Tales of the Salty Bag

A couple months ago I was at a buddies place for board game night and he asked me if I had tried Spicy Salt & Vinegar yet. I, had, not..hadn't even heard of them so I was pretty excited (him and his wife have hipped me to new chip flavours quite frequently [thanks R&M L]). When he brought a little bowl out for me to taste I was even more stoked. I tried the bowl..then this whole pandemic thing hit and I forgot about the chips. Fast forward to two weeks ago, I was at the co-op and I saw a bag of Ridgies (Old Dutch) Spicy Salt & Vinegar potato chips (croustiles)..well damn, I forgot about those. From what I remembered (I didn't take notes the first time around) they were sort of in the all dressed family. It should go without saying that I grabbed a bag for the ol' salty cellar. Jump forward 2 weeks, to tonight. I cracked open the bag..and they strangely smell like mesquite bbq. Popped one of the liluns in my mouth and was initially met with a mesquite bbq flavour...

I go through waves of listening to ska. Streetlight Manifesto is in my top 10 if not top 5 all time. With that said, I'm not writing about streetlight today. Asian Man Records has been on quite a tear as of late putting out absolutely fantastic ska. Last fall they put out The Abruptors debut LP, Love And Other Disasters (for some reason the album isn't up on Bandcamp but Wait and See is a digital single that's also on the album). They have, as far as I could tell, 2 primary vocalists (male and female) with the sax player hopping in for 3 part harmonies. The female singer has a bit more of a smokey bluesey voice, while the guy has a bit of a higher register with a slight nasally delivery (there's something about his voice that reminds me of the Five Iron Frenzy singer, it's not a copy but it's like a distant cousin to the Five Iron Frenzy guy's voice). The music is bouncy, it has one foot in two tone, one foot in 3rd wave with headphones on listening to Jama...

Townes Van Zandt made and played beautiful music. At some point in the fall of 2009 I was reading an interview (I thought it was Paul Pendley of RCR, but I can't find the interview so I could be wrong) and the person being interviewed brought up Townes Van Zandt's Live at the Old Quarter album. I liked the way he described it so I went to CD Plus to see if it was there, and low and behold they had it (I know it was September 2009 because it was right before I drove to Calgary to pick up my things to move back to MB). Live at the Old Quarter is a double album (1h32m) and the perfect way to get into Townes' music, it's a stripped down version of his (sometimes melancholic, sometimes cheeky) folk/blues/country songs (just him and a guitar) that allowed his playing, voice, and poetic lyrics to shine. Townes made beautiful music that drilled straight into your soul, beautiful absolutely engaging stories. The live setting also showcased his sense of humor, I can't help bu...

It's almost impossible to answer what album you would want if you were trapped on an island. When I've contemplated it, one of my scenarios is that I take comps and soundtracks because it would give me a broad spectrum of music on a few albums. Two of my desert island albums are soundtracks; This is England , and Can't Hardly Wait . These soundtracks are at the top of my list for 2 reasons; 1 - they both have killer music, 2 - the movies are stellar. If you haven't seen This is England; it's set in, as you might have guessed, England, in 1983. It follows a group of ska/punk skinheads and the the National Front trying to pull said punks/skins into their fascist political agenda. Being set in '83 UK and following a group of skins, the soundtrack is full of Jamaican ( Toots & The Mytals have 3 songs [and this is actually the first time I was introduced to Toots music]) and 2tone ska , with some soul , new wave (this is how I found about Strawberry Switchblad...

I'm a 30 something from Manitoba who's into punk..so it should go without saying that my music collection contains albums from both Propagandhi and Combeback Kid. With that said, I don't believe my Manitoban status skews this next statement, Comeback Kid were huge in the mid to late aughts. I somehow missed the boat in their early years, I remember seeing Figure Four in Brandon, however if CBK played I wasn't in attendance. It wasn't until their sophomore album, Wake the Dead , that I caught the CBK bug (wow, until I pulled up the full album on youtube I never realized Wake the Dead was only 25 minutes). It was heavy, melodic and just full of energy. There were plenty of mosh worthy breakdowns, but it wasn't straight up meathead music. Early CBK had enough 81 in their DNA to deserve the punk suffix after hardcore. I also consider myself lucky to have witnessed Comeback Kid live in the Scott Wade years. I don't recall Scott being much of a talker but he just ...

It's great when people pick up chips for me when they're out and about. A couple weeks ago a friend from work (Tyler) was dipping down to the states and asked if I wanted any chips. To both of our chagrin, the Voodoo Heat (Zapp's) that I had filled him in on where nowhere to be found. He was however still nice enough to bring me back a couple bags of chips, one of them being Lay's Flamin' Hot Dill Pickle Flavored. When I read the bag it seemed familiar but I wasn't 100% positive, I searched the blog but nothing came up..so I looked through my phone notes and what do you know, low and behold Lay's released a bag of chips last year under an almost identical name, "Flamin' Hot Dill Pickle Remix "inspired by hip-hop music" (I'll touch on that bag later). I cracked my new bag of Flamin' Hot Dill Pickle and took a whiff..mostly dill pickle seasoning with a slight oiled potato smell (not much, if any, flamin hot that my nose picked up on)...

A friend of mine recently went on a trip to Mexico and was thoughtful enough to bring me back a couple bags of Barcel Chip's (thanks Top). I had considered blending them into one post, but uh uh, I'm keeping it single bag today and I'm going to let you know what my initial thoughts are on Barcel Chip's (the largest text on the bag reads "Chip's") sabor Fuego Limon, Papas fritas sabor chile y Limon Aridente. El Arte de hacer papas. Now I don't speak or read spanish, so I'm going with these are chile and lime flavoured chips..not sure what Ardiente means (I just googled it before cracking the bag..it apparently translates to burning). The back of the bag reads, estan hechas de papa 100% natural (100% natural chips?), I believe it also says a good source of carbohydrates/energy, and no trans fats. They smell like fried potatoes. Not much of a scent when I cracked open the bag, very red seasoning. I was really surprised when I tried the first chip, the...