Skip to main content

I Love Religion

A couple months ago my mom was in Winners and saw a bag of Deep River Snacks Aged Cheddar Horseradish Kettle Cooked Potato Chips, being the thoughtful lady she is she snagged a bag of them for me. A couple weeks ago my friend Ricky was at a different Winners and sent me a picture of the same chips. I guess it was a sign that it's time to crack em open and get my crunch on. This evening I went to my chip cellar and grabbed the flat orange bag of salty goodness. I've been anticipating these chips since I was gifted them, I love me some horseradish. I opened the bag and surveyed; orange tinted chips with a little white powder on em, not overly shiny..promising. I got my chipping hand ready and snagged the most flavourful looking chip. Pretty much as soon as it touches your tongue you're hit with a distinct hot horseradish zing..which dissipates fairly quickly. The aged cheddar flavouring is very faint (as in barely there). The seasoning on these chips is very light, you get a lot of potato taste without being slapped in the face with grease a la Kettle brand chips. These chips ARE for the faint of heart, nobody is breaking out in a sweat from 'em. You may want to find a dip due to the light seasoning..I had some Philadelphia Onion that was open in the fridge so I gave it a go. It was a decent combo, the hot horse radish compliments the onion well enough.

A couple weeks ago I ordered the Strange Creatures tape from Saskatoon based band Mystery Squad (I'm not a fan of the tape resurgence. I think it's ridiculous [and a garbage format] but when it's the only physical format, I guess it'll do {wastedwax records did a great job with the packaging for this tape so it wasn't a total bummer}). I found this band due to it's shared members from Herd of Wasters. You can hear the vocal and songwriting similarities between Herd and Mystery Squad. The vocal delivery on this album is fairly straightforward, less funky vocal tweaks. Mystery Squad's lyrical subject matter is dark with nice touches of sarcasm and anger, there's a nice bite to em. The music is pretty straightforward punk rock pulling influence from 83 while keeping a foot in 77, less groove oriented than Herd. I dig. It's far more serious than Herd's Just Three Dudes but it's just as fun. You can stream/download the full Strange Creatures album on bandcamp (it's pay what you want) I'd recommend tossing in a few shekels, it's worth it.

Stay hydrated,
Marc

ps. When I ordered the tape they also tossed in a couple Herd of Wasters flexi's for free, totally unnecessary but mucho appreciated. Another reason to support independent labels/bands..they give back.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Lean On Me

I first saw The Flatliners on May 9, 2003. They were opening for Bigwig/The Planet Smashers on the grind tour and kicked ass. Their sound has changed since that date but it hasn't stopped them from becoming one of my favourite bands both recorded and live. Because of my affinity for The Flatliners I was drawn to The Warehouse (Calgary) on September 26, 2007. Having never heard the other bands that were to be playing that night I had very few preconceived notions (I did very little, super lazy, research), I was just there to see The Flatliners and hoped the other bands didn't suck. To my absolute surprise and amazement, the opening? band (might have been 2nd of 4, I can't remember for sure [it really doesn't matter]) The Peacocks absolutely slayed. This 3 piece punkabilly band from Winterthur, Switzerland owned the stage. There was no fancy lighting, costumes or pyrotechnics..just three guys in jeans and black shirts rocking out. When they played there was pure uncut en...

2, 4, 5 Trioxin

I recently went on a road trip with my wife (Teresa) and daughter. Covered thousands of km's..Saskatoon -> Fort McMurray -> Calgary -> Home. Throughout this trip we stopped in at 4 record stores, 1 British food import store (to grab some of them uk chips, one of the many flavours was mentioned in The Letter F ) and stayed with friends/family in each city. This trip also resulted in at least 2 gifts that become tales in this here blog in the paragraphs below. The first record store that we ventured into on this trip was the Vinyl Diner in Saskatoon. Whenever Teresa and I go to record stores she usually leaves me to my business and finds a store nearby to browse or just hangs out at the front while I get into the zone. This time however turned out to be different. A few days after we arrived home from Calgary, I found out that with this particular visit to the Vinyl Diner Teresa was doing her own browsing, with the stealthiness of a ninja, that went completely unnoticed b...

I Don't Want to Go Down to the Basement, Either

I like pop punk. Ramonescore..Lookout, Recess, Red Scare, It's Alive records; you know, that ilk. Majority of what I'm exposed to (or expose myself to) is either American or based out of GTA/Ottawa areas. For some reason, it's rare for me to get a record and find out that the band is from the prairies or western Canada. This is not to say that there aren't killer pop punk bands in these regions, it just takes more digging to find them. (I know, you're angry and yelling Chixdiggit! at the screen right now. There's always exceptions). One of these amazing Canadian pop punk bands is based out of Vancouver and go by the name of The Hextalls. I had heard their name before but never really gave them a listen until last January (2014) when I got their LP "Rock You to Sleep". Shit is fantastic. Catchy, cheeky without turning themselves into a joke; straight forward pop punk. With heavy nods to the bruddas, I would be more than surprised if at least a few of th...