Bob Makes Excuses and Isn’t Very Nice at All if You Ask Me….

A Message From Bob – This is an old column, updated to serve my current situation, but fortunately, soooo on point that the majority of it sounds like I ripped it from today’s headlines.

Here’s the thing…

In the past 10 days I have quit smoking, had my apartment divested of a ton of junk, gotten a roommate, been through Bullshit hell, took a bad fall in a Dollarama and spent 2 hours sitting in an ambulance convincing the adorable EMPs or Ts or whatever the Jr. Doctors who pilot them are called, not to take me to the hospital and leave me on a gurney in a hallway for 12 hours while the doctors and nurses play Marco Polo in the cafeteria wearing hospital gowns and swim fins. I bled out enough blood to dress the crime scenes in an entire season of CSI: North York, and having been successful at avoiding Our Lady of Perpetual Agony’s pale green hallways, am now the proud owner of a broken nose (3rd time), 3 bruised ribs some little broken bones in my left hand, a painfully scraped left knee, a broken pair of sunglasses, and little or no love for an elderly Eastern European couple who caused the prattfall by considering me a crook and are incapable of knowing the number for 911 and dialing it, no matter how much you scream at them to do so while spraying blood all over their discount christmas wrapping.

Fuck it. The 2nd Installment of the Story of the Wackers will be up on Monday or Friday, and until then, you are lucky to get this. Love you. Leave me alone.

Dear Readers. Please excuse Bob from today’s Column…the Dog Ate His Homework.

Signed, My Mom

GARY PIG GOLD Gets SHELL-SHOCKED

The other day I did something I haven’t done in a while. A long, long while. After taking a break to gulp down my standard late-afternoon frothy chocolate shake, a friend decided to drive us spur-of-the-moment clear cross-town to… a record store. Yes, a record store. Remember those?

Bob shares The Story of The Wackers Part One

 

I was losing sleep writing about The Five Crazy Assholes (Our Personal Tour Name, and how we refered to ourselves more often than not), when I was gifted with a copy of the fan magazine this was originally printed in…and PLEASE, I cannot find the PM with your name on it and you deserve credit for this, even though I used the old, weathered scans of my copy when I couldn’t find yours, so get back to me and I’ll insert your well deserved credit. Okay…where was I…oh yeah, Yellowed with age and at wonky angles, I did what I could to make it presentable because you deserve to read this account because it was written by two eccentric and incredible dear friends who are no longer with us…although I keep them close to this day. More next Friday, but I need all you Wacker Friends and Fans to follow the directions at the end of the column….

The Bob – The Temps, The Tommy, and The Twins

Most of the last two weeks has been spent un-writing this column. I know that sounds dumb, but it is an accurate description of the process.

I find that when I am passionate about something, excited to distraction, chomping at the bit to share my Joy of Discovery with any and all who will listen, I tend to go off like a 6 year old with a wagon full of water balloons and a neighborhood full of targets. …and that seems to lessen the impact, the joy, the pleasure, and turns delight into a chore. The solution is to pare it down, hit the highlights, and not bore you, Dear Readers, and in so doing, whet your appetite and get you as excited as I am without belabouring my point. Even so, I KNOW I have gone on too long again….

…and my Point? There is Greatness afoot….

GARY PIG GOLD – FRANKIE TEARDROP

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.

Gary Pig Gold – TOO TOUGH TO DIE: GOD SAVED DEE DEE RAMONE AND PUNK ROCKERS EVERYWHERE

I just want to walk right out of this world,

coz everybody has a poison heart

(Dee Dee Ramone, Daniel Rey)

Time to go listen to “Wart Hog” again…
(musician-actor-fan Robbie Rist)

His speech was inarticulate;

His songs were not

(Carl Cafarelli, “This Is Rock ‘N’ Roll Radio”)

Dee Dee was the most important musician in the history of punk rock,

and probably the most overlooked

(John Holmstrom, editor/publisher of PUNK Magazine)

Gary Pig Gold Sez – “A” IS FOR APPLE, “B” IS BIZARRE

As hard as it may seem today to fathom, there was a time, in the not too distant analog past, when starting up a record company required more – much more – than just a domain name and the nearest GarageBand™ software.

Yes, there was a time when starting up a record company required actual brick and mortar (or at least some office space), telephones, pens, pencils, typewriters and reams of 20 lb stationery (plus desks to put them all on and, ideally, a staff of people to use them) …not to mention, in the case of at least one of the two record companies mentioned below, a full Cordon Bleu kitchen staff equipped with a £600-a-month-at-least liquor allowance.