Jaimie Vernon – GWNtertainment

 

A million years ago (okay, it was 32) I had an idea to start a music magazine to promote Canadian music. The idea didn’t come out of nowhere and there was a catalyst to light the fire. It started as a newsletter in 1989 to promote my rock band Moving Targetz. It was called the M.T. Head Express and was mailed to our fans monthly to let them know about gigs, recordings, and all our shenanigans as a rock band. My ex’s mother, Gail Benson (RIP), said to me one day, “You should expand your news letter to cover other Canadian bands, not just your own.” And, so I did. In early 1990, I launched a 24-page fanzine called Great White Noise Magazine. My ex and I bought a brand new PC with a dot matrix printer for $1320. I had to take out a loan at my credit union to do it. It would take me until 1993 to pay it off!

Peter Presents a Review

While my main interest in music is “indie music”, I also like some mainstream music (even I had a copy of “Zeppelin II”), and have attended various concerts which apparently qualify me to say that. I do not pretend to be in the “Sharon Vernon triple figure concert attendance superfan category”, although the most recent “Trews” show she went to eerily included “Fortunate Losers” on the bill, a band which has been mentioned in my column before.

Jaimie Has a Great Reason to be Missing Today….

Congratulations from all of us at DBAWIS to newly minted Grandparents Jaimie and Sharon Vernon. Daughter Danielle has delivered a Beauty.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Ms. April Joyce Benson….

JAIMIE VERNON – NOT DROWNING, JUST WAVING

It’s been a really crappy two weeks. Sometimes you get handed a series of unrelated, but no less dramatic, events that snowball into a stifling blanket of stress, anxiety and, more often than not, sadness. It’s been the default mode since early August. I have learned that you can’t catch any of the balloons falling from the sky, you can only offer up a spot for the least damaging of emotional landings. I’m worn out and weary.

Frank Gutch Jr: Bullseye Canada— Let the Salvage Operations Begin: Conversations with Jaimie Vernon… Plus Notes (and One Really Cool Picture of Bow Thayer Guesting With No Small Children)

That would be Bullseye Records, Canada for those unaware, a label pieced together by DBAWIS‘s own Jaimie Vernon and friends— a record company caught in the digital tsunami which wiped out more than one music concern.  In fact, if you define being wiped out as being wiped out, you could probably number them in triple digits, many being “absorbed” by major labels if they could find anything worth adding to their already bloated catalogues.  I will tell you upfront that it is a tale of both success and crushing defeat, of both business and personal failure— not that it could have been avoided.  When the music business started crumbling, it took with it most everything in its path.  If you subscribe to the business as it was.  If your yardstick was measured by the same standards the major labels had set up and followed for decades.  Jaimie and his company took a beating, no doubt, but he is not down and out by a long shot.  He has just, shall we say, been regrouping.

JAIMIE VERNON – HEY, NINETEEN

As you read this my wife Sharon Vernon and I have just celebrated our 19^th 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 17^th and Ian Mitchell of the Bay City Rollers (see story below).

JAIMIE VERNON – THE FEMININE MUSIQUE

 

JAIMIE VERNON – I Like the Beatles And My Baby Loves The Rolling Stones

Bob Segarini’s song is an apt musical metaphor for “Men are from Mars, Women are from Anywhere They Damn Well Please”. But in my case, the title means exactly what it says. I’m a Beatles fan. My wife, Sharon Vernon, is a Rolling Stones fan (or at least she was…apparently she’s bored of them now). In our household that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s a well balanced diet of charm, wit and brilliant pop sensibilities vs. machismo, grit and bad boy sexuality. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yITEJnuXd3U

JAIMIE VERNON: AT SEVENTEEN

As you read this I suspect that I am recovering from what would have been a rather eventful 17^th anniversary with my wife. As an anniversary gift, we were invited out to see Lighthouse in Oshawa by the very charitable Skip Prokop who has led the band since 1969 and is currently the subject of a biography I’m co-writing. As it turns out the current singer, Dan Clancy, has been an acquaintance of Sharon and I as well. He did double duty as a music teacher at Durham College and a judge at the school’s annual songwriting competition for which I volunteered as co-judge for half-a-dozen years as well. He’s also been on a number of recording sessions with artists that once graced my record label.

JAIMIE VERNON – I Like the Beatles And My Baby Loves The Rolling Stones

Bob Segarini’s song is an apt musical metaphor for “Men are from Mars, Women are from Anywhere They Damn Well Please”. But in my case, the title means exactly what it says. I’m a Beatles fan. My wife, Sharon Vernon, is a Rolling Stones fan. In our household that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s a well balanced diet of charm, wit and brilliant pop sensibilities vs. machismo, grit and bad boy sexuality.