The Truth is Out There...

I love the X-Files. I forgot how similar it is to heroin. Seriously, my world would revolve around the show. It used to be that you'd find me in front of my tv every Sunday night at 9pm to drool over Scully and laugh at the scathing wit of Mulder as they waded through aliens and conspiracies and lies in the ultimate search for the truth. And finally someone had the smarts to put it on in syndication again. Now you'll find me in front of my tv every night at 10pm re-living the glory days with some pepsi and some popcorn. Good times.

The rock and roll front has been very X-files like in the last few weeks; strange people coming out of the woodwork, the loss of someone very close and important people obstructing us when we're so, so, so, so, so close to 'the truth'.

A few great things have happened, though. We played my home town on Saturday. It's a small little place on Lake Huron called Port Elgin. It's funny how your perception of what you want and what you need changes as you get older. When I was 18 years old, I couldn't wait to get out of there. And now I find myself being drawn back to the wide open space and the stillness that you don't get here in Toronto. The boys and some of the lovely girls and I were sitting on my parents porch (they live on our family farm now) just looking at the stars (I saw some amazing shooting stars!) and talking and laughing and taking it all in. I did learn a few new things about Mick and his porcupine fetish (don't worry, he uses protection - a falconry glove). It was one of those nights where you just know that you're where you should be. And you need those. Because so many people question you along the way, that you begin to question yourself. Not that night.

Despite our frustrations (it's almost impossible to get on the radio unless you have a lot of money to throw around - ALTHOUGH, there's been a few good folks in Owen Sound, Sudbury & Stratford that have found some loopholes for us!) some good things have been happening. Tim and the good folks at Healey's have seen fit to unleash us on a Friday night (September 9th) and thus give no excuses to our 'working' friends to not come out and drink and rock and roll. And Mr. Laskey and the folks at the Horseshoe were so impressed with the cd release show and the crowd (again, the kindness of strangers and the beauty of friends) that they gave us a slot opening for a Canadian act called BOY, that I suspect will be everywhere pretty soon. And that's on a SATURDAY night (Sept 24th)!!! At the HORSESHOE!!! Needless to say, we're pretty excited. You can almost reach out and touch the idea of not being horrifically in debt (I'd conservatively say it costs us $250/month EACH to be in TFP right now, and that's excluding the new car sized down payment we coughed up to make the record!) Our running joke for the last eight months has been,

"We really like you and we think you'd make a great addition to The Free Press Family."

"Well, thank you, I'm honoured."

"Does that mean you're in?"

"Yes! Yes, it does."

"Fantastic! Welcome aboard. That'll be $2000 dollars, please."


We're only half-joking. But all the headaches of debt, kraft dinner, discount ale and sleepless nights will be worth it if we can just take a few more large strides towards the dream. I think people are noticing us. I think people are getting interested in what we do and what we have to say. I think we're on the road to being a real rock and roll band.

I want to believe.

Like Dido Says...

I want to thank you.

All of the people who came to our cd release party last night, thanks so much. I'll get around to talking to each of you individually and you can make fun of your favourite dumb thing I did, but right now I'm tired, run down and ready for a short hibernation.

We had a great night and I can't tell you how good it felt to be surrounded by so many supportive people - some old faithfuls and some new faces. We put more work into last night than anything we've done so far and having all of you share it with us made it the most worthwhile thing this band has ever experienced. We walked on stage, we toasted Alex's dad and then Len started to play Storms. And after I picked up my guitar and looked out at the audience, I didn't know whether I wanted to laugh or cry. The sea of loving faces looking back at me was breathtaking. It was like driving from the city into the country and you have the overwhelming need to pull the car over so you can just bask in that clear, beautiful blanket of stars that's so hard to see amongst all the lights and smog. Last night, I was just a kid basking in that beautiful, beautiful country view. And it was wonderful.

And so, all you lovely stars, thanks so much for the love and support. Rock and roll is alive and well (albeit a little ragged today). See you all soon. Be well, kids.

love
j.d.
xoxo

I Can't Believe The News Today

No, it has nothing to do with the tornado/flood/storm insanity that happened in Toronto over the weekend. Although that was bizarre. And no, I'm not writing about the mass of shootings and missing persons that are all over the television. I'm thinking more local. Smaller. More personal.

We got our first cd review in Now magazine this week. Not a headliner by any stretch of the imagination, but just one more step on the road to realizing that this isn't just the hobby Alex & I thought it might be when we were drunk in a Winnipeg hotel room with a bunch of lovely waitresses (that's another story). We hoped it was something bigger than that. And maybe we were right.

The review is decidedly favourable. Although you wouldn't think that to read the first four or five sentences. This guy wanted to hate us. He wanted to toss the cd in the garbage. But he didn't. He made himself listen to it. And we won him over.

For me, this is a triumph. This is a publication that is in love with art rock and trendy Queen street music that I don't really have time for (although Alex & I are working on a side project called, "Battalion", which will have at least 13 members who all wear various pieces of revolution military garb and bang pots we found somewhere in Kensington market - but again, another story). If we can win over the snooty art rock crowd, then we're doing some big things very well. We're focusing on the right things. Well, the right thing. The music. Not how we look. Not how we dress. Not how many side projects we have. The music this band - The Free Press - creates, that makes it greater than the sum of its parts. And we did it ALL ourself. Our money, our time, our blood, our sweat, our swearing, our pain, our heartache and our dreams. I can only imagine how far we'd go if we had the time and money that bands like Coldplay & Radiohead & U2 have. I hope it's as far as I picture it in my dreams. And I hope we get to find out soon.

Ladies and gentlemen, read the review and enjoy. I hope to see you all on Wednesday at the Horseshoe when we play under our new moniker: The Uncoolest Band in the World.
Dig it.


THE FREE PRESS Storms (Russian Surplus) Rating: NNN

This band is so uncool that I almost don't want to like them. Their lead singer, James Dallas Smith, stars on Omni-TV's Metropia. Their press release proudly announces they've secured corporate sponsorship with shoe company Pony. And everyone in the group looks like the guys who graduated from high school five years ago but hang out in the school parking lot trying to date the girls in grade 9. Yet this six-song EP has an irresistibly beautiful Tragically Hip, Can-rock feel. Their earnest lyrics and attentive guitar playing suck you in no matter how many times you look at the terrible cover art. The songs are solid alternative rock on a par with anything the Trews or Constantines are dishing out.

The Free Press play the Horseshoe Wednesday (August 24).
chandler levack

The kindness of strangers...

And the beauty of friends.

I've made a lot of remarks as of late that went a little something like those two sentences. Anyone in a band knows that it's your friends who give you a chance at success. Because they're the ones who go to your first few shows and give you the chance to sink or swim. After that, you begin to rely on the kindness of strangers. People that have no reason to be kind to you or give you the time of day. And yet, they do.

I was at Yonge & St. Clair a few days ago (literally pounding the pavement and dropping off press kits for the band to important people - and by important, i mean money-giving) and I actually stopped walking because I had such vivid memory wash over me.

About 7 years ago, just after my closing night for a production of Anne of Green Gables that I was doing (it was actually a pretty good show, despite the saccharine quality of of the piece), my friend, Suresh and I had done a swift and thorough job of hurting ourselves with alcohol. This was just the end of a fantastic and bizarre summer (we lived in a house with no cutlery, no plates, no food and no pots or pans, with a sociopathic liar, a three-legged cat who liked to shit in the air ducts and sattelite tv - which became an excuse to wake everyone in the house EVERY time the movie Armageddon came on [I believe the final number was 14 times in August]) and as such, the evening went on too long and we consumed waaaaaay too much booze. My friend Larissa was kind enough to drive me home to Toronto the next day. Little did she know what a favour that was.

Now. Kingston to Toronto is about 2 hours. There are several rest stops along the way. Three, I think. Usually, they're not necessary, unless you're completely famished or have a weak bladder. We made all three stops on this trip. None of them were because of the previously mentioned criteria. On this journey home, I vomited in two McDonald's restaurants, an enchanting and strange little wonder of Ontario called 'The Big Apple' (it - apparently - is the worlds biggest apple, by the way) and finally capped it off with one more bout of vomiting at the McDonald's at Yonge & St. Clair where I was dropped off.

This isn't a story about boasting. Yes, that's a lot of vomiting, but I don't enjoy relishing in the more foolish moments of my past. But my girlfriend, who - at that time - was a lovely young woman named Lori Duncan, went well beyond the realm of kindness that day. She had no reason to pity me, love me or take care of me on that fine August afternoon. If your boyfriend has been away for two months and you've only seen him twice in that time and he has the nerve to show up in a state resembling a background dancer in Michael Jackson's Thriller video, then I believe you're entitled to say, "You're an asshole. Call me when you're less so." But she just looked at me, shook her head, smiled and helped me home to her apartment.

Why? I have no idea. And that's how I've felt these past two or three weeks. So many people have been kind to us with no particular reason.

