Mike Lecky: an aov interview

Mike Lecky
The first of many eventual permanent features on aov, we present to you: Mike Lecky: an aov interview.

One thing has become apparent to us since the inception of aov: there are legions of talented artists out there. Though we should have known better we were prone to fits of despair and the occasional throwing of our hands into the air. “Nothing happens here. This place is dead.” But we know better now. And rather than shamelessly promoting only ourselves we will attempt to lift the community as a whole upon our broad shoulders and present it to the world.

Mike Lecky is the creator of the mighty Boxlor, as well as an artist, man-about-town, and generally clever person. Read the interview »

 

our lady peace: the age of spiritual rock stars

My opinions on Our Lady Peace vary wildly. On one hand, songs like Julia and Naveed from their first album, Naveed are truly great songs. They have impressed me in concert when I expected to be bored on several occasions: Letting six thousand people sing 4AM from start to finish; Hearing them cover the late Jeff Buckley’s song Eternal Life at dusk under a full moon; Playing a piano version of Julia they heard from a fan (this one is on schmaptser if you are a thief). These are good concert moments. The last time I saw them, I felt like I was an oldie-olson, since everyone else in the arena was a big-pants 14 year old (most of them passing around one communal joint). As we waited for the concert to start, I was seriously regretting attending, but once they took the stage, they impressed me once again.

On the other hand, I find Raine Maida (OLP’s singer) to be a pompous Bono / Thom Yorke wannabe. He is quite good at handling a stadium (a noteworthy skill for a rock star). However, he sometimes goes a little too far. At one concert, he had the audience in the palm of his hands until he went on an aside about how “it’s all about the music”. Dude, look in the mirror and repeat three times: “I am not Bono”.

I can assure you that my opinions are not at all swayed by the time Raine closed an elevator door in Matt’s face (ask him about it, he’ll be glad to tell you).

The Age of Spiritual MachinesAnyway, Now that you have my personal history of Our Lady Peace, I am going somewhere with this. Their new album, Spiritual Machines, is based on the book The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence by Ray Kurzweil. This guy has an impressive resume:

  • invented the first text-to-speech machine in 1976
  • invented the CCD (flat-bed scanner) in 1975
  • invented the first font-indepented optical character recognition (OCR) in 1976
  • invented the first useful musical synthesizer in 1984

Kurzweil has also written on the subject of artificial intelligence. While I haven’t read Spiritual Machines yet, it’s in the mail. The flash animation currently on the front page of ourladypeace.com elegantly illustrates the transition point at which the resolution of a digital medium exceeds our ability to perceive. View the animation »

Our Lady Peace has also made a Napter-savvy marketing move. They have seeded Napster with full copies of the new album, only with a few voice-overs (from Ray Kurzweil himself, actually) identifying the album in each song. It’s not so much that you can’t enjoy the song, but enough that if you wanted to keep it, you’d still have to buy the real thing.

My point, if I have one, is that Our Lady Peace have done something somewhat interesting in their interpretation of Kurzweil’s book in a pop album.

I should also thank Our Lady Peace for bringing me the unlikely opportunity to see the worlds greatest and most underrated band, Catherine Wheel, at Summersault in Halifax last year.

 

for all you sensitive types.

Clem Snide
Check out Clem Snide. Actually a trio named after a William S. Burroughs character, they play laid back country/folk/mellow/whatever (I have no gift for identifying musical genres). All their songs are very simple, beautifully played, introspective pieces.

I suggest you listen to “Your Favorite Music” (available on thier website), “I Love the Unknown” and “African Friend” (available from less reputable sources). “I Love the Unknown” makes me want to pack up and follow the sunset, the jetstream, the horizon.

 

was it all you wanted? are you satisfied? happy even?

How are you doing these days? I realize I don’t ask you how are are very often. This stems from a general lack of interest in your state of existence, but right now, at this moment, I am genuinely interested.

How was your Christmas? Really. Be honest. Did it live up to the two months of hype, songs, shopping and preperation? That’s probably an unfair question. Was it at least pleasant? Stress-free? Spent with loved ones?

I have to confess that I normally hate the Christmas season. The day itself is fine. Good even. I dislike the season for all the typical reasons: disgustingly rampant commercialism, soul-crushing music carols as well as other reasons which are none of your goddamn business.

In any case, this Christmas was better than most. As bizarre as it may sound I actually enjoyed my stay in the hospital – and not just for the morhpine, either. Always exciting to do something different I guess. Certainly nice to be waited on and have people concerned about you. Nice that is, when there’s no real need for the concern. Maybe I’m just starved for attention (as this note seems to confirm)?

