Peter Has Band Advice, Festival News, and a Remarkable Young Film-Maker

Summer is finally here….almost. Summer in Canada means barbeques, backyards, balconies, beaches, bathing suits, baseball, beer and badminton. (Enough with the alliteration, already. Get on with it. Ed.)

Summer in Canada also means that the days are growing longer. Gone are the dreary months of only seeing that pale yellow orb in the sky on weekends and sick days. Life moves outdoors as much as possible as we frequent patios, campgrounds and parks, squeezing every possible second of fun that we can out of this fleeting season, for we know that the leaves that shade us in July will need to be raked up and disposed of properly in October. (Mother Nature always bats last.)

JAIMIE VERNON – CODGER WARS

It was touch and go in the early part of 2016 for Classic Rock. Half the people that have ever made music in my lifetime died in the first 6 months. That’s an exaggeration, of course, but it looked like it was going to be up to The Rolling Stones to save the planet. Well, since the release of The Beatles documentary “Eight Days A Week” the geezers are rallying.

Cameron Carpenter – Rerun: The ABC’s Of Rock – A

(Editor’s Note): As you may have guessed by now, Cam is MIA today, swamped by his work in the music business he loves, that informs his knowledgeable and entertaining columns here at DBAWIS. Hopefully, the work load will decrease and he will be back with us next week, but until then, I thought you would like to see the first column he ever wrote for us back in September 2011. This will bring back memories for long-time readers, and introduce Mr. Carpenter to those of you new to the blog. Enjoy.

Roxanne Tellier: No Biz Like Show Biz

My bones are aching like they’ve been played by a mad vibraphonist. Ah, the perils of live performance. The agony of the feet.But ah, the joys as well!

Cameron Carpenter: Cam’s first DBAWIS Column from September, 2011

Cameron Carpenter: The ABC’s Of Rock – A

(Editor’s Note: Cam is tied up this week, and rather than let you be Camless for a week, I thought it would be fun to rerun Cam’s first ever column for DBAWIS from September 22nd, 2011. Have we really been here that long? The Camster (Carpenter to the Stars) will return next week with an All New Column…in the meantime, here  is Cam’s maiden voyage from the long forgotten past exactly as it appeared almost 4 years ago….)

Pat Blythe: Women of Rock – Part 1

The impetus, for what has now become a series, was my discovery of an old vinyl record by Maggie Bell. I came across it going through one of my many purge cycles. Suicide Sal, released in 1975, was my introduction to the blues….I just didn’t know it then. I wasn’t in the habit of labeling types of music in my younger years, I just knew what I liked. Greg Simpson, who happened to be managing the now defunct Records on Wheels in London, Ontario, recommended the album, thinking I might like it. I loved it and still do. Thank you Greg!

Roxanne Tellier – The Eye of the BeHearer

MTV, and then Canada’s own Much Music, changed the musical playing field. Whether you loved it or hated it, suddenly being able to SEE musicians, actually playing, dancing, emoting, in living  colour or sepia and in unfortunate eighties fashion choices, and all in the comfort of your own home, impacted on the decades to follow.

Cameron Carpenter: The Great Rock’n’Roll Rewind

Give me a couple of Jack’n’Cokes and I can spill out rock’n’roll stories with the best of them. For forty years my life has been consumed by music and I have been fortunate to meet and talk to most of my idols, and, at one point, I even got paid to do it.

Darrell Vickers: Best Releases of 2012…and, uhh…Aerosmith.

Well, the year is at an end and everyone has taken yet another, giant step closer towards their final days here on shopping-mall Earth.  That moment, when fate grabs us by the ankles and wrenches us kicking and screaming from the only existence we’ve ever known.  Every groove in the sidewalk is the fingernail scrapings of some poor lost soul frantically clinging on till the very last.  And mass shootings, horrific wars, starvation and unbridled suffering, in its many glorious forms; dog our weary days as we march relentlessly towards our own oblivion.

On the upside, there was a lot of great music in 2012.   Not much of it on mainstream radio, but still survives in the shadows.  There was also a lot of complete shit, but I won’t bore you with that.

Except for the number one example of 2012 auditory poo.

Cameron Carpenter: The ABC’s Of Rock’n’Roll _ Finishing Off The Bobo

And now the conclusion of my Bob Segarini cover story from the November 1979 issue of “Music Express”. Punctuation and grammar appear as they did in print. Many of you read Justin Smallbridge’s first DBAWIS column last week but the three of us go back a long way.

Part Five – An Introduction To The Bobo (Or Reading The College Papers)