Tag Archives: Heather Haley

The importance of being aural

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I’ve been extremely nostalgic lately, iPod blasting out Wire, X, Pylon, Pointed Sticks, Young Canadians, the Germs, Gun Club, PiL, Patti Smith and Joy Division, sharing their tunes with friends, both old school punks and young champions of the genre. I revel in it as much as I ever did and dammit, it’s timeless.

Life, including recording and performing music, was so much simpler then, hence the nostalgia, even melancholy. Just do it was precisely how we did it. These days it seems there is so much more crap to surmount! Why does it have to be so bloody hard to get together to jam, write, rehearse, record, perform? I miss singing, though singing lyrics—singing the way I used to with my previous bands—is not quite what I do with Roderick Shoolbraid and our AURAL Heather duo. My throat slings (spoken) word along with, and in and out of, melody. I described AURAL Heather in our press release as a sublime fusion of music and poetry and dubbed our material spoken word song. Though our logistics are daunting and AURAL Heather is currently simmering on a back burner—as we work to complete our How To Remain video—our sound, once described as “Lynchian,” keeps right on cooking.

Recently, I found myself getting defensive when a friend complained that Roderick’s guitar drowns out my vocals. I sighed. It’s difficult to explain our aural challenges, that what we’re attempting to pull off is a delicate balancing act. Maybe I sighed so loudly because Continue reading →

Birthday Girl

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Birthday today, March 8. I’m not going to discuss ambivalent feelings—nobody’s getting younger—but rather focus on the lovely greetings I received from so many people around the world, a veritable deluge and then the boys took me out for dinner at Miksa. I got to eat a cheeseburger and more than one French fry.

I’ve been working on my novel, The Town Slut’s Daughter, actually writing the damn thing so long now it’s celebrating birthdays too. I’m going to make one more serious stab at it, revise it and in the process decide if I’m cut out to be a novelist. I’ve worked in many genres but perhaps I should stick to verse. I cannot recall whether some scenes are based on actual incidents or if I’ve fictionalized them. Like being at the Smilin’ Buddha with her mother. I can’t remember if my mom came to see me play or not. I think she did. I’d ask my surviving sister but we’re estranged. I think that comes out in the story or maybe that should go in another book. Or poem. I have to decide. After all this time I’m still trying to figure this stuff out. Pretty sad.

Preparing to attend the aforementioned Live Video Retrospective and screening Lenore Herb/Doreen Gray’s footage of a Rock Against Prisons benefit from 1979 which includes AKA, Rabid, Female Hands, Devices, Subhumans and my first band, the all-girl Zellots. Bill Scherk is making swag which is what the Double H image is about. It’s a fundraiser so I’m going to donate some Heather Haley merch. See you there perhaps? It should be interesting. I’m bringing a bodyguard.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010
7:00pm – 11:55pm
Little Mountain Gallery
195 east 26th Ave
Vancouver, BC

Here’s Bill’s description: On March 9th, the social forces will be mounting an assault on the staid and the bland. From a Punk Rock Swap Meet to a Celebrity Auction, from an ‘umplugged’ stage to a Grand Slam Poetry Karaoke by some of the big stars of 1979, we are getting the Old Gang Together. We review the fabulous footage by doreen grey from the seminal 1979 gig and plan out the 2010 resurgence of the Vancouver Explosion.

Come on out and celebrate Vancouver’s living heritage with those who made it happen: Rabid, Female Hands, Devices, Zellots, Tunnel Canary, AKA, Subhumans. Special appearances. Door Prizes. Live Webcast and Kissing Booth. Fishnet stockings. Oodles of prime shwag and fixins. Your every 1979 Punk nightmare come beautifully true.

Hangover City-Fractured Old School-Shmorgs guitarist Peter Draper

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The party’s over. Here we sit, post-Olympics, talk of legacy raging as the provincial government returns to the capital for further belt tightening, dickering with The Budget. It was a glorious party and I, to my surprise, swept up. Well, I had to watch the hockey, it’s in my DNA, being a Béliveau.  I do regret missing the revelry downtown after the Team Canada victory last night. It was an incredible game, with an astonishing sudden death goal by the Kid, Sidney Crosby, decidedly a once-in-a-lifetime event. No next time. Boo hoo. I once passed up a free ticket to see Nirvana, to attend the premiere of Tombstone. Gawd. How can I admit such a thing? My only excuse, I’m a serious film buff and by that point, had witnessed enough wasted, wailing rockers for two lifetimes.  “A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.” – Orson Welles. Hmm, I can’t remember who directed Tombstone, and see, I’m not even going to bother to Google it, but he, or she, was no poet. Oh, I have another excuse for screwing up; I just remembered I was pregnant, hormone-addled. I mean, more than usual.

