Showtime

What: 54-40

When: Monday, Nov. 17, 8 p.m.

Where: Hamilton Place Studio Theatre

Tickets: $24.50 at Copps

Coliseum box office, ticketmaster.ca or 905-527-7666

Vancouver's Downtown Eastside is one of the most destitute pieces of real estate in Canada, if not North America.

Hard drugs, squalor and human degradation fester within its boundaries.

It's also the birthplace of 54-40, the pioneering Canadian alternative rock band that has consistently produced great music for more than 25 years.

54-40 founders Neil Osborne and Brad Merritt actually met in the suburban border town of Tsawwassen, B.C., but their first gig in 1980 was in a seedy Downtown Eastside club called The Smilin' Buddha Cabaret.

It was known for a lascivious neon buddha sign that jutted out onto East Hastings St. The smoke drifting from its incense pot flashed on and off.

The place was important to the band, they even named one of their most popular albums after it.

The Smilin' Buddha closed in 1987 as the Downtown Eastside began to deteriorate.

A few years later, the band found the neon sign for sale in a classified ad.

They purchased it, had it renovated, and brought it on tour with them as a stage prop.

Last year, the Vancouver Museum announced it was holding a large exhibition of neon art. The guys from 54-40 knew the Buddha had to be part of it, so they offered their stage prop to the museum.

It became a centrepiece of the exhibit and it remains on permanent display.

Osborne and Merritt no longer live in Vancouver. Osborne has moved to a quieter life on Vancouver Island, while Merrit has returned to Tsawwassen. But they still have fond memories of the Downtown Eastside.

So when they were making 54-40's most recent album, Northern Soul, it felt right to return there.

They found an old funeral parlour on East Hastings that had been converted into an arts space and rented it for a month.

"We brought in all our gear, rented a few things and set up camp," says Osborne.

"We might as well have been on an island because you don't want to be going outside in that neighbourhood too much."

The end product of that month on the Downtown Eastside is one of the strongest records 54-40 has released.

The working environment, however, may have brought out the band's darker side. Even the album's lead single, Snap, has a desolate, bleak quality.

"I find comfort in the sadness," says Osborne, explaining the album is a reflection of his entrance into middle age.

"There's a little bit of an acceptance in it, in a way."

The album's centrepiece is the title track, an anti-war song written from the viewpoint of a mother who has lost a son in a foreign war.

Osborne says he wrote it after watching a funeral for a Canadian soldier who died in Afghanistan.

"I got sort of frustrated," Osborne says.

"After seeing these funerals, I thought that there's no way any mother should have to go through this sacrifice. It's just not worth it.

"I'm quite proud of that song in the sense that it says what it's supposed to and it is what it is. It wrote itself.

"I guess at heart I'm a pacifist."

* * *

Bob Mersereau, author of the book The Top 100 Canadian Albums had such a great time at last year's Hamilton Music Awards, he asked organizers if he could return this year.

Mersereau's book included plenty of Hamilton-area entries including Teenage Head, Simply Saucer, Stan Rogers, Crowbar, King Biscuit Boy, Daniel Lanois and Sarah Harmer.

But he hadn't really checked out our scene before.

"And quite seriously, I think Hamilton might very well be Canada's music capital," he now says.

Mersereau will be back at Hamilton Place this weekend as a presenter at both the industry awards (Saturday, 6 p.m.) and main awards show (Sunday, 6 p.m.).

He'll also be on hand tomorrow morning where he will be part of an HMA Career Day panel discussion on Canada's Top 100 Albums.

Local rocker Tom Wilson and I will also be on the panel with Amy King of Grant Avenue Studio. I'm sure we'll be asking why no albums by Junkhouse or Blackie And The Rodeo Kings made the Top-100 list.

Mersereau will have on hand some new, updated soft-cover editions of his book.

* * *

The second annual Newsapalooza is being held Saturday night at the Westside Concert Theatre.

It lets all the frustrated musicians working for local media (and there are plenty, believe me) compete in a battle of the bands. Last year's inaugural was a hoot and, perhaps surprisingly, featured some great music.

Interesting lineup this year -- Bad Press (The Hamilton Spectator), K Street Band (Cable 14), Rose Garland (Y108), Skeet Mileet (CHCH), The Doubts (Globe and Mail) and last year's winners The Lowest Lanes (Spectator).

The show starts at 8 p.m. with admission $10 at the door. Proceeds go to The Spectator's Kids Unlimited fund.

grockingham@thespec.com

905-526-3331