Tricky Woo – First Blush

I actually bought this CD…though I think I bought it secondhand…but the point is I paid for it and being several hundred thousand dollars in debt right now and also out of a job, it’s a pretty fucking exceptional thing for me to actually go out and buy a record. I probably saw it when I was selling off old records so I could buy some diapers and decided to forego the ultra-soft Huggies for the regular brand just so I could revisit some of the indescribable pleasures that Tricky Woo provided what is it? seven years ago (!!! Where does time fly?!?) on their Sometimes I Cry album. I unfortunately just caught the tail end of the Woo’s initial zenith, missed the naked concerts, the legendary Toronto shows, caught a short set of the hard rockin’ Woo before they took a turn for the expansive, exchanging a fist in the face for a hug. I suffered through one concert with not only a flute solo but a fuckin’ RAINSTICK INTERLUDE (!!!) before I turned away, my head shaking, looking elsewhere to feed my jones for the energy music known as RAWK. And then the Woo was no longer, they were Soft Machine and who cares about that? I didn’t until I heard another thing, they were born again and born to rock and rock go go. So I bought this record and my expectations were high so I was initially disappointed until I played it one afternoon in the midst of a coffee buzz while I was hammering away at some arts grant proposal so I can pay for daycare (Harper! Where’s my hundred dollars this month? Dumb fuck.) and I started shaking and doing the nod and my god it was a song that had been written a million years ago, recorded on my DNA and finally released into the air on sixteen strings (two guitars and a bass, Einstein) and a drum set. Hallelujah, momma, the boys are back in town! (Terence Dick)

CD, Last Gang, 4446 St. Laurent #301, Montreal QC, H2W 1Z5, www.trickywoo.org