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Archives for 2009

The band Peeler is coming to Toronto Aug. 21-22/09

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I first ran into Craig when he was doing a solo gig way back in Oct. 2007 at the Arlington Hotel’s Capron’s Cavern, in Paris Ontario. The occasion was a good friends 50th birthday party. Some how my buddies wife got a hold of him and he played there that night for the event. I brought along my guitar and they wanted me to play a couple of songs, so why not get up and play!

Anyway, playing that night Craig and I did a few tunes together and it was just the perfect little gig! We both connected flawlessly and it was brilliant. I know Craig, I’m still trying to get that night’s video that was taken!
In all honesty Craig, I was drawn to your Vox Tonelab LE system! I did a couple of small set’s throughout the night to give the man a break.

This modern rocker’s bio is neat to read! His style is straight forward and he doesn’t disappoint! To get a good idea of his musical format, his interview at the NOW lounge is a nice example of the guitarist background and where he is going.

So I just want to bring Peeler into your musical experience for those unlucky ones who have not been exposed to playing. So come on out to see this guys show at Casey’s, 123 Front St W, in Toronto Aug. 21-22 to see what I mean! I know I’ll be there! I’ll be the guy with the oversize BIC lighter waving in the air.

Keep on Jammin’ Peeler!




I got a Match PIK for a birthday present

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I recently received a belated birthday present from a volunteer at our hospital.

She came up to me in my work area and told me to close my eyes and hold out my hand. I thought it was a joke and I thought it would be nice to be at the butt end of one for a change, so I did what I was told. She then dropped what seemed to feel like a piece of cardboard in my hand and excitedly opened my eyes! What I found was what looked like a match pack, but the wording on it said Match Pik?

At that time, everyone around me was looking at me including Connie and they were all smiling. I thought wow, a pack of matches, how nice?! She then said “Happy Birthday Chris!”. I followed up with “Oh, you shouldn’t have!”.

Upon further examination of this bright red pack of matches that I just accepted as a birthday gift, I saw the words “Jim Dunlop USA” near the bottom of it. At this point I was thinking to myself “What the hell is this?”.

matchpik

Looking back at Connie, she was laughing at this point and said “Open it!” When I did, I found six .88 mm grey guitar picks inside! What a fabulous gift! I’ve never seen anything quite like this before so I gave her a little hug and we all had a laugh at my expense.

Keep on Jammin’

The Village People are still at it?

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The Village People, those crazy 1970’s concept band kidz, are still at it today. Songs like YMCA, Macho Man or We Want You to some music lovers, is the soundtrack to their youth! They, to some music lovers dismay, are still dancing well into the new millennium after 30 years. After a reported 85 million records sold, they must be onto something?

Ok, I have something to admit to you all on this post. Yes, I did dance to a few of their songs at a high school dance, but in my defense, it was because everyone else was!

The village People’s music was everywhere way back in the day. Of coarse there was still folk and rock styles playing on the airwaves but, this music had that catchy beat to it to appealed to most of the general public.

The one thing that I want to know is, did any of them play an instruments? Actually, I don’t really care, it’s just a general question. Not that I hated these gentleman’s style of songs but, their music(the structure/configuration and level of difficulty to play live, a band in the background that is) but, sometimes it just rubbed me the wrong way. This is just me, I always look for this quality in a song while listening to any form of music.

thevillagepeople The history of the band was always something of a mystery to me in my youth. Of coarse we did have the internet back then. When I was in high school, I remember writing very basis computer functions on a piece of cardboard that you placed into some sort of device that was attached to this OLD, HUGE computer! This was how information back then, besides from books, was read.

During the bands hay days, I had an old buddy of mine who was really big in the disco scene. His name was Sal, and in his parents basement, they paid homage to this genre of music.

They made this very elaborate bar they had to entertain their house guests. At first Sal had his folks buy him this MASSIVE stereo system. Now here is where it gets both bizarre and wonderful.

Once disco started to gain more common acceptance throughout the world, he had them open up their wallet and install a disco dance floor about 1/4 the size of the one that they had in the movie Saturday Night Fever!

The lights and how they interacted with the music that went through his stereo underneath their dance floor was a real wonder to the eyes. This device that he had was called a Light Organ. It made the lights turn on and off to the beat of the music!

