Pat Blythe – Sounds Like Toronto…..and music

There’s been much written about the vibrancy of Yonge Street, particularly beginning in the late 50s to its eventual winding down during the mid to late 80s. Clubs like the Brown Derby, The Colonial Tavern, Club Blue Note, Town Tavern, Le Coq d’Or, Steeles Tavern, Friars Tavern, Hawk’s Nest, The Zanzibar, Silver Rail…..graduating to The Gasworks, Piccadilly Tube, Nickelodeon, Hard Rock Cafe and many others. All gone, except the memories. The jazz and blues, the beginning of the Toronto Sound, rock, disco and punk invasions, the Yonge St. Mall…..

Roxanne Tellier – Parsing what comes between the Thanks and the Giving

Americans celebrated their Thanksgiving this past week. Many families endured long journeys, traveling across the country, to spend time with the people they love. The lucky ones gathered around tables that groaned with heaps of delicious, fresh, and sometimes even healthy, food.

Peter Tells Some Kitty Tales

What with the heat and the sadly predictable “idiocracies” both south of the border and gloomily, now here in my home province of Ontario, I decided to write today about a subject slightly more pleasant.

Those of you who have met me in person may be horrified to learn that this tall, lanky, handsome, clever, well spoken, witty, kind individual batted well below “The Mendoza Line”a) on the playing field of romance for much of my life. On the other hand, you might not. If you aren’t horrified to read this, please don’t bother to tell me, I already can feel bad enough without any external assistance 😉!

Roxanne Tellier – Putting the ‘Wow’ in Pow Wow

The Na-Me-Res lucked out with the weather for the annual traditional Pow Wow held Saturday, June 24th, at the Fort York historical site. The day was sunny, yet breezy,  and very well attended.

Roxanne Tellier – Don’t Get Around Much Any More

Ach and oy vey! This house move is cramping my style, big time. Haven’t been able to get out to a lot of events, because time’s a ticking, and there’s only so many hours in a day. I’d like to say I’ve become more selective in my outing choices. But the truth is, moving and packing is a bitch. There just isn’t any time to gallivant around.

But let me tell you about two recent events I did manage to squeeze in. Both were wonders in their own ways.

Roxanne Tellier – Grant Fullerton … King of the Road

In 1967, the Song of the Year was “Canada” by The Young Canada Singers. I was a geeky, gawky Montreal teen with cats eye glasses and a bad perm. My season’s pass to Expo 67 made me feel like a citizen of the world.

But in Toronto, another kind of world was coming together; one of young, talented musicians who’d flocked to Yorkville to find fame, if not fortune.

Grant Fullerton was one of them.

Roxanne Tellier – Mike McKenna, Guitar Legend

1969 or maybe early 1970.A darkened Montreal rec room, outside sound dulled by faux wood paneling and shag carpeting, with the ubiquitous mirrored bar off to the side. My girlfriend, Colleen, and I slink into the room, prepared to be kicked out by her big brother Bill, the music maven of her family, if we giggled too much.If we behaved, we’d be allowed to listen, at least for a while, to the new record Bill had brought home to enjoy with some of his cooler (and older, so therefore hotter)  friends.  We crept into the darkness, wide eyed.

Roxanne Tellier – Music City, My Ass

Every time I see an article lauding Mayor  John Tory’s ‘inspired’ idea of turning Toronto into a ‘Music City,’ I get queasy. You see, I came to Toronto in 1976, when it really WAS one, and have watched succeeding local governments and well-heeled blue noses, waving the banners of political correctness and money over art, stomp the culture to death.

Roxanne Tellier: Shaping The New Sexual Revolution – 1960 Redux

You would have had to be living under a rock to miss the run up to Diane Sawyer’s two hour interview with Bruce Jenner on Friday, April 23. Jenner was dubbed  the “world’s greatest athlete” after winning  the Olympic Gold Decathlon in 1976, and has been the object of snide insinuations and ridiculing photos in the yellower media (and even the New York Times) for the last several months as he appeared to be transitioning from male to female before our prying eyes.

Roxanne Tellier : The Magic of Don Harron

Funny, the thoughts that go through your mind. You can be watching some mindless entertainment, giving your brain a free ride between weightier tasks like deciding whether to have a cigarette or cook dinner, when suddenly you think …Whatever happened to Charlie Farquharson?