Teenage Wasteland: Who Cloudcast

If you’re a Who fan like me, you should be listening to Barry Ratcliffe’s amazing podcasts. He has 11 episodes released so far, and they are filled with incredible selections of The Who’s music, with official releases, live versions, and wonderful insights, interviews, and commentary. You can find the podcasts on the WhoCloudcast Facebook page or directly on the MixCloud page. We know and love Barry as @TheWhoSeeker on Twitter. Long live rock!

The Promotion and Rehearsal of a New Album, 2012-style

I got another glimpse into the music industry on Tuesday, August 21^st, when I was given the chance to attend the recording of a televised concert for CMT, a Canadian country music television station. The featured artist was Colin James, which to me was interesting only because I associate Colin with a sub-genre of rock that mixes swing and blues and not with country. He has always been a versatile musician, capable in many categories, but having gone to the show and listened to his new CD, “Fifteen”, I’m still not sure I’d put a country label on him.

We were escorted up to the rooftop of the Corus Quay building, with breathtaking views of the downtown Toronto skyline in front of us and lake Ontario and the islands to the side. It was a perfect August evening, with its gorgeous sunset and moon sliver both bringing colour to the fading sky. The producer gave us all kinds of directions, from emergency procedures to reminders that we would likely be on camera at any given point during the recordings—no nose picking or grotesque facial expressions please! 

Technically, the stage had all sorts of different colour schemes for every song, and it never got boring to see the banks of lights change from number to number. Colin James also kept his guitar handler busy with an instrument rotation at every song. There were five cameras working the crowd and the stage at all times, including a jib, which is essentially a camera on a moveable arm that resembles the part of a sailing ship that it is named for.

Once we were herded to the centre of the audience area—no spectators off to the useless side!—our job was to hoot and holler at appropriate times and display enthusiasm for the set list. That part was easy, mainly because the show itself was featuring his new material and some familiar older hits, all of which I liked. What was more difficult was to stand for the better of two hours on a hard cement floor, especially when numbers had to be repeated because of audio problems or delivery mistakes from the band. That was the truly interesting part—watching the band work through new numbers live on stage, missing their cues or messing up their lyrics because they are likely fresh out of the studio and not quite well-rehearsed enough to know their new material inside and out. There was a huge contrast between the new songs and their more familiar standards, which were performed flawlessly. One song needed three run-throughs before the producer was satisfied, and this “redoing” was sometimes a bit tedious. One number I didn’t mind hearing more than once was the beautiful “Shed a Little Light” by singer-songwriter Foy Vance. I’m familiar with him due to his connection to Pete Townshend’s “In the Attic” podcasts, and I was only too happy to have a few listens of the song.

The one thing that made the repetition less boring was Colin James himself. He is so comfortable on stage and such a natural performer that he can laugh at his screw-ups and poke fun at himself. There were many self-deprecating jokes bandied about after he made mistakes, and the audience clearly appreciated his good humour before having to listen to a song more than once. In the end, the two hours passed rather quickly, and we were quite satisfied by the mini-concert we got to enjoy. I am now looking forward to seeing the final product, just to compare what I experienced last night to what the television audience will see and hear.

The Harrington Home

This is the home I used as an inspiration for Ian Harrington’s home in Toronto. I fell in love with it walking past it on the street one day, and took a picture. It struck me as the perfect house for an English family to have chosen, and I just loved all the beautiful architectural details on the front porch. In my book, I modified the second floor by making it bigger, but kept most of the other details intact. The perfect refuge for a rock star home.

Interview with Orange Country Reverb

Yesterday I had the pleasure of doing an interview with Constance Adams of Orange Country Reverb, a fantastic music blog that supports the Toronto indie scene. Have a peek at the thought-provoking questions she gave me, and how I answered them. My interview appears on their music blog.

Toronto Landmarks: Sam the Record Man

Los Angeles had Tower Records and Toronto had Sam The Record Man: not only were these iconic record stores, but much like the long yellow banner with its bright red lettering evoked Sunset Boulevard, the twin neon records of Sam’s storefront epitomised the Yonge Street strip as the destination for music fans in the Toronto of the 1970s. The three floors had it all: rock, pop, folk, jazz, blues, reggae, punk, classical, and all sorts of smaller niche markets like children’s albums, foreign language bands, and comedy. You could get lost searching the endless rack of its multiple levels, and I often did.

The chain was started by Sam and Sidney Sniderman in 1937, and the flagship store was established on Yonge Street in 1961. While the double-discs of neon surely helped draw shoppers and make Sam’s a Toronto landmark, it was the wealth of records that kept music fans coming back. I remember my first purchase there—it was Let It Be by the Beatles, for slightly less than $4, and I know that I bought most of my 45s there too through the mid to late parts of the 1970s. I can still see the yellow and red discs of Styx’s Equinox and The Who’s Who Are You dangling on strings from the ceiling as promotional displays of the new “coloured vinyl” phase. It must have worked as a marketing ploy because I still have both copies in my collection.

The linoleum floor was often dirty and tiles curled up under your feet or cracked as you walked by, and the albums snaked up far above my 13 year-old body’s maximum reach, but I loved every corner of the place. I always stole a glance or two at the good-looking sales assistants between finger flips of the alphabetical racks: the young men always wore some kind of cool, faded concert tee-shirt and a nice fitting pair of Levi’s or Lee’s. I admit that on more than one occasion I asked questions to the ones I had a crush on in my teenager years despite already knowing the answers.

The beauty of the Yonge Street strip in the late 70s and early 80s was the proliferation of record stores within two blocks of its Dundas intersection—A&A’s, Music World, and Sunrise Records were all a few steps away from Sam’s, and jumping between them to hunt down bargains kept prices low and allowed me to rapidly expand my collection in a few short years. My favourite aventure was always heading down on Boxing Day, which coincided with my birthday and allowed me to spend gifted money from that and from Christmas and get many popular releases at door crasher prices.

The ultimate tribute I chose to give Sam’s was to let it grace the opening pages of the first book in my series Behind Blue Eyes. It was a downtown destination for all Toronto music lovers, and so it seemed quite natural that one of my main characters would take her birthday money and spend it there. In those first few pages, she is my mirrored self, with the same Pink Floyd shirt and jeans, imitating me in every fashion except one—I never did meet my first love between those endless record racks. I did, however, just like her, walk out of Sam’s and find Eddie Money next door at A&A’s because on that day, the price was irrestible next door.

What is your favourite memory of Sam the Record Man?