I realized that, as of late, my posts have been a little heavy on the nostalgia. While one of the key motifs, if you will, of my blog is paying tribute to the pop culture of my past, I don't want to write about the past so much that folks will start to wonder if I've left my house since 1992. In other words, it's time for granny to get off the porch, quit bitching about "kids these days" and write about some of the things I'm enjoying this very moment, in 2009. Besides writing about 1989, that is.
Music: City and Colour - Bring Me Your Love (best album of 2008, according to me)
M.I.A. - "Paper Planes" (DFA Remix)
Guns N' Roses - "Better" (new single from Chinese Democracy)
Movies: Slumdog Millionaire
American Teen (now out on DVD)
Books: Don Cherry - Hockey Stories and Stuff
Slash - Slash
Food and Drink: Pad thai noodles from the "new" (old) Green Mango
Cranberry juice and lime Perrier
Fashion: My new sunglasses, the cost of which I will avoid mentioning here, as I'm still a little
embarrassed to have shelled out so much for something I could potentially
leave behind on a bus.
Fun: Second City improv classes (highly addictive)
Guitar Hero World Tour (especially when I get to drum...or sing Pat Benatar)
Showing posts with label Music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Music. Show all posts
Monday, January 26, 2009
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Growing Up Grunge, Part. 2: Let's Back This Up a Bit
In a previous post ("Growing Up Grunge, Pt. 1"), I reflected on what it means to have come of age not just in the 1990s, but with the 1990s -- turning 11 in 1990 and 20 in 1999. I've been doing some more thinking about this lately, in particular about why the explosion of grunge had such a huge impact on kids my age. I should specify that I'm referring to when grunge music hit the mainstream -- that generation-altering year of 1991. It had, of course, been around since the mid-1980s. But for many kids like myself - who didn't have bad-ass older siblings and grew up in a sleepy small town - grunge did not enter our vocabulary until Nevermind and Ten hit the charts. To be honest, I was still pretty clueless about Nirvana and Pearl Jam even then. They were just so far removed from the poppier than pop Top 40 music I'd been grooving to all through grade school. And it is to that music, and the pop culture in general of the fabulous twilight of the 1980s that I will now turn.
Earlier I made a cursory list of grunge era icons, eg. Doc Martens, thrift store shopping, mosh pits, greasy hair, flannel, heroin chic, rock star suicides, and so on and so forth. Keeping those in mind, I'm going to now conjure up a similar list reflecting pop life as I knew it from about 1989 to 1991:
(For the full flashback experience, I recommend cueing up Waiting For a Star to Fall by Boy Meets Girl. Hit play now...)
OK, so here goes: Madonna's Like a Prayer (first cassette I ever bought), Pretty Woman, Wilson Phillips, Beverly Hills, 90210, movies starring the Coreys (Haim and Feldman, of course), Cotton Ginny, New Kids on the Block, Paula Abdul, The Wonder Years, hair scrunchies, sticker collections, Amy Grant's Heart in Motion, Salt-N-Pepa, chintz leggings (hello first day of junior high), Uncle Buck, Home Alone, Taylor Dayne, Milli Vannilli, my parents' Chevrolet Caprice, Murphy Brown, Parker Lewis Can't Lose...
And, oh yeah, the Gulf War. And the recession. But we won't get into that. Actually, maybe I will, if only to note that it seems bizarr-o to me that pretty much all of the pop culture that I can recollect from the "turn of the '90s" is so insanely fluffy, when the news was so bleak. But then again, I was only ten years old, and my biggest concern was whether Jordan Knight would be willing to wait for me until I was legal to marry him.
Point being that you cannot find a pop culture experience farther removed from the grunge era than that which immediately preceded it -- especially as experienced as a kid. Then 1991 came along. Did everything seem different only because we became teenagers? Or was it a real watershed? All I know is, Bryan Adams' Waking Up the Neighbors and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves were a friggin' far cry from Pearl Jam and Reservoir Dogs. But they existed in the same moment.
There has to be some lasting scars on my generation from being forced to sacrifice our love of smiley, squeaky-clean pop idols like New Kids on the Block and Paula Abdul in exchange for the angry, brooding and bedraggled likes of Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder. By late 1991, everything we loved as kids just was NOT cool anymore. There wasn't any time for sentimental good-byes. But maybe that's what becoming a teenager is all about -- leaving happy fuzzy childhood behind for a dark, uncertain, and possibly painful future. Interestingly enough, for kids of my generation, grunge took over the music scene at the exact moment we needed to articulate just how much it sucked to be a teenager. Therefore, I would argue, it's even more potent for us than for any other demographic in history. How's that for a sweeping statement? It feels right to me.
Earlier I made a cursory list of grunge era icons, eg. Doc Martens, thrift store shopping, mosh pits, greasy hair, flannel, heroin chic, rock star suicides, and so on and so forth. Keeping those in mind, I'm going to now conjure up a similar list reflecting pop life as I knew it from about 1989 to 1991:
(For the full flashback experience, I recommend cueing up Waiting For a Star to Fall by Boy Meets Girl. Hit play now...)
OK, so here goes: Madonna's Like a Prayer (first cassette I ever bought), Pretty Woman, Wilson Phillips, Beverly Hills, 90210, movies starring the Coreys (Haim and Feldman, of course), Cotton Ginny, New Kids on the Block, Paula Abdul, The Wonder Years, hair scrunchies, sticker collections, Amy Grant's Heart in Motion, Salt-N-Pepa, chintz leggings (hello first day of junior high), Uncle Buck, Home Alone, Taylor Dayne, Milli Vannilli, my parents' Chevrolet Caprice, Murphy Brown, Parker Lewis Can't Lose...
And, oh yeah, the Gulf War. And the recession. But we won't get into that. Actually, maybe I will, if only to note that it seems bizarr-o to me that pretty much all of the pop culture that I can recollect from the "turn of the '90s" is so insanely fluffy, when the news was so bleak. But then again, I was only ten years old, and my biggest concern was whether Jordan Knight would be willing to wait for me until I was legal to marry him.
Point being that you cannot find a pop culture experience farther removed from the grunge era than that which immediately preceded it -- especially as experienced as a kid. Then 1991 came along. Did everything seem different only because we became teenagers? Or was it a real watershed? All I know is, Bryan Adams' Waking Up the Neighbors and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves were a friggin' far cry from Pearl Jam and Reservoir Dogs. But they existed in the same moment.
There has to be some lasting scars on my generation from being forced to sacrifice our love of smiley, squeaky-clean pop idols like New Kids on the Block and Paula Abdul in exchange for the angry, brooding and bedraggled likes of Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder. By late 1991, everything we loved as kids just was NOT cool anymore. There wasn't any time for sentimental good-byes. But maybe that's what becoming a teenager is all about -- leaving happy fuzzy childhood behind for a dark, uncertain, and possibly painful future. Interestingly enough, for kids of my generation, grunge took over the music scene at the exact moment we needed to articulate just how much it sucked to be a teenager. Therefore, I would argue, it's even more potent for us than for any other demographic in history. How's that for a sweeping statement? It feels right to me.
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Growing Up Grunge, Part 1
I recently completed my third round of revisions on my third screenplay - my life's obsession since the summer of 2007 - and for the first time it feels like the end is in sight. At the same time, I'm at the very beginning of a brand new story. I've got the concept down, but the characters are just shadows at this stage. The more I work on it, the more I'll come to know.
Right now, one thing that's for certain is that the characters I'm writing will be my age, and given that, the question that I'm pondering tonight is, what are the lasting after-effects of growing up grunge?
I started junior high in 1991, the year that Nirvana's Nevermind and Pearl Jam's Ten exploded into the mainstream, causing a paradigm shift in rock'n'roll and pop culture as a whole. By the time I started high school in 1993, grunge was the mainstream. It defined my teenage generation, even though by about 1995, grunge was already starting to fade into the past, painfully superseded by the rise of Oasis, Dave Matthews and, eventually, Britney and the Backstreet Boys. It was around this time that I began to shun new music altogether and sought solace by fantasizing about what it would have been like to go to high school ten years earlier -- from grade 11 on, my music collection was almost exclusively devoted to New Order, the Smiths, the Cure, early U2 and the Psychedelic Furs. I don't know that I would be the 80s music fanatic that I am today if music hadn't been as goddamn awful as it was in my last two years of high school (notable exceptions: Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails and the Foo Fighters. Youngsters these days might accuse me of being downright delusional for claiming that the era that produced these brilliant bands was a dark time for the rock'n'roll business. But they didn't have to live through the horror that was Hootie).
