Rock Plaza Central's delightful dirges sound like hay being spun into hurt at Black Creek Pioneer Village. It is both stomach and butter-churning. If you can get your sheep sheared in time, you should come check them out at Wavelength 252 on February 27. Bunk Bedouin donned a bonnet and stepped into the world of Rock Plaza Central's Chris Eaton, to discuss love and rockets (not the band).

QUERY: HAVE YOU, OR HAVE YOU NOT, EVER BUILT MODEL ROCKETS AND FIRED THEM IN FRONT OF A GROUP OF NEIGHBOURHOOD CHILDREN IN A SUBURBAN CUL-DE-SAC? For the most part, my experience with neighbourhood children was sitting on my fire escape in Sackville, NB, and watching them smoke up behind the laundromat while I wrote songs. Last Canada Day, though, my wife and I went to Guelph for no reason. We were the kids that time. A bunch of people who lived by the railroad tracks were drinking beer on the front lawn and lighting fireworks inside a metal garbage can. If only one of them had asked me to drink from the same bottle, my night would have been complete.

IT SEEMS SOMETIMES THAT BEAUTY IN MUSIC COMES ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY FROM SADNESS. IS THIS BECAUSE HAPPINESS JUST ISN'T BEAUTIFUL, OR BECAUSE THE MISERABLE HAVE THE MOST TO SAY? Sadness is an interesting subject for me. Because the last album sounds so irretrievably sad, and there are a few songs about heartbreak, and one about my mother getting breast cancer, but I think of most of it as being pretty happy. It's about falling in love. Just with a lot of minor keys. Perhaps falling in love is sad in its own way. Because you're so happy in those periods, and you almost expect it to come crashing down around you. You never know. Happiness is gorgeous. So is sadness. But it's uncertainty that has the most to say. It's funny. Now that I'm ecstatic with my life, I expect all my new songs to be really uplifting. But even with the big harmonies and horn flourishes, I'm expecting to get the same questions.

I READ IN TODAY'S 24 HOURS THAT THE BANJO HAD BEEN RECENTLY ARRESTED ON CHARGES OF INDECENT OVEREXPOSURE. 100% agree. The same thing happened with the cello in the mid to late `90s. I hope there isn't a backlash against the banjo in general, though. It's a wonderful instrument. Most acoustic stringed instruments are. And it would be a shame to lose it when it's used well because a few too many people use it... um... not so well.

YOUR WONDERFUL SONGS REMIND ME OF RIDING IN MY PARENT'S CAR ALONG ONE OF THOSE HIGHWAYS THAT CONNECT ONTARIO TOWNS. THE ONES STILL LITTERED WITH ABANDONED BARNS AND WHEAT FIELDS; MID-DAY. NOT MENACING, JUST SORT OF, DESOLATE AND WELCOMING AT THE SAME TIME. I'M ASSUMING YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN, EVEN THOUGH I DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU GREW UP. I grew up largely in Moncton. I went to high school with Mike Feuerstack (Wooden Stars, Snailhouse), Rick White (Eric's Trip, Elevator) and Chris Thompson (Eric's Trip, Moonsocket). Mike moved in Grade 10, though. My first Toronto show was in 1995, and Mike was on the same bill. He was already bald and I had grown a beard, and it took some time to realize he was the guy who dated my friend Debbie.

DO YOU MISS CUTTING THE LAWN IN THE SUBURBS? My Dad refused to cut the lawn. In the middle of this well-groomed hood, we had hay about three feet high. The city ordered him to cut it. He said if it was their lawn, they could mow it themselves. They sent a kid around one day, and I watched him break three mowers before he gave up.

SOMETIMES, I WISH I'D BEEN A COP - THEY LOOK LIKE THEY HAVE SO MUCH FUN AT LUNCH! THEY'RE ALWAYS SAYING STUFF LIKE "HEY, MCMURTY - IS THAT MY MEATBALL SUB?" YOU KNOW? Do cops eat at Gandhi's Roti? If so, I'm in.

THEIR ROTIS ARE THE SIZE OF THROW PILLOWS! I ADORE GANDHI'S ROTI. SPEAKING OF LOVE - IS BEING IN LOVE PAINTING A LANDSCAPE, OR PUTTING IT UP IN A MUSEUM?
Being in love is everything.

BY BUNK BEDOUIN