Like a Rake

I love Townes Van Zandt. No surprise there, most people tend to. Also metal, I love that too. Imagine my delight when I found this:

WINO, Scott Kelly (Neurosis, Shrinebuilder), and Steve Von Till (Neurosis, Harvestman), have put out this three way split record of TVZ covers. Each song is distilled and bare, acoustic guitar and weary, haunted, gravel voices. There's a sense that these guys are infusing these already harrowing songs with their own tragedies, like a tattooed arm flung over TVZ's coathanger shoulders, one depressed alcoholic crooning to another. It's fucking devastating and awesome.

Listen to 'Rake' here (via Broken Beard): http://www.brokenbeard.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/05-Rake.mp3

On a lighter note -

Our new band The Lad Mags were in the studio last weekend. It is kind of funny, really, we are still not even fully cooked yet, a month away from our first show, still figuring out how we work together, still kind of bouncing around in terms of what we want to sound like... But there is a recording! It went really well. I like this band so much and Doug did a great job and in my totally biased opinion, we sound pretty good. This was taken by Doug after we finished recording our vocals (Joe had finished his drummer duties and eventually had to go home because that crazy man starts work at FIVE IN THE MORNING so he didn't get to be in this photo, which is a bummer):

Hoping we can get some sort of shareable version of the record (maybe a 7 inch? That would be ideal) ready in time for our Edmonton and Calgary shows at the end of the month. The Edmonton show is at the Artery on June 29th with Dead Ghosts from Vancouver. The Calgary show is at the Palomino on June 30, with The High Kicks, which is a pretty rad sounding smashing duo featuring Dan Vacon, the bearded and talented. Bison is playing that same night in Calgary, which is a bummer because they are so good, but... what can you do? These are summer problems.

I have been totally into dioramas by David Hoffos lately. When I was in art school I always wished I had more time for assignments because I always wanted to create this little compartmental scenes (not that I would have achieved anything like this, obviously). I like the quietness of a contained other three dimensional space. And these ones in particular are either occupied by holography ghosts or are not occupied at all which makes them sort of terrifying. It's really funny, when I lived in smalltown AB I remember going to the AGA for the first time and seeing this totally involved installation (I can't remember who the artist was, sadly... anyone who knows please share) and it was set up like an inventor's workshop except he made wishes or dreams or something like that, and there were all these motion sensors and as you moved through the installation all these tools and magic looking inventions would start moving or start playing old music or whatever and it was like walking into a better, magic place and I never wanted to leave. Weirdly, my taste in art hasn't seemed to change much. Those are the same things I feel and love about these dioramas. Anyway, David Hoffos. Check him out. He is from Lethbridge.

Maybe it is just that I want to crawl into one of those weird quiet spacey little scenes and hide away. There are so many things that I bet that tiny night-time Airstream trailer would protect me from just fine.

Anyway, let's get to that recipe.


I made fruit crisp last night, and am a recent convert to making fruit crisp. I know it seems weird to be making my first one ever at my age, but it's true. And the timing is perfect. Fruit is so beautiful right now. I love that EVERYTHING GOOD is in season.

Sooooo, you should make this. This isn't the one I made last night, it is first one I made a couple of months ago and it is totally delicious:

I always just eyeball amounts so sorry this is kind of vague...

Fruit Crisp:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

You'll need
- peeled and cubed mango
- peeled and cubed ripe pear
- peeled and cubed apple
- fresh or frozen berries
- peeled and cubed peaches
(Sub whatever you want. Bananas are good! Plums! Whatever!)
- juice and zest of one lemon - I HAVE LEARNED THE HARD WAY THAT LEMON JUICE IS NOT AN OPTIONAL INGREDIENT. TRUST ME.
- brown sugar and white sugar (every recipe I find calls for TOO MUCH sugar, so I always reduce it. I use between half and three quarters of a cup of white and brown sugar combined, depending on how ripe/sweet the fruit is that I am using. More sugar does not always mean more deliciousness!)
- rolled oats
- unbleached flour
- smashed pistachios (raw!)
- pinch of salt
- about a 1/2 cup of butter, melted.
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ginger
- 1/2 tsp ground cloves
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg

First mix together the cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg in a little dish.

Put the fruit into a baking dish, add lemon juice and zest and about 2 tablespoons of sugar (or maple syrup or whatever sweet things you like). At a pinch (or 2?) of the spice mixture, and stir until fairly evenly coated.

In a mixing bowl, add one cup of flour, one cup of rolled oats, the amount of sugar you decided on based on what was discussed above, a pinch of salt and the remaining spice mixture and the smashed pistachios (if you want to use them, which you don't have to). Add melted butter and combine thoroughly. It should end up with a moist crumbly texture. Some people add an egg to the mixture at this point, but I never have and the topping always turns out how I want it.

Spread the oat mixture evenly on top of the fruit in the baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Eat that shit because that shit is DELICIOUS.

xo