Hey, kids, welcome to the Phile for a Monday, how are you? So, this past weekend like I mentioned on Saturday was Gay Days at Disney. The Florida Family Association hired a few planes to fly banner's over the parks. Here is what the banner looked like.
The irony moment was the banner being was towed though the sky warning of Gay Days at Disney by an aircraft known as a "bi-plane" Well, kids, do you watch "Jeopardy"? Alex Trebek says he may retire at the end of the season. Trebek says he wants to spend more time at home, arrogantly correcting his family. The answers won't be there on cards at home, Trebek. Did you hear some schools across the country were banning spelling bees. For obvious reasons, of course... steroids. Some people take the spelling bee very seriously. These people are called "parents of children in the spelling bee." They're trying to make up for their own childhood of crushed dreams and misspelled words. One thing I've noticed about the spelling bee is everyone in the audience is very, very quiet. New York City's Mayor Bloomberg is cracking down on the most dangerous threat to the Big Apple: sodas. Bloomberg wants to outlaw sodas and other sugary drinks over 16 ounces. I try to limit my sugar intake. That's why I eat little fun-size candy bars. But I eat them 50 at a time. By the time I'm done, nobody's having fun. My almond joy turns to almond shame. Who is this Mayor Bloomberg who thinks he can tell us what we can and can't drink? Probably one of those vegan fascists who drives a Prius. This ban only applies to large sodas, 16 ounces or more. So if sodas were Kardashians, they're really just banning Khloe. New Yorkers, I've got a tip for you. Here is a way to get around the ban. Buy two 12-ounce sodas. All the soda you can drink in exchange for paying twice the sales tax. Bloomberg, you midget genius! Wait, I don't drink soda... unless you count cream soda. Well, a few weeks ago we went to see Slash in concert. I was so happy to see he was selling inspirational posters.
I don't understand it though, who is not unimpressed? Slash? Last month Newsweek I think it was called President Obama the first gay President. I think that was stepping over the line, he's not gay. And then I saw this picture...
And now for some sad news...
Richard Dawson
Nov 20, 1932 - Jun 2, 2012
100 people were surveyed, top 5 answers are on the board, here's the question: What talentless, unattractive, kiss-crazy game show weirdo finally got beat by esophageal cancer?
Alright, something is happening tomorrow on June 5th, an election of some kind. I kinda lost track of everything during Star Wars Month. Anyway, a friend of the Phile wanted to come on and talk about tomorrow. So, please welcome to the Phile once again, Chair of the Democratic National Committee...
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Me: Hello, Debbie, welcome back to the Phile. So, what's so important about tomorrow?
Debbie: Jason, of all the elections we are preparing for in 2012, one of the most important ones isn't happening in November. Tomorrow, the people of Wisconsin will have their chance to recall Governor Scott Walker, whose attacks on workers' and women's rights are the definition of a fireable offense.
Me: Okay, I live in Florida though. I am sure I have some readers in Wisconsin. So, I am guessing the Democrats are rallying around your nominee. Who is your nominee?
Debbie: Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. And we are organizing one of the largest get-out-the-vote efforts in state history.
Me: It's up to Democrats across the country to help win this thing, right?
Debbie: Organizers and volunteers on the ground across Wisconsin are knocking on doors, talking to neighbors, and making phone calls to make sure voters know the stakes in this year's elections.
Me: So, Debbie, how important is this outcome?
Debbie: The outcome is important to anyone who supports Democratic values, no matter where you live.
Me: And what has Walker been doing?
Debbie: Governor Walker has spent the last year and a half dividing Wisconsin. He's cut sweetheart deals for wealthy corporate donors and special interests, while students, families, and workers are facing very different kinds of cuts: slashed budgets for education and teachers, higher health care premiums for tens of thousands, and devastating attacks on the rights of public employees to negotiate wages and working conditions. And Walker's done all this while overseeing the worst jobs record in the country for the last year and a half. Now he's spending millions in special interest money, including support from the Koch brothers, to buy his way out of a recall.
Me: And your candidate, Tom Barrett, what has he done?
Debbie: Tom Barrett has made creating jobs a priority his entire career... as Milwaukee's mayor, he brought the public and private sectors together to transform the region into a thriving business community, bringing hundreds of new jobs, many in clean energy, to Wisconsin. And he did it while defending core Democratic principles... protecting the environment and the rights of workers, standing up for a woman's right to choose, and supporting a strong middle class.
Me: Well, I guess choices don't get clearer than this, do they, Debbie?