So far I've been writing more about the end of grunge than the era of grunge itself. With respect to the latter, I could free associate about Doc Martens, thrift store shopping, mosh pits, greasy hair, flannel, Reality Bites, My So-Called Life, black eye-liner, heroin chic, rock star suicides and overdoses, Lollapalooza, Woodstock II, Queen Street west (to Bathurst -- one needed to go no further in those days), Kurt and Courtney, SPIN magazine, Pulp Fiction and the cult of Tarantino...the list of icons goes on and on. What I want to nail down is how having one's teen years roughly coincide with the duration of the 1990s affected us, how growing up over any other span of time would have felt very, very different, even if it overlapped the era that I'm writing about here. We started grade 7 in 1991 and turned 20 in 1999 -- my gut feeling is that our experience was somehow unique. Perhaps not coincidentally, there were next to no contemporaneous teen icons in the media during those years, save for our generation's patron saint, Angela Chase in My So-Called Life -- perhaps the first and last time that a major network cancelled an overwhelmingly popular teen show, for seemingly no other reason than that it was just too damn good for television. As far as teen movies go, there were really only two -- Dazed and Confused (1994), which was, ironically, about being a teen in the mid-1970s, and Clueless (1995), a cheeky, uber-unrealistic adapation of Jane Austen's Emma, directed by Fast Time at Ridgmont High's Amy Heckerling. Both were great films, but neither reflected the reality of high school in the 1990s. Beverly Hills, 90210 came before us, Dawson's Creek came after. We were the teens in between, and there is virtually no pop culture record of our existence. Maybe that's why I'm so determined to try to define it, to articulate it, to convince those who didn't live through it -- and maybe even some of those who did -- that it actually happened. To one degree or another, we grew up grunge. What that means is yet to be determined. But I'm pretty determined to figure it out.
Right now, one thing that's for certain is that the characters I'm writing will be my age, and given that, the question that I'm pondering tonight is, what are the lasting after-effects of growing up grunge?
I started junior high in 1991, the year that Nirvana's Nevermind and Pearl Jam's Ten exploded into the mainstream, causing a paradigm shift in rock'n'roll and pop culture as a whole. By the time I started high school in 1993, grunge was the mainstream. It defined my teenage generation, even though by about 1995, grunge was already starting to fade into the past, painfully superseded by the rise of Oasis, Dave Matthews and, eventually, Britney and the Backstreet Boys. It was around this time that I began to shun new music altogether and sought solace by fantasizing about what it would have been like to go to high school ten years earlier -- from grade 11 on, my music collection was almost exclusively devoted to New Order, the Smiths, the Cure, early U2 and the Psychedelic Furs. I don't know that I would be the 80s music fanatic that I am today if music hadn't been as goddamn awful as it was in my last two years of high school (notable exceptions: Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails and the Foo Fighters. Youngsters these days might accuse me of being downright delusional for claiming that the era that produced these brilliant bands was a dark time for the rock'n'roll business. But they didn't have to live through the horror that was Hootie).
So far I've been writing more about the end of grunge than the era of grunge itself. With respect to the latter, I could free associate about Doc Martens, thrift store shopping, mosh pits, greasy hair, flannel, Reality Bites, My So-Called Life, black eye-liner, heroin chic, rock star suicides and overdoses, Lollapalooza, Woodstock II, Queen Street west (to Bathurst -- one needed to go no further in those days), Kurt and Courtney, SPIN magazine, Pulp Fiction and the cult of Tarantino...the list of icons goes on and on. What I want to nail down is how having one's teen years roughly coincide with the duration of the 1990s affected us, how growing up over any other span of time would have felt very, very different, even if it overlapped the era that I'm writing about here. We started grade 7 in 1991 and turned 20 in 1999 -- my gut feeling is that our experience was somehow unique. Perhaps not coincidentally, there were next to no contemporaneous teen icons in the media during those years, save for our generation's patron saint, Angela Chase in My So-Called Life -- perhaps the first and last time that a major network cancelled an overwhelmingly popular teen show, for seemingly no other reason than that it was just too damn good for television. As far as teen movies go, there were really only two -- Dazed and Confused (1994), which was, ironically, about being a teen in the mid-1970s, and Clueless (1995), a cheeky, uber-unrealistic adapation of Jane Austen's Emma, directed by Fast Time at Ridgmont High's Amy Heckerling. Both were great films, but neither reflected the reality of high school in the 1990s. Beverly Hills, 90210 came before us, Dawson's Creek came after. We were the teens in between, and there is virtually no pop culture record of our existence. Maybe that's why I'm so determined to try to define it, to articulate it, to convince those who didn't live through it -- and maybe even some of those who did -- that it actually happened. To one degree or another, we grew up grunge. What that means is yet to be determined. But I'm pretty determined to figure it out.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Madonna Memories No. 2
Okay, so maybe I was just a little grouchy in my last post due to not having a snowball in hell's chance of landing Madonna tickets. I might placate myself by getting tickets to see the Foo Fighters and the Kooks at the Virgin music fest in September. But we'll see. The call of the cottage is mighty strong on Labour Day weekend.
So getting back to my trip down Madonna memory lane...
Madonna (1983) - specifically "Lucky Star" and "Holiday", and later "Borderline"
A dead-heat tie for my favourite Madonna album, along with True Blue (1986). I associate "Lucky Star" and "Holiday" with a Mini-Pops Madonna medley to which I used to choreograph dances in my basement with my best friends circa age six or so (if you read my "Madonna Memories No. 1" blog, you'll see that my preferred activities changed relatively little in high school). I also recall an "Easy Lover"/"Owner of a Lonely Heart" medley on the same cassette, as well as a pretty snappy melee of Duran Duran covers. I think I wore that cassette out, as it was pretty much our favourite until the Dirty Dancing soundtrack came along.
Perhaps due in part to its being left off the Mini-Pops' hit roster, I wasn't really familiar with "Borderline" until later on in high school, when I coerced my boyfriend to buy The Immaculate Collection on CD so that we could listen to it in his car. Since then, it's been one of my most-loved Madonna tunes. And now every time I hear it, it takes me back to being 17, a time in my life that, like early Madonna music itself, seems more and more rosy and innocent the further it gets in the past.
On that note, I shall sign off for now. But first, two more thoughts about Madonna albums of the 1980s: 1) True Blue is awesome for so many reasons, not the least of which is the dedication to Sean Penn in the liner notes... and 2) If there is one slow song I wish I'd danced to with a gorgeous boy in junior high, it's "Crazy For You" (off the Vision Quest soundtrack, but you already knew that, right?). Instead, we had Whitney Houston belting out "I-ee-I-ee-I will always love HUuuu..." And I always bolted for the refreshment table during the slow songs anyway (see: Backflip in the Long Program). But there you go.
So getting back to my trip down Madonna memory lane...
Madonna (1983) - specifically "Lucky Star" and "Holiday", and later "Borderline"
A dead-heat tie for my favourite Madonna album, along with True Blue (1986). I associate "Lucky Star" and "Holiday" with a Mini-Pops Madonna medley to which I used to choreograph dances in my basement with my best friends circa age six or so (if you read my "Madonna Memories No. 1" blog, you'll see that my preferred activities changed relatively little in high school). I also recall an "Easy Lover"/"Owner of a Lonely Heart" medley on the same cassette, as well as a pretty snappy melee of Duran Duran covers. I think I wore that cassette out, as it was pretty much our favourite until the Dirty Dancing soundtrack came along.
Perhaps due in part to its being left off the Mini-Pops' hit roster, I wasn't really familiar with "Borderline" until later on in high school, when I coerced my boyfriend to buy The Immaculate Collection on CD so that we could listen to it in his car. Since then, it's been one of my most-loved Madonna tunes. And now every time I hear it, it takes me back to being 17, a time in my life that, like early Madonna music itself, seems more and more rosy and innocent the further it gets in the past.
On that note, I shall sign off for now. But first, two more thoughts about Madonna albums of the 1980s: 1) True Blue is awesome for so many reasons, not the least of which is the dedication to Sean Penn in the liner notes... and 2) If there is one slow song I wish I'd danced to with a gorgeous boy in junior high, it's "Crazy For You" (off the Vision Quest soundtrack, but you already knew that, right?). Instead, we had Whitney Houston belting out "I-ee-I-ee-I will always love HUuuu..." And I always bolted for the refreshment table during the slow songs anyway (see: Backflip in the Long Program). But there you go.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Coming Up Short, With Dignity
Well, no Sticky and Sweet Tour tickets for me. Not that I really thought I had much of a chance of getting a pair, especially considering the half-ass effort I put into getting tickets to just about any Ticketmaster gouge-a-palooza. In every instance, I try the conventional, "little people" avenues of touch-tone redial and Internet queuing for what I deem to be a reasonable period of time relative to the show in question. For Madonna, this was about four minutes (no, really). I figured my efforts were pretty futile from the start, but it's kind of like Rolling up the Rim and hoping for a Toyota Prius, or trying to Scratch and Save 75% off at the Bay -- you know the odds are stacked miles high against you, but even so, for a brief moment in time, anything's possible so you try anyhow.
