Tales of the Salty Bag

 9 years after his last Peanuts and Corn (P&C) album (just about 3 years after his last album [bangin' colab with Rob Crooks] Schadenfreude [that I wrote words about Dec 2020]), Bazooka Joe 204 (second under Bazooka Joe [luckily adding 204 with this release to really help his SEO {fka John Smith}]) blessed us with a stellar 9 track album this past October, Prairie Nilsson . If you want a breakdown of songs straight from the horses' mouth, go check out the 3 part podcast that Mr. Joe did with bigmcenroe (the albums producer, Mr. P&C) where they discussed each song from Prairie Nilsson and provided comparisons to songs in the John Smith P&C back catalogue. The beats on the album are lush and Ol' Man Winter wears his politics and life on his sleeve while also providing observations that paint a full picture of the good and bad without judgement. So, King Cake Baby is one of my favourite songs that Bazooka Joe, Sloppy Joe, John Smith, whatever you want to call hi...

 Nosh and Co. (weird brand name [but I like it]) ketchup potato chips. Made in Canada since 2013, "*made in Canada from imported and domestic ingredients". Cracked the bag on these bad boys and they were relatively fragrant. They looked lightly seasoned. When I started masticating, I found that as they appeared they were lightly seasoned..however, the chips were also very light weight, light crunch. Airy one might say..but somehow not bubbly, just, like, airy. Tart tomato flavour but not overly vinegary. Because the chips are so light, the light seasoning actually goes with them pretty well. 130g bag with somewhat high fat (23% per 50g) and somewhat low sodium (15% per 50g [which makes sense with the light seasoning levels]). The high fat (vegetable oil) percentage gives them a somewhat buttery flavour. Pretty good chips. My initial reaction was meh, but the oily butteryness won me over, quite enjoyable.  (in my phone notes I ended with "pair with something indie rock or...

Lets get this out of the way Bad Operation slaps hard. A while back I wrote about a record order from Bad Time Records, I mentioned Bad Operation but I wrote words about Joystick and Best of the Worst. Well, let me get to words about the record that made me place the order with BTR in the first place. Bad Operation's S/T 2020 release 's sound is is definitely rooted in 2tone (even on the back of the album the bottom left corner states "New Tone 2020"..which couldn't be any more accurate [I guess I could have shortened these words to, "Bad Operation's 2020 self titled album is New Tone. Go buy it, listen to it, consume it"]) but Bad Operation is way more than a 2tone tribute. Dominic Minix has so much soul to his vocal delivery it weighs on you in the most welcomed way. I knew that this band was from New Orleans, however I would like to think that if I didn't know that...I would have known from listening to this band, I want to say there's a ...

 When I saw that Takis made kettle cooked potato chips I took notice, but had no real expectations. There's been a bag of Takis Kettlez Typhoon Jalapeno..Hot, Spicy Jalapeno (just the name/spelling is somewhat of a turnoff) sitting in the salty cellar for a minute. I finally got around to trying my first flavour of Takis take on kettle cooked potato chips this past week. The bag has a 'tear here' note, well Takis, I'll pass on your bag opening suggestion. So I cracked the bag open standard style (pulling the 2 sides apart) and took a whiff that presented me with what I noted as spicy. These chips have a good solid crunch. They're a thicker cut chip that makes me think that they may not have been cooked quite as long as a 'standard' kettle cooked chip, but still a solid crunch due to the thickness. The flavour is aggressively spicy. There's cheddar in the mix..or some sort of cheesy saltiness. Jalapeno heat..like, fresh jalaps..hotter than standard jalape...

Off the dome I can only think of 1 restaurant chain x chip colab (Lay's Chalet Sauce), I'm sure there have been more (I want to say Covered Bridge have collaborated with east coast restaurants, but they're not widely known). Well, a couple days ago a friend from work made me aware of a second colab..and followed up by providing me with a tube of Limited Time Only Pringles Wendy's Spicy Chicken Flavour "Potato Chips" (sure Pringles, these are "potato" "chips"). I quite enjoy a spicy chicken go wrap from Wendy's so even though these are Pringles I'm actually looking forward to trying them.  Pop open the tube and..they smell like Pringles, not much of a seasoning smell, just that sterile tube chip smell. Pop it in my mouth and the initial flavour is spicy breading, decent kick, because this flavour is so often associated with chicken breading it (I think tricks my mind into thinking that it) tastes like chicken. Pepper kick. The back e...

 Herr's Buffalo Style Blue Cheese Flavour(ed) Corn Snacks. Herr's is coming about you with puffy cheese corn sticks. The heat is a sort of mild vinegar based heat, there's a bit of a bite but they don't really make you sweat. The blue cheese flavour is present but not overpowering (for the most part) and seems to come and go as it pleases becoming the most present at about the 3/4 mark of consumption. Like I said these are puffy, so the crunch is light. I'm really digging the blue cheese in these (if you're not a fan of blue cheese you might not want to get these [but if you're not a fan of blue cheese and you picked up a bag of these regardless of reading my thoughts, that's on you, the bag emphasizes Blue Cheese]). The further I get into the bag the more the heat builds up in my mouth, it's not overwhelming and still not cracking a sweat but it's a nice mouth tingle. There's a bit of the standard cheese puff cheddar at this party as well, b...

 So the Salty Bag's international correspondent sent in a whole wack of notes/reviews/what have you. Without further ado: Various Mayonesa (mayo) flavoured chips were all over Ecuador , Sometimes powdered flavour and sometimes an actual sachet of mayo to throw in the bag (Yupi Rizadas). Neither good nor bad, salty and fatty as expected, I preferred the (Tostitos) Pizzerolas (sabor a pizza).  I didn't find a lot of chip variety where I was wandering around in Spain but the (Ruffles sabor a Jamon) ham flavour made sense, they were salty. The UAE had these (Lay's) French Cheese chips. I don't know how you expect to distill all the cheese in France into a chip but these were forgettable (not like French cheese which is amazing) and perhaps an apt metaphor.  The Sun Chips (not the North American Sun Chips brand) Mix Masala chips from Sri Lanka weren't actually Lankan. I think they were imports. I wanted them to be more spicy.  The Maldives had a fair amount of chips, th...

I kept sleeping on the Bad Operation LP. A while ago I signed up for the notification when a new pressing was available from Bad Time Records. The first notification came in and I guess I waited a bit too long to order, so no dice. Finally a month or so ago the 3rd pressing came up for order so I got me a beautiful cotton candy. That is however not what I'm writing about today, when I got the first notification (yet after I went and saw the 2nd pressing was already sold out) I went through the Bad Time bandcamp to figure out what albums I was going to order with Bad Operation. I only sampled a few songs from each band because I like the surprise of a new band and through that sampling I decided that I'd order Kill Lincoln, The Best of the Worst, and Joystick!'s newest albums. Fast forward to a couple weeks ago when my order from Bad Time came in. I was pretty excited to listen to the lot because I only had a vague guess as to what they would sounds like..and let me tell you...

 I just ate way too many nachos. I put some chopped up garlic sausage, perogies, cheese and onion on them. Bangarang. Sooooooo, I'm dipping back into the phone notes for tonight's chip review. Without further adieu let me take you back to July 6, 2021 when I had some Great Value Hot Chicken..Nashville-Style!! flavoured potato chips. Did you know these chips are free from artificial flavours and colours and are inspired by Nashville (I find it weird how meat flavoured chips can be free from artificial flavours). These Great Value chips are ridged..mid sized ridges to be exact..with a light crunch. The flavour, well the flavour has a little bit of charcoal and tastes like bbq'd chicken. There's a dash of brown sugar sweetness here and there. The heat is dry and mid ranged that builds the deeper you get into the bag. Hot chicken is a very apt description. Good spicy chip, Great Value once again lives up to their name. I couldn't think of a band from Nashville so I did ...

 President's Choice World Off Lavours (what are Lavours?..[ohhhh, World OF Flavours {*badum chhhhh*}]) Taco flavour (Mild [doux] heat). Do these PC chips taste like tacos? Yes. *drops mic* Nice big ridges, similar to wavy Lays, with a great mid weight crunch. I taste taco seasoning, cheese, a bit of sour cream and a hint of onion and lettuce (the picture on the bag is pretty, pretty accurate [how do you simulate lettuce flavour, maybe it's just the picture on the bag that makes me think I'm tasting it..but I'm pretty sure there's some lettuce up in this bag]). If you've ever had taco dip, that's these but in potato chip form. I feel as though the people who concocted the seasoning for these chips had a bag of Old Dutch Mexican Chili and were like, "yeah, those are okay, we can do better", ran with a taco seasoning based chip and nailed it. The mild heat label/symbol on the bag is pretty accurate. I'd like to have a crack at some taco dip with t...

 I'm sitting here listening to the new Kitty Kat Fan Club 12", "I love music. I love my friends. I just want to have fun. All I want is love. Sweet Love." or All I Want Is Love . The A side is comprised of 4 new songs. The B side is the 7 songs that made up KKFC's first 2 7"s. I've loved everything that KKFC have put out and this is not an exception (and it's nice to have the 2 7's on the B side so I don't have to keep flipping). I wrote about their (hopefully) first (of many) LP here and their first 7" here . The new songs are, well, KKFC songs. Jangly tweeish pop rock, some synth and I think organ too?..they're the sonic equivalent of heading out to wakeskate on a glass lake after a sun-shower with a rainbow overhead. I can't find the new 4 songs on bandcamp, they're however shown as singles on the KKFC spotify . Do I wish that the 4 new songs were 10 or 12, yeah..but if that's my only complaint about a release,...

Evidence has the most relaxed delivery. That, combined with his raspy voice, makes his output absolutely classic to my ears. I listened to him via Dilated when I was younger, however I didn't really get into Ev until Step Brothers ...and even at that I didn't get fully hooked by all that is Evidence until the work of art that is Weather or Not . Since Weather or Not I've revisited Step Brothers, and started to work my way backwards through his solo output. This past June Evidence put out another solo LP through Rhymesayers, Unlearning Vol. 1 . The description of Unlearning Vol 1 on the bandcamp page does the album far more justice than my words will ever do. Evidence returns with another indica album. This is not a club banger, it's an album that you can sit and chill to; relaxing, clever, buttery delivery. The production is lush but not flashy while the featured emcees compliment the album perfectly. Unlearning Vol. 1 is how you make a rap album. Lay's Whi...

 Great Value Extreme (with an accent above one of the e's) Scorchin' Hot All Dressed Extreme Flavoured potato chips are 'free from artificial flavours and colours'. When I cracked open the bag they smelled like standard all dressed. Crunch was mid range with mid size ridges (wavy lays style), really mid, amiright? They weren't soft, but pretty far from kettle cooked (which makes sense as they made no claim to be kettle cooked). Now the flavour, oooweee, spicy. Good vinegar kick with some ketchup and bbq sauce who brought a bit of sweetness with them to the party. Did I mention these are spicy, the heat is aggressive, mid high...like a 7ish..maybe 7.5? out of 10..I had decent forehead sweats after a handful. Without the sweetness to offset the spicy the heat might have been a bit too much but there's a nice mix of flavour that works so well together. These bang, they're a heavy flavourful heat. Sort of a spicier Louisiana. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones are a gr...

 Lay's New Flavours from India (Made in Canada) Magic Masala. Nice blue bag. 165g. Smells like chili powder. Mini ridges on the chips, not typical Lay's ridges, more like Ruffles. Decent crunch. First impression, a little sweet followed by a chili powder heat (is paprika in chili powder..because that's an ingredient). The heat lingers for a while after swallowing. I think I tasted a bit of citrus in the mix as well. Bit of tomato wallflowering at the party. The heats a nice flavourful mid range. Great bag of chips, brings a lot to the party. (Very close relative to Old Dutch Mexican Chili..but I think I actually prefer these to the OD flavour)  This past weekend I started reading Aaron Carnes book In Defense of Ska . For someone who bought the book because I dig ska, there's a good chunk of the first 40 pages or so that isn't super necessary, as it's quite defensive...in a sort of aggressive way. With that said, the book is called In Defense of Ska so what was ...

There's crazy access to great music these days, at times it's such an overload that albums can come and go for no reason other than there's not enough time in the day to take it all in. One of those albums..and groups in general for me..is Run The Jewels. I've always checked out their new albums, but because it's just been via streaming the albums have come and gone. I recently revisited RTJ4 and damn I've been feeling it, I'm going to have to cop the cd sooner than later so that it doesn't get lost to the digital wind (for me anyway). Most of the reason that I revisited it was because I've been catching up on season 2 of the What Happened Was podcast (Open Mike Eagle's podcast..S1 he interviewed Prince Paul for a career spanning pod series, S2 he's doing the same with El-P [the podcast is two very big thumbs up by the way]). So yeah, I was trying to figure out what to write about today and RTJ4 made the most sense..then I check my email an...

I'm coming at you with a 3 card bill tonight:  1. Dutch Crunch (kettle cooked [crafted in small batches]) Spicy Dill Pickle "Crunchy Potato Chips" "Natural Flavours + Colours" 2. Miss Vickies Spicy Dill Pickle kettle cooked potato chips. "No artificial flavours or colours" 3. Hardbite handcrafted-style chips. Spicy Dill, Pickle "Nothing Artificial"  In various previous posts I've written about my longing for the discontinued co-op gold chip flavour Jalapeno Dill Pickle. I've found similar flavours from McClures, however it didn't quite satisfy my craving, my longing for a flavour cut down before it's time (I'm at the point where I'm starting to be unsure if I even remember what the gold jalap dill pickle chips even tasted like, maybe I've had rose coloured glasses on for the last 7(?) years). Well, there's a thing or 2 that's somewhat crap about 2021..but one good thing is it seems to be the year of spicy d...

 Oh shit. Ivy Sole put out a new EP in 2020. I first heard of her when she was on Kinda Neat (podcast) in 2017..immediately after hearing her on the pod I ordered her 2016 debut, Eden , on CD. She can spit, sing and is beautifully poetic with every breath that comes out of her mouth. On Eden's All Mine, Ivy Sole notes, " Ain't no second coming of Lauryn I got bigger hills to climb, no disrespect but it's my time". I can only assume that early on Ivy Sole was, justly, drawing many comparisons to Ms. Hill because she's such a poet who can seamlessly dip between rap and R&B/soul with her relaxed flow and alluring voice. Her new EP Southpaw comes out swinging (after the 21 second intro track) with the title track. The beat is aggressive and Ivy Sole comes hard to match the intensity. Next up, Kismet, is more of a burner with a laid back flow and beat and features a bangin' guest verse by lojii. Track 4, Bittersweet, is once again laid back and dips into I...

 I've written about The Dopamines a few times on this here blog. Late last year I had reached out to Jon Lewis inquiring about cd's from a previous band that he was in (Black Tie Bombers), ensuing correspondence led to me asking if he'd do an interview for the Salty Bag. I'm not sure if I gave it away with the title of this post, but Jon was on board. As with my previous salty interviews, I conducted it through a word doc and a few emails (which I'm starting to think may be a punishing way of interviewing..it allows for more thought out responses...but I'm pretty sure it's a time suck [Jon didn't complain, these are just my thoughts]). I can't say enough good things about Jon 'Chucker' Lewis and can guarantee you that if you're at all interested in The Dopamines (writing process, events that lead to their existence), (quasi)nu metal, pop and or punk, architecture, energy malt liquor, aging...oh, and chips...where was I going with this. ...