Listen, if need dictates each of our connections, then what the fuck is this problem about simply caring for someone enough not to hurt them? Seriously, I’m asking here. Am I doomed to this? I mean, animals use instinct to get them through the day and you don’t see them needing to build 10 million dollar spas on 500 meters of the most blinding white sand on the Pacific Ocean. How can we ever be satisfied if our instincts tell us THIS is just not enough?

And if we’re never satisfied, how can we ever be happy? And by “we”, I of course, mean “me”. I once wrote a long time ago “If you don’t love me, you need help.” Well, baby, I’m the one who needs help these days. And I have had it with these fucking days.

Back Stage At The Record Launch

Back stage with Sally and Melsha we wonder where the tray of cocaine is. Here I have the girls but I forget the fucking drugs. Damn! We laugh at the irony of life.

The girls remark at the really un-glamorous condition of the back stage. I tell them about CBGB’s in NYC (RIP). Ramones throwing up on the ceiling and a toilet on a pedestal. Truly a punk throne for such mad kings as have never been seen since.

Such ripped and torn eyes from California look at me with an excuse that there are many boring places there, never mind Hollywood and Vine or the illegal thought processes. Oh, Sally, I have a feeling wherever you are, it is plenty interesting.

No room to sit or any privacy. Which makes for fast friends. (I have a flash back to North Hampton Mass. In 1997. Vital, the bass player and I have to change and lace up the boots in the tour van. Our green room was blue.)

I put on my cassock and do a few jumps to get the blood going. Jon comes in and I ask him if he can go on stage to grab the mallet for the gong. He does. He goes out to send Zasta in so we can start the fire dance.

A few minutes later, Melsha watches as Zasta starts to do push-ups to warm up. A large pole falls and I catch it. This is an inconsequential incident during an otherwise consequential event – but I know I’ll remember this for the rest of my life. Zasta touched the large metal pole with his feet and the pole, dislodged, fell like a tree in slow motion. I raised my hand and caught it before it fell on him and me.

We’re ready to play. We cover our heads with the cassock cowls and go take our positions. Me by the gong and Zasta on the kit.

20 minutes pass in the heat of fire and the rhythm of dancing.

Back in the green room I hug Melsha and Sally. We are close at this moment. Very connected. Isn’t that what it is about… Why is there something missing?

Approx: 5 days before the show to the day before the show.

I talk with Simon Dragon, the man who created L’Union Du Feu. We get along immediately. His ideas are creative and emotive. We will work together. But it turns out he has some serious restrictions on what he can do at the venue. There is a resto under the Hall we are playing in so fire is not allowed.

Yikes! Well, the fact is you have to expect things won’t be easy. So Simon, an essential performer who, like me, believes the show must go on, assures me that he has come up with a very expressive idea using light orbs and (if he can) the very minimum of fire. I believe him only because (if you could have heard him talk you’d know) his passion for his art in fire is so intense. I give him the go ahead.

Dunter calls Alex. He needs to go to the Hall to see where he can suspend Maiko from the ceiling using his bondage pulleys and cords. No problem. I’ll meet him there that night.

I talk to Jeff, boss over at Elite Guitars. I love these guitars – they sound great – they’re loud and they look sexy as fuck. I want him to come to the show and set up a booth so people can check out the guitars TGON plays up close. He’s all for it. Nice.!

The Gods Of Now belt buckles have come in. They rock!!! Pewter and totally great. Kill The 8 are a band’s best friend for doing things like this.

I head down to Sala Rossa that night and meet with Dunter. The sound man is there and we ask… “Can we suspend a human from those pipes up there?” A resounding “NO!” comes to us and hits me in particular like a 2×4! No fire and now no flying bondage girl!
I assure myself that even if it’s on a small scale the show will still be very entertaining.

So after the flyer-ing and after renting some lighting and making sure all our shit is together – TGON, L’Union Du Feu, and Dunter and Miako, the merch, the pix and the Monk-a-delique project (me and Zasta on percussion). We just need to do the show.