When you heard the bass, mid range or the treble sound in a song, certain lights would light up on the floor. It was really neat as a kid. (Note: this is for Chris Noto and other Rickenbacker lovers out there, in 1971 they made a guitar with this light organ technology in it!)

The Village People’s popularity went up and down over the years, yet their songs still stay alive in the back of our subconscious … until it comes up in conversation. We may hear one of these songs being played at a wedding and we just think about the old days when we boogied on down and maybe what we wore during those times … am I right?!

Now the question that I have for you is, did you dance to any of the Village People’s hits when you were young AND are you still proud of yourself after all these years? (LOL!)

Keep on Jammin’

You know the Toronto garbage strike is over when …

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The City of Toronto and the striking outside workers union has just about reached a conclusion to their 39 day labour dispute.

My wife and I, living in the Danforth/Beach area, have not noticed that much of a garbage issue during the strike. For the most part, people here have been stepping up to the civic plate and helping keep our little area clean for all of us. Well except for our renter Redneck Neighbors that is! Unfortunately, I’ve seen on TV some parts of the city have not been that successful. Some people here can be quite the bunch of “City’its”! (Ha!)

As a matter of fact, last weekend I decided to drop off 4 bags of garbage at the Bermondsey Transfer station. I’ve heard that the waiting time for drop off was around an hour long. So, I brought along the Saturday Star newspaper, a coffee and some juice with me in anticipation of a long lineup.

As I drove there, I was wondering what I would be up against. On most TV reports, you see angry citizens screaming at the striking workers. On other news clips, you see strikers screaming at angry citizens. You think to yourself, why can’t we just get along?

To my pleasant surprise, I was the only one in line … besides the strikers that is. I slowly drove up to the gate. I was greeted by these two really nice guys. We chatted for around 3 minutes and they said ” if you want, you can just drive right on up?”. Wow, absolutely NO CONFRONTATION so far.

Then I drove up to the gate. There were around 8-10 guys just milling around and talking. Beside them under a really big tree was about 20 strikers, just passing the time by playing cards and drinking coffee.

The guy at the other gate was really cool. I stopped the car, got out and started a conversation with him. It was nice to see that the stories the TV stations were airing where totally opposite to what I was going through.

Now a bunch of guys came up, around 10 of them, we shook hands, talked for a while, had a smoke, I finished my coffee and then they asked very politely “Do you have any garbage you’d like to drop off?” I then said yes and all of them proceeded to the back of my car!

At this point, I was starting to get nervous. We are only allotted 2 bags per car and I had 4. We’ve been told through out the dispute to save all of our recycling for later date and the four bags was our total of garbage for what had been a month or more of garbage strike (maybe 6 weeks if you count when the last garbage pick up was!). I opened the trunk and they just went in and grabbed everything! I sheepishly asked if that was ok and they replied “Sure, why not?”

So that was my big experience with the BIG GARBAGE STRIKE OF 2009! Through all of the gloom and doom that the media was portraying to us and the rest of the world, it was not as bad as they said – at least in my experience.

The latest news regarding the garbage and civil workers strike …

Garbage collectors were back on the streets early this morning, clearing out the trash from overflowing garbage bins after they – and other outside workers – ratified the latest settlement Thursday.

Whew! Glad that’s over with!

Spinal Tap on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart

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My ever so vigilant wife found out that the Mock Rock gods Spinal Tap were going to perform 2 songs on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

She PVR’d it, or TIVO’d for my US readers, for me and as usual, they were right out of this world!

The 2 songs they did was from their latest album titled Back from the Dead!

The first one was called Funky Sex Farm (3 of 4). It is an ultra modern day funk sound that is riveting from start to finish! Who says old men can’t ROCK!

spinaltap David St. Hubbins, who is played by actor Michael McKean, is fabulous in this performance. The solo that he did was really sweet! Playing a lead while singing takes some practice and talent. He certainly has both down pat! He also has a Jeff Beck sound to his playing throughout the whole song, NICE! “Fathering your live stock” was the funniest line in the song!

Nigel Tufnel‘s, who is played by actor Christopher Guest, guitar style in this one was simple and to the point. When the band was being interviewed in the beginning of the second song, Nigle was so funny. I just about fell off the couch!

Next, is the bass player with the Lemmy mustache from Motorhead. Derek Smalls had a nice groove going on in this one. I was very impressed with his performance. He, like Nigel in the early years of Spinal Tap, was a simple, no nonsense kinda of player. I think some bass slapping would be perfect here.

