Asian Spices And Variety
February 13 1995
-A Home Away From Home-
By: Rob Michalchuk
The following article never made it into Humpin' In The Back Room
Sure it smells like beer and smoke and the washroom smells like something died. But fuck its been a home away from home for me theses past four months. Literally I mean home sometimes since I've slept on the Dirge bed about five or six times over night... hopefully never to stay there again after Phil (Jason Watson and Furry Ongion guitarist) said he found a dead mouse floating in the toilet and promptly flushed the little fucker down the drain fitting place since mice do remind me of furry turds crawling up the side of the couch and walking all over me in my sleep... and then have it shit on my face. So I try to stay awake or just go home to my nice warm bed and fall asleep there, and the flies that are there are fucking huge. It's amazing that they can even fly and their damn annoying at some times! Did I forget to mention anymore wildlife?
I remember when I first walked into that place.. The first thing I noticed was the ceiling decorations hanging from the ceiling consisting of faded red paper fold out bells the kind you see at weddings in three different sizes... small as your fist large as your hand and as big as your head
.
The paper bell and foil ball can be seen in this Jan 20th 1995 photo
Oh and not to forget a nice shiny plastic foil star ball. Plus a fly catcher in the back. There was about 20 things in all hanging from the ceiling adding a little charm to the whole scene now there's only about four... all either burned, smashed or whatever. and just recently the foil ball was desecrated.... FUCK! That one was my favorite one of the lot. Finally to add to the decor even more... a nice electrical outlet hangs from the ceiling in the centre of the shop.
In this February 6th 1995 photo you can see the outlet (did this ever meet building code?)
The place was bare looking but that would change of course. There was two drum sets there. Jamie's from Dirge and Greg's from Loser Parade... Jamie's old wooden drum set which later fell apart piece by piece and was gone within a month. There was Mark's bass amp and Phil's guitar amp and the Loser Parade's vocal amp and some guitars and cases... oh and one cello that was it. The place obviously had more potential for storage capacity. despite its bleak looking facade of bars on the door and on the smashed front window... I could see it being a cool place to be. I brought my mother fucker of an amp (which filled space) big early 60's Kay with Radio Shack speakers and a nice wooden box that my dad made to go with it... despite it's looks it was a quiet piece of shit. Which just had junk piled on it. My extension speakers would come then my empty speaker cabinet to hold the Salvation Army Mr. Coffee machine (the holes where the speakers used to go worked out just fine, so you could place it over an outlet and plug and unplug Mr. Coffee just easy) and the beer. Oh and plus my fucking disgusting Halloween candy. The was the shittiest candy I've ever tasted but Jeff liked the Flintstone's chocolate and Jasper loved the cat's eye candies... both almost made me have a vomiting fit euuggg.... Well to each their own. Then I brought some of my nice wooden chairs in (I thought they were nice, after all they were outside in the weather for only two years) Well there not there anymore One fell to pieces when Mark sat on it... just think Jasper was jumping on it the night before, the other got taken apart by Jamie for some type of drum stand contraption. The last one got totally destroyed by Jimmy and I. Mark later brought in plushy orange swivel chairs and a brown tweed couch which my wicker bookstand later went by. Ah yes I'm almost forgetting about my speckled throw-up green carpet for the doorway and Jimmies weights and bench. Since the cops were coming to us (three times) because the people in Greenfield were complaining about the noise.. Matt and Greg put up two layers of egg flats on the windows to keep out the noise. However within two weeks they all fell off, so Mark brought in some blue sandy carpet and that's what's up on the door and window now.
In this photo from Jan 7th 1995 after the Dave's Garage show you can see the blue and green speckled carpet as well as the weight bench behind Rob
(all nicely spray painted) Ah... and the final touch of class... band posters... sticker templates... stories... photos... a nice map of Brantford and a Canadian and Ontario flag which have fallen down. All that adds to the warmth and quaintness of the Asian Spice Shop. There's four garbage bags of trash by the door... smashed egg flats all over the place... pieces of chair... paper... broken strings... pieces of a plastic light up pink furry creature all over the place... smashed speakers with bits of magnet all over the place... uh.. what else... shit it looks like a fucking tornado went through there but its home and finally a recent touch of class was added... a nice patterned rug is on the floor in the practice area. Gives the place a nice artsy look. All this shit adds to the nice warm and quaintness to the place I call the Asian Spice Shop. I'm sure that there's a lot more things to tell about the shop These are only some of my memories there's a lot more that happens there. It's great to be part of the Spice Shop crowd and lets hope for another four months or more.
Jan, Jeff and Jonah can be seen in this January 7th 1995 Spice Shop photo
Jeff reading a CompuServe magazine on the Dirge Bed, note the egg flats in the background
February 6th 1995 of Jeff Reniers rocking out at the Asian Spice Shop
More thoughts on the Asian Spice Shop can be read in Ryan Korczak's Humpin' In The Back Room Issue #1 article.
Last updated September 1st 2003
