My pal Michelle and I are helping Jarkko finally establish some kind of internet presence. She asked me to write something about him. While I wrote a safe and boring bio, I also wrote this over about 4 days. I’ve known him for 30 years or more, and he’s a colourful character, so it was pretty easy. A lad most affable Talents admirable Instantly disarming Thoroughly charming The essence of manly class He’s beloved of many a lass Canoe maker Booty shaker Hypnotic turn tablist Nordic tale fablist Carving axe sharpener Starving artist carpenter Dermagraphic enhancer Funky acrobatic dancer Early Lake Huron surfer Frequent visitor at Caution Point Assured cabinetry kerfer Making many a fine dovetail joint Totally devoted father To his son & daughter Even when not doing tattoos He’s always foregone brews Collector of many objects Obsessed with all subjects He sometimes tilts at windmills Hates those turbines on the hills Is runoff from Bruce nuclear power Possibly a creativity endower? That an invisible miasma atomic Leaves imagination polychromic? I’m almost certain he’s from another planet Stranded when his spacecraft crash landed Maybe that explains the affiliation With Justin and Alien Visitation He will answer to the name Bill And seeks out any kind of thrill Teenage punk rocker Premier disc jockey Chooses the beats Eschews all meats Rasta knotting dreads Has ’em nodding heads Laying down tasty rhythms Playing with crazy precision Sounds that heal herbally Senses you feel verbally A whirling dervish Finnish sensei Gave birth to Scandinadian reggae Slow speed dubbing Best kind of clubbing Collaborating with PostContemporary Creating some tunes most extraordinary Exclusive dubplates dropping Spadina basement hopping Spinning a gronky remix There’s nothing he can’t fix Locates gems in a huge record collection His style is mellow bass and pulsing drum Establishes quite an audience connection Plays sexy beats that make the gals cum No affinity for woodsy harmonica Leans more to groovy electronica Voluminous tinker Prodigious thinker Thought words verbose Verbs carefully chose Dispensing viking wisdom pearls Theories that set the mind awhirl The lad goes off rambling Should really go camping Capably piloting ships Ably navigating trips Finely honed crafts Highly toned drafts Contemplating designs Conceptually quite fine Able with tools powered or handheld Can do many varied sorts of welds Hammering steel in the forge Whittling birch on the porch Transforming a slab of oak Transfixed in a lab by smoke Fabricating truck frames metal Skillfully crafting a wooden hull Bends aluminum by the meter Carves a canoe from red cedar Vanquishes hardwood Varnishes very good Raised with arcane old world skills Learned from fellas at the sawmill Brush script hand letterer Always strives to be better Late nights at the Lettering Shop Consuming way too much pop When he pinstripes and signpaints His creativity knows few constraints He’s rarely not smiling and cheerful Get ’em talking you’ll get an earful He’s sometimes a bit hyper active Always nervous about cyber practice Computer wise he’s in the dark ages Prefers moving pencil across pages Cooking away at the Sugar Shack Laying in lines curvy and black Maybe he’ll get to my tattoo Before we leave decade two He’s not always so good at staying in touch But when we do connect we discuss much Comes across a bit awkward Professes to be timid and shy He’s really quite straightforward Before long the words they fly He’s always his humble self Meekly denies he’s part elf I’m convinced he’s a tundra gnome Now calling Kincardine his home Maybe his being a recluse Is why he’s able to produce Doesn’t always eat so well Choices a dietitian’s hell When Finland loses to Sweden It’s a slice of crow pie he’s eatin’ Very capable in many a field Save making healthy meals A walking DIY encyclopedia But a Luddite at social media At making anything he’s a wizard Thinks the self promo biz is hard Rarely photographed Piloting his soulcraft Jumps on his skateboard Gets right into his groove Barely says eight words Rides black lines smooth Many trips winter motorbiking Doesn’t matter if it’s just snowed Like a crazed berserker viking He loves roaring down dirt roads Tearing through a valley Driving a private car rally Jarkko feels very much alive Bombing around in 4W drive He’s the purveyor of fire Not much gives him a fright Save surveying from a spire Doesn’t like being at a height Diehard child of the Bruce Returned for sunset views Decades of rooty dub dreads Intertwined with a drum head Kincardine hair farmer Cardigan of plait armour I suspect his folks still haven’t a clue That he’s got more than one tattoo He keeps his sleeves rolled down To prevent his mom’s cold frown Cheekbones finely hewn Make all the ladies swoon Despite the scruffy beard & girlish hips Women all want to kiss him on the lips Always looking natty & Snug Never acting crassly or smug Sets sights on modern makes On nights by far Northern lakes When in urbanity he’s always cordial But he’s happiest in regions Boreal Words tumble like an avalanche Birds nesting on a pine branch Words burst out like a flood Wolf paw prints in the mud Words flow out like a cascade Deer in a sun dappled glade Words gush out like a wave Lapping at the edge of a lake Words come forth in a torrent Listen to sounds of the forest
Si Un Jour – Kentin Jivek & Miro Snejdr I recognize Miro Snejdr as being a sometime collaborator with Death In June. This reminds me a little more of In The Nursery.
