A PIRATE’S TALE – Gary Pig Gold on launching his Favourite Conspiracy

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As hard as it may be for us to recall all these decades later, the extremely late Eighties somehow found Dave “Rave” DesRoches touring his home and native land alongside ol’ highschool buds Teenage Head, extolling the second-hand virtues of carpet kissin’ Hawaiian beer-drinking parties… as the remainder of the music biz moved uncaringly along to George Michael, Guns N’ Roses n’ other such comparative pleasures. However – and this is a big, all-important However however – Dave had spent most every down-hour he could during those distant days squirreled away within the nearest quiet zone, creating a veritable treasure trove of words and music which, while wholly incompatible with his Teenage night job would serve him more than well when, as 1988 became 89, he began seriously considering stepping out upon his very own.

GARY, the PIG OF GOLD! – THE STOMP IS GONE

“Yeah, right,” I remember so many of my American pals – musicians included! – asking me whenever push came to glove: “What the hell good ever came out of Canada?!!”

Well, besides the Quality Record-era Guess Who, SCTV, and of course Young Neil, for seventy-seven years there roamed across the Great Wide Northlands a man, a myth – dare I say a LEGEND who cast a long, black, yet somehow barely perceptible shadow over every guitar lasher who means a half hoot on either side of the dreaded U.S. / O Canada border. A man who possessed a wicked tongue, beaver-sharp mind, commanding left leg and, above all, a wit and wisdom before which few others dare even stand, let alone deserve to approach.

That man, that myth, and/or that legend was, and forever shall be…

Stompin’ Tom Connors.

GARY PIG GOLD with TEN YOU MAY HAVE MISSED In 2019

So even though Tarantino’s latest failed to put Paul Revere or his Raiders back up at the Toppermost of the Poppermost, and American Funnyman Neil Hamburger’s long-too-awaited Still Dwelling seems to have passed totally under the fryer, the Pig Player this past year was kept busy as always spinning, alphabetically as always…

Gary Pig Gold’s ENDLESS WINTER

 

Well then! Your fearless columnist stayed up on line all night all last week, scouring the virtual globe as it were, asking anyone and everyone he surfed across out there that timeless and timely musical question:

“WHY WOULD YOU REALLY RATHER BE LISTENING TO THE BEACH BOYS THIS DECEMBER 25th?”

Gary Pig Gold – HIS NAME WAS LARRY

 

IRWIN CHUSID (author, Songs In The Key Of Z):

Outsider music is a slippery genre. It’s musicians who tend to be self-taught, untrained, working certainly way outside the channels of mainstream music. There are very important qualifications; they are sincere about it. They mean it. They’re not doing it to be funny. They’re not doing it to be outrageous. This is a sincere musical expression. Wild Man Fischer in many ways is a poster child for outsider music.

YRAG GIP DLOG – NAM DAED, NO EM NRUT

In the summer of 2005, a package arrived at the Hollywood offices of Highway 61 Entertainment from London with no return address. Inside were two mini-cassette tapes dated December 30, 1999 and labeled The Last Testament of George Harrison.

GARY PIG GOLD – LIVE PEACE NEAR TORONTO

Saturday, September the 13th of 1969 broke particularly warm and bright over the blue suburban skies outside Toronto. As this was to be the day the drummer in my very first teenaged garage combo agreed to accompany me from Port Credit all the way into the Big City in order that I could buy my very first teenaged guitar. But! An electric one this time; the better to approximate the walls of sound on our bass player’s “Summertime Blues” record …Blue Cheer version, that is.