Bob Continues to Explain Why the American Music Awards Were So Darned Magical

Miss Part One? Click here

There were only 4 responses to my request for comments favouring a Part 2 concerning the 2019 AMAs, 3 of which half-heartedly clamored for one (probably because they are nice people and thought if they didn’t it would hurt my feelings), and the 4th from an old friend and fellow scribe/music hostage/old guy complaining about how impossible it is to read these columns because of the white words and black background.  The words are actually light grey and the black is called “Midnight Black”, but try as I might (and believe me, I’ve tried), it can’t be done. AND, If I change it, 2500 columns will be affected and look like poop, so, sorry Richard. Also, having Glaucoma makes reading black print on white difficult for me, producing headaches and the occasional sneezing fit, so …I will send my friend a copy of the book when it’s finally done, which will be black on white, but with not many pictures, because other than my own personal pictures, the pictures I use in these columns I swipe from other sites and some want me to PAY for them! I mean, really …have you EVER?

Now then …where were we ….?

Bob Explains Why the American Music Awards Were So Darned Magical

So rarely does an Awards Show come along that enthralls as well as entertains, educates as well as enlightens, and stinks up a room less than a Tour Bus full of Used KFC Buckets, 2 Weeks worth of Green Day’s unwashed sweaty stage socks, and the urinal odor of R. Kelly’s bedroom, but this year’s AMA’s managed to do just that.

Not by much, really, but still ….

Bob’s All Time Favourite Canadian Top Twenty

After five long columns about Laurel Canyon and the legendary Artists who toked, coked, and stroked their way to fame and fortune in the mythic hills of Hollywood and its Sunset Strip playground, I needed to cleanse my palate and write about some Artists and music that hard-scrabbled its way onto my musical landscape from all over my adopted Country, and did so without the benefit of geographic location and timing, but with their ear-worm worthiness and musical uniqueness and skills. Some were hits, and most were not, but in my personal jukebox, these are all worthy of Number One.

And yes …that was one of the longest Run In Sentences I have written in years. Felt good ….

Gary Pig Gold – HIS NAME WAS LARRY

 

IRWIN CHUSID (author, Songs In The Key Of Z):

Outsider music is a slippery genre. It’s musicians who tend to be self-taught, untrained, working certainly way outside the channels of mainstream music. There are very important qualifications; they are sincere about it. They mean it. They’re not doing it to be funny. They’re not doing it to be outrageous. This is a sincere musical expression. Wild Man Fischer in many ways is a poster child for outsider music.

Bob Updates the 50th Anniversary Beatle Tribute – New Videos

If you really want to enjoy this column, I suggest you take the time to read these two first. Written originally in 2010 for FYIMusic, and reprinted here in DBAWIS in April of 2012, these two columns are part of a series called “When Radio and Records Ruled the World”.

Chapters 7 and 8 will help you understand what was going on at the time of the Beatles rise and a bit beyond…and why I was less than thrilled with what the Grammy Organization and CBS did with their legacy last night.

Segarini: When Radio and Records Ruled the World Part 7 – The Invasion Begins…

Segarini: When Radio and Records Ruled the World Part 8 – “Don’t you ever sleep?…and get a haircut!”

Bob Writes a little Dinner Music

There were at least ten of us sitting around the restaurant table. It was an impromptu dinner, decided upon on a whim. No vote, no forethought, just a bunch of like-minded people who found themselves together and decided they were hungry.

There was Steve Lalor, a guitarist from Seattle who was in a band we were all sure was going to make it, called the Daily Flash. There was Chris Ethridge, multi-talented bassist for the Flying Burrito Brothers and studio cat who had played with a lot of our favourite artists. Chris was a good old boy who lived in the canyon and whose door was always unlocked, always inviting.

Bob Presents Peter Kashur – The Segarini Band Legacy and Bar Tab

Peter Kashur is an annoyingly talented Renaissance Man from the unlikely womb of Thunder Bay Ontario, whose Culinary, Artistic, and Musical gifts cast a pall of inadequacy over his small circle of friends who tolerate his genius because his Oysters Rockefeller, Beef Ribs, and Vesper Martinis are to die for. He is my number one choice as my favourite companion for sitting on the porch drinking Bourbon, complaining about everything, bemoaning old age while being giddily thankful for it, and yelling at clouds. Mr. Kashur (known to his cadre of hooded followers as ‘Shew’) has been whining about the following for years …so I have decided to let him share his rage with you, thinking I would have the day off. Nope. Just repairing his lack of Capital Letters, random punctuation, and libelous rantings, kept me up most of the night. He has been a trusted and necessary musical compatriot and partner for 40 years. This is the least I can do. Seriously. I checked. It is the Least.

Please let me know if all the trouble was worth it. Anyway …here’s Shew.