re: the ranch i grew up on when i was a kid.....

hello friends, fans, foe and lovers,

here's some photos of the ranch i grew up on as a kid, we spent almost every summer there for close to ten years. no electricity. no plumbing. and lots of work to do. weeding the gardens, picking berries and cherries, changing and moving the irrigation pipes around, watching out for rattlesnakes, cutting hay, bailing hay and reading and listening to the radio at night. my cousins would come up to visit us and my grandparents and help out. it was fun and idyllic in many ways i suppose. 

anyways, here's some photos of the treacherous drive to the ranch that show the rugged beauty and danger of where i grew up and learned a lot. it's drier now than it was when i was a kid. the environment has changed drastically, i mean look outside, there's no snow. it's february. it's insane. every year the fires are brutal and the southern interior is always bathed in smoke from forest fires. it's so hot and dry. water is drying up, the ranch isn't the same as it was either, the old farm house burned to the ground in the 1990's along with all the trees. and memories. 

enjoy as there will be a lot of photos. 

Chris Bose. 

re: this chaos is boring me.....haha.

Hello lovers, friends, foe and fans,

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.

re: day 3 song of the 5 day song challenge!!!

hello friends, fans, foe and lovers,

it's day 3 of the 5 day song challenge it's safe to say i'm kicking it's ass. haha. 

so, here's the 3rd song and video, and i don't really plan this out, it just comes together.

i woke up this morning at 5:30, made some tea and picked up a guitar and played this riff. it's an old one, i wrote it about 20 years ago, but it hasn't found a home yet. maybe now it has, it's kind of somber, kind of beautiful, kind of introspective and relaxing. when i added the video, i started dropping in travel stuff from across canada. being an artist/musician/author and filmmaker in a small town means you have to travel A LOT!!!

traveling takes it's toll, you miss loved ones, your home, your bed, and so on. but it is also awesome, and exciting, you meet new people, see new places, learn new things and it's good for the soul. it's a cruel catch 22. when you're on the road too long, you miss home and everything about it, but when you're home, after a few days you can start climbing the walls wanting to be back out on the road. perhaps they'll never reconcile themselves. haha, and i'm okay with that, i crave new adventures and stories, so i'm sure i'll never stop as long as i can. 

anyway, peace out, stay tuned for tomorrow's song and video!!

cheers,

cb

re: unit/pitt and battery opera show continued.....

hello lovers,

ahhhh winter, it's still snowing in kamloops, bc, and we still have snow on the ground, but the sun is shining and we've got that "golden hour" of light as i type this out. the kids are eating and i thought i'd take a minute or two to type this out.

here are some more flicks of the vancouver show with david mackintosh.

the final night of performances, music and stories. it was amazing. i was there for the opening night and the closing nights. how it worked was thursday night, 11:30 to 12:30 was a "witching hour" solo performance opportunity for an invited guest artist. they would do what they wanted for an hour inside the unit/pitt at 236 pender, un-interrupted from the audience, who had to stay outside and watch voyeuristically as the artist did their thing.

friday nights 10 - 12 pm, were a cabaret style performance opportunity with guest musicians and a storyteller sharing some story of their choice as well as dancers performing reinterpretations of the 12 stories/poems david and i told in the book published for the event, "crawling, weeping, betting." which were based on our experiences in vancouver, bc.

saturdays, 12-5 pm were guided tours throughout the vancouver based on the 12 stories in the book we published. they were amazing. i was told people wept, or got emotional when the guides took them on various routes through the city and read or told the pomes and stories from memory.

it was an amazing experience, one i'll never forget, and one i wish to repeat now in europe.

gotta go, the kids are done breakfast and demand attention. haha.

kids.

cb

Various Vancouver, BC, photos from the end of February 2014

while shutting down the exhibition at the Unit/Pitt gallery.

"Bitch please,

I'm fabulous!"

a strange toy figure

in the display case at

"Golden Age Collectibles,"

on granville street. 

great comic store.

i also like "lucky comics," 

which is way down on main st.

the "loose moose," downtown vancouver, just off granville 

towards the granville street bridge, it's a heavy metal

bar and i drank with the band "children of bodom,"

a few weeks ago here. it was awesome, 

they drink like champs.

pretty much a great hidden gem in vancity

always blasting great music

and all food is less than $6.00

fuck. yeah.

re: a good year lays ahead of us....all...

hello friends, fans, foe, freaks, foe, lovers, winners and sinners,

we've survived yet another doomsday, another year, more lovers, more sinners, more winners and more losers i'm sure.

in the meantime, i'm sure the chick chipping awayyyyy at the ice will be again chipping away at my heart, my head and my soul.

or not. meh.

either way, happy new years lovers, haters, freaks and geeks.....

remember, jealousy rots your soul and love does too.....

cb

re: sequence 12

hello friends, fans, foe and lovers,

a video, i'm getting things all messed up. too many videos. anyway, this one is trippy and i quite like it.

it's a bit dark, but don't be a sissy, it's got a beautiful ending!

until next time,

cb

re: riffs and art for a month.....

Hello friends, fans, foe and lovers,

i'm planning on posting a riff a day for a month, as well as new art and stuff.

riff one, below is from october 26, 2008, the year it all fell apart and fell back together. the master plan.

so, kick back and let me entertain you, here you are now.

cheers,


cb

re: reading in penticton next week!

hello friends, fans, foe and lovers,

i've got a reading next week in Penticton, BC, at the awesome Enowkin Centre!~!

my home away from home, i love that place! and the kickass creative Syilx people like Tori Baptiste, Tracey Bonneau, Mariel Belanger, Jeannette Armstrong, Richard Armstrong, Brody Armstrong and more!!!!!

i'll be reading from The Satanic Verses and my book of poetry, "Stone the Crow," so do come out and say hello!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

or scream it. whatever works.

check the poster!


cheers,


cb

ps: lookit what Mike Patton has to say about Slayer!

the video is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vQe4ym-ixQ

check this cool boba fett helmet!

and i just love this image!

all the best,

cb

re: more little monsters......

hello friends, fans, foe and lovers,

i'm still rocking away at the colouring book i've been working on the past week or so. it feels so fcuking good to get my hands back to pen, pencil, paint cans and just not staring at a monitor like i have the past 7 years. this all has happened rather serendipitously, my god, what a pompous sounding word, but anyways, i've been doing a series of graffiti workshops in kamloops with high school students and it has been greatly rewarding. not only that, it rocked my ass back to the walls, paper, pencil and paints!

then, i got the idea to do a colouring book because my kids always bug me to buy them colouring books. as well, i love character driven graffiti and so, i spent about a week drawing 6 - 10 hours a day, and drew over a 150 characters, and i'm still going strong. experimentation is great fun, and so i'll keep on until i figure out what to do next. which is travel the world doing graffiti murals, getting bigger and crazier exhibitions, hit paris, berlin, barcelona, milano, amsterdamn, then head to new zealand, wellington, and sydney australia, tokyo, japan, before heading to sao paolo, brazil, argentina, chile and so on......the world awaits, and i've been thinking small, when there is infinite potential and infinite possibilities.........

for now, here's some samples of the colouring book i've been working on, and i'll keep working on until it's ready. tonight, i drew a robot based hookah called 'Baked Bot."

nice.

until next time lovers,


cb
ps: music i've been listening to, lamb of god, slayer, bad religion and alexis on fire heavy music for heavy times.

order one from me now for your hipster friends, or kids if you have them.......

cb