Online Albums

Our yearly renewal of Escape Goats enthusiasm is progressing nicely even though our comeback gig has been cancelled. We'll work something out, maybe involving a guerilla show in a different public location.

Anyways, it's that time of year were we get a little bit of notice for a song that Chris mostly wrote but I still get a little credit for: Canada Day. Many have already heard the increasingly tall tale of this song which is about a 1996 journey of adolescents and adolescence. To be honest I've conflated the trip with a few other ones over the years, but I'm pretty sure this one involved drinking Steeler beer in Old Quebec City, cooking Kraft Dinner on a camping stove in our hotel room, catching Eric's Trip walking in Montreal out of the corner of my eye, and me driving illegally in a provincial park. Perhaps Chris can spin this yarn into something a little more coherent. In the meantime enjoy our rock homage to our country and growing up.

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This is maybe the first post in a an on-going series. I know I've said that a bunch of times before, but I will eventually finish all these loose ends of back-catalog material. I'll just add to the bottom as I include more songs...

April 12: Workin' Class Blues

Zildo Ildo never really released an album other than a handful of hand-burned hand-made copies sometimes named Music & Fishes and sometimes named The Complete Works. It was a really rough cut of what would have ended up as quite a good album. Some of the songs are great and the recording is good enough to listen too, that was kind of our set of standards to meet or exceed. The first song I want to post is never really highlighted enough and is usually undeservedly buried in the sequence as an album track.

I can only speak for myself since everybody often has radically different ideas on what the songs are about. A lot of the times (and even still in a lot of our bands) we didn't know the lyrics for a song until we recorded them because we never had P.A.'s to practice with and the sound at shows and/or our singing was always so struggling that nobody but the singer could really discern what they were saying.

Song 1: Superheroes. Here's a song about teenagers or slightly post-teenagers failing to become the superhero and instead becoming their own fantasy wretched-hero like Ginsberg, Kerrouac, Hemingway, or maniacs like Dali or Tom Waits. But all with an air of chronic zaniness that made it a little more uplifting than a bunch of hardcore depressives. It was such a trivially dialectic time in our lives where there was still at least the certainty that there was no right or wrong (a common theme in the songs) and we were sure we were right about that.

Song 2: Barbershop continues the focus on less well-known songs. I think this song was actually recorded before any of the other tracks that got grouped together, and I don't even know if Zildo Ildo actually ever played it. Chris & I were still writing songs post-Garbagedrink and this one sort of sprang to life during that time. It was recorded by Mike Birthelmer along with another song tentatively titled "Uncle Gord" (that has nothing to do with my Uncle Gord except his name is in the song, I think maybe it was based on a dream I had). don't think we have a copy of that song though. Anyways, this song is about an old Italian barber and our strange visions of his life. I saw part of a recent documentary on Italian barbers in Toronto. I'd like to see the whole thing, it looked very interesting. I don't know what it was called and can't seem to find it, if anybody knows please post a comment!

Song 3: Let's move on to some songs that got a little more attention: Workin' Class Blues. I'm still mystified when I write songs and they actually come out in some kind of fully-integrated form. I don't know how to write songs they just happen to me. This is one of those songs. "I'm pushing paper, it's pushing me", it's nice to write decent lyrics sometimes. This song features a bunch of friends that gathered in the Eckart's living & dining rooms for a couple of days to record a handful of the Zildo Ildo tracks. Stephen Kelly plays a saw solo, Martin Eckart on spoons, and I think Brendan Munn (check that link to find out why he's not playing drums in an indie band anymore!) played the jaw harp as well. Who else played on it?

Listen to the Online Album!

“Left wing, right wing, chicken wing — it’s all the same to me,”
— Woody Guthrie

Hamilton, Ontario is not an arts scene to mess with. You see, it’s not easy being Toronto’s neighbour when it comes to cultural events. But Hamilton does it right, and Put On Your Drinking Cap’s compilation release Left Wing, Chicken Wing is further testament to the fact.

Once upon a time, Hamilton-area arts and culture enthusiast Dave Kuruc organized the Hamilton Outdoor Arts Exhibition at his store, Mixed Media. The exhibition, designed to showcase indie businesses and artists and, of course, their desirable wares, garnered musical attention when Put On Your Drinking Cap Records principles Andrew Eckart and Chad Ingles were hard at work, assisting with the organization. “We decided that, along with helping on the Hamilton Outdoor Arts Exhibition, we would do a similar outreach at the same time to the local music community,” says Eckart. “The response was great and we ended up getting some really cool things on Left Wing, Chicken Wing.”

So why the title? “We took from Woody Guthrie’s quote because it’s an attitude which illustrates the way in which we approach music,” details Eckart. “Some of the songs on here could be interpreted as politicalsocial commentaries. We haven’t tried to do that yet because all the songs on here are here because they are all the same thing — good, authentic music.”

Listen to the Online Album!