Apple Zealot? Hardly.

Those who know me might argue otherwise, but according to this poll, I'm only 64% addicted to the Apple brand and their products. In all honesty, I figured I would have scored higher.

64%How Addicted to Apple Are You?

Matt Good, on the other hand, was quite proud to achieve a score of 76%.

Matthew Good, Medicine Hat College Theatre - November 9, 2007

It's been nearly ten years since the Matthew Good Band achieved national success with mega-hits such as Apparitions and Everything is Automatic. Though his career spans back to 1995, the success of his independently released debut album Last of the Ghetto Astronauts, were limited to fan bases established in large Canadian centers and for the most part, limited to the west coast. In Matthew Good's thirteen-year tenure, while he has enjoyed Gold status of all his releases, only the albums Underdogs and Beautiful Midnight achieved sales of Platinum or greater.

That being said, thirteen years is an awful long time for fans in Medicine Hat to wait to see Matthew Good in concert.

I was one of a very, very fortunate few Medicine Hat natives who had the opportunity to see the original lineup of the Matthew Good Band in a University Pub in Lethbridge. That was January 1998, before the single Apparitions propelled Matt and his bandmates into Canadian super-stardom. Myself and a close friend parked ourselves front and center for the Matthew Good Band; a show which was as breathtaking as it was unforgettable. The rest of the sell-out crowd, oblivious
to the stage, unaware that Canada's next superstar was playing his heart out, felt their time would be better spent guzzling down jugs of cheap beer, while waiting for the main attraction, Wide Mouth Mason.

Even so, since that very day, I have been a rabid fan of Matthew Good's music, and I have waited very patiently for him to come my way. Ten years is a very long time.

But not as long as many of the fans in attendance at the Medicine Hat College Theatre had to wait. Matthew Good finally made his first public appearance in Medicine Hat to a near sell-out crowd last night. Myself and a half-dozen of my closest friends parked ourselves in the "best mix position" which was directly in front of the Front-of-House Engineer. Given the acoustic nature of the College Theatre, and the fact that there are slightly less than five-hundred seats, it can be argued that there isn't such a thing as a bad seat in the College Theater, we were nonetheless very happy with the sightlines.

The excitement should have been evident to Mr. Good, as the crowd was visibly restless and agitated. It took a good four or five songs for the crowd to settle down and fully appreciate the intimate nature of Matt's acoustic performance. There were times that Matt appeared visibly confused, as a number of his fans were trying to speak to him at once.

Matthew Good delivered passionate acoustic renditions of many of his hits throughout his career, though the focus of his performance centered around his latest album, Hospital Music, penned while Matt tried to cope with a bout of mental illness. Absent from his performance, was not one song from Last of the Ghetto Astronauts was performed. Having recorded over one hundred songs in his his career, it is understandable that an artist can't play everything.

In between songs, Matt took time to banter with the crowd, singing impromptu songs, and cracking jokes, while sipping red wine, much to the amusement of those in attendance.

Below is a (nearly) comprehensive list of songs Matt performed last night, though, not in any particular order:

Girl Wedged Under The Front of A Firebird / Champions of Nothing - Opening number
Avalanche
A Long Way Down
Metal Airplanes
99% of Us is Failure
Born Losers
Black Helicopter
I Am Not Safer Than A Bank
I'm A Window
She's In It For The Money
Empty Road
Sort of A Protest Song
Strange Days
Load Me Up
Surburbia
Apparitions
Bright End of Nowhere - Encore
Pledge of Allegiance - Encore

Opening for Matt Good was "NLX" a.k.a. Natasha Alexandra, a native of Hamilton, Ontario, now residing in New York. Adhering to the acoustic nature of the concert, she performed on a digital piano, singing her brand of "songs about vengeance". The most memorable moment of her performance, and most appreciated by the crowd, was her haunting rendition of Depeche Mode's Walking in My Shoes.

On behalf of everyone in the crowd last night, I want to personally thank Matt for finally coming to Medicine Hat. We sincerely hope you come back again on your next tour.

You Gotta Read This

If you have a few minutes, I highly suggest you read this entry by Matthew Good. It might just get your blood boiling.

What? The Land of the Free? Whoever told you that is your enemy.

"Know Your Enemy" -- Rage Against The Machine

Alert Status Red

Yesterday, Matthew Good released his new album: White Light Rock and Roll Review. I rushed to get my copy, and must say even though it a departure from his usual material, it is still great nonetheless. I just have one question: What is it with the country song?

Go to his site and watch the Alert Status Red video. You won't be disappointed. Then, go buy the album and catch him on tour. I saw him live in 1998, and it was one of the best concerts I have seen -- and I've seen a lot of concerts!

The Phoenix

The birth of this blog comes in the wake of an end to an old project of mine: My personal webpage on Yahoo! Geocities. It contained a tour journal of my experiences in a touring classic rock band, and a biography. It never achieved its' full potential, and I neglected it due to time constraints. Some time ago, I had the brilliant idea of redesigning the whole thing, however I never managed to go through all the trouble, and headaches of learning flash or JavaScript. Hence like the mythical bird, out of the ashes is the birth of a new personal page. My blog.

