Couple of quick updates from last week. Dave “Bookie” Bookman has indeed landed at Indie 88.1 and will debut his Sunday night show on September 15th at 6:00 PM. Nice to have him back on the local airwaves. Former Q-107 evening jock Dominik Diamond has taken over the morning show at the newly branded Radio 965 in Halifax.
A few days ago, I saw a picture of a couple of Darrell Vickers‘ friends and fellow band members standing before a wall of vinyl, only a small portion of a collection which more than likely takes up a whole house. Vickers has been digitizing and posting the most rare (and most odd) of the records under the guise of Radio Vickers, a hobby which thus far has handed many a fan of oddities music that which they might not have ever found. You never know what you’re going to find when Darrell points the finger, but one thing I did find and am thrilled to have found, actually, is a collection of odd bands from down under recreating the original Nuggets: Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, this one titled Antipodean Interpolations of the First Psychedelic Era. Bands like Velociraptor and The Gooch Palms and King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard and The Murlocs serving up covers of The Standells‘ Dirty Water and Sagittarius‘s My World Fell Down and The Leaves‘ Hey Joe. And that’s just the tip of the Vickers iceberg.
That’s what one of my old girlfriends used to call hanging out at my place. The Depths of Hell. Of course, as far as I could tell, anyplace which did not exclusively play everything Los Angeles was hell to her. Linda Ronstadt. The Eagles. Joni Mitchell. Jackson Browne. Gawd, but I always thought if there was a hell on Earth, it was Los Angeles. Soft Rock hell. Bland hell. Mediocre hell. Just plain hell.
With a nod to Neil Young: “’Live music is better’ bumper stickers should be issued!” God knows how few of us realize what we are missing out there these days. The bars and taverns and music listening rooms are being stocked with an amazing array of excellent artists and we are either sitting at home with our fingers up our ass or hanging out in some bar with no music beyond that hooked up to stereo speakers on walls, bitching about there being no good music. For all of you who do that (and you know you do), I have a finger for you and you can bet which one.
I’ve recently received a surprising number of CDs that stall out at five or six songs. It brings to mind a conversation I had several years ago with International Pop Overthrow Festival founder David Bash who, as a music connoisseur, doesn’t like EPs. I was never able to follow the reasoning – only that he will dismiss an artist’s release because it’s an unsatisfying teaser and a waste of his time. Ironically, less music means he’s SAVING time…but it got me thinking about how many acts may have been dismissed by the industry, media and fans for the same reason. Is it a perception that the artist isn’t committed enough or prolific enough to pull off a full album? Do they think the artist is lazy? Is it a perception of value for purchase price? After all, it costs the same amount of money to manufacture a CD with 10 songs as it does for six. The answer to these questions depend on the intent of the release in the first place.
That’s right, sports fans. Sometimes you just have to line up and bang, that’s all there is to it. It makes me laugh because when I think of headbanging I see long-haired guitarists lining up, Status Quo-style, heads flopping in unison to the beat, and if headbanging is about nothing else it is about the beat. I caught the bug in the late Sixties and early Seventies when hard rock began to become even harder rock and finally gave way to the throbbing wall of sound crunch of even harder rock. I loved it.
Bullseye Records of Canada
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 