JAIMIE VERNON – A NEW MUSIC WARDROBE

I’ve done previous columns about the vacuous business that has become nostalgia-peddling so I have no interest in rehashing that…but I’m fascinated by the idea that people cling to it so desperately. The Boomer Generation has become really good at criticizing the newest trends in music but cannot shine the mirror back on their own sacred cows and say, in all honesty, “Hey, wait a minute. I’m getting half as much entertainment value as I used to at triple the price.” Folks would rather see (and hear) a simulation of The Who’s former selves with its surviving members doing the 32^nd anniversary tour of their final show in various stages of disability (Townshend’s deafness and Daltrey’s failing vocal range) for $500 than something new and organic for $10 at the local pub. They’d rather watch the decrepit mummified remains of The Rolling Stones trot out predictable, laughable, cartoonish interpretations of their own back catalog and pay 10x the price for the insult because they copped their first boobie feel during ‘Angie’ in the 1970s.

Nadia Elkharadly: Canadian Cowgirl

Welcome back to your regularly scheduled programming!  Thanks so much to Emer for covering for me in my absence last week.  For you see, I was busy stampeding.  Yes boys and girls, this little Egyptian Canadian girl was at The Calgary Stampede. 

I’ve been to Calgary before.  Having worked four years now for a Calgary based company, at least one trip to Canada’s texas was sure to be in order, and it happened fairly early on in my tenure here.  Suffice it to say, I was unimpressed with the new financial capital of Canada.  Downtown was small, and the streets were dead by 6pm.  Not much was available to entertain a die hard city girl like me.  So when my lovely friend Shevaughn came up with the idea that a bunch of us head out west and stampede it up for an early celebration of her birthday, I was down for the adventure but not about to get my hopes up for a rollicking good time.  Boy, was I ever in for a surprise.