Singles Scene

Moved

2009-01-17T09:44:00.002-05:00

The Singles Scene has changed it's name and moved. It is now, The Great Canadian Music Hunt, and available here:

http://www.briangardiner.ca/canadamusic/

Other than the name, nothing has changed, and all old content has been imported into the new site.

Thank you for visiting, and please update any bookmarks.

Let The Good Guys Win

2008-12-19T08:00:00.000-05:00

A year ago I wrote about Canadian Christmas songs:

I have spent many years looking for Murray McClaughlin's Let The Good Guys Win. Featuring the Payola$ Bob Rock and Tom Cochrane, it is among my favourite Christmas songs (along with the Pogues' Fairytale of New York and Otis Redding's Merry Christmas Baby). Marvellously sung, with the three stars sharing the vocals, this Celtic influenced guitar and mandolin piece is magical, if not actually a Christmas song...

It was a hard to find single, but you could see the video everywhere at the time. Here's the video for that great Canadian song, Let The Good Guys Win:

The Singles Scene #12

2008-12-02T13:00:00.000-05:00

Delivery: The good thing about writing about finding records is people know I'm looking. When somebody is getting rid of records, they think of me (my wife would say this is the bad thing about writing about finding records...). So it was a few months ago that my buddy Ron showed up with a stack from a friend of his, who was cleaning out a closet and found...45's. (Philistines didn't have their own record player).

The stack started with a little book, the kind that you use to get to hold 78's, except it's full of 45's: Frankie Laine with the Ray Conniff orchestra; The McGuire Sisters; Eydie Gorme: interesting all, but of no use for our purposes. These are all older, unfamiliar records and there's nothing Canadian.

After the book-thingy I dive into the little stack of records, hoping for some gold. There are 36 records in the pile (yes, I counted), and when I started this exercise I would have considered 1 CanCon out of 36 a small ratio but now it seems about right. There's a big differential here, 50's to 80's: Elvis to Wet Willy. Kung Fu Fighting and My Ding-A-Ling. The Platters, Janis Joplin, Village People and Robert Palmer. It's a wonderful cornucopia of good, and not so good, hits from AM radio from when AM radio mattered.

For all that there's one Canadian single, and not a favourite at that. In 1984 Some British singers, cajoled together by not yet Sir Bob Geldof sang a song about an African famine: Do They Know it's Christmas. It was a worldwide #1 hit, causing the American musical hierarchy to jump into the fray with the un-ironic We Are the World. The Canadian cultural elite of musical inclination took some time out from complaining about how much government revenue they receive (yes, some things never change) to say "hey, a bandwagon! Lets jump on." So Bryan Adams, Canada's biggest star of the day, wrote a song and David Foster, Canada's premier producer/arranger/behind the scenes guy produced it and they come up with Tears Are Not Enough.

Somewhere I already have this, although I can't find it. But I remember it, and I remember the cover: this is a different cover. This cover has signatures of everybody involved: Salome Bey, Eugene Levy, Lorraine Segato, Anne Murray, Mike Reno and &tc. From a condition standpoint, it's in good shape, and even if it wasn't, at the price who can complain. But it makes sense that the condition is good. This is one of those records everybody bought but nobody really listened to. The one I hold in my hand looks like a fine example of that.

Listening to all three Africa famine songs now it's clear that Tears are Not Enough falls in the middle of the two, Do They Know It's Christmas being a pretty good example of these kind of group pieces. The American We Are The World being a truly awful example of any kind of music - all 7 minutes and fifteen seconds of it. But none the less, it needs to be said: All of these song are loaded with real talent, and none of them are really very good.

Funny though, when I listen to this song now, I can't help but enjoy it. Bryan Adams, Jim Vallance and David Foster wrote a decent ditty and pulled together a lot of talent. The problem, really, is too much talent, not enough air time for each. But it was the fashion of the time, and it was a done well. I enjoyed remembering the time, remembering the song, remembering the hair.

But it must be said, I doubt I'll listen to it again any time soon.

Singles Scene # 11

2008-08-29T16:25:00.000-04:00

Parry Sound: my wife's maternal home, although it should be said Parry Sound is not her childhood home. My mother-in-law moved up there about ten years ago. In a large log cabin overlooking a lake she has maintained a modern day settlers lifestyle: chopping wood and watching CNN; clearing a woodlot and planting daisies; wood burning stove and flush toilets. In short, the perfect getaway.

In one corner is one of those modern touches we all have: the entertainment centre. A corner cabinet within which sits a 27 inch TV, a small stereo, a VCR and DVD player and a pile of CD's/DVD's. Buried in the back of the bottom shelf is a gorgeous carved wooden box that's about 7" x 7": single sized. It's full of singles from just about every generation of singles, good stuff too: Elvis, The Beatles, Dave Clarke 5, The Police. Seventy-five or so singles from the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's. Unfortunately none of them have protective sleeves, which means that even if some of those Elvis or Beatles one's may have some value (I repeat, may), that value is eliminated by the small surface scratches on everyone of them.

My mother-in-law cites herself as a great fan of Canadiana. She watches CBC, reads Margaret Atwood, listens to Gordon Lightfoot because it's what good Canadians do. So how come all these singles and there's only one Canadian one? Another question: how am I supposed to listen to any of them? Seventy-five or a hundred records and no turntable. Their turntable is, in fact, hooked up a pre-amp and then the surround sound system in my basement 300KM away.

So I grab a few that strike my fancy to take home and listen too: Hermen's Hermits I'm Into Something Good, Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart, Boney M's Rasputin and the lone Canadian single, The Guess Who's These Eye's. These Eye's was originally released in 1968. This single is the original, with Lightfoot on the b side.

I've heard this so many times through the years there's no surprise in it. As I noted back in June, I saw Bachman Cummings sing this song this summer. It was, I remember thinking at the time, a simple but brilliant song, the reason these two are still successful all these years later. The elegant intro chords were originally a non piano playing Randy Bachman composition. Burton Cummings has since said they were so simple that no self-respecting piano player would ever come up with such a thing (I could be paraphrasing here). It's true. The whole song is simple, pretty, and good.

The b side, Lightfoot, another song from the Wheatfield Soul album is a country-ish acoustic piece. The single is too scratchy to enjoy it, but it was not a hit and it probably doesn't deserve to be one. An alright song, but an add-on none the less.

A couple of days in Parry Sound of R & R and the best I can do is one Canadian single. It's too bad, but at least it's a classic of the genre, one of the best Canadian songs. A pretty good find all in all.

Milk Crate Classics #6: Dan Hill – Longer Fuse

2008-08-29T16:10:00.000-04:00

I met Dan Hill a few times, before the fame set in. He liked to run cross country, as we called it then, and I belonged to a track and field club. One of the distance runners at the club was friendly with Hill, and he came out a few times. Then Sometimes When We Touch was released and the only other time I saw him was from the 2nd row at the Ontario Place Forum. He wasn't famous yet when I met him, but he had a few records out and we knew who he was. With the release of Longer Fuse in 1977, the album with Sometimes When We Touch, I heard him.

My copy of this album is pretty scratched up which is a testament to how often it was listened to. It's easy to pigeon hole a guy like Hill into someone like Celine Dion, who sings sappy love songs like Sometimes When We Touch, but the truth is something different. He was first off, a guitar player who wrote primarily on the guitar. He was, in fact, a folk singer not a balladeer. But fate gave him a huge hit with Sometimes... and he will always be known as a piano/ballad guy. And Longer Fuse will always be the album with that song on it. But like Dan Hill, it is very much more.

Listening to it now it holds up well. Nicely written songs with somewhat intelligent lyrics will often do that. Starting with the aforementioned Sometimes When We Touch, it's a song that, in my opinion, has gotten a bad rap. Yes it's sappy, but it's also finely crafted, passionate and smart. After that, the piano pretty much gets put away for the acoustic guitars. 14 Today is an old favourite, and comes back and wraps itself around me like a blanket. A mature song from a young man about the perils of growing up, it's both familiar and a discovery as it's been 20 or 30 years since I've listened to it.

Side one finishes out with more of the same, In The Name of Love and Crazy. The real treat of the side is the finale (this is true on side 2 as well) McCarthy's Day. A tribute to Hill's American parents, his black father and white mother left America for Canada the 50's - McCarthy's Day.

Way back in McCarthy's day
My parents left the USA
Young rebellious lovers
They left behind a nation far too proud
And powerful to say
That love transcends all colors
Some black men turned against my father
Some white men turned against my mother
Each race has their place they all would say

And with a past so battle worn
And a future begging to be born
They found a life that's growing still today songs

Side two starts off with a couple of weak songs. Jean and You are All I See are too familiar, too close in sound to the rest of the album without being as good. Things improve, marginally with Southern California before we get into the gems of the side, if not the album. Title track Longer Fuse is romantic, touching and a bit funky. Back to the sort of thing that made side one of this album good.

The album ends with my favourite song on it, Still Not Used To. A song about being a traveling musician with a growing audience, Hill's vulnerability as a performer is here for all to see, the same vulnerability that makes Sometimes When We Touch and Longer Fuse such wonderful songs:

Still not used to having people pay to hear me,
guess I'm still a child trying so hard to please
trying to seek approval through my songs...

Still Not Used To was recorded live at St James Cathedral and features a cello, mandolin, two acoustic guitars it's a pretty song. The live recording, in the beautiful sounding church give it a quality of sound that is rare, and is one of those songs that sounds so warm and beautiful on LP. Great closure of a decent album.

And that's what Longer Fuse is, a decent album. Half the songs are solid, very good songs, half less than stellar. The good ones make it listenable, and five more like it this might still be considered a classic.

CD Review: Jeff Healey - Mess of Blues

2008-08-07T16:22:00.000-04:00

I've never been comfortable with Jeff Healey's recorded opus. Anyone who seen Healey live will attest that he was a superior guitar player who had with chops and musicianship. His records (or rather CD's) always seemed restrained and insufficient, as if the record company was calling all the shots on it (they probably were).

Jeff Healey's final studio recording, the posthumously released Mess of Blues, is an example of how good Jeff Healey was when he was in his element, playing electric blues, R&B and standard rock and roll. Healey is an exceptional guitar player and a very soulful, under-rated singer and Mess of Blues lets him showcase both.

Starting with a couple of live tracks, I'm Tore Down and How Blue Can You Get showcase Healey the guitar-man rocking these two blues numbers. Later Mess of Blues has a fun side and it emerges at song #4 with Jambalaya. Healey plays this fun old gin joint jukebox standard with a fine pickin' grin and a blues-mans flair.

The albums risk is a cover of The Band's The Weight. A song that would be easy to butcher, Healey shows his artistry by delivering an enjoyable performance of a seminal rock song. The other classic rock song he covers is Neil Young's Like a Hurricane, the best version of this song I've heard.

From the title track, Mess of Blues to Shake, Rattle & Roll, Healey delivers some classic music without missing a step. He displays virtuosity and style and covers some great songs from the rock 'n roll/ blues play list.

If your taste runs like old rock 'n roll and electric blues then Jeff Healey's Mess of Blues is a CD you should get.

Bachman Cummings at Molson Amphitheatre: Review

2008-06-23T23:29:00.000-04:00

Heading to the Ontario Place/CNE area to see Randy Bachman perform You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet, Hey You and Takin' Care of Business was, for me, like going home again. My first concert as a 12 year old budding rock fan back in 1975 was BTO at the old CNE Stadium.They were touring on Not Fragile and it cemented my burgeoning love of rock and roll as well as the guitar. A year later the same band at the same venue, this time on the strength of Four Wheel Drive, would host my second concert.

So here it is some 32 years later and I'm in the same area, this time for Bachman Cummings Overdrive at Ontario Place's Molson Amphitheatre last Thursday to re-love those early rock and roll nights, with a fair doppling of Guess Who thrown in for good measure.

Opening with American Woman 2007 the new, funkier version of the classic hit American Woman that Bachman Cummings used to close their last album, Jukebox, the set comprised eleven Guess Who numbers, four BTO and two covers fro the Bachman Cummings Jukebox. In all, seventeen songs, seventeen well known hits, 15 by the artists on stage.

If it's just hits you want there's many a bar with an unknown band playing lots of them every Friday and Saturday night. Bachman Cummings, however, are better than that. They played through the set with ease and agility, Bachman's renowned guitar playing shining through and Cummings' sharp beautiful voice still sounding great, even if it has grown nasally through the years.

Cummings' voice may, in fact, have been the shows one weakness. While he sounded fine, he shared the singing duties almost evenly with Bachman, leading one to think he may not have the vocal strength the carry an entire show any more. Since Cummings was lead singer on all those classic Guess Who songs, his solo work was completely ignored. It says a lot about these guys that they played wall to wall hits for 90 minutes and could leave songs like My Own Way to Rock, Break it to Them Gently and I'm Scared un-played. But the show would have been stronger with a few of them none the less.

I'm nitpicking: starting with American Woman 2007, which is better live than on disc, the show progressed to You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet with Bachman showing an improved voice, to surprising audience favourite Clap For the Wolfman, complete with audience hand clap. The fun included Bachman calling for cowbell playing Cummings to give him "more cowbell" Christopher Walken style, during Hey You.

Fun is the operative word. There was nothing fancy to this night: the lights were basic, there where no fire works, no over long solos. Just two talented performers, backed by a very competent band (The Carpet Frogs) having fun. And in turn the audience had fun, which is what a concert is supposed to be about.

Bachman Cummings at Molson Amphitheatre

2008-06-20T12:40:00.000-04:00

A full review to come, but meanwhile, here's the setlist and some pictures:

American Woman
Who Do You Love
Albert Flasher
These Eyes
You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet
Clap For The Wolfman
Let It Ride
Hand Me Down World
No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature
--- Band Intros ---
Hey You
Laughing
Undone
Little Queenie
Star Baby
No Time

Encore

Share The Land
Takin' Care Of Business

Jeff Healey 1966- 2008

2008-03-03T00:12:00.000-05:00

I first saw Jeff Healey play on the New Music back in the early 80's. John Roberts was J.D., and he did a story on a blind teenage phenom who played blues guitar with the guitar across his lap. He cited Jimi Hendrix as an influence and played in a very Hendrix style.

Five or six years later, in 1988, Jeff Healey was on the charts with the album See The Light. It included the hit songs Confidence Man, the title track and perhaps Healey's biggest hit, a wonderful version of John Hiatt's Angel Eyes. His second album two years later, Hell To Pay, featured a stunning version of George Harrison's While My Guitar Gently Weeps. It takes a man among guitar players to tackle a classic Eric Clapton solo but Healey pulled it off.

Sadly, Jeff Healey has fought cancer all his life, losing his sight to Retinoblastoma, a rare form of cancer, at age one. Last January (2007) it was announced that Healey had had been diagnosed with lung cancer surgery the previous December, and had undergone surgery to remove the cancerous tissue.

Jeff Healey passed away last evening at St. Joseph's Hospital Toronto. He was 41 years old and leaves a wife and two children, 13-year-old daughter Rachel and three-year-old son Derek. At Home in Hespeler offers condolences to the family of Jeff Healey, a great Canadian talent gone far too young.

Milk Crate Classic #4: Moxy II

2007-07-19T08:31:00.000-04:00

Moxy is an relatively obscure name in Canadian music, but they needn't be. They once verged on greatness and, at a time just before an explosion of Canadian rock on the landscape, they produced a pair of great rock and roll albums. Moxy and Moxy II (known as the black and red albums respectively) were solid guitar rock albums that may be better than anything produced in the hard rock genre in Canada before or since.

Moxy II, released in 1976, contained nine tracks, a number of which belong on any album. The opening song 'Cause There's Another was probably the groups biggest hit, and a great song. It starts off in a very hard rock style, but quickly slips into acoustic guitar with melodic lead line combination that would have made April Wine proud, although it may be more reminiscent of Teenage Head's Something On My Mind (or rather, Teenage Heads... would be reminiscent of 'Cause There's Another).

There's an old saw in golf, "hit for show, putt for dough". A similar statement can be made in guitar - left hand for show, right for dough. The left hand is what people notice, the one that moves around and gets the credit, but any good guitarist can tell you, the musicality comes from the right hand. Sound, tone and rhythm are all products of the right. Listening to the acoustic guitar in 'Cause There's Another, there's some amazing stuff going on. Moxy have eschewed a basic little rhythm over something much more complex and interesting. It is musicality of the kind that moves the song from good to great, and sets the tone for a wonderful album.

Second song Take it or Leave it is solid 70's funk that predates Wild Cherry's Play that Funky Music and David Bowie's Fame, both of which sound as though they borrow from this. Take it or Leave it is, to my ear, however, superior to both those songs. Kids, this is what we danced to in the 70's and it was great dancing music.

While the albums best two songs are the first two, the rest of the album is good, very good. Through the Storm is very heavy and hard rock in the Spinal Tap vein; One More Heartbreak an up tempo rocker; Change In My Life a solid ballad laced with appregiating guitars and thick sound (Moxy was a two Les Paul band).

Lead singer Buzz Shearman would self destruct after this album, and would be replaced by Mike Reno, then known as Mike Renowski, now known as "the chubby guy who used to sing for Loverboy." They would never recapture being this good, and it's too bad: the Canadian rock and roll scene would explode within a couple of years, and if Moxy had held it together there's no reason to believe they wouldn't be mentioned in the same breath as Rush, Triumph or Loverboy. A great band who never attained that greatness - too bad.

