Because of what came before, what came together and what came after, the record of the 00s decade is Haulers from Another Blue Door. It's a concentration of forces into a single document of a time which burst into fragments. It summed up one decade and set up the oncoming.

There is a whole novel in Haulers, a whole novel in Another Blue Door. Some day someone will write it, I guess. It will be centred on five blokes and a truck stop. Already you can see it, hear them in the back talking, planning, discussing futures and options and coffee and waitresses. High school pals from small farming communities, not quite towns, not quite places. Signs tell you nothing about the kids there. Art does.

Songs on this record tell you about these kids, friends, the hours watching a phone on a wall, a phone that never rings. It will tell you of watching truckers fuel up and leave, of the lure of the road, the possibilities of horizons. Then for now, life is just plans and songs and guitars and practices and more guitars. Always guitars.

Five guys from Hampton and Maple Grove and Enniskillen and other blink-and-you'll-miss'em spots around Bowmanville jamming it all out. Everything, the hurts, the frustrations, the lonely slow walks in the falling snow from her house home.

It's all in there, Haulers, the record, from the band, Another Blue Door, sent out completed in 2003. Ask them why we are left with this perfect mix of wet afternoon grunge and open sky guitar solos reverberating like Northern Lights. Another Blue Door is where Pearl Jam meets My Bloody Valentine.

Ask T. Craig Toutant, now in Champion Heartache; ask Pete Carmichael, now in the Diableros; ask Thom D'Arcy, once of the Carnations, now in Small Sins, or Steve Krecklo, now playing with K-Os, or ask Nathan Rekker, now in Sports; he joined ABD after Thom. Ask them for they were all hauling in ABD.

Ask Dave Schoonderbeek, whose voice, a throaty fragile whine with a deep poetic intensity, is so key to the proceedings; ask why the band split? Maybe he'll say, 'What can I say, we've drifted a distance away'. Folks grow up. Time moves on. Folks move on.

So we have Haulers and, as schedules allow, the occasional rare reunion show, such as went down prior to Christmas at the Silver Dollar. There men become boys from Bowmanville again. Individuals accede to the bond of the band. They stand on stage older, yet one nod, one snap on the snare and they are kids once more making something from nothing. Something that became truth in the intervening years. Something that lasted and continues to last, to mean something. Yes, even now.

S/T

Postdata

Silly Old Songs

I really love where this record goes. This is the side project of Wintersleep's Paul Murphy with his brother Michael. It's nine tracks of broken folk with keen production. The guitarist for the Juno-winning band has some of Patrick Watson's steampunk classicisms on Eclipse and some of Matthew Good's intensity on In Chemicals. But it don't mean a thing if it don't swing and it does on tracks like Drift, Tracers or The Coroner. The process is very much part of the presentation. Each breadth, chord change, background echo is here. It's reflective and organic and as the duo tout scotch as an inspiration, I'm going to confirm my sense that there is a kindred spirit between Postdata and local singer/songwriter Patrick Dorie. The disc will be available the end of January.

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