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You smear lung butter on the music section's toast, and we reward you with a Payback Time T-shirt and two CDs off the Straight's Top 50. Here's this week's winning whine.
Dear Payback Time: Hey Dave Watson--Hello, my name is Dan Jones. My wife, Kate MacDonald, and I operate the Vancouver-based indie-record label transsiberian music company. In the December 2-9 Local Motion it is stated that Kisses in the Whiskey is the first album from Pete Trower. In fact, it is his second, as we released his first, entitled Sidewalks and Sidehills, on CD in September of 2003. The Georgia Straight actually printed Shawn Conner's review of it at the time. You should be a little more thorough in your fact-checking.
Dan Jones
Dave Watson replies: Dearest Dan--It all began in the month of June. I was visiting a music studio--Paramount Recorders--for various and sundry reasons that should be no concern of yours. Actually, I think I was just hanging out to watch some gear being installed, but I'm trying to be pretentious, not having any glib insults or coarse rejoinders to hit you with. You furball, you. See? I'm no good at it. Maybe you'll cut me off in traffic some day and I'll come up with something on the spot. Anyway, I got to hear some of the tracks from Kisses in the Whiskey and was quite enthused. A couple of months later I sat down with Greg Potter to do an interview. (Trower wasn't available.) And then, suddenly, nothing happened. Not for another two months, until the Railway Club gig was pending.
In my Local Motion, I made a couple of cuts to the straightforward biographical material in order to preserve the quotes, since it had become more of a Potter piece than a Trower piece. One cut explained that Trower had been in a band in the early 1980s (Industrial Accident) and the other was that he had done Sidewalks and Sidehills, but most people (including Shawn Conner, whose review I did consult) termed it a spoken-word album, although there is instrumental accompaniment. It seemed like a reasonable cut, although it also distorted the point that, despite having been in a band, this was Trower's first time recording with one. I'd like to heap scorn on you for putting out a disc of poetry with guitar accompaniment, but actually, I think I'll go buy it instead. There's not much documented Trower in audio form, after all, and your CD is half of it. Then again, maybe you're wrong, too, and there's actually Trower galore! That would be sweet. Rough and raw, but sweet. Except for the bitter bits.
