Pat Blythe – Today’s column is brought to you by……and music

That one just popped into my head as I’ve just finished posting this week’s podcast.  I’m now 36 podcasts in, 36 conversations, 36 artist voices, 1,100 downloads, 29 followers and over 3,000 “listens”. People from all over the world including Australia, Europe, UAE, South America, the U.S. and Canada have been tuning in.  The purpose was to check in with local artists. As a neophyte podcaster, I had no expectations. Ten downloads made me happy to know someone was listening. Even though I’m still small potatoes, it’s like the little engine that could….it keeps growing by leaps and bounds. Still a guppy in the ocean of podcasts; but folks ARE listening and the music is being shared.

Pat Blythe – On your mark…..book report……and music (of course)

…..and so it has begun. Music is starting to break out everywhere and many artists are “quietly rushing” to bust through the starting gate. With fewer venues, and so far, slightly smaller audiences, (which is going to mean a slightly lower pay day in the short term). I think the gates are going to get so jammed you won’t be able to slip a blade of grass through (among other things). It’s going to be quality over quantity so I hope all those drumsticks, keyboards and guitars are “sharpened”, tuned and at the ready. There’s been roughly 18 months of “practice” time.

GWNtertainment #14 – Jaimie Vernon

GWNtertainment #10 by Jaimie Vernon

We’re seeing the world slowly come alive again as lockdowns are lifted and the weather moving toward an inevitable spring. There are even artists planning to tour later in the year if all goes according to plan. There is optimism in the air and we all need a lot of that right now. The food and drink and music are flowing. Here is a whole bunch of the latter…

GWNtertainment #3 by Jaimie Vernon

Here we are with Issue #3 of GWNtertainment magazine. How do you like us so far? We’re catching and reporting all the Canadian music ephemera that may have evaded your gaze in the last week.  Here’s the stuff that caught our attention on this, the 50th anniversary week of Canadian content on radio!

2020 YEAR-END MUSIC ROUND-UP by Jaimie Vernon

We’re on the final lap of 2020 as we hold our collective breaths anticipating/dreading the upcoming year. Despite the inability to see live music as frequently as many of us would have wanted this year, musicians did what they could to keep cranking out great music to take our minds off of the crap going on in the world. Without further ado here’s the rest of the Christmas tracks and a smattering of new original tunes piling up in my in-box.

MUSIC IS DYING…AND IT’S YOUR FAULT by Jaimie Vernon

Now that I have your attention, let’s talk about music in the time of COVID, shall we?
In the Before Times (March 2020 or sooner) the music industry was teetering on the brink of obsolescence as concert tickets had skyrocketed to the price of, well, a moon-landing, and venues were closing down at a rate equal to Nortel distributors. The music itself had been co-opted by the tech industry through streaming platforms, leaving artists wondering how they got robbed so badly (here’s a hint: you’re the cow, the music’s the milk…insert cliché about not buying the former if you can get the latter for free). On a scale of economics, you’re either a starving creator or a billionaire exploiter. There is no middle class in music. And given that most weasels in the music industry aren’t clever enough to become billionaires, they turn to low hanging fruit and pick the pockets of performers and songwriters for pennies on the dollar.

NEW ROCKERS OF THE PEERLESS AGE by JAIMIE VERNON

I’m updating the Canadian Pop Music Encyclopedia once again. This time it has a global purpose and will soon be available to music researchers via a data base known as Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale worldwide to Colleges, Universities, and libraries. It is literally my life’s work and is expected to remain available in perpetuity. To that end I’ve been tasked with updating annually until, well, I’m dead. I can just see me now in a senior’s home skipping Bingo and sing-a-long nights while I sit by the glow of the Google engine looking for the elusive catalog number of Whaleman’s 1991 “Sings!” album and gumming a soft-bun and apple sauce for 4.30 dinner.

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 VERNON – THE DAVE RAVE CONSPIRACY

Excerpted from the upcoming Bullseye Records 30^th Anniversary book “Bullsography”
I was plugging away on an old Underwood electric typewriter out of a one-bedroom apartment in Pickering Village in the late 1980s putting out a fanzine called Great White Noise magazine when I received correspondence from legendary Pig Paper fanzine guru Gary Pig Gold….