Not A Lot Goin' On - Corner Gas News February 2018

It's Sunday morning. I am sitting in my kitchen looking out of the patio doors at my English countryside setting. In the distance I can hear the birds playing in the trees, their singing occasionally broken by the call of a group of seagulls as they float through the bright blue sky with more grace than their cumbersome size should allow. There is not a cloud to be seen, less to stop the bright sun beating a path to the lush green, grass of my modest lawn. A gentle breeze blows through the early blooming daffodils that dance slowly to tune created by nature that only they can hear. I heed the call of the beauty of the scene as I feel the need to embrace it's siren song before it ebbs into twilight mist. I stride out of my door and breathe in a chestful of the crisp morning air. As it often does, only too soon, the beauty fades as the early morning quietness is broken as I shout "Holy Hell it's cold!" and run back in where all the central heating is at.

My back garden. Excuse the mess!

Here in England over the next week we have been promised snow! If it does come, even just a small flurry, you won't hear from us English chaps for at least a week. The whole place will shut down tighter than the lid on a jar of pickles. This weekend the shops will be raided for emergency rations as we all expect to be locked inside our homes by a possible full inch of snow. Shelves will be empty of all the essentials, milk, bread, soup and low calorie, gluten free, 0% fat, fair trade cheese in a can.

I may over be over emphasizing for comedic effect but it isn't far from the truth. We just can't cope with weather conditions that skew a bit further out than our usual drizzle filled atmosphere. Not so our cousins across the pond in Canada. It's all hands to the pump and business as usual as is evidenced by a video from this plucky lass.

I apologize if you find this uncomfortably saucy. pic.twitter.com/vzByR3tNKX

— Nancy Robertson (@nancyRtweets) February 23, 2018

We can also see resilience by the bucket load in the most recent Buttpod videos. Brent is currently on tour around Canada and at time of writing is just finishing a five show run in the Alberta and Saskatchewan areas. As he has been so busy, with the tour and various duties on some upcoming cartoon show or another, there haven't been any Buttpod podcasts for awhile. However, Brent is treating us to a whole bunch of on the road videos which have been a joy to watch. Here is the latest one for you to enjoy.

Most of the videos feature weather that would cause an English person to assume that the apocalypse had arrived over night and that he should probably phone the shop and cancel his subscription to The Times. Brent and his audiences arrive undeterred despite snow, icy and conditions colder than the inside of a Yeti's underpant drawer! The show must go on! There are still a few more announced shows that you can battle your way to -

March
8th   -    Hamilton, ON         The Studio                     855-872-5000
9th   -    Sania, ON                Imperial Theatre           519-344-7469
11th -    Oshawa, ON           Regent Theatre           

April
6th   -    Nanaimo, BC           Port Theatre

Click on the links above to be taken to a site that will offer to give you tickets in exchange for money.

Fred Ewanuick has lent his voice to a new animated project. I can hear your cry of "Well Duh!" Rude. This is another project. "Shop Class" is a National Film Board project that centres around a boy called Hart who is in high school during the 1980's. Hart has to take shop class rather than his chosen Home Economics and has to face the trials and tribulations that come with that including the notoriously vile teacher Mr.P! It is all based on a true story from writer and director, Hart Snider's school life. Fred created the voices for all the characters on screen. Judging by the trailer that was one eventful few years full of ukeules, bogies and dismembered body parts. Click the picture blow for a link to have a look see.

Saw 27: Revenge of the Vole People

Fred creates the voices for all the characters in the film. There is a great interview with Fred and Hart Snider about Shop Class that you can listen to here. The short had it's premiere at the Victoria Film Festival on February 7th. I will bring you any dates for future screenings in later posts.

Lorne Cardinal is as busy as ever. He has been in Winnipeg filming "Wynter" which is due for release later this year. The drama revolves around a beautiful street nurse named Wynter. She is the only person who can save the world from an alien invasion. There is not a lot of other information available about the project at this time. IMDB has Lorne listed as playing Chuck. I am sure Chuck will be an integral part of proceedings and will no doubt help save the day at some point. This is of course unless he is a bad guy in which case someone will save the day from Chuck. Perhaps, Chuck is a door to door shoelace sales man. I don't really know much other than Chuck makes pretty good kissy faces

Lorne after the super glue insident

Lorne is also busy lending his larynx to the audio book version of "The Inconvenient Indian" by Thomas King for Post Hypnotic Press who produce a wide range of audio books of all varieties. The Inconvenient Indian is a mix of memoir and history book documenting what it means to be "Indian" in North America. The audio book has yet to be released, details will follow - stay tuned folks!

Lorne can't put a good book down. Probably the super glue again.

Great news and glad tidings abound for all you music lovers out there. All time greatest Canadian beat combo unit Odds are back in the studio recording a new album! Odds lead warbler Craig Northey is, as you know, responsible for both Corner Gas theme tunes. Happy Place the end credit theme is available on the bands classic album Cheerleader. Here is the video they put out recently announcing work has begun.

Yup. It’s begun. A new Odds album. A fun couple of days so far. #FistFightsLater

A post shared by Odds (@oddsmusic) on Feb 24, 2018 at 8:42am PST

It seems that these chaps have far more than their fair share of guitars. I count seven in one room alone. I wouldn't mind so much if someone could play them all at once. I have made some calls and a clever scientist chap from the Medical Association Dedicated to Evolution of Ubiquitous Pathology confirmed to me that it is absolutely impossible for anyone to grow enough hands to be able to pull off such a feat of medical and musical prowess.

The group are playing gigs in Vancouver as part of The Westward Festival 13th and 14th September. Here is a link for ticket sales. I am sure they will be playing new material as well as all the old classics.

Now I bet you are reading this thinking, he's forgotten the animated show. Does he know there is an animated show coming out? There's no mention of cartoons at all, exception the mention of the cartoon that isn't the cartoon we are talking about and doesn't count. Fear not intrepid reader! I have a whole post dedicated to the new show coming up later this week. Besides which I saw two flakes of snow and I have to go and deal with the three car pile up outside my house they have caused.