Ugh!!! Computer and monitor challenges continue. The good news is I finally got my drums up for sale and I’ve managed to get everything off the troublesome laptop on to a honking big hard drive (although now I have to sort that out). I’m downsizing to a smaller kit….less real estate and I won’t feel so overwhelmed. One of these days…..and now, for your latest weather report…..
Have a safe and happy Canada Day…I love you all. And yes…this IS the Greatest Country in the World…even if some of us don’t know it.
Portions of this column originally appeared in FYIMusic, Cashbox Canada, and DBAWIS.
As I type this music retailer HMV is either in receivership or heading into it after one of the chain’s creditors called in their chips. The retail giant has been floundering for years and managed to escape an industry crash that took out the likes of Sam The Record Man and Tower Records stateside a decade ago. HMV’s position as one of the last giants standing (Sunrise has rallied to fill in the hole left by Sam’s), was only delaying the inevitable.
Three weeks from today is Christmas Day. We’ll have gotten past all the rushing about, the frantic shopping, and the boozy parties, and hopefully be lounging about in our new flannel pjs, sipping on liquored up egg nog, and looking forward to a feast of turkey and all the trimmings.
Hopefully.
BILLY GOAT GRUFF
Billy was the security guard that trained me. I got to know him, not in person, but through his legend. When I worked, he was off, and vice versa, so we rarely ever crossed paths. Occasionally, he’d pop by on his day off to say hello to the staff, and would come around to see how I was doing. I was the newbie, and he wanted to make sure that a) the staff was treating me well, and b) that I wasn’t fucking anything up.
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As you read this I’m either on or about to go on stage for what is most certainly my 1,000th live musical appearance as the final act on the final night of David Bash’s long-running Toronto International Pop Overthrow Festival (this is year #10). I’ve been humiliating myself and faking musical talent in public since September 1980. Thirty-six years of looking for affirmation in all the wrong places.
I’ve got nothing left. I’m spent. This week has been the tightrope shit-show from hell. As Montgomery Burns found out on ‘The Simpsons’ when he tried to get monkeys to type out the greatest novel of all time: “It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times.”
Bullseye Records of Canada