CD Review: Bachman-Cummings Jukebox

2007-06-13T13:31:00.000-04:00

Bachman Cummings new CD, Jukebox, hit the stores yesterday morning. The CD is a collection of older material, "a new album of old songs," songs that Messrs Bachman and Cummings would have heard on the jukeboxes in their youth. This is the music these two legends began their career playing, and the album pays homage to the songs they loved.

The concern when producing such an album is to pick the right songs, the songs that work best for your voice and band. Rush did an excellent job of this in their 2005 collection Feedback. It is also where Jukebox falls down.

Opening track , The Equals Baby Come Back, starts promising enough, with Bachman establishing a solid groove. Unfortunately, and inexplicably, Bachman also takes vocal duties. It is a weak effort, that Cummings almost certainly could have done much better. The song needed it.

Who do You Love fares better. Bachman's vocals are better suited, drummer Sean Fitzsimons takes the classic Bo Diddley rhythm to new heights, and the insertion of Bo Diddley and Don't Fade Away into the song is effective and fun.

Here's a quote from the liner notes:

To go through the Beatles songs and try to find one that hasn't been done and done adn done by eveybody was really hard.

Be that as it may, some songs stay Undone for a reason, and based on this jazzed up arrangement I'm Happy Just to dance With You, is one of them.

Whenever I hear a cover, whether a CD's worth or a single song, I'm looking for the band to own the song. Jimmy McCracklin's The Walk, is the first song on Jukebox that Bachman Cummings own. Not coincidentally, it's the first Cummings vocal vehicle. This version could be an original Burton Cummings song, which is what I'm looking for. The boys capture a great groove, and Cummings sings the song note perfect. Great rock and roll.

The same applies to Cliff Richard's Don't Talk to Him. A great rockabilly piece that, again, could be a Cummings original. In the liner notes Cummings writes that this is a tough song to sing and he was sweating it, but he did a great job, and it's a great piece.

The Shadows were Cliff Richards back up band, but they also had a string of instrumental hits on their own, and became highly influential in guitarist circles. Thankfully, their bad surf movie guitar songs went out of style 45 years ago. Sadly, Bachman resurrects "Man of Mystery" thus showing this style as worthy of going out of style.

Fats Domino's Ain't That just Like A Woman on the other hand sounds fresh and great. Cummings boogie-woogie piano and vocals make this sound fresh and new. And kudos to Bachman quoting Glenn Miller's Chatanooga Choo-Choo in his short solo.

If they were worried about using an overdone Beatles song, Chuck Berry's Little Queenie is a curious choice, considering how often it's been done, and better. Both Bob Seger and REO Speedwagon have live versions of this song that are great, giving new energy and life to Chuck Berry's classic boogie/blues playing. This version goes back to the Chuck Berry version, and suffers from a lack of that power and energy that others have found there.

Sam Cooke's Good Times is a great song that suffers, this time from Cummings vocal performance. Some songs just don't suit some singers, this is one that Cummings should have left off this album for that reason. Nicely done, just doesn't work here.

The surprise of the album is probably the downright punkish/Wild Thing version of Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone, with Randy Bachman's best vocal performance of the album and a Neil Youngish solo.

John Fred and the Playboys' Judy in Diguise (With Glasses), is a classic R&B tune that here sounds great. Huey "Piano" Smith's Boogie Woogie Don't You Just Know It, is one of those 50's childish style tings, like Charlie Brown or See You Later Alligator. It sounds OK, but it should have stayed in the50's.

Georgie Fame's Yeh, Yeh is just a good old Rock and Roll song as is Edwin Starr's Agent Double-O Soul. Both songs sound good and are carried well.

The Box Tops' classic The Letter is given a BTO style rock up and works very well, as should be expected when Randy Bachman BTO's a song. IN fact, BTO demoed this song in 1971 , and released itin 1993 Anthology CD, and this version sounds more like BTO than the early BTO version did. Kudos again to drummer Sean Fitzsimons who gave some Robbie Bachman like tom-tom work to drive this song forward.

What a collection of 50's and 60's rock and roll songs would be without some Elvis, I don't know and fortunately, I don't have to find out quite yet. Ain't That loving You Baby is the kind of thing you expect on a tribute album by some guys who profess deep love for the music their doing - a song they sound like their having real fun playing. You can almost hear the swing in Burton Cummings hips, and Bachman gives some great rockabilly licks throughout. This is a real treat, sounding honestly like Elvis while giving a fresh modern sound.

The CD finishes with a cover of a song written by some guys called Bachman and Cummings. American Woman 2007 isn't really new, as this re-working was done for their last tour, and can be heard on the last years DVD "First Time Around." As well there is an acoustic version of the same arrangement floating around. None the less, this is a good work up of the song, it sounds great on Bachman's 57 Les Paul and it is interesting and new without hurting the original song. A great finish to a very good CD.

Overall, some performances here lacked, and some song choices where suspect, but this is a good CD. If you are a fan of Bachman Cummings, or of the old rock and roll, you probably want it.

4 out of 5

Bachman Cummings Jukebox Cover

2007-06-11T11:51:00.001-04:00

Here's the cover for tomorrows Bachman Cummings CD, Jukebox.

Nickelback on the Walk of Fame

2007-06-08T13:25:00.000-04:00

Congratulations to Nickelback, newest honorees of the Canadian Walk of Fame. The ceremony will take place tomorrow, June 9th at a gala hosted by Eugene Levy.

Other inductees at the gala will be actor Jill Hennessy, director Ivan Reitman and news-anchor Lloyd Robertson.

New Bachman Cummings

2007-06-04T12:50:00.000-04:00

For those who find their way here looking for information on the new Bachman-Cummings album of cover songs, Jukebox, here's what I have:

The release date is apparently June 12th (next Tuesday). There will be a regular CD, and a deluxe CD/DVD. Here's a track listing:

1. Baby Come Back
2. Who Do You Love
3. I'm Happy Just To Dance With You
4. The Walk
5. Don't Talk To Him
6. Man Of Mystery
7. Ain't That Just Like A Woman
8. Little Queenie
9. Good Times
10. Like A Rolling Stone
11. Judy In Disguise (With Glasses)
12. Don't You Just Know It
13. Yeh, Yeh
14. Agent Double-O Soul
15. The Letter
16. Ain't That Loving You Baby
17. American Woman 2007

I will offer a review at the first available opportunity. If the folks at Sony want to send me a copy, I will happily review it ahead of release, otherwise, you may have to wait a few days.

CD Review: Feist: The Reminder

2007-05-02T23:37:00.000-04:00

Feist is a Canadian singer/songwriter with roots in both the east coast and the west, and the 2005 new artist of the year Juno winner. Her new album, The Reminder, is her third studio album, and first since the Juno winning Let it Die, was released yesterday. Recorded in a 200 year old Parisian manor, The Reminder has been called a "beautifully whimsical collection of luxuriant pop about love." So many adjectives, how did they miss eclectic?

Feist has one of those lovely soprano pop voices that works well in folksy acoustic artists. Fortunately, Feist doesn't contain her talent in folksy acoustic music. The second song I Feel It All, lets you know that. After the slow, breezy, jazzy So Sorry, I Feel It All comes on hard with a solid acoustic pop song. The acoustic is then eschewed altogether for the funky, bassy My Moon, My Man.

It is, actually, the fourth song by the time we get an acoustic song, the truly lovely The Park. With birds chirping in the background (real birds, by my understanding) this is a pretty ballad:

Why would he come back through the park
You thought that you saw him, but no you did not
It's not him coming across the sea to surprise you
Not him who would know where in London to find you

Sadness so real that it populates
The city and leaves you homeless again
Steam from a cup and snow on the path
The seasons have changed from the present to past

The past...
There's hope to have
In the past...

Lovelily poetic, beautifully sung and a simple guitar plus a spartan arrangement. The Park is a wonderful piece of music.

Feist follows up The Park with a slower, keyboard based ballad, The Water. And so it goes, another song, another tempo, another style: Nina Simone's Sea lion Woman has an African hand-clapping rhythm throughout; The lively, countried up, slide guitar based Past and Present; The Limit To Your Love, over arranged pop, lush, bold and gorgeous; The hit, 1234, pure pop wonderfully done.

Feist moves effortlessly through different styles and instrumentations handily each with confidence and skill. This is a lively, wonderful CD that should be on every music lovers list.

You can hear for yourself and sample before you buy at her myspace site: http://www.myspace.com/feist.

4 out of 5.

CD Review: Michael Bublé: Call Me Irresponsible

2007-05-01T18:00:00.000-04:00

Burnaby singer Michael Bublé's 8th studio CD, Call Me Irresponsible, runs hot and cold. When he's doing what he does well, singing Jazz standards, it is a very good CD. When, however, he lets himself out of his element, the CD suffers. The opening track, The Best is Yet to Come, promises better but doesn't deliver, as this is probably the CD best track. Me and Mrs. Jones and I'm your Man are other early songs that work well.

It is when the title track, Call Me Irresponsible comes up that the CD starts to fall apart. Bublé doesn't, to my ear, take this standard seriously, singing what sounds like a smirking version of the Sammy Cahn, Jimmy Van Heusen song. Bublé's good, but if Sinatra can take this song seriously, I fail to see how he's above the task.

Bublé follows up Call Me Irresponsible with a truly terrible duet of Eric Clapton's Wonderful Tonight with Ivan Lins. It not only fails to deliver a reasonable accounting of an otherwise beautiful piece, but it also falls into, and out of, another language, presumably Lins' native Brazillian. Either way it's an abomination and drags the CD down terribly.

Again, follow up doesn't help, as Bublé follows Wonderful Tonight with another pop sounding piece, Everything. Rod Stewart proved that rockers should stay away from the crooner's songs, and Bublé returns the favour with these two songs: Crooners should stay away from Rock music (unless your name is Johnny Favourite).

He further proves the rule with a version of Always on my Mind that, while not bad, doesn't work all that well. However, that is followed up with the Dean Kay and Kelly Gordon song That's Life. It's the kind of light jazz standard that Bublé does so well, and it may save the CD, getting it back on track for the final three solid tracks.

Overall, this is not a bad CD, but some questionable choices leave it with a hole in the middle that would have been better served by songs more suitable to Bublé's voice and style.

3 out of 5

CD Review: Rush: Snakes and Arrows

2007-05-01T12:00:00.000-04:00

Snakes and Arrows is Rush's eighteenth studio album, the first since 2002's Vapour Trails, and the first work from Rush since the Excellent 2004 EP of cover songs, Feedback. With Feedback, Rush went back to the very beginning, recording songs they played in their cover band days. Snakes and Arrows, has stylistically stayed with the old days, sounding more like Rush of the early 80's than anything of the near past.

The radio played Far Cry is the first single off the album, and is very traditional Rush sounding. Armour and Sword, the second piece, is wonderfully weaved around an acoustic verse, that reminisces of old Rush, but with a new flair. Workin' Them Angels could almost belong to the Fly By Night album and The Larger Bowl returns Lifeson to the acoustic guitar

Acoustic guitars run throughout this album, giving it a warmth that other Rush efforts haven't always had, and speaking of acoustics, Hope, Lifeson's small acoustic piece is one of the albums true treats. The CD's other instrumentals, The Main Monkey Business and Malignant Narcissism both are excellent and work well to meld the album together. This is Rush's first multi-instrumental album.

Much has been made of Peart's lyrics on this album being very faith oriented, an understandable investigation of Peart's inner feelings on the issue considering much that has happened in his life the last ten years. However, the lyrics truly jump out at you, the examinations Peart is undergoing clearly defined and understood. There is little in the way of "Wonder what he means by that" in this album.

Overall this is an excellent Rush album, but still very much a Rush album. By that I mean if you are a die hard Rush fan, you have reason to rejoice. If you are not really a fan, this probably won't convert you. And if, like myself, you can go either way with Rush, this is one of the better ones.

4.5 out of 5

Dragonette Feature

2007-04-23T17:30:00.000-04:00

National Post today gave a page 2 feature to Canada/Brit band Dragonette. The theme of the article is on Martina Sorbara, lead singer and daughter of Ontario Finance Minister Greg Sorbara:

Meet the pop-star daughter of Ontario's buttoned-down Finance Minister: Martina Sorbara prowls the stage in a latex bodysuit and sings blithe numbers about one night stands.
Dragonette, the band she started with her husband, is gaining momentum, largely thanks to the provocative video for their single I Get Around, shot at Wicked, a swingers club on Toronto's Queen Street West. After a nod from Internet gossip columnist Perez Hilton, I Get Around received close to five million views on YouTube.

We will be watching for Dragonette, meanwhile here's the video in question: I Get Around.

Sapphire City CD release

2007-04-17T18:49:00.000-04:00

Fergus based Indie band Sapphire City is having a CD release party for their debut CD, All We Are. The release is on April 27th, 2007 at the Five O'Clock Bar and Grill - 30 Glamis Road, Cambridge, Ontario N1R 7H5. Admission is free.

Some samples can be heard at the bands myspace site, and I must confess to being impressed. I wish I could make it out to the release party, but that's also my anniversary so sorry guys. I won't be reviewing the show for you.

I will try, however, to get a copy of the CD to review.

CD Review: Avril Lavigne: The Best Damn Thing

2007-04-17T12:00:00.000-04:00

I should start this reviewing by pointing out I'm in my mid-40's; in other words, this album was not made with me in mind. I'm 25 years beyond the target audience, probably the wrong sex and not supposed to like it.

That out of the way, I don't mind this CD. Or rather, I can understand others who do like it. If I was in my teenage years, I could see me liking Girlfriend, which reminds me a lot of Kim Wilde's 1980 bopper anthem, Kids in America.

That said, it's kid music. Avril Lavigne is a young married woman, and is still writing stuff like :

Hey! Hey! You! You!
I don’t like your girlfriend!
No way! No way!
I think you need a new one
Hey! Hey! You! You!
I could be your girlfriend.

She needs to grow up musically soon, or be left behind.

Another influence that keeps popping up, especially the title track The Best Damn Thing, is the Spice Girls. This should serve as a warning to Avril and her people. While fine for the teenage audience, if Avril plans on having a career down the road, she is going to have to mature with her audience. She has already surpassed the Spice Girls in longevity, but pushing out songs that sound like them is not good for the long haul.

I also note that the production team double track her voice in most of the album, and when they don't her voice comes across as weak, as it does for the verses of When You're Gone.

Overall, this is a decent collection, and should be a successful CD for Avril Lavigne. However, she is at a career stage where many careers begin to stumble. This CD is not such a stumble, but neither does it raise her to the next level of performance.

CD Review: Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

2007-04-12T09:15:00.000-04:00

Montreal's Arcade Fire's second CD, Neon Bible released to much fanfare and acclaim about three weeks ago, is every bit as good as the hype suggests. The follow up to 2004's Funeral, Arcade Fire have produced a collection of songs varying in style and influence.

Influence, it's the word you think of most when listening to Arcade Fire. Their work is dripping with influence, with Neon Bible offering hints of Bruce Springsteen, The Go-Go's , The Band, U2, The Police, Fee Waybill and the Tubes as well as some 18th century church music sprinkled in.

These influences, however, aren't in the form of rip-off or blatant attempts to sound like someone, more so flavours, like a chef sprinkling spices over a dish. A quick flavour of the Go-Go's here, a guitar part that sounds like The Edge, a heart wrenching Rick Danko like vocal part. Hints, spices and flavours of others combine to create interesting music.

The songwriting is also mature and professional. No formula here, but clear storylined lyrics, music that drives the song forward and arrangements that solidify the whole into complete music.

Highlights include Keep The Car (U2 meets Eddie and the Cruisers, with mandolin), Intervention, Black Wave/Bad Vibration, with it's very Go-Go's beginning and the very Band like No Cars Go. That's just teh tip of the iceburg, however. Neon Bible is a solid collection, from a band that hopefully, will have a lot to say in the future.

Bachman Cummings New Album

2007-03-18T19:56:00.000-04:00

It seems that Bachman and Cummings have a new CD in the works, a compilation of "Oldies Remakes," called Jukebox. Among the tracks on it will be Chuck Berry's "Little Queenie", Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Just Like a Woman", Sam Cooke's "Good Times" and Edwin Starr's "Agent Double-O Soul" The Beatles' "I'm So Happy Just to Dance With You," Jimmy McCracklin's "The Walk," and John Fred's "Judy in Disguise (With Glasses)" and the classic Elvis track "Ain't That Lovin' You Baby."

The CD is set for release in April.

Milk Crate Classics #4 - Mama Let Him Play

2007-02-16T13:06:00.002-05:00

What I remember most about Jerry Doucette's Mama Let Him Play is the cover. I used to wander into the record store and there was a poster of this album: A fabulous white Gibson SG double neck and a boy of about 2 sitting beside it. On the wall is a picture of a grown man, Jerry Doucette, in a frightening disco, suit playing the same guitar. Ten years later I had this poster on my wall and it stayed there a long time.

Interestingly, I never bought the album. Not then, not later when it hit the dollar bins. To this day I don't know why and in the late 80's I paid a King's ransom to finally get a copy. This is an album that has had a hold of me for a long time, much longer than I have had a hold of it, and it all starts with that one song, that anthem: Mama Let Him Play. Want a quick and fast opinion: This is the greatest flat out, straight ahead rock and roll song to ever come out of Canada! Ever!! Some will reasonably argue Takin' Care of Business, others maybe Innocence or American Women, others still My Heart Will Go On but I'm not budging. There is no greater high volume, high energy song to come out of Canada. This is the only known song in which I cannot drive and listen to simultaneously, at least not at the volume that this song must be played at.