Out In The Hall Before TGON Plays

Marzark, bass player and friend, buys us all a JD round. Ahhh, nice. I see Sam (Jon’s guitar student). She’ll be a star one day for sure. You can see it.

Time to play.

We finish with Broken and move off the stage so Dunter and Maiko can do their thing. I can’t wait to see this!

I go out front and listen as Sie Haben Nicht Vergessen starts playing. Maiko is a very athletic performer. How she can sustain her energy at that level is really remarkable. And then, when Dunter comes out and ties her to the pulley system, hoists her above the stage… it’s sensual and disturbing. I loved it! And this was all done when Dunter came in earlier today and found a spot to rig his pulley system. Great!

Dunter emerges from stage left wearing a white Bio Suit and Gas Mask. It’s all so eerie in the ultraviolet light. She is lifted off the ground to perform free from hard restrictions. But this freedom has it’s own price. She is very, very good. But this is my cue to change into my suit. It looks very punk in the context with the music, and I feel very at home in expensive suits so I like doing it. I go back stage and change.

Sally is there and I hazard a guess that she may have some red lipstick. I ask and she is more than happy to lend me some. She says “I’m all about cross pollination!” I love this line. Not only that, she applies the red to my lips. I like it smeared across my lips, as if I was making out with a little slut. She does this without a problem. She gets a little bit too much on my cheek so she takes her sleeve and cleans me up. Her sleeve tears as she does this. She smiles at me and says, “There’s nothing about me that hasn’t been ripped or broken.” Wow! A connection. She knows it too.

Dunter and Maiko are finished. Excellent performance.

The Gods Of Now play the last part of the record.

And then we’re finished.

Jeff and Mike from Elite tell us to expect the TGON Signature Edition Guitars anytime now. Really, I can’t wait for this ax to come to me. It’s going to be sweet! We shake hands and thank them for looking after our guitars this night. They even lent me a second just in case a string on mine broke.

Alex has to leave. Early up the next day so it’s Zasta, Jon, Amp and me. We pack up everything into the Banyion. I go back to the studio after dreaming, I think. …All the scars that trace my thought of you.

This wasn’t enough. Not near enough. It was a great and protected moment in time that was shared by connecting with great human beings. Artists. I loved it. But it’s not enough. I want more.

So like me, you should go out and have your fun. It’s too late for going back now. Just like a snakebite on a sun bleached highway, the poison works its way so goddamn fast straight to the heart. And everything is fading…

And now you need something else because I’m not enough, because I am not your cure anymore. But you ain’t enough either… That’s the way this fucking poison works. And at the end of it all, we’ll all sit down and die.

It was fucking perfect for a second.

Passion is always dying, see? That’s its charm. That’s why it’s addictive and that’s why it chose us. The Ashes we are: we, who are also always burning up, dying so wonderfully, consumed by flames of desire and woe. We are so sad and beautiful, aren’t we? What a wake we’ve got going here on our planet.

Fire-fans in the two performers’ hands are hot on my face even though I cannot see them – I feel them, I smell the fuel. Melsha and Sally. They are both dark beauties, gothic and gorgeous. Sally says backstage later, “There’s nothing about me that hasn’t been ripped or broken.” I like her immediately. But right now I try to see through the cowl of my cassock the two lithe female forms, ghosts of my imagination, moving through my journey to passionate death… fire leaping from their fingers. Zasta and I are giving the two women pulse and rhythm and they, in turn, become fucking perfect for one burning moment. (will have a vid soon, but for now here’s a pic below) I can honestly say, I’m happy.

7 Days Earlier:

I’m not happy at all. Fuck.
The only thing I know about the launch for sure is that TGON is going to perform the record and there’s some Fetish Acrobats that are interested in performing too. The latter concerns me only in its execution. The concept – a guy rigging up a girl to a pulley system and she basically flies above the stage in a sort of bondage dance – I like.

Now, I try to get either a Tibetan throat-singing group (specifically Monks) or a Cyrillic throat-singing choir (necessarily priests). You’ve heard this kind of music – even if it was just in the movies: huge, low resonating tones emanating from small robed figures. Voices that defy explanation as to how they can create multiple, simultaneous overtones reaching high into the harmonic stratosphere. Incredible. Magical.

