September 25, 2012 · 5:11 pm

the intro and the outro

Hello, folk(s). Nice to be back with you. Let’s see where this all takes us, eh?


A few words of introduction may be in order. I’ve been writing about music, the arts and bridge-openings for a number of years here in Capital City. Many words have been spilled, and I am proud of a few things. I have never gushed over an artist, concert or album I did not feel deserved it. I have never chosen coolness over quality. I have never used the prefix über. I have never referred to an album’s being “dropped” unless it was my dad’s copy of Jumpin’ With Jonah, which I did indeed drop. (And, though they knew how to make records in those days, it shattered.) I have never referred to material goods as “swag”, not being a seafarer and all.

I have John Cale’s home number somewhere. I saw Sonic Youth at CBGB. I was once quoted in a Ninja Tune newsletter. And I am the proud owner of not one but two Mrs. Miller LPs.

That’s about all you need to know for now. What say you to my updating this little introductory piece on an as-needed basis? That way we can meet for the first time, all over again.

 

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December 4, 2009 · 12:02 am

Canadian success stories

This afternoon, I dusted off my copy of Bob Mersereau’s 2007 volume The Top 100 Canadian Albums, a nifty effort on the Maritime music-writer’s part to construct a definitive list of nation-defining pop records.
I felt honoured to be among the contributors to Mersereau’s book; though, not one of my five choices — three of which were likely by Kate and Anna McGarrigle and one of which was surely Slow’s Against the Glass — made it into the published Hot-100. (See this blog’s Polaris Prize essay and you’ll begin to see a pattern.) The absence of Kate and Anna’s Entre la jeunesse et la sagesse, for my money the greatest album ever recorded, neither surprised nor bothered me. The fact that other contributors failed to recognize the rock and roll majesty of Slow’s lone LP, did. Continue reading →

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November 20, 2009 · 6:04 pm

Folked up

“I thought that if you had an acoustic guitar it meant that you were a protest singer.”
Morrissey

Look up ‘folk music’ in a dictionary and you’ll find references to the oral tradition, to music passed from generation to generation, to music originating from ‘the common people.’

Kristin Baggelaar and Donald Milton’s excellent 1976 encyclopedia Folk Music: More than a song diplomatically skirts around the issue by soliciting definitions from no less than (and no more than) eight folklorists and musicians — among them Arlo Guthrie, Edith Fowke and Judy Collins. The open-minded Guthrie typically offers the broadest definition of the genre, suggesting, “Anything that remains in the cultural mainstream for a long period of time or evokes some kind of memory or emotion and works for the mass of the people, I would consider folk music.”

Nowhere will you find folk music specifically defined as ‘anything sung an individual toting an acoustic guitar.’ Indeed, references to acoustic instruments are notably absent from reputable attempts to pin-down the identity of folk music. Continue reading →

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November 3, 2009 · 7:34 pm

Lost Beatles song discovered! By me!

There’s a new Beatles song out, it says here.
Evidently, some 40 years ago George Harrison scribbled 10 lines, among them the flash of brilliance that is, “It’s only a dream and you make it obscene,” and handed them to the band’s official biographer Hunter Davies. The world has had to struggle on without George’s lost epic ever since. Until now.
Naturally, it has been assumed that Beatle George had every intention of presenting the lyrics to John and Paul (or at least to Ringo), but somehow never got around to it. Also, unlike a number of rejected proposals to his Beatle overlords (Not Guilty and All Things Must Pass come to mind), George also somehow forgot to complete the song and revisit it during his solo years. Certainly, it cannot be because he failed to consider the song worthy.
That logic is good enough for Davies, whose ‘authorized’ biography is about to be reprinted. It’s also good enough for Spencer Leigh, a Liverpudlian radio announcer who took it upon himself to ask ‘acclaimed’ local songwriter Dean Johnson to complete George’s unfinished masterpiece and make all right with the universe. Continue reading →

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September 26, 2009 · 8:30 pm

Record geeks and me

Some nine years ago, I had an opportunity to chat with Alan Zweig, whose documentary Vinyl brought the world of the obsessive record collector out of its plastic protective cover. Zweig’s subjects were otherwise-intelligent gentlemen too weak to resist the temptation of a must-have LP. And always in search of the next one.

I informed Zweig, himself a collector, that I could relate to his and his subjects’ situation.

“I hope,” he responded with genuine concern, “that wasn’t too upsetting for you.”

It wasn’t. Or, at least, it hadn’t been, until he raised the idea that obsessive record-collecting may be a bad thing. Continue reading →

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