But the rest of the album deserves scrutiny as well. It is, first of all, a product of its times. While Love Me Do may be a good song, it is unquestionably from the early 60's. Mama Let Him Play was released in 1977, and there is no mistaking it. When people think of 70's music, they often think disco. Disc, however, existed in our conscience for only two or three years and great rock and roll surrounded it. Unfortunately for Mama Let Him Play, 1977 was the middle of the disco craze. This makes it an album that is sometimes directionally confused and allows Doucette to get away from his strengths. This means there are moments when it is not up to its potential. All I Wanna Do and Love Is Gonna Find You are almost full blown disco songs that hurt the overall effort. But even the influence in songs like People Say is a drag on the song, and consequently the album.

Yet it is still one of my favourite albums, and at the top on my Top 5 Canadian Albums list. It is actually scary to think how good this album really could be if it was sans disco. The albums second track, Back Off, may be the second best Canadian straight ahead rock song - the great moments in this album are truly that good. People Say, disco bits and all, has a groove that so few artists ever achieve. Take away the disco and this song could be number three. The albums opening track and first single, Down The Road, is an hard edged pop song worthy of Bryan Adams (if only Adams was half the guitar player). What's Your Excuse and Keep On Running also deserve honourable mention. This is the way electric guitar was meant to be played, and it's songs like this that put the rock in rock and roll.

Overall, this is a great album that I would heartily endorse to anyone who likes 70's rock. This is as good as it can be, despite it's weak moments.

Jerry Doucette
Mama Let Him Play
Mushroom Records, 1977

Side One
All I Wanna Do
Back Off
When She Loves Me
People Say
All I Wanna Do

Side Two
Mama Let Him Play
What's Your Excuse
It's Gonna Hurt So Bad
Keep On Running
Love Is Gonna Find You

Not The Messiah Opens in Toronto

2007-02-15T12:30:00.000-05:00

Monty Pythoner Eric Idle, the Brains behind the hit Broadway musical Spamalot, is at it again. This time it is Python's Life of Brian (The Greatest Movie ever made) that is being made into an oratorio. The "comic oratorio" will premier in Toronto under the baton of Idle's cousin TSO director Peter Oundjian. The oratorio will be called Not The Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy), is approximately 50 minutes in length and will run from June 1st to 10th.

Watch Singles Scene for ticket information.

The Police in Toronto July 22nd.

2007-02-12T12:40:00.000-05:00

The Toronto Sun today reports that The Police are doing a reunion tour, and will hit Toronto July 22nd. Other Canadian dates are Edmonton on June 2 and Montreal on July 25. As well the tour will kick off in Vancouver on May 28.

Tickets for the Toronto Air Canada Centre show are reported to be $225, $90 and $50, and will go on sale this Saturday (Feb 17).

New Zappacosta CD

2007-02-08T20:02:00.000-05:00

Perennial song smith Alphie Zappacosta is having a CD release party at Hugh's Room (2261 Dundas St. W.) on Saturday February 10th.

The CD, called Start Again, is a 15 song set, and features the remake of 4 of his classic songs: Start Again, Passion, We Should Be Lovers, and I'll Be the One. Start again is available for listening, and is really nicely re-done in an acoustic vein.

Tickets for the show are $18 advance, $20 at the door by calling 416-531-6604, although the show is rumoured to be sold out.

Endless Highway: The Music of the Band

2007-01-29T15:00:00.000-05:00

Due for release tomorrow, January 30th, Endless Highway: The Music of the Band is a collection of great songs from quite possibly Canada's greatest band, by a wide variety of artists. The Band have long been hailed from inside the music industry, Eric Clapton was a noted fan of their first album, 1968's Music from Big Pink. The eclectic group that make up this CD, from The Allman Brothers to Gomez, Bruce Hornsby to Leanne Womak, this is an interesting an exciting addition to The Band pantheon.

The Album opens with Guster's This Wheel's On Fire, a rolling blue-grassy version that is both light and fun and pays appropriate homage to the Band's version.

Bruce Hornsby manages to sound more like The Band than himself on King Harvest, a bit disappointing considering his unique style and sound. None the less, his version of this song is a worthy addition, and actually excellent version. Just not very Bruce Hornsby-ish.

My Morning Jacket do an almost spot on version of It Makes No Difference, with a guitar running through it that could be Robertson at his peak playing.

Jack Johnson's I Shall Be Released, is a stunning version of a wonderful song. This may eclipse the Band's original version, and is clearly the highlight of the album.

Lee Ann Womack's The Weight is, as can be reasonable expected, heavily countried up. It's a song that lends itself well to countrification, and this works great, but it's also a song that I have long wished fro somebody to rock out on, and this would have been a good chance.

Bill Hayes, favourite band Gomez handle my favourite Band song, Up On Cripple Creek, very well. A friend last week was praising Gomez to me, suggested I had to hear them. This version of Cripple Creek makes me want to take him up on that.

The Allman Brothers give The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down the blues treatment, to some detriment. I would rather have given the Allman Brothers the Weight, and let Lee Ann Womak have this piece, but it is none the less, a different interpretation of the song, the third distinct on that I can think of. Nice writing Robbie!

Blues Traveller do a hopped up version of Rag Mama Rag that lacks true interpretation. They just seemed to have sped it up, cranked the honky-tonk piano in the mix, and called it a day.

John Hiatt & North Mississippi Allstars sound very much like The Band in Ain't No More Cane, with Hiatt himself sounding a lot like the late great Rick Danko.

Wallflowers lead singer, and son of Bob, Jakob Dylan's Whispering Pines is pretty if unremarkable.

California rocker's Animal Liberation Orchestra (ALO) modernize, without much changing Ophelia, a nice example of paying tribute without imitating.

Alt Country singer songwriter Joe Henry, treats Bessie Smith like an up-tempo folk tune, a nice treatment. Although my favourite Bessie Smith version is a swing version by the Johnny Favourite Swing Orchestra. None the less, this is a nice version.

Other highlights include a jam version of The Shape I'm In by Warren Haynes Govt. Mule, a rocked up version of Chest Fever, with full horns, a pretty version of Acadian Driftwood by female folkies The Roches, a cool treatment of Life is a Carnival and a stunning version of Stage Fright by Canadian folkie Steve Reynolds.

Over all, this is a great CD, the weak material being still good, and the best of it some great stuff. The Band were great songwriters, and what this CD does is show just how versatile and interesting their songs were. A nice tribute, and worth the price just for I Shall Be Released and Stage Fright, and Life is a Carnival may make it a bargain

1. Guster "This Wheel's On Fire"
2. Bruce Hornsby "King Harvest"
3. My Morning Jacket "It Makes No Difference"
4. Jack Johnson "I Shall Be Released"
5. Lee Ann Womack "The Weight"
6. Gomez "Up On Cripple Creek"
7. The Allman Brothers "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"
8. Blues Traveler "Rag Mama Rag"
9. John Hiatt & North Mississippi Allstars "Ain't No More Cane"
10. Jakob Dylan "Whispering Pines"
11. Animal Liberation Orchestra "Ophelia"
12. Joe Henry "Bessie Smith"
13. Jackie Greene "Look Out Cleveland"
14. Death Cab For Cutie "Rocking Chair"
15. Gov't Mule "The Shape I'm In"
16. Steve Reynolds "Stage Fright"
17. Rosanne Cash "Unfaithful Servant"
18. Widespread Panic "Chest Fever"
19. Josh Turner "When I Paint My Masterpiece"
20. The Roches "Acadian Driftwood"
21. Trevor Hall "Life is a Carnival"

Andy Kim Article

2006-12-19T12:42:00.000-05:00

One day before The Andy Kim Christmas Show, Toronto Sun columnist Joe Warmington has an article on Andy Kim's career:

Andy Kim Answering The Call
You never know how your life can change with the ring of a telephone.
And you never know what you can do to change things for others by picking it up. Andy Kim knows both.
He knows what it's like to be on the bottom and he's enjoyed the fruits of being at the top. It's the journey he savours the most.
"I never thought my life was a race with someone else's," he said yesterday.
He tells kids, "Every day is the day to do your best."
So, for the second year in a row, he's hosting The Andy Kim Christmas Show, presented by Mix, 99.9 at The Mod Club on College with proceeds going to the Children's Aid Society.
The 54-year-old Canadian rock'n'roll legend is hoping to help somebody because he believes when there is a positive action, there is always something positive that comes from it. "We want to help the kids."...

Read the whole article here.

Singles Scene #10

2006-12-19T09:29:00.000-05:00

Back to the Basement: Christmas music has been around since there has been Christmas. Many songs composed by Bach in the 1600's, for instance, make up our annual Christmas soundtrack. Canada itself has developed it's own Christmas songs. Before there was the celebrity Christmas album, before Diana Krall or Sarah Mclaughlin could release an album of all Christmas music (or Twisted Sister even) and still be seen to have a credible career, there was the Christmas song. The Beatles did it, as did Elvis. Bruce Springsteen made it cool, and George Throrogood showed us just how much Christmas could Rock and Roll.

Canadian Acts have always been in the game; I have spent many years looking for Murray McClaughlin's Let The Good Guys Win. Featuring the Payola$ Bob Rock and Tom Cochrane, it is among my favourite Christmas songs (along with the Pogues' Fairytale of New York and Otis Redding's Merry Christmas Baby). Marvellously sung, with the three stars sharing the vocals, this Celtic influenced guitar and mandolin piece is magical, if not actually a Christmas song:

Ring the Old Year Out
Ring the New Year in
Bring s all Good Luck
Let the Good Guys Win

I used to go to Encore Records in Brampton, and for years they had a copy of Johnny Bower singing Honky The Christmas Goose on the wall. It was a steeply priced at $25, and I eyed it for years but could never dust off the wallet and grab it. Of all the records through the years, it is the only one I ever regret not getting: $25.00 is probably cheap by today's standards and it would be great to pull out Honky for the family on Christmas Eve, to go with my Bob Rivers Twisted Tunes CD. Besides, as I have never heard the song, it would be a special treat to own at this stage.

Corey Hart of course did Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, but possibly the less said about that the better (although it was once explained to me that as Corey played the underdog, Rudolph was a most appropriate song for him, as Rudolph himself was the penultimate underdog).

Going Through my 45's, I actually have very few Christmas singles. The Eagles, Springsteen's Santa Claus in Coming to Town of course , but little in the way of Canadian. Except... Bryan Adams Christmas Time.

My copy, which was bought when it was a hit, is green with a red label. Kids today can't concieve how records that where almost always black, could occasionally be made alternate colour, which was considered exotic. Instead of stamping artwork on the CD, we had a small label with actual information on it. But these occasional coloured vinyl records where always a treat, and still are. My kids, who are firmly of the CD/DVD era, respond with a '"cool" when they see a coloured vinyl record. Bryan Adams, Christmas Time is one of the coolest.

The songs not bad either, A good old sing along, you can imagine the bic lighters during a concert. A reasonably simple accompaniment behind solid Christmas lyrics, this song is in the great tradition of Christmas songs. However, the song feels dated and could use a re-do, someone to modern up the sound, and if they could, cut the tripe-laden PC (circa 1985) 2nd verse.

The B side has much less of redeeming value. Reggae Christmas stands up less well. Not that it was a good song then, but now... The late seventies and eighties Reggae was stylish, The Police made a career out of playing rocked up reggae. Bryan Adams, however, made a career not playing reggae, and it shows.

Andy Kim Christmas Show

2006-12-13T23:00:00.000-05:00

UPDATE: It appears the date is wrong on this. Actual show is Dec 20th, at the mod club - tickets available through ticketmaster. However, I found some pictures, listed as Andy Kim Christmas Show December 5th. Question is, Dec 5th of what year? All other information seems to be accurate, and I apologize for any confusion.

The Andy Kim Christmas Show will be this Saturday, December 2nd, at the Mod Club Theatre in Toronto.

Kim, singer of Baby I love You, Rock Me Gently, and co-writer of the Archies Sugar Sugar, will be joined by guests Stabilo, Emm Gryner, Serena Ryder, Tomi Swick The Bycicles.

Proceeds will benefit the Children's Aid Foundation.

Tickets are $19.99, available at Ticketmaster.ca - although I couldn't find them when I looked.

Milk Crate Classic #4 - Triumph

2006-12-12T16:50:00.000-05:00

Triumph had a series of great, and popular albums through the 1970's and 80's. It is the first Triumph album, Triumph, that I turn to when I want to listen to them. Recorded in 1976, Triumph is still a great sounding album that carries itself well 30 years on.

Starting with the marvellous 24 Hours a Day, this album stays strong throughout. 24 Hours a Day would define Triumph for years to my mind, starting soft, with a gentle sweet lyric about playing in a band, before getting hard and hot, becoming anthemic through the chorus: "Everybody Party, 24 hours a day"; Triumph was, throughout their career, a great party band, and the theme of rock and roll life weaved its way through all their music.

Even on this album, the other great track, Side two opener What's Another DayStreet Fighter covers the same theme. But ultimately the songs that bring this album to life are the side closers, and Street Fighter Reprise, on side one and Blinding Light Show/Moonchild on side two.

Blinding Light Show/Moonchild goes to all the places Triumph would dominate in their music, hard, heavy and melodic intro, soft guitar over pitch perfect vocals for the verse, and a Spanish guitar solo in the middle. Nobody stops a song,or an album, for a Spanish guitar solo these days, and it's a pity. Blinding Light Show/Moonchild is not just a good Rock song, it is a top fight piece of music that encompasses styles, shows true musicianship while still being a good song unto itself.

Blinding Light Show/Moonchild ends the album in the same vein it begins, Offering something else modern albums never do, completion. It is not just a collection of songs, but Triumph's Triumph is a complete thought unto itself, beginning with tech singer complaining he can't sleep because the music is running through his head, "and I can't tell if it's Carnegie Hall or just some local bar." It ends with him in the centre of the rock concert, the Blinding Light Show. In between, it's taken "a long time to make it this far."

A complete, and solid collection of songs that, 30 years on, still sound good and fresh, if not just a bit to musical to be made of modern stuff.

New Canadian CD Releases

2006-11-27T11:34:00.000-05:00

Canadian CD releases for this week are:

Our Lady Peace - Decade

John Allen Cameron: 1938 - 2006

2006-11-23T15:06:00.000-05:00

Born in Cape Breton in 1938, John Allen Cameron grew to become the Godfather of Celtic Music. He left a teaching career at age 30 to resume playing music. His career included playing on the Don Messer Show, opening for Anne Murray and his own CBC TV show from 1975-1981.

He is widely considered a significant influence on modern day celtic music acts such as The Rankins, Ahsley MacIssac and Natalie McMaster.

He passed away in a Toronto Hospital yesterday at 67.

17th Annual SOCAN Awards

2006-11-23T14:57:00.000-05:00

The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN), held the 17th annual SOCAN awards at The Carlu in Toronto last night. Awards were handed out in 16 categories including a Lifetime Achievement Award to Kate and Anna McGarrigle, and International Achievment Award to Finger Eleven and a National Achievement Award to Jann Arden.

Other notable winners included Michael Buble, Avril Lavigne, Leanne Rhimes and Nickelback. As well SOCAN classic awards went to the Stampeders for Devil You, Nick Gilder for Hot Child in the City, and Roxy Roller and The Powder Blues Band for Doin' It Right.

A complete list of the winners can be found here, and pictures here.

Recognition for Triumph

2006-11-21T20:45:00.000-05:00

70's Canadian rock legend Triumph will be inducted into the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame. The band will be honoured, along with songwriter/producer David Foster, at a ceremony on March 10, 2007. Foster's induction was announced previously:

TRIUMPH To Be Inducted Into CANADIAN MUSIC INDUSTRY HALL OF FAME - Nov. 21, 2006:

Canadian hard-rock trio TRIUMPH will be inducted into the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame during Rogers Wireless Canadian Music Week. Music veterans Gil Moore (drums/vocals), Mike Levine (bass/keyboards) and Rik Emmett (guitar/vocals) will accept the honor Saturday, March 10, 2007 during the Canadian Radio Music Awards at Toronto's Fairmont Royal York Hotel.

The journey for TRIUMPH began in Toronto Ontario in the summer of 1975, with their self-titled Attic Records debut "Triumph". After gaining popularity in Canada and a gold record, TRIUMPH released the double-platinum album "Rock 'N' Roll Machine" (1977).

My comment? How have they had a Hall of Fame this long without Triumph? Triumph is one of the best bands to ever come out of Canada, although the quality of their music far exceeded their fame. I have been listening to Triumph lately and I can assure you, their music holds up exceptionally well.

Congratulations to the Rik Emmet, Gil Moore and Mike Levine for a well deserved, though belated, honour.

2006-11-19T19:56:00.000-05:00

Joe Warmington on Tom Cochrane

2006-11-01T12:18:00.000-05:00

Joe Warmington is one of my favourite writers. Yesterday he met up with Tom Cochrane in Toronto, and today we get a great article on Cochrane.

It's especially good because Cochrane has been promoting his CD, as well as the Canadian troops in Afghanistan, and the troops is one of Warmington's favourite subjects:

The highway has taken him a lot of amazing places in this mad world but Tom Cochrane says he's never very far from our soldiers in Afghanistan.

"A lot of people care about them deeply," the Canadian rock legend said he has noticed from travelling coast to coast.

Now more than ever, he said, is the time to show it.

"We have to be pro troops," he said yesterday. "I support the guys and gals."

In fact his backing of the Canadian troops is as solid as has been his career. Tears form in his eyes as the singer of such hits as Life is a Highway speaks of the valour our Canadian soldiers are showing in Afghanistan.

