Many days, many nights and many gray hairs later I’ve compiled eight songs from 2009 – 2010 into the first full length TSBT album. From words scratched in a notebook to the final sequencing, it was an obsessive trip that I enjoyed every minute of.

I convinced Photographer Chris Buck to take photos for the front and back cover, he shoots people like Byork, Broken Social Scene, Nick Cave, Willie Nelson, David Lynch, and I feel pretty honored that he took mine, you should really check out his work he’s absolutely amazing. I also thank Taps Das for his type/graphic skills on the covers. My girlfriend for being patient with my music side. And last but not least the Snowbird Woodland Socialites, Moms and Pops.

For all the audio enthusiasts this album was ripped at both 192kbps (for faster downloads) and a whopping 320kbps (slower downloads, to hear every floorboard creak in the studio.)

Take it on the road this weekend, a long walk on some wooded trail or thru alleyways drunk with your ipod swinging at your waist. The first 150 downloads of this are free. All I ask is that you please turn it up on some good speakers. I hope you like it. Peace. ~ chris

DOWNLOAD IT AT 192kbps (faster)

DOWNLOAD IT AT 320kbps (slower/better quality)

The Space Between Things the Album

So close to finishing the album I can smell it, like the smooth black paint on a pirate ship slowly drying. If I am late however it’s only because I’m so obsessively concerned about every inch of sound and package I’m delivering. Be patient as I’m the only one walking this big black deck.

c

1965 shit on my portable turntable

Stupid rotations of an absolutely sick record, got hooked up the other night by my man Jeremiah at Sonic Boom with two mono pressings: The Rolling Stones December’s Children and Out of Our Heads. The former is being spun as we speak, second side “I’m waiting at a bus stop down in east LA…well I’m sitting here thinking just how sharp I am.” getting my mind deep down into that grime below, the bottom of that bluesy barrel that the boys left behind in the quarry. The one that’s filled with gasoline and fucking explodes into a million bits. Thank you Jeremiah for these huge scores.

The_Space_Between_Things_[self-titled].zip

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eai-pj8VU_s

TSBT “Space Disease”

Based on a profoundly real dream that I had a disease called Space Disease and you could only get this from being in space and coming in contact with “them”. Which I was.

It will be on TSBT’s self-titled album released through 84 Records this August.

Chris

ALL CAPS MUSIC FESTIVAL or rather The Rick White Show

Artscape at Gibraltor Point sounds like a art farm overlooking water, bits and pieces of steel and wood carved and strewn about with names and dates written on plaques. Only when these eyes got there it was more like a spiritual complex (originally the island public school) and home to an artist community with studio spaces and art hanging all over. We chain our bikes to an old swing set (the kind from a time when everything was built with pride) massive steel tubes wedged into sandy soil, hanging in the middle a giant butterfly of branches wrapped with wool and fashioned to the chains of an empty swing. It’s the type of place you can’t quite put your finger on, it was magical and foretelling.

We enter the old school yard replete with picnic tables and aimless wanderers, the first one I see tucked in the corner is Rick White. It’s a casual scene. We’re unclear what the setup is and wander about, people pepper the grass while others file in and out of the old school, wooden window frames and brown wood siding wrap a building that reaches out towards trees on the point. Inside are cheap beer and homemade food in a room of white table-clothed lightness as films cycle on a big screen behind with shrouds dancing at a sandy pace on Toronto island shoreline howling as ghosts do. The credits roll as a group of us eat and prepare for the next band.

What was originally the school cafeteria sees psychedelic projections painting a massive white sheet hung along a windowed bandstand. A mullet-man bounces across the room checking lights for placement and mood, they’re perfect. This old school is haunted you can feel it. In front of us is a duo donning sailor caps, one is stroking a uke the other a bass. Cross legged on the floor I realize the intimacy of the show and the sheer scope of Canada’s independent music scene and this evening it’s small and close. Face painting goes on in a corner. Big books huddle on a shelf. An old fire place. The sound guy hovers like a spider checking the levels. I was told artists use the classrooms as studios some of them are here tonight sharing art and stories – says one of the girls. The nervousness of Krista Muir (the duet in front) is alive cheering, jeering and rapping rhythms made up for the lack of the drummer who couldn’t make it. The entire room is referred to as “school children” while she asks if we’d keep time slapping the floor and stomping feet in replacement of the spotty drum machine. It made for a communal experience. Harmonies were beautiful and soulful and Krista and Co. recovered by sheer improvisation making it real as hell.