Debbie: Winning in Wisconsin sends a powerful message to the far-right extremists, and it starts to roll back their worst offenses. To build our organization and make it happen, Democrats need to come together to turn out hundreds of thousands of voters... and we all have a part to play.
Me: Well, thanks, Debbie, and good luck. People in Wisconsin, vote for Barrett I guess. Debbie, talk to you soon.
Debbie: Thanks, Jason.
The 18th artist to be pheatured in the P.P.A.G. is comic book artist Robert Pope and this is one of his drawings.
Robert will be a guest on the Phile in a few weeks.
Alright, today's guest was last on the Phile August 1st, 2011. He has two albums under his "band" name Infinite-Lane Highway available on iTunes... "Infinity-Lane Highway" and "The Long Dark Road". Please welcome back to the Phile, our friend... Marc Savoie.
Me: Bonjour, Marc, welcome back to the Phile, for the third time. How are you?
Marc: Hi, Jason! Feeling great, thank you! Glad to be back!
Me: Are you still living in Montreal?
Marc: Yes, although I wouldn’t mind living abroad for a while, if only to appreciate it more when I come back. It’s a great city, though.
Me: Is French your first language, Marc?
Marc: Yes. I’m a French Canadian who studied French literature and who is now teaching it as a fulltime job! Can’t get more French than that! On the other hand, I studied at McGill University and I've always been fascinated by English and American cultures. I used to write songs in French a couple of years ago, but I switched to English at the same time I decided to go from folk to rock.
Me: So, I have to ask you about this... one of your songs from your first album was in the cartoon show "Generator Rex"? Is that right?
Marc: Yes, that’s right. It is featured at the end of an episode called "A Family Holiday", which is episode 15 from season 2.
Me: What song was it, Marc? It’s a song called "Close to You" and no, it's not a cover of The Carpenters! LOL.
Me: How did you find out about this, your song being on the show?
Marc: Well, it happened last Summer, in July, same time as my mom died of cancer. I was devastated and did not really pay too much attention to some of the emails I received. One of them was from Socan, the Canadian Company that administers the composers performing rights and royalties. It was saying I had received money for one of my songs, but I didn't read it at the time. I was convinced it was another newsletter or something. I also noticed that "Close to You" was selling rather well on iTunes compared to my other songs, but I didn't really know what to make of it. And anyway, my mind was elsewhere, as you can surely understand. Then, recently, a young lady commented on my Facebook page that she had always liked "Close toYou" since she had first heard it on "Generator Rex". I did some research… et voilà! Thanks to her, I finally discovered what I had missed.
Me: Have you ever seen or heard of the show?
Marc: No, to be honest, up to this point, I had not heard of the show, unfortunately. It seems good, though, and I was really flattered that the people in charge chose my song for an episode, especially an episode that seems to be among the fans favorites. If I'm not mistaken, it's the episode where the lead characters go on their first date. And my song was used to mark this moment! Pretty cool!
Me: My son watches "Generator Rex" I believe. Did you contact anybody connected with the show and asked them how they found your song?
Marc: I wrote a thank you email to the show’s music composer, but learned since that he may not have anything to do with it. The director or the musical director is probably the person I should thank.
Me: This is really cool for you, Marc. Especially if they release the show on DVD and stuff. I hope you are getting royalties for this.
Marc: Yes. Of course, it's far from what the Beatles received when "Tomorrow Never Knows" was recently featured in“Mad Men”... LOL, but still… it's pretty nice to receive some kind of financial retribution for your work.
Me: So, how have you been, my friend? How is your painted Ibanez? I have a picture of it here.
Marc: I'm doing better now. I was really close to my mother and I was taking care of her the best I could. It was really hard when she passed away. I've already lost my father in 2002, so it makes it even harder. On a lighter note, I still have my painted Ibanez, of course. It weighs half a ton, like a lot of those 1970s Gibson copies, but it plays like a dream, especially since I changed the stock pickups for Gibson Burstbuckers.
Me: How many guitars do you have? It seems you have a quite a few.
Marc: Yes, you caught me! I’m an addict! I have a lot, though I sometimes sell one or two on Ebay (most of the time to finance a new one. The ones that I'm really attached to are the ones I bought in the 1990s, when I was playing live, my Ibanez and my 1996 Gretsch Silver Jet. I also recently bought a Gibson L4 which I like a lot and a Fender Custom Shop Telecaster that completely rocks! You can see those two guitars in the “Close to You” video clip.