"I have seen their faces," he said. "Courage is a very quiet thing."...

About The Singles Scene

2006-11-01T03:00:00.000-05:00

Note: this message will remain on top. Scroll down for the Singles Scene's

Contrary to what it sounds like, The Singles Scene is not a site to meet your future life partner. It could be argued it's a place to meet some great Canadian music, but that would be a stretch.

What then is The Singles Scene? It is a look at Canadian music through the singles of yesteryear the 45 RPM vinyl records produced in mass quantity from the 1950's through to the mid-1980's. In that time period Canadian music became international. It also became something that Canadians took pride in. No longer do we enjoy music sent to us from the homeland overseas. No longer must we listen to what is force fed to us by our southern neighbours. We still enjoy the music brought to us from both of those cultures, but now we have music to call our own. And that is very much due to the singles Canadian musicians produced during this time.

Whether you are a fan Anne Murray, Paul Anka type easy listening, Gordon Lighfoot folk, or BTO and Loverboy rockin' the house (not to mention Takin' Care of Business), that music was brought to you on singles. Canadian music is, possibly more than other countries, defined by the hit singles that the music industry brought us.

With those thoughts in mind, I have ventured out into the world looking for singles. I hit the flea markets, antique fairs, record stores and garage sales of Southern Ontario in search of Canadian music singles. Then I come back here and document the find, and the music.

I have been doing The Singles Scene for a few years now, actually it started as part of the legendary CPFOG.com website back in the late 90's. After CPFOG folded it sat in storage, waiting the time and inkling to breath new life into it. Last year I brought it out of storage, and gave it it's own website. It has not found an audience however, so now I bring it to blogspot, hoping an interested music loving public will find it, and find it interesting.

There are actually 9 adventures in the can all of which can be found here, but at this site, I will introduce them every 3 or 4 weeks. If you are interested in reading them all, please go to the original website and enjoy them.

Finally, I had created a logo for the old page, a Canadian Flag made from various singles from my collection. I include it here for you to enjoy. Please do enjoy it, along with my music buying adventures.

Canadian CD releases this Week

2006-10-30T09:39:00.000-05:00

Tom Cochrane - No Stranger

While I have never loved Tom Cochrane, I have always admired his work, and have a few songs on my must play list. For some reason, however, I am looking forward to this CD.

You can get a sneak preview tonight on Q107, as John Derringer is doing a premier party at 10:00. If you aren't in the Toronto area, listen in on the Q107 web site.

Singles Scene # 9

2006-10-26T16:16:00.000-04:00

Ottawa: The Capital Region. My wife has a sister who lives in Ottawa, so the kids & I decided to make a pilgrimage. It's a good trip, with many responsibilities as a tourist fulfilled: Dim Sun for breakfast, the war museum, Parliament Hill, including tours of the East Block, the Center Block and the Peace Tower.

The Parliament Hill trip is especially successful: The tours were interesting and kept the kids focus, the boy was especially interested in the East Block tour, asking a lot of questions and generally behaving well. Only two downsides: The Mounties seemed more interested in getting their pictures taken with tourists than investigating crooked politicians, and it was hot! Hot for July! Hot for July in Florida! Hot for July in Florida with Tia Leoni! 100 degrees hot!! So hot... we went for coffee afterwards!?!

My sister-in-law owns some coffee shops, P.A.M.'S. Coffee & Tea Co.. Two of them, including one in the Lincoln Fields Shopping Center. We go for some eats, some Slushies for the kids, and treats for the adults. I love their White Hot Chocolate, and subsequently their White Hot Chocolate Mocha Latte. In the summer they have an ice-cap version that I can't wait to taste. There is one other positive to the coffee shop: A record store in the mall, right across from P.A.M.'S.

Legend Records is a great shop, jam packed with anything in the music field. New and Used. LP's, DVD's videos, cassettes and 8 tracks for Christ sake. In all the time I have been hunting 45's for The Singles Scene, I have never run across 8 tracks in any measure. But here they are, boxes of them in full view, at the front of the store. Videos, taped off the TV, right at the entrance. So why can't I find 45's? I actually find a classical guitar section; take a test next time your in a record store, find a classical guitar album. I have looked and I assure you, only the good ones have any kind of classical guitar selection. This place has a pretty good one, and I grab 4( buy 3 get 1 free). But 45's? I can't see them.

A second time around the store leads to the discovery that below the displays, there is more, and different stuff. Whole sections. It is underneath one of the CD displays that I find banana boxes stuffed with 45's. No order, no placement, but 45's jammed higgledy piggledy into big boxes. A Loverboy* right on top of the first one. I'm about to dive in to that box when my eye catches a light blue Aquarius label at the top of the second box. Sure enough it's April Wine, surprisingly the first that I've found since I've been doing A Singles Scene. Within a minute or two I've added Rock and Hyde and found another Aquarius: Teaze Sweet Misery. I remember the band, and I'm almost certain their CanCon. So, at $1.00 a piece, $2.00 for the Rock and Hyde picture cover, plus one free on the buy 3 get 1 free deal, $4.00 gets me 4 singles I'm almost certain to like.

First on the turntable after I get home is Teaze's Sweet Misery. Teaze was one of those very hard rock bands that the 70's tended to spawn. They had some modest success selling albums (which is the only sales that mattered to any self respecting 70's hard rock band): I well remembering one of there albums often got played at parties I used to go to. This song wasn't what we listened to.
Sweet Misery is standard a ballad/country rock affair. It's not bad but entirely forgettable. This is clearly a song designed to be a hit. It succeeded, but at what cost? In recent interviews I have seen the band members lament the effect this song had on their career, as fans would come to their concerts expecting more of the same. Reminds me of when BTO was starting to play the music that would be their first album under the name Brave Belt, and fans would be calling for Dunrobin's Gone; This is cited as one of the main reasons they changed the name.

Side b, On The Loose, is a) not the Loverboy song and b) more like what Teaze sounds like; a cross between Triumph & Black Sabbath - a Canadian Slade. The Problem is Moxy, another Canadian band, did it better.

I flip on the April Wine next. The b side is Gimme Love, a bad song from a good album - "The Whole World's Goin' Crazy" - and listening to it now it is dated. Yet better than the a side She's No Angel . This is not the original from the "Crazy" album, but the version from ''Live at the El Mocambo." The El Mocambo album was recorded when April Wine opened for the Stones at their famous El Mocambo gig for their "Love You Live" album. April Wine's record company decided that a recording of a famous gig might be profitable. April Wine disagreed and the album was promptly released. Problem is April Wine wasn't very good and the recording was worse. This song sounds like a bar band recording itself.

Last up is ex Payola$ members Bob Rock and Paul Hyde's band, Rock & Hyde's single Dirty Water. This album saw a lot of time in my CD player at one time. I have a lot of time for Bob Rock, and I am a Payola$ fan. Listening to this I remember it well. A lot of bands were doing songs like this, Tears for Fears come to mind, but Rock & Hyde did it better. This is, in short, a great song that I enjoy listening to now as much as ever.

It was a good trip to Ottawa: a good visit with relatives, beer in a European monastery styled pub (did I forget to mention that bit?) and at the end of the day, I came home with 3 bands I remember well, even if it's only 1 song I remember fondly!

* Since this occurred, I have written the review, had a catastrophic hard drive failure that took the initial review down with it, and re written the review. In that time the Loverboy single has been mis-placed. I don't even recall what the Loverboy single was, thus it is not reviewed here.

New Canadian CD Releases

2006-10-16T15:09:00.000-04:00

For October 17, 2006

Sarah McLachlan - Wintersong
The Tragically Hip - World Container

Canadian CD releases this Week

2006-10-10T20:19:00.000-04:00

Blue Rodeo's Greg Keelor releases his third solo CD today - "Aphrodite Rose". His previous releases where 2005's "Seven Songs for Jim" and 1997's "Gone".

International releases of note today:

Lindsay Buckingham - Under the Skin
Rod Stewart - Still The Same - Great Rock Classics of Our Time
Sting - Songs From The Labyrinth

New Canadian CD Releases

2006-10-03T09:16:00.000-04:00

For Tuesday October 3rd, 2006

Vancouver band Delerium will release their 16th CD, Nuages Du Monde

International releases of Note:

Beck - The Information
Jet - Shine On

Singles Scene # 8

2006-10-01T22:26:00.000-04:00

Just Up The Road: Cambridge in May! As romantic as it sounds, it can only really mean one thing: garage sales. First Friday in May I come home from work at 3:00, and 4 houses up the road there is a garage sale. Not Saturday mark you, Friday. Early afternoon. Yet it's reasonably busy. This can only happen in a garage sale town.

After sorting out the school bags and running to get propane, the boy and I wonder down the street. The neighbours in question are downsizing now that their kids are grown up, and are cleaning out the junk. And junk it mostly is. A box of books is all fairly high brow stuff, philosophy, German philosophy, physics and the like. Not a Clancy, King or Grisham to be found (presumably they aren't parting with the good stuff). Stuck in there, however, is a Charlie Brown Christmas. We have the video, now we have the book. The boy also likes a Skydome placemat that shows Toronto from a lake view standpoint, and we grab that. Myself, I find a pair of bookends for my desk, something I have have been looking for a while. Everything is priced fairly high, but when I ask about price, I get quoted a next to nothing price. Bookends say $20.00, he tells me $2.00. Charlie Brown book says $2.00, he says 50c. This is going well.

Then I spot the records. There where LPs I noted earlier, a lot of Gilbert & Sullivan and a Perry Como or two, but nothing I'm interested in getting. The 45's are about the same, with a few Simple Minds and that sort of thing thrown in; probably stuff that belonged to the kids back when they were kids. "A buck and a half for the whole rack" he tells me as I start looking. There is nothing however, in Canadian music and I want Canadiana for my buck and a half. They are in the last half dozen or so records: Stompin' Tom Connors singles. Two of them: Tillsonburg b/w "Wop" May and two songs I have never heard of Luke's Guitar (Twang Twang) b/w Log Train. I opt for just the two, instead of the whole rack, and he says $4.50 for everything: I only have $4.00 but he's in the mood to make a deal so I steal away with my 4 bucks worth of goodies.

The records are in very iffy shape, scratchy, scuffed and crayoned by the looks of it. Sound is not much better, but the music's there. Tillsonburg is everything you expect from Stompin' Tom. Basic country feel, cheesy lyrics about a smallish Canadian town: only thing missing is the stompin'. It's a familiar song and anytime I take the 401 west of here, I pass Tillsonburg signs of the highway and always sing a round of this chorus as I pass:

Tillsonburg
Tillsonburg
My back still aches when I hear that word

Hey, it ain't Shakespeare, but it's no Paul Anka either. I'll take it.Wilfred R. "Wop" May

The b side, Wop May, is a song about famed WWI Canadian fighter Pilot Wilfrid R. "Wop" May. Without digging into too much history, Stompin' Tom seems to have is facts straight and presents them in a simple ditty style, complete with a lovely Italian sounding guitar line in the Chorus.

The other record, Luke's Guitar (Twang Twang), I've never heard before, and it's classic Stompin' Tom. More upbeat than Tillsonburg, words that make virtually no sense. He even growls in one of the choruses, which basically goes

Twang-twangadee Aratwangadeedle a twange a dang twang
my wife will be old and blind before I sell my old guitar.

Or something like that anyway.

The flip side Log Train starts off mentioning my favourite getaway place Parry Sound. Only Stompin' Tom could rhyme of tiny towns like Kirkland Lake, Owen Sound, Manatou, Mattawa, Kirkland Lake and so on and get away with it. Funny that after listening to four Stompin' Tom songs, I never heard the old Foot stomp. I guess, all though I never noticed before, that he only does this in concert.

If there is any Can-Con more Can than Stompin' Tom Connor's, I've never heard it. It's not the greatest music, or the greatest poetry in the world (thankfully, though, it's no Nancy Millstone Jennings of Greenbridge, Essex, England), but I was looking for Canadiana: funny I should find it 4 doors from my home.

Bat Out Of Hell III

2006-09-25T10:08:00.000-04:00

Regardless of whether the music is pure Rock and Roll, orchestrated using the traditional instruments of the genre, or pretentious over produced crap, there's one thing we always know about a Bat Out Of Hell CD: It will have a great cover.

Release Date: Oct 31, 2006

Track Listing:

"The Monster Is Loose" (Desmond Child/Nikki Sixx/John '5' Lowery)
"Blind As A Bat" (Child/James Michael)
"It's All Coming Back to Me Now" (Jim Steinman) - duet with Marion Raven
"Bad For Good" (Steinman)featuring Brian May
"Cry Over Me" (Diane Warren)
"In The Land Of The Pig, The Butcher Is King" (Steinman)
"Monstro" (Child/Holly Knight/Elena Casals)
"Alive" (Child/Michael/Knight/Andrea Remanda)
"If God Could Talk" (Child/Marti Frederiksen)
"If It Ain't Broke, Break It" (Steinman)
"What About Love?" (Child/Frederiksen/Russ Irwin/John Gregory) - duet with Patti Russo
"Seize The Night" (Steinman)
"The Future Ain't What It Used To Be" (Steinman) - featuring Jennifer Hudson
"Cry To Heaven" (Steinman)

Milk Crate Classics #3: Brave Belt

2006-09-15T18:16:00.000-04:00

Brave Belt II

Brave Belt began in the early 1970's when original Guess Who singer Chad Allen, and original Guess Who guitarist Randy Bachman decided to have a second go at forming a band. Allen left the Guess Who early on in their career when the band began to become too hard rock for him. By the time of Brave Belt's second album in 1972, he was pretty much gone from the band as well, for much the same reason.

Allen is not listed as a band member on the credits of Brave Belt II, although he writes and sings two of the songs, including Brave Belts only hit, the uber-folk Dunrobin's Gone.

The band as listed consists of C.F. Turner, Randy Bachman and Robbie Bachman. The addition of other Bachman brother Tim would turn this band into BTO. It shows on this album, at least in terms of sound. Where it doesn't show is quality.

Brave Belt II has two or three decent songs, the very un-BTO Dunrobin's Gone being far and away the best song here. But there is no consistency, no momentum, and no showcase songs that would make you get excited about the album.

What this album is, truthfully, is a transition album between the band Brave Belt was supposed to be, a vehicle to showcase folk oriented Allen, and what they became: BTO. But in between, there is a complete lack of focus, not to mention very good songs.

Listening, it's very hard to believe the same group of musicians would put out that great first BTO album within the year, but they did. The sound is much the same, the heavy guitar, Turner's growl of a voice. Yet it is just not very coherent, not very well written and not, frankly, very good. Based on the evidence that is Brave Belt II; compared to BTO I, it appears Tim Bachman deserves much more credit than he has ever gotten before.

And that is just not saying very much about Brave Belt.

Dunrobin's Gone Lyrics

2006-09-13T20:12:00.002-04:00

I get a number of hits every week for people googling the lyrics to Brave Belt’s one hit from 1972, Dunrobin’s Gone. So as a public service, and since there seems to be demand for them (and since there can’t be that many people who have this album in they're closet), here they are.

Dunrobin’s Gone
Chad Allen & Barry Erickson

Pickin’ Wild Strawberries and catchin’ the mornin’ dew,
I keep on settin’ my table for two.
Yes and I keep my eyes open for an other glimpse of you,
While a voice inside my head keeps on screamin’.

It says she’s gone and she won’t be back, you must be a happy man.
You lied and treated her bad until she ran.
You know she’s gone and she won’t be back, you must be a happy man.
You played it for a fool until she ran.

Pullin’ back the covers, turnin’ down the lights
Can’t see no use in cryin’ hurt.
Well I’d try and make some coffee, but I’d probably break the cup,
Can’t see no point in stayin’ up.

You know she’s gone and she won’t be back, you must be a happy man.
You lied and treated her bad until she ran.
You know she’s gone and she won’t be back, you must be a happy man.
You played it for a fool until she ran.

Turnin’ down the castle, warmin’ up the bed.
Can’t see no use in cryin’ hurt.
“Cause the wind is in your barrel and my heart is on the line,
Can’t see no point in wastin’ time.

You know she’s gone and she won’t be back, you must be a happy man.
You lied and treated her bad until she ran.
You know she’s gone and she won’t be back, you must be a happy man.
You played it for a fool until she ran.
You she’s gone and she won’t be back, you must be a happy man.
You lied and treated her bad until she ran.
You know she’s gone and she won’t be back, you must be a happy man.
You played it for a fool until she ran…

Canadian CD releases this Week

2006-09-11T20:23:00.000-04:00

Tuesday Sept 12, 2006

Barenaked Ladies - Barenaked Ladies Are Me

International Releases of Note:

Bob Seger - Face The Promise
Elton John - The Captain and the Kid
Everclear - Welcome to the Drama Club

1,000 hits

2006-08-31T09:58:00.000-04:00

Wow!

I started this blog to see if I could get more eyes on some of my music material. The basic web page wasn't really working, so I thought I'd give it a try.

Since my first post on January 29th, I have as of this writing, had 999 visitors. I have had an increase in hits lately as well, suggesting that the next 1,000 may not take even seven months.

So to all who have found their way here: thanks for visiting; you made my day!

Singles Scene #7

2006-08-29T10:31:00.000-04:00

London: A record show. What better place to find records than a record show? I go to 2 or 3 shows a year and always seem to make the 2 London ones, even though London's an hour from my house. Guelph, Hamilton, Mississauga all have good shows and all closer to home. But London it is.

