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Coral and I went for a nice hike on Saturday before the rains came.  We headed up to Mount Doug park.  It was the first time in a long time that I went for anything that resembled a “proper” hike.  We had to trek over mud, across puddles, under felled trees and scramble up rocks.

We must have looked pretty comical.  I was wearing white hipster street shoes and and huffing and puffing away.  Coral and I didn’t want to carry anything, so we left the water bottle in the Jeep.  yeah, bad idea.

But in the end, we felt really good getting our  hearts pounding (and pounding and pounding) in our chests (and throats).  We’ve decided we like doing a nice walk that is more challenging than a stroll but not running around a track on pavement.  We’ll try it again and again till we get ‘er that we can easily trail-blaze to the top.  Then maybe run down!

I had to hit Mountain Equipment Co-op today and buy some shoes.  That was fun… I put on a pair trail running shoes and couldn’t believe my feet.  Years of hipster slip-ons and  Chucks had me thinking that feet were supposed to just hurt all the time.  This is like walking on angels.  A road made out of baby angels.  so soft.  I am going to DJ in these shoes.

My new shoes ::Vasque Light Trail Shoe

It was pretty scary going into MEC and seeing the wall of shoes (and really all the out door stuff).  Luckily there was another gentleman in the shoe area buying shoes and he seemed the hiker type.  When I was explaining to the clerk lady about my needs and weekend warriornessisms… the dude interjected and said, “buy these shoes.  I am actually here to buy my next pair of them because the first ones were so so so good.”  Thanks old teacher hiker guy at MEC!

We’re going to hike again mid week.  Tuesday its supposed to rain and I am meeting with an accountant anyways… but Wednesday onward looks spectacular to get outside.  Then I was telling Coral about how in my youth Bob and I used trail run all the time at Buntzen Lake.  Next time we’re in Coquitlam I’ll have to take her.  Maybe we’ll need to drag Vancityrockgirl as she likes the nature hikes too and its her neighbourhood!  When I’m rich I am going to move to Anmore or Belcarra.  As kids, we used to explore back up in that area a lot.  The best shape I was ever in my life was the summers when Bob and I would trail run in the hills at Buntzen (didn’t hurt that I was like 17 at the time!).

***
What do you think of the name Ottoman Empire?

I’ve been thinking about a name or brand for DJing.  The easy answer is just to use my name.  People know it.  But boring (no offense Mom) and I wouldn’t mind splitting off from my radio DJ persona for the music I want to present and create as a DJ.  Sometimes I find when I DJ and people find out its ‘Jeremy Baker’ they get confused if I don’t lay down a Pearl Jam song and tell them the weather in the bar.  Weird, but true.

I like Orc as well but Coral was pretty meh on that.  I like Orc because its super nerdy and is short.

She sent me DJ Beatdown… but that sounds way to aggro for the chillwave/indie/classics that I normally lay down.   A spin on that that I like is Beatmonger.  Like a fishmonger, but of beats.  get it?

The other name I liked is National Sound Company because… well I love the National, so its like an homage to my favourite band.

Any thoughts you have are always appreciated.  I can use a name or maybe no name and keep trucking along under my actual name.  Whatever works I guess, just let it come naturally.

Go with yourself.

I wanted to share a few videos I came across this week and talked about on the radio.  Then if you care, you can watch them.

The first one is a promo for a new documentary coming out called One Nine Nine Four.  It is a movie about the California punk thing of the mid-90s.  Being a child of the 90s, it is all about the music I used to listen to all the time.  Lots of Offspring, Green Day, Rancid, Pennywise, Bad Religion… all that good stuff.

Next up is a school choir singing a Phoenix song a la Langley School Kids Music Project style. Super cute.

The final video comes from the UK where current Zoner buzz band Mumford and Sons jammed out a cover of Vampire Weekend’s “Cousins” for the BBC.

Download the MP3 from Abeano.com: Mumford and Sons – “Cousins”

That’s all I got for a Friday.  Happy weekend.  I’ll be DJing tonight & Saturday at The Veneto Lounge in the Rialto Hotel on Douglas at Pandora.  Come see me if you’re going out drinking this weekend downtown.

Go with yourself.

expos

Fail, Fail, Fail yesterday.

Coral decided to bring her relationship with Bell to a head and some words were exchanged and the next thing I know, I’m at a Telus store in the mall.

That’s all good, except it took hours to go through the process of finding a new phone.

When we got home, it was late, but Madelyn Oh Yeah! still needed a shampoo/tub.  Then snuggles in the Mommybed… and then … well I KO’d as well.  I woke up to Coral carrying Mads into her crib and her crawling into bed late after she played with her new phone and transferred contacts and all that fun stuff.

