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.

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…