Some people are smugly saying things like oh where are those pesky protesters now? Well, when I was at W2 for the Real Vancouver Writers Series last week we walked by the Continue reading →

My Three Blocks West of Wonderland interview with S.R. Duncan

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What are the three themes you explore most in the book?

Well, I depict the domestic front, though as Karen Solie-with whom I had the privilege of working with at Banff Arts Centre said-“the work is not domesticated. It reflects the nature of language as both a domestic product and as wild—impossible to fully manage or control.” I take a lot of risks in my poems, have an instinct for the weirdness of language, the sound and rhythm. I’ve written a suite of island poems, others about relationships and family; my life partner, my mother, my father, nieces, nephews and several inspired by my son. I also describe the battle front you could say, a suite of poems inspired by my travels with many alluding to our post 9-11 guilt and angst here in the *safe zone.* I think we’re collectively waiting for the other shoe to drop, a dread summed up with a flying motif and section titles named Sky Watchers, Wax Wings and Hard Landings. In addition, I’ve addressed the classic man against nature theme in Hot Dogger, My Mountain and Habitat. I’m intrigued by extreme sports enthusiasts, adrenalin junkies. My father was an intrepid hunter and fisherman, I grew up in the great outdoors but we never felt compelled to climb for the sake of climbing, just lived in the woods.

In a brief paragraph describe what you think the book is about (assuming there is a theme)?

I think The Theme is simply prevailing. One of the poems called How To Remain moves beyond mere survival, endurance, but portrays thriving, prevailing. Boldly. With panache. Style, grace and good humour. I hope.

Why did you write this book?

Because Continue reading →

Evolution, from urbanite to islander!

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Island view south

This poem from my new book, Three Blocks West of Wonderland, inspired by our move to Bowen Island in the . . .


Year of the Monkey

Full house. Madhouse. Ill-fated deejay,
jester fixed to his back, grinding out tunes
in celebration of our new digs, life,
in the forest, despite the clear-cutting
a hundred years ago. There is talk

of the I-Ching. This will be
an extremely progressive time predicts
a guest with faith enough to practice.
Monkeys are shrewd. Agile.
You will find great success in 2004.

Happy New Year! A toast. To the pileated
woodpeckers, heard more than seen. Cheers!
To the deer phantoms, droppings molding
in the front meadow. Where do they go
in the winter? Why don’t I know these things?

We make clumsy attempts at lighting a fire,
heating the house, woodstove couched
and cold-shouldered as a guerilla soldier
brooding over such hatchet-challenged wimpiness.
We brave the Jacuzzi though. January. Naked ape it

on the Continue reading →

“What is west coast music?”

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Onstage at the Smilin' Buddha

My friend, singer/songwriter Julie Vik recently posed the question, “What is west coast music?” because as she said, I was there for the “transition.” Well, I replied, I can only speak from my own experience. I used to tour up and down the west coast, play the west coast circuit. I always say we shared more camaraderie with our American punk cohorts than those in the rest of Canada. I know some bands like DOA toured across country and around the world but most of us were strapped for cash and stayed closer to home, or at least west of the Rockies. A fellow islander and musician Chris Corrigan said that in the traditional music community there are strong connections within the scenes in Washington and Oregon and not so much with the rest of Canada. “When I was really active in the scene in the 1990s, you could look at the repertoire of traditional Irish tunes we played and see that they were heavily influenced by what was happening in Seattle. We’ve always been closer to Cascadians.” Makes sense to me. Cascadia, as a region, certainly, draws musicians, the arts together. I’ve noticed lots of overlap between the San Juan and Gulf Islands as well in the spoken word, literary scenes.

In any case, it was always more expedient for us to tour in a southerly direction than back east. The snowy passes and mountains certainly are formidable, then you have three days or so of flatlands-prairies-and then three more days of bush-Ontario!

The Dils (from San Francisco) came up and played Vancouver often, hung out with us and were very comradely. Black Flag from LA as well. I became friends with many Californians introduced to me by Brad Kent who had done a stint as the Avengers guitarist; Chuck Dukowski, Gregg Ginn, Darby Crash, Margo from the Go-Gos, Jello Biafra, Kid Spike and Karla MadDog from the Controllers. I got so weary of driving up and down the 1-5, pooling pennies to buy gas and arguing over which fast food drive-in to pull into. One time I begged to take PCH, just for a change of scene, and mentioned that it would be fun to go visit Henry Miller in Big Sur. They thought I was crazy. “Henry who?”

I shared these opinions with Scott Beadle once too, in an interview. He is Vancouver’s defacto punk rock historian, did a talk at the Vancouver Museum a few years back. Man, does that make me feel old! I recall being at the Experience Music Project in Seattle, in the punk rock section and looking at flyers under glass, flyers I have copies of at home!

