Rebel meets Rebel.

I took my apprenticeship in Sooke so a little country music was forced on me in that time. Needless to say I learned to like the crooners like Dwight Yokam, Garth Brooks, Charlie Major, and Alan Jackson and the likes... all very popular. But a certain country music artist seems to have slipped through my ever loving quest to seek out the underlying "true to the roots" and not top ten music scene. This performer is named David Allan Coe...... controversial.... yes. The Confederate Flag graces David's presence. His massive song writing span starts in the 60's and David has over 40 albums. He has written songs for many of the greats of Country music including the late great Cash. David is a REBEL but claims no prejudice blood.

Enter 2006 and I fall into this CD called Rebel meets Rebel. David Allan Coe and Dimebag. Again I will plead ignorance as to who the hell is Dimebag. Seriously I recon I better get myself a Pantera Cd and learn. But back to Rebel Meets Rebel a collaboration of some hard driving rock and roll with the great vocals and songwriting of DAC. Drinkin and dopin country songs mixed with alot of that heavy guitar riff of today. I welcome this CD too my collection at a time when I am getting sick of the screaming blasting non descript noise of the punk and metal scene. It's nice to listen to a singer sing. David opens up and his voice to some full throttle rock. The first song just blasts a riff that makes you push down a little harder on the accelerator pedal of your Camaro. This Cd made my top ten this year so now maybe it's time to drive out to Sooke and visit some of my good ole friends.

so much music so little time - ricky jak

Heyyy i finally found some freakin time to watch the Punk Show on Muchmusic..... I never watch TV so forgive me. Seriously what ever happened to Erica Em?
Anyway i fancy the punk music from time to time and was excited to finally watch this Punk Show on muchmusic..... but much to my disgust... what the hell is punk come to! I couldn't stand it and i didn't have the option to fast forward! I just watched 10 or so bands of shit! They all sounded the same and all had the same stage moves. SHIT! and they all looked like mall jocks! nothing original.... Is there a ITT PETERSON SCHOOL OF PUNK that lays down the rules???
My record collection contains: Black Flag.... Henry Rollins is the front man... and they sound like Black Flag! Nothing else sounds like them!DOA... Joey shithead. DOA also a sound of thier own.Clash... do i have to say anything here???Subhumans Vancouver... Wimpy Roy!Dead Kennedys... Jello and hell yeah DKS!!!Bad Brains... holy shit this is intense.Buzzcocks... new wave but very distinguishable. Personality Crisis... deep manly punk vocals. Devo... new wave also... but sure as hell don't sound like anything from this planet.blah blah balh cough cough. i could go on but i recon i'm showing my age as usual...
I recon i'll not turn on my TV again for awhile and stay down in this cold basement listening to my old records... cause it sure looks like PUNK IS DEAD today!
-ricko homo

TOOL TIME MOTORHEADS.

O.K. doodes... I fix cars all day and every once and awhile i stumble across tools that are the rats ass....
heres one that seems to work great... when your cooling system is near empty. You hook it up and apply twenty or so inches of vacume.... guys like you can apply that much vacume with just one suck eh... no... you hook it up to your airline and it goes past a valve and creates vacume in your cooling system. Then you listen to your cooling system for any leaks.... warning this tool might create leaks in old heater and rad cores... but its better to find out in your shop then to find out on your way to the discoteque eh. anyway... with the hose in a bucket of antifreeze you open the valve on the tool and the vacume in your cooling system sucks the coolant in... when the system is full you remove the tool and top er up a bit then put the rad cap back on and drive away. No airlocks or messy waiting for the thermostat to open. This tool works slick and i use the thing all the time!
and its only $194 from snap on.... just one of the many great tools you can have. Did you all know it was an automotive mechanic that invented the johnson enhanser.... but somehow i don't think the above tool could be used for such things... although you never know. maybe some of you guys can try it and let us girls know!
feel free to add to this boys... this tech message board is a little boring.

