This week we rewind to 1977 and the first issue of Shades Magazine. My feature was a re-cap of all the new punk records that had been released.
“I realize a lot of the material I’m going to cover is somewhat dated, but this being the first edition, I thought I’d quickly go over some of the best new music to come out over the past few months. Next month’s reviews will be much longer and in-depth.”
I’m tired. I’m really effin’ tired. It’s the “I’m so tired that I can’t even roll off my lover and rudely fall asleep beside her because I’ve already rudely fallen asleep on TOP of her tired.” [admit it, you’ve done this…at least ONCE.]
I started a new job in February. And it’s sapping the fiber of my very being. I’ve had jobs that have made me tired before. But they were office gigs where the exhaustion was mostly mental – from dealing with asshat employers and bigger asshatted customers. In my current job I work alone, but for the first time in 30 years of employment I’m 
actually working. Up at 4.30 AM and usually home by 5 or 6PM. Eight to nine hours of driving and walking. When I finally get home I eat dinner, stare blankly at photos of cute cats, idiotic diatribes about Monsanto, Rob Ford, hockey and Chemtrail conspiracy theorists on Facebook. It’s all I can do to keep Mr. Sandman at bay. By 9PM I’m done. I haven’t accomplished much except kiss the cat and pet the family good night.
At the beginning of May I released my fourth book – ‘Life’s A Canadian (Punk) Rock – Who Wants Guns?: The Swindled Story (1973-1983)’ Check it out here.
In it I discuss my formative musical years and how an innocuous friendship with a high school punk took me on a two year roller coaster ride through the 2nd Wave of the Toronto punk scene as alleged guitarist in hardcore act Swindled. I had previously run the chapters as blog entries in Don’t Believe A Word I Say back in 2010. The band reunited in 2011 with the ever professional Cleave Anderson on drums, we recorded our long awaited debut album (only 30 years in the making) and everyone lived happily ever after. That chapter is the epilogue in the book.
Diary Of A Rock ’n’ Roll Star
The best rock book ever written. Period. Ian Hunter takes us on a journey across America in November and December of 1972 as his band Mott The Hoople try to break in to the American market. It reads as an actual diary and you can tell by the tone that only Hunter put pen to ink. Unlike the Alice Cooper tour chronicled in “Billion Dollar Baby”, the Mott tour was a little lower budget, economy flights and economy accommodations and rarely a headline show. Hunter goes to great lengths to describe everything to his reader from the interior of a 747 to backstage catering and everything in between. It becomes Brit’s take on the promise (and letdown) of what is America.
Bullseye Records of Canada
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 