Nardwuar
Posted on July 28th, 2004 by eightprime.
Categories: blog, words, output, web.
New stuff online
The Nardwuar Radio Show on which I appeared not too long ago has been put online and made available for your edification.
You can go to Nardwuar’s page and find it or click here.
Be warned, it’s 13 MB.
The show was really good to do. All interviews should be that fun.
-w.
launch
Posted on July 3rd, 2004 by eightprime.
Categories: blog, words, output.
Today was a big day.
I woke up and partook of legally binding documents and then proceeded to an interview with Nardwuar the Human Serviette. That was an excellent experience. Nardwuar invited me back, so now I have to go and do something interesting so there’s something to talk about.
I also held in my hands a copy of the book, which looks even better than I’d expected. After July 07 you can buy it at TenDollarWords. So please do so.
I got the book at the kickoff of the West Coast Poetry Festival at which some people said some things I liked, and other people said things I didn’t like so much. There was a lot of beautiful imagery but a paucity of ideas.
I suppose poetry is not supposed to contain ideas. It’s supposed to be about feeling and nuance.
I like my words with teeth to them.
-w.
wordbeat
Posted on January 16th, 2004 by eightprime.
Categories: blog, output.
A CBC radio series called Wordbeat, which is all about the spoken word, will be starting up on the 19th on Radio 1. The program will be weekly and looks to figure all kinds of good stuff.
Among that good stuff is yours truly.
Scroll down to #7 on the CBC Radio | Wordbeat | schedule.
Vancouver�s word speed wizard Overload.
they said it…
-w.
good times rolling
Posted on July 21st, 2003 by eightprime.
Categories: blog, output.
After the Storm
I don’t even properly know where to begin.
Saturday was one of the best days I have had so far in my life. The Thundering Word Heard [TWH] stage was ridden with technical glitches which, I think, we overcame superbly. Everyone turned in blazing performances, and the crowd seemed appreciative of our resolve to not sweat the small stuff. It was the first set of the show for most of us and went brilliantly.
Afterwards Shane, CR Avery, Ivan E. Coyote and myself got the chance to bomb one of the larger concert stages during a change-over between acts. I was up first and had the task of stunning the crowd into immobility. It worked. People were getting up to leave to catch other acts or get snacks when I got up and three minutes later there was not a moving human present, all were paying attention to the poets. The rest of the crew succeeded in blowing the dreadlocks off the assembled granola devotees. Wonderful shit.
Later that night, on main stage I got the chance to hit the mic between Tantra and David Francey in front of something in the area of 10 000 people. The first words out of my mouth were “Wow, there sure are a lot of you out there.” Luckily the rest of my performance was more clever than my preferatory remarks. It was by far the biggest crowd I have ever spoke too and the response was gratifying. It was also brilliant to be over a sound system of that quality. I reached new levels of sonorousness.
The other cool bit about the main stage hit was working with a sign language interpreter. I had warned her that attempting to keep up with my flow might result in spontaneous combustion, luckily all survived intact. Working with the interpreter forced me to go through my piece beforehand in an attempt to clarify some of the meaning behind different sections. That was an interesting experience because I am used to thinking of a poem as a whole and the process of vivisection was illuminating.
Shane also hit the stage later that evening, opening for Spearhead by special request. Afterwards I thought his head might explode, he was so stoked from having seen their show from the stage. Really, he was grinning so much I thought the top half of the dude’s head might just fall right off.
Lys and I went to the festival Saturday after-party where we met up with others with whom we’d shared a wicked day. The Bill Hilly Bandplayed the show and dropped jaws all over the room. A percussion solo played on the snell of a mandolin which, moments earlier had been shurning out heartbreaking melody was a particular highlight for me. While listening to the band’s first set, thinking that I was done for the day and well content, emboldened by a pint of good beer, I happened to mention to the Worlds Finest Wife that I could quite well drop rhymes over the kind of amalgamated bluegrass the band was playing and that would be a LOT of fun. Ye Ball and Chain mentioned this to Shane who then told me that I should stop shooting off my mouth and go talk to the band at intermission. Thus emboldened from having been deftly backed into a corner I gained the stage and convinced Chris [the apparent ringleader] that working with a spoken-word artist would, in fact, be a really good thing and the band should let me jam with them.
