Steve Earle, one of my favourite alt-country performers, has never been shy about expressing his opinions. He once called Shania Twain "the world's highest-paid lap dancer" and said Garth Brooks was "the anti-Hank."

(That would be Hank Williams, Sr.).

Anyway, here's an excerpt from a CP story about Earle carried on CTV.ca:

Rabble-rousing musician Steve Earle made a bizarre appearance at Canadian Music Week on Friday, chatting about conspiracy theories and bashing George W. Bush while also resurrecting his scuffle with former prime minister Kim Campbell.

Currently on a sold-out cross-Canada tour, Earle said this visit is his first where he hasn't needed a "dog licence" to cross the border. "This is my first trip to Canada ever that didn't require a stack of paper this big," Earle, stretching his arms wide, said at a Q&A session designed to help new performers.

Earle, from Texas, was referring to a rehabilitation permit, required for entry by customs officers for those with criminal convictions.

But the 50-year-old singer-songwriter, who spent four months in jail on drug possession charges, says while it takes the average person five years to get such a permit, it has taken him a decade - and he blames Campbell.

"I pissed her off in the late 80s over the Satan's Choice case. There are a lot of Kim Campbell remnants in the Justice Ministry. It took me a long time to get a rehabilitation permit," said Earle.

His feelings for the one-time justice minister stem back to the late 1980s and early '90s when he threw his support behind two members of the motorcycle gang. He felt they'd been wrongly convicted of murder.

I saw Earle do a solo acoustic set at the Mariposa Folk Festival in Orillia, Ont. in 2002. There was a huge contingent of Hells Angels there.

One of them went up to the stage while Steve was performing and shook hands with him.

What was especially interesting about that was I could swear it was the same one who shook hands with former Toronto "mayor" Mel Lastman!

I wonder if the Hells Angels have an official greeter. :)