If we’re being truthful, and I realize that that is an astronomic proviso, there is very little that gets accomplished immediately after one is born. You sit around all day, shit in your pants and bitch and cry about the least little thing. Basically, you’re a network executive until your fourth birthday.
Continue reading
From time to time, people have accused me of ‘hating’ Donald Trump irrationally. But really, there’s nothing irrational about me hating the guy. I admit it, I despise him, and everything he is, has been, and currently represents. So should any free-thinking lover of progress, freedom, individual and civil rights, and most of all – democracy.
In 2012 I took on the task of interviewing internationally renowned drummer Skip Prokop on what we thought would be a quick set of sessions to lay down the most interesting stories from his impressive career as drummer for The Paupers and Lighthouse with side projects involving Peter Paul & Mary, Janis Joplin, Mama Cass Elliot, and Mike Bloomfield’s ‘Supersession.’
Ten so long years ago, a random gathering of some of the best musicians from Canada’s greatest musical berg threw themselves onstage as part of the annual Locke Street Festival. Spearheaded by veteran Hammerhead Tom Wilson, said ad-hoc combo was busy rocking and rolling things all the way up that street as the sun slid down when suddenly, a most familiar figure was spotted nearby.
The lead singer of the one, the only, Teenage Head.
In last last week’s column, some of my language was a bit salty. However, if you are more offended by that than you are about the threats to our democracy, freedom and tolerance posed not only by neo Nazis and white supremacists, but by extremist ideologues (on both sides), well then maybe you’re part of the problem. As far as neo-nazis are concerned, I will not attempt to disguise my distaste, disdain and disgust for those thugs, those losers who apparently venerate “Hogan’s Heroes” as a World War II documentary.
So now let’s lighten up and talk about some music. I dedicate this week’s column to all the people who whine “There just isn’t any good music being made anymore!” There is, you just aren’t looking in the right places. (It’s actually all around you.)
It’s Boom Town for realtors in Toronto these days. 243,400 houses were sold last year, and as of April of this year, the average residence in the city had a starting price tag of a cool $921,000.
My old house in Scarborough, which we sold last July, was re-sold twice more by speculators before the year ended, each time jumping another $100K or so in price. It’s now been demolished and rebuilt as a monster home. I wouldn’t recognize the place, they tell me.
They’ve been called The Greatest Band You’ve Never Heard, the Ultimate Cult Group, Hamilton’s deepest Underground legends and, consequently, Canada’s best-kept-ever musical secret. Nevertheless, you could find Julian Cope spinning their music in England, Steve Wynn collecting their records in L.A., and Thurston Moore still hunting down original artyfacts whenever he traversed the Toronto area. Why, even our esteemed socio-musical colleague Bob Mersereau boldly placed their Cyborgs Revisited at # 36 in his Top 100 Canadian Albums book (strategically right between Leonard Cohen and k. d. lang).
I’m going to start calling this column Pat’s Diary (nope, too blah), or maybe Zippy’s Musical Journey, or maybe….My Life As A Crazy Lady….. Welcome to my world of music, pictures, and general mayhem. So we begin another 10 days of zipping (get it haha) around this wonderful city of ours enjoying the nightlife. I’m starting backwards…..
With my ‘True Tales From a Cemetery Cop’ being released October 3 I’ve finally returned to finish writing the book I promised a year ago – the history of Bullseye Records of Canada.
Excerpted from the upcoming Bullseye Records 30th Anniversary book “Bullsography”
Continue reading
Bullseye Records of Canada
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 