I just just couldn’t find the energy to wake back up and get to what I had hoped to do.  Oh well, maybe it was good to go to bed before 10PM for a change?  Obviously my body needed it if I just shut down.

I am slowly learning (or trying) Garageband on the Mac.  I thought it would be fun to make some podcasts and try to craft some audio when I am at home.  Another thing I want to try is recording some mixes on Serato.  I think I had read it was a feature of my ITCH program but hadn’t tried it yet so last night was going to be a test of that feature.  Looks like I’ll wait to the weekend to play.  I want to put something up on MixCloud soon.  I personally find the best way to get better at something is to do it, and perform it and suck and take some licks and then jump back in the fire (with hopefully a little less suck next time).

I’ve downloaded and discovered a ton of great new chillwave and indie rock that I wanted to share.  normally I’d type a “playlist” but that doesn’t really do justice.  Type out a song?

So adding a fun mix might something people can listen to and enjoy.  I’ll get on that this weekend as sadly, Wednesday was my last chance before a weekend of live performances.  Clubhouse tonight and I’ll see you Friday and Saturday in the Veneto Lounge.

In other news, I bought a pretty rock star Expos hat.  meh, I shouldn’t be buying baseball hats, but it was $22… so whatever, I’m weak.

I used to love, LOVE baseball as a kid.  I watched it all the time and followed it and everything.  I don’t know what happened but now I could barely tell you which cities even have teams anymore.  Its like one minute I was 14 and the Montreal Expos were dominating the National League and the next… they moved to Washington DC and I stopped caring.  I try to pay attention during the World Series… but it is hard to get jazzed on the stories when you haven’t followed the drama all season.  Same goes for NFL.  After the second week and Seattle is mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, I’m all Who Dat is what?

The worst part of all this, I’ve seen a pretty bad ass vintage Mariners hat that I kinda want.  But its $40!  Holy moly!

Go with yourself.

Cue up Kings of Leon’s “Knocked Up (Lykke Li vs Rodeo Remix)

I’ve always wanted to live in the desert (and oddly, Omaha, Nebraska… I have a recurring dream where I move to Omaha to be on the radio and live by the airport… weird).

But the desert, the desert is somewhere where I think I could live.  I suppose in a pinch I could settle for the Okanagan… but that’s not really what I’m thinking.  I want to live where its flat, desolate, strange creatures dwell, and its hot.

Living in the desert shouldn’t be that challenging of a goal to achieve one day.  No one wants to live there, so it should be matter of just going, and finding a patch of sand to settle.

What got my imagination turning was reading the story of the Meat Puppets.  The Meat Puppets started in the late 70s and early 80s in Phoenix, Arizona.  But not even right in Phoenix the city, but a suburb.  The Meat Puppets began as this crazy hardcore lo-fi (I guess all 80s indie rocker bands would be lo-fi by today’s standards) band but then evolved into a pioneering alternative group.  The Kirkwood brothers, Curt and Cris started the band in a town called Paradise Valley.  I don’t know what Paradise Valley might have been like in the late 70s, but today its one of the more affluent areas of Arizona.  I was reading their bio on wiki, and its a pretty straight forward, they did this, then this happened, then they did this and then this happened and next… you know how it is.  Doesn’t paint much of a picture.  But I was interested in what life might have been like, being a teenager in suburban Phoenix in 1979… being into hardcore music and starting a punk rock band.  What was happening in Curt and Cris’ world to shape them and create the Meat Puppets?  History tells us what happened after.  It took some time, but their sound gelled, they influenced Nirvana, they had some success in the mid 90s when the world went ape shit for grunge… but a lot of that happened 10 years or more after they were high school kids.  I wonder….

Does anyone remember that movie SLC Punk?  What a cool movie, a little goofy but maybe it kinda reminds me of the film I wish I could see about the Meat Puppets.  Fun fact, Jason Segel (who is 8 days my junior) makes one of his first movie appearances in SLC Punk.  huh?  He’ll later go on to star in I Love You, Man, Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Knocked Up.

jeeze, all this talk on the 80s has me listening to old Fear and Exploited records.  Oi.

“Hold it, hold it! No way, pal. That’s a bald-faced lie! We caused $500,000 worth of damage, a cool half a million dollars worth of damage, ‘cause we’re professionals, and I counted the damage myself.” – Fear leader Lee Ving talking to the New York post in 1981 about trashing the set of Saturday Night Live.

Go with yourself.

