. As I was walking over here I heard some teenagers screaming and whooping, and I was reminded of something Noam Chomsky said. He said that teenagers rebel against their parents and conform to their peers. What kind of teenager were you? I don't think I rebelled against very much. I think I was just an obnoxious sheltered teenager. Matt and me started playing music in grade nine or ten. Chad joined us before we were out of high school. I think we thought we were rebelling a bit by getting together and just jamming. I don't think we had any big aspirations at the time. We played original material even then. But we definitely had some rebellious designs on conquering the music world. We sounded like Joy Division. Who's your favourite drummer? Ooh, that's tough. Probably Stewart Copeland. He's definitely the one who's had the most influence. I was at Value Village buying Hallowe'en costumes or whatever with my girlfriend and I always like to flip through the record bins. I found the very first record that was given to me as a gift. It was K-Tel's Rock 81. So I picked it up for fifty cents. And there was Rush, Pat Benatar, the Monks and the Police. So, yeah, I'd have to say that Stewart Copeland is the one. I don't think I could find a better overall drummer to try to emulate. How do you feel about Oldies radio? It's like a parallel universe. The radio in our kitchen, as long as I have control over it, is tuned to Oldies 1150. Slowly with the trend of Alternative music becoming a commodity, being labelled and then becoming a format on radio, I think I was less and less tolerant of radio. And after having my own show with Derek, before he went to CIUT, I couldn't listen to any radio. So really the only thing I can listen to is Oldies radio. That's pretty much all I listen to except campus radio for specific jazz shows. It's the only place I can hear the Beatles and the Beach Boys. But I won't be hearing the Velvet Underground! I'm thinking Chinese food is the worst food you can eat on a first date. (Laughs) Well, the way I handle chopsticks, it wouldn't be a good thing. But I'm trying. I practice. For a drummer who's supposed to be... you know... I can do things with all four limbs at once, but the particular muscle contractions required in my hand to operate chopsticks, I haven't mastered yet. There's a dreamy quality to both bands you play in. What are the obvious and not-so-obvious influences? Well, I think with 122 Greige I guess, because we're a trio, we can rock out really hard in a '60s or '70s way, we can also play torch songs or we can be really folky. Because Matt is a songwriter, what's obvious to me is that there's always going to be that access to The Velvet Underground or The Beatles or The Beach Boys. We also listened to a lot of Joy Division back when we started. So you've been playing with these guys for like, ever. Yeah, the three of us have been playing together for like twelve years. Is it, like, a brotherhood? Yeah, it is. Do you like AC/DC? Have you ever seen them play live, the ridiculous spectacle that is AC/DC? No, I haven't. But I've always loved AC/DC. I think there is something about them that you can't not like... What's great about that band is you don't have to think while you're listening to them. They are the great non-thinking band. 122 GREIGE DISCOGRAPHY New Year's Eve (6-song cassette, 1994) "Nova Scotia" (track on Leisure Terrorists CD compilation, Theta State Recordings, 1994) The Unessential 122 Greige (17-song cassette of old demos and acoustic versions) Brown Paper Special a.k.a. Freebie (4-song cassette given away at a show, 1996 or '97, perhaps?) Moving Away From The Sun (15-song CD, teenage USA Recordings, 1999) Travel Light (10-song CD, 2001)
	COOL TROUT BASEMENT WAVELENGTH #90 Sunday November 18, 10pm Purveyors of: Velveteen guitar pop (and more than just a Wayne Omaha side project!) Pictured: Kirk, Yawd, Kate, Kevin email: cooltroutbasement@sympatico.ca Cool Trout Basement - I have to ask every time I hear something like this - why is your band named Cool Trout Basement? Kevin: The Cool Trout Basement was a club off Oxford Street in London (U.K.) that for a while was an alternative to Allan McGee's "Living Room". It attracted those who weren't beautiful enough to pose but debauched enough to party. More for Mo Tucker and Sterling than Lou or John Cale. But why was the club so named? How did the group form? Give us some history. Yawd: Well, Kevin had been doing some work at an indie label here in town. You know, A&R stuff: going to shows, swilling beer, and having his fine suggestions roundly ignored by the "powers that be." In the course of this "work," he happened across Wayne Omaha. In time, he devised a plan to put together a compiliation of Canadian music to shop around to some European labels. And it was a solid effort, too: John Critchley, Leslie Feist, It's Patrick, Danny Michel, B.D.R., and lots of other good stuff. This is where the skullduggery began. Kevin had surreptitiously included a demo that he and Kate had put together. And he asked me to "review" the comp. Naturally I liked some of the songs more than others. And I told him so. Turned out I was a big fan of the demo, but it was by a band I had never heard of. (I suppose had I trashed it, I would never have found out it was Kevin and Kate!) So I asked him all these questions about it - who were these guys, and where were they from, and why had I never heard of them? Kevin 'fessed up. Cool Trout jammed as a three-piece in the Red Room for a few months. We started talking about doing some gigs, but we didn't have a drummer. We booked a show anyway. In the end, we "borrowed" Kirky from the Wayne O's and the rest, as they say, is history. Are you recording? Kevin: Rough cuts of songs are being put down onto Cubase in our spare bedroom; we're happy to send MP3s out. (Email us.) What are your future plans? Kate: To gig around. Survive Bush and Blair. There's a radio station in Spain that's quite keen on some of Kevin's old songs so it would be cool to get them some Trout stuff and play a few dates over there. How many members have eaten trout? Kevin and Kate: Yawd is the only non-vegetarian and current fish killer. But we forgive him as he only eats what he kills. Yawd: It's true. The last trout I ate was a brookie I pulled from a stream on Cape Breton Island in May 2000. And it was delicious. What does any of this say about the music you make? Kevin and Kate: Our music is more interesting than our interviews. Tell me about something that is important to you or your band; or the state of the world at large. Kevin and Kate: In these troubled times, everyone should read The Guardian (www.guardian.co.uk) and Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun. - interview by Paddy O'Donnell.