I always pretty much suck at getting hold of tickets to hot concerts. Usually, apathy and frugality are the primary causes. There's also a certain loss of pride involved in many of the methods via which people successfully land impossible-to-find concert tickets, eg. camping out overnight on Yonge Street, reciting ridiculous radio jingles, calling up that ex-boyfriend who's dad's company has box seats at the ACC....the list goes on. But I can't go for that. No can do. My dignity is more precious. Hence the fact, this summer, I'll be more likely to be seeing Def Leppard in concert for the third time than prostrating myself for a chance to land Madonna tickets. It's all about holding your head up high, folks.
The fact that I won't be seeing Madonna in concert any time soon has not, however, dampened my deep affection for her music, so I will resume my Madonna Memories reflections next time. Until then, perhaps some of you reading this entry would like to offer up some of your own fond recollections relating to Madonna's music, movies, fashion statements, etc. Or concert tickets -- I'll take those too.
I always pretty much suck at getting hold of tickets to hot concerts. Usually, apathy and frugality are the primary causes. There's also a certain loss of pride involved in many of the methods via which people successfully land impossible-to-find concert tickets, eg. camping out overnight on Yonge Street, reciting ridiculous radio jingles, calling up that ex-boyfriend who's dad's company has box seats at the ACC....the list goes on. But I can't go for that. No can do. My dignity is more precious. Hence the fact, this summer, I'll be more likely to be seeing Def Leppard in concert for the third time than prostrating myself for a chance to land Madonna tickets. It's all about holding your head up high, folks.
The fact that I won't be seeing Madonna in concert any time soon has not, however, dampened my deep affection for her music, so I will resume my Madonna Memories reflections next time. Until then, perhaps some of you reading this entry would like to offer up some of your own fond recollections relating to Madonna's music, movies, fashion statements, etc. Or concert tickets -- I'll take those too.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Countdown to Sticky and Sweet Saturday: Madonna Memories No. 1
This Saturday at 10 AM, I am going to try to achieve the impossible -- land a pair of tickets to Madonna's "Sticky and Sweet" show in Toronto this October. While I have little to no prayer of actually seeing Madge perform "Like a Prayer" live any time soon, for the moment I choose to live in hope that I just might be successful. Unfortunately, I have never seen Madonna in concert, but have been a fan since I was four, which is to say, since the dawn of Madonna's career. In celebration of my 25 years as a Madonna devotee, I've decided to write a series of blog entries on the memories that I associate with some of my favourite Madonna albums and songs. Today's selection: Like a Virgin (1985). Specifically, "Material Girl". As a side note, my two current favourite tracks from that album are "Angel" and "Dress You Up". But neither has the same nostalgic associations as "Material Girl". So here we go...
"Material Girl" - In high school, one of the dubious highlights of the spring semester was the Battle of the Air Bands contest. Some participants took the conventional route of lip-synching and/or air-guitar strumming along to a popular rock tune of the day. There were occasional creative and/or shocking variations, such as one group's dead-on re-enactment of the video for U2's "Numb", or the rather unfortunate stripping incident of '96, involving a pasty, scrawny-bodied male classmate who was dragged off the stage still thrusting away in his none-too-white tighty whities. Then, every year, you could count on at least one group of popular girls to push the envelope with a performance that was perennially well-received...the luridly suggestive, scantily-clad dance number to a super-hot Janet Jackson/Mariah Carey chart-topper du jour. To this day, I have no idea what qualified these performances as "air bands", so much as paper-thin excuses to prance around in front of the entire panting male student body in fishnet tights and heels and not get sent home to change one's clothes. The faculty seemed to condone these dirty little dances. Feminist-minded young women in the audience like myself perhaps should have objected to the blatant, well, objectification on parade, but we were too busy firing off catty remarks about which of the dancers' asses looked the fattest.
What the hell does all this have to do with Madonna, you ask? I'm getting there, I swear. OK, so by the time grade 12 rolled around, a couple of my best friends and I were ready to put our own take on the whole slutty air band phenomenon. The twist, however, was that we didn't want anyone to think that we were actually doing the performance in earnest. It was of ultimate importance that our camp intentions be at least somewhat palpable to our plebeian audience, otherwise we'd be no better than the girls we'd ruthlessly mocked for the past three years. In fact, we'd be worse because we weren't the hot, popular girls -- if taken as sincere, our act would end up looking like an excruciatingly naive, inept attempt at being something we were not, which to this day is, in my mind, one of the most mortifying acts one can commit. Even though right from the get-go, our goal was to subvert the very conventions of the erotic high school air band performance, we did hope that we might spark a genuine fan following amongst a gaggle of Farmer Ted-esque grade 9 guys who could be bribed to buy us cookies from the caf, or carry our backpacks.
Song choice was critical. Right from the beginning, Madonna was a front runner -- all of us worshiped her and her discography up to that point offered many rich possibilities for cheeky, postmodern-camp-kitsch air band interpretation. We eventually settled on "Material Girl", "Like a Virgin" seeming a little too "on-the-nose" even to our sassy, self-aware 17 year-old sensibilities. We talked about it for weeks, then met for one glorious practice session in my basement during which we dreamed up costumes (Flashdance risque in style), props, bit players (cameos from aforementioned Farmer Ted niners) and an impressive thirty seconds or so of actual choreography. I can still remember the saucy little snaps we had timed to the chime that sounds somewhere around the third stanza of the intro to that song. Unfortunately, we got no further than that. Term papers, prom plans and general apathy - the brilliant teenager's worst enemy - put an end to our air band dreams. But every time I hear "Material Girl", I think back to what might have been. I never once performed in front of my entire high school, preferring to embarrass myself in front of numerous select groups and individuals instead over my four years as a student there. Our (self-consciously) slutty Madonna air band could have been my moment to shine. Or it could have been my worst high school memory (and that's saying something). We'll never know. But thanks, Madge, for supplying the soundtrack. I couldn't have not done it without you.
"Material Girl" - In high school, one of the dubious highlights of the spring semester was the Battle of the Air Bands contest. Some participants took the conventional route of lip-synching and/or air-guitar strumming along to a popular rock tune of the day. There were occasional creative and/or shocking variations, such as one group's dead-on re-enactment of the video for U2's "Numb", or the rather unfortunate stripping incident of '96, involving a pasty, scrawny-bodied male classmate who was dragged off the stage still thrusting away in his none-too-white tighty whities. Then, every year, you could count on at least one group of popular girls to push the envelope with a performance that was perennially well-received...the luridly suggestive, scantily-clad dance number to a super-hot Janet Jackson/Mariah Carey chart-topper du jour. To this day, I have no idea what qualified these performances as "air bands", so much as paper-thin excuses to prance around in front of the entire panting male student body in fishnet tights and heels and not get sent home to change one's clothes. The faculty seemed to condone these dirty little dances. Feminist-minded young women in the audience like myself perhaps should have objected to the blatant, well, objectification on parade, but we were too busy firing off catty remarks about which of the dancers' asses looked the fattest.
What the hell does all this have to do with Madonna, you ask? I'm getting there, I swear. OK, so by the time grade 12 rolled around, a couple of my best friends and I were ready to put our own take on the whole slutty air band phenomenon. The twist, however, was that we didn't want anyone to think that we were actually doing the performance in earnest. It was of ultimate importance that our camp intentions be at least somewhat palpable to our plebeian audience, otherwise we'd be no better than the girls we'd ruthlessly mocked for the past three years. In fact, we'd be worse because we weren't the hot, popular girls -- if taken as sincere, our act would end up looking like an excruciatingly naive, inept attempt at being something we were not, which to this day is, in my mind, one of the most mortifying acts one can commit. Even though right from the get-go, our goal was to subvert the very conventions of the erotic high school air band performance, we did hope that we might spark a genuine fan following amongst a gaggle of Farmer Ted-esque grade 9 guys who could be bribed to buy us cookies from the caf, or carry our backpacks.
