Tales of the Salty Bag

You know what's very hard to google? Fish and Chips (with extra Tartar Sauce) Potato Chips. Shit man, I'd even settle for just Tartar Sauce potato chips (I just added the Fish and Chips part in there for..marketability?). But seriously, I love tartar sauce and I think it would lend itself to a chip flavour perfectly. Think about it, a creamy sweet pickle/vinegar based flavour. It's just tweaking the creamy dill adding a hint of onion and lemon and voila, one bangin' flavour. Lets continue on this concept..I'm gonna let you in on a little secret..chips are made from potatoes..so are fries. Kettle cooking chips is basically deep frying them..the best fish is battered and deep fried. Kettle cooked chips that are tartar sauce flavoured (we all know that names only relate to the actual chips part of the time..so the kettle cooking covers the 'fish' side of the name). Come on Covered Bridge, this just screams your name. I look forward to ordering a case of the 201...

So I was talking to Adam, I says, "Hey Adam, have you tried Kettle Brand (Cooked in 100% Avocado Oil) Hawaiian Barbeque with ginger infused sea salt chips?" Adam replied, "Naw man. What they taste like?" "Well let me tell you. They your standard somewhat greasy Kettle Brand kettle cooked chips with a decent crunch and the skins left on the potatoes", I replied. As I took a breath to continue with my assessment Adam interrupted me, "I asked what they taste like, not what the actual chips are like. You have the attention span of a goldfish!" "I was getting there! They're a sweet barbeque with less of a barbeque twang and more of a pineapple sweetness. You definately get a Taste of Ginger *wink* with 'em as well. They're a lighter flavour than the typical sweet barbeque chip flavour. Pretty damn good. Almost as good as Ogikubo Station , you know, that band on Asian Man that put out an EP this past March" "You mea...

What do you get when you put together an 80's drum machine/keyboard, samples of We Are Family by Sister Sledge, Celebration by Kool and the Gang, Holiday by Madonna and a riff on Summer Holiday by Cliff Richard, some very primitive beat boxing and two super white dutch emcees? Two absolutely fun and infectious (and yes corny) rap singles from from 1986 by MC Miker G & DJ Sven, Celebration Rap and Holiday Rap . Whether you listen to the isolated vocals or instrumental there is no doubt that these songs are from the 80's but damn are they exquisite. Years ago I saw the music video for Holiday Rap on Much Music (yes, back when Music was still uttered after Much) and it always stuck with me. A couple weeks ago I was paroozing Recordland in Calgary looking for Solitair's Easy to Slip single (dope song) and I stumbled into the MC Miker G section marker. How is there a full section for a one hit wonder you ask? Because it's not all about the hits man. So I picked up Holi...

So…this week I’m catching up on some old phone notes…to be specific, the oldest unblogged notes (from June 7, 2016). Based on memory..well, none of this is based on memory because I don’t remember this bag. That’s not to say that they were bad, I just consume a lot of chips. So, Dinamita Mojo Criollo Rolled Doritos were the chip of the day over a year ago. They have (had? Do they still produce this?) a citrusy taco seasoning on top of some fantastically crunchy corn chip rolls. I really dig the crunch that rolled corn chips provide. On the day of my phone notes I stated that the flavour melds wonderfully with the corn chips. If you can find them (based on my 4 lines of notes) grab a bag. Dinamita in general are a consistently tasty line of Doritos. I remember being in junior high and reading over the track listing of a mixed cd for a guy in my class, one of the songs on the requested track list was 1-800 Suicide by Gravediggaz. I can’t remember if I even listened to the full s...