If you've never been to a record show it's like a Star Trek convention without the Klingons: everybody here is a music geek. Nobody here enjoys music, they are passionate about music and, more significantly, passionate about owning music. It is loaded with albums, in good shape or bad , videos, bootleg records, CDs and DVDs, posters and assorted memorablia. Ever wanted a Beatles Lunch Box? I saw one yesterday! Autographed Picture of Jimmy Page (with bow in hand)? I know where to get one! 1969 Grateful Dead concert poster, with Janis and the Airplane on the bill? Yup!

I usually hit these shows looking for albums: my ongoing list of half dozen albums I missed when they mattered gets whittled down by 1 or 2 at each show. Sometimes I grab a bootleg video, like the SARSfest DVD I got last time out. This time, however, it is 45's I am on the prowl for. Unlike other places I have searched for 45's, there is no question of finding what I am looking for here, it is a question of which singles I will find.

I know the set up here well, as it doesn't change much year to year - the same vendors sell the same general wares. Immediately upon walking in the door I see the usual singles guy, and head straight for him. He has a huge selection, in the thousands. Thankfully, he has row entitled 'Canadian.' This shouldn't be too hard!

It isn't. Easily a few hundred Canadian singles, most priced in the $2 - 4 range, although some rarer stuff is higher priced. The records aren't cheap, but at these shows you get very good quality records. First real find is one I have had in the back of my mind since I started this project: The Jitters The Last Of The Red Hot Fools. I then find an bit of a gem, something I had never heard of before: the Sinners Go Go Trudeau. An historically interesting novelty piece from 1968, that (apparently) reached 48 on the Chum chart. After picking through them all, I decided one more was needed but nothing stood out as obvious the way the other 2 did. I finally settled on Glass Tiger's Don't Forget Me (When I'm Gone). I choose the last one not so much because I love the song, but because a) they were a big band at the time b) it has an original picture cover & c) The record itself is transparent! For $3.00, I'm feeling lucky and at $2.00 a piece for the other 2 there is enough change from a 10 to buy my little guy (who's trailing along with me) a kiss pin. Not a bad day, especially when you add in that I found a great condition LP of "London Calling" before heading home.

First on the turntable is the Hooters Last Of The Red Hot Fools. I picked this one because I saw this band once in one of Mississauga's larger bars, and they where good. I also remember, mostly from this night I suppose, that this was a pretty cool song. Of course, the Mullet was a cool haircut in 1987, so I my read on this could be wrong.

It is, but it's still not a bad song. It starts with the chorus, a Nylons sounding vocal part with little instrumentation:

I've been a fool, to play it dumb
should have played it smart
used my head, but not my heart
Must have been crazy to play it hot
should have played it cool
now I'm just the last of the red hot fools.

I remember doing some fun hand movements that went with it. Let's see:

Must have been Crazy circle temple with index finger
playin' it hot wipe imaginary sweat off brow,
Should have played it cool Cross arms in front of self as if cold
Now I'm just the last of the red hot fools bob index finger in front of you as if pointing at rest of table.

Did I mention it was in a bar? None the less this isn't a bad song, just not a great one. The instrumentation is simple, even basic, too basic. And other than the chorus, the words are OK, but forgettable. The last problem here is tempo, this song is neither fast, nor slow. It's not a ballad, it's not a Thorogoodian rocker, as it could be. Not so bad for drinking to, I guess, but no George Thorogood in that regard either.

The b side is a piece called Hard as Nails, which is again strongly in the camp of the Plain Jane of songs: you might date it, but you'll never fall head over heels for it. Tempo is again neither fast nor slow (actually, this song should be a whole lot quicker) I wonder if I went through the late 80's music if I'd find this tempo a lot. I'm guessing I would, and the Hooters are no worse a representation of the period as any other band, save for U2.

Speaking of Mullets, check out the cover of the Glass Tiger single! And the long coat!! I actually wore one of those when I played in a band in '89. Guess what tempo Don't Forget Me is. Hooters speed! Why did I never notice this before? What makes this different is the players, especially the bass. Amongst musicians of the time funky slappy bass was very in, and this song is a great example of it. Still a forgettable song, but one with some good performances in it.

The b side is, simply put, abysmal. I have never had time for Duran Duran and somehow they are performing on the b side of a Glass Tiger single. Music went, at times, very very astray in the latter part of the 80's. I now present exhibit A in defense of that statement: Ancient Evenings, by Glass Tiger. Deciding to sound like Duran Duran is one of those things I'll never understand, like all those female singers who want to sound like Madonna. There's a reason Paula Abdul is Schlepping American Idol contestants, and it's the same reason Glass Tiger is not with us anymore. Ms. Abdul decided a good career move would be to sound like Madonna, Glass Tiger went for the Duran Duran sound. Both deserve the fates that have befallen them.

If you aren't overly interested on my views on Duran Duran and Madonna I recommend you don't get me started on Pierre Trudeau. However, I picked up Go Go Trudeau by the Sinners not because I want to hear someone singing Go Go Trudeau to bad surf music. It's more an interest in what they thought of PET in 1968. Can you imagine any of today's leaders, of any political stripe, of any of the major countries, inspiring a song of any kind (I fought the law jokes notwithstanding). PET was, they thought in 1968, our JFK (whether he was or not, or whether that was a good thing or not, I'll leave you to decide for yourself). This song reflects that feeling.

Lyrically they based this song on a bunch of old folk songs which they have parodied:

Hang down your head Bob Stansfield,
hang down your head and cry.
Parliament must stand this way
and you still don't know why".

Or how about "Farewell Pearson" to Farewell Eileen. And how about this for a chorus:

Go Go Trudeau don't be afraid to take your stand.
You got the nation right behind, go right ahead and blow their mind.

It's no one little, two little three Canadians I grant you, but it must have been embarrassing to sing. Interestingly, it's not nearly as bad in French. This may well be because I can't understand how bad the lyrics are.

So my trip to London netted me an interesting re-look at 1968 and 20 years later. Somehow I'm not too fussy on either right now.

Milk Crate Classics #2 - Aldo Nova

2006-08-19T13:43:00.000-04:00

Imagine it's the summer and you are nineteen again. You and the boys hang about: booze; women; and the sounds of summer your only worries. Remember it? Remember her name? How many hers there even were? The drink I would remember if only there were any remnants of it left (do they even make that brand of beer anymore?) It's the music, however, that I remember most of all. Records on the turntable all day - records, real vinyl with an actual smell to them. You could, if you tried hard enough, wear one out. And the singer: the guy with the leather jacket; the Jimmy Page guitar; and the faggy Peter Pan boots!?! Wait, faggy Peter Pan Boots in the middle of your most manly of summers? Well, if the summer was 1982 and the singer was Aldo Nova, then yes. The boots it is.

Twenty years later that is also exactly what Aldo Nova sounds like: A guy with a Jimmy Page guitar and faggy boots. In retrospect, it is also obvious we weren't the only drunk eighteen year olds listening to Aldo Nova that summer. Corey Hart was certainly listening, and five years later would himself kill forever the 'Montreal based pouty singers' trend. Listening to Can't Stop Lovin' You is akin to listening to a Corey Hart tribute band. It is apparent that Bryan Adams was listening too. Both Foolin' Yourself, the albums biggest single, and Heart to Heart, feature a main guitar line that can only be described as Summer of 69-ish.

The other hits from this album include Ball and Chain, Hot Love and the albums signature song Fantasy.

Aldo Nova's "Aldo Nova" was an album, like the boots, very much of it's time. Caught between the hard rockin' 70's and the slinkingly wimpish, over synthesized 80's, Aldo Nova's debut album is unfortunately, much closer to Corey Hart than Bryan Adams. Although Foolin' Yourself beats Sunglasses at Night hands down.

Milk Crate Classics

2006-08-19T13:21:00.000-04:00

Five or six years ago I was writing for the seminal Canadian humour site CPFOG.com. After the folding of CPFOG, I continued much of the writing, including A Sophist's Saga and Singles Scene.

One other thing I wrote for them was a review of classic Canadian albums, known as Milk Crate Classics (MCC). MCC is the last of the bunch to be brought back to life in my various blogs (mostly because I only had hard copies, no files), but it is finally back. I began last week with Prism, and will continue for the foreseeable future posting the old ones, and writing some new ones.

Please enjoy, and feel free to pass along to your friends. The Milk Crate Classics. And look for a sidebar linking to each MCC as they are added:

Milk Crate Classics #1 - Prism.
Milk Crate Classics #2 - Aldo Nova.

Milk Crate Classics #1: Prism

2006-08-16T17:48:00.000-04:00

Take a picture of this: It’s August 1978, the 1st anniversary of Elvis’s death. There’s a Chaucerian pilgrimage taking place. Thousands of devotees are walking to Graceland to have an idol before Him. Meanwhile, the Memphis police are on strike, a strike that s sometimes violent (as strikes involving people who have guns are probably want to be), and the National Guard have been called in to keep the peace. What happens when those pilgrims walk smack into the National Guard? I bet the answer your searching fro is not ‘one of the finest moments on Canadian rock history.’ Yet that’s what happened, as Vancouverites Prism happened to be helicoptering over the fuss on their way to a concert (things were apparently so hairy that a helicopter was the only way to navigate Memphis that day). The scene below struck them as Armageddon, and one of those pieces that define an era was born.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Those first couple of Prism albums in the late 70’s (“Prism” in 1977; “See Forever Eyes” in 1978; and “Armageddon” in 1979) had a sound that was fresh and alive. The heavy emphasis on keyboards, without abandoning the guitar as Gary Wright had done on “Dreamweaver”, led you to think this was what was to come. The first single from the first album, Spaceship Superstar, with it’s Won’t Get Fooled Again synthesizers and Ballroom Blitz like guitar chorus made you think they had what it was going to take to stay alive in rock and roll’s electronic future; and led you to believe they knew that themselves. Ultimately, however, they were a transition between the guitar rock of the 70’s and the guitar rock of the 90’s: Depeche Mode with attitude.

Between Spaceship Superstar in 1975 and lead singer Ron Tabak’s untimely death of police stupidity in 1984, Prism put together some of the most memorable tripe in Canadian music history. Night to Remember, It’s over, Take me to the Captain, N-N-N-No, American Music and Open Soul Surgery mark some of Canada’s better musical moments; Spaceship Superstar and Armageddon mark some of rock and roll’s.

Prism, however, deserves to be remembered for 1981’s Don’t Let Him Know, the first hit penned by the young team of Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance, a writing duo that would put Canadian music on the map over the next decade. They deserve to be remembered for that; they will be remembered for Armageddon. It was simply too good to forget.

Blues, Brews and Barbeques

2006-08-11T12:26:00.000-04:00

Kitchener is holding their annual Blues, Brews and Barbeques Festival this weekend at the Civic Square in Kitchener City Hall.

28 Concerts and 7 workshops take place over three days, August 11; 12; and 13th, 2006 on three stages.

Events begin at noon today (25 minutes ago) and continue until 6:30 - 7:00 Sunday night.

The concerts are free, the barbeque, I'm guessing not. As well there is a blues bizarre and sidewalk sale in downtown Kitchener all weekend long.

More here.

Schedule here.

Mill Race Folk Festival

2006-08-07T12:56:00.000-04:00

I made it out to the local folk festival this past weekend, the Mill Race Folk Festival, which takes place in downtown Galt over Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the long weekend.

Here's some pictures:

Singles Scene #6

2006-08-06T18:40:00.000-04:00

Elora: We're on a three day camping trip to the Elora Gorge for the Labour Day weekend. This means three things: tubing in the gorge, a new town to explore the junk shops and there's a 100% chance it rains. So what happens? Tubing is sold out by 10:00AM on the Saturday, for the first time since the cold, wet, miserable May 2-4 weekend in 1990 when I got engaged, I camp without it raining. And the town? A gorgeous old town full of antique shops and nothing I can use. I can't even find a liquor store in this damn town. What's a good Canadian boy to do when you can't watersport, you can't complain about the weather and you can't stumble upon CanCon? Without beer??

Go for a bike ride? That's what I decide and it pays off. I'm out of my campground two minutes and I spot the Elora Antique Warehouse. After spending the day examining quilts, knitting, vases and other assorted feminine knick-knacks I am not hopeful. The Antique Warehouse is one of those places with various vendors selling their wares under one roof. It has a huge Dairy Queen sign as you walk in the door, and junk from every walk of life: Official James Bond dinky cars that the son would love, if only they had a Live and Let Die car (the boat would be even better), a Cheers™ board game that's laid out like the bar, and other assorted 'collectibles.'

I'm in the door about 45 seconds when I note two piles of magazines. I lift the "Happy Gang Book of Comic Songs" off the second pile and discover it's not a pile of magazines: it's a pile of 45's. A hundred easily, maybe one-fifty: at two bucks a piece they are neither expensive nor cheap. Picking through I quickly spot Ian Thomas' I Really Love You and a Rompin' Ronnie Hawkins single High Blood Pressure. Runnaging further I note Mashmakhan's As The Years Go By: I'm not sure if they're Canadian but didn't I read something recently that suggested Mashmakhan was April Wine's minor league band? Just to be sure I grab Joni Mitchell's Big Yellow Taxi/ Woodstock. Again I'm struggling to remember if she's Canadian, although I should know. I'm wondering whether it's her or Joan Biaz that's the Canuck, so I grab it thinking that between Joni and Mashmakhan, one of them has to be Canadian.

Mashmakhan and Joni Mitchell are both Canadian! And my reading on Mashmakhan was right on as well: Jerry Mercer left in 1973 to join April Wine. Steve Lang in 1975, and in 1977 Brian Greenway joined April Wine, although he did factory work between Mashmakhan and the Wine. With that quick bit of research put to bed, I decide to start with Mashmakhan's As The Years Go By. Of course I know this song, and have never much liked it -- it's cheesy.

"A child asks it's mother do you love me?
and it really means will you protect me?
His mother answers him 'I love you,'
and it really means you've been a good boy."

Lots of keyboards, but I'm trying to imagine Jerry Mercer playing drums here and can't: the guy who brought us that bell on Ohwhatanight, the bald guy who does one handed drum rolls during his solo playing a basic bass/snare/bass/snare pattern? No wonder he left for April Wine. But even more I'm imagining this band in two years trying to contain Bryan Greenway, and I can't do it.

Next up is Joni Mitchell. This is a double 45, with Big Yellow Taxi on side A and Woodstock on side 2. Big Yellow Taxi is very familiar "They pave paradise, put up a parking lot.", a song I have always liked. Joni has this gorgeous soprano voice, one of the few that work in pop music. It has lots of 60's hippy world view type of stuff thread through the lyrics, but it's the infectious beat, the acoustic guitar driving this song that I love; happy music over sadly serious lyrics. The B side is Joni's version of Woodstock, a song she wrote but made famous by Crosby, Stills, Nash and maybe Young. I don't think I've heard Joni's version before, it's the opposite of Big Yellow Taxi; happy lyrics but sad, almost morose music. All in all I prefer the CSN (&Y?), it is just easier on the ears. This version does little for me.

Next up is a guy I know, The Hawk, Ronnie Hawkins. On Roulette Records High Blood Pressure was released in 1963, a couple of years before he was playing with The Band. The Hawk sounds like Chuck Berry, except it's slower than Chuck liked to play. A blues it reminds me a bit of Berry's Maybelline, this is one of the better songs I've bought while doing this. The B side There's a Screw Loose is more of the same, with a Spanish flavour. Hawkins is kind of shouting out some drunk Mexican-isms over a Hammond Organ based band, this is frankly as bad as High Blood Pressure is good.

Finally, Ian Thomas' I Really Love You. A relatively local boy, Ian hails from nearby Paris, Ontario, and brother of Dave Thomas of SCTV fame, Thomas is a great songwriter with a pile of top of the line music to his name. I'm a fan of this song right from the get go: a nice guitar sound, simple effective arrangement and smart lyrics well sung. These are all hallmarks of the Ian Thomas song and this one is no different.

Overall, and excepting Mashmakhan and b/ sides, this was a good haul for a quilt town!

Ra McGuire: Here For A Good Time - Book Review

2006-07-28T15:25:00.000-04:00

Ra McGuire, lead singer for Trooper, has for a number of years kept up a road blog. One of the first rocker bloggers that I know of, this classic rocker computer geek (mac guy) has been leading the way in terms in internet communications with his fans.

He has published a book of his blog postings from May 2002 until June 2005: Here For A Good Time: On The Road With Trooper Canada's Legendary Band. I must admit, my first response when I read the introduction on his web site was not a good one. Then I heard a couple of radio guys who got it gratis suggesting it wasn't very good. (Although, in fairness, they didn't not outright pan it).

However, I was still curious and picked it up as my own road book, taking it with me on my holidays. The long drive from Ontario to PEI required a good book, but nothing heavy, and Here For A Good Time fit the bill.

It is fun reading about a lead singers road experiences, it is cool to read about the gigs, the traveling schedule, the other rock and rollers that Trooper hangs out with. Stories about Brian Greenway's tour ritual, "Beer Sunday," and singing with the Doobie Brothers are great. As well there is some degree of inside poop, such as Randy Bachman has few friends in the business and Myles Goodwyn in "notoriously introverted":

...Saint John, New Brunswick, where I found myself onstage in a small bar singing and playing blues and R & B songs with Myles Goodwyn from April Wine. Myles is a notoriously introverted guy, and I've spent years trying to get to know him at backstage hangouts all over the country. I have never seen Myles anywhere but backstage, so this was a serious breakthrough of some kind and a ton of fun in the bargain.

