Don't fall victim to e-Hoarding

A couple of months ago I explained in THIS Reads how my library is home to an exhausted number of big-name titles and not so many lesser known, underdog books. Believe it or not, the problem is still troubling me. No, I haven’t been brainwashed by Penguin and Random House into zombie-walking to the nearest Chapters or some other chain store looking for the ex-president’s memoirs. And no, it’s not an odd catch-22 that I’d like to go out and pick up a copy of The Sentamentalists, the biggest small press book in a long time (although if you happen to miraculously find a copy, I’d love to borrow it once you’re finished).

No, the only problem troubling me is that I can’t find enough independent literature. I’ve become a bloodhound sniffing out anything under the radar. I thrive on the minnow-like, unheard author’s view of the sharks and whales in the rest of the sea. I obsess over the small press.

Lately, in order to feed my habit, I’ve taken on a risqué lifestyle quite frowned upon in the current reality TV age: hoarding. But my home isn’t billowing with pocketbooks and paperbacks. I want to avoid all the dirty stares. So, I’ve come up with the perfect little secret – the big “H” without any of the kickback – e-Hoarding. I’ve taken to spending many late nights turned early mornings searching the web for any sort of underground-lit I can find. And this month in THIS Reads, I’m going to let you in on some of the best online literature collectives I’ve found so far. I must say, in terms of niche writing, finding stuff that’s brand new and fresh is easiest through online journals. How ironic, you’re reading one right now.

Without further ado, I give you my e-picks of the month:


PANK – This is one of the best free literary magazines I’ve come across. They publish monthly with tonnes of new poetry and prose from writers worldwide. But that’s not saying much once you read a bit of PANK – the stuff they put out is very high calibre. Contemporary, relevant, cutting edge, the best adjectives represent what PANK is all about.

Abjective – Along the same lines as PANK, Abjective e-publishes great fictional prose and poetry, but there’s a catch. Abjective comes out weekly with only one piece of either poetry, prose, or creative non-fiction. It’s a stripped down literary ‘zine – the only thing on the site is the current piece and a minimalist description of the Abjective manifesto. If anything, it keeps you on your toes in anticipation for the next issue only every few days away.

My e-journeys in the past month have also brought me to Mel Bosworth’s Grease Stains, Kismet, and Eternal Wisdom available as a free e-book (yes, free!) at Brown Paper Publishing. The short novel of about one hundred pages is an interesting read, it definitely doesn’t bore with its parameters of lust, drugs and borderline insanity. But I won’t ruin it for you because you can, just as easily as I did, read it yourself.

Oh, and keep reading this, it’s also free, independent and full of great writing.

Published by This Literary Webzine

Live Review: Delinquints at Bovine Sex Club, Toronto

The 8th annual Toronto Zombie Walk hit downtown T.O. Saturday, October 23, giving Hallowe’en lovers a chance to try on their costumes a little early. I caught one of the many after parties happening that night, this one at the Bovine Sex Club, where the Delinquints laid down a gritty and captivating set.

The Delinquints’ live performance is a powerhouse of noise. A raw, electric spectacle comprised of singer Jimy Delinquint’s dark, Misfit-greaser aesthetic; Beardo and Sarah’s classic punky-garage, U.K. Subs style guitars, coarsely distorted and frantically chugging away; and Dan Arget’s blistering drums continually cycling through high tempo, four on the floor beats. The Delinquints play heavy, monstrous punk, yet simple and with enough soul to stay out of the new hardcore-cum-metal spectrum. This is hardcore punk in the classic sense: Johnny Cash down on Avenue A. Back alley Elvis wielding stiletto. Ramones on speed.

Of course, with so much punk history encroaching on their sound, the Delinquints had to pay homage to their heroes. This came with a much more core than Social D cover of Cash’s eternal psychobilly anthem “Folsom Prison Blues.” And three Misfits classics, “Horror Business,” “Hybrid Moments” and, which got everyone fist pumping, “Last Caress.” Belting out the songs at double speed, sounding almost exactly like today’s touring Misfits, all of the Delinquints’ covers were graceful nods to their forebears. This band isn’t out to prove they’re punk; they naturally strut in intimidating confidence.

Sending off guitarist Sarah Hoedlmoser in her last set with the group, plenty of Delinquints favourites were also on hand. These included “Punish The Wicked (With a 2X4),” “No Cure For” and “Criminalise The Poor.” Demonstrating their early eighties street, specifically anarcho anthem meets fifties garage sound, these tracks got local followers chanting. By the end of the set, the Bovine was packed shoulder to shoulder with people catching a glimpse of these punks who know that respect for elders trumps striking a pose.

Published by Thiz Literary Webzine

CD Review: Elvis Costello

Elvis Costello
National Ransom
3.5/5

Listen To: The Spell That You Cast
Skip It: Stations Of The Cross

Wearing your stripes is inevitable as time goes by and Costello, on his latest album National Ransom, looks like he's almost out of steam. Take the title track for example, its mid-tempo beat and low-fi organ background attempt, but fail to pack a punch. Forget the reggae club; this song is only dance hall appropriate at the senior's centre.

That said the tune grabs more than its follower, "Jimmie Standing In The Rain,” a lackluster moment of intimacy between Costello, acoustic, trumpet and violin. The song has gravity - Costello's usual lyrical depth is present, and the Vaudeville inspired sound is on the mark. But it still leaves an indelible WTF? on your mind.

Shadowy ballad "Stations Of The Cross" is similarly confusing. Tinkering around dark piano lines, the intended approach on the heart strings is out of touch. "Five Small Words" would be acceptable if the country guitar line was left alone, but its drowning reverb bothers.

Surprisingly, the other ten tracks on National Ransom takes you in a better direction. Out comes the impressive Costello we all know and love, and were waiting for.

"A Slow Drag With Josephine,” "Bullets For The New-Born King" and "One Bell Ringing" have an essential organic country quality showcasing Costello's acoustic and vocal skill. The songs, and especially "You Hung The Moon,” fondly recall Costello/Bacharach era integrity.

"Church Underground" offers the most dedicated throwback with a ratty reggae guitar line. And "The Spell That You Cast" has the legendary fifties "Radio, Radio" sound with exciting organ and Chuck Berry solo.

Overall National Ransom falls slightly short, leaving room for more from the great who gave us "Allison" and "Watching The Detectives.” But the disconnect fades once a few consumer tracks are rid with and we meet again with one of the best modern musicians.

Track Listing:

1. National Ransom
2. Jimmie Standing In The Rain
3. Stations Of The Cross
4. A Slow Drag With Josephine
5. Five Small Words
6. Church Underground
7. You Hung The Moon
8. Bullets For The New-Born King
9. I Lost You
10. Dr. Watson, I Presume
11. One Bell Ringing
12. The Spell That You Cast
13. That's Not The Part Of Him You're Leaving
14. My Lovely Jezebel
15. All These Strangers
16. A Voice In The Dark

Published by Tangible Sounds Magazine

Book Review

WHAT IS LEFT THE DAUGHTER
by Howard Norman

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
(October 2010, US$25.00, 256 pages)

At the beginning of Howard Norman’s What Is Left The Daughter, Wyatt Hillyer, a teenage boy recently orphaned by double parent suicides, embarks on an apprenticeship to his uncle Donald as a toboggan maker. Odd, but these two scenarios are more closely knit than you may think. They set up the depressing chain of events that this World War Two era novel follows.

Written as a letter to Wyatt’s long-lost daughter Marlais, this novel’s most striking trait is its focus on tragedy-touched characters. The fatal theme flourishes quickly, once Wyatt is moved from Halifax to Middle Economy, Nova Scotia, a small town in the maritime province where his aunt and uncle live. Here, Wyatt reunites with Tilda, his adopted cousin whom he secretly loves. Also in her late teens, Tilda decides to become a professional mourner – yes, she weeps alongside deceased loners whom no one else will pity. In diverse representation, Wyatt isn’t the only one full-up on sadness. The man Tilda eventually marries is Hans Mohring, a German exchange student of philology at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

And then there is Tilda’s father, Wyatt’s toboggan-making mentor Donald, overcome with paranoia caused by German U-boat attacks off Canada’s east coast. Donald withdraws from the family, gives up the sleigh racket, and starts bunking alone in his work shed like a soldier. On her last night in town before travelling to Newfoundland on a family visit, Wyatt’s aunt Constance, Donald’s wife, breaks the shield and sleeps with Donald between walls tacked up with war stories from the newspaper.