Song choice was critical. Right from the beginning, Madonna was a front runner -- all of us worshiped her and her discography up to that point offered many rich possibilities for cheeky, postmodern-camp-kitsch air band interpretation. We eventually settled on "Material Girl", "Like a Virgin" seeming a little too "on-the-nose" even to our sassy, self-aware 17 year-old sensibilities. We talked about it for weeks, then met for one glorious practice session in my basement during which we dreamed up costumes (Flashdance risque in style), props, bit players (cameos from aforementioned Farmer Ted niners) and an impressive thirty seconds or so of actual choreography. I can still remember the saucy little snaps we had timed to the chime that sounds somewhere around the third stanza of the intro to that song. Unfortunately, we got no further than that. Term papers, prom plans and general apathy - the brilliant teenager's worst enemy - put an end to our air band dreams. But every time I hear "Material Girl", I think back to what might have been. I never once performed in front of my entire high school, preferring to embarrass myself in front of numerous select groups and individuals instead over my four years as a student there. Our (self-consciously) slutty Madonna air band could have been my moment to shine. Or it could have been my worst high school memory (and that's saying something). We'll never know. But thanks, Madge, for supplying the soundtrack. I couldn't have not done it without you.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
The Mighty iTunes Oracle
For my first blog entry in many months, I looked to my iTunes for inspiration, and a little personality game I came across on My Boring Life. Try it out yourself - just hit shuffle and watch as some of life's big questions are magically answered right before your eyes! Just remember - no skipping allowed!
Q. What would best describe your personality?
A. Breathe – Michelle Branch
Hmmm…sounds girly and upbeat, but lyrics are about being this close to falling apart. Yep, I’d say that pretty much sums me up.
Q. What do you like in a guy/girl?
A. What’s New, Pussycat? – Tom Jones
Q. How do you feel today?
A. Say Something – James
Q. What is your life's purpose?
A.
OMG – the all-seeing iTunes shuffle has spoken! I believe it is my life’s purpose to champion cheesy 80s music. That, and to sing a duet with Kenny Rogers.
Q. What is your motto?
A. Dance Dance Dance – Beach Boys
Fucking A!
Q. What do your friends think of you?
A. Glittering Prize – Simple Minds
Not sure what to make of this. Maybe that I’m sparkly? And also a prize.
A. Over and Over – Wilson Phillips
Um…kay. Now this is just getting embarrassing. Yes, I have Wilson Phillips on iTunes. And I think this will surprise NONE of my friends.
Q. What do you think of your parents?
A. Stand Back – Stevie Nicks
This doesn’t really work either. But God I love Stevie Nicks!
Q. What is your life story?
A. Tu t’laisses aller – Charles Aznavour
Great...thanks for the self-esteem boost Chuck.
Q. What do you want to be when you grow up?
A. Sunday Bloody Sunday – U2
I want to be Bono.
Q. What is your hobby/interest?
A. Don’t – Elvis Presley
I am most definitely interested in Elvis.
Q. What will they play at your funeral?
A. I Wanna Be Your Lover – Prince
OMG, someone needs to put this in my will!
Q. What is your biggest secret?
A. Got to Get a Message to You – Bee Gees
Great, now everyone knows I’ve got early Bee Gees on my iTunes. But considering the Wilson Phillips debacle earlier, I guess this is pretty minor.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Where do I begin?
We're almost halfway through the summer of '07 and it's been so long since I last posted, I don't even know where to start. So much to say, so much time...
Well, to kick things off, this has been a summer of happy Mondays thus far due to the return of Canadian Idol. While I have no clear-cut favourite yet, a la last year's Tyler Lewis, I have to say that this year's Top Ten is a pretty talented bunch. The judges have also been on the mark, by and large, and I think I may even be warming to Ben Mulroney after all these years (but he's no Seamus O'Regan).
In other news, I resisted the impulse to make a third trip to see Def Leppard in concert in Toronto, although I am pretty stoked that Poison is coming to town during the Ex (lighters at the ready everyone..."Ev'ry rose has its thorn..."). Scorpions, not so much.
I visited a couple of clubs in the Richmond-John vicinity for the first time in years and discovered that little has changed since my undergrad clubbing days except, well, I'm no longer an undergrad. I think the door guys carded me just to be nice. Thankfully, my cougar years (oh yes, there will be cougar years) are still well ahead of me, but methinks I'd better start making hay while the sun shines. Or while the pants fit. Whatever.
In terms of new music this summer, I'm all about Arcade Fire and the White Stripes right now. But, as usual, I'm spending most of my time digging up way-back tracks, which have lately included a lot of Van Halen (a nice mixture of David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar classics -- I'm a non-denominational Van Halen fan) and Supremes. On the 1960s girl group front, I'm desperately seeking a copy of Shirley Matthews' 1964 hit "Big Town Boy" which is--shamefully--absent from iTunes. Yet another reason why Mac people aren't really as cool as they would have you believe.
On the movie front, I saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and loved it (way to bounce back from Goblet of Fire); I saw Knocked Up and nearly went into an apoplectic fit at the film's Reagan-era-esque moral conservatism. Not like I was surprised. Why do I do these things to myself?
I think that about wraps it up -- gotta get back to "The Hills" marathon on MTV. Some people listen to Amazon waterfalls or Brahms chamber music to get to sleep; I prefer immersing myself in the blissful vapidity that is "The Hills". Oh, and one more thing -- I read Erica Jong's "Fear of Flying" for the first time this summer and it was a life-changing experience. Not sure just yet in what respect the experience will prove to be life-changing, but something's gotta give. I can feel it. Or maybe I've just watched the opening credits of "The Hills" too many times. "The rest is still unwritten..."
Good night. :)
Well, to kick things off, this has been a summer of happy Mondays thus far due to the return of Canadian Idol. While I have no clear-cut favourite yet, a la last year's Tyler Lewis, I have to say that this year's Top Ten is a pretty talented bunch. The judges have also been on the mark, by and large, and I think I may even be warming to Ben Mulroney after all these years (but he's no Seamus O'Regan).
In other news, I resisted the impulse to make a third trip to see Def Leppard in concert in Toronto, although I am pretty stoked that Poison is coming to town during the Ex (lighters at the ready everyone..."Ev'ry rose has its thorn..."). Scorpions, not so much.
I visited a couple of clubs in the Richmond-John vicinity for the first time in years and discovered that little has changed since my undergrad clubbing days except, well, I'm no longer an undergrad. I think the door guys carded me just to be nice. Thankfully, my cougar years (oh yes, there will be cougar years) are still well ahead of me, but methinks I'd better start making hay while the sun shines. Or while the pants fit. Whatever.
In terms of new music this summer, I'm all about Arcade Fire and the White Stripes right now. But, as usual, I'm spending most of my time digging up way-back tracks, which have lately included a lot of Van Halen (a nice mixture of David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar classics -- I'm a non-denominational Van Halen fan) and Supremes. On the 1960s girl group front, I'm desperately seeking a copy of Shirley Matthews' 1964 hit "Big Town Boy" which is--shamefully--absent from iTunes. Yet another reason why Mac people aren't really as cool as they would have you believe.
On the movie front, I saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and loved it (way to bounce back from Goblet of Fire); I saw Knocked Up and nearly went into an apoplectic fit at the film's Reagan-era-esque moral conservatism. Not like I was surprised. Why do I do these things to myself?
I think that about wraps it up -- gotta get back to "The Hills" marathon on MTV. Some people listen to Amazon waterfalls or Brahms chamber music to get to sleep; I prefer immersing myself in the blissful vapidity that is "The Hills". Oh, and one more thing -- I read Erica Jong's "Fear of Flying" for the first time this summer and it was a life-changing experience. Not sure just yet in what respect the experience will prove to be life-changing, but something's gotta give. I can feel it. Or maybe I've just watched the opening credits of "The Hills" too many times. "The rest is still unwritten..."
Good night. :)
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Did Juno?
A couple of weeks ago, the Juno Awards were held in the thriving metropolis of Saskatoon. It will likely come as news to all of my American readers (and quite possibly to some of my Canadian readers as well), that the Juno Awards are the highest honours bestowed by the Canadian music industry. The awards were named in honour of Pierre Juneau, former head of the CRTC and responsible for the implementation of the Canadian Content Regulations in 1971. This was a pivotal achievement because if radio stations here weren't legally mandated to have 35% Canadian content on their playlists, there would be no Canadian music industry. Kind of like how if your Lucky Charms wasn't fortified with 12 vitamins and minerals, you'd be anemic. As a further footnote, apparently the spelling of "Juneau" was changed to "Juno" when somebody realized that Juno had been the chief Goddess of the Roman Pantheon (See kids, it does pay to minor in Classics!).
