SAINTS PRESERVE US

Mixed Emotions in Alberta

The Iran war is now in its second raging week. Taking my cue from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, I’m just trying to make some sense of it all. I’m unsure, ambivalent and kind of uncertain all at once.

I don’t believe a fascist and hardline sectarian theocracy that addresses human rights within its borders with torture and guns, wages regional warfare by proxy and who tacitly supports Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and ensuing years of quagmire is a particularly noble national endeavour. I wonder about the end result or even if there will be such a thing. The odious and incompetent regime in Venezuela simply grew another head following the recent American decapitation operation. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan: plus ca change. I worry too that FIFA, that gleefully corrupt organization behind football’s World Cup, is contemplating rescinding its inaugural “peace prize,” that shabby, ass-licking token it bestowed on der Trumpenfuhrer because the US Congress, the United Nations Security Council and The Hague (where the remanding of alleged war criminals is frequently stymied by lawyers, diplomatic immunity and finessed extradition treaties) may conclude an illegal war isn’t simply laissez-faire.

But, man, typing at my writing table in the Crooked 9 here in the United Conservative Kingdom of Alberta, I know one thing for sure: War in the Middle East is a barrel of oil’s golden goose. Alberta is Canada’s petro-province. An alarming number of residents imagine it as a state of some sort. The fiscal fortunes of generations of provincial governments have been in lock-step with the cyclonic boom-and-bust cycles of the energy industry. Good times are credited to local know-how and Alberta’s can-do spirit. Bad times are blamed on geopolitics and the remote, elitist eastern mandarins (bastards all) in Ottawa, uncontrollable factors. Consequently, a consistent narrative in a one-horse town can get tricky.

The official political discourse the week prior to the Iranian adventure was interesting. Premier Danielle Smith, the Banshee of Invermectin, addressed the province days before her government’s budget was to be tabled in the legislature. Her oratory, always glib, signalled hard times ahead. Serious ground softening, a rhetorical barrage. Tar sands royalties ain’t what they used to be. Assigning blame, she rounded up the usual suspect. Former prime minister Justin Trudeau was allocated his usual place up against the wall. Ineffectual as he was, he of course (and every other Canadian taxpayer) got Alberta’s precious Trans Mountain pipeline extension done. Yarded on it, just gave 'er, bud. But, never mind. Shockingly, Smith’s updated and expanded hit list included recent immigrants to her formerly fair province. It’s important to remember that two successive United Conservative Party administrations paid for “Alberta Calling,” a nationwide ad campaign designed to attract newcomers. Smith is on record as saying she’d like to see Alberta’s population double. Fuck me if she didn’t remember the province’s teetering health care and K-12 education systems. Apparently, they’re strained now.

And then the bomb, assembled by sweaty, unsteady hands, dropped. The ultimate deflection of reality. Potentially explosive. Next October, the Government of Alberta will embark on a direct democracy exercise. Pandering to the lowest common denominator. A referendum consisting of nine questions concerned with curtailing the rights and privileges of newcomers, and that squishy can of often-impotent worms, the morass of documents that comprise Canada’s Constitution. Albertans will have something else to contemplate other than the sheer incompetence of their UCP government. And by the grace of every fiery evangelical preacher who ever lived, the party’s lunatic fringe gets a sanctified bone.   

Smith’s subsequent austerity budget predicted a deficit of some $9.4 billion. This contravened the UCP’s own legislation banning three consecutive annual provincial deficits. Funny thing about laws, if you make ‘em you can break ‘em. Financial analysts were concerned that the UCP numbers were predicated on a blue-sky oil price, one that didn’t jibe with the US Department of Energy’s assessment or those of industry analysts. And fair enough, estimates informed as they may be, are predictions.

Monday morning you sure look fine. The Middle East erupted last weekend. Sometimes circumstances collude and collide and geopolitics shake down on the right’s side: the UCP’s Monday morning caucus meeting must have been jubilant, some kind of stilted bacchanal. Oil is like miraculous ocean surf in this landlocked place, way up. As for the inevitable inflationary spiral that will cause, gasoline, jet fuel, logistics, what have you, Smith will blame the usual suspects, both new and used.

Here at home, I see a provincial government crippled by its own inflexible ideology and thus barely competent. The UCP means well for the most part, all things considered, I think. Broadening my view, I discern a similar pattern the world over although motive and intent for many are definitely suspect. Anyway, a good week for some. And so it goes. More to come.