Of course, when I planned this, I did, in the back of my damaged mind, remember something about the fact that these kinds of singers are VERY religious and may have a bit of a problem performing with a group of heavy music fuckers, albeit ones with open minds and hearts.

It came as no surprise that the Cyrillic choir (made up of priests) was too religious and the Tibetan Monks… LIVE IN TIBET (actually they live in Hong Kong as they were exiled: so many lines of drama). Neither was an option.

Result: I needed another opening act for The Gods Of Now record launch.

Now, I know most CD launches have bands, usually of like style, opening. But we’re THE GODS OF NOW so that idea is a little fucking rudimentary for me to pursue. Now, you’re saying, “Schrecker, broheim, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” But I’m saying TGON don’t exist in that system (that I sarcastically will point out is working oh so well) so we have to chart our own way… I know something is out there and it just needs to find me while I’m searching for it.

But aside from the mystical mumbo jumbo… listen. Pragmatically speaking, not only is it difficult to find bands that fit with TGON, but actually after listening to two bands of the same kind of music (in this case heavy music), I’m usually done for the night. My idea is to put on something more Cabaret or Vaudevillian in style. I don’t want to tire the audience. I want to entertain them. Keep them spell bound.

6 Days Before The Show:

While I was preoccupado with trying to find a suitable act for the opening… we were on the way to locking up the last part of the show.

The idea was this… TGON would play the whole record live. This is an intense experience for both TGON and the crowd listening to us, so (although I didn’t realize it at the time) Alex, Jon and Zasta had thought that it would be great if the Bondage Acrobats (Maiko and Dunter) would do their thing while the two atmospheric pieces (Sie Haben Nicht Vergessen and Recorded History) that are on the record were being played. Great!

All I needed to do was meet with them, so Alex set up a meeting at my studio a few days later with Maiko and Dunter to talk about what they were going to do and how they would go about doing it.

Now it was time to work out an idea I had about a project that would have Zasta and I just playing percussion… so we had a few rehearsals to see what we’d come up with. Surprise, surprise! It’s fucking amazing.

We asked Jon to come and run the Studio to make a recording of us, so we could listen to make sure we weren’t just creating noise. We were on track. We’re ready.

We still liked the idea of monks so we thought we’d rent cassocks to wear on stage and the bonus would be that people wouldn’t know it was us playing. Oooh, mysterious. We even wanted to print up little pieces of paper saying, “What you are listening to is an accompaniment to your conversation and social event. It is not intentionally a performance, unless you want it to be. But it is up to you.” How vague. Nice.

The next day, AMP calls me into her office. She’s been looking for interesting performers online and came across the L’Union Du Feu, a huge group of fire performers put together by Simon Dragon, fire breather extraordinaire. I check it out. Oh fucking Sweet! Girls dancing with fire! I gotta give this guy a call.

But now I have to pick up the Art Pix. (When you buy the Record there is a poster that comes with it. On the poster are pictures, each representing a song on the record. One of them is causing a controversy. It depicts Alex getting a blowjob from a girl, wearing our hot shorts, while Jon is holding a gun to her head. It is very hardcore in content. It is paired with the song Skeeved. Look it up if you don’t know what it means and then you’ll understand).

Zasta had this great idea after I told him I wanted to blow up the pics. He thought that we should set them up like an art gallery. Nice.

I had them blown up to 3 feet by 4 feet (they look amazing) and had them mounted. There are doubles (not mounted) just in case someone wants to buy them.

Setting Up the Stage on the Day of the Launch:

The fucking load-in really dragged me out. Jon and Zasta had to go to the costumier to get the monks’ robes. That left me and Alex to truck most of the heavy gear up the three flights of stairs at La Sala Rossa. Alex is tired too. But he says he needs food. I’m tweaking because there is SO much to prepare before the show and it’s already 5 pm.

The show is in three hours. Things like this usually don’t get to me, but this time… I feel it’s going to be a good show.

