Pat Blythe – Summertime Blues and Jazzin’ Around….

I’ve started a “reminder” page and called it “column ideas”. Not sure what the point was since I never follow it. There’s always something else that catches my eye….or ear. Lately I’ve had the attention span of a gnat. In fact…..no, never mind. It’s been a busy seven days, just not sure what the hell I’ve accomplished short of pissing off CRA and a couple of telemarketers, oh, and changing passwords on damn near everything….one of my lesser brilliant moves. Now I can’t remember how to log into anything. So, jotting down reminders (and new passwords) on scraps of paper. High security, that’s me!

Pat Blythe – The Stories Behind the Songs Part 4….

It’s a miserable, cold, sodden, rainy, pathetically dreary, rather dismal night. Moisture and freezing temperatures will create your very own skating rink on the sidewalk, front lawn and even the roadway. I look out the window and see everything enveloped in ice. Jane Harbury had very kindly invited me down to her Discoveries series at Tranzac tonight but between prior commitments and the weather, my ass is safely ensconced on the couch writing this. I have one artificial hip…..I don’t need two and I’d prefer to keep any modicum of dignity intact.

Cameron Carpenter – Rock’n’Roll Rewind – No More Pistols, No Ramones, We Just Want The Viletones

As children and teenagers across Canada head back to school next week, we will wrap up the series of high school rock writing I attempted. In retrospect it was pretty rough. It seems we started a secondary newsletter entitled “Grinning Nihilism” where we went underground for what looks like exactly one issue. I imagine we were denied access to the school’s mimeograph machine once an astute teacher read the obscenity laced “underground newspaper”.  As none of us wrote under our real names, detentions seemed to be avoided.

JAIMIE VERNON – DISHING WITH STEVEN DAVEY

Roxanne Tellier: My Toronto – Part Two

Toronto was a different place in the late 1970’s and early eighties. Although it’s easy to look back with rose coloured glasses, it was, in fact, a watershed time for Toronto musicians. Everywhere you turned, you were surrounded by outstanding music, made by dedicated and very talented players, who enjoyed the freedom to create their art, and make a living at the same time.

 

 

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)

Cameron Carpenter: The ABC’s Of Rock’n’Roll – Lists

I love lists, especially when they pertain to music.  I had a great chat with Now Weekly Editor/Publisher Michael Hollett last month as he was putting together the “50 Best Toronto Albums Ever” (which was Now’s cover story last week).  More on that later. My love of lists began in 1977 with the publication of “The Book Of Lists” written by David Wallechinsky, Irving Wallace and Amy Wallace. As a teenager it quickly replaced the “Guinness Book Of World Records” as the time wasting no-brainer book that you could pick up anytime, turn to any page, and by mesmerized by the amount of fascinating trivia.

JAIMIE VERNON – November DISCoveries

Now that the institutional insanity of Black Friday has passed and everyone was thankful to get a discount on a Made in China television using a year’s worth of minimum wage, might I suggest some inexpensive independent music to give to everyone else as Xmas gifts? And you don’t have to stand in line or need a shotgun to do it.

Cam Carpenter: The ABC’s Of Rock – Discovering Japan

This could easily be a whole story of one of my favourite albums of all time “Discovering Japan” by Graham Parker, but, instead, it is about two shows by bands beginning with the letter J that helped shaped the Toronto music scene. Let’s roll back to the end of the seventies.