While my main interest in music is “indie music”, I also like some mainstream music (even I had a copy of “Zeppelin II”), and have attended various concerts which apparently qualify me to say that. I do not pretend to be in the “Sharon Vernon triple figure concert attendance superfan category”, although the most recent “Trews” show she went to eerily included “Fortunate Losers” on the bill, a band which has been mentioned in my column before.
We’re in an interesting transitional period with music. Not the industry part that I’ve frequently beaten up and kicked to the curb time and time again. No, I’m talking about musical direction. I had hoped upon hope that post-9/11 the singer-songwriter would make a massive mainstream comeback to usher in the silver age of thinking man’s music. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. The simpletons in charge of what we listen to doubled down on the stupid with the vacant tap dancing and lip-syncing of nubile females, effeminate boy bands and reality stars-turned-prime-time-embarrassments. ‘American Idol’ was the new A & R department for the future of music.
This week Paul Revere of 1960s pop band Paul Revere & The Raiders passed away at the age of 76. He and his band were one of the second generation of pop stars who took the post-Elvis world by storm on the back of Beatlemania.
Sometimes I know why a certain song has been selected for heavy rotation in my subliminal playlist and sometimes I don’t. When I started running Badfinger’s ”We’re for the Dark” over and over again in my head, I knew.
I love the song, to put it mildly, and the band is one of my more enduring obsessions. The song is one of the late Pete Ham’s most gorgeous and haunting compositions, a lover’s declaration of safety, commitment and refuge that nevertheless holds teeth in its embrace: I love you, it’s saying, like nobody loves you. I’ll protect you, it says, but only by holding you so tightly no one else can get near us. Our love will be oblivion, it suggests, a place unattainable, impenetrable and final. We’re for the dark.
Bullseye Records of Canada
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 