Things climax when a German torpedo takes out a ferry with Constance onboard. With this, Donald’s hate for Hitler peaks; his paranoia proves its worth. He even goes as far as smashing his beloved Beethoven and Bach gramophone records, the ones that always got caught in the last groove before the needle could lift: a broken record repeating its last note over and over again, like the newspaper and radio reports Donald couldn’t ignore.

In one last, foul move, Donald tricks Wyatt into inviting Tilda’s German husband, Hans, to their house, apparently to make peace. Instead, Donald’s rage overpowers wit when he kills Hans with a steel toboggan runner. Daughter takes on a small town, court drama feel for a couple chapters. Donald gets life in prison for the murder; Wyatt receives a couple years for his involvement.

Upon his release, Wyatt slowly becomes part of Tilda’s life again and one night they conceive a child: Marlais. However, Wyatt is once again abandoned when Tilda moves to Denmark with Marlais, and until the point that the book is written—March 27, 1967—Wyatt goes without seeing his daughter for nearly thirty years. The story ends with Wyatt encountering more death (from both important characters and not), old friends, and living his life as a dedicated gaffer at the Halifax Harbour.

Daughter is a bleak and empathetic story, dissolved slightly with pockets of classic, uppity, home front war era scenes. To Norman’s credit, there are many unforeseen right turns that follow constant tragic foreshadowing. From page one, death is on the mind, and the avenues in which the theme is experimented with are not obviously revealed. Like any wartime novel, Daughter does have flavours of stories told once before. Hitler’s encroach on Middle Economy, even though he and his troops are distant, is represented only by a foreign sit-in. When it’s revealed that there are Nazis posing as RMC soldiers roaming around Nova Scotia and that a friend of Wyatt’s was attacked by them, you start to sympathize with Donald, the unabashed defender of reasonable revenge. Although he sacrificed an innocent bystander, he had the right intention. I guess that’s the worth of any good war novel: breaking down misconceptions loaded with controversial politics.

Published by This Literary Webzine

Small book wins big prize

Johanna Skibsrud’s The Sentimentalists winning the Giller Prize, Canada’s highest literary achievement, does more for CanLit than for Skibsrud. That’s taken lightly though, because the young, thirty-year-old author of a highly esteemed novel will feel the Giller effect of worldly recognition and mass sales in the ball park of 75,000 copies. But even that sounds miniscule compared to the real story behind The Sentimentalists. When this novel was first published in 2009 by Kentville, Nova Scotia micro-press Gaspereau Books, it was in a wiry run of 800 copies.

That’s what makes this year’s Giller so unique in the world of CanLit, and so groundbreaking. The Sentamentalists is the smallest book ever to win the prize, which pays a pleasant $50,000, and beat out two big commercial novels, David Bergen’s The Matter With Morris and Kathleen Winter’s Annabel. Winter’s novel was also nominated for the Writer’s Trust and Governor General’s awards. Last year’s Giller winner was long time CBC newscaster Lynden MacIntyre for his widely successful novel The Bishop’s Man. In its fifteen year existence, past Giller winners include Alice Munro, Joseph Boyden and Margaret Atwood. No one saw the major literary award centering in on something as obscure as Skibsrud's novel, an account of her father’s life as a soldier in the Vietnam War.

At the same time, The Sentamentalists contended with other underdogs, including Sarah Salecky’s This Cake Is For The Party and Alexander MacLeod’s Light Lifting, two considerably smaller books, thought their quantities were at least in the thousands when recommended by the jury.

Once the 2010 Giller longlist was announced, Gaspereau owner Andrew Steeves turned down commercial offers to mass produce copies of The Sentamentalists. “If you are going to buy a copy of that book in Canada, it’s damn well coming out of my shop,” Steeves proclaimed in an interview with the Globe and Mail. He’s since changed his tune, telling the press on Monday that Vancouver publishers Douglas & McIntyre will be producing 30,000 paperback copies by the end of the week, with an additional 20,000 lined up when demand bubbles again.

Also currently hitting the news is a dash of Giller controversy. Ali Smith, British author and one of the three Giller jurors this year, reportedly tipped off a publishing friend during the middle of deliberations about her love of Skibsrud’s novel. The National Post reported that Smith’s friend, Tracy Bohan of The Wiley Agency, may have taken the advice a little too seriously, because she sold foreign printing rights of the book to a UK Random House imprint with a release date set for next March. Giller president Jack Rabinovitch acknowledges the information sharing was out of line, but was done innocently.

Meanwhile, Steeves at Gaspereau in Kentville, Nova Scotia is trying to keep his head above water while pumping out 1,000 hand-printed and hand-bound copies a week, with enough on backorder to keep them in business until e-books really do take over the world. Oddly enough, The Sentamentalists is available online as an e-Book from Kobo. Since the announcement of Skibsrud’s win last week, Amazon.ca has her novel topping the bestseller list ahead of Keith Richard’s Life and George W. Bush’s Decision Points. Beating out famous names like that is no little feat.

Published by This Literary Webzine

Oh, Winston.

I find it interesting how we stumble over the things we end up reading. What makes us pick up a certain newspaper, magazine or book, only to have it become one of our favourites? In hindsight, I sometimes realise odd licks of fate that initially guide me to a certain trend in writing, only to view it later as something monumental. For instance, I’ll always remember the cornerstone novel in my life being Orwell’s 1984. I first read it on a philosophical whim when I was thirteen years old; I was coming of age and getting interested in world politics, and had heard how prolific was the novel’s satire of modern democratic society, derived from a premonition. I not only fell in love with Orwell (since having read most of his catalogue), but 1984 influenced my perception of the world. Whenever I reminisce on how I forged my left-wing, anti-establishment, down-with-globalisation ways, I often think of how trapped Winston Smith is, constantly evading Big Brother, and how the thought of becoming him forever changed my outlook.

It seems like lately, in a much less momentous way, I have oddly stumbled over more reading when titles jumped out at me for some reason and became some of my favourites. Here are a few that I have tripped over in the past few weeks.

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer
I fell upon Packer while reading an article about the New Yorker’s 20 Under 40 list in this a few months back. Skimming through the finalists, the words Drinking Coffee Elsewhere pulled me in for a couple of reasons. One: It reminded me of the movie “Coffee and Cigarettes,” one of my favourites, a documentary about rock and roll warlords. Two: Because it sounds so good (I know, but if you share this sentiment, you know what I mean). Thankfully, the witty title of this collection of stories was not a guise to lure in readers, only to have them disappointed at some lame, poorly written life story. Contrarily, ZZ Packer’s style is sensational. She not only attacks identity and gender theories, racism, and other contemporary controversial topics in Coffee, but does it with some of the best writing I’ve ever read. I highly recommend.

Anton Chekhov
I recently reviewed a book of modernised Chekhov tales and while doing so realised that I had never actually read anything by Chekhov. It’s hard to say this as an English major, but true. I had only heard of his prowess – how he is the best Russian story writer of all time and second to Shakespeare in the world-scope of bards. And, I’m pretty sure a few Simpsons episodes are taken straight from Chekhov‘s pages. Needless to say, I had to do some buffing up. What I mainly love about Chekhov’s over two hundred stories (and a number of plays) is the focus on everyday life. Whether drawing characters from working class Russia or writing about important national landmarks, Chekhov had an unbelievable knack for depicting reality in a highly important era.

Death In Venice by Thomas Mann
The other day I was reading the arts section of the newspaper and came across a review of a new opera in Toronto, Death In Venice, based on the novella by Thomas Mann. Once again, and I don’t know why, this title leapt off the page at me. I instantly hit the library. Now, if there is one thing I love about literature, it’s being able to get entranced by writing. Venice opens with its hero Gustav von Aschenbach taking a very Poe-esque walk by the cemetery where he bumps into an eerie stalker. From this, I was hooked. But the story is more than a Gothic stroll; it deals with everything from ancient philosophy, Shakespearian tragedy and the Narcissistic archetype. Check this out if you enjoy quick reads and allusion rich literature requiring an afternoon or two full of research.