Dispatches from the Crooked 9 has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of everything since 2013. Sunset Oasis Confidential is still out there languishing in multiple formats. Visit my companion site www.megeoff.com for links to your preferred retailer. Of Course You Did is still in print. Collect the set! 

A FAN’S NOTES

An Eyemaxful of Elvis

Elvis is alive!

Or somewhat more objectively, the King finally receives his silver screen crown. Australian filmmaker Baz Luhrmann, director of the 2022 atomic biopic Elvis, has graced rockers worldwide with EPiC, Elvis Presley in concert. And somewhat more subjectively, it’s fucking fantastic.

You looking for trouble? Look right in my IMAX face. (Oh, my boy, curl your upper lip.)

What is it with film directors from Down Under and rock ‘n’ roll? Utilizing lost then found audio and video footage, Luhrmann has reimagined both Elvis: That’s the Way It Is (1970) and Elvis on Tour (1972). EPiC is revisionist cinema by an admiring auteur. It is Peter Jackson transforming Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s Let It Be into Get Back in the way Martin Scorsese expanded D.A. Pennebaker’s Don’t Look Back into No Direction Home. Fresh eyes and attitude incorporating discards, celluloid frames swept up from the cutting room floor.

The Elvis songs I heard growing up blared through the speaker grille of the green plastic A.M. radio in the kitchen. Schmaltz and schlock my mom tolerated even though Presley was no Sinatra or Engelbert Humperdinck. And anyway, my big sister had far more interesting music in her pink bedroom; Capitol and Apple Corps. pressings of the Beatles. And he died young, when rock still ruled and punk was on the rise, a doughy caricature out of frame in American Graffiti.

Elvis was problematic at the end of his life. He was (relatively) old for a rocker whereas my second-generation heroes were destined to remain perennially young and glamorous. Ageless: Pete Townshend and Peter Gabriel wouldn’t go bald; David Gilmour wouldn’t conceal his paunch behind a guitar. These guys would never play the oldies circuit, state fairs and casinos. Not in my generation. I never imagined immortality would constitute a band morphing into a brand. When Elvis died, nobody really knew what to make of an aged pioneer. His determination to keep working was somehow undignified. We all know better now.

RCA released The Sun Sessions CD in 1987. I bought it after reading a beyond five-star review in Rolling Stone. The cover is a staid and classic portrait, a high school yearbook photo; hand-tinted with hints of natural blond in his hair. A beautiful boy. The music, notably “Trying to Get to You”, “Mystery Train” and “Baby, Let’s Play House” stoned me to my soul. I’d bought it in part because any decent music library demands some Elvis. But what really blew me away was the revelation that for any revolution, cultural shift or boost in progress, there’s never a single crucible because somehow different people in different places unfailingly tap into the zeitgeist at the same time; a mystical, collective singularity. Elvis was as tuned in as Chuck Berry, Johnny Burnette, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Ike Turner and Little Richard.

The Presley discography is mainly a morassic quagmire of shitty B-movie soundtracks, shoddy repackages and indifferent live albums. A crying shame. Beyond a couple of stunning compilations (The Top Ten Hits or Elv1s), there are by my count just six Elvis records that matter. I’ve no idea how his early Sun sides are sold nowadays, but you need them. You really, really do. Honest. Trust me. Elvis Presley, his first RCA release, was a long player, 33 and 1/3. I believe that record shook up the business. Young people wanted depth and would pay more for it; the drib and drab of a 45 wasn’t enough: the LP became the cornerstone of popular music. If you can’t picture its cover, there’s no point in me mentioning the Clash’s London Calling sleeve homage. The minor tragedy is that you may now skip ahead from the late 50s all the way to 1969’s From Elvis in Memphis.

There are three live albums too and unsurprisingly, they’re all from the same moment in time. On Stage and In Concert were both released in 1970. These are the Las Vegas shows that EPiC concentrates on. To me, Vegas in that glitzy showbiz era of Wayne Newton and the Rat Pack was about as uncool as it could get, baby. Who knew the city would devolve further into bloated American excess grotesque? And get hip. Elvis performed two and sometimes three shows per day. Each one had to be as fresh and even better than the previous. Elvis neither drank nor smoked. In the film he says he needs five or six hours to unwind after work. Aw, Christ. The viewer knows what’s coming: uppers, downers and more pills in between to take the edge off.

