At first, rabid skepticism. Mark Templeton did his entire set on his knees in the dark, after all. Laptop glowing in between us, guitar sometimes (not always) removed from its case when played. Hm. I’ve made fun of the knob in Tool for standing in one spot for a whole concert — shouldn’t those standards apply laterally? Of course, ol’ Maynard Toolbox was also covered in blue paint under a giant eye in a bowl full of potential bouncers. And charging each of them a fistful of twenties for the pleasure. A wholly different ecosystem, then.

But at the Hydeaway show a few nights back, different medicine was required and delivered as the snow floated down. A night of experimental music: these things can go so wrong, and then didn’t. Templeton laid down a bed of sound at first as the exit sign kept jumping out. But then, with the help of some guitar chords he first played by hand now looping — wham. Just a punch in the ear followed by more and more interesting variations, fiddled with, adjusted, and smiled at.

Walking in halfway through wouldn’t do. You needed to see — and I mean see — the machine being built, piece by piece. Did it last hours or seconds? I remember snapping out of a sound haze as the Munchkin waitress ran in front and took a photo — things were so loud — but still being just glued to the floor, like the first time I ever heard Godspeed.

Ideas from earlier kept looping around my brain — Smokie’s hand in front of his face has he elbowed through Orbison’s “Crying,” Aaron Munson curious about enormous Tanuki testicles, the fact of a working Nintendo Entertainment System in the back. Look him up on My-Space. Ambient music cleans your head.

Basically, it’s official: the place to be is Pawn Shop on New Year’s Eve, This sucks because there are also several dazzling contenders. But maybe you don’t want to be in “the” place, anyway. But Whitey Houston and Les Tabernacles on one bill? Fuck. My. Tanuki.

DJ Mick Sleeper has this to say about the proposed two-hour-mandatory volunteer policy at CJSR: “Some people are making arguments that they just don’t have the time to volunteer at CJSR, but since they support the station financially, they have a stake in how the station is managed and governed. This makes me furious. By that same logic, the oil companies who contribute millions to the Alberta Conservatives should be able to have a say in how much tax they pay and what kind of laws get passed. Once again, these are hardly the hallmarks of a station that proclaims itself as ‘far left on the FM dial as you can get.’ Having any leverage at CJSR based on how much money you donate isn’t left-wing at all; it’s capitalist cronyism.”

I also got to meet Gene Simmons and do a one-on-one interview with James Hetfield from Metallica (video on my Facefuck page), making it a very weird weekend. While Simmons was busy proposing public executions for drug dealers and Alaskan exiles for addicts where “you will find your ass in the tundra of Alaska chopping wood and trying to fuck seals,” Hetfield was calmer. I showed him an old photo of the band in the Cliff Burton days, beer cans in hand, and he smiled.