Cameron Carpenter: Rock’n’Roll Rewind – White Dopes On Punk

This week we are going to rewind back to April 12, 1978. My assignment that day was to interview Fee Waybill, frontman for the always outrageous Tubes, prior to their show at the late-great Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. It was the third trip to Toronto after shows in the horrible International Centre and the always magnificent Massey Hall. They had just released their fourth album “What Do You Want From Live”, a double-live album, recorded at the Hammersmith Odeon in London.

Cameron Carpenter: The ABC’s Of Rock – I Was A Punk Before You Were A Punk

“I was a punk before you were a punk

You don’t believe me? Just step outside and see me baby

I was a punk before you were a punk

You want some action? I’ll put your ass in traction baby

I was a punk before you were

I was a punk before you

I was a punk before you were

I was a punk before you”

The Tubes (Spooner/Evans/Waybill)

DOUG THOMPSON: CONFESSIONS OF A PROFESSIONAL ROCK AND ROLL INTERVIEWER – ONE NIGHT WITH DAVID FOSTER MADE MY DAY.

Over the past 40 years, I’ve been fortunate to interview well over a thousand rock stars, pop stars, musicians, songwriters, session players, engineers and producers.  The stars usually have a pat answer (although not always), but I’ve always enjoyed interviewing behind-the-scenes people as they have the best stories and usually don’t get to tell them that often.

Cameron Carpenter: Listing The ABC’s Of Rock’n’Roll – A is For Album Covers

Kids today will never know the joy of endlessly browsing in a record store with no set agenda. The hours that were happily wasted on Saturday afternoons at Sam The Record Man, Records On Wheels, A&A’s or The Record Peddler are immeasurable. It was time well spent.  CD shopping is just not the same and digital shopping/hunting is an aural and not visual experience. The album cover was a great size, 12” X 12” (versus the miniscule 5” X 5” of a CD).  An album cover could capture your attention, demand you to pick it up and read the back for the vital information which would or would not persuade you to shell out your six or seven dollars.

Cameron Carpenter: The ABC’s Of Rock – T

And now back to our regularly scheduled column.

Television

There are very few albums that come out of New York in the seventies that can hold a candle to Television’s “Marquee Moon” and I could argue that they A-side of the original record is the strongest side on vinyl to ever come out of the seventies scene. I started reading about the band in the mid-seventies in Rock Scene Magazine. Rock Scene was half fanzine and half magazine and the likes of  writer Lisa Robinson and photographer Bob Gruen covered the New York underground and gave ink to bands like The New York Dolls , Television, The Ramones and Talking Heads before they ventured past north of Houston Street.