Lauren Denitzio is fantastic. She writes catchy music..on the pop punk/rock spectrum (not warped tour, opposite side)..with meaningful poetic lyrics delivered with the slightest twang in her beautifully emotional voice. I came late to the Measure (SA) game (didn't really check them out until they were broken up) and shit, I didn't even hear of Worriers until they were leading up to their second album on Don Giovanni, Imaginary Life . That said, since I caught the train I haven't stepped off and was quite excited for the band when I heard that they signed to Side One Dummy (much wider audience) and were slated to release a new album in 2017. Flash forward to a month ago, I got my copy of Survival Pop in the mail. Sonically, it's an uplifting album. Lyrically, like I mentioned earlier, poetically bittersweet with some LGBTQ content. It's a mature album written by adults trying to make the world a better place..and it makes one want to move. On this album Worriers are...

Hey Ricky, thanks for the Lay's "Do Us a Flavor: The Pitch" Kettle Cooked Everything Bagel with Cream Cheese chips. I love it when I'm gifted chips or have a chip exchange and recently Ricky and V brought me back a couple American Lay's DUaF chips. They're Lay's kettle cooked; that means that the chips are generally all the same hue of yellowish/off-white (ie, lack of browned chips) with an 'average thickness' providing a good midweight crunch..the exact chips that Joe Chip-consumer pictures when they're told kettle cooked..no surprises here. Now you're asking, how groundbreaking is this flavour..as Lay's are known for their groundbreaking awesome flavours that came out of their do us a contests...er..I mean..yeah. Everything Bagel w Cream Cheese are a pretty passive flavour, I would place them as a first cousin to sour cream and onion. There are, however, poppy seeds sprinkled on the chips which may not seem like a big deal but when wa...

It's Alive Records recently put out 2 new LP's and a 7", rejoice! Of the 3 releases is City Mouse's first full length Get Right . If you've never heard of this 3 piece before, they craft bouncy energetic pop punk with a bit of bite. For the most part they're on the upside of mid tempo, would be fun to see live, danceable.The driving force behind this band, Miski Dee Rodriguez has a powerful soulful voice. Her vocals have an almost blues rock flavour to them. A lot of the lyrics are relationship based but not saccharine or bitter. Catchy melodies that get you bobbing your head and tapping your toe. Great LP that lives up to the promise of their previous EP's (which were fantastic). Paprika & Sweet Onion you say? Lay's you say. Win with Flavour! FAMILY SIZE!! NEW!!! Are they sweet with a bit of bite like (I tried to match to) City Mouse!?! Initial thoughts, mesquite bbq. I'm tasting the odd zing of red onion (even though the picture on the bag s...

Salt & Vinegar Ruffles, what up! According to the bag "IT'S BACK FOR A LIMITED TIME". So if you're not familiar with Ruffles, they're a light to mid-weight mini ridged chip (like the ridges are 1mm or so). They're fairly uniformly yellowish white in colour. The crunch is decent considering the density of the chip and the fact that they're not kettle cooked (2 to 3x the crunch of standard flat Lays). How is the flavour you ask, well let me tell you..bangin'. The vinegar is very present (which is what I'm always looking for [not quite "extra salt and vinegar" but they're somewhere between regular and extra]), you're tongue feels it about 70g into the 220g bag. Good crunch and somewhat aggressive vinegar flavour with some nice mini ridges for dipping. Don't sleep on this, like the bag says, "LIMITED TIME". While we're on that limited time tip, Iron Chic and Off With Their Heads are coming/coming back to Winnip...

Lets preface this with the fact that I know that Japan and China are distinctly different places. Now that that's out of the way, Potshot was a Japanese ska-punk band that existed (according to their wiki) from '95 to '05. I was introduced to them through (I believe) Napster. Around 2001 (give or take a year) I stumbled upon Radio from their first album Pots and Shots , which being the killer track that it is, quickly made it to a mixed cd and forced the band name Potshot to stick in my head. A few years later, torrents rolled around and I got my download on of full albums. Fast forward to 2007 (give or take a year), Asian Man Records had record bundles for sale and 2 of Potshot's albums were in the deal, Pots and Shots and 'til I die, I jumped at the chance to hear more Potshot. They're a super uptempo (verging on frenetic) ska band (I'd put in the same family as the Suicide Machines..with less aggressive vocals and more brass) with plenty o' harmonie...