I’ve been on a cassette digitization spree lately. Got to reminiscing with DJ friends about mixtapes and cassettes in general. It seems all of us were fans of Maxell tapes, and the ones we used most to make mixtapes to give out were XL-II’s. (The even better XL-IIS’s I usually reserved for my own mixtapes.) Looking around on the magical interwebs, where almost any subject is discussed, no matter how arcane, it seems others shared our favourable opinion of them.
I did a much rougher version of this idea years ago, but I revisited it by doing a much better illustration of this particular cassette. With some artistic liberties taken.
I don’t know that PostContemporary is even an ongoing concern any more, so maybe the only stickers of this to be produced will be the dozen or so I printed to give out to friends.
Epirotiko Mirologi – Alexis Zoumbas A musician from northern Greece, who emigrated to the United States. Recorded in the mid 1920s. I think describing this as a “haunting lamentation” would be accurate.
The new tattoo shop has beautiful leaded glass windows in the transoms. The way they face, the sun shines through them early in the morning, and makes for some really nice light play.
Friend found it at an antique store. (I think it must have been used to separate an ox’ head from its body. Definitely a two handed device.) He’s going to have Brush Boys paint “Instant Tattoo Removal” on it.
Uitzicht – Bakermat Saxophones seem to be a bit out of style in popular music. This Dutchman brings it back. Throw in some Apollo 8 samples, and this is golden.
Double Crisp – Just Jungle Still amazes me how much stuff from this genre and era I keep discovering. I keep thinking it’ll run out at some point. Nope. Huh...never heard this before. And it’s amazing.
I think that’s a term from now on to describe something really choice. “Now that’s just double crisp.”
Technology – Octave One There’s a Detroit techno act of the same name, but I believe this is actually another guise of Doc Scott. Whoever it is, it’s a goddamn monster.
I like a lot of styles of music, but I think this sort of stuff, IDM, for lack of a better term, that evocative, trippy, soundtracky stuff, I like most of all.
Interesting article about the claims made by water treatment manufacturers. It singles out Camelbak’s inline UV treatment (the AllClear), but it could also be applied to the SteriPen. Sawyer’s claims are also scrutinized. I’d been contemplating a Sawyer system, due to it being light and compact, but it hasn’t been readily available here, possibly due to it not being approved by Canadian regulatory agencies.
Lichen – Aphex Twin Love one of the comments. “It makes me think of giving some place you’ll miss one last look over before you leave.” Sums up the mood of this beautiful, but wistful piece perfectly.
Dubskit – Phaeleh Showing why Phaeleh is such a consistently great producer. This was apparently just a cast off, not really meant to be a proper track. Warm, dubby bass.
One of the office towers here in Hamilton, the BDC tower at Main and MacNab, several times this year now, I’ve walked past one particular spot below it and found the remains of the bloody work of the Peregrine falcons who hunt from the top of it.
I’m not sure whether they’re ripped off as they swoop in to grab their prey, or they lose them as they’re ripping them apart after. Either way, it amuses me that they always end up in the same spot. And I don’t even go by there that often. Wonder if this is only part of their detritus.
