JAIMIE VERNON – CUTTING EDGE RADIO

It was slice and dice time this past week at Corus Entertainment – a media conglomerate bloated with 3D printer versions of radio stations and formats that run the gamut:  talk radio, sports talk, business talk, knitting talk, pet talk, Hot A/C, Hot A/C light, Hot A/C dance, Hot A/C D/C, Adult, Slightly Adult, Slightly More Adult, Prematurely Adult, Classic Rock, Jurassic Rock, Pet Rock, New Rock, Modern Rock, Over The Hill Rock, and all fucking traffic all the fucking time.

Roxanne Tellier: Cats, Cabin Fever, and Coping

We’re deep into it now, we Canadians, the meat and potatoes of winter. There’s snow everywhere, the winds are howling, and you risk frostbite every time you peep outside the door to see if the stalactites hanging from the eaves have killed the postman yet. Or if the sidewalk ice got to him first.

Segarini: Music or Nostalgia…Which is It? Part 2 – 21 Beatle Songs I Don’t Mind at All…and 1 I Will Never Tire of Hearing

 

Earlier this year, on a whim, I posted this sentence in the Status Window on my Facebook Timeline.

“It wouldn’t bother me to never hear another Beatle Record.”

…Apparently, I am The Antichrist.

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JAIMIE VERNON – NINE LIVES

I find myself at the front end of yet another re-invention of myself. When last I spoke of my day job I was driving automobiles for a subcontractor to one of Canada’s only two railroads. It wasn’t CN. The job nearly killed me. It was so labour intensive and the hours were so long that I actually don’t remember getting to or from work some days.

Segarini: Rival Sons – Finally leading Rock into the 21st Century Part One

For the past several months, I have had difficulty finishing anything I start. I don’t know why, exactly, but it has been an ongoing problem that bothers me not because it makes me think that maybe I am running out of steam, but rather because I’m afraid it may mean that I am something I have never been, nor want to be.

Bored.

 

JAIMIE VERNON – LINUS’ BLANKET OF ROCK

JAIMIE VERNON – IT’s YESTERDAY ONCE MORE

Well, we survived 2013. Most of us anyway. The entertainment industry lost nearly an entire generation of scenemakers from Jackie Lomax to Ray Manzarek to Slim Whitman to James Gandolfini to Annette Funicello to Peter O’Toole. The people making some of the greatest art of the last century have left it up to us to carry on without them. And we’re failing to do so at an alarming rate. Can you imagine anyone mourning the loss of a Jonas Brother or Paris Hilton in 50 or 60 years time other than their families? The global glue that connects us through the arts has been replaced by the transient flypaper brought to us by Snatch Chat and Twatter.  No wonder we hold onto our pop icons from the past for so long. Once they’re gone, we might very well lose the soul of music, film, stage, etc., forever. And that’s not just me spewing my usual dramatic hyperbole. I usually say let sleeping dogs lie while the new generation wages their own rebellion. Except the new rebellion wears designer logos, auto-tunes and sues the estates of dead soul singers pre-emptively in case the estate sues them first for stealing said dead soul singer’s music [Yeah, I’m talking about you Robin TheDicke].

JAIMIE VERNON – I AM NOT THE DROID YOU ARE LOOKING FOR

I work with a guy who is a monster Classic Rock fan – he has Zeppelin’s ZOSO symbols tattooed on his arm. He genuinely loves the music on Toronto’s Classic Rock leaders Q107-FM without judgment or cynicism (unlike little ole me). But he seems entirely clueless about anything related to the genre. Without a hint of irony he seemed taken aback to find out that “Let It Be” wasn’t just a Beatles or an album but also a MOVIE….or that Spinal Tap was made up of actors when I gave him a lift home from work last weekend. He was flabbergasted. It was like I just told him that Rosebud was a sled. [Oops…’Citizen Kane’ spoiler alert!] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4mQqVqRB7I

Segarini: What (exactly) is Classic Rock?

From Wikipedia: “KRBE-AM, Houston was an early classic rock radio station. In 1983 program director Paul Christy designed a format which played only early album rock, from the 1960s and early 1970s, without any current music or Top 40 material at all. KRBE was the first station to use the term “classic rock” on the air. Classic rock soon became the widely used descriptor for the format, and became the commonly used term for early album rock music by the general public.”

Really? So…how are Nirvana and Green Day “classic rock”?

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Segarini: New Rival Sons and Real Rock and Roll Redux

I have some news about one of my favourite bands of all time. Based in California, (but with a bassist from Markham, Ontario), these guys came across my radar around two years ago and have yet to fall off. The Reason? They are the living, breathing, embodiment of everything great about ‘classic rock’…except they’re now, new, and in my opinion, much better.