I’m desperately trying to finish writing my 6th book. It should have been released in December but things like re-launching my record label have had me in meetings for the better part of 4 months. The new book should actually be my seventh, but that book – ‘Sunny Days – The Skip Prokop Story’ – is taking a very long time to transcribe and edit though we do expect it to be completed in coming months.
Continue reading
24 hours ago a crowdfunding campaign to bring my old record label, Bullseye, back from the dead ended successfully with over $20,000 in donations from people who passionately believe in not only me and the label but music in general. I’m overwhelmed by the generosity and well wishes. I am truly humbled.
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.
As much as it’s a sappy platitude from the late music legend Andrew Gold, there’s no other way of saying thanks to those who have stuck by me year after year. I have over 2800 ‘friends’ on my Facebook profile. This isn’t a boast. It’s a matter of fact and it’s not to point out the quantity. I’m the rare exception in social media who actually knows most of the people I’ve friended.
CHAPTER 1 – We’re Moving Targetz…and You’re Sitting Ducks
April will be the 30th anniversary of the formation of my second “successful” band MOVING TARGETZ. Technically, the band already existed before I insinuated myself into the line-up. I merely co-opted the players and renamed them. The story you’re about to read is true. 
The names have not been changed because people really like to see their name in print. It’s what musicians live for if not for the monetary pittance.
Apparently, it was Canada Music Week this week. As you read this there are dozens of bands taking the stage all around Toronto hoping to attract the attention of the music industry. Sadly, music industry people don’t go to bars featuring virtual unknowns at 1AM on a Monday thru any-day-of-the-week. They’re at the lounge in the Marriott Downtown Eaton’s Centre Hotel trolling for a gig and/or drowning their sorrows in what continues to be the capsizing of the S.S. Musonic.
LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE – THE SEQUEL
For 26 months starting in May 1980 until July 1982 I was the guitarist in a punk band called The Swindle in its early incarnation and Swindled as its pro-forma public visage. We played more than 60 shows and released one 7” single that went unnoticed (at the time) before hitting a massive brick wall of self-doubt.
On August 4, 1982 bassist Tim James quit the band with the hope that myself and drummer Jay Clarke would follow him to the Darkside. Instead, Jay and I stood with singer Ivan Judd.
Bullseye Records of Canada
