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So who is and isn’t a musician here

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I was just wondering to myself today about how many of you, my good readership, are musicians and who isn’t. I’d like to know for a number of reasons. No, this is not to embarrass anyone or start some kind of mid evil Inquisition folks.

It’s just to:

(1) to tailor topics.
(2) and concentrate on certain categories

Just a simple answer would do here folks, nothing earth shattering.

You could state “Musician” or “Non-Musician”. What instruments you play and maybe what type of gear you have. If your a “non-Musician”, then tell us what genre of music gets you going! If you have any interesting or entertaining events might be good for a laugh, I know we all have 1 or 2 of them up our sleeves!

So state your case and get back to us … we’re waiting!

Keep on Jammin’




General Information about Glenn Gould

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A little bit of Glenn Gould trivia for all of those interested.

(1) Glenn Gould’s mother played the organ at St. Andrew’s Church, 73 Simcoe Street, Toronto. Central Presbyterian church in Toronto

(2) His childhood home was32 Southwood Dr

(3) His summer home in Uptergrove Ont., near lake Simcoe/Orillia.

(4) Buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto Canada in the Eastern part, section 38, plot 1050 row 1088

(5) His apartment was at 110 St. Clair ave W.

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Keep on Jammin’

Funny thing happened on the way to the Vatican

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Well my mother works in a church and the church decided hey, why not go the the Vatican for a holiday! She also had the idea in he head that mys sister’s son A.J. who is half Italian, might be interested in going to Italy and maybe see some relatives there time permitting. Nice idea there mom!

A.J., is a great kid around 17 years old. He is unbelievably smart but not too ambitious. He has some great taste in music and tried the guitar but dropped it early in his oh too short career. He is a really cool kid!

So last night as they boarded the chartered bus to take them to the airport, my dad and aunt Helen saw them off and then went home to have a cup of tea. After wards they would then go out for dinner at my Aunt’s favorite restaurant, dad’s treat.

So, A.J., my mom and around 27 older people (yes 27 older people) were finally off to see the Pope!

Back at home having their tea 1/2 an hour later, my aunt was reminiscing about the time she and her mother went to Rome and had the time of her life! “Oh the places we went, the art we saw and we met the Pope!” she said to my father! Screeeeech! They then heard the sound of thump, thump, thump, getting louder, louder and louder!

The door swung open, my mom flew by both of them with their tea cups just about in front of their mouths, grabbed something from the bedroom while screaming something unbecoming of my her and then said “A.J. forgot his wallet” all while running back out the back door!

My dad and aunt looked through the dinning room window towards the front of the house only to see the charted bus stopped there with the bus door open, the driver and some of the passengers looking perturbed and A.J. was looking out his window with a smile on his face! Priceless!

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I wonder if the Pope had good old A.J. in mind when he was thinking this one up?

Keep on Praying!!!

A Canadian Amp called Traynor

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I never did have an interest in the sound that Traynor amps had so I didn’t pay any attention to them. No great guitar player played on one except my most influential guitar teacher Chris P. Even the place that he taught at, the old “Alonzo’s Music” on Colbourne St. in Brantford which is now called LA Music, was stacked to the ceiling with Traynor amps. Ah, but Mike Defo from the Brantford 80’s band “Vigilance” used Traynor guitar and P.A’s. Boy did I envy his playing as a young guitar player!

petetraynor.gif Peter Traynor is a longtime friend to Dominic Troiano, both from Toronto area , who made these Traynor amplifiers that are the most famous amplifiers that ever came out of Canada.

Troiano and the boys from “Bush” were the first band to take that equipment across the border and play it in the USA.

Peter Traynor isn’t a wealthy man, because he sold out to the person that was funding him.

Anyway, it’s a company called Yorkville Sound. It’s probably one of the biggest corporations in Canada, but it is Bush’s amplifiers that were made by Peter Traynor that actually broke through in the United States and made them money.

traynorhead300×161.jpg Traynor went well out of his way to make sure he got it right for them. He was a great innovator. He’s a genius and a very important person in the Canadian culture of music. After the infamous accident in Death Valley on their way to Vegas, they played the gig, and it was all that Traynor gear – the guitar amp, the bass amp… they just dusted it off, stuck things back on, and it all worked. Talk about Canadian toughness, I guess he got that toughness from our way of dominating the ice in HOCKEY!!!

I was inspired to write this post after reading a “Bush” site about John Prakask, the great bass player from the band.

Keep on Jammin’

It’s wonderful to be a home owner

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I can’t believe that we’ve owned our house for almost 7 years. For a time we didn’t think we’d ever be able to own a house. In fact it was my wife that finally convinced me that we could do it and you know what she was right. We are doing better in our own home than when we rented an apartment.

I think it was the whole idea of applying formortgages that scared me. Well applying for one, getting it and having to pay it off. We were really lucky though when we got our mortgage. The interest was unbelievably low at the time and for the first six months we didn’t even pay any interest, then we paid 0.5% for another 6 months or so … and then it slowly crept up to about 3.75% by the end of the first 5 years that we owned our home. Obviously we had a variable mortgage. Even though our interest rates increased over the years that we had the first mortgage ours was still lower than many of our friends who purchased their homes just before we did, or even a few months later. Our timing was fantastic!

Last year we applied for a mortgage renewal. Since it was our first renewal that was a bit scary. We actually toyed with the idea of either getting one of those secured loans or perhaps even to Remortgage when we were renewing because we are in the middle of renovating and we’d slowed down for a bit. I wanted to just borrow some money and hire someone to finish the work, but we decided not to do that.

When we did get our first mortgage we found it nerve wracking. The banks look into your credit history and want to know all the nitty gritty details of your finances before they’ll approve your mortgage request. Plus you never know how much of a mortgage you’ll qualify for until they tell you. Now that we’ve been through all of that I’m glad the bank did their homework on us and checked us out thoroughly. I mean, they approved a mortgage that we’d be able to pay. Wouldn’t it have been awful if they let us decide how much of a mortgage we wanted for a home and it ended up that we’d purchased a home that we couldn’t really manage the payments for? That’d be awful.

The mortgage that we were approved for was a little less than we’d been hoping for, but as you can see, we managed to get a house that we’re very happy with, in a great neighborhood, close to work and we’re happy with what we ended up having. We can afford it. The payments are more than manageable, even with my wife off work due to illness, and we’ve even managed to pay a bit extra on our mortgage so if we’re lucky we might have it all payed off in less than 15 years.

How have things turned out for you with your home mortgages? Or Do you even have a home? If you don’t – are you a bit nervous about going through the whole buying and mortgage approval process?

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