CRC 93 starts off with one of the more interesting indie rockers I’ve heard in awhile.  The artist goes by Eat the Weeds. She has some world beat type stuff going on.  Nanaimo metal band Look Medusa have a terrible band bio write up, but fun straight forward epic style of hard rock.  I almost hear a little Fu Manchu in there?  I hope so, I like the Fu.  My friend Tyson got a job touring with Florida punks Against Me! I interviewed him last week at the start of their cross Canada tour and then launch into Tyson’s band Acres of Lions.  The show ends with a remix of Tegan and Sara done by local Victoria DJ Murge.  Murge taught me at DJ school!  what a guy.

Thank you for downloading Capital Rock City, please tell a friend about your experience.

Come Get some, download: Capital Rock City #93

You can subscribe to Capital Rock City with this RSS feed or find it in the iTunes store.

***

DJ Notes

01) Eat the Weeds – “Open Loop Design”
02) Look, Medusa! – “The Magic Word”
03) Acres of Lions – “Dance Sequence”
04) Tegan and Sara – “Walking With A Ghost (DJ Murge Remix)”

Man, I hate being the dick, but I had to come down on Hey! Medusa’s band bio.  They’re not the first band I’ve had to call out on the podcast for terribleness… but maybe, just maybe the last?  Anyways, here we go.  Maybe you got some thoughts, maybe you’re a writer and can send the boys some help.

Look, Medusa! is a schizophrenic mixture of sweet metal licks and powerful pop sensibility, packed to the rim with so much emotion that you’ll need a lifetime prescription for Prozac.

It all started as a basement metal band in the Summer of ’06, dedicating half of every band practice to catching the latest episodes of Beverly Hills 90210. Now Look, Medusa! is committed to creating a unique and resonant sound to identify with what each of us has gone through, both collectively and individually. As we’ve grown, so too has our sound. As our minds have evolved, so too have our awesome rock-related superpowers.

Right now, Look, Medusa! is recording for their upcoming album at Victoria’s Infinity Studios with Adam Sutherland. The eclectic mix will delve into every musical taste the band has experienced to date, to prove that they’ve got what it takes to escape the island and make it.

I got a few problems with the bio, but chiefly… who even watches 90210?  They do episodes on the dangers of Sexting?  Shenae Grimes is pretty adorable I guess… if you like that sorta thing, but an inspiration for your brand of metal?

That said, a pretty enjoyable, straight forward metal-type sound.

That’s all I got, talk to you next week. Go with yourself.

OK friends, its been quite sometime since the last installment of 91 Things About 91 Songs! A countdown of the The Zone’s Top 91 of the Decade.

If you can remember back to January 27th… I covered 59-50 and left off at Our Lady Peace’s “Innocent.”  Today I’ll tackle 49-40.

***

49) Brand New – “Sic Transit Gloria (Glory Fades)”

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi is a Latin phrase that translates to: “Thus passes the glory the glory of the world.”

Brand New heard the phrase  when they watched the film Rushmore.  Damn, that was a good film.

If I were a bigger music nerd collector, I’d want to track down the 7″ single.  Pressed on pink vinyl and backed with “Jaws Theme Swimming” which is a mighty track.

48) Radiohead – “There, There”

I don’t know what happened… Coral and I have every Radiohead record, a vinyl box set… MP3s… everything.  So I thought.  Then I wanted to play some Hail to the Thief at the Veneto Lounge a bunch of weeks ago and it was no where to be found.  I tore the bedroom apart trying to find the CD and it was the ONE missing!  This will not stand.

I cleaned the bedroom (and I am happy to report that as of last night, a months long project came to fruition and my bedroom is now an organized and clean sanctuary) and I bought Hail to the Thief.

As the great thief once said, “Mission Accomplished.”

47) Foo Fighters – “Times Like These”

Speaking of the the great Thief… in 2004 he rocked this song as his campaign theme.  Dave Grohl didn’t quite get that. so he helped John Kerry’s campaign.  Oh I hope John kicked George’s ass! I hope….

46) Creed – “My Sacrifice”

Creed?  On the Zone?  Well there was a time.

This song was a monster hit in 2001…. and you probably  could have guessed that it was used in WWE Wrestling.  Hey remember that song, “My own Prison?”  I used to LOVE that song.

Don’t read the comment section for the song “My Own Prison.” It’ll make you want to barf Amurika’s bathroom.

45) Nine inch Nails – “Discipline”

Trent’s first single as an independent.  Less than 24 hours after it was mastered, Reznor hit “send” on the email and it was on the radio.  Go technology!

44) Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker – “Hollow Point Snyper Hyperbole”

I want my business card to say “Hyperbolist.”  I think that explains what a radio presenter does most the day.  hyperbole, good word USS.

Hyperbole (pronounced /haɪˈpɜrbəli/[1], from ancient Greek ὑπερβολή ‘exaggeration’) is a rhetorical device in which statements are exaggerated. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, but is not meant to be taken literally.