Published by This Literary Webzine

Record Review: Fucked Up - Year Of The Ox

FUCKED UP
Year of the Ox
Merge Records, 2010

We all know bands grow up, but it’s usually into whiny commercial whores. That’s why it’s so great to watch Fucked Up somehow, with increasing severity, undercut punk’s simplistic ethos with every release. Indeed, they do it again on their latest, Year Of The Ox, the fourth instalment in a Zodiac themed singles line which has led the band in some of their most audibly absurd travels. And on a whole, at times completely off the cusp in any sense of hardcore punk, Fucked Up’s past five years, since their debut full-length record Hidden World and acclaimed follow-up The Chemistry of Common Life, showcases a band with an itching experimental side waiting to let loose.

On Ox, title track “Year Of The Ox” opens with an eerie violin and cello build-up, donated by Toronto orchestra ensemble New Strings Old Puppets, foreshadowing the song’s bass line and classical elements. Tension rises for just over a minute before the band kicks in. Damian Abraham immediately spits out his bludgeoning vocals in time with the guitar section’s stomping yet gentle hook that prevails as the thirteen minute song’s main riff.

A slight change in that hook switches up progression five minutes in. When the formula returns after a quick bridge, Abraham’s throat lashings assume an authoritative air while New Strings returns for an epic orchestral bridge. The guitar takes a backseat to elevating classical monstrosity reminiscent of Hidden World opener “Crusades” but with much more drawn out ampleness. Zola Jesus’s Nika Rosa Danilova dawns her voice in the latter half of the tune, offering mystical vocal swells amidst the now grittily palm muted guitar line.

“Ox” mixes the grandiose with the gutter, making it easy to wonder if Abraham would for once stop wrenching his guts, then Fucked Up would have to be labelled something other than punk or hardcore. What's punk about classically epic? Perhaps a question never to be answered by the troupe, but this song’s rule bending consciousness displays how punk doesn’t always have to laugh at itself, and can be seriously measured for all signs of integrity. Fucked Up proves punk is real music, even an academy-trained ear can recognise that.

The single’s B-side is another eye opener. Unlike previous Year Of’s backed with a couple two-minute punk standards, Ox flips over to the twelve minute “Solomon’s Song” uniquely featuring a saxophone line by Aerin Fogel of the Bitters. The bluesy intro leads to another low-mid tempo drum beat while a high-pitch guitar lead cycles over distant power chords. The song gets trippy as psychedelic delay effects are laid on the guitars during the choruses. When Abraham rests during the many, almost unnoticed bridges, the band is a marvel. Sandy wraths the bass strings offering low pitch punches; spacey bell rings and tremolo feedback jet out from hidden crevices; and Fogel wails on the sax for a broad five-minute outro.

Ox is monumental in mapping the evolution of Fucked Up from being an abrasive streetcore band to the scene’s forerunning innovators. Long time fans know they’re still thrashing and crashing, but to an obviously more intricate, grown-up style.

Published by This Literary Magazine

CanLit Award Predictions

CanLit awards season is heading into its last few weeks (our big three prizes will all be handed out by mid-November). Thus, it’s time for predictions, and, if you are a real lit-junkie, some serious bets. First, a few quiet observations.

What everyone is perhaps not so quietly talking about is Kathleen Winter’s triple nominations for the Giller Prize, Governor General’s Award and Writers’ Trust prize for her novel Annabel. It is Winter’s debut novel after her 2008 Winterset Award winning short story collection boYs.



Feeling two-thirds the heat as Kathleen Winter is Emma Donoghue, up for the Writers’ Trust and GG for her novel Room. The novel was also short-listed for the Man Booker earlier this fall.

There are lesser hopefuls that may surprise Canada with a big win after all. David Bergen’s new novel The Matter With Morris has had its share of recognition this season. It is up for the Giller and may just take the cake out of Winter’s mouth.

That said, it would be doggishly ironic if Sarah Selecky’s This Cake Is For The Party won the Giller. It is her debut work and has created considerable buzz in critic’s circles. Perhaps if the GG and Writer’s Trust accepted story collections, it would also approach taking those awards.

On to my predictions: be warned, the following is purely unfounded speculation.

On November 2, Michael Winter’s The Death Of Donna Whalen will win the Writers’ Trust award for fiction. In non-fiction, Sarah Leavitt will win for her graphic memoir Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer’s, My Mother and Me.

A week later on November 9, Emma Donoghue will win the Giller Prize for Room.

And in mid-November the Governor General’s Award for fiction will be presented to Kathleen Winter for Annabel. In non-fiction, Allan Casey will win for Lakeland: Journeys into the Soul of Canada.

Published by This Literary Magazine

Album Review: Pantera - Cowboys From Hell 20th Anniversary

Pantera
Cowboys From Hell 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition
4.5/5

Listen To: Domination (Alive and Hostile EP)
Skip It: Nothing.

For any old school metalhead, Pantera's mainstream breakthrough, Cowboys From Hell, has some sort of nostalgia tied to it. Upon its release in 1990 Pantera, who had previously been known as Pantera's Metal Magic and strut to a glammier kind of metal, received mass recognition for their reworked sound. Without getting into the politics of who started what first - Cowboys From Hell is deemed by most as the definitive groove metal album, though condemned by defenders of Exhorder as not - we can agree that Cowboys From Hell popularized the genre, a first, and that's nothing to shake your prick at.

Celebrating the twenty year anniversary since this influential album, legendary Rhino Records re-released it in a box set alongside an array of previously unreleased Pantera material.

The original Cowboys From Hell leaves well enough alone, letting you relive past mullet days by head banging along to "Cemetary Gates," "Psycho Holiday," "Domination" and the rest of the twelve monstrous tracks that thrust Pantera onto pick-up truck dashboards across America. Dimebag, Anselmo, Rex and Vinnie are all still indefinitely in your face. What still resonates most is Dimebag's incurable talent - the punchiest death metal sound funneled through groundbreaking orchestrated technique.

The second disc, available on the Rhino Extended release, is all live Pantera. Seven tracks, recorded at the Foundations Forum set in LA in 1990, are previously unreleased. The latter five tracks come from 1994's Alive and Hostile EP.

For diehards who splurge on the Deluxe Edition, there is a third disc featuring the eleven legendary demos that became Cowboys From Hell, and one previously unheard Pantera tune entitled "The Will To Survive," a hairier track more like pre-Cowboys Pantera.

Shit, now that's more than an afternoon's worth of music. More like twenty years' worth.

Track Listing:

Disc One
1. Cowboys From Hell
2. Primal Concrete Sledge
3. Psycho Holiday
4. Heresy
5. Cemetery Gates
6. Domination
7. Shattered
8. Clash With Reality
9. Medicine Man
10. Message In Blood
11. The Sleep
12. The Art Of Shredding

Disc Two
1. Domination – Live
2. Psycho Holiday – Live
3. The Art Of Shredding – Live
4. Cowboys From Hell – Live
5. Cemetery Gates – Live
6. Primal Concrete Sledge – Live
7. Heresy – Live
8. Domination – Live, Alive And Hostile EP
9. Primal Concrete Sledge – Live, Alive And Hostile EP
10. Cowboys From Hell – Live, Alive And Hostile EP
11. Heresy – Live, Alive And Hostile EP
12. Psycho Holiday – Live, Alive And Hostile EP

Disc Three
1. The Will To Survive
2. Shattered – Demo
3. Cowboys From Hell – Demo
4. Heresy – Demo
5. Cemetery Gates – Demo
6. Psycho Holiday – Demo
7. Medicine Man – Demo
8. Message In Blood – Demo
9. Domination – Demo
10. The Sleep – Demo
11. The Art Of Shredding – Demo

Published by Tangible Sounds

CD Review: Apocalyptica's 7th Symphony

Apocalyptica
7th Symphony
4/5

Listen To: At The Gates Of Manala
Skip It: Not Strong Enough

You have to love when metal and classical fans have something in common. It's not all that rare these days with the growing neo-classical metal scene gaining a following. There are even classical-punk bands kicking around and getting recognition. But, undoubtedly, at the forefront of neo-classical alt music is Apocalyptica from Helsinki, Finland, who are back with their seventh studio album, aptly titled 7th Symphony.