Here For A Good Time is, in fact, a great read. Whether you are travelling the Trans-Canada Highway, or if your just goofin' off some Saturday afternoon the stories are fun, informative and easy readin'.

Maybe it's tough to read if you got a freebie; but for twenty bucks, I was satisfied.

Links Added

2006-07-28T14:59:00.000-04:00

I read Ra McGuire's book "Here for a Good Time" over my holiday, and it occurred to me lots of guys like him are probably rockin' and bloggin'. As such, I am inspired to finally start adding some links to my sidebar.

I have added nine, plus a couple of blogs of interest that I found. If you know of any others (especially blogs), I would be glad to hear of them.

If you have an unsigned band, I will also consider putting a link if you pass it along to me.

Meanwhile, I will keep adding as I find them, and will definitely start adding a sidebar link whenever I mention a band.

New Canadian CD Releases

2006-07-11T03:00:00.000-04:00

Candaian Cd's released on Tuesday July 11, 2006

Bruce Cockburn - Life Short Call Now

New Canadian CD Releases

2006-06-20T04:00:00.000-04:00

Canadian CD's released today:

Nelly Furtado - Loose
Fefe Dobson - Sunday Love

CD released by significant international artist:

Velvet Revolver - Libertad

Velvet Revolver is Slash, plus other ex GNR's, plus Scott Weiland, of Stone Temple Pilots, and Dave Kushner of Wasted Youth. This album has been long talked about and anticipated in hard rock circles.

Man Seeking Singles

2006-06-11T23:26:00.000-04:00

I'm away for a week, but thought I'd leave something to read. This site was started as a place to put, and write more, singles scene's, a very particular piece of work I have done in the past, and continue to do, whereby I go to places that have 45 RPM singles for sale, I find Canadian ones, then write about them in a travelogue style. While I have used news and reviews as filler, the scenes is why I am here.

To that end, I have posted 5 scenes so far, and on this post I will link to them all:

#1 - Cambridge: ... Today I pull out The Stampeders Sweet City Woman.

Now here's a great place to start, the core of Canadian music. My three-year-old son dances happily as I play the song through. Same reaction I had when I was ten. The single looks like it was once owned by a ten-year-old too, although I'm not sure it ever really was. I remember the song, but I don't remember the single until later. The single is scratchy, as singles always were, and has a chip out of the corner, but it can be played; I can't count how many 45's I have owned with a chip out of the corner. Many have complained about the quality of vinyl records through the years, but the record players were made to play whatever you put on them. (Try playing a CD with a chip off the corner some day.) So despite the chip, the banjo comes on anyway; a few bars late perhaps but unmistakably the banjo of Sweet City Woman.

#2 - Bayfield: ... Bayfield is a small tourist trap of a town, approximately 20 minutes south of Goderich, where we were camping for a week. The main street is a series of small houses painted white, with white picket fences and gingerbread gabling all around. The houses are in reality however, shops, restaurants and B&B's. Many of the shops of the antique kind. It is really a nice little downtown, and it makes for a good summer afternoon walking through it. If you like old stuff, the antiques, this is a town that must be visited.

On the corner of Charles St. and Main St. there is a sign for the group of 7 shoppes [sic]. The group of seven is seven small stores all selling old stuff; two of which appear to be in business. One is "Around the Block" which sold used clothes as well as a small selection of antiques and LP records. My wife was eyeballing a dress and went in to the change room. A minute later she shouts out:

"Singles. The wall is covered in singles."

#3 - Cambridge: Home base...

Three good sized stacks of 45's, maybe a hundred, hundred and fifty in total. And sitting on top? Canada, the Centennial song by Bobby Gimby and the Young Canada Singers; last month's near miss. Then I was willing to pay $5.00 for it. This month it is $3.00 and I'm thinking I go to two stores and find this song in both. Maybe $3.00 is a bit pricey. However, it comes in a good cardboard sleeve and should be considered a bit of a collectible. At least it would be a collectible if the stall owner hadn't put a sticker on it that will never come off without ripping the sleeve, knocking about $2.75 of the real value of the thing. Or am I just feeling cheap today? Either way I ignore the penny-pinching voice running in my head, and pick through the rest of the singles.

#4 - Cookstown :... The Antique mall is in an old barn, about ½ a mile north of highway 89. It sits on the left just as you leave the spartan downtown and is hard to miss; I miss it. Just as I am passing the driveway, and deciding the hell with it get me to the cottage, I spot the roadside sign. Fortunately, Cookstown is not called Reallybusytown for a reason and I am able to make a quick U-turn without leaving too much destruction in my wake. Thinking how pale the family in the van behind me appear, I turn into the driveway of the Cookstown Antique Mall. The drive is maybe two hundred meters long and 5 cars seems determined to park in the 3 small spots out front. I go around back where there is tons of parking and two pick-up trucks pulling campers.

As my journey in search of 45's develops, I have learnt a couple of things: Use the Antique Showcase to look for places that sell "collectibles" and if when you walk in a store and the youngest person in the store, next to yourself, is in the neighborhood of 100, it's a good antique store. This is going to be a great antique store...

#5 - Fergus: ... You can get both new goods and used junk, as well as fresh fruit, ripe cheese and baked goods. There's a small stall that sells new baby stuff: clothes, blankets and the like. The Missus grabs a diaper bag while I buy some strawberry tarts and lemon squares. The lady at the tart stall tells me how wonderful my kids are and entertains me with stories of her own five grown children. I nibble away on a tart thinking, "five kids and she still doesn't have a clue how to bake." You can taste the dough over the berries and later I discover to my dismay that the lemon squares are also doughy...

There are four piles of records here, 50 maybe 75 records per pile; it's hard to tell as small piles hold a deceptively large number of singles. I quickly find a Paul Anka section and toss the idea of tossing this idea. After (Your) Havin' my Baby I am not sure I ever want to hear Paul Anka again. But a gig is a gig and he is Canadian. None the less I decide on one I have never heard before, As Long As We Keep Believing, thinking maybe it won't be so bad. Next up is Blood Sweat and Tears, again a song I never heard of: You'’re The One. The choice here is fairly good, but I'm in a gambling mood so I decide to risk it all on these two songs I don't know. Of course the price is three for a buck, and my last one is an old favorite from my very early youth, Edward Bear's Last Song. I'm in and out in about three minutes with a dollars worth of Canadiana. Nope, nothing disappointing but the baked goods...

That's it for now, although the back catalogue has 6 - 9 waiting fro me to post. For this week, it's a so I wouldn't be surprised if 10 and 11 get pieced together not long after.

Have a good week everybody, see you next week.

Another Music Blog by a Canadian

2006-06-08T08:49:00.000-04:00

As I stumble and Bumble my way around the internet, I occasionally fall upon a site worth noting.

Deuce's Stay Wild is a music Blog by a fellow Canadian, although not about Canadian music. It features news, reviews, opinions and the usual non-sequiters that occur on all blogs, that make the genre so interesting in fact.

A nice site to which I will be returning, and adding a sidebar link.

Singles Scene #5

2006-06-03T15:56:00.000-04:00

Fergus: This month I go on another road trip. A friend in Owen Sound has just had a baby so we pack the kids into the Caravan and head for a fall colours tour of the Beaver Valley, before settling in Owen Sound for the evening. Fortunately, we haven't had time to pick up a baby gift; that means a stop at the Fergus Market is in order.

I say fortunately for a couple of reasons: First, it's a long trip and the kids are sure to get restless. One or two stops along the way would be a good thing. Second, because the Fergus Market is a great place to continue my search. If you have never been, it's a fairly large market with 20 or so stalls and a few small cave-like stores. You can get both new goods and used junk, as well as fresh fruit, ripe cheese and baked goods. There's a small stall that sells new baby stuff: clothes, blankets and the like. The Missus grabs a diaper bag while I buy some strawberry tarts and lemon squares. The lady at the tart stall tells me how wonderful my kids are and entertains me with stories of her own five grown children. I nibble away on a tart thinking, "five kids and she still doesn't have a clue how to bake." You can taste the dough over the berries and later I discover to my dismay that the lemon squares are also doughy.

The baked goods are, however, the only disappointment on this stop. After spending far too long at the used tool guy's stall we buy the kids a few small toys. A sword for the boy, his second in as many months, and some Indian figures for the wee miss. As soon as they are quiet, I stumble upon my treasure. A music stall: records, CD's, bootleg videos and . . . 45's. A big pile of 45's! 3 for $1.00!! In alphabetical order!!! Of all the places I've stumbled across in the last six months, this is the first to bother putting the singles in alphabetical order. And 33 cents apiece is dirt-cheap. The Missus wants to walk ahead and I yell for her to leave me a couple of loony's. She leaves me the kids and I think, what the hell, I should get one or two records out of the guy for them.

There are four piles of records here, 50 maybe 75 records per pile; it's hard to tell as small piles hold a deceptively large number of singles. I quickly find a Paul Anka section and toss the idea of tossing this idea. After (Your) Havin' my Baby I am not sure I ever want to hear Paul Anka again. But a gig is a gig and he is Canadian. None the less I decide on one I have never heard before, As Long As We Keep Believing, thinking maybe it won’t be so bad. Next up is Blood Sweat and Tears, again a song I never heard of: You’re The One. The choice here is fairly good, but I'm in a gambling mood so I decide to risk it all on these two songs I don't know. Of course the price is three for a buck, and my last one is an old favorite from my very early youth, Edward Bear's Last Song. I'm in and out in about three minutes with a dollars worth of Canadiana. Nope, nothing disappointing but the baked goods.

The rest of the day and evening is nice if uneventful. We picked the perfect weekend for fall colours and the Beaver Valley is stunning. The kids and I drop a fishing line in the water at Meaford, then we pick up Chinese take out before visiting the new Mom and Dad. The baby is a beauty, as all baby's invariably are, and the missus is all a glow from holding her. By midnight we are back on highway 6, this time heading south; her grinning away and me nervously quizzing her about whether she is serious in wanting another one. We arrive home too late to worry about my new found Canadian gold, and I put them away until tomorrow.

Next day, first thing (as early as a wife and two kids allow first thing to mean) I begin. Somewhere I Heard that Paul Anka has done some Albums in Italian; Listening to As Long As We Keep Believing I wish he would take out citizenship, then I wouldn’t have to listen to this crap ever again. Truly horrible music, and believe me it hurts me to call it music. If Air Supply was boring, they wouldn’t be this bad. One thing I have learnt, My Way was not an accident. It’s like an industry with this guy!

Next up is Blood Sweat and Tears You’re The One. One of the most respected bands in Canadian Music, loved by the critics, tolerated by the fans, Blood Sweat and Tears is one of those bands that did everything with an eye towards quality instead of the charts. David Clayton Thomas is one of those high end Canadian art types that the CBC love. I am not sure which side is really the A side, but it turns out I know this song. Quality soft rock, nice jazzy backbone to it this is, none the less, not to my taste. Not a bad song, mind you, just not what I listen to. Soft slow and comfortable; a man could screw to this song.

We end where my music memories begin, with Edward Bear’s Last Song. Ahhh. Canada. The Canada I knew and was a pre-teen in. On Friday nights in grade 8 a group of us got together at one house or another and had little parties. This was always the song at the end of the night, the song you broke up to, or got together to. We played spin the bottle and basically had a life like we would never know again. In the next year our social circles would grow so large, and never again would we all get together again, in some cases I never really socialized at all with a lot of these people. Yet here they are, so up front in my memory.

That said, it’s amazing what perspective brings to the table. This really is one of those horrible bits of tripe that I so rail against, yet I can’t hear it enough. To me it’s a gem, the creme de la creme of tripe, if you will. Like a cold day reminds me of Christmas, I swear I am 12 and falling in and out of love again when I hear this song. I want to say it’s beautiful, but a modicum of objectivity won’t let me; it is the memories that are beautiful. This is just the one recollection in the soundtrack of my puberty, but I’ll take it.

Bachman Cummings Songbook: A Review

2006-05-19T13:23:00.000-04:00

Bachman Cummings Songbook is an interesting idea: a greatest hits collection from three different, yet related, acts: The Guess Who, Bachman Turner Overdrive (BTO) and Burton Cummings solo career. This has some pluses and minuses.

From the plus perspective, it never gets boring. You have 30 or so minutes of Guess Who, then the CD switches gears and you have 20 minutes of BTO before the CD finishes off with 20 minutes of Burton Cummings. The three different sets are unique enough that you don't get bored listening for 70 minutes, yet similar enough that the collection doesn't seem disjointed.

The negative has more to do with what's not here than what is. The Randy Bachman set is incomplete to say the least. As a long time Randy Bachman fan I would have loved to see Brave Belt's Dunrobins Gone, his solo Prairie Town, and Union's Mainstreet U.S.A. on this collection. And all that is without the obvious BTO that's missing: Take it Like a Man, Rock is My Life and this is My Song, Roll On Down The Highway, Blue Collar, Down To The Line, Gimme Your Money Please &tc...

While we are discussing what's missing, some of the more obscure Guess Who hits, such as Rain Dance, or some more Burton Cummings, the gorgeous Dream of a Child being the obvious choice, would have been a nice addition. Again the list could get lengthy, and what it boils down to is the negative aspects of this CD is that it's not CD's. It would have been nice to special edition this set, with a 2 CD option for those of us who want more.

All that said, this is a great collection that will hopefully make that trek to the cottage this long weekend a little better. My complaints are mere quibbles, and it is clear that what this CD represents is a setlist for the Bachman Cummings live show. It does the job well, as one listen makes me think it's time I caught these two live again.

The packaging is also very good, with Burton Cummings commenting on every song, plus words to the songs. The only thing missing is Bachman's commentary on the BTO songs. Instead Cummings directly comments on all songs, his and Bachman's. Again, that is mere quibbling, and more than made up by the CD itself (right), which looks like an old record: a great touch.

Song list:

Guess Who Songs
Laughing
These Eyes
Undun
American Woman
Albert Flasher
No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature
No Time
Share The Land

Sour Suite (a commercial for the Wheatfield Soul Album)

BTO Songs
Let It Ride
Takin' Care Of Business
You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet
Hey You
Lookin' Out For No. 1

Burton Cummings Songs
Stand Tall
My Own Way To Rock
I'm Scared
Break It To Them Gently
I Will Play A Rhapsody

Canadian CD's: This weeks releases

2006-05-16T09:37:00.000-04:00

Canadian CD's In Stores Today

Ron Sexsmith - Time Being

Pearl Jam in Toronto

2006-05-10T09:44:00.000-04:00

Veteran Seattle rockers Pearl Jam open their world tour in support of their new, self titled CD tonight in Toronto.

Starting tonight, Toronto gets a big, personal thank you from Pearl Jam as they kick off their 2006 world tour with two dates this week at the Air Canada Centre...
The Seattle quintet, rounded out by vocalist/guitarist Eddie Vedder, guitarist Stone Gossard, drummer Matt Cameron and guitarist Mike McCready, are touring in support of their eighth studio album, a self-titled, 13-track project released last week.
They have been selective about where they will play on this tour. Ament says they're not playing "places they should be," such as Texas, Florida, and parts of Northern Europe.

It seems pretty weighty then, that they've not only committed themselves to two Toronto shows (the only Canadian dates), but have decided to launch the entire tour here...

If I had a wish, it would be for those in attendance tonight to get a repeat performance of this:

Pearl Jam w/ Robert Plant : Chicago House of Blues 10-5-05 - Fool in the Rain.

Neil Young's Living With War In Stores Now

2006-05-09T12:05:00.000-04:00

Neil Young's newest effort, Living with War, was released initially on teh internet. Recorded in a matter of weeks, and quick-released due to it's timely political subject matter, Living WIth War was never given an authoritative release date. Instead we were told that it would be released "...as soon as they can be manufactured with a retail release estimated to be sometime between May 5th and May 15th."

I can now verify that it is available in stores, as it was at HMV at Cambridge mall this morning.

Canadian CD's: This weeks releases

2006-05-09T00:31:00.000-04:00

In stores today:

The Salads - The Big Picture
Neil Young - Living With War

International CDs of note:

Paul Simon - Surprise
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium.

Neil Young - Living With War: Review

2006-05-08T09:00:00.000-04:00

Neil Young's anti-Iraq/ anti-Bush CD Living With War was first made available on the internet. It's an interesting idea releasing a CD as streaming audio. It is, in a way, like releasing a whole album to radio. You can't save it, can't skip through the tracks. What you can do is listen to it in order. It is a nice way to offer fans and potential fans a listen to your CD, without giving it to them. The only complaint I have about the system, and it's a brand new idea so it's fair that something won't work that well, is you can't forward or rewind. Especially forwarding through tracks I don't particularly like would be a nice option. Rewind would be a treat, especially to us amateur reviewers who may want to re-hear something

1 After The Garden - Like this song a lot. It's typical Neil the Grungemaster.
2. Living With War - Another piece that's not bad, typical Neil sounding. Has a drone sound to it that I know Neil likes, me less so. Not bad, not a classic.
3. Restless Consumer - Yawn! The first song I flat out don't like, the basic sound of the album hasn't changed.
4. Shock and Awe - Hey, I can understand the lyrics. Ohh, biting satire:

Our chief was landing on the deck
The sun was setting on a golden photo op
Back in the days of "mission accomplished"
Thousands of bodies in the ground
Brought home in a boxes to a trumpet's sound

Lyrics available here, to those who want to read them.

