Roxanne Tellier: Are You For Real?

We’re in ‘the teens of the 2000s, but let’s not wait for 2020 to get some hindsight.  We’re getting weirder, folks, weirder and less able to distinguish truth from lies, and fact from fiction.   Could a Donald Trump, 100% fact free, have ever gotten a toe hold on an American presidential race in any other way or time?

Cameron Carpenter: The ABC’s Of Rock – Heavy Metal Thunder

Defining what constitutes heavy metal is now damn near impossible. Much like the debate on what is or is not classic rock there are not set guidelines. In the seventies heavy metal was pretty easy to define: fast, hard rock, blues based and guitar dominated. Bands such as Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin were the poster boys for the genre.  Things changed in the late seventies with the introduction of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal. Post punk bands relied less on the blues and performed a faster more aggressive version of metal.

Nadia Elkharadly: Sometimes you need a woman’s touch

This past weekend I had the pleasure of seeing one of my favourite local bands live for the first time in over a year.  Toronto’s own White Cowbell Oklahoma took the stage at Lee’s Palace for their CD release party, but there were a couple of new faces on stage.  The most notable new face was that of guitarist Joan Smith (from another awesome local band Little Foot Long Foot).  Now, a great musician joining a great band is always worth mentioning, but in this case the value is twofold.  Besides the fact that Smith is an incredible guitarist and singer, she also happens to be a woman.  This wouldn’t be noteworthy either, except I’ve always thought of White Cowbell Oklahoma as one of the, well, manliest band’s out there.

Segarini: When Radio and Records Ruled the World Part 14…Video Kills the Radio Star and Radio jumps on the Bandwagon….

Part 13 can be found here

Going into the ‘80’s radio was still the first place anyone who loved music would turn to when they needed a fix, but thanks to an innovation developed by the SONY Corporation, people started spending a lot more time listening to a music delivery system that started out as a dictation storage device in the early ‘60’s, grew into a music delivery system in the ‘70’s, and with the introduction of a good quality portable device began to outsell albums for a time all the way through the ‘80’s. The device was called a Walkman, and it played something called a ‘Compact Cassette’.