And something else I contemplate is how important they might be to an entire eco-system with this “discarded” food. Other animals, not as proficient a hunter, might well benefit from this fresh meat that they would drop below the cliffs they inhabit. Sharing the spoils so to speak.
I haven’t been so active on here for a few reasons, one of which is that the tattoo shop has finally moved to its fancy new digs. Long delayed, but we are now in a fantastic new building, with a much better shop. For a good fortnight, I was working almost a full day to get the shop ready, in addition to my job. But, more than happy to do so.
One of the most exciting things about it is the new sign, done by the fantastic Brush Boys. I was already a fan, but after meeting them, I’m an even bigger fan. Scott and his son Matt are super nice guys and gifted artisans.
The centrepiece of the sign – literally.
Carved from an ultra high density polyurethane foam, and mounted on an aluminum plate.
Some closeups.
The foam portion (which has many coats of clear resin sealing it) dismounted from the aluminum backing plate.
The Boys hard at work. The installation was a very involved process. The rest of it was fairly straight forward, but the lotus was the challenge. It was designed with the idea that it would sit away from the rest of the sign, with the possibility of light behind it, radiating out from behind. Given how tough it was to get it on, and that replacing the bulbs would require that much again, the idea was quietly, albeit reluctantly, discarded. (The fact that the two days were blisteringly hot, didn’t help either.)
An almost text book example of house. The disco influences, the clear vocals, high up in the mix, and the whole hands in the air, warehouse party vibe.
For several years I worked for the Aylmer Express. While it was a small town newspaper, it was also a commercial printer. (The division I worked for.) The newspaper was bought by Arthur Hueston, after he came home from the war, and was its publisher for many years and turned it into a thriving printing company. By the point I got there, his son had been running the company for many years, and he was just writing a weekly column, some of which touched on his experiences in WW2. He served with the Essex Scottish Regiment, as a platoon leader, at Dieppe. He was quite open about his experiences and once we sat and talked about it. He was on a landing craft with a Churchill tank, that ground to a halt on the potato sized stones on the beach, leaving it half in and half out of the craft. They were meant to follow it, but with no way around it, they had to go over the sides. With no one having come ashore before the landings to ascertain the unsuitability of the beach for tanks, no one had bothered to check that there was a deep drop right at the waters edge, not a gradual incline. His platoon dropped over the edge of the landing craft and he lost about a third to drowning, because they were so laden down or unable to swim. The ones that survived had to ditch most of their gear to come up again. On shore without weapons, ammo, etc. they couldn’t do much. With a whole bunch of men wounded or dead, his superiors yelled at him to get back on a boat and get out. No one would have though any less of him if he had, but he called back “No. I have wounded men I need to look after.” And with that, he languished for years in a POW camp, hungry and bored. It was a good thing he needed a really powerful magnifying glass to read, so he couldn’t see me wiping away the tears. The Germans found documents after the raid, from the Canadians, stating that German prisoners were to be handcuffed until they got them back to England. As a reprisal against the Canadians they forced any that were captured at Dieppe to wear handcuffs all day. At morning roll call they were put on and at nighttime roll call they were removed. Of course, as soon as they got back to their barracks they quickly picked them and as long as they were inside, they went without them. And the city I currently live in, one of its regiments, the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry suffered casualties at Dieppe as well. Of the 582 soldiers who landed that morning, 197 were killed, 174 were captured and 194 wounded (including 85 also captured). Only 102 were not among the casualties. Never forget.
Kinetic (Tom Middleton 2008 Remix) – Golden Girls Classic early 90’s track, reworked by the always fantastic Tom Middleton. Not entirely sure what the history of this song is. Originally by The Pied Piper, it was then remixed by Orbital....not sure beyond that. But this is just fantastic.
The Value of Nothing – Flux The unmistakeable sound of Adrian Sherwood, and the members of African Head Charge and Dub Syndicate helping to flesh out his ideas.
Try Harder – Nordstadt Union I’ve been trying to find this one for ages, but at this point I’m not sure what the artist name is. This is what I’ve known it as for 15 years.
Sylph – Ochre I recently discovered, and featured a bunch of tracks by Bola. Ochre is to my mind in the same camp. Incredibly sophisticated and evocative electronica.
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