43) Metric – “Gimme Sympathy”

“Who’d you rather be?  The Beatles or the Rolling Stones?” and with that query, so many great cocktail party discussion were born.  Thank you Emily Hains.

The song also references the Beatles when Emily coos, “Come on baby play me a song, like here comes the sun.”

And the title of course… a play on two different Rolling Stones songs.  neat.

42) System of a Down – “Toxicity”

OK, permit me to quote Simon on American Idol, “I don’t get it.”

I mean that about System.  Kinda boring at times… and that is when I can handle them, the rest of the time they aggravate me.

AND they are always fighting and breaking up and getting back together and doing solo projects and fighting injustice and then getting back together, no wait they’re not, are they?  did they tweet something lately?

like I said, I don’t get it. Kids request these guys all the time.  I am happy they don’t have anything new out because people lose their minds and I can’t play SOAD enough in a show. No denying, they are a popular modern rock band and need to be on this list.

41) Metric – “Help, I’m Alive”

Metric’s Fantasies is a great record and monster on the Zone.  The first single was this cut.  Its good.  I really like the acoustic version as well which was a free download if you signed up for Metric’s email list.

40) City and Colour – “Sleeping Sickness”

I’d call this song Dallas Green’s biggest radio song.  It was heavily requested when it was new and continues to generate some interest to this day.

The song features the legendary Gord Downy on vocals.

“Sleeping Sickness” is from the album Show Me Your Love.  I kinda like this alternate cover.


Simple, but kinda cool right?

That’s all I got for you today.  next time we’ll count down songs 39-30.

Go with yourself.

Red Barn

Last week was a bit of a fail with the sandwich project.  I ran outta sandwich stuff on Friday so went to Wendy’s.  My burger meal cost close to $8!

Today, Corj, Madelyn Oh Yeah! and I braved the rain to drive north to the Red Barn market.  And I am happy to report that this week I’ll be able to make some epic sandwiches and my total bill was around $20.75.  I will likely need to buy a couple days of lunch meat near the end and maybe even another loaf of bread…. so we’ll see how that plays out.

This week it’ll be roasted chicken sandwich with Maple Cheese on a Bond’s Bakery Honey Grain bread.  Sprouts, cucumbers, lettuce, avocado and tomato.  Yum yum.

Holy (bad word), allergies are kicking my ass.  I have been rocking Claritin pills lately and they just barely mask the allergy sickness.  They make it so I can just function enough to get to work and talk on the radio or stand in a lounge all night to play music.  But they make me feel like total shit.  its like that bad trip you took in high school where you said, “I am never doing drugs again!” but then you do drugs again.  ugh, every day, I go through bad highschool kid tweeker trip.

Hey, if you haven’t seen the music video for the new Gorillaz song, “Stylo,” its pretty fun.  Gorillaz won’t let me embed the video on the this here blog cuz they really want your nickle for watching Youtube ads, so click THIS LINK if you want to watch it.

I have finally started organizing my music into playlists and folders again.  Man, changing computer is a lot of work.  Its going to take some time to get my music sets back up to the quality they were before… now that said, last week when I was thrust into this new beast because the Toshiba died… I was really spinning trying to get something to play at the Veneto Lounge… but then after my shift, the manager guy Josh came up to me and said it was one of my better sets… so that was nice.

I brought my rig to the Clubhouse last night which is something I don’t normally do, but I really enjoyed my four hours there much more (or way more… I don’t how that sentence could work better).  I think I’ll go though that trouble more often.

OK, now I am just rambling… talk to you later.

Go with yourself.

Just so wicked and weird.  A song I’ll be needing to track down for my Veneto Lounge sets for sure.  The artist is Gonjasufi and the song is “DedNd.”

Can’t wait to check out the record next week.

Some changes to the program today on The Zone Afternoon Show.

Dustin Rabin Photography

I’ll be broadcasting from the Save-On Foods Memorial Center today for the Zone Show #192, Billy Talent w/ Alexisonfire, Against Me and the Cancer Bats.

I’ll be hanging out with the Zoner who won the grand prize on the morning Zone with Dylan and Jason on Monday to interview Billy Talent.  Fun.

My broadcast will start at 5PM and will feature an interview with Against Me.

At 6PM, Alexisonfire will stop by for a live performance on the radio.

6:30PM will feature Zoner’s interview with Billy Talent.

So that means no #1s at 5 o’clock and no Picks at 6 at… 6 o’clock.

Billy Talent on Myspace
Alexisonfire on MySpace
Against me on MySpace
Cancer Bats on MySpace

Now you know… and knowing is half the battle.