Category Archives: Music

Our long downtown parking nightmare is over. For another year.

I did not make it out to the Megamusicfest’s final day, for two reasons: The Tea Party; and, Weird Al. True, there were enough stages to enable one to successfully avoid either show. But why take that chance?

Instead, I bade farewell to the grounds of old Le Breton Saturday, via Deep Purple’s mainstage spectacular. And much as I love the Purple, I cannot see it as going out on a high note. Indeed, the high notes were very much lacking — not a good thing, when you’re Deep Purple.

At least, that’s how it seemed to me. I as a rule do not read concert reviews (if I care that much about a concert, I tend to attend), but chose to make an exception — if only to see whether the quintet had succeeded in generating the first-ever less than enthusiastic review of a Bluesfest show in our local papers. Continue reading →

It’s Friday evening and a local TV news poll has revealed that 84 per cent of respondents said no way to the following question: Does Kanye West belong at Bluesfest?

Only 16 per cent said way.

That’s a hefty majority of naysayers. And given the festival’s eclectic nature, it’s difficult to imagine how they even determined what should and should not be at Bluesfest.

Racism? Could be. It’s not a stretch to suggest it played a role in the decision-making process.

Of course, the 84 per cent would argue that it’s a blues festival and hip hop is not real music anyway, or some similar, weak argument. And in fairness to the anti-Kanye camp, it’s entirely likely Skrillex would have fared no better on the same question. (Though opponents are unlikely to demand the removal of the equally ‘inappropriate’ young-country acts from the bill. And that’s where they could have made themselves useful.)
Continue reading →

Not only did Slow, the greatest rock and roll band of all time, somehow fail to top CBC’s list of the “best Canadian bands ever,” it did not even make the Top 100. Must be a typo. Also criminally overlooked: Ian and Sylvia. Not a band, you say? Tell that to CBC’s music people, who consider Kate and Anna McGarrigle to have been a band. (In which case, come to think of it, they should have topped the list.)

And speaking of Canada, I’d like to extend my annual shout-out to the late Jesse Winchester, for providing us with the most Canadian album title ever: Third Down, 110 to Go. Continue reading →

Today’s word is hypocrisy.

Taylor Swift is a hypocrite, it says here, because she decried Apple’s attempt to not pay artists while maniacally smashing cameras at her shows. Neil Young is a hypocrite for asking Donald Trump for money, then condemning the next President of the United States for using Rocking in the Free World without first asking. And we’re all hypocrites for hailing Kurt Cobain as a god while derogating Amy Winehouse as “a mess.”

Where to begin?

Ms. Swift is a performer who has dared to stand up to Spotify. More recently, she went after the biggest game of all: Apple. She’s a regular Peggy Lee for the 21st Century — standing up for artists’ rights and all. What’s not to like? Moreover, her stance is a wise longterm career move, in that she certainly was not placed on this earth to sing on-key.

And hey, word is she now credits photographers when she reuses their images. So no harm done, eh? All it took, as Apple learned this week, was a high-profile squeaky wheel. Well done, Ms. Swift, to a degree. Well played, photographers. Continue reading →