At the end of this one, they ventured into a genre that I never thought spinal Tap would ever enter into … they rapped. G.D. that was hilarious! The song overall fit into their wheel house and most of all it was very tight.

The second tune(4 of 4)was a more bluesy type song called Give me some Money. They seemed to pull this one off perfectly. It’s got that Texas Rock feel to it with a 60’s keyboard oriented band sounds to it. straight forward R & R, too bad they they didn’t get all of it on the video.

So God bless and long live the boys in Spinal Tap and hopefully many more years of mock rocking to come!

Keep on Jammin’

The Toronto Beaches Jazz Festival was a blast!

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My wife and I went to the 21st Annual Toronto Beaches Jazz Festival and we just fell in love with this event! Imagine, 2 km of closed street with 50, yes you read that correctly, 50 bands playing on street! They were at just about every other corner. Each band that night played 3 sets from 7:00 pm to 11:00 pm. They all staggered their performances so as not to drown out each other.

It really was a magical night! We quickly found some parking, walked along the boardwalk and got to the beginning of the street fest faster then I thought we would.

We were first greeted by the sounds of a jazz fusion band with this fabulous violinist graciously blasting out solo with all he had! Then came the smell of the Beaches Festival, the FOOD! Note: if you plan to attend next years event, GO HUNGRY. Too many types of food to mention in this post.

The atmosphere was really electrifying. The relaxing buzz, that seemed to be coming from everywhere, was quite family friendly. Kidz, dogs and everything in between where out there last night. There weren’t all that many people walking around at first, but that certainly changed 2 hours later.

The styles were very diverse. We first witnessed a fusion band, then a Dixie land band, followed by Salsa/flamenco guitar players, a BIG BAND (all were really tight) then a blues band. The organizers were trying to highlight Big Band’s, Swing, Dixieland, Smooth, Post-Bop, Afro-Cuban, Fusion, Funk, R&B and Soul sounds. Wow, is to put it lightly.

This video captures the sounds of this band correctly. The Visual well …

At the end of the night the band we both found the most intriguing was a band called Project Phoenix. We were so impressed that we bought one of their CD’s titled Milestone. Go and listen to the song called “Jump for it” on their site. It was the last song they played last night and it was purely brilliant!

So if you love any of the styles that the Beaches Jazz Festival provides us at their event, then this is a must see for next year! See ya then!

Beaches Jazz Festival, Keep on Jammin’

It’s the summer time and making posts ain’t easy

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So I hope that everyone out there is having a great start to their summer!

As you may all ready have known, I have not been posting that much on this site. Well to tell you the truth, I’ve been working in the backyard gardening! Yes gardening! And let’s not forget the odd family adventure!

My wife and I have both been blessed with being bit by the gardening bug. We’ve had around 56 roses and about 1100 plants in there and loving every minute of it. We tend to be of the extreme variety.

Ever since I was quite young, I’ve had my fingers in the soil. It started off cutting the grass, de-weeding the flower beds and a bit of planting. Truth be told, I’m not that great at planting the greenery, my wife is strictly in charge of that area!

She is the one who does all the research into it and I must say that I do catch on eventually to her technique. There is so much to learn on gardening forums about this hobby that even to this day, it really blows my mind!

As for the family thing, I’ve been in Brantford more lately (sorry for not calling ya Dom, I will get around to it next time I’m there!) the biggest thing I had to do was putting up this massive fence at my parents.

Figuring out where exactly to start digging post holes, cementing them (I hope that they’re all relatively straight), placing the horizontal 2 x 4’s, making sure all is level … It was a hectic couple of days in the sun and rain, but it was all worth it. The multiple hangover days I could have done without.

So hopefully I get back to the task at hand that is to start to entertain you all with my less the grammatically correct writing/English!

Keep on Jammin’

The Cole Porter Movie called De-Lovely

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Cole Porter was a genius composer. I’ve played some of his tunes as a kid and as I have grown as a musician, I now have a better feel for how great this man really was.

At work the other day, I got into a conversation with a patient. We were talking about different styles of playing guitar and it gravitated to Cole Porter. He brought up this movie called De-Lovely and said that it was a must to see.

Since then I’ve been searching our TV for it to no avail. I’ve also tried calling up some video stores to see if they have it in their collection, no luck there either.

My question to all of you out there is, has anyone seen it? Is it really worth buying it?

Keep on Jammin’

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