Exhibit A;
"Hound Dog" ~ Big Mama Thorton w/ Buddy Guy;
Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller were the greatest songwriters of the early rock & Roll/R&B era bar none. Their catalog reads like a how-to list for everything Rock & Roll, was, is and always should be. Which it is.
Exhibit B;
"Jail House Rock" ~ Elvis Presley;
How it took a couple of nice Jewish kids from New York to figure out how to take the the raw sounds of blues and doo-wop and modernize them for an new audience of white kids is one of those great unanswerable questions of pop culture history but Leiber and Stoller were there even before Phil Spector, Alan Freed, Bill Haley or Elvis. If not Sam Phillips. But while Phillips was a producer with a fine ear, he was no songwriter Leiber and Stoller were.
Exhibit C;
"Love potion number 9" ~ The Searchers;
The list of songs in their catalog includes no less than a hundred chart hits for a bewildering array of artists including, but not limited to;
The Beatles, Elvis Presley, Walker Bros, Rolling Stones, Ben E King, Drifters, Coasters, Wilbert Harrison, Beach Boys, Dion, Billy Thorpe, Searchers, Little Richard, The Crystals, Drifters, Brenda Lee, Bad Company, Tony Sheridan, The Hollies, Diamonds, Cheers, Freddie Bell, Big Mama Thorton, Jimmy Witherspoon, The Kinks, Lords, Groupies, Ronnie Hawkins, Dr.Feelgood, Otis Redding, Mickey Gilley, Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Burnett, Gene Vincent, Albert King, Koko Taylor,Dave Clark Five, Manfred Mann, Paramounts, Del Shannon, Animals, Merle Haggard, Link Wray, Frankie Lymon, Carl Perkins, Wayne Fontana, Ventures, Freddie & The Dreamers, Sha Na Na (of course) and ...ummm...Alvin and the Chipmunks, several times.
Exhibit D;
"Poison Ivy" ~ Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs;
The Duo started out in the 1950's as writers with hits for such blues and R&B figures as Big Mama Thorton, Wilbert Harrison and Jimmy Witherspoon before they were surprised to find one of those songs, "Hound Dog", become a hit for a young largely unknown white kid named Elvis. They would write a series of other hit song for him including "Love Me", "Loving You", "Don't", "Jailhouse Rock" and "King Creole". However most of their time would be writing numerous hits for black artists like the Coasters and Ben E King throughout the 1960's.
Exhibit E;
"I'm a hog for you" ~ The Lords;
They would also also branch out into owning record label Red Bird Records, which issued the Shangri-Las' "Leader of the Pack" and the Dixie Cups' "Chapel of Love" which they did not write however. As producers they also acted as mentors to the young Phil Spector. They also won a ton of awards.
Exhibit F;
"Kansas City" ~ The Beatles;
As time went on their tastes went to more elaborate pop songs that would lead to hits for Edith Piaf and Peggy Lee. They would continue into the 1970's with hits for Stealer's Wheel, Earth Wind and Fire, Elkie Brooks, George Benson, Steely Dan and Mezzo-soprano Joan Morris and her pianist-composer husband William Bolcom, which had little to do with rock and roll.
Exhibit G;
"Ruby Baby" ~ Dion;
However they also lived to see their early Rock and R&B hots are still covered down to the punk era by the likes of Dr.Feelgood, The Lambrettas, Los Straitjackets, Mink DeVille, El Vez, Queen, Mötley Crüe, Brownsville Station, Patti Smith, ZZ Top, Twisted Sister, The Cramps, AC/DC, MDC, White Stripes, Flotsam & Jetsam, Motorhead, Pennywise and The Blues Brothers (This version was the ending song of the movie, performed with other musicians such as Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and Cab Calloway), even Negativeland and John Oswald. They were usually good sports about that, if somewhat bemused.
Exhibit H;
"Searchin'" ~ The Coasters;
Jerry Leiber died at the age of 78 on August 22, 2011, from cardio-pulmonary failure.
Exhibit I;
"Stand by me" ~ Ben E. King;
Exhibit J;
"There goes my baby" ~ The Walker Bros.;
Exhibit K;
"Stand by me" ~ John Lennon;
Thursday, 25 August 2011
Saturday, 23 July 2011
The really long notes
In my earlier post I talked about some great really short songs, mostly punk. These are the obvious logical extension of punk's "less is more" philosophy which came as a result of the excesses of the psychedelic era, like long sprawling solos, rock operas, and endless Grateful Dead concerts that went on for days. I am down with that in theory. But you have to admit there were some really cool, really long songs of the psychedelic era. Before prog rock had to ruin everything.