The third live album is Tiger Man, a posthumous release whose cover to my eyes suggests Lou Reed’s Transformer (I think too much). It is the complete second show of the black leather sequence of the ’68 Comeback Special. If you consider what the Beatles and Rolling Stones were concocting for the British Broadcasting Corporation around that time (it's possible both bands enjoyed illicit drugs), The Magical Mystery Tour and Rock and Roll Circus respectively, the white bread mores American network television inflicted on its talent is almost biblical in a satanic way: cheese into smegma. Elvis rose above most of it. Handsome, healthy and fit, armoured by a charming sense of humour, he found his mojo again in the concert settings. Like all of EPiC, that portion of the broadcast is utterly compelling.

Fittingly, EPiC opens with “Tiger Man”: I’m the King of the Jungle/They call me the Tiger Man… Watch out! There’s more to come. Elvis is svelte, still in his thirties. His fringed jumpsuit, especially the high collar, is ridiculous, but Jagger, Bowie and Freddie Mercury dressed funny too. Lemmy from Motorhead once said concertgoers don’t want to see the boy next door up on stage, they’re expecting someone from another planet. That’s the way it is.

EPiC depicts a rejuvenated Elvis in context. There is a slim and unobtrusive underlying narrative to the film and it is universal: frustration and regret – themes of half the popular songs ever written. Elvis in a voiceover says he wants to tour Great Britain, Europe and even Japan. “I’ve never even played New York (City).” The International Hotel on Paradise Road seems a sour compromise. No escape from a trap. “Never Been to Spain” by Hoyt Axton is one of my favourite songs. I must’ve heard it first on the radio or possibly The Midnight Special because if Helen Reddy wasn’t on, Three Dog Night was. The lyrics entrance me. They’re not nihilistic yet nowhere is the destination. The movie’s most poignant moment is when the band, led by James Burton, launches into this one with Elvis at full throttle. He means it, man.

EPiC is exhilarating. Luhrmann carefully crafted “The Wonder of You” and the addictive taste is bittersweet. God, the response overseas would’ve pushed Elvis out of what quickly became a rut. Exiting the theatre I thought about Springsteen writing “Fire” for Elvis and Bowie reputedly writing “Golden Years” for him (!?). And I thought about producer Rick Rubin stripping down Johnny Cash (and even Neil Diamond – the “Jewish Elvis” in dated entertainment press parlance). Oh, well. That’s the way it was then; that’s the way it is now. No point crying in the parking lot. Dry those tears from your eyes.                  

Dispatches from the Crooked 9 has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of everything since 2013. Sunset Oasis Confidential is still out there languishing in multiple formats. Visit my companion site www.megeoff.com for links to your preferred retailer. Of Course You Did is still in print. Collect the set! 

A FAN’S NOTES

Men’s Olympic Hockey

Is there any other Winter Games sport? Hockey, provided it’s played well, is the most exciting sport on Earth. Non-stop action, skill and violence at high speeds in a confined space. “Quicksilver ballet” is the slickest and most glib descriptor I’ve ever read about the game in any sportswriting; memory fails – I cannot cite its coiner. “Firewagon hockey” was the definitive hyperbolic phrase describing the style of “the Flying Frenchmen” – the Montreal Canadiens in those black and white radio days before I was born (although I can’t imagine “Rocket” Richard keeping up to Connor McDavid). Canada’s preliminary cruise through an admittedly weak 2026 Group A in Milano has been something akin to both to behold. There are words: elan, panache.

The New York City-based National Hockey League always chirps about growing what Canadian journalist Peter Gzowski called The Game of Our Lives. Because its involvement in marquee international events is intermittent, “growing the game” is marketing code for two strategies. In the United States the NHL is the perennial fourth league, possibly the fifth behind souped-up cars turning left, or NASCAR. While the US remains the league’s largest market, the 1980 Lake Placid “Miracle on Ice” probably did more to grow the sport’s audience (and participation) south of 49 than anything the NHL has ever done unwittingly or not. And peddling expensive official fan gear can be lucrative.

