One hell of a year for music. Not so much for musicians— at least the musicians no longer with us. Hard to balance a year like that, pluses and minuses popping up like ads from a virus, canceling one another out or piling one on top of the other ad infinitum until the system collapses from the weight. We all felt the weight whether we all know it or not. So many musicians now on the other side but, lucky for us, so many new musicians taking their places. Jesus. My head spins.
Christmas. It’s the time for joy and camaraderie and faith. It’s the time of giving and sharing and, for most, receiving. Debts are forgiven at Christmas, and people too. Indeed, the power of Christmas could almost save the world and would, according to Hollywood, if given half a chance.
I spent a bit of of time in downtown Toronto this week having avoided going anywhere near it since 2012 because, well, CONSTRUCTION. The annual FanExpo extravaganza began Thursday at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and I took my son down on transit – not to see the actors and actresses hawking their photos and autographs (which we have enjoyed in years past), but to check out the new offerings in the video gaming world.
It is time to eat some words and I do so with remorse. Those words, spoken when I was young and somewhat foolish and also feeling a bit immortal, I suppose, were tossed at The Cowsills and other groups and artists I found somewhat wanting in terms of musical output. They were pointed at a string of what I would call “manufactured” bands— those whose music supposedly came from the hit makers— I called it Hollywood music back then. The Monkees took a big hit, the band put together not really for music but for TV.
If this was a real job, I would have been fired long ago. I spent a whole day and night piecing together the research for this weeks column which was intended to be fun and games with radio charts because, man, when you get into them (especially the ones from the fifties and sixties), they are fun as hell and, boy, the tricks you have to know to understand them, but once again things came along to kick the idea to the curb. It happens every week, swear to God, so I took a little trip down computer lane and counted the columns and column ideas I have started and not finished and it came to 27. The good thing is that I still have 27 ideas set aside for future columns. The bad news is that I haven’t worked on any one of them since. Sigh.
Here I go on one of my cerebral journeys, most of which run into a brick wall and consign themselves to the ash heap. I, like most of the world, have a very short attention span, it seems, and while I have bursts of genius (I swear!) little of it makes it to the outside world. This time, the message(s) is(are) spurred by a link posted by friend Greg Phipps, with whom I worked at Peaches Records in Seattle in the 80s (Phipps, btw, records under the name Palestinian Israel-Jones, should you desire to visit his planet), who has been on a roll finding and posting or reposting questions and videos worth my, if not your, attention. For instance, a couple of weeks ago, he asked about the negativity toward celebrities “selling out,” whoring their wares for profit.
Bullseye Records of Canada
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 