Jaimie Vernon – GWNtertainment

 

A million years ago (okay, it was 32) I had an idea to start a music magazine to promote Canadian music. The idea didn’t come out of nowhere and there was a catalyst to light the fire. It started as a newsletter in 1989 to promote my rock band Moving Targetz. It was called the M.T. Head Express and was mailed to our fans monthly to let them know about gigs, recordings, and all our shenanigans as a rock band. My ex’s mother, Gail Benson (RIP), said to me one day, “You should expand your news letter to cover other Canadian bands, not just your own.” And, so I did. In early 1990, I launched a 24-page fanzine called Great White Noise Magazine. My ex and I bought a brand new PC with a dot matrix printer for $1320. I had to take out a loan at my credit union to do it. It would take me until 1993 to pay it off!

TECHNOPHOBICA by Jaimie Vernon

I continue to be in perpetual awe of human technology if for no other reason than it’s the dividing line between us and the rest of the animal kingdom except maybe cats who have been secretly running the planet for nearly 5,000 years without so much as giving us a heads up. Opposable thumbs have led us to more than just cracking coconuts open and banging rocks together in hopes of getting a record deal. Our search for knowledge fuels our desire to create better tools to obtain that knowledge faster so that we might then have more time to waste using time-wasting tools. It’s a perpetual cycle.

ROCK, PAPER, SNIFFERS by Jaimie Vernon

We were promised a paperless society by the technology gurus of the 1980s. It’s been over 30 years since IBM launched the concept of the desktop computer. It was going to revolutionize personal communication – even before the advent of the internet – and they were right. But that vision was gratuitously optimistic. I worked for the company that built the wiring systems for these beasts…back when they were the size of a gas furnace and ran on steam power and 47″ floppy discs containing 64k of memory. We were contracted to build about 150 wiring systems a week for their machines. I went to head office in Don Mills where they had motorized robotic pool tables shuttling CPU’s and 70 lb. Scare-o-Vision cathode driven monitors through a warehouse larger than Cape Canaveral. They were moving 10 of these units at a time…and over the course of a year they were selling less than 50,000 of these.

GREG SIMPSON – RADIO MAN EXTRAORDINAIRE by Jaimie Vernon

I type this through tears. At this moment my old pal Greg Simpson is on life support in a London hospital. And I fear for his life. Suddenly a flood of memories come back to a 20 year friendship all of which involved good times.

SUNNY DAYS: THE SKIP PROKOP STORY (PART 6) by Jaimie Vernon

In our previous installment, Yorkville Village heroes The Paupers had effectively ambushed New York City and taken the American music business by storm following their gigs at the Café Au-Go-Go. It landed them both a U.S. record deal with MGM/Verve-Folkways and a deal with Uber-manager Albert Grossman (Bob Dylan, The Band, Odetta, Peter Paul & Mary, Paul Butterfield, Janis Joplin). The wheels were in motion for The Paupers to conquer America. The band did a promotional tour across the U.S. to radio stations in preparation for the release of their debut album ‘Magic People’ and live dates to follow. Skip Prokop continues the story…

SUNNY DAYS: THE SKIP PROKOP STORY (PART 5) by Jaimie Vernon

Adam Mitchell was an integral new addition to The Paupers on lead vocals and rhythm guitar. Bernie Finkelstein had come on board as manager and wasted no time getting the band signed to MGM Records stateside. It was a springboard for what was to come. Bernie wanted to showcase the band to their new American label. It meant heading to the USA.

NEW ROCKERS OF THE PEERLESS AGE by JAIMIE VERNON

I’m updating the Canadian Pop Music Encyclopedia once again. This time it has a global purpose and will soon be available to music researchers via a data base known as Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale worldwide to Colleges, Universities, and libraries. It is literally my life’s work and is expected to remain available in perpetuity. To that end I’ve been tasked with updating annually until, well, I’m dead. I can just see me now in a senior’s home skipping Bingo and sing-a-long nights while I sit by the glow of the Google engine looking for the elusive catalog number of Whaleman’s 1991 “Sings!” album and gumming a soft-bun and apple sauce for 4.30 dinner.

Bob’s All Time Favourite Canadian Top Twenty

After five long columns about Laurel Canyon and the legendary Artists who toked, coked, and stroked their way to fame and fortune in the mythic hills of Hollywood and its Sunset Strip playground, I needed to cleanse my palate and write about some Artists and music that hard-scrabbled its way onto my musical landscape from all over my adopted Country, and did so without the benefit of geographic location and timing, but with their ear-worm worthiness and musical uniqueness and skills. Some were hits, and most were not, but in my personal jukebox, these are all worthy of Number One.

And yes …that was one of the longest Run In Sentences I have written in years. Felt good ….

Guest Columnist Barry Teller – The New Elmo

Got this in my email yesterday and thought I’d share it with you. Exciting news about the new Elmo and what we can expect and when.

Barry writes for the new online magazine, Canadian Life. He covers the Canadian Entertainment Industry and has sent this pre-release to a few of us bloggers in advance of the Magazine’s launch next Friday. I’ve added some pictures to this.

Enjoy. – Bob

Bob Stories Opinions and Advice 10 Years On

Don’t Believe a Word I Say has existed as first a column at FYIMusic.com, then in its own self-titled blog for going on 11 years now.

Before this, I dabbled in music, radio, and television for 50 years or so, and feel I have experienced enough to have a fairly informed opinion of my related careers, and the love/hate relationship that comes with a passion and lust for life and its challenging hurdles.

The following has been culled from the first 6 months of this entities existence, which has been updated but not changed in any way, so when I said something stupid then, it remains stupid now. New pictures have been added, and some comments, which will be in italics.

Enjoy the sunshine and the first sign of Spring …mud. Read this when it rains again …or snows …or the cat won’t get off your lap. – Bob