Culo (with the double dot above the 'u') and sriracha. for some reason those words seemed to go together. Now do the flavours? Well let me tell you... Wavy Lays Sour Cream & Sriracha. They're wavy lays. The actual chip is nothing to write home about, fairly sterile with enough thickness and crunch to be adequately dippable. What about the seasoning you ask? Well, coverage is okay. First impression is that they taste like typical sour cream based flavours, you get a lot of potato with em and a simulated sour cream not quite sour but you know, smooth-sour? The sriracha is present but not overpowering, it takes quite a number of chips before you start to feel any heat. There's a mild sweetness to these lil thangs. If you're into sour cream based flavours and want to get a lil frisky, give em a go. I'd like to see another chip brand try this flavour combo on for size, could be really interesting on a better chip base. I'd recommend trying them at least onc...

Cayetana is a weird name. Anyway, earlier this year I read something about Cayetana releasing their second LP New Kind of Normal ..on twitter..IG..I honestly don't know exactly where I read about it..maybe it was in Razorcake? Does it matter? Either way, the words I read made me want to check them out. I ended up heading to their Bandcamp and listening to half a song at which point I decided that I'd wait to get the album before listening any further. A couple weeks ago I finally pulled the trigger and ordered it..came in this past Thursday. Not gonna bury the lead here, this three piece delivered a killer sophomore album. Beautifully raspy emotive vocals often delivering melancholic lyrics. Very lively bass lines with an 80's effect now and then (lazy explanation..the bass at times reminds me of The Cure). Twee comes to mind along with a mix of 80's and 90's alt rock (I want to say there's a similarity to The Cranberries but I don't fully agree with that..y...

Winners is the weirdest place. I always just think of it as a cheap place to find cloths, but it's also a bangin' place to find weird/import/off brand chips. A couple months ago I picked up a bag of Burts British Hand Cooked Potato Chips (it's kind of weird that they're not referred to as crisps as Burts is a UK company) Vintage Cheddar and Spring Onion Flavour. I've talked about Burts previously on this here blog but it's been a minute and they're not very common in my area of the prairies. When I peeled the metalized polypropylene apart and took a whiff they faintly smelt like sour cream and onion. I popped a few in my mouth and masticated. They have a fairly strong sweet (green?) onion flavour (very similar to a lot of sour cream and onion chip flavours). There's a presence of cheddar flavour..but I'd say it's more in the background. The onion is the frontman in this band. The chips themselves are pretty good. Skins are left on, they're ...

Is chili a dip or a meal? In my humble opinion, it's both. True greatness comes from collaboration.  Sure you can have something that's absolutely fantastic on it's own but to truly reach it's full potential some form of collaboration is almost always required. In the case of chili, once you get past the mental barrier that it's a meal AND a dip (society wants you to think that dip can't be a meal [pscha {I'm going to be eating the chips anyway, why not get a little party going in ye olde maw}]) you can enjoy it for it's true potential. The first hurdle is tossing the spoon away and bringing in some corn/tortilla chips. Not much of a stretch there, and I was at that stage for a while. Then one day I didn't have any 'plain' tortilla chips around..in stepped the Doritos (I always try to have some in stock). Still in the corn family and yeah dude, they mesh well with chili. Some sweet chili heat or nacho cheese..tasty..and in my mind that's ...

I missed the boat last year, so this year as soon as I heard that it was Donair ("Greco Donair 310 30 30 Atlantic Canadas #1 Donair" according to the bag) season in the Covered Bridge world I ordered a half dozen bags (limited batch yo!). It should go without saying that I have mild expectations for this salty bag of (hopefully) goodness (to say the least). It took me a week to get down to business and now here I sit with the beautiful blue bag in front of me. Tear, whiff, medium well done potato chips with some sort of indistinguishable (by scent) seasoning. With the ol' maw watering I tossed one in..the actual chips being Covered Bridge are as usual bangin', a nice shade of brown with the skins and a mid level kettle cooked crunch. The seasoning isn't overly aggressive. Slightly sweet with an almost hint of tomato, onion and..mayo? After consuming for a while there's a hint of almost mesquite bbq flavour (mostly in the aftertaste). I was initially a little u...

