the night and only in the night do i find myself thinking about the past. music has played important roles, life changing events and more in my life. as i get older i fight electronic music in some ways and embrace in others. i like loud amps and live guitars along with electronic music and stages and audiences so much. i've dedicated my life to it since i was an awkward kid 16 years old strumming out the first chords i learned Am-Em-G and looping into Am to repeat the chords.
that was when i was a homeless punk kid in vancouver, pulled off the streets by my prostitute cousin who showed me those chords and gave me that guitar and some money and a chance to prove myself. all these years later i still wonder what the hell i'm doing with my life?
anyway, ten years after i started playing the guitar and finally started touring the globe, i remember the first time i heard this track:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHSe4N1tRQU
by none other than david bowie, whom i hadn't really paid a lot of attention to at the time, i mean i heard his neo metal clamberings with "tin machine," which were cool, but weird. and before that all i could remember was "china girl," whom stevie ray vaughn played guitars on! still!
in life you don't remember a lot of things, but as you get older, for some reason a song, a photo, a video, a movie will bring you back to those moments in time to the point you remember the light in the room, the smells, what you ate, what you drank and how it all happened.
i had been traveling for years nomadically across the globe, asia, america, europe, central america and trying to obliviate a lot of memories in my life. it didn't work and after many years of wandering i came home. a lot of my old friends were dead or in jail, which inspired me getting on a jet and leaving the country in the first place. the remainder who were here, musicans or artists i contacted the old fashioned way and phoned them up and said "hey! guess who's back in towwwwnnnnn!!!!???"
i did some couch surfing until i got back on my feet and was working two jobs, dish pit in the day at kamloops' first organic grocery store and restuarant, "the zone," with my buddies rob roy and paul liddy, the first one of my favourite illustrators ever, and the second a poet who influences me to this day, both brilliant madmen who deserve their time in the lime light. the nights i ran a 12 table pool hall downtown that has sadly become the old people bar downtown, the gross sounding name "the grotto."
back in the day we had an awesome sound system and were the place to be downtown. loud music, plenty of pool, fresh java, food, beautiful staff of girls and me and an young armed forces guy who helped me run the show at night. he was my pitbull. ryan was his name and we ran the game. the couple years that place was in business were some of the best times of my life. i was young, in my mid twenties, had returned from traveling the world and running the hottest night spot in town that wasn't a bar? hello?! good times were had by all!
i used to play slayer, anything from there really, and white zombie "astro-creep 2000" album and watch the place go crazy! the front quarter of the place was a coffee shop, bistro type place, food, coffee and what not, and the last 3/4 were 12 pool tables, 2 were full sized billiards. we had an amazing sound system that we kicked it's ass every damn night with metal!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKBhWWaI6BQ
i remember ryan would show up in army fatigues and sneak a couple bottles of good wine, and this is 20 years before it was cool to drink wine like these days, back then it was expensive as hell and everyone thought you were a poof, anyways, we'd drink them with the day staff, all gorgeous girls, play pool, and play heavy metal and watch the place go insane. when shit got out of hand, people getting rowdy, fights and madness we'd put on leonard cohen's album "the future" and especially this song, "waiting for the miracle," or "dance me to the end of love," always chased them out, except the goth and emo kids. haha. they loved it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXvG0SMP7tw
and the place would empty out!!! haha. which was hilarious and perfect, because i loved it and we never had a shortage of street kids wanting free time on tables so they'd clean up the place for us and we'd rock and roll all night. damn i miss those days.
i remember playing a lot of this album too! kyuss! blues from the red sun!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq9H99J1ntQ
when the first song started, everything got quiet and every lit up a smoke and got ready to get down and heavy!!! i'd look across the massive room and everyone would be headbanging and high fiving and air guitaring on the pool cues.
damn the good old days......
i miss them.......
until next time lovers,
Horatio Cornblower, i mean, Chris Bose. hahahahahah
Ps: i saw Kyuss play live in amsterdam 2ice! as well as rob zombie in various places around the globe back in the day. ahhhh. to be young again.
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