If I didn’t know any better, I would say I am the victim of a Gypsy Curse.
Lately it seems that just walking down the hall has become an obstacle-laden course of Rube Goldberg slapstick and Orwellian conspiracy. Getting from Point A to Point B without slipping on a banana peel, having a piano fall on me, or tripping over my own two feet and landing in an Acme Wood Chipper has become totally impossible.
…and I’m not even chasing a road-runner.
So, apparently we’re on the verge of another mass extinction – the last one killed off the dinosaurs. We’ve exploited the planet through hunting, fishing, and degrading wild habitats, and the planet is fighting back. Couldn’t happen to a nicer species, judging by our behaviour of late. I thought the advent of ‘promposals’ would have pushed us over the edge.
WARNING: This blog features the oral history of wallpaper drying and pertains to music that’s less than a decade old. Reading it might very well put you in a coma and cause your family to call emergency services.
It’s been a very interesting week in the music business as the wintery cobwebs get dusted away and we start seeing the industry awaken from its post-2014 slumber. There’s something amiss in Muzoid Land and it appears to be the long tail of sins of the past coming back to eat itself.
This week Paul Revere of 1960s pop band Paul Revere & The Raiders passed away at the age of 76. He and his band were one of the second generation of pop stars who took the post-Elvis world by storm on the back of Beatlemania.
So if I’ve got 41 new messages on Facebook, 3 books that have to be returned to the library, and the kugel will be ready at 7 p.m., how many nude photos did Jennifer Lawrence upload to the cloud? Answer: One tin soldier ran away.
We are a species of adapters. We build on what we’ve learned before (we also forget about what we’ve learned before because we’ve got the retention skills of a black Labrador retriever chasing a stick in a field of grass, but that’s a blog for another time). The greatest inventions, the greatest works of art and specifically, the greatest music has come about from nicking, stealing, re-shaping and regurgitating what our forefathers have wrought.
I love album covers! Not the shrunken down versions they use on CDs, I mean those gloriously creative (mostly) 12” vinyl record album covers. I was looking through my vinyl record collection the other day and marvelled at some of the amazing designs of some of the covers. Now, before we start delving into some classic album covers as well as a few personal favourites, a little history is in order, but don’t panic – there will not be a quiz later.
Jaimie’s great column this week (125 Influential Albums) got me to thinking about the music that impacted on my life over the years. There are far too many to name-check, so I came up with the following, which is an updated column from 3 years ago when I was writing for the dearly departed FYIMusic. These albums not only engaged me when they were released, but continue to entertain and educate me now, decades later.
I’m not sure if these LPs are even available on CD or for download, but if they are, seek them out and have a listen. They are, without exception, the jumping off points for entire long lasting careers and even genre changing sub-streams of musical exploration. The long awaited conclusion of Segarini: Stockton, Daring-Do, and Cruisin’ the Miracle Mile runs tomorrow…finally.
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Bullseye Records of Canada
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 