Nadia Sends a Letter to Frank….

Dear Frank,

I know I’m supposed to be writing about you, but ever since I learned you’d left us for the record store in the sky, all I’ve really wanted was to talk to you one last time.

Segarini – The Low Down on The Get Down and Roadies Loads In

I hated Vinyl.

The HBO thugs and drugs fantasy about the ’70s music industry, not the resurging delivery system for music and hipness. Didn’t much like Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll, either. Dennis Leary chews about the same amount of scenery as the cast of Vinyl, but to equally stifled yawns and eye rolling. …and let’s not forget Empire…Dynasty for the Drake Nation, and if you don’t remember Dynasty, rest assured that this hiccup won’t be remembered either….

Amazing that these shows about the entertainment business go out of their way to not entertain….

Cameron Carpenter – 10 CC – Vinyl Season One

Well I had to wait for the DVD to be released but I have finally seen Season One of Vinyl. I first heard about the HBO series a couple of years ago as Nigel Grainge and I grabbed lunch at the Imperial Pub after his keynote address at Indie Week. We were catching up on each other’s careers as we had not seen each other or worked together for years. At MCA I was the Marketing Manager for Nigel’s label Ensign and looked after everyone from The Waterboys and World Party to Sinead O’Connor, The Blue Aeroplanes and Stump. I immediately liked Nigel on first meeting and he taught me a lot about marketing and the music industry (as well as Arsenal). Before he started Ensign Records he worked at Phonogram in London and signed Thin Lizzy, 10 CC and The Boomtown Rats. He is a true music man.

Cameron Carpenter – 10 CC – Take Me Out To The Ball Game

It has been yet another busy week. A birthday, a festival, a ball game, a house party, a couple of bar shows, and, another busy week coming up. This was a lot easier at 37 than it is at 57.

JAIMIE VERNON – BOOM GO THE ‘80s

In a previous incarnation my label, Bullseye, was focusing on 1960s and 1970s Canadian re-issues but in the time that has elapsed since I folded the label (2010) and now, the pop culture zeitgeist has shifted. Classic Rock radio was put into suspended animation in 2014 by the major radio players (at least in Canada) and 1980s radio has picked up the ball. Oh, the 1970s is still getting a fair amount of airplay, but it’s mostly been ghettoized into bite-sized “The 70s at 7 !!!” type radio programming.

JAIMIE VERNON – TO PRESERVE AND PROTECT

Long before I considered myself a profession record label weasel I worked in a government bunker as a data librarian. My job title was Records Management Assistant and my duties included archiving government documents, maps, tax records and all matter of ephemera – including name tags from VIPs who visited City Hall and ribbon cutting scissors from shopping mall openings attended by our politicians.

JAIMIE VERNON – THE BOOK GOES ON

I’m desperately trying to finish writing my 6^th 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.

JAIMIE VERNON – THAT PEACEFUL EASY FEELING

Another week, another childhood music idol walks among the immortal choir. No sooner had we hosed off the glitter and put away our vinyl copies of David Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust” we learned that Eagles founder Glenn Frey had passed from complications related to his dependence on medication to control severe rheumatoid arthritis and acute colitis.

JAIMIE VERNON – MUSICAL VALUE VILLAGE

I’ve been slowly re-imbedding myself into the Dante’s Inferno that is the current music industry with a focus on promoting good, new music [see some of my previous blogs for my recommendations] cause, let’s face it, talking about the mistakes the labels made over the last decade is like discussing that guy at Decca Records that passed on The Beatles [his name was Dick Rowe and he made up for the faux pas by later signing the Rolling Stones].

JAIMIE VERNON: UN-MERRILY DOWN THE STREAM

This week came the revelation that digital music streaming services are both ripping off artists AND generating no revenue. Rarely has there been a non-story generating so much sucking and blowing simultaneously.