The plan was to song by song review this, but I'm having a hard time saying much except, sounds like the last song. Thus, I'm going to stop here and give more general impressions. Every song reminds me of an older Neil Young song but I can't quite place it. It's in the dirty guitar sound and tempo, which is the same for each song.

It ends, however, with a nice, acappella, gospel version of America The Beautiful. Unfortunately it is song ten before a gear change happens, too late to salvage the work as a whole.

Bottom line is if you are a big enough Neil Young fan, you will probably love this. If you are a marginal fan, but are strongly anti-Iraq/anti-Bush, this CD is probably for you. The rest would, I think, want to leave it alone. It's not that it's bad, it's that it is tiresomely repetitive.

For that, God Bless Neil Young. I am an avid complainer of celebrities and their political rants, a charter member of the shut up and sing club. But Young, by releasing such a highly political and controversial album, has put his money where his mouth is. I have a lot more patience for that than celebrities who speak where and when it's safe to do so, then do work that is also safe from backlash.

Track list:

1 After The Garden
2. Living With War
3. Restless Consumer
4. Shock and Awe
5. Families
6. Flags of Freedom
7. Let's Impeach the President
8. Lookin' For A Leader
9. Roger and Out
10. America The Beautiful

The hardcopy CD will be available in stores "...as soon as they can be manufactured with a retail release estimated to be sometime between May 5th and May 15th." Possibly it is in stores near you now, if not wait a week and it will be.

Canadian CD's: This weeks releases

2006-04-24T20:05:00.000-04:00

Caanaidian Releases set for Tuesday April 25th, 2006

Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings: Songbook
K.D. Lang: Reintarnation
Pilate: Sell Control For Life's Speed (cover shown)
Mobile: Tomorrow Starts Today

International Releases of Note

Bruce Springsteen: We Shall Overcome (the Seeger Sessions) - Dual Disc CD/DVD
Goo Goo Dolls: Let Love In

Bachman Cummings First Time Around

2006-04-20T08:39:00.000-04:00

The Bachman Cummings TV special First Time Around is on CBC tonight at 8:00. Here's CBC's promo on it:

Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings have been an influential force on Canada's music scene for more than four decades. In 'First Time Around' these two great performers, writers and storytellers come together to share their road stories and perform both old and new music in a unique and different way.
(High Definition 5.1 where available)

Bachman Cummings at Molson Amphitheatre

2006-04-20T08:29:00.000-04:00

The Bachman Cummings Songbook tour is coming to a venue near you. Just announced is the venue near me:

Classic Rock Q107 presents
Bachman Cummings
Friday, June 23rd
The Molson Amphitheatre

Tickets are $79.50, $49.50 and $29.50 plus applicable service charges and are on-sale Monday, April 24th @ 10am.

This tour is to promote the new CD The Bachman Cummings Songbook, due in stores April 25th. Here is the songlist from the CD:

The Guess Who — "Laughing"
The Guess Who — "These Eyes"
The Guess Who — "Undun"
The Guess Who — "American Woman"
The Guess Who — "No Sugar Tonight"
The Guess Who — "No Time"
The Guess Who — "Share The Land"
The Guess Who — "Albert Flasher"
BTO — "Let It Ride"
BTO — "Takin' Care Of Business"
BTO — "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet"
BTO — "Hey You"
BTO — "Looking Out For #1"
Burton Cummings — "Stand Tall"
Burton Cummings — "My Own Way To Rock"
Burton Cummings — "I'm Scared"
Burton Cummings — "Break It To Them Gently"
Burton Cummings — "I Will Play A Rhapsody"

To which I would say - what no Dunrobin's gone.

A minor hit from Bachman's Pre BTO, post Guess Who band Brave Belt, and somewhat rare now, it would have been a nice addition to this collection.

Look also for a TV special tonight at 8:00 on CBC.

Bachman Cummings Songbook

2006-04-14T20:26:00.000-04:00

Canadian music legends Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings are releasing a joint greatest hits CD called the Bachman Cummings Songbook. The CD, released April 25th, will be accompanied by a CBC special and a tour. Tickets for the late June Toronto show will go on sale April 26th.

Singles Scene #4

2006-04-14T14:34:00.000-04:00

Cookstown: This month, I take a trip out of town. Heading North one particular Friday I stuff my Antique Showcase - Millennium Edition in the dope drawer of my new Caravan, and head up highway 27. There are a couple of small shops along the way, but they produce nothing of interest in the way of singles. They do produce a 6 string Ukulele, just the thing for the boy, who is dying to play guitar, but nothing in small vinyl records. The end goal, however, is not really any of these stores. It is the Cookstown Antique Mall.

I know Cookstown. Sitting on highway 27 at highway 89, Cookstown is a favorite stop on the way home from the cottage. Not because of the Antique mall, but for two other stops. McDonald's at Hwy's. 400 and 89 and, just east of McDonald's, is the Cookstown Outlet Mall. Due to the distances between Parry Sound and Cambridge, this is a good and normal place to stop. But Cookstown itself sits a few miles west of the 400 and, consequently, I've never actually been here.

The Antique mall is in an old barn, about ½ a mile north of highway 89. It sits on the left just as you leave the spartan downtown and is hard to miss; I miss it. Just as I am passing the driveway, and deciding the hell with it get me to the cottage, I spot the roadside sign. Fortunately, Cookstown is not called Reallybusytown for a reason and I am able to make a quick U-turn without leaving too much destruction in my wake. Thinking how pale the family in the van behind me appear, I turn into the driveway of the Cookstown Antique Mall. The drive is maybe two hundred meters long and 5 cars seems determined to park in the 3 small spots out front. I go around back where there is tons of parking and two pick-up trucks pulling campers.

As my journey in search of 45's develops, I have learnt a couple of things: Use the Antique Showcase to look for places that sell "collectibles" and if when you walk in a store and the youngest person in the store, next to yourself, is in the neighborhood of 100, it's a good antique store. This is going to be a great antique store! Two floors of old collectibles and furniture, dolls and books. And the only people who belong in work this Friday afternoon are myself and the cashier; everyone else is well past retirement age.

After a 20-minute search I find the records up the stairs and to the right in the back corner of a stall. They are sitting in an old bookcase and beside them there is an old burgundy leather chair, the kind that Ward Cleaver kept in his study. It looks comfortable and I'm not, so feeling a lot like the Beaver on a dare from Gilbert, I scan through the records in Ward's chair. The pile isn't huge, just 20 or 30 records mostly from the 60's and 70's. I find three that I identify as Canadiana: Gordon Lightfoot's Sundown, Paul Anka's (You're) Having My Baby and Andy Kim's Rock Me Gently - Parts 1 and 2. Neither of theses songs are remarkable, yet they are $3.00 each. One other thing I have learnt this summer - when a store slaps an "Antique and Collectable" sign over the door they are serious about emptying your wallet. No garage sale/flea market pricing here - $3.00 for a 45RPM single. I could download the songs off Napster and burn a CD for $2.00, and it could have 15 songs on it. But budget was never part of the mission plan and the best I can do is start saving receipts and hope that some publisher stumbles across this page and wants to help create a need for taxable deductions.

The cottage is a wonderful place with all of life's little amenities; except a record player. Thus the listening has to wait a few days. Upon getting them home and into my music room I find the records are in good condition. I start off with Sundown, one of my favorite Gordon Lightfoot songs, and certainly the best that hasn't been butchered by talent hating, song thieving "Urban Musicians." I remember when this song was a hit and it is the first Gordon Lightfoot song I ever knowingly heard; in fact it is the first I ever heard of Gordon Lightfoot. For lack of a better description, it has a cool sound with the dark, brooding, sexy lyrics. Sung like Levon Helm on downers this is just a great song that stands the test of time well.

Next up is Paul Anka with (You're) Having My Baby a song someone once told me was the most romantic song a guy could write for a girl. He's actually married now so I don't suppose he offered that theory up to too many people other than me. I've always wondered why some feminist looking for something to take offence over hasn't picked this song to get twisted up about. On listening to it, this really is a dated song. The notion of her having his baby, for him makes it a complete and total eye roller:

You're Having My Baby
What a wonderful way of sayin' how much you love me.
You're Having My Baby
What a wonderful way of saying what your thinking of me.

Somebody, somewhere, has got to be kidding me. I'm hoping that by the time he wrote this, Paul Anka was living and working in L.A. and we can excuse it with "that's what happens when a good Canadian boy get's drinking that piped in desert water." But seeing how Anka is from Ottawa, one begins to wonder what came first - Paul Anka or people in Ottawa getting mushy brains? Either way, this song is so bad, I feel like going back to Cookstown and demanding $4.00 back (the extra dollar is for pain and suffering, I did listen to it once).

Then we get to Andy Kim's Rock Me Gently (Parts 1 and 2). Andy Kim holds one of the more dubious achievements in rock music in that he was the voice of The Archie's; probably still gets royalty checks made out to A. Andrews. If you ever hear Rock Me Gently and think, I know that voice, you do. It's the bubble gum guy who sings Sugar, Sugar. In that black part of the mind were oddball facts and twisted little memories meet to form opinions, I have a second recollection of Andy Kim and, as importantly, this song. I was in about grade six when this song first came out, and we quickly deduced that if you changed the word rock for the shortened version of fire-truck you had a much better song. Try it:

Rock me Gently, rock me slowly.
Take it easy don't you know
That I have never been rocked like this before.

It sometimes takes years for adolescent minds to realize that we weren't the first generation to discover sex, thus we naively assumed this ability to improve the song was accidental on Andy Kim's part.

All that said, this is simply a pretty good pop song. Not a great song by any stretch, but not the worst I have ever heard, nor was it the worst I ever bought at the Cookstown Antique Mall. Not the best either, it is fair to say, but not the worst, thank god!

Kanye and Sam in VIP concert for MTV

2006-04-10T18:57:00.000-04:00

CTV announced that Sam Roberts and Kanye West would be teaming up for a special concert at the Msasonic Temple, to be taped on April 18th.

Broadcast date is to be announced, but it looks like MTV Canada is going to be giving Much More Music a run for their music marketing money.

Twilight in the Vineyards

2006-04-05T17:48:00.000-04:00

This sounds like a nice night out. Jackson-Triggs Winery, near Niagara-on-the-Lake is celebrating the fifth year of the Twilight in the Vineyards concert season.

The concerts, to be held at an amphitheatre on the vineyard, over the course of the summer.

The season kicks off with Guitarist Jesse Cook, a great flamenco player, on July 1st.

July 22nd brings Natalie MacMaster , East coast fiddler extraordinaire, and noted cutey.

Singer Louise Pitre performs July 29th, The Jim Cuddy Band August 5th and Shaye August 26th.

The season finishes with a treat, as the Philosopher Kings step up to the stage September 2nd to celebrate Labour Day weekend.

2006 Juno Awards

2006-04-03T16:56:00.000-04:00

The Juno awards were handed out in Halifax last night. Big winners were Michael Buble, Nickelback and Neil Young, with Vancouver crooner Buble coming away with the three biggies: Single, album and artist of the year. Other winners are Simple Plan as the fans choice, Nickelback as Group of the year and Daniel Pewter as the career ending New artist of the year.

Bryan Adams was inducted into the Canadian Rock Hall of Fame and performed 18 'Til I Die. International artists of the year was tied between Coldplay and the Black Eyed Peas both also performed at the ceremony.

Host Pamela Anderson created some controversy making some Seal Hunt jokes, but the jokes went over like a lead balloon in front of the Eastern Canadian audience, and Ms. Anderson's brain was thankfully put back in it's box for the rest of the show.

New Sam Roberts Album

2006-03-30T20:43:00.000-05:00

Sam Roberts sophomore release Chemical City hits Stores April 11th. It features the already released single The Gate and a really cool cover (right). It has been years since anyone has done cool, meatloafy covers, so good on Sam Roberts for this one.

I would review it for you here, but the record companies don't think a one hit a day blog is important enough for advance previews. I don't blame them, but I do wish they would re-think the policy.

Trooper Lead Singer Pens Book

2006-03-30T20:00:00.000-05:00

Trooper Lead Singer Ra McGuire has penned a book about life on the road with Canada's favourite party band. The book is a road diary, which came from three years of blog entries at his web site ra mcguire dot com. Here's the introduction:

Jully Black closed her eyes and inched her lips toward the microphone. The first two words - the title of the song - seemed torn from a personal reverie … surrendered unwillingly - as though her thoughts and emotions had boiled over and out of her mouth by accident, by mistake.

“Pretty Lady” she sang, and I let out an involuntary whoop.

“Here I am,” she admitted, and other audience members gave it up. Spontaneous.

My nervousness turned to pride. Jully was singing the shit out of a song I wrote 40 years ago with my writing partner Brian Smith - and my wife and son and many of my peers in the music industry were there bearing witness. I grinned across the large round table - first at my family and then at Smitty. Debbie squeezed my leg.

After singing, Jully told the audience that her manager was a huge Trooper fan and had pulled strings to sit at the same table as us …

“With God” she said.

She went on to describe our band as “honest-to-God Canadian legends”. The crowd cheered as she called Smitty and I to the stage to accept our 2005 SOCAN Classic Awards.

Ann Lorie, who wrote “Insensitive” for Jann Arden, was also sitting at our table and had shed a few tears when accepting her award, but Smitty and I were too buzzed for sentimentality. We could feel a palpable connection with the music-biz crowd arrayed before us - many of whom had become friends and compatriots over the years. The evening’s awards ceremony played out like a personal celebration of a long and successful career that continues to offer up the elusive rewards of adventure, challenge and straight-up fun.

I was proud to announce from the stage that night that my son Connor and I had just written our first song together. After the show, in Jully Black’s dressing room, representatives of an independent record company approached Connor to talk about his music. He smiled and accepted their card appreciatively. Here he was, functioning comfortably in an environment that would have absolutely terrified me at eighteen.

I started singing in a band when I was twelve years old - five years younger than he is now. I recorded my first album 13 years later at the age of 25. I’m 55 years old now and have never had a real job. I’ve written hundreds of songs, performed thousands of shows and have traveled tens of thousands of miles - most of those back and forth across Canada. Trooper is as viable today as it was in the seventies when songs like “We’re Here for a Good Time” and “Raise a Little Hell” were knocking down doors and serving as our invitations to the best party in town. In many ways our status has elevated recently to a place just south of legendary - where, for instance, total strangers embrace us as they would a favourite relative visiting from out of town. The party continues.

Trooper’s first web site went online in 1996. Little Timmy Hewitt and I hacked together the html for ‘Rev. 1′ long before Google, eBay or Amazon.com had registered their now iconic domain names. I started my own personal site - they weren’t called blogs then - not long after. I wrote about my life on the road and those things that someone unfamiliar with this kind of life might find interesting. I was surprised and encouraged by the enthusiastic response to that tentative and sporadically updated site, so, by the time Blogger launched their online interface, I had decided to maintain a semi-regular online account of a 53 year-old’s rock and roll adventures.

This book represents the first three years of ramcguire.com. It was written in real time as journal entries. It has no beginning and no ending, but surprised me by telling more than a few seemingly complete stories.

It was written in airports and rented vans, on ferries and planes - in billet-rooms in remote high-north villages and luxury hotel suites in the heart of the Big Smoke. Some of it was dashed off quickly at four in the morning. Some of it might be more carefully considered than it needs to be. Often it reveals much more than I’d intended at the time. And sometimes, the story is fleshed-out by that which wasn’t written down at all. Each entry came as a complete surprise to me - as did, of course, the unfolding events I was chronicling.

The SOCAN Awards were held in Toronto at the end of November. I’m writing this on a plane on the way to Edmonton Alberta on the last day of 2005. Our New Years Eve show tonight will be at Reds - a very large club in the West Edmonton Mall. It’s going to be a total sold-out zoo!

Look for it in stores April 10th.

Rock and Roll Hall of Mediocrities

2006-03-16T00:53:00.000-05:00

I'm reading away about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, in which Blondie's Debbie Harry is fighting with the rest of the band, and I'm thinking "Who the fuck invited Blondie anyway?" Was Diesel busy? Bo Donaldson and the Haywards previously booked?

Blondie had one successful album with two moderate, forgettable singles on it. None of the songs have made a lasting impression on the rock/pop world. None of them where even that good. Yet they make the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Fellow inductees Lynyrd Skynyrd had fans who put together a petition to get them in. They got over 4000 signatures. This is a band who, when you say the words Southern Rock what you mean is "Bands that sound like Lynyrd Skynyrd," a band that defines a genre and they need a petition from their fans. Yet if you say "Bland New Wave Bands with Sultry, yet not overly attractive lead singer," Blondie still doesn't spring to mind.

In a year when Blondie, The Sex Pistols and Miles Davis make it into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the question needs asking: Is every band worthy of the title already in? And is it worth continuing with this farce?

Singles Scene # 3

2006-03-13T09:28:00.000-05:00

Cambridge: Home base. Cambridge is made up of three sections, each once it's own entity, each with it's own areas and downtown's. Combined, Cambridge still amounts to three distinct sections that only just tolerate the political connection they share. I live in Hespeler, as far north as you can live in Cambridge and not be living in Guelph. As compared to the factory outlet mall in Galt, close to as Deep South as you can go and still be in Cambridge. At the same location is a fairly large antique market, called SouthWorks.

SouthWorks is one very large store, with a multitude of small stalls. Different vendors would put out 20 or 30 things, antiques and collectibles all, and the store staff would look after selling the merchandise. A sound plan and a store with lots of interesting stuff. The kids drag behind me, their interest taken up by the many spinning wheels. My daughter leads the interest in these old machines; her only knowledge of them stems from Disney's Sleeping Beauty thus, they frighten her. Or at least she feigns fright; I am never quite sure which. Either way, the many spinning wheels have their attentions while I focus on the prize: Canadian singles.