Like the Canadian music industry itself, the Junos' history has had its high points (awards to friggin' awesome bands like the Tragically Hip) and its low points (see 1978-1979 below), I thought I would highlight a few of the Great Moments in Juno History. I pretty much skipped the 1970s (Rush, Anne Murray...and that's about it). I also left out most of the better-known superstars of Canadian music from the 1980s and 1990s--the Hip, Bryan Adams, Alanis Morrissette (post-1995--see below), and yes, Celine--in favour of shedding light on some of the Canadian music legends who have perhaps been a bit neglected since their days of glory. Props here to Barrie's Rock 95, a station that faithfully keeps much of Canada's musical past alive and well on the airwaves (the only station I know that has David Wilcox's "Do the Bearcat" on regular rotation). So here we go...
Selected Great Moments in Juno History:
1978 - Dan Hill's "Sometimes When We Touch" nominated for Best Single
1979 - Dan Hill's "Sometimes When We Touch" nominated for Best Single...again...
(Was the honesty too much the first time around?)
1979 - Nick Gilder's "Hot Child in the City" wins Best Single
1980 - Claudja Barry's "Boogie Woogie Dancin' Shoes" nominated for Best Single
- Trooper wins Group of the Year
1981 - Martha and the Muffins' "Echo Beach" wins Best Single
(Also deserving of special award for Best Band Name of All Time)
1982 - Rough Trade's "High School Confidential" nominated for Best Single
1983 - The Payola$ "Eyes of a Stranger" wins Best Single
(beating out Loverboy's "Working for the Weekend")
1984 - Corey Hart's "Sunglasses at Night" and Men Without Hats' "Safety Dance" both
nominated for Best Single
1985 - Luba's "Let it Go" and Gowan's "A Criminal Mind" nominated for Best Single
1986 - Glass Tiger's "Don't Forget Me (When I'm Gone)" wins Best Single
(another great song title with embedded parentheses)
- A banner year in the Best Album category, with Glass Tiger, Loverboy, Platinum
Blonde AND Honeymoon Suite all nominated; Newmarket boys Glass Tiger win (woot!)
1987 - Kim Mitchell's "Patio Lanterns" nominated for Best Single
(also nominated for new national anthem by majority of Mulroney caucus)
1991 - Maestro Fresh Wes' "Let Your Backbone Slide" nominated for Best Single
1992 - Alanis' "Too Hot" (Hott Shot Mix) nominated for Best Dance Song
(oh yes, pre-"Jagged Little Pill", Alanis was a sweet little pop star)
1994 - Snow's "12 Inches of Snow" nominated for Album of the Year
(everybody all together now: "In-forrrr-mer!")
I would like to conclude this blog with some Canadian tunes that I think were definitely deserving of some Juno love, even if they didn't receive it:
"Day by Day" - Doug and the Slugs
"Dream Come True" - Frozen Ghost
"What Does It Take" - Honeymoon Suite
"Tokyo Rose" - Idle Eyes
"Heading West" - Mitsou
and
"Claire" - Rheostatics
Like the Canadian music industry itself, the Junos' history has had its high points (awards to friggin' awesome bands like the Tragically Hip) and its low points (see 1978-1979 below), I thought I would highlight a few of the Great Moments in Juno History. I pretty much skipped the 1970s (Rush, Anne Murray...and that's about it). I also left out most of the better-known superstars of Canadian music from the 1980s and 1990s--the Hip, Bryan Adams, Alanis Morrissette (post-1995--see below), and yes, Celine--in favour of shedding light on some of the Canadian music legends who have perhaps been a bit neglected since their days of glory. Props here to Barrie's Rock 95, a station that faithfully keeps much of Canada's musical past alive and well on the airwaves (the only station I know that has David Wilcox's "Do the Bearcat" on regular rotation). So here we go...
Selected Great Moments in Juno History:
1978 - Dan Hill's "Sometimes When We Touch" nominated for Best Single
1979 - Dan Hill's "Sometimes When We Touch" nominated for Best Single...again...
(Was the honesty too much the first time around?)
1979 - Nick Gilder's "Hot Child in the City" wins Best Single
1980 - Claudja Barry's "Boogie Woogie Dancin' Shoes" nominated for Best Single
- Trooper wins Group of the Year
1981 - Martha and the Muffins' "Echo Beach" wins Best Single
(Also deserving of special award for Best Band Name of All Time)
1982 - Rough Trade's "High School Confidential" nominated for Best Single
1983 - The Payola$ "Eyes of a Stranger" wins Best Single
(beating out Loverboy's "Working for the Weekend")
1984 - Corey Hart's "Sunglasses at Night" and Men Without Hats' "Safety Dance" both
nominated for Best Single
1985 - Luba's "Let it Go" and Gowan's "A Criminal Mind" nominated for Best Single
1986 - Glass Tiger's "Don't Forget Me (When I'm Gone)" wins Best Single
(another great song title with embedded parentheses)
- A banner year in the Best Album category, with Glass Tiger, Loverboy, Platinum
Blonde AND Honeymoon Suite all nominated; Newmarket boys Glass Tiger win (woot!)
1987 - Kim Mitchell's "Patio Lanterns" nominated for Best Single
(also nominated for new national anthem by majority of Mulroney caucus)
1991 - Maestro Fresh Wes' "Let Your Backbone Slide" nominated for Best Single
1992 - Alanis' "Too Hot" (Hott Shot Mix) nominated for Best Dance Song
(oh yes, pre-"Jagged Little Pill", Alanis was a sweet little pop star)
1994 - Snow's "12 Inches of Snow" nominated for Album of the Year
(everybody all together now: "In-forrrr-mer!")
I would like to conclude this blog with some Canadian tunes that I think were definitely deserving of some Juno love, even if they didn't receive it:
"Day by Day" - Doug and the Slugs
"Dream Come True" - Frozen Ghost
"What Does It Take" - Honeymoon Suite
"Tokyo Rose" - Idle Eyes
"Heading West" - Mitsou
and
"Claire" - Rheostatics
Sunday, March 25, 2007
The Captain and Tennille and Telus
One of my favourite TV ads right now is TELUS Mobility's latest ad featuring the company's usual roster of devastatingly cute critters (forget the cell phone -- I want those rabbits!) and a much-welcomed revival of the Captain and Tennille's 1975 "Love Will Keep Us Together" (a cover of the Neil Sedaka original, it should be noted). In celebration of the song's reappearance on the pop culture radar, I offer up this link to Toni Tennille's fabulous blog, where you can read up on a wide variety of topics, ranging from Gordon Lightfoot, to the war in Iraq to the Captain's favourite pan-roasted salmon and mango salsa recipes. There are tons of great insights to be found, such as her take on "Muskrat Love" haters:
"Come on, people....did it ever occur to you that we might have performed that song with just a touch of irony?"
Loves it! And who knew she did background sessions for Pink Floyd? Rock on, Toni!
Friday, January 05, 2007
Keeping St. Elmo's Fire Burnin' (In Me)
To celebrate the new year, an entry devoted to the lyrics to perhaps the most inspirational pop song ever penned. I know the unbridled 1985 sentiment is hard for your jaded, post-Cobain souls to embrace, but sometime (when no one is watching) just find this song, crank it up, and belt it out with as much earnestness as you can possibly muster (and yes, air-synthesizer antics are encouraged). It does the soul good.
If you need a little coaching, watch the video for inspiration. Even better, watch St. Elmo's Fire. Repeatedly. And try to channel the great Billy Hicks.
St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion) by John Parr
Growin' up, you don't see the writing on the wall
Passin' by, movin' straight ahead, you knew it all
But maybe sometime if you feel the pain
You'll find you're all alone, everything has changed
Play the game, you know you can't quit until it's won
Soldier on, only you can do what must be done
You know in some way you're a lot like me
You're just a prisoner and you're tryin' to break free
I can see a new horizon underneath the blazin' sky
I'll be where the eagle's flying higher and higher
Gonna be your man in motion, all I need is a pair of wheels
Take me where my future's lyin', St. Elmo's Fire
Burning up, don't know just how far that I can go (just how far I go)
Soon be home, only just a few miles down the road
I can make it, I know I can
You broke the boy in me, but you won't break the man
I can see a new horizon underneath the blazin' sky
I'll be where the eagle's flying higher and higher
Gonna be your man in motion, all I need is a pair of wheels
Take me where my future's lyin', St. Elmo's Fire
I can climb the highest mountain, cross the wildest sea
I can feel St. Elmo's Fire burnin' in me, burnin' in me
Just once in his life a man has his time
and my time is now, I'm coming alive
I can hear the music playin', I can see the banners fly
Feel like you're back again, and hope ridin' high
Gonna be your man in motion, all I need is a pair of wheels
Take me where my future's lyin', St. Elmo's Fire
I can see a new horizon underneath the blazin' sky
I'll be where the eagle's flying higher and higher
Gonna be your man in motion, all I need is a pair of wheels
Take me where my future's lyin', St. Elmo's Fire
I can climb the highest mountain, cross the wildest sea
I can feel St. Elmo's Fire burnin' in me
Burnin', burnin' in me, I can feel it burnin'
Oooh, burnin' inside of me...