We regroup before hiking to Gibralter Lighthouse for Rick White. He and the sound crew head over early with a guitar, we aren’t far behind shuffling thru a grassy feild across Lakeshore path we face an old lighthouse and buried in the trees Rick White and crew wait for dark. Red ants climb and bite at my heels burning itch distracts, were in the thick trees of summer under a hauntingly monstrous bulk of brick blue and dark. Stinging continues as i slap my legs, I pontificate my simple ignorance for being one of a handful that decided to wear shorts to this. Projection lights roll over the old brick, the sky darkens and the red door leading inside the lighthouse to the stairs illuminates as Rick settles in. His hand painted guitar beautiful and rich with fashioned detail and he starts.

“What a cool old lighthouse.” he says then turns to look at it, “I wanted to go to the top but I couldn’t get past the first stair…” then almost to himself “…but the fear comes from the inside you know.” as if giving himself a pep talk. “It would’ve been cool to do the show from up there.” he laughs. Leafing thru his notebook he slowly strums adjusts his mic and marches into covers and folky hymns and completely energized to the meditative cluster with stoic calm. This is Rick White, the one that stormed a generation in the nineties with Eric’s Trip, the one who writes songs for the Sadies and completes the group The Unintended. He’s Elevator. He’s an archivist and storyteller, a very GOOD storyteller, and you can tell by the way you feel when he plays it’s effortless. He’s many things to many people. But tonight he’s totally honest and real and unaffected and it’s a privilege. Halfway thru his seemingly short set he says “My mother always told me to me to keep songs…fast” off to the side a man with the beard chimes in “PEPPY!” Rick continues “Yeah peppy” then charges into three more before ending a perfect set. Mosquitos were buzzing and it was time to go. I was so glad I was witness it was worth absolutely every single red ant bite.

Back at the school Dog Day assemble. A duo from the east coast her on drums and him on guitar with a plethora of pedals at his feet. They’re on tour and you can tell because they’re tight. They charge relentlessly audience now standing, bobbing, and watching each other as harmonies compliment in a wave of distortion and delay – oddly reminicent of Guided By Voices lo-fi noise pop I’m carried away. Unexpected moments clash and they switch instruments and he begins to pound mallets splashing high-hat and toms over and over to an enchanted riff as she bobs and weaves with her guitar. At one point drums overtake us their swervey tight knit combination and this song topped the night. I could tell they were on to something, obviously Rick White saw the something in them too as he produced their Elder Schoolhouse EP which is something of an art piece.

On our way outside, show finished we stop to snap photos of a tube placed on a turntable with a book-lamp pointed inside (you almost need a photo to comprehend this) and a fog machine fills the air. I stare and realize this is one of the best shows I’ve seen in a very long time and an experience I will always remember.

c

Note: I’ll post photos many were taken from several of us so check back…

84 Records Independent Music Collective

84 Records is based in Toronto Canada in an old Victorian on the west side. What started as a recording studio for The Space Between Things, became a label to promote the musicians who play there. Several releases are planned for 2010 from TSBT, Invisible Mouth, Volcano, Glittering Prizes, Noah Swartz, including digital only releases [free downloads], vinyl and tapes. Come by, friend us, check back often, be good.

August 10th: The Space Between Things “Space Disease” video.

August 30th: The Space Between Things [self-titled]

October 31st: Volcano “The Graveyard Sessions” Digital 7″

November 15th: Noah Swartz Digital 7″

…

Duvet Cover Summer

Wet, tangled, messy and just came out of the dryer. A summer of love, a summer of hate, how the fuck did you scorn this ailing summer liar, cheeky forlorn face droop and sag matrimony scathe. Boat relatives weave big black rocks bouys red, green, shallow green eye.

Kid volcano take it down son just a notch, son of a bitch don’t think I don’t know that plays behind sweat beaten porch. Backyard vines creep through wood over under, across the broken glass and over neighbors chair. Watch as it overtakes the love. The love I felt for a sound so hidden and so wide stretched inside shared indie delight 19yrs of life, marker drenched arm forty cases of beer became that chirp we’re so fucking ALIVE!!!

Couth be free my destined tiger vex fight streets roads bite opens to jail bait light. Light of a tunnel, light of the hair, the one that stands on the back of your neck that time I stared. beginning stopover cottage bain nonsensical violence rapture slave the system cured behave. There’s no rhyme or reason for some black coffin flu, just a millimeter away from the

trachytic

nerve.

Yours.

Mine.

