WWW of Spin Turlock #11: "I've Grown Accustomed to Disgrace."..

"like breathing out and breathing in.."

Not really. I am comfortable with a number of things that would make my friends back east wince...

(Note to new readers: click on the highlighted links, it helps to explain what or who I'm talking about...Really!)


The Past Comes Back to Haunt Me Pt One: Here is a clip of yours truly doing a rendition of Gordie Lightfoots "Beautiful" on my kid sisters wedding in May 1990. Ten years ago, I would've been mortified about going public, but now, in my August-ine years, I'm comfortable with the Canuck-cum-indie rock quality of said crooning. Dedicated to noted Lightfoot fan, the late, great Gordon Spaeth...



The Past Comes back to Haunt Me, Part Deux: Here is an old 1988 interview with Jeff "Mono Man" Connolly from FFanzeen
Surprisingly, it reads well, in a demented car-wreck kind of way..Jeff's band, The Lyres were one of the few garage=rock bands of the era who walked it like they talked it. One of the best live acts then or now.


Alex Chilton...I don't know what happened to the 1988 interview I did with Alex backstage at Ontario Place Forum,when he was mock Bach's Tahp-ping. Doesn't matter, it read like all the other interviews of the time: the Big Star stuff is played down, the roots angle is played up. But what did you expect? Eno plays down his solo 70s output,too: none of that stuff,however much we may love it, sold for them, and that's that. I have one burning memory of Alex in concert at the El Mocambo in Toronto on a September Gurl night in 1987 doing a ripping version of Charlie Mingus' Theme For Lester Young. That, and a copy of Sister Lovers. should suffice for memories. First Jim Dickinson, now this. The south may rise again, but I'm not staying up nights.

WWW of Spin Turlock #10: Life in Grande Prairie, Part Deux

Some notes on this mockumentary: since it was filmed, The York Hotel has been put up for sale, and the City of Grande Prairie has put in a bid for the old place.


Simply Saucer/Crawlin Kingsnake guitarist and occasional sound guy for HECFI Stephen Foster correctly identified Duke's (where Shirley & I saw Shane Chisholm - see G-Mole #9) as the venue where the Killjoys played in 1998. Every touring Hamilton musician apparently has a story about Grande Prairie...

I should also point out that we live many blocks away from the 2-blocks max urban core of GP, whew!

WWW of Spin Turlock #9: Stuff I like...

Editorial dsiclaimer: G-Mole does not endorse using Bud Lite as a mixer, or "straight up", for that matter

These things, in the words of the hardly-lamented Chester, "make my life /a little bit brighter"

Greydyn Gatti hosts the 1919RadioZone program, which was (is?) originally broadcast at an ungodly hour on CKLN-FM in Toranna, ON. Hep time travellers can opt for the downloadable podcast version, now in its lucky 7th edition. There's lots of groovy six-tease garage, pop, and psych sides to be found here, but the hosts have the innate good sense to mix it up with 70s disco, kraut, noise & punk/early hardcore sides. His sometime-sidekick Toranna artist, Chrystal Snowden contributes materially to this show. (We shared oxygen once, but have never actually met, per se). Recommended.

Most of you knew I hosted a golden-age C&W radio show before I permanently put the accent on the "w" & relocated myself here. If you miss that kinda action, why don't you point your browser here...Janice has the goods. Really.

Another blog I religiously follow - and so should you - is the Hound Blog. Put together by long-time WFMU-FM host and Kicks magazine contributor, James Marshall, it will teach you important things about music, life, and how to cuss.

There's not a whole lot of live music to be heard in GP...not in the above-radar range venues anyway.. but when there is, Shirley & I try and show up. We enjoyed, for example, Shane Chisholm's recent show at Duke's

Shane plays a doghouse bass fashioned out of a 1970 vintage gas tank (shades of Washboard Hank, with whom Shane worked with!)and tours the C&W cover circuit, but manages to work his own material in. Judging by Hitchhiking Buddha, his latest release, it's pretty engaging. Not just another pretty hat, Buddha goes nationwide in Canada through Fontana North on March 23, 2010..

Lately, I've been stoked on what they used to call "red eyes": i.e. beer topped off with Clamato. It helps make budget beers last longer and go down smoother.

And how are YOU? bf.mowat@gmail.com

WWW of Spin Turlock #8: "This is only a test..."

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WWW of Spin Turlock #7: Laissez-faire le Bon Temps Roulet..

In light of Scott Brown's recent election to the U.S. Senate, here's a couple of reminders to our American readers why you can't laissez-faire no mo'.