If you need a little coaching, watch the video for inspiration. Even better, watch St. Elmo's Fire. Repeatedly. And try to channel the great Billy Hicks.
St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion) by John Parr
Growin' up, you don't see the writing on the wall
Passin' by, movin' straight ahead, you knew it all
But maybe sometime if you feel the pain
You'll find you're all alone, everything has changed
Play the game, you know you can't quit until it's won
Soldier on, only you can do what must be done
You know in some way you're a lot like me
You're just a prisoner and you're tryin' to break free
I can see a new horizon underneath the blazin' sky
I'll be where the eagle's flying higher and higher
Gonna be your man in motion, all I need is a pair of wheels
Take me where my future's lyin', St. Elmo's Fire
Burning up, don't know just how far that I can go (just how far I go)
Soon be home, only just a few miles down the road
I can make it, I know I can
You broke the boy in me, but you won't break the man
I can see a new horizon underneath the blazin' sky
I'll be where the eagle's flying higher and higher
Gonna be your man in motion, all I need is a pair of wheels
Take me where my future's lyin', St. Elmo's Fire
I can climb the highest mountain, cross the wildest sea
I can feel St. Elmo's Fire burnin' in me, burnin' in me
Just once in his life a man has his time
and my time is now, I'm coming alive
I can hear the music playin', I can see the banners fly
Feel like you're back again, and hope ridin' high
Gonna be your man in motion, all I need is a pair of wheels
Take me where my future's lyin', St. Elmo's Fire
I can see a new horizon underneath the blazin' sky
I'll be where the eagle's flying higher and higher
Gonna be your man in motion, all I need is a pair of wheels
Take me where my future's lyin', St. Elmo's Fire
I can climb the highest mountain, cross the wildest sea
I can feel St. Elmo's Fire burnin' in me
Burnin', burnin' in me, I can feel it burnin'
Oooh, burnin' inside of me...
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
It Takes Two
I think it's high time music industry bigwigs rediscovered a rare and much underappreciated genre: the pop male vocalist duet. Pop duets in general flourished in the 1980s, which was also the period in which the pop male vocalist duet reached its zenith, with the release of the two most undisputedly awesome pop male vocalist duets of all time:
To All the Girls I've Loved Before - Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesias
The Girl is Mine - Michael ("I'm a lover, not a fighter") Jackson and Paul McCartney
Let's just take a moment, shall we, and bask in the glory of those two masterpieces.
OK, moving on--it's time for the pop male vocalist duet to make its triumphant return on the contemporary music scene. For those studly male pop stars out there keen to take the plunge, I will disclose to you the secret of pop male vocalist duet success: the more incongruous the duet pairing, the higher the Grammy-winning potential. Here's a few couplings that I think might just have the makings for pop male vocalist duet magic:
Justin Timberlake and Clay Aiken
Bono and Axl Rose
Ricky Martin and Toby Keith
Usher and Kid Rock
You get the idea. It's a one-way ticket to solid gold.
To All the Girls I've Loved Before - Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesias
The Girl is Mine - Michael ("I'm a lover, not a fighter") Jackson and Paul McCartney
Let's just take a moment, shall we, and bask in the glory of those two masterpieces.
OK, moving on--it's time for the pop male vocalist duet to make its triumphant return on the contemporary music scene. For those studly male pop stars out there keen to take the plunge, I will disclose to you the secret of pop male vocalist duet success: the more incongruous the duet pairing, the higher the Grammy-winning potential. Here's a few couplings that I think might just have the makings for pop male vocalist duet magic:
Justin Timberlake and Clay Aiken
Bono and Axl Rose
Ricky Martin and Toby Keith
Usher and Kid Rock
You get the idea. It's a one-way ticket to solid gold.
Monday, September 04, 2006
Tickle Me Emo
What with tomorrow marking back-to-school for another crop of teenage freaks and geeks, the weekend news was peppered with a charming array of head-wagging, fist-shaking "Kids these days" types of articles. One of the most interesting of these was an article that appeared in the Toronto Sun this past Sunday on the definition of emo culture.
To my mind, emo is a relatively new-fangled cultural phenomenon. I'm familiar with Eno (as in Brian, or "Bubbly bubbly") and enamoured of E.L.O. (more on that later), but emo...it just sounded to me like yet another cool-kid thing that I was destined not to understand. From the scant research that I have thus far conducted into the topic, I have gleaned that to be "emo" is to possess a flair for the melodramatic, shrewd thrift-store shopping savvy, and an iPod packed with songs recorded by bands with names that sound like titles of sappy teen romance novels (eg. "Further Seems Forever," "Funeral For a Friend," "Matchbook Romance").
After taking a brief look into what I might be missing with respect to emo, I've decided that its particular cultural niche would be better filled by a revival of 1970s rock opera. Personally, I think that when it comes to music, "emotional hardcore" is more satisfyingly associated with the rockin' yet plaintive overtures of Meat Loaf, E.L.O., or some deep cuts from the Xanadu soundtrack. Pair that with a roller rink and some Gloria Vanderbilt jeans and you've got yourself one over-the-top, heart-swelling experience. If kids these days could only appreciate that, well, we'd have nothing to worry about.
To my mind, emo is a relatively new-fangled cultural phenomenon. I'm familiar with Eno (as in Brian, or "Bubbly bubbly") and enamoured of E.L.O. (more on that later), but emo...it just sounded to me like yet another cool-kid thing that I was destined not to understand. From the scant research that I have thus far conducted into the topic, I have gleaned that to be "emo" is to possess a flair for the melodramatic, shrewd thrift-store shopping savvy, and an iPod packed with songs recorded by bands with names that sound like titles of sappy teen romance novels (eg. "Further Seems Forever," "Funeral For a Friend," "Matchbook Romance").
After taking a brief look into what I might be missing with respect to emo, I've decided that its particular cultural niche would be better filled by a revival of 1970s rock opera. Personally, I think that when it comes to music, "emotional hardcore" is more satisfyingly associated with the rockin' yet plaintive overtures of Meat Loaf, E.L.O., or some deep cuts from the Xanadu soundtrack. Pair that with a roller rink and some Gloria Vanderbilt jeans and you've got yourself one over-the-top, heart-swelling experience. If kids these days could only appreciate that, well, we'd have nothing to worry about.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
That's Hot?
So I heard the new Paris Hilton song the other day. And...I don't hate it.
This is not a good sign.
This is not a good sign.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
The "Awww" Factor
As I've been residing stateside since the start of July, it's been a few weeks now since I last saw an episode of Canadian Idol. However, I've been keeping up with the results online and I'm happy to report that my favourite contestant in this year's competition, Tyler Lewis, is still burning it up in the Top 9.
Why do I think this kid should be the next Canadian Idol? First of all, he can sing. But more importantly, it's all about the "Awww" factor. Just check out these snippets from Tyler's brief bio on Idol's website and you'll see what I mean:
-He's 20 years old (Awww!)
-He's from Saskatchewan (Awww!)
-He would love to have the chance to see Bon Jovi or Guns 'n' Roses in concert (Awww! I guess that's pretty rare in rural Saskatchewan)
-His dream is to have a career like Bryan Adams (Awww!)
-He's a huge fan of both steak and potatoes and his belt buckle that sports a beer bottle opener (Awww! Cute and practical!)
-The song that best describes him? "Small Town, Big Dreams" (Awww!)
Plus, as I recall from the first episode on which Tyler appeared, he plays hockey and he can drive a tractor (Awww! and Awww!). If that's not a red-blooded Canadian boy, I don't know what is.
I realize that the "Awww" factor is not nearly as potent for the guys in the Canadian Idol audience (assuming there are any) as it is for the gals. However, if Don Cherry was a fan of the show (and hey, anything's possible), I'm certain he'd back Tyler all the way. This kid is the Dougie Gilmour of Idol crooning.
So my fellow countrymen and women, I exhort you to cast your votes for Tyler Lewis. It will put a feeling of gladness in your heart and you'll be doing Canada proud by selecting a talented Idol for its citizens. Plus, he's really really cute. Did I mention that already?
