GWNtertainment #43 by JAIMIE VERNON

Aside from many, many tour announcements for most of Canada’s working musicians, it’s been a quiet week for new Canadian music releases. Many artists were ensconced in the revived annual music showcase SXSW in Austin, Texas, while others were already on the road putting music back on stage nationally. This is good news. We encourage people to support our working musicians and live venues with care and caution as mandates continue to be lifted. If everyone does their part the live music industry will continue to grow and prosper back to its pre-2020 levels.

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.

JAIMIE VERNON – THE RETURN OF THE REVENGE OF VERNON

Did you miss me?

Long, long  ago in a social media black hole that time forgot I wrote spiffing weekly diatribes for his Bobness. Then life got in the way and drove a spike through my frontal lobe preventing me from rational thought and interesting story arcs. It was 2016 and Donald Trump had yet to destroy the United States of America.  Maybe I should have stuck around and fought the good fight on the political frontier. But that’s not really what “Don’t Believe A Word I Say” is all about. What it’s actually about is filtering pop culture through the collective experiences of its writers. By 2016 my pop culture experience was all pooped out. I was burnt out and wallowing in my old-man-ness. No one was more tired of the “get off my lawn” screeds than I was.  One needs to know when to stop wandering into to traffic with no pants on.  I decided to focus on my newly minted granddaughter and getting a real day job.

JAIMIE VERNON – THE FERGUS CONVERGENCE

I first met Fergus Hambleton in person while I was performing with my trio, Graye featuring Todd Miller and Lawrie Ingles, at a small club on Yonge Street in Toronto called Rocky Raccoons. It was a mid-week jam night and we were going to do a few songs when I looked up and Fergus was sitting in the front row taking in what can only be described as a “loose” performance of one of my original songs.

JAIMIE VERNON – TAKIN’ CARE OF BACHMAN (PART 2)

excerpted from the forthcoming book ‘Bullsography: The Bullseye Records Story 1985-2010’

JAIMIE VERNON – TAKIN’ CARE OF BACHMAN (PART 1)

Excerpted from the forthcoming book “Bullsography: The Bullseye Records Story 1985-2010”

JAIMIE VERNON – THE INTERCONNECTEDNESS OF ALL THINGS

A small debate unfolded online this week concerning hard work vs. luck. I have always maintained, and still do, that all my successes have been from hard work. All my failures have been from my lack of hard work. Luck is something reserved for casinos and in finding four leaf clovers (ironically).

JAIMIE VERNON – The Best 2013 I’ve Ever Had

Our editor-in-chief, Bob Segarini, mandated a year end 2013 ‘Best and Worst’ list from the Don’t Believe A Word I Say scribes for this week. For me lists like this are an eternal yawn. I mean do you really, truly care what someone else thinks about stuff – particularly when we’ve all lived through the same year as everyone else?

Frank Gutch Jr: Who’s Who In Rock Music, Maxi Dunn & The Lost Art of Arranging, Bryce Larsen Steals Jane (Again!), and The Lonely Wild…..

I sit at the desk a partial human being once again, the throat still coated with viscous fluids and the chronic hacking reduced to a wheezing irritation of the I-think-I-can variety (irritating but not life-threatening).  I am drinking Royal Crown Cola (as opposed to the preferred Crown Royal) to reduce viscosity, the mind is somewhat sharp though I could easily use another eighteen hours sleep before writing this (I have been waking at 3 A.M. these past few nights) and wonder how far I will go before losing energy and direction.

Frank Gutch Jr: Lost & Found

A few days ago, I saw a picture of a couple of Darrell Vickers‘ friends and fellow band members standing before a wall of vinyl, only a small portion of a collection which more than likely takes up a whole house.  Vickers has been digitizing and posting the most rare (and most odd) of the records under the guise of Radio Vickers, a hobby which thus far has handed many a fan of oddities music that which they might not have ever found.  You never know what you’re going to find when Darrell points the finger, but one thing I did find and am thrilled to have found, actually, is a collection of odd bands from down under recreating the original Nuggets: Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, this one titled Antipodean Interpolations of the First Psychedelic Era.  Bands like Velociraptor and The Gooch Palms and King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard and The Murlocs serving up covers of The Standells‘ Dirty Water and  Sagittarius‘s My World Fell Down and The Leaves‘ Hey Joe.  And that’s just the tip of the Vickers iceberg.