The record follows suit with previous Apocalyptica works with four songs featuring well known guest vocalists, being Bush X frontman Gavin Rossdale, Brent Smith of Shinedown, Lacey Mosley from Flyleaf, and Gojira's Joe Duplantier.

With such variance in vocal presence, 7th Symphony's lyricised tracks keep the band pushing new boundaries. Apocalyptica is cello metal, but, for example with Gavin Rossdale's track "End Of Me," they create a very radio friendly heavy rock sound. It's just too bad the radio doesn't pay any attention. Joe Duplantier's vocal offering, coming late in the ten song record, avenges the mainstream's lacking acknowledgment of this band. "Bring Them To Light" is dark, heavy, and spattered with crackling death metal vocals.

On the heavy side is where 7th Symphony holds tightest. The other six tracks, all instrumentals, are gritty, incorporating death, thrash, and even metalcore tactics, hardly sounding like cello music at all. Seven minute album opener "At The Gates Of Manala" mixes riffs and feedback; blast and triplet drum beats; and tempo-dampening breakdowns.

The record also has mellow tracks, like "On The Rooftop With Quasimodo," that rely on less doomish, mood-setting metal. "Sacra" dawns a beat riding tambourine for the album's second last track, the cleanest tune on the record. However, on the whole, this is a heavy; at times hooky and catchy offering from... shall I say it? Hell, from the Mozarts of Metal.

Track Listing:

1. At The Gates Of Manala
2. End Of Me, featuring Gavin Rossdale
3. Not Strong Enough, featuring Brent Smith
4. 2010, featuring Dave Lombardo
5. Beautiful
6. Broken Pieces, featuring Lacey Mosley
7. On The Rooftop With Quasimodo
8. Bring Them To Light, featuring Joe Duplantier
9. Sacra
10. Rage Of Poseidon

Published by Tangible Sounds

Tape Review

FUCK THE FACTS
Live In Whitby
Self-Released/Band Camp

Spitting on 2010 technology, Fuck The Facts released a cassette tape last month, Live In Whitby, a recording of a performance at the Wing Shack in Whitby, Ontario on April 11, 2009. Enough to get die hard collectors antsy, the tape was limited to a slim fifty-three copies (they’re already sold out). The album is also available as a Name Your Price download on BandCamp.com, where FTF’s punk/grind masterpiece Unnamed EP (February 2010) is also available.

Continuously transforming over eight studio albums, countless singles, splits and compilations, FTF’s ever indefinable style tiptoes around punk, noise, stoner-groove and industrial influenced grind since 1998. Live In Whitby offers a glimpse of the band during peak Disgorge Mexico (2008) era with six of the nine tracks, including “Kelowna” and “Sleepless”, taken from the album. The oldest song on the tape is “La Tete Hors De L’eau,” originally appearing on 2003 release Overseas Connection.

One constant throughout FTF’s distinct grindcore approach is sampling voice and sound into their music. Evidently, this is not a studio-only technique. I was at the Wing Shack show, mesmerised watching drummer Mathieu Vilandrê swivel back and forth between drummer and sound dub roles, whacking at a synthesizer to his side when called for. Nothing is excluded from FTF style when playing live.

Singer Mel Mongeon also impresses on the tape with her monstrous stage presence, as intimidating as a ravenous Pit Bull. From her territorial markings spattered into the mic – “We’re Fuck The Facts from fuckin’ Ottawa!” – to her dedicated, intestine spindling scream assault, she shoves a middle finger up the ass of any hollow commercial metal.

The Live In Whitby lineup (left to right): Marc Bourgon, Topon Das, Mathieu Vilandrê, Johnny Ibay, Mel Mongeon.

Lead guitarist and band founder Topon Das, along with second guitarist Johnny Ibay and bassist Marc Bourgon, feed you the integral cherry on top of FTF’s approach. Drenched with distortion and devilishly down-tuned, the fellows rip through their unique grind sound with exact precision on Whitby. Not a brow-raising pick squeal nor panic inducing lead is fumbled.

FTF followers will be glad to get their hands, or hard drives, on this, the band’s first live release since 2003′s Live Damage. Whitby brings live new era FTF into your home and an opportunity to salivate over the richness of their performance whenever you desire. The sound quality is undeniable; aside from the cattle calls between songs, nothing differs from the studio. It is an imprint of a strikingly tight and technical group.

Whitby is dedicated to the memory of Canadian visual artist and musician Michal Majewski, who passed shortly after the event. He designed the poster for the show, pictured above. A catalogue of his artwork is available here. Majewski was the bassist for Ontario thrash/grind band F.A.T.O., who opened at the Wing Shack show.

Track Listing:
1. Absence And Despite
2. The Storm
3. Kelowna
4. Everyone Is Robbing The Dead
5. The Sound Of Your Smashed Head
6. La Culture Du Faux
7. The Pile Of Flesh You Carry
8. Sleepless
9. La Tete Hors De L’eau

Published by This Literary Magazine

Karkwa wins Polaris Prize

Polaris Prize season is always exciting for Canadian music journalists. The hype around the heftily weighted $20,000 purse acknowledging the best independent album of the year takes on a feverish holiday feel. This year, after a summer of waiting since the longlist was announced on June 17, and the shortlist on July 7, music nerds were getting antsy. For months, record biz insiders, journalists and music fans were making their predictions known all over social networks. Leading up to the special day, September 20, people were wishing each other a “Happy Polaris Prize Day” on Twitter and Facebook.

Now it’s all said and done and, I am pleased to announce, the winner of the 2010 Polaris Prize is Montreal indie rock group Karkwa for their record Les Chemins De Verre. The band has been around since 2003 and have released four albums on Audiogram Records.

Much like the hype preceding Polaris day, after the winner is announced there is always strong reaction from media and music listeners alike. Last fall I was happier than a punk with a bottle of malt liquor when I heard one of my favourite bands, Fucked Up, won for their record The Chemistry Of Common Life. But after the Toronto hardcore-turned-experimental troupe took home the oversized cheque, reaction ensued, and critics unleashed. People couldn’t believe that a curse-named punk band could beat out more radio friendly underground music. “For heaven’s sake,” mainstream snobbies protested, “Metric was up for the award – and Fucked Up won?!”

This year, it’s much of the same jealousy fired at Karkwa. I guess it is tradition for people to lash out, usually in defence of the bands that don’t need twenty grand. Mostly I’ve seen people angry about popular bands like Tegan and Sarah and Broken Social Scene being sidelined by the judges in lieu of an underdog. I confess, I haven’t heard Les Chemins De Verre entirely, yet, but from what I’ve Youtubed I like. I applaud Karkwa for proving Edge102 radio and MuchMusic aren’t the be all, end all to what’s hip in Canada.

2010 Polaris Prize Winners Karkwa

However, I wonder why some well-known underground bands were left out this year. Although one of my favourites, The Sadies, made the shortlist (much to my surprise), I think some other Canadian albums should at least have been considered, like Bison BC’s Dark Ages, which I heard back in March and immediately declared the best Canadian album of 2010. I also would have nominated Fuck The Facts’s Unnamed EP, which to your next door neighbour sounds like the heaviest metal of all time but is really one of the smartest, genius punk/grind records ever.

I’ve kept quiet on my thoughts because, frankly, I know it will be a while before a heavier bands take the Polaris. For some reason hardcore and metal are too out of reach for vogue listeners. This is why it still amazes me that Fucked Up won last year. If the judges heard any of their music prior to Chemistry, I’m sure they would have barfed in disgust and declined them any right to acknowledgment in the arts scene.

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CanLit: John Leigh Walters wins Edna Staebler Award

This week, Kitchener, Ontario author John Leigh Walters was awarded the 2010 Edna Staebler Award for creative non-fiction for his first book A Very Capable Life: The Autobiography of Zarah Petri.

Walters’s A Very Capable Life is the story of his mother, Zarah Petri, and her life as an immigrant during the twentieth century. Walters is being heralded for mastering the first-person autobiography of another person. He writes Petri’s stories in her voice, from her point of view, and creatively reinterprets landmark twentieth century events through her perception.

