Roxanne Tellier – Mother’s Day, CMW and This is America

My mother has been gone since April of 1992 … 26 years ago. There are days when it feels like we were playing a spirited game of Rummoli only yesterday, and other days when I can’t remember what it was like to have my own little family.  After my mum and grandmother died just days apart in that horrible year, the tenuous link we had with Montreal was broken. While I’ve been ‘home’ a few times since then, Quebec hasn’t really drawn me back for decades.

Cameron Carpenter: The ABC’s Of Rock’n’Roll – We’ll See About XYZ

There is a lot going on right now and I really can’t wrap my mind around columns about X, Y and Z. These are some tough letters to cover and I have already been over them a couple of times in the past therefore they are about to be passed over. No offence.

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.

 

 

Roxanne Tellier: Snow on the Rooftop, Fire in the Furnace

This must be a nightmare of a year for young weather forecasters. They probably get up in the morning, check a stone outside their front door to see if it’s wet, snowy or dry, and then fling a dart at a weather board, sobbing “Oh who cares what I say – it’s always wrong anyway. I’m never gonna finish paying off my tuition!”

JAIMIE VERNON – A NEW YORK STATE OF MIND

I can’t help thinking about New York right now. They were part of a long, sweeping plan by an angry Mother Nature to be stamped out by hurricane Sandy. They weren’t the only ones. The eastern US seaboard was targeted and subsequently attacked with a weather system unseen since, well, hurricane Katrina destroyed the Gulf coast not that long ago. That storm destroyed my favourite city in the world – New Orleans. Now Sandy has destroyed my second favourite city – New York. That’s not to take away from the devastation in New Jersey or those who lost their lives on the replica of the HMS Bounty that sank off the coast of the Carolinas. Those stories remain sobering as do the deaths of those people, mostly on Staten Island, killed in the wake of the ocean’s fury.

Cameron Carpenter: The ABC’s Of Rock – X

Well this doesn’t seem fair, one of the busiest weeks of the year and one of the toughest letters to cover. This one may be a shorty.

X

Although they came up in the L.A. scene X never had the hard core mentality or sound that a lot of their local contemporaries adopted. With the harmony vocals of singers John Doe and Exene Cervenka, propelled by guitarist Billy Zoom (who may have the best stance and smile in rock`n`roll) and anchored by monster drummer DJ Bonebreak the group were equal parts punk and rockabilly.