Dunther and Maiko are there. She’s preparing by warming up with stretches and back flips. He’s getting her revved up by stroking her with a very large knife. They look very content. I like them both – but they live in a world of their own.

Zasta and Alex are getting help from David the sound man to put up our brand new banner. It’s amazing and black and shiny. “The Gods Of Now”. Great.

Zasta is fitting it up there with not much more than bungee cords of various lengths and thin patience. He’s doing a great job, while Alex is obsessing that it’s crooked, starving Zasta’s patience even more.

We’re all setting up our TGON gear. We need to get it all fired up so we can do a sound check. Then I’ll set up the percussion and check that. The merch and big art pix have to be set out.

For a moment, I’m aware. I’m not at all alone. I don’t mean in the room, but in life – alone like we are told we must be. Born alone, live alone, die alone. I don’t believe it, not at all. Not at the moment. Beautiful and passionate, like the kiss of love herself. Does anyone see her? Does she really exist? A bright light, a brush of lips, the press of hands. Why must everything perfect be what you don’t have?

I’m stepping down from the stage. My Fender Strat in its flight case – makes a dandy step. I’m surprised by Two Women, one tall the other not as tall. Both are magnetic. Gothic. Evil and pure. Bright eyes and tired too. Where do they come from, women like this? They smile… friendly. Searching for connection.

In my head I hear screaming – “Life ain’t random. It loves, it breathes, it sucks and it blows…”

Both of these hot girls, with no thought to my own wrongly wired psyche, burst into flames. I close my eyes and open them again. 24 frames a second cut to 12. The process just a little too long to be considered a normal motor reflex of the eyelids. But the girls aren’t on fire any more, so it worked.

“… life won’t stop for me or for you or for all of us collectively, even if we ever get our shit together. But It goes baby! Yeah! Life goes and goes! But no way, it ain’t random at all.”
I smile back at them.

“I’m Schrecker.” I say over the screaming in my head.

To Be Continued…

You can check out The Metal File page on CHOM here.

See ya on Wednesday at the album launch!

Here are the infos:
4848 St-Laurent, Montreal
It’s at 8pm and it’s $8! There will be fire performers, fetish acrobats, complimentary wine and a lot more kick-ass stuff! Be there! :)

But right now – the rain has pulled all the dust from the air. It smells like the first kiss you ever had with the coolest person you’ve ever met.

And then it’s all down hill from there.

The hate of winter is near.

And speaking of hate I went to the Liberal Party of Canada fund raiser at the PUSH Art Gallery on St. Laurent. No I don’t hate the Liberal Party or any party (maybe the Yogic Flyers but that’s just cuz their too damn happy to be alive). I just hate people. And this isn’t good for social situations like this. It makes me stand by myself. A little cloud of self loathing for even being there swirling above my head.

Justin Trudeau was the guest of honor – he showed up in cell-phone form because he was on the Campaign trail in North Bay – understandable – but a little bit funny too. His lovely wife held him up for all to hear (Pregnant women are so goddamn hot don’t you think?). I was drinking down as much free wine as I could. I wondered if the people there ‘d ask me to stop. I kind of wanted them to. I would have said “It’s alright, I’m an artist. It’s my job.”

But there were Cultural Industrialists there that could have easily claimed the same thing. But really how can a 84 Billion dollar a year business have anything to do with art? Someone is making money somewhere – but it sure as fuck isn’t the artists.

And if you ever thought about voting – try this shit jacket on for size. This 84 billion dollar a year business of culture is supposedly going to be funded, in some fucked up Conservative Party theory, by 24 million dollars per year. Oh but it gets better – they’ll only give that 24 million (which is about the same amount as Stephen Harper spends on his summer cottage) to those few who are conforming to party standards and values of art. Let’s all sing together “Deutschland, Deutschland Uber Alas!”

We used to vote to get a party elected – now a vote is for anyone who can win AGAINST the party you just can’t stand.

