Writing songs is hard.
I know. I have composed and captured many fragments that prove as much — both in digital as well as analog format. I have at times considered compiling them into a sort of non-career retrospective: perhaps as many as 200 tracks, clocking in at well under 40 minutes in length. It’d put The Minutemen and Paint It Black to shame, I tells ya. Think something more along the lines of The Beatles’ ill-fated Get Back sessions, only with less enthusiasm. Continue reading
Filed under Music
Funding drive is a stressful time at CKCU. For two weeks, an environment that normally stimulates creativity is all about business: the business of raising sufficient funds to keep Canada’s original campus-based community radio station afloat for 12 more months. And as I meekly entered the phone room to tackle my first shift all those years ago, it was intimidating. Here was I, a lowly would-be announcer and Hog’s Back High student, doing my volunteerly duty while awaiting the chance to inflict my musical tastes on an unsuspecting listenership. (A chance that would not come until months later.) On either side of me were voices already legend at the station: Ron Sweetman, host then and now of the Wednesday-night jazz program In a Mellow Tone; and Jacques Emond, whose Sunday-afternoon Swing is in the Air stands as a veritable online textbook for those wishing to delve into everything from vintage Artie Shaw to the latest in bebop adventurism. Hurriedly pacing up and down the hall and doing his best to instill in all of us a sense of urgency, was Black and Blues host John Tackaberry. And at the end of that hall, in the on-air studio, Chopper McKinnon, whose Canadian Spaces routinely left all others in the dust come funding-drive time. Continue reading
Filed under CKCU
I don’t recall ever mouthing the words “I hate Toronto.” But I do recall an occasion when the thought might have struck me.
It was during the NHL playoffs. It was an early round, but few Canadian teams had made the cut and, as a result, Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts found the storied Montreal Canadiens alternating nights with the sorry Toronto Maple Leafs. On Leaf nights, Molson ran a brainwash-worthy series of ads featuring hockey highlights juxtaposed with the following declaration, emblazoned across the screen: “GO LEAFS GO!” So there I was watching my Habs struggle as only the post-1993 Habs can, when a Molson ad invaded my TV, complete with hockey highlights and, you guessed it, the declaration: “GO LEAFS GO!” Again, the Leafs were not playing that night; it was the turn of a more successful Canadian franchise. I was briefly dazed, left wondering whether my eyes had deceived me. But, soon enough, that confusion turned to rage. Did Molson, or CBC, or whomever, truly believe I was watching the Habs only because the Leafs had the night off? “Geez, no Leafs game tonight? Well, I guess I’ll watch this for now. Maybe a Leafs game will break out.” Continue reading
Filed under Media
In 1976 British music writer Tony Palmer presented an ambitious 16-part series that strove to trace the history of popular music. Episodes focused on genres, eras and artists, with the final edition seeing Palmer — aided by a cynical Lester Bangs and an optimistic Richard Branson — bravely predicting popular music’s future. The star of that forward-looking episode was one Michael “Tubular Bells” Oldfield, contributors like Branson reasoning that the future of recorded music surely lay in ever more sophisticated, ever more structured, ever more multi-layered grand symphonic productions. A 64-track studio, the reasoning went, naturally called for 64 tracks’ worth of sound. Alas, by the time the series’ final episode aired in the UK, The Sex Pistols and The Damned had properly spearheaded a minimalist musical revolution that made Palmer’s painstakingly-constructed series look… a tad out of touch. Continue reading
Filed under Music
Monday’s Alpha Beats program is a special 150-minute edition, it being the end of the year and all. It’s also special because it’s the penultimate episode of our 52-week/26-show series, trolling through one announcer’s record collection — one letter at a time. The X show sure was fun, eh? Now, it’s time to get Ys to two-and-a-half hours of songs and stories, including a few words of caution (just in time for the debauchery of New Year’s Eve) from Paul “Tex” Yearout. Listen up, folks. That’s 10 a.m. Monday, on CKCU. Hey, it’s not like you’ll be engrossed in your work at that time.
Filed under CKCU
Wig Bubbles 