This is perhaps an ongoing series of lessons I have learned in my time as a human.

Lesson 1: Never marry, then subsequently divorce, someone with good taste in music

No matter how you feel about someone, an album might become hard to find. I once had the traumatic experience of splitting a record collection. Yes I was once married¹, and then divorced². When we split there were many records that only one of us cared about such as my Bob Dylan records; there were records that no one wanted, such as Pretty Together by Sloan; and of course records that we both wanted, albums we bought as a couple that we both fell in love with.

Among the records we fought over was This Is It, Here We Go by The Local Rabbits. The fight looked something like this:

Lisa won. So even though my blog’s namesake song is on a CD I don’t have in my collection anymore, I still love that record. Every time the record would play in iTunes, I’d get off the couch, walk over to my CDs, and go to pull it off the shelf, except it’s never there. I got tired of that, so I started looking for it in record stores; HMV, Mike’s Music, Criminal, Soundscapes, Sonic Boom, none of them had it. Every time I was in a record store I’d make my way over to the Local Rabbits section, if I was lucky, they have a second, if I was unlucky, I’d just flip through the “L Misc.” section, breathlessly waiting.

I always seemed to fail. Then today, I went to Sonic Boom, for two reasons 1) to see sexy Ron Sexsmith perform; 2) to pick up Wild Flag’s debut 7″. I excelled at the former while I failed at the latter, but I had an excellent idea, while talking to Jo and Joe, I thought, maybe just maybe, if I went upstairs they’d have This Is It, Here We Go. I dragged Jo along with me upstairs, on this never-ending wild goose chase to find sitting amongst the used CDs a lone disc in the Local Rabbits second, there a beautiful and stunning album called This Is It, Here We Go. And now it sits snugly between their record Basic Concepts and Looper’s Up A Tree.

1. Yes, some woman was batty enough to fall for me. [↩]
2. Must’ve come to her senses. [↩]

Today, I said to myself that it was time to rebrand this page. Though it’s a personal page, it’s more about music/film/etc than it is about Adam Anklewicz. So after debating over many domains, I chose this one, neverhadtofight.com. “Never Had To Fight” is a Local Rabbits song written by Peter Elkas. It’s the second track on their final, and best record This Is It, Here We Go.

I did this in the afternoon today, about an hour ago, I got a message in MSN from Jay… you know, Trig… from The Board. A while ago, I told him that Gooseberry records was doing a Sloan tribute album, and a Local Rabbits tribute album.

The conversation began with him saying…

I ruined your favourite rabbits song.

I read that as “You ruined my favourite rabbits song.” I was wondering how he knew so quickly that I now had this blog under neverhadtofight.com. Well, I was wrong, and he’s sent me his cover, which can be sampled here, and it’s awesome. Sure it’s not as awesome as the Rabbits, but it’s up there.

1) Sleater-Kinney – The Woods (2005)
2) The Magnetic Fields – i (2004)
3) Belle & Sebastian – Dear Catastrophe Waitress (2003)
4) The Flashing Lights – Sweet Release (2001)
5) Neko Case & Her Boyfriends – Furnace Room Lullaby (2000)
6) The Joel Plaskett Emergency – Down At The Khyber (2001)
7) Julie Doiron – Woke Myself Up (2007)
8) Neil Young – Live At Massey Hall 1971 (2007)
9) Valery Gore – Avalanche To Wandering Bear (2008)
10) God Help The Girl – God Help The Girl (2009)

11) Wilco – A Ghost Is Born (2004)
12) Joel Plaskett – Three (2009)
13) Neko Case – Fox Confessor Brings The Flood (2005)
14) The Rural Alberta Advantage – Hometowns (2008)
15) Valery Gore – Valery Gore (2005)
16) Andrew Bird’s Bowl of Fire – The Swimming Hour (2001)
17) Elevator – A Taste of Complete Perspective (2000)
18) The Guthries – Off Windmill (2000)
19) The Magnetic Fields – Distorion (2008)
20) Cuff The Duke – Cuff The Duke (2005)

21) Matt Mays – Matt Mays (2002)
22) The Apples In Stereo – New Magnetic Wonder (2007)
23) Neko Case – Canadian Amp (2001)
24) Local Rabbits – This Is It, Here We Go (2001)
25) One Hundred Dollars – Forest of Tears (2007)
26) The Guthries – The Guthries (2002)
27) The Joel Plaskett Emergency – Ashtray Rock (2007)
28) Amy Millan – Honey From The Tombs (2006)
29) Elliott Brood – Ambassador (2005)
30) The New Pornographers – Mass Romantic (2000)

31) Rufus Wainwright – Poses (2001)
32) The Superfantastics – Pop-up Book (2007)
33) Dan Mangan – Nice, Nice, Very Nice (2009)
34) George Harrison – Brainwashed (2001)
35) Belle & Sebastian – The Life Pursuit (2006)
36) Sleater-Kinney – One Beat (2002)
37) Final Fantasy – Has A Good Home (2005)
38) K’naan – The Dusty Foot Philosopher (2005)
39) The Bicycles – The Good, The Bad & The Cuddly (2006)
40) Elliott Smith – From a Basement on the Hill (2004)

41) Peter Elkas – Wall of Fire (2007)
42) Gentleman Reg – Darby & Joan (2004)
43) Neko Case – Middle Cyclone (2008)
44) Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)
45) k-os – Joyful Rebellion (2004)
46) Matt Murphy – Bring It Back Home: The Life And Hard Times of Guy Terrifico (2004)
47) Cuff The Duke – Life Stories For Minimum Wage (2002)
48) Tom Petty – Highway Companion (2006)
49) Travis – The Boy With No Name (2007)
50) Ruth Minnikin – Marooned And Blue (2004)

I didn’t bring my camera tonight, but I went down to the Rivoli to see Anna Egge and Peter Elkas. Anna has a beautiful voice, and a handful of really good songs, but I’m not sure if I’m totally sold on her. Perhaps it’s partially because she kinda looks like a woman I work with, who I’m not too fond of. Perhaps it’s her songs. I dunno. Either way, her set was enjoyable, but nothing to write home about. She wins bonus points for the cover of Belle & Sebastian’s “A Summer Wasting” found on her MySpace.

Peter’s set, however, was fabulous as always. His band were a three-piece, and did a nice mixture of songs from Party of One and Wall of Fire. Elkas also played a few songs from what will one day be his third record (which he’s recording with Thrush Hermit’s Ian McGettigan). Of those songs, three were fantastic, fun, and wonderful; one wasn’t.

Sidenote: Peter, I’m sorry I yelled out “61 Days,” but you can’t blame me, it’s a fabulous song.

Another note: I spoke with Ben Gunning during the show, and he mentioned a show coming up at The Drake on December 9th.