But in this fucking mess were in it all makes sense somehow. Little subtle changes that let you know you’re not living in simple times. Huffing is classic. Microwaving your head for a buzz – now there’s a modernity.

Oh and if you’re Conservative and reading this – Sieg Heil to you too. Lemme press the Microwave Start button for ya.

Now what I’m wanting to say is this…

We’re putting on The Gods Of Now Record Launch here in Montreal on Wednesday, October 22. The venue is booked – Sala Rossa 4848 Boul St. Laurent. With no help at all from Government Funding Organizations. Nice.

Originally – when Zasta and I were talking about our CD launch someplace, somewhere on the road a few weeks ago I told him I wanted to get some kind of Tibetan or Slovanic Choir to perform as people filled in – getting their complementary glass of wine (Oui! Du bon gout!) and saying to themselves “Holy fucking shit – this is a heavy music CD launch – no fucking way!” and then realizing with a smack to their own foreheads, “Of course, it’s The Gods Of Now! I should have known they’d be doing something really fucking different”.

But after calling everyone I could – including the Tibetan Resto downtown (the cook gave me the name of his cousin who works at the Tibetan Culture office). I quickly realized that those monks who sing the deep resonating chants – the Slovanic Priests do this too – are actually IN Asia. Goddamn it – no government funding to bring them in – and I don’t think the Conservatives like Tibetans anyway – too whiny about human rights to be in line with party values. So we go to plan B.

Me and Zasta have a project – sort of like Music For Airports by Eno but more sticking-your-head-in-a-microwave-for-the-buzz modern. And hopefully a fire breather to perform at the same time. I’m not kidding.

Then there’s the Fetish Acrobats (we still have to find out if they want to be called this – there is a YouTube vid of the girl and it’s really incredible what she can do! And tasteful too.) Stop it! I’m not kidding about this either.

And the small art gallery section with the pix from the TGON poster which you can buy. They will be blown up to 3’X4’ and framed (including that controversial one where Jon is holding the gun to a girl’s head while she’s giving Alex a blowjob) Damn it! I just lost another 300 000 dollars of grant money! Stupid Conservative Family Values! I don’t wanna die poor!

Followed by TGON playing in all it’s glory. Great!

Only a few loose ends to tie up and it’ll be on autopilot. Believe me this is a night you don’t wanna miss.

I had the banyion fixed because we have a show tonight and on Sunday. She is all happy and purring like the beast she is. Oh but HA! Tonight’s show was all booked by Paul Husband. You remember Dickless, right? So it was CANCELLED!!

Wait: listen to this…

Prophecies of War is a multimedia show that has been performed to rave reviews in NYC, Chicago and Washington in the USA. Now the producers want to bring it to Canada. And who did they find to book this? You guessed it – Paul Husband and his group of stupid fucks.

We didn’t find this out until last week – so when we did AMP called Sam (he’s our booking guy who set this up WITH Paul Husband), Sam had been trying to reach Paul Husband about this show for days with no luck.

Whatever, more of the same excuses right? So AMP is angry. She was a reporter so she can track anyone down. Just give her a phone and 10 minutes. So she finds the producers and calls them immediately to find out if the show was actually on. With a sigh of relief the producer said he was so grateful that she called him – he’s been trying with no luck to reach Paul Husband because none of the bands know what’s going on – nor does the producer know what has been done up here in Canada to have the show become the same success it was in the US. We are the only professionals to have called.

Sigh…

BTW – our former booking guy, Sam, has a band. (I say former because, get this – he fired us!! HAHAHAHA! Do you believe it?? Because of me writing the truth of what happened on the road. I wasn’t even making the shit up – it was the fucking truth! But he couldn’t take it. Jokes on him tho. Because he fired us we’re off the hook contractually speaking from owing him ANYTHING. Such a poor business man – he could have simply apologized to the band and we would have parted friends and he would have gotten his money AND I would have said so here in writing. Oh well, we all make bad choices sometimes – I can attest to that personally in this case) . Anyway his band was supposed to play last night, Wednesday night…

The only reason he knew he was actually playing was because AMP was asked by the producers when she was talking to them, AFTER Sam fired us, to call Sam to tell him that they were expecting his band to show up.

