Matthew Good says, "I do three to four hours of poli-sci research a day," which is to say he trolls the 'Net collecting news stories on political and social issues, compiling, corresponding and writing opinions. He seems to be an articulate and well-informed observer of the human condition.

Leans a little to the left, too.

Four hours a day? A major recording artist spends more than four hours a day making a record, but only a month or two at a time unless you're Metallica. Plus there are live performances, two hours or so a night; soundchecks are about an hour at most, and again not every day. In short, Matthew Good spends more time on political science than he does on his music. The nerve. How would you feel if, say, Stephen Harper admitted he moonlights as a rock musician when he should be figuring out new ways to fling mud at the Liberal party?

Line between job and hobby blurred

Yes, I know, not quite the same thing. Besides, the line between Good's job and Good's hobby may be getting more blurred all the time. I ask the Vancouver rocker - who opens a three-nighter at the Starlite Room tomorrow night, on tour to support his new album, White Light Rock & Roll Review - an old question: Would your interests be better served in a field other than music?

He replies that people have many facets, and in combining poli-sci with music, "I think on this record I was probably more blatant than I have been in the past in connecting the two."

For instance, the word "George" appears in the sarcastic North American For Life. There is also a nice song called Alert Status Red - a poke at the pointless colour-coded fear machine George put in place after 9-11 (if you don't know which George we're talking about, do a few minutes of poli-sci research; start with www.matthewgood.org). There's hardly a track that's not in some way politically motivated, an exception being Ex-Pats of the Blue Mountain Symphony Orchestra, about people for whom high school was the pinnacle of their lives. The first chunk of the song sounds like the Who's Won't Get Fooled Again, eerily, and Good says there is no shame in getting compared with the Who. Better to sound like the Who like all these bands whose names begin with "the" than some "mall punk" thing.

He touches on a lot of topics during our brief phone interview - the importance of voting in this Monday's election, the increasingly cutthroat music business, the perils of xenophobia, how the CIA encouraged the rise of Islamic fundamentalism to help fracture the Soviet Union - but slagging other bands isn't one of them. Good hung up on me once when I asked him if there was someone he wanted to insult. He was himself insulted. "Mall punk" is about as far as he goes this time.

We digress. Good explains why he's so passionate about world affairs, "In the last three years we've probably undergone one of the most blatant mass manipulations in modern history of the western world. It's not something I can easily ignore. I'm of the belief that others shouldn't ignore that either. That said, not all music needs to do that. Obviously there's a place and time for everything."

(The following quote came out of context at the end of the interview, but is inserted here to strengthen the theme, an editing trick in honour of Michael Moore): "The great thing about rock 'n' roll shows, politics aside, is that people form friendships that last forever. I was in Kitchener and there was a couple from Detroit and they said, 'We met on the Internet because of your music and now we're married.' That's fantastic. After every show I hang out and talk to fans outside. It doesn't always have to be about such serious things. It's good just to bring people together. If you can foster that sense of community even through a band's work, then that's awesome."

He's got three nights in Edmonton to do it, too.

Wanted to play smaller clubs

"I asked to play small clubs on this tour. The whole bulls--- of large shows, I'm tired of it. It's not real to me. It's not a rock 'n' roll show. The pyro and flashpots all the rest of that s---, bands just hide behind things like that, I think. I'd rather just sweat my ass off and play rock music."

Left unasked is whether doing one big show instead of three small ones would afford Good more time for his poli-sci research. The balance between rocking and activism is a precarious one. At least he's not surfing for porn four hours a day.