It is been a few years since I have been here but I know they have records, I can almost smell it; today there will be a find. You simply cannot have so much junk in one place and not have a Poppy Family 45. I find some 78's, not sure whether they are Canadian content or not and consider trying a few. However, I do not have a record player that will play 78's so instead I decide that is something I will have to keep my eyes open for. A little while later I find one, a portable unit made for playing 45's, but which will play 78's and 33's. At $35.00 it's a little rich for my blood. Some other place and some other day maybe I will get one, today I don't have much time and don't even bother examining the player closely.

Then I have a hit. I don't remember what drew my eye to this booth in the first place, something the boy noticed I think. As we came around a table there they were, hidden from view from the main aisle, but there notwithstanding. A small pile of albums and 45s. Three good sized stacks of 45's, maybe a hundred, hundred and fifty in total. And sitting on top? Canada, the Centennial song by Bobby Gimby and the Young Canada Singers; last month's near miss. Then I was willing to pay $5.00 for it. This month it is $3.00 and I'm thinking I go to two stores and find this song in both. Maybe $3.00 is a bit pricey. However, it comes in a good cardboard sleeve and should be considered a bit of a collectable. At least it would be a collectable if the stall owner hadn't put a sticker on it that will never come off without ripping the sleeve, knocking about $2.75 of the real value of the thing. Or am I just feeling cheap today? Either way I ignore the penny-pinching voice running in my head, and pick through the rest of the singles.

Considering there are three piles of records and each pile must be close to 50 records each, I have little luck finding much Canadian. Mostly, these songs are Motown and British invasion stuff, all definitely later 60's, maybe very early 70's. Towards the back of the second pile I find one more record, and that is all for Canadiana. But that record interests me: It's a very early Anne Murray record, A Stranger In My Place, from back when she was a country singer instead of soft pop. Sadly, the doofus who owns this boutique has gone sticker happy with his price stickers. I thought the ruination of the Canada cover was bad, but this sticker is stuck right on the record and doesn't look like it wants to come off. At $1.00, this record is overpriced, even before I find I am going to have to work hard just to make it playable. None the less I pick up my $4.00 worth of Canadiana and head to the cashier.

Getting the records home I decide to play Canada first for two reasons: First, I am dying to know if I remember this song correctly. Did some one actually make money with a song that has the line "One little, two little three Canadians" in it? The second reason is I figure it will take a while to get the sticker off and make Anne Murray playable. I fill the sink with cold, soapy water (remember kids, heat makes vinyl warp) and soak the record for a minute Meanwhile I put on the "Young Canada Singers" and there it is, the very first line:

Ca--Na--Da
One little
Two little
Three Canadians

I can't believe I am hearing this. I wonder what would offend Shill Copps more, the bit about "Little" Canadians, or the sheer triteness of the thing (Actually that's a rhetorical question: Triteness is the one and only thing that has never offended Sheila Copps.) Can you imagine the government subsidizing this in 2001? You can just hear the Organization for People of Lesser Height carping in the Star about the insult of it all. Unbelievably, the song seems to go down hill from there with the rest of the lyrics being unintelligible but clearly far too sappy.

Anne Murray cleans up nicely, with just a bit of scrubbing, a rinse and a towel down she's ready to be heard. I am not as a rule an Anne Murray fan, and this is not some great exception. None the less, it has Anne singing a country and western song (again, not my favorite) which is a style I think she is eminently suited too. I do like this better than what we have come to know Anne Murray for, the pop ballads such as You Needed Me or that stuff she sings on those CBC specials (I actually heard her doing Daydream Believer one day). It's typical Country, her man is gone and now a new, undeserving woman lies beneath him. Typical country but not typical Anne Murray. Written by Kenny Rogers and Kim Vassey, the label lists the song as from 1971's album "Straight, Clean and Simple", which I gather means Anne's singing style and not the status of any Anne Murray drug problem. And that is ultimately the best way to describe the song, straight, clean and simple: Anne Murray sings Loretta Lynne. Canadians sing American music. Which, when you get right down to it is the most Canadian thing you can do. No wonder the CBC loves Anne so much.

Paul Shaffer to be honoured on Walk of Fame

2006-03-08T19:28:00.000-05:00

Canadian Paul Shaffer, David Letterman's Music Director and wacky sidekick for 21 years, is one of eight Canadians being honoured with a star on the Canadian Walk of Fam e.

Singer Robert Goulet is also on the list of luminaries to be honoured in 2006. Here is the complete list:

Pamela Anderson
Jann Arden
The Crazy Canucks (Steve Podborski, Ken Read, Dave Irwin
and Dave Murray)
Brendan Fraser
Robert Goulet
Eugene Levy
Paul Shaffer
Alex Trebek

Congratulations to all, I look forward to walking all over you.

Black Eyed Peas are Canadian?

2006-03-08T19:13:00.000-05:00

That's one more reason not to watch the Juno's:

CTV.ca News
This year's Juno's will definitely get started on the right foot with The Black Eyed Peas announcing they are scheduled to play at next month's awards show in Halifax...
This is not their first major Canadian gig. Last year, the Grammy-winning group rocked the Grey Cup's sell-out crowd at B.C. Place in Vancouver.

The Grey Cup, then the Juno's, pretty good for an LA band. But I have spent all my adult life hearing how wonderful and vibrant the Canadian Music Industry is, thanks I might add, to the CRTC. So if there is any truth in that, why do we need The Black Eyed Peas to front our main events?

Don't we have any lame rap acts to showcase, perhaps an aging hippy geezer-rocker or two. Surely organizers could come up with one viable Canadian option to draw in that key 8-11 age bracket for the show. And if not, why are we having an awards show?

Gordon Lightfoot Announces 11 City Canadian Tour

2006-02-21T09:06:00.000-05:00

This tour is being announced rather breathlessly this morning, complete with a Canadian Press story that starts:

A few years ago, fans of Gordon Lightfoot were wondering whether the music legend would ever be able to perform again.

Problem is, Gordon Lightfoot did shows last year, has a full concert schedule for this year and bookings for next year.

None the less, it is the legendary Lightfoot's first cross country jaunt in seven years, and it is good to see a working musician out working. The tour starts Oct 3rd, in Vancouver and breaks on the 15th in Kitchener. It resumes with dates in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto in November. Here's the schedule, from Lighfoot.ca:

October 3 Vancouver, BC The Centre For The Performing Arts

October 5 Edmonton, AB Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium

October 6 Calgary, AB Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium

October 7 Regina, SK Casino Regina

October 8 Saskatoon, SK Sid Buckwold Theatre

October 10 Winnipeg, MB Pantages Theatre

October 11 Winnipeg, MB Pantages Theatre

October 12 Thunder Bay, ON Community Auditorium

October 15 Kitchener, ON Centre In The Square

November 9 Montreal, PQ Place Des Arts

November 10 Ottawa, ON National Arts Center

November 16 Toronto, ON Massey Hall

November 17 Toronto, ON Massey Hall

November 18 Toronto, ON Massey Hall

David Foster Promoted to Officer of the Order of Canada

2006-02-17T23:36:00.000-05:00

Vancouver music producer/composer David Foster today was elevated from member to officer of the Order of Canada. The Officer Snowflake (right) which has gold edging, gold lettering and a red center Maple Leaf recognizes "a lifetime of achievement and merit of a high degree, especially in service to Canada or to humanity at large"

Foster has worked with John Lennon, George Harrison, Chicago, Lionel Ritchie, Barbara Streisand, Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Destiny's Child, Mariah Carey and Madonna.

He has won 14 Grammy's, 5 Juno's and a Golden Globe Award. He has 42 Grammy nominations, as well as 3 Academy Award nominations for Best Picture.

If your Nickelback's Chad Kroeger...

2006-02-16T12:59:00.000-05:00

How do you feel about todays Toronto Sun front page?

It can never be good when a half page picture of you is beside a half page headline with the words "Kid Porn Rap" in them. While no one is suggesting Mr. Kroeger is in any way related to the headline, it kind of looks that way at a glance - in fact it fooled me for a second.

If I where in charge of Nickelback's promotions, I think I'd be keeping today's Sun away from Chad.

Cross Posted to At Home in Hespeler

2006 Juno Nominees

2006-02-15T21:04:00.000-05:00

Nominees for the 35th annual Juno Awards, to be presented on April 2nd in Halifax, where announced today. Nickelback leads nominees with 6. Diana Krall and Michael Buble shared 5 nominations each, while Neil Young came in at 3.

Nickelback's nominations include Fan Choice Award, Single of the Year, Album of the Year, Group of the Year and Rock Album of the Year.

The complete list is here, or as PDF here.

Other nominations of interest are Diana Krall's Christmas album for Album of the Year (Really. A Christmas Album?) and nothing that is any good for International Album of the Year.

Singles Scene # 2

2006-02-12T22:25:00.000-05:00

Bayfield: Sometimes, the interesting story is of the one that got away: "Yea, we caught all these barely edible little fish, but you should have seen the one Jonah had on..." It is July 4th, America day. I am in Bayfield Ontario and stumble upon a true piece of Canadiana, a Canadian gem. Unfortunately, I couldn't pry it out of the hands of the owner; more specifically still, the owners dad.

Bayfield is a small tourist trap of a town, approximately 20 minutes south of Goderich, where we were camping for a week. The main street is a series of small houses painted white, with white picket fences and gingerbread gabling all around. The houses are in reality however, shops, restaurants and B&B's. Many of the shops of the antique kind. It is really a nice little downtown, and it makes for a good summer afternoon walking through it. If you like old stuff, the antiques, this is a town that must be visited.

"Singles. The wall is covered in singles."

Sure enough about 50 singles grace the wall of each change room. Mostly old Rock and Roll, mostly U.S. and British stuff. John Cougar, The Beatles, The Dave Clark 5 and The Jackson's. An eclectic mix really, not from one era, or even style. Almost like someone bought a pile for a dime at a flea market. In the first change room we were in, the one in the vary back corner of the store, there was my CanCon gem. The Young Canada Singers 45 of Canada.

Remember this song? "Caaaa-Naaaa-Da. One little two little three Canadians..." Bobby Gimby wrote it. Also known as the Centennial song the Canadian Government commissioned this piece of pop for the 1967 centennial celebrations. We used to sing this in school, along with "A place to stand, and a place to grow, and call this land, Ontario." Bobby Gimby spent the summer of '67 touring Canadian villas, marching through town with a hundred kids behind him singing "Caaaa-Naaaa-Da.". My guess is no town ever refused to pay him for services rendered. But while they may never have refused him, Bayfield refused me; more specifically Around the Block did.

I emerged from the change room with my find in hand, only to be told the 45's are not for sale. I offered up what I consider to be prime dollars for a single that's been thumb tacked to a wall, but no go. It turns out the owner is at home with her kids for the afternoon and her dad is watching the shoppe [sic]. Now, if owner lady is there, I think she takes my three bucks and runs, but dad considered the merchandise not for sale, and he wasn't budging. I wonder if the daughter notices sales slippage when dad runs things, or is it just me who can't get him to take my money? Either way, my first foray into the heart of CanCon came up flat. Too bad, because I only vaguely remember this song, but the tiny bit I do remember has been stuck in my head since I saw it on the wall.

Oh, well! Maybe next time I'm in Bayfield dad will have the day off and my three bucks will be good enough for them.

Bryan Adams Hall of Famer

2006-02-12T21:50:00.000-05:00

Rocker Bryan Adams will be inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame at the 2006 Juno Awards in Halifax on April 2nd.

Adams has had a stellar career, beginning a phenomenal run of international hits in the early 80's. Adams is still a major international star, although he is less popular at home than in Europe.

Adams will join Canadian luminaries such as the Tragically Hip, Tom Cochrane, Lenny Breau, Rush, The Band, Gordon Lightfoot, Guy Lombardo and others in the Hall of Fame category

The Canadian Music Hall of Fame was established in 1978 by CARAS to honour individuals or groups who have made an outstanding contribution toward the greater international recognition of Canadian artists and music..

Rich Dodson

2006-02-06T16:40:00.000-05:00

It's nice to see Stampeder guitarist and founder Rich Dodson get a big article in last Saturday's Toronto Sun. I've been a fan of the Stampeders since I have been a fan of music, and as a guitarist Rich Dodson was one of my early favourites. As a writer he penned "Ramona" "Wild Eyes" and "Carry Me" during his career, and was inducted into the Canadian Songwriter's Hall of Fame this past weekend for writing "Sweet City Woman."

"Sweet City Woman" was featured in Singles Scene #1

Inductees in the Canadian Songwriters Hall Of Fame

2006-02-06T15:47:00.000-05:00

Leonard Cohen, Andy Kim (aka Archie Andrews), Rich Dodson and Gilles Vigneault lead the pack of this years inductees in the Canadian Songwriter's Hall OF Fame. The winner's receive a sculpture by artist Elizabeth Wyn Wood entitled "Northern Island", shown on the left. Cohen and Vigneault we're inducted for penning several songs, while Stampeders guitarist Dodson was inducted for "Sweet City Woman" and singer Kim for "Sugar, Sugar" which Kim performed as lead singer of "The Archies."

This is the third year for the awards, with Gordon Lightfoot and others receiving the honour in 2003, and Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings leading the pack in 2005.

The Canadian Songwriters Hall Of Fame celebrates the outstanding accomplishments of Canadian songwriters through an annual star-studded induction gala, which showcases the work of inductees and features performances by popular singer-songwriters and other recording artists from across the country.

The Singles Scene #1

2006-01-29T13:28:00.000-05:00

Cambridge: What is the singles scene? The singles scene could be simply defined as a look at Canadian music through the eyes of the singles that have brought Canadian music to the world. But it will, I hope, be so much more. It is a search for the heart of Canadian music through those singles. As well, it is a search for those singles. A journey through yard sales, music stores, flea markets, the basements and the dens of the people foolish enough to let me near their homes.The single is an ubiquitous element in popular music from the 1950's to the 1990's. Elvis Presley and Live Aid were both end products of hit singles. And so it is with Canadian music. Canada has never had it's Wagner, it's Verdi, or it's Beethoven. Thirty years ago the term Canadian music would have been a punch line. But through the very singles we are about to search out, from Paul Anka, to the Guess Who, to the Tragically Hip, Canadian music is definable by the singles we used to listen to.

The single is also a physical product. It is what fed the music industry for the 1950's and 60's, and supplemented the albums we remember in "Milk Crate Classic" for the next 30 years. The 7" piece of vinyl (also known as a 45 because they were played at 45 RPM on the record player) was the song your favourite AM radio station played. Today, we would watch the video. Twenty years ago, we went out and bought the single. If the single were still in prominence, if the record companies hadn't been so greedy as to do away with 99¢ music, there would have been no need for Napster. But they are still out there, in some cases wasting away (in those crummy antique shops with old coke bottles and Beatles singles), alive and well heard in others (my basement). And in those piles of antique junk, and personal treasure troves, there lies the heart and soul of Canadian music.

For surely, this is where Canadian music exists; in the singles. Without 7" vinyl would we have ever heard of BTO, Anne Murray or Bryan Adams?

Less obvious, what would the Stampeders, Brutus or Hagood Hardy have done without a hit single. Making money in the Canadian music industry has always been a near impossibility, without singles it would be a complete rout. Canadian music was born, bred and kept alive through the single. And sometimes, the story behind the piece of vinyl, is as interesting and telling as the song itself. So join me in my search for Canadian music as I delve into collections of singles aiming to unearth Canadian gold.

We begin our journey with a descent, not a literal descent, but a physical one. My basement. There sits a few hundred singles, not a few in the field of CanCon. This is a place we will return again and again, examining the old and story telling from the past.

Today I pull out The Stampeders Sweet City Woman.

Now here's a great place to start, the core of Canadian music. My three-year-old son dances happily as I play the song through. Same reaction I had when I was ten. The single looks like it was once owned by a ten-year-old too, although I'm not sure it ever really was. I remember the song, but I don't remember the single until later. The single is scratchy, as singles always were, and has a chip out of the corner, but it can be played; I can't count how many 45's I have owned with a chip out of the corner. Many have complained about the quality of vinyl records through the years, but the record players were made to play whatever you put on them. (Try playing a CD with a chip off the corner some day.) So despite the chip, the banjo comes on anyway; a few bars late perhaps but unmistakably the banjo of Sweet City Woman.

What can you say about this song: "Great Beat and I can dance to it Dick. 4 out of 5!" That about covers it, but there's more. So much more. It has always seemed to me that Canadian music has an ability to deliver pappable pop with a very hard edge. This song does that. Hummable melody, high tempo banjo the like of which has never been done by a hard rock band, yet there is that guitar in the chorus, reminding you that these guys were hard rock. One of the great advantages of 45 (and of Napster, just in case some record company clown is reading) is that a group could switch gears and you didn't have to spend $20.00 to get one song you liked and 8 mediocre ones you would never listen to. So it was that hard rock acts like the Stampeders could do a song like "Sweet City Woman" and everybody would be happy.

The Stampeders had other hits: Ramona and Wild Eye's come to mind, and I distinctly remember the 45 for Hit The Road Jack around the house, although I have no clue what happened to it (hopefully that will be another installment of "The Singles Scene"). But Sweet City Woman is the Stampeders song. One listen to that old 45, and I remember why.