AMP is a pro in all things so she called. But remember who’s show this is – Paul “Dickless” Husband – so it gets cancelled. WOW! So Sam gets a little taste of the magic that is Paul Husband – but seeing Sam’s itinerary for their cross Canada tour, he’s going to be eating shit right out of Karma’s hairy ass cuz he’s got Paul Husband booking him a lot by the looks of things. Let’s all have a moment of silence for the last days of Sam’s band. Oops, we’ve all forgotten them already, never mind.

So as it stands now we have a show on Sunday with this Prophecies of War. Hopefully it’ll work out. Blah, blah, blah. Paul Husband – not!

So here’s the last word on it.

Stay away from Paul Husband. Shit happens but not this much. This guy has no talent at all as a booker – and if you work with Sam’s company make fucking sure he’s not booking you through Paul. If you haven’t noticed – Paul sucks man ass as a booker.

End of this fucking chapter.

Now, what’s new with The Gods right?

Alex is happy,

Zasta is relaxing.

Jon is moving to the island of Montreal from the South Shore.

Wha?

Yeah – it’s all going to hell in a bad fucking way. We need to get back to reality here. Alex needs to be walking down the street giving strangers a dick punch. Zasta needs to be in 47 bands that he wants to quit and Jon should be safe on the south shore saying “don’t touch my stuff” while brandishing the knife I gave him for his birthday.

In other words we need some insanity to get us back on track.

Any ideas?

Also, if you’re going to be in one of those cities when we play, come hang with us and have a drink!

September:

• 2 Sep 2008 20:00 The Zoo Winnipeg, Manitoba
• 4 Sep 2008 20:00 Taphouse St-Albert, Alberta
• 5 Sep 2008 20:00 Rendezvous Pub Edmonton, Alberta
• 6 Sep 2008 20:00 Burnsy O’Flanagans Leduc, Alberta
• 10 Sep 2008 20:00 Biltmore Vancouver, British Columbia
• 12 Sep 2008 20:00 TBA Kamloops, British Columbia
• 13 Sep 2008 20:00 The Thirsty Dog Calgary, Alberta
• 18 Sep 2008 20:00 The Club – Regina, SK
• 20 Sep 2008 20:00 The Zoo Winnipeg, Manitoba
• 22 Sep 2008 20:00 The Black Pirates Thunder Bay, Ontario
• 23 Sep 2008 20:00 Lock City Grand Theater Sault Ste-Marie, Ontario
• 25 Sep 2008 20:00 Kathedral Toronto, Ontario
• 26 Sep 2008 20:00 Cafe Dekuf Ottawa, Ontario
• 27 Sep 2008 20:00 The Alex Brantford, Ontario

October:

• 22 Oct 2008 20:00 Salla Rossa Montreal, Quebec
• 24 Oct 2008 20:00 The Reverb Toronto, Ontario

Cheers
Jon

Here’s a little something:

“These dudes were ridiculously good, the guitars were phenomenal, the riffs were wild, it has been a very long time since I heard an actual Metal band that play what they claim.”

:)

Show Friday At PlayHouse

And yes, we’re gonna rock the PlayHouse again this Friday! If you’re in Montreal on Friday, come hang with us, we’re playing at around 10pm! That’s gonna be a kick-ass show! Address is 5656 Du Parc, Montreal.

NXNE

We played the NXNE music festival in Toronto last week-end, and seriously it was a lot of fun! Made new friends, drank and had a blast!

Till next time
Cheers

Check out the band schedule on the NXNE website for more infos. We’reon at 10pm at Funhauss! If you’re in TO that week-end come hear us play and have a drink with us! If you’re not in TO that week-end, well get you ass there come have a drink with us anyway!

On another note, we’d like to welcome Asher and Sam, our new buddies, to our growing family. We’re working closely with them on getting the word out about the Gods and put our plans of world domination into action.

So, that’s about it for now! Come say hi in Toronto next week-end, and in the meantime, here’s a little something: