Tales of the Salty Bag

Colleen Green released a complete Dude Ranch cover album this past August on Burger Records. Does it bang you ask? Yes (well, it's a fantastic take on the album, but maybe bang isn't the best choice of descriptor). Colleen took all 15 of the songs on Dude Ranch and slowed them down to about 3/4 speed (as played by Coleen Green clocks in at just about 64 minutes while the original album was a tight 45). Colleen's almost whispered (but not quite) vocals are accompanied by her playing a short scale bass through what sounds like some sort of pedal. This cover album is sleepy but not boring and breathes new, and different life, into a classic album. How do the sometimes juvenile lyrics hold up when delivered more clearly with stripped down backing you ask? They hold up, now take off and stop asking silly questions. (I believe that) This is a great album on it's own merit, but it's hard for me to speak to anything related to Dude Ranch without a bit of a bias . I'd...

The last time I wrote about Tomahawk Chips, I regaled you with my take on their BBQ and Ketchup flavours. I tried to track down an easier way to find them locally (you can order them on Amazon.ca now) but it was to no avail (they didn't email me back). Low and behold, my friend Top was at a store recently and picked me up a bag of Fire Chip (spicy flavour)..(unbeknownst to her that these chips were actually on my active list of chips to try). First thing's first, who's the artist who created the front art for the bag..(because as far as I can tell the art comes first, chips come second with Tomahawk Chips)..well it was none other than Mabel Nigiyok. Mabel created a piece with what appears to be Inuit hunters with seals, a polar bear and some buffalo among a landscape. As I was reading the back of the bag looking for the artist, I noticed that they have a "Friendchip Choice, Native Canadian Chip Corporation" slogan and logo (I also noticed that these chips are best...

Lay's Bacon Wrapped Jalapeno Popper Flavored Duet. I'm not sure if you can still purchase them, but you could in the States this past spring. I finally cracked them a couple weeks ago. First whiff, fake bacon flavoured chips. Initial taste, cream cheese with a hint of "bacon" (you know, that sort of unsettling bacon flavour seasoning). The jalap flavour is a little uneven throughout the bag ranging from a mild to medium mild heat. Not your typical jalapeno flavour but..I don't know, they're almost a smokey? heat. The further I got into the bag I found that I was left with a mild chili pepper heat wrapped in cream cheese and a sprinkling of bacon. I'm not a fan of bacon flavoured snacks in general..so if that was cut out of the flavour and it was just cream cheese stuffed jalapenos that'd be tight but as it stands they're pretty decent. So my laptop is running really slow and glitchy right now, but just before I started writing about the aforement...

So this one's a little bit out of format for the saltybag, I'm forwarding on reviews from (one of?) our international correspondent(s) (who at the time of submission didn't know they were providing reviews for this here blog). Willards (limited edition) Crinkle Cut (since 1977) Bunny Chow flavoured potato chips: Light curry with a side of white bread. No bunny. Snoeks Naks Seafood Flavoured Naks "tangy tasty fresh from the ocean": These are weirdly good. Taste like the batter of fish and chips w slight umami. Smell like a fish and chips shop. A snoek is a fish. Messaris "Traditional Quality since 1948" Greek Island Potato Crisps Feta & Olive Flavour: Slight hint of olive. Did feel like I was on a Greek island. Would eat again. So Waka Waka DID have a South African band contribute to the song, and I'm far from the first person to gripe about this but..a Colombian singer. Seriously? SMDH. That's like getting Danny Elfman to write a Hock...

FRIED PICKLES WITH RANCH FLAVORED LAY'S. As you can tell by that first line, I recently had a friend that went on a trip to the States and was kind enough to bring me back a bag of 'merican Lay's (unsolicited at that [thanks Top]). I got them on Monday and I'm already cracking them and posting..this is a pretty quick turnaround from procurement to this here blog. I'm not going to tell you what I think they're going to be like as I have heard second hand of another's first impression, so without further ado...they smell like dill pickle chips with the faint odor of a gym bag (or something to that affect [that was unexpected]). They taste like creamy dill's first cousin. Dill is up front and centre with some creamy texture to the chip seasoning. There's almost a hint of the most faint blue cheese flavour, I know they're telling me it's ranch on the bag but I get some sort of blue cheeseness (maybe it's just me [I have been eating a lot of b...

I had a small bag of chips earlier this week, they were about a month past their best before date so I was concerned about 2 things. 1 - Small bags go stale a lot quicker than large bags. Don't ask me why, it's just that way. 2 - They were of the Lays Streats of the World variety. Pizza to be exact. (the reason I was concerned about this is because I thought that once again I missed blogging about a limited time chip in the time-frame when people could actually go out and purchase if my words made the chips seem appealing [the day after I had my Pizza Lays I was at work, and a co-worker broke out a bag of Pizza Lays, I guess they recently re-released this flavour for a limited time]) Now what do these Pizza Lays smell like? Large chain pepperoni pizza. The crunch is somewhat lightweight (I guess midweight if you take kettle cooked out of the equation). Now I can hear you screaming, 'but what about the flavour Marc. WHAT ABOUT THE FLAVOUR!! DO THEY TASTE LIKE PEPPERONI ...

Wow this year is flying by. I'm already writing about Mal Blum's latest offering, Pity Boy . This album was high on my list of anticipated albums because their last album, 2015's You Look A Lot Like Me , was bangin'. With Pity Boy, Mal once again brings their somewhat monotonous voice to deliver their poetic lyrics over top of predominantly (mid to late 90's) alt rockish music. There's some bounce and sweetness here and there throughout the album, but for the most part there's a lot of subdued darkness reflected in both the music and the lyrics. When I read the lyrics they came off as very personal, they're not specific to the point of being not relatable but they are definitely autobiographical. There's some nice use of metaphor throughout the album and repetition/semi-repetition (does that exist, she'll repeat a group of words but sort of change the order sometimes or throw in a new word here and there). When the songs dip into relationships, i...