I have no real point here. I know I’m hopelessly out of character – don’t worry, I’ll soon be back to the bitter, sarcastic self you all recognize.

Here’s hoping whatever you did over Christmas was, if not fun, at least nice. Memorable.

 

snide remarks in your inbox on an irregular schedule

aov updateSign up for the new aov update email newsletter. We’ll flog you with occasional updates on subjects such as:

  • major site updates
  • new aov features (such as the upcoming interview with Mike Lecky)
  • particularly encouraging/discouraging news & commentary

The frequency of mailings will vary but you needn’t worry about span. We’ll be selective and you shouldn’t receive more than a few emails a week (probably closer to 1 or 2 emails a month).

Sign up, god damn it.

Oh, and our privacy policy is: We wont do anything with your email address we wouldn’t want done with our own (and we are really picky about that).

 

FutureShop: the straw that broke the camels back

I was silly enough to go to the FutureShop today and I got a creepy feeling as though I was in Rome at the peak of Roman excess and gluttony. I was overcome by 5 foot tall TVs (the picture quality of a TV signal will only stretch so far) and stereos that look like totally x-treme moon landers. Egypt, Rome, Maya, and now America. I smell a civilization ripe for collapse!

This got me to thinking about a critical failing of capitalism (NOTE: this not constructive criticism, it’s just plain criticism). Companies exist to make a profit. There isn’t anything inherently wrong with this but it does have dangerous side effects. One of these side effects is that products are designed to make the sale in the showroom rather than actually perform well in day-to-day use. For example the automatic seatbelt in old Saturn cars. It was so cool on the lot, but two days later once you had bought the car it was like fingernails on a chalkboard. I should note that Saturn is the only car company I know of with a 30 money-back guarantee (GM deserves a nobel prize for mass consumer manipulation for the Saturn project).

The FutureShop salesman (or “associates” as they call themselves) may as well have ‘I get paid commission’ written on their foreheads. The company has overlooked the fact that generating more sales in the short-term is less profitable then creating long-term relationships with customers by being helpful rather than pushy. The sad truth is that I may be wrong about this.

 

I rock hard (A Christmas Greeting).

My appendix was infected. Did I get it fixed? No. Getting sh*t fixed is weak. My appendix let me down, so I tore it the f*ck out. I rock hard.

I was on an operating table shaped like a cross – with my arms out (cause they was full of tubes and wires and sh*t) like I was being crucified. So, if I were Jesus I would have been crucified on Christmas, not Easter. I’m way ahead of Jesus. I rock hard.

I had a lot of morphine. I had so much morhpine they put a tube in me so they wouldn’t have to find a vein every time. I rock hard.

I have a giant wound in my belly. I have not one or two, not three or four, but five staples keepings my guts in. But not my appendix, they tore that m*th*rf*ck*r out. I rock hard.

Unlike all you weak suckers out there, I have one less crucial organ. I have no appendix. I rock hard.

Merry Cristmas,
Matthew

Note: Swearing has been carefully edited as Christmas is no time for swearing. There will be no exceptions, especially none for me.

 

merry christmas, charlie brown.

Right now, Matt is sitting in the architecturally bewildering Queen Elizabeth Hospital, sans-appendix. With 2/3 of the aov geniuses now in the hospital (don’t panic, everyone is ok), I fell like there is some kind of karmic crosshair on my forehead. Perhaps, due to our cunning wit, God sees us as formidable adversaries and is playfully striking us down. Play fair dude.

Now, a few who do not deserve your pity: one of my co-workers is basking in the glow of the southern-hemisphere summer in New Zealand and two other co-workers are basking in the glow of communism in Cuba (check out the CBC’s interview with Castro) for the holidays.

I’m going to Sherwood for Christmas.

I should clarify. I don’t mind going to Sherwood for Christmas. That’s where Christmas has been for the last 22 years. Actually, that’s kind of what Christmas is as far as I’m concerned.

I hope you appreciate these seasonal dwellings. While they may seem stark and joyless, they are really quite admirably jolly, considering I generally find Christmas to be little more than a promotional gimmick for the wrapping paper industry (I’d make a Grinch reference, but he has been co-opted – God rest your soul, Ted Geisel).

To everyone, Merry Christmas (in the ‘talk to your family for once’ way, not the ‘buy things for people you don’t really like’ way) and to my fellow aov geniuses, get well soon, the world needs you and I need someone to play Tony Hawk Pro Skateboarded 2 with.