Me: You also play keyboards, drums and everything else, right? What instrument came first?
Marc: I play bass, guitars and keyboards. The drums are programmed. I can hold a simple beat, but that's it. I thought about buying an electronic drum I could practice on in my condo, but I have already enough on my plate for now without adding drum practice on top of everything else. To answer your second question, guitar came first; classical guitar, then acoustic and electric.
Me: I don't remember if I asked you this before but how old were you when you first started to play guitar?
Marc: I was… 12, I think. My sister, who is a classically trained pianist, had received a guitar for Christmas. She taught me how to play "Horse With No Name" and that was it… I was sold! Funny thing, though, is that I never had the instinct to play my sister's right handed guitar like a left-handed one, even though I'm left-handed. And when I thought about it, it was just too late to change. I would have had to start anew.
Me: Do you remember what the first song you learned was?
Marc: It was “Horse With No Name", but "Stairway to Heaven" was the first song I really wanted to learn from beginning to end. I asked my guitar teacher at the time to teach it to me and he laughed, saying I was not good enough, that I needed more time. I came home pretty offended... LOL, said I didn't want to go to my guitar classes anymore, went to my room… and taught myself "Stairway to Heaven" with a tablature songbook I had at the time.
Me: Okay, let's talk about your band name... Infinite-Lane Highway. Those new to the Phile, explain where the name came from, Marc.
Marc: I was looking for a name that wasn't "THE something". I had already had that with The Graduates, my previous band, and The Eugenes, another one man band project of mine. I wanted something more modern sounding, in the vein of Our Lady Peace. I made a lot of lists, combined the best elements to finally come up with Infinite-Lane Highway. I immediately liked it because it combined a rock and roll cliché... the Highway and something more poetic and abstract...Infinite-Lane. To me, it was a way of saying that music could be appreciated in an infinite number of ways. We’re all on the same road, travelling together, yet we all have our own lane.
Me: You are still the only one in the band, right?
Marc: I am. Not by choice, though. I’m thinking about transforming this solo venture in a real band, but I’m not quite there yet. We’ll see!
Me: I have to tell you I play your two albums quite often, "Infinite-Lane Highway" and "Long Dark Road". Have you been working on music for a third album, Marc?
Marc: Yes, I am. The third album will integrate blues, country and southern rock influences. Of course, it will still be mainly pop/rock songs and it will still sound like an Infinite-Lane Highway album, but I think it will be a little bit edgier than the first two albums.
Me: You mentioned "Close To You", the song from the first album that was in "Generator Rex". You made a video for that song as well as you said. Was it done recently?
Marc: Yes, I did that after someone who saw the “Walking on the Ceiling” clip suggested I make one for “Close to You” as well. I thought it was a good idea, especially because I had made two clips to promote my second album, but none for the first one, apart from a couple of acoustic performances (“Rainy Smile”, “Too Good to be True” and“Time Flies Without Wings”). It made me rediscover that song, which I had a little bit forgotten.
Me: The video looked like it was fun to make, was it?
Marc: Yes, it was. The concept was really simple, there were no technical difficulties whatsoever, I could just focus on coming up with new, silly ideas, like the fishing pole. Plus, I had a lot of fun in adopting that Roy Orbison/Johnny Cash kind of look (with the Ray-Bans, the big Gibson L4 and the black jacket).
Me: Is that your dog in the video? What's his name?
Marc: I have three dogs: Mulder a dachshund, Georgie a Jack Russell and Blue the fawn Doberman you see in the clip. Most people don’t know it, but Dobermans are real sweethearts when trained correctly. And this one is no exception. I’m just crazy about him!
Me: Marc, thanks so much for being on the Phile again. You are welcomed back anytime. Go ahead and plug your website and anything else you wish. Take care, and au revoir.
Marc: Thank you, Jason! I’m really glad we stayed in touch! Long live the Peverett Phile! And to all your readers: join me of Facebook anytime! It would certainly mean a lot to me! facebook.com/pages/Infinite-Lane-Highway/91009765815, itunes.apple.com/ca/artist/infinite-lane-highway/id290959141, infinitelanehighway.com.
Well, that about does it for another entry. Thanks to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and of course Marc Savoie. The will be back next Sunday, can you wait that long, with the 500th entry pheaturing rock and roll legend Dion. Then on Monday it's Alumni Mike Finnigan from Phantom Blues Band. Spread the word, not the turd. Don't let snakes and alligators bite you. Bye, love you, bye.
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