The debate whether professionals should be permitted to participate in an Olympiad is dead. When the NHL elects to participate in the Winter Games it encounters a paradox. Its macro product shines on the global stage while casting an awfully dark shadow over its micro North American product. When Canada plays Czechia or Slovakia plays Sweden in a February tournament, fans see what hockey can and should be. They will not see the same sport when Columbus plays Utah on an October Tuesday night even though ticket prices are comparable. A bloated league with an endless and meaningless regular season inadvertently lays bare its woeful shortcomings to its home audience.

It's important to differentiate a love for the game from a love for the NHL. The world’s best league does not embody the sport’s ideal. It has diluted the game. I believe most NHL fans are like me. They love one franchise, despise another and don’t care about the other 30. The last time I was in New York City, the Nashville Predators were visiting. I thought, “It might be fun to see a game in Madison Square Gardens and the Rangers have good uniforms.” And then I thought, “Why bother?” In Las Vegas the following winter I looked into Golden Knights tickets. The St. Louis Blues were in town. I thought, “St. Louis Blues: possibly the best marriage of a city and nickname in all of sports; still, why bother?” Twice a few hundred $US to the good. Admittedly, had one or both of those games included Montreal, I’m there; so there for the belt notch and the war story – I think.

The Milano quarterfinals get underway this morning. Hockey at this level is like an advertising shill. It doesn’t come around often. And accept no substitutes.            

Dispatches from the Crooked 9 has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of everything since 2013. Sunset Oasis Confidential is still out there languishing in multiple formats. Visit my companion site www.megeoff.com for links to your preferred retailer. Of Course You Did is still print. Collect the set while this exclusive offer still lasts! Accept no substitutes!

HUMAN WRECKAGE

The Second Disc Defense

A snippet of Crooked 9 domestic dialogue from November, 2025:

“Do you mind if we swing by Blackbyrd while we’re out doing errands today? You can wait in the car or circle the block. I’ll just run in.”

“What did you order?”

“Black and Blue; Stones album from ’76; I was still in high school, grade 10. A Stones release was big news then, big, important stuff.”

“Don’t we have it already?”

Oh, Ann. Oh, poor, poor Ann. Of course we do. We have the original vinyl pressing from 1976. And we have a digitized edition from the early 90s when Rolling Stones Records released the group’s entire post-London/Decca catalogue on CD under a new distribution deal with CBS. To my credit, I did not buy the Japanese SACD version I found at Velvet Records, a funky shop in Amsterdam, in the summer of ’24. Furthermore, time, the great revisionist (and Dirty Work 10 years later), has been kind to Black and Blue.

I said, “Yes.” And because there’s always a “but” I added: “It’s the second disc that interests me. There’s a couple of outtakes, cuts that didn’t make the album. They were auditioning guitarists at the time because Mick Taylor had just quit and so there’s a few studio jams with Jeff Beck and whoever.”

Blackbyrd Myoozik (the spelling of which irks me no end) is on Edmonton’s south side, convenient to us. There are other shops in town, but not many and not walkable except for Curmudgeon Records and Posters, farther up Whyte Avenue across the CPR railroad tracks, just past the A&W beside the European appliance store. When I’m in Blackbyrd I feel as if I’m in a community outreach centre, not a commercial establishment. I know two of its clerks, Mustafa and Nolan, well enough to pass the time of day with without out them squinting at their watches with gritty, heavy eyelids.

March, 2025: I wandered into Blackbyrd. Nolan asked me how I was enjoying the Nils Lofgren album. I said, “How did you know?” I hadn’t bought it. “Your neighbour (Ted, the American refugee) was in looking for a birthday present for you.” Nolan went on, “My recommendation; I thought you’d like it.”

Well, “Gee!” on so many levels. And Blackbyrd stocks Muster Point Project vinyl too.

The last week of January, 2026: Ann wondered over The Globe and Mail and between sips of coffee if I’d like to go to Blackbyrd later on, before noon. I said, “Hell, yes! Get out of my head.” Ann lives up there, but never trashes the place. And I understood her motivation for departing Crooked 9 property. Even as the sky blues and the days lengthen, January in Edmonton is an oppressive, cabin feverish commencement of a new year. Our weather apps suggested a sunny, decent day. There’s a Winners outlet in the old Chapters bookstore space, a half block from Blackbyrd. And we have a third grandchild on the way. We would split up on Whyte; divide and conquer – we’d both have at least an hour in our preferred stores.