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Deja Retro
So I'm back home in Ontario for a couple of weeks--loving the new season of Canadian Idol, Seamus O'Reagan in the mornings, and easy access to Tim Horton's maple swirl doughnuts, but not so much the dial-up internet access that goes with my old rural stomping grounds. But I don't mind being patient with my connection tonight because I am enjoying a favourite Sunday night ritual of mine, 102.1 The Edge's Sunday night retro show. Back in the day, the broadcast was from Whiskey Saigon (a club which always sounded way more fun on the radio than it actually was), but has since switched venues to a favourite undergrad haunt of mine, The Velvet Underground. I have no idea what the Velvet is like these days, as it's been many moons since I hauled my black fishnet tights/Doc Martens-clad feet onto its dance floor. But it used to be a pretty good time (even though it never quite matched the Dance Cave).
For the record (and this should surprise no one who's read this blog before), I was into retro way before retro was cool. As a teenager in the mid-1990s, I made a serious effort to become a self-educated New Wave aficianado. While many of my peers were digging Dave Matthews, Alanis Morissette or (insert Sideshow Bob shudder), Hootie and the Blowfish, I was stocking my music library with ABC, Human League, Bowie, the Cure, Duran Duran, General Public, Howard Jones, Joy Division, New Order, Pet Shop Boys, the Psychedelic Furs, Simple Minds, the Smiths, Split Enz, the Talking Heads, Talk Talk, and the Violent Femmes. At the time, the Edge's Sunday night retro show was the only place you could hear any of this stuff on the radio. Now of course any adult contemporary/pop station worth its salt has some kind of cheeseball 80s request hour on its daily programming schedule. But the Edge is still the best place to hear consistently good 80s music in a retro show. I highly recommend tuning in--you won't be disappointed. Unless 80s New Wave/ska/punk music is just totally not up your alley. But how can that be possible?
For the record (and this should surprise no one who's read this blog before), I was into retro way before retro was cool. As a teenager in the mid-1990s, I made a serious effort to become a self-educated New Wave aficianado. While many of my peers were digging Dave Matthews, Alanis Morissette or (insert Sideshow Bob shudder), Hootie and the Blowfish, I was stocking my music library with ABC, Human League, Bowie, the Cure, Duran Duran, General Public, Howard Jones, Joy Division, New Order, Pet Shop Boys, the Psychedelic Furs, Simple Minds, the Smiths, Split Enz, the Talking Heads, Talk Talk, and the Violent Femmes. At the time, the Edge's Sunday night retro show was the only place you could hear any of this stuff on the radio. Now of course any adult contemporary/pop station worth its salt has some kind of cheeseball 80s request hour on its daily programming schedule. But the Edge is still the best place to hear consistently good 80s music in a retro show. I highly recommend tuning in--you won't be disappointed. Unless 80s New Wave/ska/punk music is just totally not up your alley. But how can that be possible?
Monday, May 15, 2006
Pour Some Sugar on Me
It recently came to my attention that my most favourite 1980s hair-metal band, Def Leppard, has formed an unholy alliance with Journey for their upcoming tour this summer. No way! Way! Pretty friggin' sweet, if you ask me. I can't imagine a concert tour more jam-packed with power chords, guitar kicks, and earnest, bare-chested, bandanna-ed balladeering than this one. Sadly, they will not be making a stop in Toronto--for once, Buffalo has one-upped us on something. Talk about bringin' on the heartbreak.
Anyway...I'm not too devastated about it because I've been to see Def Leppard in concert in Toronto twice. Go ahead, mock me. I'm cool with it. I earned my serious concert cred as a teenager, delirious from sunstroke or caught up in a bone-crushing mosh pit at Molson Park, taking in then-unheard of Canadian bands like the Tea Party, Our Lady Peace, I Mother Earth and Big Sugar. I've since dropped all pretense of being a hip concertgoer. Now, it's all about listening to my inner cheeseball. Life's too short to deny my retro-pop instincts. Besides, to their credit, Def Leppard puts on a truly kick-ass show. And it's kind of nice to be among the youngest members of a concert audience for a change.
I'll finish off this post with a link to the band's offical site (where, under Vivian's Diary, you can read his latest entry titled "My Pet Monkey") as well as a sampling of some of Def Leppard's more surreal lyrics. These guys know how to wail.
"Love is like a bomb, baby, c'mon get it on/Livin' like a lover with a radar phone..."
"I'm runnin' with the wind, a shadow in the dust/And like the drivin' rain, yeah/Like the restless rust/I never sleep..."
"It's such a magical mysteria when you get that feelin'/Better start believin'..."
"I'll be your satellite of love"
"Take it, take it, take it from me/I got an itchy finger following me..."
"C'mon Steve..."
Anyway...I'm not too devastated about it because I've been to see Def Leppard in concert in Toronto twice. Go ahead, mock me. I'm cool with it. I earned my serious concert cred as a teenager, delirious from sunstroke or caught up in a bone-crushing mosh pit at Molson Park, taking in then-unheard of Canadian bands like the Tea Party, Our Lady Peace, I Mother Earth and Big Sugar. I've since dropped all pretense of being a hip concertgoer. Now, it's all about listening to my inner cheeseball. Life's too short to deny my retro-pop instincts. Besides, to their credit, Def Leppard puts on a truly kick-ass show. And it's kind of nice to be among the youngest members of a concert audience for a change.
I'll finish off this post with a link to the band's offical site (where, under Vivian's Diary, you can read his latest entry titled "My Pet Monkey") as well as a sampling of some of Def Leppard's more surreal lyrics. These guys know how to wail.
"Love is like a bomb, baby, c'mon get it on/Livin' like a lover with a radar phone..."
"I'm runnin' with the wind, a shadow in the dust/And like the drivin' rain, yeah/Like the restless rust/I never sleep..."
"It's such a magical mysteria when you get that feelin'/Better start believin'..."
"I'll be your satellite of love"
"Take it, take it, take it from me/I got an itchy finger following me..."
"C'mon Steve..."
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Rap Traxx Dee-Lite
Reminiscing about 680 CFTR the other day got me wondering where and how I might procure Rap Traxx albums. Produced by the prestigious PolyTel record label, Rap Traxx tapes were a must-have on the grade five party circuit. Mike Boon's blog (which is also packed with Canadian content) has an extraordinarily helpful list of the songs located on four Rap Traxx albums. I have many a fond memory of listening to hits from the original Rap Traxx like Tone Loc's "Wild Thing" (which, after being broadcast in class during lunch time, resulted in our school principal confiscating my classmate's tape), Rob Base and D.J. E-Z Rock's "It Takes Two" (an old-school classic), and Salt-n-Pepa's "Push It" (which actually scandalized me when I was younger, but not as much as "Let's Talk About Sex"). Rap Traxx 2 has equal sentimental value, with such tunes as Young M.C.'s "Bust a Move" ("Dressed in yellow/She said hello/Come and sit next to me you fine fellow!"), Nenah Cherry's "Buffalo Stance," Tone Loc's "Funky Cold Medina," and Rob Base and D.J. EZ Rock's "Joy and Pain" (which was the first hip-hop song I can remember dancing to--it was in a friend's basement at an all-girl slumber party. Very street.)
Sadly, I never bought my own Rap Traxx tapes. It seemed like no matter whose house I went to, all my friends had them, so I invested in Madonna, Amy Grant, and Wilson Phillips tapes instead. Oh Rap Traxx tapes, why did I ever take you for granted? I've been keeping an eye out for them at garage sales and flea markets, but perhaps not surprisingly, they are difficult to come by. I mean, who in their right mind would sell off their Rap Traxx tapes? Oh well. I guess I'll just have to bust a move to Wilson Phillips instead. We create our own challenges in life, I suppose.
Sadly, I never bought my own Rap Traxx tapes. It seemed like no matter whose house I went to, all my friends had them, so I invested in Madonna, Amy Grant, and Wilson Phillips tapes instead. Oh Rap Traxx tapes, why did I ever take you for granted? I've been keeping an eye out for them at garage sales and flea markets, but perhaps not surprisingly, they are difficult to come by. I mean, who in their right mind would sell off their Rap Traxx tapes? Oh well. I guess I'll just have to bust a move to Wilson Phillips instead. We create our own challenges in life, I suppose.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Radio Ga-Ga
If, as those sage social commentators, the Buggles, told us back in 1979, video killed the radio star, then it is nothing short of miraculous that broadcast radio is showing any vital signs at all twenty-six years later. Cornered on two fronts by the onslaught of iTunes and ever-multiplying satellite radio stations, what remains of old-school AM/FM, dee-jayed radio is being forced to take its last stand. Given the quality of "programming" that most of these stations have had on offer over the past couple of decades, it's tough to make a case for broadcast radio's survival. What can they offer listeners that iTunes and satellite radio can't? Hmmm. Traffic reports and weather reports. Bland, ingratiating dee-jays who sling slogans, yak about contests, and re-hash Entertainment Tonight ad nauseum, but couldn't cough up an articulate opinion on music if their job depended on it (which, lucky for them, it doesn't). The syndicated sap of "Delilah." Oh yeah, and ads. But those aren't really so bad, in comparison.
