Sunday, August 19, 2012

Rough Around the Edg





At the Country Home again this weekend.

Today, as I did on Saturday, I took my Dad on a drive around the Glen. The backroads that he once knew like the proverbial back of his hand.

We ended up heading north to Vankleek Hill, a town that doesn't seem to have changed much since its late nineteenth-century salad days. My father wanted to show me the house he boarded at when he worked there 50 years ago.

He also wanted to know where the organic brewery was, so we drove out to the eastern edge of town. The craft beer I wanted to buy (whiskey barrel aged!) wasn't available at the time, of course, so I settled for a couple of wine bottles of their seasonal beer. When I got back to the car, my Dad noticed that one of the bottle caps was askew, and the bottle wasn't full (even yet he has a keen eye for such sacrileges). The kid behind the counter must have given me one of the sample bottles on the table by mistake, and I failed to notice.

Perhaps the most interesting thing this weekend, however, was the "boomfest" (as the locals called it) taking place over at the same facility that hosted the Tartan Mania two weekends ago. As the old man and I sat enjoying an afternoon beer, the pipes were not the source of the steady drone that drifted into the back yard. Rather, it was the bathic hum of an impossibly low bass, accompanied by the throaty vocals and the staccato drumming of a speed metal ensemble.

Turns out it was "Edg3 Fest 2012". Some kind of regional satellite of the Toronto-area polluza put on by the eponymous radio station.        

Later on that evening, it sounded like a Battle of the Bands was being adjudicated by Steve Albini and his house band Shellac. And I kinda liked it.


 


3 comments:

  1. Huge Beau's fan. I have to get out there one of these days. You picked a fine day to go. Rock n'Roll.

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  2. Two posts in one month! Steven King might get jealous of that type of productivity. Great recap of a fruitful weekend with the Old Man. Seems like you are putting alot into these Maxville days, and getting a shitload out of them.

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  3. You are becoming prolific. Two stories in one. The part about the old man was real fine.

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