Now retired, Walters hosted and produced television shows in Canada and the United States for most of his life. Most recently, he hosted a program on CTV in Waterloo.

The Edna Staebler Award, established by Staebler in 1991, annually acknowledges the best first or second non-fiction work of an author that significantly portrays Canadian culture or takes place in a Canadian locale. The winner receives $10,000 from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. Wilfrid Laurier University recently published a collection of Staebler’s diary entries entitled Must Write.

Edna Staebler was one of Canada’s most well-known writers, regarded widely for her Mennonite cookbook series Food That Really Shmecks. She also wrote for popular Canadian magazines Maclean’s, Chatelaine, Reader’s Digest and Star Weekly. In 1996 she was awarded the Order of Canada.

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White Moustache

by John Coleman

I read in the newspaper
about a man with a white moustache
who said he wanted to burn the Qur’an.
His moustache looked just like Hulk Hogan’s,
and it reminded me of white bread.
Fake, like white bread -
so overworked and distant from nature.
Bleached, misshapen, manipulated, unnatural.
Unreal – like wrestling.

The moustached man said that
if they built a mosque where
(people can pray)
so many innocent people died,
that would comply with the enemy.
He didn’t have mighty arms like Hulk Hogan does,
but he worked in the same way:
to bring down the enemy.
And I thought,
I belong to the most violent generation.
But not like,
My generation is so violent, it’s absurd.
My thoughts wandered to the conclusion that
I live in the most violent generation ever.

That’s all burning the Qur’an is anyway, right?
Violence.
Instead of burning the Qur’an,
this man really wants to burn the enemy.
He really wants to burn human beings.
But burning the Qur’an sends the same message:
red-white-and-blue
(so easily, how it flows)
wants you to die.

Target, burn, kill your enemy
preached the white moustached man.
It made me want to burn
red-white-and-blue mentality.
I want to burn my Wonder Bread.
I want to darken my white bread mind.

Because my side
(culture)
is being strung up
(hung)
like a(n) flag
(enemy).
I feel misrepresented.
I don’t believe in flags.
Because of the man with the white moustache
I will never believe in God
because believing in God means being hung.

There is a mosque in my neighbourhood in the GTA.
Little mosque on the concrete prairie.
It’s like a church in a school gym
with a Coke machine in the entrance
where my neighbours pray to
Jesus.
But opposite
(wrong).
Right, white moustached man?

I later read that Hulk Hogan
stepped down from his challenge
and that bruised his integrity
because he was fake.
If he was real he would have
burned all the Qur’ans.
But some Hoganites were still going to
carry out the crusade,
the original plan.

They said:
This is the right thing to do.
The only thing left
but more so right
thing to do.
Burn people that burn you.

And a friend, or two, or many of mine read the Qur’an.
Read, or pray, or wander in thought,
then we all watch wrestling.
Hulk Hogan on the screen in fiery yellow and red.
When he powerslams the enemy, the violence is
fake, thin, blank.
Like Wonder Bread.
But there is always a small city who thinks
it is worth standing up to say
“Hulk Hogan is the best,
I would do anything he tells me.”
It is the most violent generation.

Published by This Literary Magazine

Book Review

CELEBRITY CHEKHOV
by Ben Greenman
Harper-Perennial
(October 2010, $13.99, 205 pages)

Anton Chekhov meets the twenty-first century in Ben Greenman’s latest novel, Celebrity Chekhov, in which Greenman rewrites a selection of the master Russian storyteller’s works with modern day celebrities in place of the original characters.

The shift in rhetoric may be easier for humour readers to stomach than students of Russian literature. Chekhov’s romantic, classical picture of Russian life during the industrial revolution and pre-Communist revolution takes a back seat to current Hollywood headlines. The plots of the twenty reworked stories, which include “An Enigmatic Nature,” “Death of a Government Clerk,” “The Darling,” and “A Classical Student,” are the same, but Greenman’s contemporary symbols encompass a world of difference.

For example, in Celebrity’s opening story, “Tall and Short,” based on Chekhov’s “Fat and Thin.” The original story portrays a pair of childhood friends all grown up and, by way of the fat friend becoming a privy councillor, examines the fear capable of being instilled by Russian elites. Less politics are tied to Greenman’s “Tall and Short,” which replaces Fat and Thin with Paris Hilton (Tall) and Nicole Richie (Short) a few years after falling out of BFF-ship. The looming elitist comment is personified in Paris, but the story loses Chekhov’s intent.

Chekhov’s “A Transgression” is a perfect fit for Greenman’s take on David Letterman’s life. The story depicts a practical joke played on a rich socialite by his angry maid, who gets back at him by leaving a baby on his doorstep and leading him to believe it is the product of an affair. He jumps through the hoop, and the rich man/David Letterman fesses up to his wife about an illegitimate child he does not have, and an affair he did. Although “A Transgression” is a quirky anecdote, it is muddled by a Letterman we see acting out of character. He mopes, worries, and shows a soul, which is hard to imagine in the egotistical late night king. The Letterman character seems like it could be any cheating celeb.

The same feeling comes in “Bad Weather,” which focuses on Tiger Woods’ recent infidelities. The story is consuming - big names and Chekhov style draw you in - but Tiger is not himself. It’s almost like a Mad Magazine interpretation of the stars: inflated and satirised to a point of absurdity, where it’s hard to find any reason for reading them at all.

Greenman gets his impressions right at the end of Celebrity in an adaptation of a Chekhov trilogy, consisting of “The Man In A Case,” “Gooseberries,” and “About Love.” Here, Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson converse about tragic love stories in a truly cinematic way. The anecdotes are witty and funny and, most importantly, when you imagine the dialogue in their voices, their renowned personalities fit the roles. “The Man In A Case” even makes Jon Lovitz look like the paranoid shut-in we all think he is, but tastefully of course.

Greenman obviously brings classicism into the new millennium in Celebrity Chekhov and shows how story archetypes are recycled everywhere in literature. But it might be too far out for purists, who value Chekhov’s perception of turn of the century Russian society - symbols much more inspirational than flashy Hollywood gossip. However, to Greenman’s credit, there are a few smirk inducing scenes that show how certain celebrities actually do match-up with some Chekhovian characters. For a Hollywood obsessed gossip queen looking for an unsurprising reiteration of the past year‘s biggest scandals, this book is perfect.

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EYAL MAOZ & ASAF SIRKIS
Elementary Dialogues
Ayler Records (France), 2009

The fact that Eyal Maoz and Asaf Sirkis were childhood friends, growing up and attending school together in Rehovot, Israel, makes their musical careers all the more interesting. Maoz, a jazz guitarist, left Israel for a musical career in NYC, where he now leads such musical ensembles as Edom, Dimyon, Crazy Slavic Band, and co-leads Hypercolor and Manganon. Sirkis settled across the pond in London, England, after establishing a name for himself as a drummer in Israel during the 1990s. He now leads two ensembles, The Asaf Sirkis Trio and The Inner Noise, and has collaborated with numerous artists such as Harold Rubin, John Williams, and Nick Homes.

After banding around and making names for themselves in their respective cities, Maoz and Sirkis reunite on 2009′s Ayler Records release, Elementary Dialogues. What a force they have concocted! Relying on traditional instrumental jazz formulae of lead trading and intuition fuelled improv, the record fuses blues, jazz and rock styles for a unique picture of avant-garde experimentation.

Eyal Maoz

“Regae” opens Elementary Dialogues with a twangy, fairly conservative blues melody. The simplistic, smile inducing tune effectively sets the plain for Eyal’s clean guitar side, which guides him through tell-tale jazz unconventionality on the album. However, the safe, mood-setting album opener contrasts the feverish intensity found on the rest of the record.

To be blunt, after “Regae” simplicity vanishes from Elementary Dialogues. Second track “Foglah” dawns Maoz’s distinct experimental sound which frequently pushes toward a distorted noise sound. Reminiscent of the Electric Mud style, Maoz unleashes his raw talent by playing with feedback and wah effects, at times calling in shades of Hendrix-esque tone manipulation.

The rest of the record follows the same lines as “Foglah,” throwing the rule book aside for a highly experimental avant-garde sound. For example, “Sparse” is backgrounded with a fiddlish tremolo effect and Sirkis’s chattering ride cymbal. Atop the electric, yet lounge-ish noise, Maoz breaks the tension with drawn out, distorted blues leads.