This band has amazing friends. We have amazing girlfriends and wives. We have fantastic family (and some of us are clinging to them dearly right now and thinking of them often). And we have beautiful, kind strangers (you know who you are). This is just a little post to say, 'thank you'. It's easy to forget to say that when we're on stage posturing and strutting and slamming our guitars. But without all of you - friends, loved ones and strangers - we'd have given up long ago. All I ask is that you - if you have it to give - keep the kindness coming and we'll keep better and better music coming your way. Dig it.

Last American Exit...

I'm pretty sure they keep this exit well hidden. I couldn't say for sure where it is, but I'd like to know. I've had the worst case of writers block for the last two months. I get 2/3 of the way through a song or story and it just grinds to a halt. I've finished a few things, but I have yet to pass judgement on their worthiness to be pulled out of the 'For Your Eyes Only' category. Yes, I'm stressed and distracted, but that shit's going to happen and it's not an excuse to give up. Seriously. There's presently 6 sets of semi-finished lyrics on my wall, another 4 on the computer and god knows how many balled up in the garbage beneath all the unpayed bills.

I'm sorry to pout. I'm sorry to whine. I just need to write this down in the hopes that it goes away. You know, a literal clearing of the mind. Maybe I should try some drugs. From my University literature studies, I gather that writers are fond of opiates and poisons (Absinthe?) Maybe I'll give it one more month. I'm not that worried yet. Just frustrated. As such, I want to find this exit and spend some time at its destination. Is it a resort? A middle american town? Something Jennifer Lopez will never find? All questions that burn in my mind and keep me awake at night. I think Neil Finn might live in this place. He may, in fact, be the mayor. Anyway, I need his help. I need some guidance. Some inspiration. Some money to pay the damned bills and the rent.

On a partly relevant tangent, it's in this relentless season of summer that I always think of Neil's song, 'Nails in My Feet.'


Total surrender
Your touch is so tender
Your skin is like water
On a burning beach
And it brings me relief
It brings me relief

Dance Naked...

Well, we're not naked, but we were dancing. And I've recently become infatuated with the idea of fooling around with my name.

James Cougar Dallas

What do you think? I tried Leopard & Gazelle in place of the Cougar, but it just doesn't have that same ring.

Anyway, all this fooling about has come because the band just had a great week. Last Friday, we played a really fun show at the Kee to Bala (that's where the picture was taken - the stage is HUGE!!!). We get to head back up there for Labour Day which we're all excited about. In addition to that, we played one of the strangest and craziest shows of our career at Healey's on Wednesday. If you can picture a television show that's equal parts Oz, Arrested Devlopment & Sesame Street, you have an inkling of what happened at Healey's. Disturbing, probably a little more graphic than necessary, bizzarely funny, strangely entertaining and always educational. The result of this crazy show was that we also get to play another big show at Healey's on September 28th. It's one of those battle of the band things, which none of us are crazy about - it's just a bad enviornment for music, usually. And generally we don't put any stock in them, because how the hell do you judge a punk band, a screamo band, a metal band and a pop rock band with the same criteria? You don't. Not fairly, at least. Anyway, the folks at Healey's (Tim in particular - he's the long haired manager that all the girls are in love with) have been really cool to us. And so we brought a few truckloads of people and they won us the first round of the competition with their clapping and drinking and whooping. I didn't think that was a big deal until Tim told us the winner of the last competition (it's three rounds all told) is opening for the White Stripes at the Molson Amphitheatre!!! Needless to say, it's a bigger incentive to bring a few BUS loads of people to the next show and have another great show.

I also watched the band on tv last night. We were on Metropia. National television. Now, this is nothing new for me, but watching this episode (even though I've seen it twice before) was different. It's like listening to a song on the radio even though you may have the cd in your car or home. Irrelevant. This was different because it was dialogue writers wrote for me, but everything else was ours. All our hardwork, rehearsal and rocking was on national television for all Canadians to see. And we played two of our songs. It was peculiar to see my real life mixed with my television life.

Actually, it's all getting a bit crazy. Alex and I were talking about how it's just starting to get weird. That's not a bad thing. I mean, we've been working our asses off for two years and we're just now starting to see some results. But winning a few competitions in a week, being on national television, signing a bunch of autographs (seriously, attractive women wanted us to sign their cd's!!!) and having 4 shows in an 8 day window coming up is giving us a taste of the surreal reality of success. Certainly we're not making any money yet and very few people greater than three degrees of separation from the band know who the hell we are. But they're starting to. And it's really fucking exciting. So, as I'm rolling all these ideas about in my head and toying with the insertion of an animal into the middle of my name (I'm not really, unless you all think it's a good idea, in which case I'll do it for fun and because Mitch likes it when I sell out) I try to keep it all together. But really...it's Too Much To Think About.