Hello there …
This will be updated next week. In the meantime, due to a busier than a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs week and weekend, this gem from 2011(written before many of you were born), is the lead in to next week’s blockbuster column.
Until then, have a week’s worth of nice days, look both ways when you cross your fingers, and quit pulling the goalie looking at pictures of Margot Robbie (or however she spells her name.
I Remain,
The Scarlet Claw
“Write about whatever you want to write about!” That simple sentence launched my tenure with “Don’t Believe A Word I Say” and got me started on this great journey. As I have written several times, I have always been in awe of the high standard of writing on this blog, and I still have a hard time believing my good luck.
Bruce Springsteen’s refusal to play North Carolina because of new, drastic LGBT laws might have shocked some people, but it didn’t surprise me at all.
Rolling Stone Magazine recently released their latest ‘list’, “The 100 Greatest Songwriters” rollingstone.com). Let me repeat that title, “The 100 Greatest Songwriters”. Their descriptive line states “From Brill Building tunesmiths to Punk poets, from Woody Guthrie to Max Martin, the visionaries who defined music history.”
The column due today, “Stopping the Stupid”, will be here next Friday. In the meantime, here’s a rerun from 2011 about politics, rock stars and the silliness that is part of the political landscape despite its incredibly loopy connection. With the exception of President Obama, there don’t seem to be any politicians worthy of a decent song for their campaign or party or office. The Republicans, however, are looking pretty good for “Get Out of Compton…and Everywhere Else”. Stephen Harper could go with “I’m a Loser”, but I don’t think the Beatles know who he is. I just wish WE didn’t….
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Anyone familiar with that Pink Floyd tune? (c’mon, who isn’t? It’s from “Dark Side of The Moon” for crying out loud). The album, released on March 1, 1973, made # 1 for only one week, but in total, spent 741 weeks on Billboard magazine’s album chart. Let’s put that into years shall we? “Dark Side of the Moon” remained on the charts from 1973 until 1988. If you know the song, then you’ll know that the next lyrics to the title at the top of the page are: “Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash. New car, caviar, four star daydream, think I’ll buy me a football team.”
Are you grooving to your mandatory U2 record? In case you missed it (hard to miss, given how much it was hyped), U2’s 13th record, “Songs Of Innocence” (title stolen from long-dead English poet William Blake) is now in your iTunes collection. How is that possible, you ask. You didn’t buy it. Or want it. Regardless, you own 11 variations on advertising jingles to soundtrack the selling of Apple’s iPhone 6 and impending iWatch as well as possibly to let you know Apple can do whatever the hell it wants its devices, which we naively think we “own.” It probably says that in the long Terms and Conditions text everybody clicks “Agree” on without reading. Apple paid $100 million for this the marketing campaign. Nobody’s saying how much of that U2 is getting.
I’m about to go off on a diatribe involving Neil Young (quelle surprise). If you’re a fan of Shaky you best leave this blog, get out your gatefold vinyl copy of ‘Harvest’ – yeah, the one you used to separate your weed seeds on and is stained with hash oil – click on a black light and tune out. This note’s definitely not for you.
Last week Neil Young – a Canadian that hasn’t lived in Canada since 1967 – decided to come home to play a few shows in an effort to raise 
money and awareness about (among other things) global warming, carbon footprints, fossil fuel, Corporate Oil gluttony, and the rape & pillage of land that Canada’s national people were handed in antiquated treaties back when White Man’s Guilt was an honourable profession for enterprising transplanted Euro-Dandy’s.
If you’re talking about music this year, even with the amazingly huge numbers of out of sight (or out of site) songs and albums being released, there is one song which rises to the level of Summer Anthem and that is Might Get Up Slow by three teachers out of L.A. calling themselves No Small Children. Roll your eyes and say I’m beating a dead horse, if you will, but I know a solid hit when I hear one and this is it! A few years ago, Sheryl Crow was handed a verbal “Anthem of the Summer” award by a lame media tied closely to a monied music and entertainment industry.
I’m not much of a political animal. Never learned the game or played it well, which is why I’m not a household name or King of All Media. Further, as much as all pursuits in life have a political bent to them, (marriage, your job, getting a decent deal on a used car), the Arts have a very checkered past with actual politics, the ones that feature elected leaders and CEOs and the like, who are supposed to lead us, the Great Unwashed, around by our noses. It seems an odd footnote to me, seeing popular musical artists taking a photo op with the leader of a Nation, Religion, Donald Trump, or vise versa.
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Bullseye Records of Canada
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 