“Miniature” splits the record with contrast by slowing tempo. Maoz’s clean guitar saunters around a humble melody while Sirkis rides his snare with soothing brush strokes. “Kashmir” displays the duo’s inimitable approach perfectly with more clean guitar licks from Maoz, and Sirkis’s unrequited love for clacking the rims on his kit. Other notable mentions for fusion lovers include “Jewish Loop,” “Strip,” and “OK,” which incorporate note bending and muddy distortion effects from Maoz and stark impressive improvisation from both duo members.

Maoz and Sirkis trade parts like a couple of prohibition era trailblazers on Elementary Dialogues, each respectively stepping aside to allow their partner to solo around for a bit, and then jumping back into the spotlight for the next burst of energy. The pair blends numerous styles into a melting pot of innovative technicality. From its originality and array of techniques, this record will impress avid contemporary jazz followers, and even the average listener bored with the radio.

Track Listing:

1. Regae
2. Foglah
3. Sparse
4. Jewish Loop
5. Esta
6. Hole
7. Miniature
8. Strip
9. Kashmir
10. OK
11. Ethnic
12. Quiet Improv
13. Without A Story

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Dig Below The Mainstream

I must confess I’ve felt snobbish lately – my range of authors being a tad one sided in favour of the big press. It’s not that I need sales or reputation to respect an author, not at all – it’s just that I’ve been blindsided by a few bigger, highly anticipated novels in the past few months. But being the rebel I am (insert laughtrack here), I know that big press is a euphemism for the man, and I won’t have that being the log in my literary fire.

So, in an attempt to dig below the mainstream, this is what I am reading while the leaves change colour outside my window:

Best Canadian Stories: ’08, ed. John Metcalf (Oberon Press). While perusing my local library I found this gem, a compilation of short stories by ten lesser known CanLit authors like Clark Blaise, Kathleen Winter, and Amy Jones. Despite being edited by one of Canada’s top literary critics, this book really pushes some unheard names into reader’s faces. These are top notch intuitive stories, but their authors probably wouldn’t catch the attention of Penguin editors.

What Is Left The Daughter, by Howard Norman (HMH). I’m reviewing this book for this and so far, from the fifty pages I have read, it is amazing. Set during World War Two on the East Coast of Canada, it is a life tale of extreme hardship at a young age (double parent suicide) and the further aftermath of a growing young man.

The Matter With Morris, by David Bergen (Harper Collins) In honour of making the Giller longlist, I must mention that Bergen’s story is highly intriguing. I’ve only read a condensed version of Morris in this month’s Walrus, but it definately makes me want to buy a copy. With themes like war, romance, writing, and pot – how can you say no?

Mordecai Richler Was Here, ed. Adam Gopnik (Madison). Ahh, I know, there’s nothing small time about Richler. But I don’t care, he’s my favourite author. His satirical wittiness, mastering the underdog story, putting CanLit on the map – he’s the best. This book brings together a wide array of Richler’s journalism coinciding with relevant snippets from his fiction. It’s Richler’s perspective on politics, writing, and success in his own words, a definite read for budding writers in need of guidance.

I have also been paying attention to Joey Comeau’s blog posts over at Open Book Toronto this month. Comeau is gaining a heap of recognition in Canada lately with his most recent novel One Bloody Thing After Another. He also provides captions alongside Emily Horne’s photography on A Softer World, an ongoing web comic.

And yes, I realize this is all CanLit.

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Giller

The longlist for the 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize, the leading literary award for Canadian authors, was announced Monday, September 20. This year’s judges – Canadian journalist and broadcaster Michael Enright, American author and professor Claire Messud, and renowned UK author Ali Smith – decided on thirteen titles from ninety-eight submissions from a wide variety of Canadian publishers.

This year’s selections are diverse and somewhat surprising compared to previous years, with a balanced list of big and small presses, male and female authors, and novels and short story collections.

The 2010 Giller Prize for Fiction longlist is:

The Matter With Morris by David Bergen (Phyllis Bruce Books/HarperCollins)

Player One by Douglas Coupland (House of Anansi Press)

Cities Of Refuge by Michael Helm (McClelland & Stewart)

Light Lifting by Alexander MacLeod (Biblioasis)

The Debba by Avner Mandelman (Other Press/Random House)

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman (Dial/Random House)

This Cake Is For The Party by Sarah Selecky (Thomas Allen Publishers)

The Sentimentalists by Johanna Scabbard (Gaspereau Press)

Lemon by Cordelia Strube (Coach House Books)

Curiosity by Joan Thomas (McClelland & Stewart)

Sanctuary Line by Jane Urquhart (McClelland & Stewart)

Cool Water by Dianne Warren (Phyllis Bruce Books/HarperCollins)

Annabel by Kathleen Winter (House of Anansi Press)

The shortlist will be announced at a Toronto news conference tomorrow October 5 and the 2010 Giller Prize winner will be announced November 9.

While I have you here, I’d like to mention that the five nominees for the City of Toronto Book Award were announced recently. They are:

Prince of Neither Here Nor There by Sean Cullen (Penguin)
Valentine’s Fall by Cary Fagan (Cormorant)
Where We Have To Go by Lauren Kirshner (McClelland)
The Carnivore by Mark Sinnett (ECW)
Diary of Interrupted Days by Dragan Topologic (Random House Canada)

The Toronto book award has been running annually since 1974. This year’s finalists will read selections from their works at the Word On The Street book and magazine festival in Toronto on September 26. The winner will be announced October 14.

October 5, 2010:

The Shortlist for the 2010 Giller Prize was announced Tuesday, October 5. Selected from the longlist of thirteen publications announced September 20, the five shortlisted candidates are:

David Bergen, for the novel The Matter With Morris

Kathleen Winter, for the novel Annabel

Johanna Skibsrud, for the novel The Sentimenatlists

Alexander MacLeod, for the short story collection Light Lifting

Sarah Selecky, for the short story collection This Cake Is For The Party

Think you know which one of these authors will win? If so, enter the Guess The Giller contest for a chance to win VIP passes to the 2011 Giller Gala.

Stay tuned November 9 for the 2010 Giller Prize winner announcement.

The Acacia Strain
Wormwood
4/5

Listen To: The Impaler
Skip It: Tactical Nuke

Massive drop-tuned guitars resonate over a slap-happy double bass foundation on Wormwood, The Acacia Strain's fourth studio album. This record's heaviness warrants a backup set of speakers, it's a start to finish firing range of hardcore tinged death metal.

Living up to its name, album opener "Beast" (featuring Hatebreed's Jamey Jasta) is a muscle shirt shredding inspiration. After an eyebrow raising intro with an alien-like voice insisting When someone needs to be killed, there's no wrong, you're bludgeoned with slow-paced war-drum stomping and max-distorted guitar chugs. Vincent Bennett intensely assaults with his fire-breathing, vocal chord snapping microphone punishment.

Track two, "The Hills Have Eyes,” continues the workout. Driving along a straight ahead triplet beat, the song is more hardcore punk than deathcore and the like, a sound consistent on other faster tracks like "Ramirez.” Fans of Raised Fist and other metal-hardcore will fly ass over tits for these circle pit-triggering songs.

The Acacia Strain, aptly labeled deathcore or not, dabble in untreaded zones on Wormwood as well. For example, intriguing you in the forefront of the entire record is an array of delay guitar. "The Carpathian" and "Terminated" play around with the strobe effect tastefully, allowing contrast to cease judgment of this, upon first listen, categorical band. But "The Impaler" takes the cake with the slipperiest guitar lead around. I don't know what produces this possessed hyena shrill, perhaps better described as a cathedral window shattering over a hell-demon's headstone, but it impresses. Yes, there are many times when Wormwood is that good.

Track Listing:

1. Beast
2. The Hills Have Eyes
3. BTM FDR
4. Ramirez
5. Terminated
6. Nightman
7. The Impaler
8. Jonestown
9. Bay of Pigs
10. The Carpathian
11. Unabomber
12. Tactical Nuke

Published by Tangible Sounds Magazine

Oversung and Underpraised CanLit Authors

The National Post recently ran two pieces in its literary section, The Afterword, entitled Don’t Believe The Hype: 10 Overrated Canadian Authors, and, the next day, Flying Under The Radar: 10 Underrated Canadian Authors. The articles were penned by critics Alex Good and Steven W. Beattie.

