Read Chapter One here
CHAPTER 2 – The Wonderful World of Moving Targetz
After struggling for two entire years to get the band Moving Targetz up and running full-time, myself (lead guitar) and Simon Bedford-James (bass) had finally found a permanent rhythm guitarist in Saverio Schembri and drummer Dave Tedd in the Fall of 1984.
At the beginning of May I released my fourth book – ‘Life’s A Canadian (Punk) Rock – Who Wants Guns?: The Swindled Story (1973-1983)’ Check it out here.
In it I discuss my formative musical years and how an innocuous friendship with a high school punk took me on a two year roller coaster ride through the 2nd Wave of the Toronto punk scene as alleged guitarist in hardcore act Swindled. I had previously run the chapters as blog entries in Don’t Believe A Word I Say back in 2010. The band reunited in 2011 with the ever professional Cleave Anderson on drums, we recorded our long awaited debut album (only 30 years in the making) and everyone lived happily ever after. That chapter is the epilogue in the book.
On Wednesday March 6th Canadian music legend Stompin’ Tom Connors passed away peacefully at the age of 77 from natural causes. Tom was a folk & country fixture around Canada for nearly six decades. He might very well be the last of the Canadian troubadours following in the footsteps of Wilf Carter (aka Montana Slim), Hank Snow, and the Canadian Sweethearts: Bob Regan and Lucille Starr. Connors walked amongst the rarified air of Canadian country Gods. He was a fixture at the legendary Horseshoe 
Tavern during its inception where his rousing songs and foot stomping put a hole in the stage – which the venue wanted him to pay for. On subsequent visits he resorted to stomping on a piece of wood to save the stage further injury – and Tom Connors became Stompin’ Tom Connors.
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This week a meme went viral on Facebook of a poll asking readers to identify the number of albums they owned from a random list of 100 ‘Most Influential Albums of All Time’. In the end it was discovered that this was nothing but a front for an app that hijacked Facebook user personal info. However, the debate about the validity of the list itself remained. Music, like all artistic disciplines, is in the ears of the beholder. I expect that had I actually taken the quiz there would have been little commonality between the contents of my personal collection and the ones deemed ‘most influential’.
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This week, the legendary music retailer Sam Sniderman – the ‘Sam’ in Sam The Record Man music stores – passed away at the age of 92. The outpouring of tributes to one of the Yonge Street’s last retail mavens has been endless. He was a hero to Canadian musicians, an ally to record labels and a hard-nosed employer to his staff and franchisees. [see selected quotes from Facebook and the Twitterverse below]. I got the rare opportunity to deal with Sniderman on FOUR levels – media writer, musician, record label rep, and employee.
During ten of the twenty-five years I ran Bullseye Records we focused on licensing and re-issuing Classic Rock and pop releases from the past. Generally it was a focus on albums that the public had loved and wanted re-mastered on CD. I approached the musicians that I knew who owned their own recordings (which is a rarity in Canada) starting with Greg Godovitz and Goddo. The band was able to enjoy a large resurgence and reconnection with their fan base as we rolled out and carefully marketed their 1977 self-titled debut, 1978’s “Who Cares?” and 1979’s “An Act of Goddo” plus their 1990s ‘King of Broken Hearts’ comeback record at the turn of the millennium. It wasn’t long before the fans were asking for a live record and a new studio album.
Running a record label requires the stealthy and diplomatic handling of not only music but the egos of those that make it. Like certain personal relationships, you gotta put up with the crazy shit occasionally to get at the good sex.
I’ve been slowly extracting myself from the Dante’s Inferno that is the music industry to concentrate on promoting good, new music [see the reviews following this rant] cause, let’s face it, talking about the mistakes the labels made over the last decade is like discussing that guy at Decca Records that passed on The Beatles. It’s just irrelevant now. However, it’s hard to get away from the magnetic suck of this bullshit business when milk-toast country dawdler Vince Gill throws this cowpie onto the road to enlightenment:
I’ve been trying to revive my old record label, Bullseye, for some time now. Unlike 1985 when I could use the money from my day job to put out a few independent releases each year I’m finding the ability to get any traction now – sans employment – a complete impossibility. Despite having the drive, desire and knowledge to shout about independent artists from the rooftops, investing time and energy into developing and promoting a complete unknown is way out of my purview with no investment capital at my disposal.
Last week I completed a 26 year task. I finished writing Volume 1 of the history of Canadian pop music. It’s 430,000 words and 400 pages long. There’s over 1200 artists listed and a hundred or so photos. The germ of writing it began in August 1986. I massaged the final typos, corrections, dotted the “I’s” and crossed the “t’s” the final week of February 2012.
