It’s Tuesday night, November 17. My renovations are nearing completion, the house is dead quiet as I sit here, stretched out on the couch, looking around at this home we lived in together for 18 years. Remembering all the wonderful celebrations, dinners, Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners, TV watching, companionable “book reading”, and just quietly being, soaking up each other’s presence.
As you read this my wife Sharon Vernon and I have just celebrated our 19th anniversary. We went to Cleveland to see two of her favourite bands – the American act Red Wanting Blue and Canadian rock darling The Trews who I introduced her to (musically) in 2003 after seeing them in a club in Halifax during the ECMA’s. We’ve done a lot of that on our anniversaries – going to see live acts. That includes Lighthouse on our 17th and Ian Mitchell of the Bay City Rollers (see story below).
A major anniversary passed surreptitiously on April 20th. It was the 29th anniversary of my long-suffering record label Bullseye Records. Normally I’d have shouted from the rooftops and run some kind of anniversary commemoration on Facebook or with musicians I know or privately, silently weeping, into my morning orange juice. But, I actually forgot about it.
So far removed am I from the music world now, and my own legacy, and exhausted from the grind that is my paycheck shackles that it slipped under my radar.
Cam Carpenter’s recent DBAWIS column on Toronto venues reminded me of how impressive the city’s music scene was back in the day. In the late 1970’s and early ‘80’s, the city was awash not only in great clubs, but in terrific musicians working six or even seven days a week, entertaining delighted, enthusiastic crowds.
You couldn’t toss a rock without hitting a working musician back then. We were everywhere, making a decent living, doing what we loved to do. Demand for live music was high, and most of us tried our damndest to rise to the listener’s expectations.
Bullseye Records of Canada
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 