Truck drops into second slipping down a hill to third big bright. American Vanlines buster climbs down steps with slippers on and up unloading this traveled simple broken heart.

c

Fuck G20

Strange summit all the same
Media shame shame shame
Rights off the page through the roof
As it rains
Full moon fever hits again
The solid truth out this heart sends
For workplace stamp Mondays again
The open cell refrain and tell
Of late night cages cops from hell
Sirens ring 14 street cars down
sting
Behind the line as people sound
Let us through
Let us through
We have a right
Deaf ears in blue
The party dance the cop In Face
The military presence hate
Smashing of shields smashing of rule
The pAnic stricken neighborhood
Don’t throw a bottle rock or stick
The lightening rod
The skies that split
That open up and let her through
The one the only
Honest truth

Dreaming again…

Inspired by Kerouac’s Book Of Dreams I found in late nineties San Francisco and recently re-reading 33 1/3rd series My Bloody Valentines “Loveless” I’m writing down dreams more regularly. Songs like Space Disease or Cast were written in that slipstream between being asleep and awake. The results are amazing when I draw from this zombie state as if I’d rediscovered the huge well of catatonia is filled with sweet rich mud that makes everything grow.

Last night the topic of being possessed or reincarnated while in that sleep state, of writing or thinking with another’s head or hand, must be true. This morning I wake and quickly scribble on the back of an envelope or whatever I can find as quickly as possible every detail recalled  before it’s lost and forgotten. Notepads line shelves in a little room upstairs in my house some 15years of dreams and half conscious thought, tattered, detailed covers blue penned “Dreams” with a sticker for a CD I bought riding half-over the words.

The books are being filled once more, the blue lined paper, it’s taking on a different meaning and fervor which is more focused, sustained and understood. This particular dream I share “To The Man With The Cane”, written after a thunderous storm ragged outside our window, water dripped pillow startled from sleep with “Chris, what’s that dripping.” The old bread factory roof leaks. Probably needs more tar up there. Anyway back asleep then awake at birds chirping and a room filled with towels and buckets I write this down:

Woolworths

In the tower of Woolworth I climb

A thousand steps to a bearded man with a cane

Pillbox hat in hand

Ceilings green withhold

Departments lost within their age

To ride up and down

The elevators within

Then turns a page

Awakened by a thousand drips

Some memory serves well

the gestures and the loving kind

Department store I tell

go back again to ivory

Tower heads that turn and wait

For me the overseer

Sleeping prince

That finally left the cage

Glittering Prizes an homage to Dan Tooley sprinkled hellish three piece drowned pop cluster, together we’re Volcano minus the original bassist, tonight were something else. The opportunity presented itself at Duffy’s on Bloor St. with two other Toronto independents Trans Elders and the headliner We’re For Barton.

Glittering Prizes - J.Knight and Maki, C.hobs (photographer)

Lazily up first swizzling brew we lumbered toward the stage for a night of drone synth layers of guitar and birthed vocals of heartfelt obscurity. A wave lapped the shore of particled tables to organ synth before rolling into folk pop number that J.Knight spewed and strummed catatonically to. Switching mics and instruments TSBT songs got thrown into the set building and listing as the Tavern lit up to a massive black man (apparently still high on crack) swaying and bobbing maniacally with a wild look in his eye. Beside him the drummer Trans Elders dancing with his own wild look. It was hard to focus on my playing at this point.

A creepy Scott Walker soaring love stomp took stage next as Trans Elders colidded mono synth chirped wildly through candlelit cavern, embelished by spatial digital delays and a bassist who plunked and jumped heavily going bananas inside. Sonically intoxicated by the track in the middle (can’t remember the name) heads began to move around me, the band entranced on some instrumental trip as the room all bonded in unison. Coaxing an encore that never happened a semi-circle of chairs groupie girls chirped in dissapointment as the band packed gear bowing apologetically out.

We're For Barton

The headliner We’re for Barton hovered and swabbed the stage with electrics at 12am deliberate calm and drone, besides the sound issue off the top they held court shooting glances at each other and maurading quietly through vocals somehow inaudibly unearthed and reconciled by our sound guy as they pushed forward to better quality. Their presence was a strange conversation between the two singers, high-heeled princess and man with hat, lobbying noble cause for the greater good of repitition and Yo La houour. I was hauntingly reminded of the 90′s with a weight, a galloping hope that some day and perhaps already happening in front of our caustic eyes Toronto’s music scene is alive and frothing.

The sound guy a legeond in his own right spat verses and muttered compliments over a cigerette outside, apparently experienceing a resurgance of relevancy with new toronto Bands coming through the ol’ Tavern. And rightfully so. New management and a minor facelift means a head turn on Bloor St. People are looking for something to dig up that’s new and on the fringe of safety. We found it.

Thanks to the rest of Glittering Prizes, Jon our Drummer (who played in two bands) and Jer who ripped six pedals through an SG, Trans Elders and We’re For Barton it made for one fucking great night.