Roxanne Tellier – Mike McKenna, Guitar Legend

1969 or maybe early 1970.A darkened Montreal rec room, outside sound dulled by faux wood paneling and shag carpeting, with the ubiquitous mirrored bar off to the side. My girlfriend, Colleen, and I slink into the room, prepared to be kicked out by her big brother Bill, the music maven of her family, if we giggled too much.If we behaved, we’d be allowed to listen, at least for a while, to the new record Bill had brought home to enjoy with some of his cooler (and older, so therefore hotter)  friends.  We crept into the darkness, wide eyed.

Roxanne Tellier – Brain Scatterlings

It’s been one of those weeks. It started out promisingly, with great plans for every day of the week. I was sure that by today, I’d have a clean house, an empty inbox, and even maybe lose ten pounds.

JAIMIE VERNON – GOT YOU COVERED

This week I’ve been discussing a reunion of my old cover band Spare Parts with the original participants – Maureen Leeson (vocals), Duanne Welsh (drums) and Geoff Wilson (guitar). We were a ‘thing’ from 1993 through 1997. By thing I mean a true-blue working act at clubs across southern (and north-eastern) Ontario getting paid to make people drink beer, dance, grope inappropriately and puke in restrooms. Achieving all four in an evening was considered a success by bar owners and audience members alike. More times than not we could do all four or at least fashion a passable trifecta. Oh, and we were really fucking good at what we did which might be why we were employed every other weekend for four years straight.