In response to the articles, I would like to play devil’s advocate. Albeit I agree with some of Good and Beattie’s slams on big time CanLit monopolisers (I won’t sour you with my opinions), I feel that more than a few toes were stomped on in the more than pretentious analytical/critical slice of opinion. Below I reflect on what they think of CanLit today.

First off, the word Overrated. It’s no doubt that Yann Martel made the list, especially since his recent novel, Beatrice and Virgil, got almost all negative, and really negative, reviews. Yes guys, you saw the headlines too, thanks for the recap. Also on their hitlist are Douglas Coupland for being too much like Kurt Vonnegut; Michael Ondaatje for romanticising the new millennium in a cliché manner; and Anne Michaels and Jane Urquhart, more or less for having top sales.

If I may interject with one opinion, Joseph Boyden should not be on the overrated list. Good and Beattie knock Boyden’s two novels Three Day Road and Through Black Spruce for being stylistically and interpretively off the mark. Missed, however, is an acknowledgment of Boyden’s attempt to slash the colonial view of Native culture. Maybe if more than a handful of Native authors would be accepted into the scene, Boyden could be ruled out for bad writing. Until then, I praise any NativeLit authors, Boyden included, who truly represent Native culture in literature – a form, I remind, absent until the nineteen-eighties.

To give Good and Beattie some credit, they publicise writers who a lot of people don’t, although should, know in their Underrated list. And I agree, if it weren’t for corporate publishing labels worried most about the bottom line, there would be a chance for amazing writers currently dwarfed by Coupland, Michaels, Munro and Atwood. Almost all in the Underrated list were praised for stylistic mastering and pushing unconventional form, such as Sharon English, Clark Blaise, and Ray Smith. These authors, among others, are highlighted on the list for the average daily newspaper reader.

Enough about my take, what do you think? Is one of your favourites deemed overrated? Does an unsung writer you know fit the role of an underrated CanLit author? Are we just becoming too snobby? Or, is commercial literature an oxymoron – should it be chastised for ruining smaller writers’ chances? Leave a comment and have your say; one voice can’t speak for all of us.

Published by This Literary Magazine

CanLit Book Review

CHEF
By Jaspreet Singh
Vintage Canada
(CA – April 2008; US – April 2010, CAN $19.95, 246 pages)

In 1984 India carried out the military operation Meghdoot, which saw the successful invasion and occupation of the Siachen Glacier in the eastern Karakoram range of the Himalayan mountains. Ensuing from this invasion, India and Pakistan have continually warred atop this highest battlefield on earth, raging over the rights to the 70 kilometre stretch of frozen land.

For retired Indian-Sikh military chef Kirpal Singh, the main character in Jaspreet Singh’s Georges Bugnet Award winning novel Chef, his experience of the Siachen Conflict burns deep inside him. Literally, Kip (Kirpal) suffers from cancer. Symbolically, his cancer is war’s destruction personified. Eating away at Kip are memories of serving a corrupt government concerned more with right to land ownership than the will of its people.

Chef opens with Kip embarking on a long train ride from Delhi to Srinagar, his former camp, to cook a feast for the Governor of Kashmir’s daughter’s wedding. The Governor was Kip’s commander, one General Kumar, fourteen years earlier when Kip joined the army and became protégé to expert military chef, Kishen. As Kip flashes back to his war days from behind the closed kitchen quarter doors where higher rank officials stayed away from, we learn how Kip witnessed the sour fundamentals of Indian bureaucracy and, most importantly, how important political dignitaries are in bed with the military.

Kip’s first lesson in the army is understanding his role as chef which, with fierce allusion to the Indian caste system, means answering to those above him. Young and naïve, Kip adapts to his place in military society, and through his chef-minded perspective, Singh’s allegorical binding of food to cultural tradition becomes clear. When Kip visits the home of a Muslim girl, he is propositioned by her brother to marry her, and the girl serves a metaphorical dowry of tea. Kip simply wants to observe her cooking, and wonders why she does not join them for tea. Her place, like Kip’s, is in the kitchen, and he learns something about both Muslim culture and elitism along lines he understands. A similar scene unfolds later when Kip becomes flirtatious with a nurse who is Kishen’s lover. She bats him away, saying “I have no tea to offer you.” Hence, enjoying tea, a mainstay in everyday life, symbolises age-old interaction between the sexes.

As Kip grows into adulthood, Singh’s food metaphors sink deeper. Cultural faux pas extending from food preparation relate to social class when Kishen feeds a non-vegetarian dish to a group of Muslim clerics visiting Srinagar. The clerics are there on official, sketchy business, and for the offensive act marring the General’s reputation, Kishen is sent on permanent leave to a camp on the peak of the Siachen Glacier. Here, food leads to a perfect depiction of the power an elite has over a peasant.

Early in part three of Chef, an assumed insurgent, a Pakistani woman named Irem, is captured. Kip is the only one able to interpret her Kashmiri language, and is ordered to learn everything about her. Still a hormonal twenty-something virgin, Kip becomes obsessed with helping Irem, who turns out to be ‘clean’, or not a terrorist. In fact, she warns the General is being targeted for assassination by real Pakistani insurgents and, with Irem’s tip-off, Kip prevents the incident. Irem also provides Kip with information that Kishen is planning to commit suicide. This curdles Chef Kip’s stomach, and he travels to the freezing camp to help his mentor.

Atop the second coldest place on Earth, Kishen lures Kip into kidnapping a group of Indian army officials for a publicity stunt that bluntly lays out Chef’s discourse: “More dead Indians at the front means more profits for officers and their friends in Delhi. The question I ask today is: Are we dying for nothing?” Kishen proclaims. “We feed the army, we work hard, and those at the very top have failed us. [. . .] And I say the same thing to the bastards on the other side. What are they dying for, the Pakistanis?” If that isn’t enough for Singh to get his message across, Kip echoes more accusations toward corrupt India and Pakistan. He says “Kashmir was a beautiful place and we have made a bloody mess of it.”

At the end of his journey, Kip’s cancer is near fatal, linking his suffering to a nation strung up like a punching bag for corrupt war mongers to bruise and bloody. Arriving at Srinagar, he reveals the true reason for his painful escapade, having less to do with preparing the wedding feast than one might assume. His recurring phrase of “India passing by” resonates profoundly as he reunites with Rubiya, the bride, and she reveals shared feelings of a sad, lost Kashmir instilled within her by Irem’s haunting life as a political prisoner. Now, back in Srinagar, Kip is satisfied. Poetic and romantic, Chef unravels the underbelly tale of modern India being dragged through meaningless, catastrophic destruction.

Published by This Zine

CD Review: Ozzy Osbourne

Ozzy Osbourne
Scream
3.75/5

Listen To: Life Won't Wait
Skip It: I Want It More

Ozzy Osbourne told Classic Rock Magazine in 2009 that in fear of sounding too much like Black Label Society, his twenty plus year career with guitarist Zakk Wylde would cease. The new shredder aboard the crazy train is Gus G. of Firewind and Arch Enemy fame, accompanied by a new drummer, Tommy Clufetos of recent Alice Cooper and Ted Nugent albums.

Resulting from the personnel shuffle is Scream, an album that at times offers a tamed glimpse of the Prince of Darkness. For example, album opener "Let It Die" projects worldly aspects with maracas and hand drums throughout the slow moving, six minute heavy rock medley. Later on the disc, the maraca returns on "Latimer's Mercy,” alongside an array of guitar effects including resonating delay and a talkbox.

Ozzy uses Scream to flex his softer side with acoustic ballads "Life Won't Wait,” albeit infused with heavy power chord choruses from Gus G. Another less dark number, "Time,” features violin and high pitched background vocals. Final track "I Love You All" is simple, a minute of twiddling acoustic strings and Ozzy rejoicing For all these years you've stood by me, God Bless, I love you all. The songs are emotional and uplifting, welcome contrasts to tell-tale Osbourne enormity.

