Jaimie Vernon – GWNtertainment

 

A million years ago (okay, it was 32) I had an idea to start a music magazine to promote Canadian music. The idea didn’t come out of nowhere and there was a catalyst to light the fire. It started as a newsletter in 1989 to promote my rock band Moving Targetz. It was called the M.T. Head Express and was mailed to our fans monthly to let them know about gigs, recordings, and all our shenanigans as a rock band. My ex’s mother, Gail Benson (RIP), said to me one day, “You should expand your news letter to cover other Canadian bands, not just your own.” And, so I did. In early 1990, I launched a 24-page fanzine called Great White Noise Magazine. My ex and I bought a brand new PC with a dot matrix printer for $1320. I had to take out a loan at my credit union to do it. It would take me until 1993 to pay it off!

GARY PIG GOLD – DECEMBER’S CHILDREN: The CIRCUS is Back in Town

 

I think we’re more than all in agreement here that something very, very special took place during the middle 1960’s; a magical, monumental something in the air(waves) which gave rise to an undeniable socio-artistic upheaval courtesy of bards like Dylan, bands like the Beatles, filmmakers like Kubrick and, if I may push the issue quite thinly, television the likes of Get Smart and Green Acres to boot.

Gary Pig Gold with AXES: BOLD As JIMI’S

On what could have been – should have been – James Marshall Hendrix’s 78th Birthday on the 27th we pay, and play, due tribute to he …and these other supreme six-stringers:

GARY PIG GOLD rides THE SMALL MACHINE THAT COULD

For all intents and purposes, Lindsey Adams Buckingham has lived a charmed life since first dropping 71 Octobers ago.

Gary Pig Gold – VERA RAMONE and her POISONED HEART

Over-intellectualizing about a subject as pure and simple in its perfection as the Ramones sort of defeats their entire purpose, now doesn’t it? The proverbial “dancing about architecture,” as Steve Martin (by way of Frank Zappa) might well say.

Consequently, I’ve shied away from most books and studies concerning Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee and Co. that have appeared over the years. So when a copy of Vera Ramone King’s Poisoned Heart came my way, I cracked it open with a wee bit of trepidation, I do admit.

Gary Pig Gold got his Kicks with JOE STRUMMER

While the Clash were hardly the only band that ever mattered to me, I personally sure owe a tip-o-the ol’ snout to the one, the only Joe Strummer for most vividly helping me see The Light back in that dark, dank cultural wasteland known as the mid-Seventies:

GARY PIG GOLD WITH EIGHT QUESTIONS For NARDWUAR (The Human Serviette)

The single greatest living Canadian since Stompin’ Tom, who loudly and proudly celebrates a Date of Birth once again on July Five, answers:

Gary Pig Gold Presents – DEXTER ROMWEBER’S FREEDOM OF NIGHT

Very late one evening in the very late 1980s, my oldest pal Doug and I were dejectedly roaming the Rogers cable when we suddenly chanced upon footage of these two guys pounding music out on someone’s porch.

Our collective jaws – to say nothing of the remote – immediately dropped.

Gary Pig Gold has UNEARTHED MERSEYBEAT

It was exactly 56 (!) May birthdays ago that I received my very first “big record” …yes, just like the countless Count Basie and King and I albums in mom and dad’s big oak record cabinet. Needles to say, Capitol Canada T-6054 remained lodged on the Pig Player clear through Christmas ’64 …when I received my second big one.

GARY PIG GOLD – N.Y. DRIVEN WOMEN # 12 & 35

     Bob Dylan’s ex-wife sits on the bleachers in a smoky little Hoboken nightclub watching her latest son-in-law belting out his latest demo tape to an appreciative but slim audience of friends and scene-schemers. Bob Dylan’s ex-wife’s looks certainly belie her too many years of lawsuits and sleepless months:  she’s still slim, dark, and her eyes still sparkle mischievously with the magics of eras gone by.