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It's no secret to my friends that Construction & Destruction are my favourite Canadian band. Their music is challenging and beautiful, and they have written some of the best songs I've ever heard. I recently had the privilege of touring with them for several months, and boy do they ever have some great new songs. After getting back from that tour, they recorded a lot of those songs for their next album, entitled Mutatis Mutandis, and they're just waiting for the right circumstances to release it.

Yes, this is a plea for money.

You see, the thing is that Colleen and Dave (Construction & Destruction), like most Canadian independent musicians, are not exactly rolling in dough. And dough - a lot of it - is what people need to put out albums these days. C&D need to find $2,200 to press their record and get it to the public. You and me? Yes, we are that public. So they've tried something different: through a fundraising website, they are selling copies of their album in advance, along with other merch, the idea being that someone like you might want to give them $15 or $50 or more in order to help them make the album which you are thereby pre-ordering. The hitch is, if they don't reach their goal, they don't get any of the money. Right now they have raised $610 out of $2200 and they need you to help them. Get it? If you're confused, or for more info and to pre-order what will undoubtedly be another amazing C&D record, check out

http://www.indiegogo.com/Construction-Destructions-new-album-MUTATIS-MUT...

If you don't know their music, have a listen to their myspace at www.myspace.com/davidtrenaman . They really are the best songwriters and best band around as far as I'm concerned, and I will be very upset with the world, even more than I already am, if they can't put out this record. I am a sensitive man, and I will cry and write sad music about it and then people will complain that the Burning Hell is getting depressing again and it will be ALL YOUR FAULT.

Did I mention that I love you? I do, but not as much as I love Construction & Destruction.

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First of all, thanks to Mort Goss for taking this and other photographs that make us look like the rock stars we felt like at the Dawson City Music Festival this summer... Now, I've been to my share of music festivals, and the DCMF has a certain reputation among musicians and festival-goers alike for being leaps and bounds better than the rest. So we were all pretty excited and honoured to be asked to play this year, but I admit that I went into it with a bit of healthy skepticism. Sort of like when your friends tell you that a particular movie is the "best movie ever", and gush to you in epic run-on sentences about all the details of the plot, going on and on and on about the acting and the cinematography, which is a word that your friends probably shouldn't try and use in the first place, and then you go see it and sure, the effects were pretty good, and Jeff Goldblum was a nice surprise, but really, it's just another movie in the end, and you still paid way too much to sit in an over-air conditioned theatre eating ten dollar popcorn that makes you sick and you get popcorn salt in your eyes somehow and then you have to drive home from the megaplex in the suburbs and by the time you get back it's 2am and the bars are closed and you've completely forgotten the plot of the movie in the first place.

So I went to Dawson being pretty sure that it would be great, no doubt, but in the end, just another festival. And like every other thing I've ever been sure of, I was completely wrong. Everything from the lineup to the volunteers to the venues to the billets to the food was absolutely perfect. Perfect! Huge kudos to Tim Jones, Matt Sarty, Jill and Bluey and everyone else: you guys exceeded all the stereotypes of the best festival in Canada in so many ways.

Personal highlights included: playing possibly my favourite show I've ever played, at the beautiful Palace Grand, with an amazing lineup of Harbourcoats, tUnE-yArDs, and Dan Mangan and with the King of Hosts Mr Vish Khanna at the helm; playing in a packed-out ukulele workshop (finally the instrument is getting some respect!); falling repeatedly down a slippery grass slope with members of Eliot Brood at the best after-party I've ever been to; witnessing the most awe-inspiring soul band in the world (JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound); going on a paddle-wheel booze cruise down the Yukon River with Winnipeg's amazing D Rangers; singing Eye of The Tiger on the main stage with Pat LePoidevin; and of course being one of dozens of people crammed on stage singing Fight For Your Right To Party at the close of the festival, while having my childhood shaken to the core, finding myself pumping fists in the air to the Beastie Boys next to none other than Fred Penner.

So thank you, DCMF, for proving me wrong. You win.

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Three months on the road and over 60 shows in Europe (plus many fun weeks with our large and boisterous Berlin-based contingent of friends and accomplices) was exactly enough to make me want to follow in the footsteps of the hordes of North Americans moving to Berlin and be yet another dude with a beard and retro glasses spending their time being creatively unemployed in Kreuzberg. But I have responsibilities! I have taxes to pay! I have weddings to attend!

So it has been with heavy heart and heavy touring weight gain that I have left the land of cheese and beer and traveled back to the land of ice and strip-malls. But now that I'm back, I'm having a good time. I forgot how much fun trees are. And the nice thing about Europe is that it will be there in October when I return, unlike these extra pounds.

Innumerable thanks are due to the wonderful folks we met and worked with over the last few months, each one worthy of their own paragraph. you know who you are, especially YOU.

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We're a quarter of the way in on our 60+ show tour of Europe with Shotgun Jimmie and Construction & Destruction, and so far it has been full of pasta, great shows and good times. No doubt we'll all kill each other soon. Highlights from the last two weeks include being treated like rock stars in Bratislava (Dakujeme Pohoda!), playing a house show in Croatia to Zagreb's cultural & artistic elite, drinking borovichka until the wee hours in Slovenia, and discovering the most amazing out of the way places in Northern Italy... and now we're in Liechtenstein, which brings our micro-state count up to two on this tour (the other was San Marino). And so far the Icelandic ash-cloud of death hasn't dulled a single sky. Onward!

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Breakfast has been a recurring theme in my life. Almost every day, I've eaten a meal of some kind in the morning, or whatever passes for morning. This tour has been no different. Sometimes there is toast, sometimes eggs. Sometimes fruit, but usually not. Almost always coffee. I'm just sitting here in a creepy motel room in Cranbrook, waiting to play after 'Jam Night' is done at Finnegan's Wake, and getting all deep and heavy: for every Jam Night in Cranbrook, there is a morning featuring jam on toast. And look how much Vish is enjoying it. And maybe if we all concentrated on how nice breakfast is, and perhaps tried to eat it together more often, then just maybe - just maybe - we would never EVER have to hear dudes in baseball caps covering Better Than Ezra songs ever again.

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Sorry Montreal: your glory days are over, and no amount of fires or arcades or little moustaches, tight pants and 80s sunglasses can save you. Bruno, Saskatchewan is the best indie music scene in Canada. And this is entirely because of All Citizens, an espresso bar/zine store/music and art venue run by the amazing Tyler Brett. Before we got to Bruno we had this conversation in the car (I'm paraphrasing):

Me: "Hey guys, I think this show at All Citizens is going to restore my faith in live music."
Vish: "You're probably right, Mathias. But then, you always are."
Wax: "I concur!"

And it was true. People of Earth, go to Bruno. You will drink delicious coffee, and you will buy fantastic art. You will listen to all sorts of great music from around the country, and you will leave knowing that even as our world overflows with loud shitty bars and a music industry that cares more about dollars than sense, there are places - a few - that you can go that bring back a bit of the magic.

Look here: http://www.allcitizens.org/