Tales of the Salty Bag

When I was..17?..I was at the CD Plus across from Sportsmans and I made some great purchases. I grabbed a copy of Better off Dead (strictly based on Lanemeyer naming themselves after it), Op Ivy's S/T discography CD and Give em the Boot II (Hellcat Records). I can't remember why I picked up Give em the Boot II (maybe it was Rancid's cover of if the kids are united..), anyway, damn that comp was awesome. The mix of ska, punk and other punk adjacent genres on it is almost unbeatable. It introduced me to at least a handful of bands that I followed for quite some time..and some that I follow to this day. One of those bands that are still in rotation to this day is The Slackers . From first listen of the bouncy Have the Time they had my attention. For a while I just listened to their songs that were on the various Give em the Boot comps. Eventually (since this was the mid 00's) I acquired a few of The Slackers albums digitally ( The Question and Peculiar ) but for some reas...

Bonsoir. Do you like to party? Well you've come to the right place than because if you're reading these words you've already come too far and there's no turning back, you might as well read the rest of the words below until you hit the 'stay hydrated' tag line. No if's and's or but's. I'm about to take you on a lyrical, spiritual, miracle of a trip with my following prose. If you're new to this blog I'll let you in on a little secret (and if you've read posts on this blog before you've probably picked up on my subtle hints that) I like chips and music. Completely new, old, familiar, nostalgic, it doesn't matter man, if I can consume on of the aforementioned vices (or even better BOTH)  then it's a good day. What constitutes a great day you ask?..well, we'll leave that for another day. Sometimes I'm blunt with my music and chip connections in my blog posts, sometimes I'm more or less grasping out at straws...but...

I had thought that I found Big Pun through the How We Roll music video, but when I pulled it up it didn't look familiar. I'm almost certain that it was through one of his music videos playing on Much Music (in hindsight, I had heard his songs, or snippets thereof, prior but never knew who the artist was). I'm not sure why any of that matters. The first and only Pun CD that I had in my collection (up until a few weeks ago) was Endangered Species.Why I stopped at Endangered Species and didn't back track into his previous 2 albums is beyond me, it was a banger of an album (a compilation album but a banger nonetheless). So like I eluded to, about a month ago I was revisiting Pun's first posthumous and fell down a brief wiki hole looking into reviews of his other albums, fast forward to last week when Yeeeeah Baby arrived in the mail and I threw it in the CD player. Wow that album was familiar, I had either procured it in the days of napster/limewire and bumped it, or...

A couple months ago when one could still cross the border I was lucky enough to have someone pick up a bag of 'merican chips for me (thanks Tyler), Doritos Flamin' Hot Limon to be exact (are all bags of Doritos in the states big? it's 276.4g [I question their precision, but good on 'em for being that specific]). They smell like corn chips and look red like fire (as flamin' hot does). I think first the lime hits, then a hot pepper based heat, followed by a stronger lime zing and topped out by a nice mild afterburn. The third quarter also lets the corn flavour make it's way through that disappears for the last quarter and re-appears in the aftertaste. I like the citrus flavour that the limon adds to the standard flamin' hot flavour, its refreshing..salty but refreshing. They're spicy and get forehead sweats going..but it's an enjoyable forehead sweat. Dipped into some queso, it's a bangin' medley of flavour. Woohah. I've started re-watchi...

What do you get when you take some of the best base chips made in Canada and bring them to the prairies and smash them together with honey dill..co-op Gold Pure Honey Dill Kettle Cooked Potato Chips (Born Local, Ace Burpee). Last summer Ace hooked with Red River co-op in Winnipeg and put out a super limited edition chip flavour..honey dill (that was only sold at Red River co-op stores [if you're unfamiliar with the Canadian co-op chain, there are many sub sets that are all under the "co-op" banner, so in this case {last summer} the honey dill were only available under the Red River set]). Well, it must have went over well because a couple weeks ago my wife was at the Heritage co-op here in Brandon and low and behold they had Pure Honey Dill chips. It looks like co-op expanded it's honey dill chip flavour supply to cover stores outside of Winnipeg (I'm not sure if it's Manitoba wide, or prairie wide..if anyone has seen them out of Manitoba let me know). I was l...

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...