In my humble opinion, Vancouver was Continue reading →

It’s Mary I See

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Season’s Greetings friends from Heather, Josef and Lucas.

FIRST COMES MARY

Enchanted morning swim, matrix of turquoise
lagoon. Silver palometas, yellow damselfish
caress my legs. Casa Ocio walls whitewashed
in cactus milk. Coconuts on the lawn.
Palm fronds bowing, rippling like sea anemones.
Heavy mahogany Hemingway digs.
Gecko chirps from behind a gilt frame.
Cool terrazzo marble pulls sand from toes.
Double rain showerhead. Full throttle bottle bar
under a palapa. I ponder the power
of local masonry to withstand hurricanes,
why it seems odd to name them after men.

Who are you going to meet at a resort?
Mail carriers from St. Catharines. Chiropractors
from Winnipeg. Programmed amusements for fraught
tourists wary of beggars. Cockatiels. Street vendors.
They recoil at pulque, mescal, even tequila,
unless it’s frozen, goes down like a Slurpee.
They tap into barrels of Corona or deposit derrières
under cabanas to read the latest Grisham.

Beneath an arbor of pink bougainvillea
sit my dubious nephew, delicate girlfriend,
doubts sinking slowly into the deep
purple cushions. We are going to town. To Playa.
Soft brown doves adorn neon.
Turtles bask on green tile mosaic. Red house
hosts a party tableau of orange Fanta, blue corn
flowers, flags of paper lace, chocolate pan de huevos.
We smell agave, chili, vanilla, coriander and anise,
hear mariachis blaze a mighty La Bamba. Gobble
pumpkin tamales, snow-white beach cooling our heels.
Mongrels expire at the feet of professional urchins
soliciting pesos. I will not cry, pick a white handkerchief
festooned with poinsettias embroidered by his mother.
No, I can’t buy them all. Though downcast he will not cry.
Our Lady of Guadalupe provides. Protects.

Christmastime but it’s Mary I see. Everywhere. To the faithful
the forever virgin manifests in Continue reading →

A life roiling with verse, visible and otherwise

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Let there be confusion and terror, bleached bones in the closet, crows soaring into the chimney. Here I sit, sweating in the dead of winter, mind and guts roiling. My new collection, Three Blocks West of Wonderland, is out, I’m feeling fabulous and working hard at workin’ it. That’s actually the cover of Gabrielle Everall’s remarkable verse novel Dona Juanita and the love of boys but there is so much life within this one life! My life. Such as it is. Still, precious.

This frenzied phase began about a month ago, in Gibsons of all places. Brian Palmu kindly invited me to read my poetry along with my dear friend Peter Trower. I had reassured Pete that I would go up there to help clear out the 40-year long residence he was vacating. Small house, big job. So, I thought I would kill the proverbial two birds with one stone, keep my promise and do the reading.

Pete grovelled, grateful for my well-honed organizational skills. I walked in, opened cupboards and drawers, asking, “What’s this? You keeping it? Giving it away?” Then I made piles, one for the Salvation Army, one for Stuff To Keep and one for The Dump. This town still has a town dump! Bear Watching we called it in Salmo, cheap entertainment, featuring the best in local talent. Voila! The packing took a while, we had to retrieve boxes and tape, but the work was accomplished with a minimum of fuss.

The next day, Brian and his girlfriend Verna graciously hosted Pete and I Continue reading →

3 Blocks press release. Life has been nuts! I mean more than usual…

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…which is my excuse for the dearth of blog entries. My neck was screwed up and caused an incredible amount of pain.

I’ll shall return with a proper journal type entry, I promise


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

HALEY’S POETRY STIRS AND SHAKES, KNOCKS AND SHOCKS
Heather Susan Haley, Three Blocks West of Wonderland, Ekstasis Editions

Vancouver, BC, Dec. 14, 2009 —Trailblazing poet, author, musician and media artist Heather Susan Haley’s new book, Three Blocks West of Wonderland, has hit the streets just in time for the holidays.

“Fierce, racy, full of stiletto irony, verve — yet rife with sensitivity. Three Blocks West of Wonderland is a highly fuelled poetic ride. Her LA, southern B.C. coast, energy-haunted world draws you electrically in and does not let you go. Like the subject of one of the elegies in this collection, Haley stirs, provokes the atmosphere.” – Author Russell Thornton,The Human Shore, House Built of Rain, Harbour Publishing.

Haley has been actively involved in her art for over a decade and has gained renown as an engaging performer and media artist; she is the author of a previous collection, Sideways (Anvil Press), Haley’s poetry has been selected for inclusion in numerous prestigious journals and anthologies including Geist and last year’s Verse Map of Vancouver.

Haley has been an editor for LA Weekly and publisher of Rattler and the Edgewise Café, one of Canada’s first electronic literary magazines. Founder of Continue reading →