Todays live salty snack...London Flavours Premium British Crisps: Oak Smoked Chilli. They smell like bar-b-que, you know the bbq flavours before mesquite came to be all up in the system. They look like a mid weight chip that's somewhere between kettle cooked and baked. Upon consumption, I found a chip with a good dense crunch and the odd air pocket of flakeyness. Seasoning is generous, very salty chips. Flavour has a mild mesquite sweetness with some very present bbq smokey flavour. There is a decent chilli afterkick, but lightweight enough that you don't break a sweat. These chips are a new flavour without necessarily being foreign. The oak becomes more and more present the further that I get into the bag. Bangin' bag of crisps. Keeping it on that UK tip. Until recently I had only heard OF the Brighton band Gnarwolves and not actually heard them. Something about the name just didn't click with me. Well, recently something triggered me to check out their bandcamp pag...

Great things come out of Canada..and sometimes not so great things come out of the north. FINALLY. Kettle Brandon Potato Chips..Classic Caesar. "great taste...naturally"..we'll see Kettle Brand, you've burnt me in the past! Are they fragrant? Not really, they smell like kettle cooked greasy potatoes. Are they tasty..it depends if you like caesars? My initial impression is clamato juice with celery salt. There is the odd hint of lime..in addition to the odd hint of worcestershire sauce. The heat of these chips is similar to barbeque..bbq..bar-b-q, however you want to spell it with more of an afterburn. To me it tastes almost like a black pepper based heat..maybe a mild chili pepper kick. The grease level is medium rare, they're Kettle Brand so there's going to be some excessive grease but not bad. These are the best K.B. flavour that I've had in a minute, good on ya. Great taste, yeah dude. (for those who don't live in places that readily carry these,...

CHEETOS MIX-UPS FLAMIN' HOT & CHEEZY MIX. Now that that's out of the way, tonight I consumed said salty snack. What exactly is this mix you ask? Flamin' Hot (dense Cheetos), Cheddar Jalapeno (somewhat poofy circles), Cheddar and Double Cheddar (poofy Cheetos). When I opened the bag all that I saw was the poofy cheddar and double cheddar snacks, due to the more dense cheddar jalap and flamin' hots the bag was somewhat segregated which was odd but not unheard of. To fully experience this bag I broke out a bowl and dumped em in so that I'd be able to get a more even mix of the bags goodness. Upon close inspection I'd say that the ratio is a little off, I think the flamin' hots got shorted a little in the bag but it wasn't overly severe. Once I stepped into the snack I noticed that even the poofy double/cheddar snacks had residual hot that rubbed off from the other flavours in the bag, this was welcomed. It gave the bag a nice range of heat on top of the...

Anticipation. When I was a teenager my buddy was making a wakeboard video of us and our friends. After throwing possible titles back and forth for what seemed like forever we settled on Anticipation, this week's post is not about wakeboarding or that video (this is a chip and music blog silly). My ramblings this week however are brought together by anticipation and serendipity (also not the movie). A few years ago I tried to enter Caesar flavour into the Lays Do Us a Flavour, my suggestion was rejected on the basis that the chip flavours had to be for kids as well as parents (that's a paraphrase; I can't remember the exact wording that those clueless turds at Lays had as an auto response on their website [vodka doesn't make the caesar you worthless chuds, it's called a virgin caesar]). Anyway, after that I decided that I'd scour the internet for caesar chips. At the time I could only find one brand that produced a caesar flavour chip, President's Choice (I...