1) You can't use over-mortgaged properties as equity
&

2) You can't expect Wall Street to police itself

Well, that's my political commentary for the day. Cosmo poster boy beats out Camelot. That's show biz, er, U.S politics, for ya. I just hope the saucy pic boosts G-Mole's daytime female readership. In the words of Cadillac Bill: "Ratings"

And speaking of show-biz & popular music, here's a good encapsulation of What Went Fown in the Aughts. You didn't miss much, apparently. Thanks to Robert "Robot" Hull for this one.

If you haven't already seen it, here's a 1988 vintage interview with Dave "Rave" Desroches, the former singer/guitarist for the Shakers & Teenage Head . Originally printed in the analogue pages of FFanzeen, I had forgotten ahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifbout this piece, which 20+ years later, makes a good companion piece to Liz Worth's Treat Me Like Dirt book.

More recently, FFanzeen editor Robert Barry Francos has been musing on life in his newly-adopted home of Saskatoon

And speaking of New York State of Minds, two last things:

1)NY Doll David Johansen appears on the "New York Outer Boroughs" (originally aired September 7, 2009) episode of Anthony Bourdain\s: No Reservations TV program, extolling the virtues of a Staten Island Tiki Bar.

1) I saw the Sam Mendes film Away We Go. It was funny in spots: a 30-something couple, expecting there first child, travel over North America to find a "home". En route, they meet "people with peculiar tastes" in Madison, Arizona,Miami and Montreal.
The latter city's adventure features a pole dancing sequence involving The Velvet Underground's "Oh Sweet Nothing" , one of my all-time fave music pieces on the planet.

The ending is kinda pat: hey, I wish I could come "home" to a ready-to-occupy mansion. One thing I noticed, though : put a beard & glasses on John Krasinski & he looks a LOT like former Tell The Divers bass guy, D Croz. I think that's about it...

Picture; John Krasinski, cleverly disguised as D Croz

WWW of Spin Turlock #6: "Too Many Cooks.."

Those glam n' giddy overachievers, The Kewpies are at it again! This time, they offer up a tribute to Frances Hannah Kerr & Teenage Head
with their version of Picture My Face, featuring the vocal stylin's of Fox Fiesta! Can a full length LP from the lads be far behind?

Some people I have found on the tube and on the net:


Anthony Bourdain provides a welcome contrast to the sometimes hoop n' pony aspects of the Food Network. Plus, he's had cool peeps like Nick Tosches on his show, although you could see Nicky visibly wince when the topic of Sinatra came up.

Speaking of food giants, why doesn't Peter Zaremba have his own show? That cunning sommelier's Busybuddy blog is a winsome blend of rock n' grub tour diary.

I am really happy that ex-Bonzo Dog Band, Monty Python & oh, ok, Rutle guy Neil Innes is touring again. I've said this before, but the young Innes is a perfect doppelganger for CFMU-FM Program Director James Tennant

Look,see for your yourselves! Both of 'em do the facial stubble thing...

Bonzo dog doodah band - urban spaceman
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WWW of Spin Turlock #5: "All of My Friends Were There"

I received my copy of Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk In Toronto & Beyond 1977 - 1981 right before Christmas (thanks Ralph!).
Liz Worth, the author of this surprisingly hefty tome - it clocks in at 373 pages - had been working on this for a couple of years now, talking to the handfull of people who made up the scene back then; most of whom I know and many of whom I count as friends.

Worth accurately captures their voices and juxtaposes them in a way that lets YOU be the judge of What Really went Down. In fact, her own voice rarely appears in the book: there's a brief intro, a list of characters, and the clips start rolling.
And that's dandy for those people who were involved, and fine for the fans of the form. I could see, say, people like John Armstrong or Lindsay Hutton eating this stuff up. They'd have an indoors field day with this, (especially true in Hutton's case: as Scotland is not equipped to deal with Canadian type winters. I digress...).If you own say, 5 - 6 singles from this time and place, it puts a face to the sound.

And if you're a resident of Hamilton, Ontario you might be sussed by the presence of of Teenage Head, Simply Saucer, & The Forgotten Rebels, the former two acts cast as important predecessors to the scene. My presemce in the book is minimal: by the time I became an active participant (80 -81), that scene was winding down. I heard about all this stuff while attending a rural high school, mainly through Peter Goddard's columns on the Toronto Star, but Queen Street in Kincardine is a looong way from Queen street Toronto.

Which leads me to the next point: I'm not sure how this would work for people who weren't involved. A couple of pages of historical context from the author, a discography and a time line might have helped.

I guess you could just read it for the anecdotes sake. There are lots of great stories, even if some of them are not substantiated. Steve Leckie's alledged demands for Kentucky Fried Chicken during a last-ditch attempt to get him the Big Recording Deal comes to mind, as does any story involving Crazy Harry.

Finally, I 've always wondered why people used to think I was in the Diodes. Thanks to the full-colour black & white photos in the book, I understand now....whew!

Photo: Paul Robinson, cleverly disguised as the author, kneeling with the Diodes