Fear not, Scream also fires a barrage of metal at the ears. "Fearless,” "Soul Sucker" and "Diggin' Me Down" top out the decibels with hooky heavy metal and hardcore riffs. On the stadium worthy "Let Me Hear You Scream" Ozzy belts Let me hear you scream like you want it, Let me hear you yell like you mean it in his signature anthemic chants. And, all over Scream there are examples of Gus G.'s lead talent to keep you entertained.

Track Listing:

1. Let It Die
2. Let Me Hear You Scream
3. Soul Sucker
4. Life Won't Wait
5. Diggin' Me Down
6. Crucify
7. Fearless
8. Time
9. I Want It More
10. Latimer's Mercy
11. I Love You All

Published by Tangible Sounds Music Magazine

CanLit: Head's Up! CBC Literary Award Submissions

Submissions for the 2010 CBC Literary Awards are now being accepted until November 1. Go here to enter and get all the information on how to format your submission. A twenty-five dollar (CAD) fee applies for each entry, and you can enter as many works as you want. The CBC Literary Awards competition is the only literary competition that celebrates original, unpublished works, in Canada’s two official languages.

There are three categories, one of which your submission must fall under: Short Story for short fiction narratives 2,000 to 2,500 words; Creative Nonfiction between 2,000 and 2,500 words, including humour, memoir, and research articles written for general audiences; and Poetry for long narrative poems or groups of poems totalling between 1,000 and 2,000 words. You must be a citizen or permanent resident of Canada to enter. All works must be unpublished and original.

Between November and January a shortlist of about twenty or thirty submissions will be decided on by a judging panel of top Canadian literary editors and writers. The winners will be announced in March 2011. There are twelve prizes awarded: For both English and French language works, first place in each category wins $6,000 and second place wins $4,000. Winning pieces will be published in Air Canada’s enRoute magazine, and will also be spotlighted on the CBC website.

There are many different ways to stay informed and get involved with the awards. Join over 1,300 followers by “liking” the Facebook Group and receive ongoing updates about the competition. Get writing tips from 2009 Short Story Juror Michael Helm, who propagates the importance of original writing. Read the 2009 winning entries and gain some indie author inspiration. Most of all, get writing! Only three months left!

Published by This Zine

CD Review: Kataklysm

Kataklysm
Heaven's Venom
3.75/5

Listen To: Determined (Vows Of Vengeance)
Skip It: Nothing.

Kataklysm's eleventh studio release, Heaven's Venom, is a hard-hitting disc blasting through ten songs of equal parts black, death, and thrash which come to embody the band's self-attributed "Northern Hyperblast" sound.

A low crypt-keeper voice insists Go out and get what you're worth, but you've gotta be willing to take the hit before Kataklysm punches out album opener "A Soulless God.” More voice samples infused into other songs uphold the band's 1984 inspired picture of society, and twenty year singer Maurizio Iocano solidifies the message by tearing against the usual suspects of war, religion and oppressive government.

A riffmeister's dream, Heaven's Venom also cycles through technical guitar structures with non-stop velocity. "Faith Made Of Shrapnel" displays Jean-Francois Dagenais's ability to sweep through drawn out, drop-tuned monstrosity in tried and true death style.

"Hail The Renegade,” "As The Wall Collapses" and "Numb And Intoxicated" demonstrate Kataklysm's melodic side with classic metal chord structures and harmonizing. The odd squealing thrash solo helps bridge the array of varying techniques and ranks Dagenais in the area of metal guitar God.

Between crashing breakdowns and frantic blastbeats, Heaven's Venom sits high on the intensity level with Max Duhamel's relentless double bass backdrop. Steadfast followers of Kataklysm will adore this record, and the average seeker of classic death metal will not be disappointed.

Track Listing:

1. A Soulless God
2. Determined (Vows Of Vengeance)
3. Faith Made Of Shrapnel
4. Push The Venom
5. Hail The Renegade
6. As The Wall Collapses
7. Numb And Intoxicated
8. At The Edge Of The World
9. Suicide River
10. Blind Saviour

Published by Tangible Sounds Music Magazine

Live Review: Slayer

Slayer / Megadeth / Testament
July 29, 2010
Molson Canadian Amphitheatre, Toronto

One of America’s most underrated metal acts, Testament warmed up the crowd at Molson Amphitheatre tonight for the long awaited Toronto stop of the Canadian Carnage Tour, originally scheduled for November 2009. It’s unfathomable why Testament, thrash pioneers forming in the early eighties in LA, doesn’t break into the mainstream alongside the heavy metal “Big Four” - Megadeth, Anthrax, Metallica and Slayer. Testament has a classic, tailored thrash sound, cracking out of the Amphitheatre speakers tonight with gripping vengeance on par with Slayer intensity. And their presence is just as big-time as their counterparts.

Tonight, Testament transforms the stage into a pseudo coliseum from hell consisting of a massive backdrop of the Greek landmark upholding a huge decrepit skull. In front, atop a raised platform, Paul Bostaph mans the drums while original guitarists Alex Skolnick and Eric Peterson riff below, occasionally ascending the two steel staircases on either side of Bostaph to use him for some telepathic energy. Big Chuck Billy trots around the infinite stage space below, wielding the microphone stand like a scepter, demanding attention from the thousands of onlookers. Testament play an array of old and new music, of course not leaving out “Formation Of Damnation” from their latest record of the same name. They deliver a top notch performance with all the presence of a heavy metal giant.

Megadeth rolls onstage next and, celebrating over twenty-five years as a major touring metal band, decide to throw down an intriguing set beginning, and continuing for a complete stretch, with 1990‘s Rust In Peace in its entirety, with no breaks. Mustaine, rocking a flying V and Broderick with a classic white Ibanez meet up at times and disperse at others during their captivating onstage solo duals. Eyes down with long hair draping at the necks of their guitars, feet planted wide for glimpses of classic heavy metal personas, they whip out those legendary licks with impeccable precision. Mustaine’s voice high in pitch over the thrash masterpiece’s nine song duration, at times letting the enthusiastic crowd take over and chant for “Poison Was The Cure” and “Rust In Peace.”

Finally the band takes a break, but only for a brief moment, and Mustaine returns with a fire engine red double-neck flying V. He gets the tens of thousands of fans riled by saying “Megadeth is part Canadian” in recognition of newest drummer, Quebecer Shawn Drover, who joined the group in 2006. For the latter half of the performance, they play “Symphony Of Destruction,” “Trust,” “Peace Sells” and a couple new tracks off 2009’s Endgame including “Head Crusher.”

From behind a gigantic white sheet appears two stainless steel SLAYER eagles hovering over two stacks of fifteen Marshall cabinets each on either side of the stage. The crowd yells and cheers for the night’s headliner, the world’s biggest thrash band, SLAYER. Opening with a couple tracks from their latest record, “Hate Worldwide” and “World Painted Blood,” the band instantly gets the dust flying. I’m sitting in the 300 section, about one hundred metres from the stage, and people beside me are moshing, standing on the guardrails, and head banging to every snare crack with utmost dedication.

Far below, the pit section is in chaos with bodysurfers and a fog of stray arms and torsos flailing everywhere. Fuelling the riotous atmosphere is Tom Araya at centre stage hammering away at his rumbling bass strings and spreading his anti-Christian propaganda. To his left is Jeff Hanneman towering over the front row, sporting knee high leg armour. Kerry King is opposite stage right, continually head banging along to his thrash current, decorated in long rattling wallet chains and a two-foot goatee.

The intensity level stays high for the entire performance, there are no stops for banter or wardrobe changes between songs, the classic Slayer guitar growl just keeps rolling on. The guys dip into old and new reserves of content, much from 1990’s Seasons In The Abyss with “Dead Skin Mask,” “Hallowed Point” and “War Ensemble.” Stretching further back to their debut album Show No Mercy, the band fires out “The Antichrist” with a tantric lightshow of spinning crosses. Nearing the end they pull out the big guns: “Reign In Blood” followed by “Angel Of Death,” for which the crowd is somehow heard singing along over the massive wall of sound.

After the set Araya’s conversational voice is finally revealed when thanking the crowd over and over again, and his bandmates toss their guitar picks and drumsticks to their fans.