About a month ago I was gifted a bag of tortilla chips (thanks Robert), La Cocina Fiesta Flavour Tortilla Chips to be exact. Upon close inspection..I'm pretty sure I've had La Cocina before..but never really paid any attention to them. Robert was kind enough to point out to me that they are straight outta Ste. Anne, MB (score) and as far as I can tell they're independent (double score). The bag advertises that these are made of Stone Ground Corn. The smell..tortilla chips (what'd you expect). The chips are beautifully light with the edges turned up making them ideal for dipping (and also adds some structural integrity to counteract the light weight of the chips). The seasoning isn't super heavy, but, once again, that goes well with the lightness of the chips. The chip to flavour ratio is pretty good. To me the seasoning had a bit of onion, a bit of garlic and..not shown on the bag but..cheese? They're on the mid to high end of salty. Honestly, my first impressio...

Have you gone to a hardcore show in the last 15 years. Have you seen a sweatshirt/hoodie/tshirt/long sleeve T with BANE across the chest? If you answered yes to one of those..you likely answered yes to both. There's a reason, they were a good band..and for some reason they ended up being seemingly every hardcore band/fans name check band. I first heard them right before my first (and only) time seeing them..opening for Comeback Kid on October 12, 2008 (googled the show and holy shit, I didn't remember the bill having so many bands, 6, wowzer [seeing them perform has stuck with me since. Great stage presence and their singer is such a big gangly guy who wore a sweatshirt during the whole set, like damn that had to have been hot]). Anyway, I didn't get hooked on Bane the first time I heard them, maybe I wasn't in the right mood..I dunno. But as time went by they kept turning up in the rotation and my enjoyment increased with each listen. All this brings me to 2014, they r...

Boulder Canyon Malt Vinegar & Sea Salt hand made style potato chips. Hand made style ? The packaging for the chips makes me think that they're going for a more natural 'healthy' feel, so...that's something. When I opened the bag and took a whiff..well, lets just say that they're  not very fragrant. I popped a kettle cooked seasoned potato slice into my mouth and was met with a nice crunch, the chips are kettle cooked but not overly greasy. The seasoning is somewhat light but, you know, they're still pretty good. There is a hint of sweetness to the chips, might be in the potato but likely that's a result of the malt vinegar flavour. The vinegar flavour is in the background, however, it is definitely present. I'd categorize these chips as being a pretty good light chip..not light as in healthy, but light as in..you know, light. Boulder Canyon Malt Vinegar & Sea Salt are nice for when you want to just down a bag of chips and try to trick yourself in...

Music and alcohol (excessive consumption) always seem to be associated with one another..but the older I get, the less I understand why. Speaking from my own experience alcohol tends to make one lack concentration and forget things and/or be incapacitated and no longer capable of enjoyment. If I'm making an effort to go see live music then why would I want to forget it..I don't know, it just seems counter intuitive, should I not want to remember seeing/hearing a band? I've typically, sometimes intentionally..sometimes out of necessity, tried to avoid mixing alcohol with live music consumption (at least to the point of inebriation). When I was younger I'd often end up being the DD for shows which actually turned out pretty well (necessity); as I've gotten older it's turned into more of an intentional choice to not get dickered before shows. I'd say a major turning point towards intent came in November of 2005..(took me a while to google it, I thought it was...

This past summer I was in an independent dollar store and I came across a brand of chips that I had never heard of; (Beyond Good Brand) Uncle Rays ( Always Made Fresh from Nature's Best). There were some interesting flavour titles which piqued my attention. Upon closer inspection of the bag I noticed that there was a "chapter" of "The Life and Times of Uncle Ray ", what the what? I started looking around at the other bags, each bag had a different "chapter" (and it wasn't flavour dependent). I'm not sure how many chapters there are to Uncle Ray's story but I can tell you there are at least 36. At this point it should go without saying their marketing sucked me in, I took home a handful of Uncle Ray's (hopefully tasty) chips. Fast forward to Uncle Ray's Kosher Dill. Visual Inspection: standard potato chip. Density: Light and thin Flavour: Well..the seasoning is quite light in general and fairly uneven. Some chips tasted like s...