-ricky jak

The guy on the radio says the Rod Steward concert at the Memorial Arena in Victoria is "SOLD OUT".... I slowly walked the street feelin down and wondering how much the great Rod the Mod tickets will sell from the scalpers hands. Rod has done his time in the music industry and so a sell out show in Ole Vic is probably what he deserves. The rain is falling and i walk towards the Lucky bar to see some real punk music by bands who have also done some time in the underbelly of the music industry. Tonight the Shivs and veterans of punk Death Sentence will be belting out some "Wake up Maggie" in your face punk.
I entered and wandered up to the bar. I saw Blind Mark caneing around the floor in a sober fashion and figured he needed a drink. The bar tender poured the poisons of choice and Blind Mark and i made a toast to the evening and he was quickly swept away by a horde of women. The crowd was pretty thin for this evenings show but the night was early. I had a quick chat with a handful of locos then i bumped into Doug Donut... i had just done a twenty hour non-stop road trip with Doug earlier this summer that was a lesson on how to speed and get away with it. Doug got away with it but i didn't... "pay the pig ricky"....Oh well no groceries for the kids that week!
I sat on the sidelines alone for quite awhile untill Blind Mark white-caned himself onto the stage and said a few words about drinkin then the blast of hardcore assaulted the audience. I chose to stand by Mikey the guitar player for this show. His grinding guitars still take me back to my youth when i was a big Negative Approach fan. This band is always great to see,

unfinished artikle for Absolute Underground 2004.

Skateboarding article from 2004 .Rambling Coping Junkie
Standing at the top you look not down but beyond to the next transition. You drop in letting the wheels take you to the next wall, A pump and your carving tightly around the wall, the truck hits the coping making a grinding sound....... AHHHHH IT FEELS SO Damb GOOD! Scream with a laugh, carving is the unbeatable high! Carving, shoots my nerves to the sky! I'm hooked. I love this.
Citys throughout the west coast have been building skateparks that just have to be used. I have been fortunate to have been able to hit a few concrete walls from Calgary to Los Angels. Chasing that dragon of my skateboard addiction. I recon i'm having my mid life crisis... I can't afford a Corvette so as fate would have it they built a skateboard bowl close to my home. Screw the Corvette I'll go skateboarding. Victoria West Bowl is my home and although it's small hit it does the job. I work the bowl on a weekly basis feeling the curves and coping. Basically a kid will ride a swing set.... back and forth... when i ride the bowl it's the same thing of coarse with room for improvement..(tricks). When the park first opened the bowl was not used by the young skaters that came... OLLIE OLLIE OLLIE, is the way of the kids skate these days so....street style man... lets hear some Beastie Boys and do a railslide. Well progression added more to skatein this year Billy...
Slip in the Agent Orange, Blast or some Black Sabbath and lets skate the fuckin bowl dudes! With some style don’t ya know!(US Bombs) The Vic west park has developed some hot bowl riders and i'm happy to see this progression. Some of these kids are taking the technical street style and putting a little old flow in it..... then mixxin it all up in the bowl. Rock fackie to front side 50/50 grind then back side 50/50 back in to a tight carve and a way stylish mellon grab out and back in…. Jamer anyone? The lines are endless. Hey get otta my way Jimmy, Dougy, Chris, Howie, Sonny, Johnathan, Perry and Jessee, These guys are way sick but….sometimes some really old guys show and use this bowl… Harri and his huge bag of stuff that is so old its new again, the Beak and even ole Ryse Jak…. Even girls like Coen and Dust can be seen using there at times. Now I’m just slingin a few names of the dudes that are flyers of the bowl… I skate close to all who work the Vic West bowl….hopeing through osmosis that I will get the next progression and add another trick to my line….. not do a trick for a line!! Not all bowls are for lightin up.. some bowls are for carvin.. Hardy har har. It’s poetry man.
Anyway I think I’ll just SHUT UP AND SKATE! I’m a steel/concrete coping junkie. Next issue I’ll tell you about the time I lost my virginity in LA

Lucky Bar, May 15 AWT, Gutter Demons, and The Vibrators!

I finished up removing the dirty ring from the toilet when I realized that The Vibrators were in town tonight. I quickly washed my hands and put on my best leopard skin skirt, complimented with my safety pinned God Save the Queen t-shirt. The first time I had experienced British punk was back in 83 when the Angelic Upstarts played an all ager at the Advance center in Vic West. From time to time the Buzzcocks used to come to town.... but British Punk acts very rarely play on this island so tonight was.... a Royal Treat!

I was late and missed AWT. These local locos have a new CD out or in the works??? I recon ifn I had more than $2 in my pocket I might have wandered up to their merch table to see if the CD was available but money talks BS walks... although they did have a nice lookin merch girl...I wonder if she’s alcoholic white trash... I’ve never been comfortable with callin people trash, but every time I look in the mirror I do see a white alcoholic! Anyway AWT are always fun to see and they usually have some aggressive dance floor followers to get drunk on their hardcore music works!