I believe that I let the old webpage disappear into the black hole called cyberspace due to many reasons. I began to feel that some of my statements in my tour journals could have been damaging to many people's reputations, including myself. I used real names, real places and real situations. Some people might think that changing names and dates and places would tarnish the authentic nature of the journal. But I have my (personal) reasons for letting the information go off-line. Don't worry. I have an archived copy of the webpage on my computer. I may republish the journal again, complete with photographs and minor revisions.

My ideas of a new personal website are still deeply manifested in my psyche. A drummer's resource, chock-full of exercises, lessons, and transcriptions could materialize. A professional resume could materialize. The biography of MC Fro could return, documenting my musical career from it's beginnings to my not-so distant past.

One part of my old webpage that never materialized is the "manuscripts" section. I have been an avid writer, poet and philosopher for many years. I wanted to use the page as a collection of my best work for viewing and perhaps, publication one day. Most of the poetry was written in a dark period of my life, and the writings were the outlet in which I channeled my anger, depression, angst, and loneliness. Some of it is very good. Some of it is rather juvenile and unprintable. I hope that some of these works can be shared with the rest of the world and appreciated for what they are. One of my crowning achievements: A Tale of Two Coffees was never completed. It was a long work not unlike the works of Robert Service. The Cremation of Sam McGee is an excellent example of the form I used for the Coffees poem. It is a tale about adolescence, friends, relationships, and the loss of innocence. The urge to complete it has been rekindled due to the fact that an empty lot is all that remains of the coffee shop I once frequented, and I feel like I have lost a part of my youth. I have high hopes that the poem would have a universal appeal that it would be immortalized in paper -- even though it is still a work in progress.

I have placed some preliminary links on this webpage for your viewing enjoyment. The first I will mention is Killfrog.com. It's a cartoon / animation / humor site. I think it's the funniest cartoon page I have stumbled across. I must warn you, the page is not for the faint of heart. But if you can handle some cartoon violence, fake blood, and childish humor, you'd get a kick out of this page. I highly recommend the Ultimate Survivor series. It's a parody of the famous Survivor reality television series. [ed. note: To fully appreciate the Ultimate Survivor Series, you may have to watch other Killfrog series: namely the Bad Clues episodes, and the Little Suzie Experiments, as the Survivor episodes feature characters developed in the related series.]

I, not being a fan of Survivor, found this to be incredibly amusing. Killfrog creator Kevin Swearingen created three seasons: The original Ultimate Survivor on a Tropical Island; season 2 was situated in the Outback of Australia, and Season 3 was situated in Afghanistan. As the series wore on, it became apparent that current events became an underlying theme of the Ultimate Survivor episodes. For example, the characters in Ultimate Survivor in Afghanistan wage war on the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. It is a shame the Killfrog creator Kev Swearingen has not updated the webpage in many months.

The second webpage I would like to introduce is Matthew Good's website. For those who don't know, Matthew Good is a singer/songwriter from Vancouver, Canada. I have been a fan of Matthew Good since 1998, and have only had the pleasure of seeing him in concert once. I discovered his music at a time of my life when I was going through a difficult period in my life. It is coincidental that I discovered his music at the same time I began consulting a professional about my problems, and I know that his music was not my "drug" per se, but I still feel that his album Underdogs changed me. His 2003 album Avalanche, had the same impact on me, many years later. It is undoubtedly his best effort yet, however, his next album, will be released next month.

It appears that Matthew Good underwent a metamorphosis of sorts after the demise of the Matthew Good Band. His songwriting and musical style changed dramatically, and for the better, I believe. Avalanche is an entire concept album, shrouded in political turmoil. The blog on his webpage is full of news stories, political commentary, and links to political action committees. It seems to me that he has something important to say to his fans, in his blog and in his music, and being an artist is an excellent way to preach ideology.

All this being said, and I never thought myself much of a political activist. Funny how things change after 9/11. Mind you, I am a person who believes the world could be a better place, but I am not one to go out there and try to change it.

My final link on this page I feel is relevant to us all. It is Naomi Klein's webpage: No Logo. I discovered her book of the same name a few years ago, and loved it. Her book centers around the injustices of sweatshop labor, big-box realtors, high profits, minimal wages, and horrendous working conditions, all in the name of the mega-brand. I can't get into too much detail regarding specifics, as her book is very long, but I must say that even though it is a depressing read, it is also enlightening. I believe it is time that we all should understand what kind of human rights violations are responsible for the clothes you wear, the food you eat, the software you use, the cars you drive etc. It is time that us, the consumers have the power to choose what we buy returned to us. Believe me, we have few choices left when it comes to commodities.

I began writing a book about ten years ago. It was a work of fiction, the underlying theme centered around the fall of Capitalism. The novel would have been classified as a distopia, not unlike Huxley's Brave New World or Orwell's 1984. It centered around a number of characters, who should have had the ability to change the world, but were unable (or incapable) of changing it. I only managed to finish writing the first part of the book; it was a long work of fiction. Even though I used multiple outlines, and the whole book had been written, I felt like I had written myself into a corner while writing the first full-size manuscript. Years later, I discovered Klein's book, and found that others felt a similar way about Capitalism and Corporate America as I did. I often feel that Klein had done a much better job at communicating my ideas and thoughts, and she used non-fiction as a better vehicle to deliver her mandate.

I often think about my novel that was never finished. It often returns to me when a major event happens in this world -- just as I had predicted it in my mind. Each time I correctly predict a major event, it is further justification that Capitalism will fall -- and it may not be very far away.