Choir and Marching Band

If you knew how often Trevor Rockwell came out of his spacesuit and played live in Edmonton you would have been there. If his music was on anything but cassette you would have been there. If Trevor made a poster that didn't look like insane babbling scribbled homework you might have been there. As it turned out, about two of Trevor's closest friends, some random weirdos and a couple bewildered others enjoyed Trevor's two short sets: Trevor on electric guitar and his friend Tim on snare and crash cymbal.

I'm not certain, but it seemed like an improvised show on Tim's part. Trevor would start the songs, Tim would follow tentatively on the snare and look for hints on the time changes. There weren't always that many time changes. One of my favourite instances of a really great show overall was this long and repetitive pop drone a la Smog with Trevor singing what I thought was "I love flies" or "I love lies." I think it was actually "I love life," but by the time I deciphered Trevor's quiet falsetto he was changing the lyrics with each line: "I live like life, I love love love, I love like life, I live like love." His guitar accompaniment was complex and repetitive also, but interesting. His voice high and heady.

For crowd favourite "Armstrong," he changed to a truly disjointed guitar tuning, and Tim let loose. Trevor's music is mostly pop arrangements. His songs are about icicles and astronauts. His cassettes are dense and hooky, recorded in his bedroom on his 4-track, Trevor doing all the instruments. He seems awkward and uncomfortable until he starts each song, and then there's his odd tales and perverse magic and two hours is, like this review, too short. - Mote Magazine, April 1999

The first 11 tunes flow together in a quirky suite that showcases Rockwell's flair for basement geek rock. The lo-fi instrumental "Isle of Life" establishes a cool hypno riff that is genuinely trippy, while the blend of accordion and electric guitar in "Cactusand Rockysand" and the acoustic sci-fi ballad "Lift Off" confirms why admirers of Lou Barlow, Jad Fair and Daniel Johnson cherish such stuff. The laid back ballad "Mir Cure Me" and oddball cut & paste instrumental "Theme Song" are other highlights of a home-made, rough-hewn, anti-commercial artefact. - Exclaim Magazine, Nov. 7 2000