Tales of the Salty Bag

Neon Taste Records has been around for a minute (since 2017 as a record label it appears) but I wasn't really aware of them until this past fall when I was trying to find a Canadian distro that was going to be carrying the new Dark Thoughts LP ( Highway to the End  [I'll likely write about it on this blog at some point but the coles notes of it all is that Dark Thoughts nailed it again]). Anyway, what was I writing about? Oh yeah, Neon Taste has, and keeps on, putting out some fantastic music. From YUMRE001 with Easy Money's Collection 79-82, which is some fantastic Canadian power pop that Neon Taste unearthed and put to wax..er, vinyl...to the absolutely blistering hardcore of YUM050 (it looks like they dropped the RE from release numbers) Winnipeg's Negative Charge with their Self Titled (frantic mid 80's east coast flavoured hardcore) and face melting YUM51 Toronto's Imploders with their Targeted For Termination (frantic early 80's west coast flavoured ...

 Yooooo! Old Dutch Pretzel Pieces, All Dressed Flavoured, are bangin'. I wasn't planning on putting up a post tonight, thought maybe I'd just take some notes in my phone, then I popped these in my maw and had to grab the laptop. The pieces are soo piecey, it's like someone had a bad day and took a bat to these pretzels (that would have been 1.5cm+/- diameter. I'm not typically a pretzel man, but these are thick enough that they're not just dried out meh, they have a dense crunch. Mildly bready (but still crunchy) goodness. Now, the flavour is what really knocked my socks off. I'm not sure if they use an agent or if there's moisture from the pretzels but the seasoning is heavily covering these pretzel pieces. It's like when you're at the movie theatre and put butter or margarine on the popcorn, then sprinkle some seasoning on and it's almost like a pasty seasoning in certain parts. There's also some well-toasted pretzel that welcomingly po...

My kids getting slightly older means I can now bring them along on my adventures to shows in Winnipeg (at least when it's all ages and ties into a weekend..which is what happened just over a week ago). I was stoked with I saw Quit It! was making their way to/through Manitoba again and it was on a Friday. It was touch and go for a minute if I/we were going to make it but the hockey scheduling gods shone down on me/us and I was able to justify keeping the kids up late on a Friday night. First of all Domohaus is absolutely fantastic, Adrian and Hannah seem to have a scene (tapped into a scene), that's friendly (and more importantly kid friendly, at least IMO). At their 4th Annual Occasional Halloween House Party (with bands playing out of the garage due to mild spitting/rain) started off with Grotoko (full band style for the first time in a minute) killing it in their '66 Batman villain costumes. I love Blue's live stage presence, it fits perfectly with the confluence of d...

Kitz Willman is a rapper currently out of Winnipeg who puts out some amazingly unconventional music. Sometimes chaotic, sometimes unsettling, various levels of distortion on the vocals. Vocal delivery is all over the map; a bit punk, a bit ODB, all Kitz. On a moon on the verge of everything that you wanted Kitz performs all duties from soup to nuts. To me moon feels very stream of consciousness (but rooted in a few overarching themes) and quite dense rhyming. Unique. moon has a dark feel (as most of Kitz's music does). This is music that isn't hardcore, but I could see inciting a mosh pit. It looks like the tape is sold out, but it's great. A and B sides were intentionally made the same length to the point where Kitz edited some of the songs to make it work out. Arriba puts out great corn chips. Slightly more dense and crunchier than Doritos...and slightly more corn flavour. They come out with 'new' or 'limited time' flavours, however, less frequently than t...

 I am not an expert on Nomeansno, but I can tell you this..their music can be quite difficult to get on physical media (LP, CD or otherwise [unless you want to spend somewhat spicy money]) in Canada. Luckily, Alternative Tentacles reissued Wrong. Now, cross border shipping is still muy caliente, but enough distros picked it up in Canada to allow me to put Wrong into my record collection this year. Nomeansno (since 1979) played (ended 2016) chaotic punk rock that I want to say fell into hardcore, but they were far more than a single genre. Wrong is unconventional for a punk band to say the least. The bass is lively as hell, with a tone that's absolutely perfect. The drums know when to get weird and when to kick it into overdrive. I don't know if it's jazz or funk, but there's something in the mix that if Nomeansno wasn't so aggressive it might feel pretentious..instead they're just odd and make me wish I had the opportunity to seem them live. Lyrics are talk sung...

 Uglies chips are funny. Their marketing is (and this is paraphrasing) that they take the unusable/waste chips and produce their chips out of those leftovers. "Reducing waste and helping fight hunger". To me, their potato selection is pretty on par with other smaller scale/independent brands... so I'm not quite sure who's throwing out the potatoes that they make their chips with, IMO the potatoes/waste they use are the good ones. So yes, Uglies, 170g bag (nice size, not too small, not too large). Thin chip but crunchy. Oh, by the way this is about Uglies Salt and Vinegar flavored (yes, no u, these are imports that in Canada are usually found at Winners [at least when I've seen them]). So yes, decent amount of skin on these little kettle cooked chips... fairly white in colour chips. They have a nice white vinegar tartness. I picked up a somewhat granular salt texture when I was consuming. I feel Uglies are no more janky than your average bag of kettle cooked (good...