They did. It was brilliant. I was nervous at first, having never worked with this group of people or musicians of this sort before. Then I remembered that they’re all astonishing musicians and resolved to do my thing and not worry too much about what they were going to pull off. Oh it was raging! I did the piece I have which has the most apparent rhythm and the band jumped all over it like a French village on wine-pressing day. So much fun.
Saturday turned into something of a late night and Sunday was hot. But it was all good except for a slight sunburn on my proboscis. In my bleary haze at the start of the day I neglected to pack sunscreen. Reddened schnoz aside we got the chance to hit stage 5 during a changeover on Sunday afternoon and that went really well. Over the course of the weekend the entire TWH crew got a chance to play for crowds ranging in size from a few dozen to a few thousand. The response we got all over was great. And our own stage on Sunday afternoon, in the slot right before Utah Phillips, who gave everyone a lesson on anarchist history and perpetual motion. Everyone was pretty relaxed for that show and got the chance to loosen up a little more. Ivan turned in what was, I thought, the best showing with a powerful and touching story which I particularly liked because it happened just down the street from where I live. By the time Ivan was done there were more than a few damp eyes in the crowd.
The closing mainstage concert was, in keeping with the weekend in general and culminated in an orgy of heroine worship when Ani DiFranco took the stage. I find idolatry cloying so the Long Suffering Spouse and I hit the trail shortly after she came on. Besides [as she likes to gloat] Lys saw Ani in a tiny bar in Paris. Shane [who was, as you may have noticed] all over mainstage, performed again earlier that evening, managing to make putty of several hippies that I saw.
All in all a brilliant weekend. Thanks heaps to everyone, TWH, volunteers, staff, everyone.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled paranoid ramblings.
-w.
folky
Posted on July 18th, 2003 by eightprime.
Categories: blog, output.
Night #1
Just back from the Folk Fest and am happy to have had the chance to see such good things.
Things got off to a rocky start when I missed the free dinner. I thought my pass was of the locals-don’t-get-fed variety when, in fact, I could have stuffed myself on grub gratis. Ah well, I am resolved to make better use of my perqs for the remainder of the weekend.
We arrived as some marimba combo was finishing up and then a blues/gospel singer from the southern states would have been raising the roof, had there been a roof to raise. As it was she, on guitar, accompanied by djembe and shaker, roused everybody up and seemed to be having a good time.
Then I met up with Shane and CR, to find out that
T.Paul was to be up in mere moments.
Thus the ball was opened in inimitable style with widespread crowd responsiveness and enthusiasm. The sign-language interpreter seemed to be dancing as she strove to keep up.
I wandered away for a while and returned to hear Ivan E. Coyote tell a story about her childhood adventures into ping-pong masochism.
A group from France who sported a harmonium among many other things. They were really wailing and had some moments of truly fantastic sound.
Tanya Evanson rocked her always stunning style on everyone as well. The sun was setting and she had the stage lights and everyone’s attention.
Billy Bragg closed things off with populist stroking and got everybody riled up good. Canada, where world travelling anti-globalization crusaders gather to remind us how nice it is that we feature wildlife in our news.
Tomorrow is set to be a rampaging good time. I am enthused.
-w.
limericks
Posted on March 18th, 2003 by eightprime.
Categories: blog, output.
Tonight I won the first annual Vancouver St. Patricks Day Limerick Slam against stiff competition.
Cheers to all who showed up!
A selection of successful Limericks:
A proctologist, an affable chap
liked to don rubber gloves with a Snap!
“The wince on you’re faces,”
he’d explain to his patients,
“compensates me for all of your crap.”
A bodybuilder describing his ex-
wife was quoted while pumping his pecs
“I fear that my art
was what drove us apart -
she was horny, I wanted to flex.”
He said “Hey babe, you’re quite a dish.”
She sniffed and replied “Hah! You wish!
I’m a lesbian
and I don’t need no men
you’re as good to me as tits on a fish.”