	SNAILHOUSE WAVELENGTH #91 Sunday November 25, 11pm Purveyors of: Librarian blues? How 'bout delicately finger-picked pop? Ah, fuck it. Pictured: Aaron Booth, Jeremy Gara, Mike Feuerstack, Samir Khan web: www.snailhousemusic.com In the early '90's. Ottawa's Wooden Stars were an oasis of complex and tuneful music during a deluge of formulaic stop/start math rock, often leaving the pre-programmed punters scratching their heads wondering if it was cool to embrace such beautiful melody. With the band on long-term hiatus, guitarist and all round nice guy Mike Feuerstack has presented Snailhouse to us, his vehicle of continuing vision reinforced by the talents of Kepler/Weights and Measures' Samir and Jeremy, and Calgary escapee Aaron Booth. Three albums later, it's heartwarming to see the success of an outfit that defies the trends and malevolent industries of Canadian music with its adherance to quality and integrity. Here Mike gets down with Wavelength's Nora Charles and has some lyrical fun. War huh good god y'all what is it good for? Absolutely nothing. When a man loves a woman? He often becomes confused and starts to speak in double negatives. He tends to lose focus. He is willing to change his environment to keep the good thing he's found. He'll even find himself sleeping outside in the rain if that's the way she wants it. What would you do if I sang out of tune would you get up and walk out on me? Probably, but with the advent of Pro-Tools software and what-not, I'd probably still be able to listen to your album. Idle hands are? In this case, the old adage holds true: the devil's plaything. Boredom is the beginning of the decline of wisdom and bespeaks the failure of the magic of the heart. The dementia that ensues is surely mankind's downfall. What goes on in your mind? Please, please, please, for once in my life, let me get what I want. Did I see you down in a young girl's town with your mother in so much pain? Yes; I'd just had my wisdom teeth removed. I'm surprised you recognized me; I was so swollen! Three of them were impacted, so it was no small thing. I just want a lover like any other, what do I get? I, too, asked this question as a boy, but as I traverse the threshold to manhood, I find myself learning and re-learning that, in fact, no two lovers are the same. Therefore, try as one may, it is a futile exercise to reconcile real love with one's expectations of it. Modulistic terror, a vast sadistic feast, the only way to exit is going piece by piece? Right! Right! You're bloody well right! Did you ever know that you're my hero? We don't need another hero. -interview & photo by Nora Charles
	FEMBOTS WAVELENGTH #91 Sunday November 25, 10pm Purveyors of: Spare spaghetti junkshop folk Pictured: The guys who always beat you to the garage sale web: www.tonedeaf.com/Fembots.htm email: thefembots@hotmail.com Those lost souls who have been attending Wavelength in regularity since the early year 2000 probably know the FemBots. They played Wavelength #14 in May '00, the Anniversary Weekend last February, and even played last-minute warrior-style when we thought Peaches wasn't gonna show up for her farewell show (but she did). Dave MacKinnon and Brian Poirier are the FemBots; they also run the Junkshop studio and make music using guitars, tape loops, organs, sledgehammers, Teddy Ruxpin dolls and a bunch of other stuff. They might have a new album out soon, if you behave. OK, if I said that a corner like King and Bay or Dundas and Spadina was like Blade Runner, or, get this, "The Future," what "future is now" things in the city are FemBots all about? The future is a walnut cake machine. There's a walnut cake store on Bloor between Bathurst and Christie. The whole store is taken up by this giant machine that makes little walnut cakes. The guy who runs the place spends his whole day flipping cakes off the conveyer belt as they come out of the machine, and they come out of the machine ALL DAY. They never stop. This is the FemBots vision of the future, a lonely man taking little cakes out of a giant machine, forever. When are you two gonna stop smokin' doobies and start a REAL band? When are you going to stop smokin' doobies and ask a real question? "The future is now", what the fuck does that mean? Describe Mucho Cuidado as if it were a concept album. Concept? The whole concept thing is so so sad. It's so Radiohead. Have you ever notced that the dude from Radiohead looks like Ed Grimley? If only he were Ed Grimley. That's a concept. OK, how about this, what if we just recorded whatever the hell we felt like and then put it all together and called it Mucho Cuidado? Does it make it more conceptual if we say it takes place in the future? Oh, and we're androids. Or maybe just one of us is an android and doesn't realize it. And when he does realize it he sets out on a quest to become a real boy. How's that? Do we need to add something about the power of love? Tell us about what's new on Sunday but be super condescending. We're gonna play some new songs. We might even stand up. - "interview" with Dave Fembot by Buddy 1078