Hot Nasties EP reissued!

After THIRTY-TWO YEARS – the Hot Nasties’ EP has been re-issued by Ugly Pop records!

We recorded it in a garage in Calgary in 1980, overseen by a couple of hippies who were absolutely mystified by these angst-riden teenagers who couldn’t sing or play. That’s me on the left, Sane Wayne Ahern to the right, then Ras Pierre Schenk, and (fittingly, under a burst of light, because he later became a monk) Just Plain Tom Edwards.  The pic was taken by Barrie Wright, R.I.P., outside the Calgarian Hotel one night.  None of us was ever stabbed to death there, but God knows many tried.

You can buy the EP, which has been amazingly re-created by the Ugly Pop guys, here.  The sound quality frankly blows me away.  Nice job on the line-by-line recreation of the sleeve and insert, too.

2012 is a year for punk! Hot Nasties re-issued, and SFH releases its concept album, Why Do You Hate Me?  Pick ’em up now, pick ’em up often!

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In today’s Sun: Mulcair is a disgrace

It’s early days. But watching NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair destroy himself, as he is now inarguably doing with his anti-West tirades, makes for compelling theatre.

In politics, no wound is ever as deep as the self-inflicted one. And Mulcair — with his stubborn insistence that he is right and everyone else is wrong — has become a case study in political self-immolation.

By now, the nub of his argument is well-known. Our booming resources sector, centred in Western Canada, is artificially inflating the Canadian dollar. The high dollar hurts our manufacturing sector, principally based in Eastern Canada.

A rainbow coalition comprising western premiers, the Conservative government, and the federal Liberal party have excoriated Mulcair for his willingness to pit one region against another. They have hammered him for his cynical attempt to win seats in the East by killing jobs in the West. But the NDP leader is undeterred. If you disagree with him, you are one of Stephen Harper’s “messengers.” If you marshal economic evidence disputing his argument —– and plenty have — he will simply say that “everyone” knows he is right.

Arrogance, conceit and ignorance aren’t anything new in politics. They’re ever-present. But Mulcair’s attack on the region that, more than any other, has helped ease Canada through a grinding global recession is truly breathtaking. It takes political ego and stupidity to a level heretofore untouched by other mortals.


In today’s Sun: Message this, Angry Tom

What a week newly minted NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair has had!

Ever since he donned his tinfoil hat and started hollering at passersby, quite a few of us have started to worry about him. There he stood on Parliament Hill, shaking his fists at the heavens, gnashing his teeth and rending his garments. Sounding crazier than Charlie Sheen on a bad day.

Angry Tom ranted about “Dutch disease.” He raved about how Alberta and Saskatchewan are bad places, run by bad people. He brayed and screeched about how anyone who had the temerity to disagree with him — and there are a growing legion of them — ­ were “messengers” of Stephen Harper.

Angry Tom scared away small children. He terrified the tourists. But he was undeterred. His position was “irrefutable,” he said, and “everyone” agrees that manufacturing job losses are caused by a high dollar, which is caused by surging energy exports, particularly from Alberta.

Well, no.