The last time I was free to roam the racks of Blackbyrd I spent a couple of hundred dollars on music ranging from a Mose Allison compilation to a Sex Pistols live album – three complete poorly recorded shows from their disastrous and ultimately fatal American tour. I bought new pressings of Coney Island Baby and The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle. My brother-in-law Al haunts me in Blackbyrd. He gave me his double of Pat Garret and Billy the Kid a few years ago: “It was on sale and I forgot I had it.” I was grateful; about the only Dylan album we didn’t have. When I saw him again a year later (we live in different provinces), he handed me another sealed copy. I said, “Don’t tell me you bought it a third time?” He answered my question with a panicky 1000-yard stare.

Music is a passion project; the artists who set me aflame in my late teens and twenties continue to reverberate. I’m self-aware of petrification; I am a fossil. But, man, the good old stuff still matters to me. It has never gone the way of childish things. And what I cannot discard in its various formats chews up valuable interior real estate. Accessible storage required provided it's relatively attractive. And I know my runway’s shrinking and after my dark crash, my survivors will likely view the record collection as debris for disposal. Fair enough.

Tuesday night I handed Ted a CD of Who Are You. “Double?” 

I said, “Sort of.” More like a triple. I continued, “If, God forbid, I end up living alone in a seniors’ assisted residence, I’ll have to cull the herd. There’ll be no space for everything. On the other hand, I’ll be able to play anything I like as loud as I like; everybody else will be deaf.”

Ted said, “I’m not sure, Geoff. Hearing aids have come a long way.”

Eh? Well. Gee. I suppose they have.

On this particular day in Blackbyrd, Nolan and I chatted about Springsteen’s folky “Streets of Minneapolis”, Cheap Trick, the Guess Who and the Doobie Brothers. I browsed the jazz, blues, Americana, punk and reggae sections, both vinyl and CD. The new Lucinda Williams album wasn’t in yet. I contemplated the box sets. A Kinks album I don’t have briefly intrigued me. I fondled a Joy Division CD, but felt no nostalgia toward the suicidal tendencies of my university days. Nothing sang to me even just to have for the sake of having it forever in its cellophane for indifferent future generations.

Blackbyrd is like Audreys Books, a local and specialized retail business that deserves to thrive in these times of Amazon Prime. My hour was winding down. Time was getting tight; I had to buy something, but not anything. Just when the rock racks’ alphabet was about to dumb down into emojis I stumbled across last year’s remastered reissue of Who Are You; the quartet’s final album with doomed drummer Keith Moon and the Who as a complete, fractious band and not a survivors’ brand. I was 18 when it was originally released (1978) and although I prefer its predecessor Who by Numbers (1975), my brand-new red vinyl copy was something of a landmark because rock’s jaded aristocracy wasn’t overly prolific back then; years between albums and subsequent supporting tours.

This 2025 Who Are You was no DELUXE EDITION like my Live at Leeds, but enhanced nonetheless. The bonus disc contained demos, outtakes and live rehearsals for a tour that never happened. Could be dross, could be gold for the aficionado and, boy, the expanded packaging sure looked fine.

I met up with Ann in Winners. She’d done very well on behalf of our grandchildren, energetically alive in the moment or en route. We stowed her packages in the back of the Honda. We smoked cigarettes by the car and proximate to a trash bin. Ann asked me, “Any luck? What did you get?” I told her. Ann said, “Hmm!”

This “Hmm!” is not the pensive “Hmm...” of thoughtful consideration. This “Hmm!” is criticism, condemnation delivered. Ann and I learned this haughty snort from my mother. We ape her. Mom was not a happy soul the last few years of her life. Sometimes mom’s “Hmm!” would be followed by an inarguable and emphatic “Bullshit!” Sometimes Ann and I spit that each other too. And then we laugh. It’s impossible to frown when we think about my mother.

We got into our car. Ann stared straight ahead over the top of the steering wheel. “Don’t we have that one already?”

I glanced out the passenger window and then glanced at her profile. Poor Ann. “But not with a second disc.”

Ann said, “Hmm...”

Dispatches from the Crooked 9 has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of everything since 2013. Sunset Oasis Confidential is still out there languishing in multiple formats. Visit my companion site www.megeoff.com for links to your preferred retailer. Of Course You Did is still print. Collect the set! Collect multiple editions!