The Gutter Demons are a Psyco-billy act from Montreal. Pycho-billy is like rock-a-billy only at 78 RPM. They sing in English with French Canadian accents! They ripped and it is always nice to see these kind of acts in a punk line-up, mixes it up and I enjoyed this band big time and could easily see them headlining the next time they come to town… oui oui!

Now the Vibrators... Old School Punk band dating back to 76... Yes 1976. The Vibrators where making punks pogo dance before slam dancing and way before the invention of the mosh pit! Just when I thought there was no one old enough to actually know how to pogo to this band, out on the dance floor came Mike Walker Punk Rocker one of Victoria’s oldest. This band was on the same bills as the Sex Pistols and Iggy Pop back in the day. The Vibrators have a twenty-seven year career with numerous line-up changes and over 15 albums! The band’s new line-up has the original singer and the original drummer so it doesn’t get much better than that. The big hit for them is “Baby Baby Baby” and the audience sang along to this top ten punk classic. The only other song that I recognized in their set was “Disco Moscow” although all the songs where great and lots of dancing was had. The new bass player kinda looked like a member of the Clash, the drummer looked like an old school teacher and the singer (who is a established British painter) looked like a street person. I spoke to the bass player after the show and he said they have had a good tour of North America but are tired and want to get home. He also told me the money has been pretty good and as much as he doesn’t like to turn his passion for playing music into a job…. He still has bills to pay at home.

Hopefully we will see this classic punk outfit in our little town again soon. I did notice the Vibrators drew a large crowd of girls. I wonder if they where mislead by the name and hoping to see a new product line of Vibrators? Imagine how many girls would have showed if it was a double ender with the Buzzcocks as well as the Vibrators and then throw in the Sex Pistols! Sounds like a horny show BABY BABY BABY!!

APR 2004 Kook Killers, Rod Iron Hogglers, and Electric Frankenstein.

First off it was Urge Tattoodios 10’Th anniversary and a flash load of people where at the Lucky bar to celebrate. Congrats goes out to the Urge crew... they where inspiration for so many in this town…. Ten years ago you only had maybe two or three tattoo shops, now there is one on every corner! I personally would never get a tattoo but who am I to judge!

The Lucky bar was full and I think it was a near sold out show. Greasers, JaKs, punx, skinheads, perverted Team Shitty guys, and good old Stranglehold was there for this evening of punk and rock. Hey, even my husband was there! It was a good social event with lots of old faces. In the chatter of gossip I was eves-dropping on, I overheard possibly a Breach re-union was in the minds of Jerk Warren with Paul who is hanging around again. I wouldn’t mind seeing that punk band again…. What’s it been ten years? I stuck close to my neighbor John B (old surf punk from Sacramento) He shared his story about the Circle Jerks show in 82 where he got a 2by4 in the nose. We are both lame old punks so we just drank a few soft ones…. By the way thanks for the free drinks Ben! Funny how probably back in 82 Ben wouldn’t have been giving us free drinks! But yet again we were drinking booze back then.

The Keg Killers started the night and as usual these guys play a dam fine mix of old classic punk covers as well as a handful of their own. If you like the old school north american punk sound you must see the KK! The dance-floor was a little shy in the dance department but I did see a few old women shaking their thing! I think the Keg Killers have recently been included in a punk compilation that Duane Peters (US Bombs) is involved in… have to find that when it comes out. My condolences go out to Dust for his recent family losses. I’m here for you bro!

The Urge house band Rod Islamic Haulers where up next and what can you say other than it’s a blast of Rock & Roll. They rock not in a Dio or Sabbath way but a more of a “We will be playing at Angle Acres this year,” kinda way! They have a pretty big following and the dance-floor had a goood layer of grease tattoos and the likes. I hear they will be playing at the StickShift car clubs annual Island Invasion on the long weekend in July. Better get your moms car tuned down for that one.

I went outside for some fresh air and a cig then ran back inside for some Electric Frankenstein. This band came with a huge merch table and due to my poor reading ability it looked like this band had released about thirty cds! The reality was I had never heard of this band before so there was that feeling of mystery and anticipation. Would they live up to this near sold out crowd. The first cord was struck and the band took off into a full force set of…. Electric Frankenstein! The floor was sardined with bodies swaying to the aggressive punk/rock beat. Hey was that Dee Dee on bass? I really enjoyed this band but after a half a dozen songs they stared to sound the same. This is where it might have been better if I was familiar with their songs… I recon I should buy one of their releases soon. They are a screaming good band and certainly worth checking out.

- ricky jak