By: Derek Spencer
It is the merry morning time. I am traipsing into my office and now I am sipping my coffee and reading messages left by other people who traipsed into their offices and sipped their coffee before me. Do I suspect, here in my morning state, that within the next hour, I will hear the line “We are the kings of Nova Scotia” sung over-upon-over in a bossa nova-esque melody, laying over harmonize-matched guitar riffages, creating for me some wry international pun and an internal, yet mild, sense of disquiet? (What is nova, anyways, other than the obvious “nuclear explosion caused by a dying dead star”? I mean in the Brazilian and Canadian sense, what is nova?) No, dear reader, no. I do not expect this, but it is what has happened this morning. The ceaselessly punny 80’s apologists known to over 2,000 facebook users as Moses Nose are responsible for this disruption to my life of expected occasions, and whether or not I’m happy about it is none of your business.
“Oh man, oh man. You’ve gotta check out ‘The Burning Bush‘!” reads the email I received from Mister Vincent Randazzo on March the 10th. He is a master of viral marketing, because indeed, upon reading this short message over 2 months past due, I knew that yes, I gotta check this out, this album, The Burning Bush. This Mr. Vincent is the vocalist and guitarist of the band aforementioned– again here in print for the second time, Moses Nose– and yet also he is clearly the mouthpiece of the band, using tongue and finger to spread word of his groups artistic pursuits to the world wide world.
I listen and I say “this is not what I thought I would hear this morning,” with all the 80’s coming all over the place like my ears, gushing some might even say. Headphones overflow with the 80’s. I hear a man, formerly known to me as Vincent but now known to me as the man who just spake: “rock or be rocked upon”, he says now, he says: “I’m a sad man…. i’ll tell you straight up I don’t give a shit.” Oh no! This is a frightening time, that 80’s rockers such as Vincent and the Moses Noses crew might think so little of themselves. they have so much to offer! So much music, so much yelling, so much good emails! For what cause is this self-deprecation perpetrated and to what end? Shall I fear for the well-being of Vincent? What of Josh, Joey, and Trevor (if Vincent is the septum of the Moses Nose, then these thrice men-o-men are the duel nostrils and bridge, in turn)?
And then the bossa nova hits me and I am a new man. Please, lay more on me! Lay it on Thick! I will stop drinking this coffee and start drinking a new cup of coffee. This merry morning is merry in a new way, a way that only things that have been sitting in/on the backs of record stores for 30 years can be merry, pools of recycled slugde for me to drink out of my coffee pot with a smile on my face. We are the kings of Nova Scotia indeed. Please, by means of all to and from the people, continue to make rock which sometimes includes rapping. Please, for to all the folks who need it and you, never stop the pun! Be well, Vincent and the Nose parts, continue on with music and your ways of living little by little. You are adored.
Incontinence of Sound 