You force the music section to listen to “Mimi on the Beach” on endless repeat, and we reward you with a Payback Time T-shirt and two tickets to a Live Nation club show of your choice taking place in Vancouver within the next four weeks. Here’s this week’s winning whinge.

Dear Payback Time: It’s too bad Ryan Guldemond’s philosophy (as expressed in your Straight article), doesn’t add up to more compelling music. I’ve seen Mother Mother twice: the first time a few years ago at a Café Deux Soleils gig, when they were just getting started, and more recently, a three-song MuchMusic set. I recall their Café Deux Soleils gig featured one particularly exquisite song. As for the rest? A lot of self-indulgent, quirky-for-the-sake-of-being-quirky twaddle, in my estimation.

Their recent MuchMusic set seemed to indicate there hasn’t been that much improvement. Though the current band lineup has a tight, punchy sound, I still didn’t hear any tunes that really grabbed me in any significant way. Not that I’m opposed to purveyors of quirky pop. Once upon a time, I played drums for eclectic boho chanteuse Jane Siberry, who expresses herself in a particularly unique brand of pop. I’ve also seen Talking Heads twice, and to me, they’re the gold standard when it comes to quirky, oddball pop. I don’t think the quality of Mother Mother’s songwriting comes anywhere close to this level of artistry and expertise. And while I don’t totally dislike Guldemond and his crew, I detect a good deal of undeserved fawning/genuflecting on the part of the Canadian music press.

> Bruce Macmillan

John Lucas replies: Dearest Bruce—Ryan Guldemond doesn’t need me to defend him, so I won’t. The beauty of art is that each of us filters it through his own experiences and perceptions. That’s why there will never be a universally agreed-upon objective standard of “good songwriting”, quirk-pop or otherwise. For instance, you may consider Jane Siberry’s “Everything Reminds Me of My Dog” the very height of whimsy, whereas I would sooner stab myself in the ear with a pencil than suffer through it or its cutesy video again. Sort of like the dude on the cover of the Butthole Surfers’ Electriclarryland LP, which is arguably a better album than the combined catalogues of Mother Mother, Jane Siberry, and Issa. (You’ll note that I said “arguably”, which is my whole point.)

Speaking of the Butthole Surfers, Straight music editor Mike Usinger has developed a weird fascination with a bit of trivia regarding that band. In a 1986 interview with the fanzine Brave Ear (since immortalized in Michael Azerrad’s book Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991), guitarist Paul Leary recalls an occasion on which singer Gibby Haynes tried to convince him that someone had rendered an immaculate drawing of a pencil in the toilet of the ladies room. The toilet, as you might have guessed, contained nothing other than a freshly dispensed triple-coiler courtesy of Haynes himself. “I told him it had to be seen to be believed,” the singer explained. “A perfectly drawn pencil in the toilet. I mean, how do you get someone to look in the toilet? You got to tell them there is a drawing of a perfect pencil on the bottom.”

This is an anecdote that Usinger delights in repeating at the merest provocation, and the term “perfect pencil” has entered his everyday office lexicon. You may find that repellent, but, like I said, there’s no accounting for taste.

You can voice your impotent rage by snail mail or by sending an e-mail to payback@straight.com.