I might not care about the fate of radio at all if it wasn't for two Toronto radio stations that have kept my faith in the broadcast medium alive over the past fifteen years. One is 102.1 The Edge, which, fortunately, is still going strong and strives to maintain its vital role in the city's alt-rock community. If you live outside of Toronto, you can check the station out via their website--a feature that is much-loved by many the ex-pat Torontonian.
The second station to which I wish to devote this paean to the dying art of broadcast radio is the dearly departed 680 CFTR. The station currently adheres to a news radio format, but many inhabitants of the GTA who came of age in the late 1980s and early 1990s have cherished memories of CFTR as the coolest pop station around. The fact that it was AM radio did not deter me and my friends from tuning in day and night (when, as any AM radio aficianado knows, the broadcast is accompanied by a charming high-pitched buzz kind of like communication intercepted from the alien mothership). To the best of my memory, the daily programming schedule went something like this:
Morning: The Jesse and Gene Show
The early morning shenanigans of Jesse and Gene provided junior highschoolers province-wide with any number of crude jokes and kick-ass comebacks to quote repeatedly to one another throughout the day. We also revered them for their virtuouso prank calling performances. Regular highlights included: Wreck-a-Wedding-Wednesdays, Spousal Arousal, Jesse and Gene's World Tour, Billy-Bob's Birthday Roundup (or was it Billy and Bobby's?), and, of course, the requisite call-in guest gags that involved getting dignitaries such as the Mayor or Gowan to say things like "There is no "f" in onion." Memorable songs included the Hamster song (to wit: "Hamster hamster, day or night/ hamster in a casserole is doin' it right/because they're nutritious/and oh so delicious/when they're in season/they taste pretty pleasin'"), and, after the 1993 federal election, "Bye Bye Campbell."
Midday: The top 12 at 12 was the highlight of the lunch hour, helmed, as I recall, by Tony Monaco.
After school: My beloved Tarzan Dan was the sole purveyor of tunes in this prime dee-jay slot. He was wacky and witty, loud but charming, and listening to his show was the best way to wind down after a long day in the eighth grade. By far, the hottest countdown of the day was Tarzan Dan's top 6 at 6, for which legions of teens called in to cast their votes for the likes of Bon Jovi, Wrex-n-Fx, Naughty By Nature, and Alanis (as pop princess, pre-"Jagged Little Pill").
Evening: As fond as I was of Tarzan Dan, I must confess that Cat Spencer was actually my favourite CFTR dee-jay. His domain was the top 10 at 10, which had a definite more suave and smooth night-time feel to it. He also refereed the numerous dedications that various of my lovesick/angst-ridden peers would call in over the course of the evening. And of course, Sunday night you had to tune in to Sex with Sue.
If 680 CFTR had any weaknesses as a pop station, it was its whoring out of Saturday morning programming to Rick Dees' syndicated top 40 countdown, and also the way in which "I Will Always Love You" was on half-hourly rotation throughout the entire fall and winter of 1992/1993. But these faults are slight and they do not hamper my nostalgia for 680 in the least. I loved that station with all my pre-teen heart and then some.
I still remember that devastating day it switched formats. Us loyal listeners were dumped out in the cold of a new and unfamiliar radio era. Some, like myself, tried to numb the pain by swallowing our pride and tuning in to rival station AM640 (now a talk radio station, but then the second-string pop radio station next to 680). After 640 folded as well, I meandered into the skid radio territory of Q107 for a while, which had the unfortunate side effect of me buying a Pink Floyd cassette. Finally, I came home to the Edge and I haven't budged since. Hopefully, even with the threats new technologies pose, at least one Toronto broadcast radio institution will stay alive in the years to come. At this point, I'm too fragile to handle another radio fatality.
I might not care about the fate of radio at all if it wasn't for two Toronto radio stations that have kept my faith in the broadcast medium alive over the past fifteen years. One is 102.1 The Edge, which, fortunately, is still going strong and strives to maintain its vital role in the city's alt-rock community. If you live outside of Toronto, you can check the station out via their website--a feature that is much-loved by many the ex-pat Torontonian.
The second station to which I wish to devote this paean to the dying art of broadcast radio is the dearly departed 680 CFTR. The station currently adheres to a news radio format, but many inhabitants of the GTA who came of age in the late 1980s and early 1990s have cherished memories of CFTR as the coolest pop station around. The fact that it was AM radio did not deter me and my friends from tuning in day and night (when, as any AM radio aficianado knows, the broadcast is accompanied by a charming high-pitched buzz kind of like communication intercepted from the alien mothership). To the best of my memory, the daily programming schedule went something like this:
Morning: The Jesse and Gene Show
The early morning shenanigans of Jesse and Gene provided junior highschoolers province-wide with any number of crude jokes and kick-ass comebacks to quote repeatedly to one another throughout the day. We also revered them for their virtuouso prank calling performances. Regular highlights included: Wreck-a-Wedding-Wednesdays, Spousal Arousal, Jesse and Gene's World Tour, Billy-Bob's Birthday Roundup (or was it Billy and Bobby's?), and, of course, the requisite call-in guest gags that involved getting dignitaries such as the Mayor or Gowan to say things like "There is no "f" in onion." Memorable songs included the Hamster song (to wit: "Hamster hamster, day or night/ hamster in a casserole is doin' it right/because they're nutritious/and oh so delicious/when they're in season/they taste pretty pleasin'"), and, after the 1993 federal election, "Bye Bye Campbell."
Midday: The top 12 at 12 was the highlight of the lunch hour, helmed, as I recall, by Tony Monaco.
After school: My beloved Tarzan Dan was the sole purveyor of tunes in this prime dee-jay slot. He was wacky and witty, loud but charming, and listening to his show was the best way to wind down after a long day in the eighth grade. By far, the hottest countdown of the day was Tarzan Dan's top 6 at 6, for which legions of teens called in to cast their votes for the likes of Bon Jovi, Wrex-n-Fx, Naughty By Nature, and Alanis (as pop princess, pre-"Jagged Little Pill").
Evening: As fond as I was of Tarzan Dan, I must confess that Cat Spencer was actually my favourite CFTR dee-jay. His domain was the top 10 at 10, which had a definite more suave and smooth night-time feel to it. He also refereed the numerous dedications that various of my lovesick/angst-ridden peers would call in over the course of the evening. And of course, Sunday night you had to tune in to Sex with Sue.
If 680 CFTR had any weaknesses as a pop station, it was its whoring out of Saturday morning programming to Rick Dees' syndicated top 40 countdown, and also the way in which "I Will Always Love You" was on half-hourly rotation throughout the entire fall and winter of 1992/1993. But these faults are slight and they do not hamper my nostalgia for 680 in the least. I loved that station with all my pre-teen heart and then some.
I still remember that devastating day it switched formats. Us loyal listeners were dumped out in the cold of a new and unfamiliar radio era. Some, like myself, tried to numb the pain by swallowing our pride and tuning in to rival station AM640 (now a talk radio station, but then the second-string pop radio station next to 680). After 640 folded as well, I meandered into the skid radio territory of Q107 for a while, which had the unfortunate side effect of me buying a Pink Floyd cassette. Finally, I came home to the Edge and I haven't budged since. Hopefully, even with the threats new technologies pose, at least one Toronto broadcast radio institution will stay alive in the years to come. At this point, I'm too fragile to handle another radio fatality.
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Karaoke Dreams
Goals are important in all aspects of life: careers, relationships, shoe shopping, breakdancing, and, of course, karaoke. It so happens that my life-long karoake dreams can be summed up in three songs:
1. Islands in the Stream - Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers
2. Whenever I Call You Friend - Kenny Loggins and Stevie Nicks
3. Don't Go Breaking My Heart - Elton John and Kiki Dee
Yes, all three are gloriously cheesy duets from the late 1970s-early 1980s. In my mind, performing any one of them would be the ultimate karaoke achievement. The trouble is, no one seems to share my vision. Sigh. Oh well. Some day, somewhere, my dream will be realized. I just have to believe.
1. Islands in the Stream - Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers
2. Whenever I Call You Friend - Kenny Loggins and Stevie Nicks
3. Don't Go Breaking My Heart - Elton John and Kiki Dee
Yes, all three are gloriously cheesy duets from the late 1970s-early 1980s. In my mind, performing any one of them would be the ultimate karaoke achievement. The trouble is, no one seems to share my vision. Sigh. Oh well. Some day, somewhere, my dream will be realized. I just have to believe.
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