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Entry date: 6-17-2024 – The important Things – Letters to My Friends

Dear Friends,

 

Yesterday was lovely, interesting, productive, and a little disheartening, too.

 

Starting off with the lovely part, I woke up to a nice little note from Teresa for Father’s Day. It made me smile. Granny’s party was also quite lovely and it was good to see the family come together to show her some love. I think she was genuinely touched.

 

I got to spend quite a bit of time with Mia, too. She’s getting so big and strong. I think she likes hanging out with me and she definitely likes to pull my hair. She also tries to eat it. That’s a little odd, but it’s pretty cute, too. She pretends she is having the best meal ever.

 

Granny got worn out after a couple hours, so we said our goodbyes and hit the grocery store. I’ve got to get the girls stocked up on some food before I go. I don’t remember the last time I went grocery shopping with Ashton and Elise. It’s probably been a decade or more.

 

After I got up, I met up with Clif, Dave, and Brandon to talk about doing some Freeze shows. Things got kind of messy in 2018 due to Slope stuff and personality stuff, but I really enjoyed playing those songs a lot. I think it could be a better situation now and it’s something to do without being in a full-time band again.

 

It’s not terrible to be part of an infamous and well-known punk rock band that I used to listen to in the late 80s thanks to Mark.

 

Productivity ruled the afternoon. I got a lot closer to being finished with the tile in the front bathroom. I also did laundry and cut a piece of drywall, too. It’s a temporary piece of drywall, but I wanted to get something up in the laundry room to cover the inside of where a door used to be. We had the door covered up on the outside a week ago. Who needs five exterior doors on a house? Not us.

 

The disheartening stuff, though, was that I got two heartfelt “Happy Father’s Day” out of 7. Elise got me a gift and I mentioned Teresa’s message earlier.  I got a third without prompting at Granny’s party, but it wasn’t very enthusiastic. I can chalk that up to the scene around us, but it still hurt a bit. I had to prompt Liam to say it on the way home from picking him up from work for the hundredth time.

 

The others: nada. Zip. I guess I don’t warrant an H.F.D. Oh well. I’m letting it go as of now because it feels good to write about it and none of them read this anyway.

 

It hit my kind of hard, too, that I won’t ever get to talk to my Uncle Tom again. He’s got an inoperable brain tumor and the odds are good that if I went to see him this week, he wouldn’t know me. Perhaps I’m being selfish here, but the last time I saw him we had a good chat back in February at Cousin Brian’s wedding. I am choosing to remember him that way. I’ll definitely have more to say about this.

 

*****

 

For my birthday, I think, in 1993 or 1994, Alexa got me a subscription to Alternative Press. When she ordered it, and this was pre-internet so she talked to someone on the phone, they asked her what kind of music I liked so they could send me some music to listen to.

 

Based on what she told them, they sent me Phleg Camp’s Ya’Red Fair Scratch.

 

For years, I just had that CD to go on. I tried to learn more about Phleg Camp and even found an address at one point and wrote them, but never heard back. I knew they were from the Toronto area and had put out the CD on Cargo, and that was it

 

I played the hell out of the CD after I got it. I think one of the draws for me was that no one I knew had heard of them or had any idea about them at all. It was noisy and cool and beautiful to my ears. Phleg Camp was doing what I wanted to do, and it gave me a lot of inspiration.

 

You can pick up a copy of Ya’Red Fair Scratch on Discogs for pretty cheap, usually, and it’s well worth it. Fans of a great bass sound will dig the fuck out of this record. It’s big and bouncy and has just enough roughness around the edges to make you think of Kevin Rutmanis (Cows/Melvins/Gaswar) or David Wm. Sims (Jesus Lizard).

 

The guitars are also suitably noisy and angular. Lots of bendy stuff going on that makes the ears happy. Phleg Camp were a three piece from what I can gather, and they made the most of their gear, for sure. Everybody in the band could play.

 

I shouldn’t ignore the drums, either. Since this was recorded at Steve Albini’s place, Chicago Recording Company, I’m curious what input Albini had on this record. He is not credited with it, but people do seem to mention it when talking about their favorite albums he recorded. This explains a lot.

 

Ya’Red Fair Scratch does sound like Albini’s work. I’m not concerned enough with the actual stats, though, to keep looking. If he did, great. If not, great. It wouldn’t make me like the album any more than I already do.

 

I’m not sure that I have a favorite song on this record. I also don’t have a least favorite song. It’s not a terribly long record and the songs do flow really well into each other, so it’s more of an overall experience for me.

 

There are times on Ya’Red Fair Scratch where I can just shut my eyes and go to another place entirely in my brain. This is a wonderful quality in a recording. Sometimes that other place is 1993/1994.

 

“Ya’Red Fair Scratch” has this long-extended part where the band just holds on this, I can’t even call it a riff, just a repeated blast of a note towards the end that creates tension so beautifully. When the sparse lyrics come in for a bar or two, it just sounds huge even though the lyrics are way down in the mix. I have to admit that now that I know about the Albini connection, it’s all I can think about. That part is super Albini-esque.

 

“Easy Star” has a David Wm. Sims’ bass line on it at first and then it just sort of blossoms into something much more melodic. I think that is another of my favorite things about Phleg Camp. They come up with these weird melodies and countermelodies in their songs on Ya’Red Fair Scratch and your brain can either try and keep up or just let go and take it all in.

 

I can’t recommend this one enough to those who like the noisier, heavier, stranger stuff. It used to be difficult to find out here in the wild west, but with the internet’s mystical powers, you can get one today.

 

*****

 

See you tomorrow.



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