The evolution of rock from the Jump Blues, Swing, R&B, Rockabilly, Doo-Wop, Honky-Tonk, Girl Group, Skiffle, Mersey Beat, Surf, Frat Rock, Folk Rock, Garage days of rock's first decade to the Psychedelic excess of the late 1960's was actually perfectly logical in retrospect. The first generation of Rock was based around the limitations of the jukebox single, tightly constructed dance songs or ballads that could fit onto a two and half to four minute single. AM radio simply followed that model. However by the late sixties the single had been taken over as the main focus of Rock by the long playing album which meant that artists were no longer faced with the time limitations of the 45 single. Jazz musicians had already been exploring this new freedom with the likes of John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman abandoning structured, song oriented swing in favour of long jam oriented suites with extended solos that could take up the entire side of an album. Many Rock musicians were fully aware of these developments and were eager to engage in some of the same freedoms.
This brings us to the other change in rock in it's second generation aside from the technical development of the LP, and that is the fact that both the artists and audience had now grown up listening to Rock and Roll and were not just high school kids and working class youth but now included middle class, educated and cultured youth who would never have been caught dead listening to Rock and Roll in the 1950's. It's often forgotten that in Rock's first decade few university students took it seriously and instead listened to either jazz, folk or pop vocals. However by the late sixties there were a whole generation of youth who had grown up with Rock and Roll as well as being exposed to jazz and classical music as well as poetry and high literature and art. For these musicians the freedom of being able to explore these ideas in the context of Rock and Roll was perfectly logical. Others had also developed ideals of virtuoso musicianship that opened the way for extended jazzy solos and instrumentals. Add in to this the influence of psychedelic drugs, pot and/or heroin as well in place of the liquor and pills of the 1950's as an added ingredient. The new medium of FM radio, looking for a way to differentiate itself from AM radio's top 40 formats eagerly embraced these new approaches.
Later this sort of experimentation would lead to sprawling, wretched excess of course. And hopelessly wrongheaded ideas like rock operas and classical rock fusions. Which would in turn lead to an inevitable back to basics reactions like punk, new wave, glam, pub rock and revivals of rockabilly and garage.
But as necessary as these reactions were, that doesn't mean that some of the early extended explorations of the psychedelic era should just be dismissed as bloated hippie crap. Some of the classic examples still stand as solid rock songs in their own right. Some are really just basic garage or R&B songs stretched out with long solos, (ie Iron Butterfly, CCR, Chambers Bros, Black Sabbath, Ten Years After, The Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray") while others are jazz influenced jams (Paul Butterfield, Jefferson Airplane, Pink Floyd, Pharaoh Sanders crossover epic) and then there are conceptual art pieces like The Velvet's "Heroin" or Arlo Guthrie's comedy jam.
The Top 20 over 7 minutes long (I figure they are so long that a Top 40 would go on forever);
1. The Chambers Brothers ~ "Time has come today";
2. Credence Clearwater Revival ~ "I heard it through the grapevine";
3. Paul Butterfield Blues Band ~ "East/West";
4. The Velvet Underground ~ "Heroin";
5. The Chambers Brothers ~ "Love peace and happiness";
6. Iron Butterfly ~ "In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida";
7. Credence Clearwater Revival ~ "Suzie Q";
8. Led Zeppelin ~ "Stairway to Heaven";
9. The Temptations ~ "Papa was a rolling stone";
10. The Doors ~ "The End";
11. Pink Floyd ~ "Interstellar Overdrive";
12. Black Sabbath ~ "Warning";
13. The Velvet Underground ~ "Sister Ray";
14. The Paul Butterfield Blues Band ~ "Work Song";
15. The MC5 ~ "Starship";
16. Vanilla Fudge ~ "You keep me hanging on";
17. Ten Years After ~ "Going home";
18. Quicksilver Messenger Service ~ "Who do you love";
19. Pharaoh Sanders; ~ "The creator has a master plan";
20. Tangerine Dream ~ "Journey through a burning brain" (a remix, couldn't find a embeddable copy of the original;
21. Arlo Guthrie ~ "Alice's Restaurant massacree";
The evolution of rock from the Jump Blues, Swing, R&B, Rockabilly, Doo-Wop, Honky-Tonk, Girl Group, Skiffle, Mersey Beat, Surf, Frat Rock, Folk Rock, Garage days of rock's first decade to the Psychedelic excess of the late 1960's was actually perfectly logical in retrospect. The first generation of Rock was based around the limitations of the jukebox single, tightly constructed dance songs or ballads that could fit onto a two and half to four minute single. AM radio simply followed that model. However by the late sixties the single had been taken over as the main focus of Rock by the long playing album which meant that artists were no longer faced with the time limitations of the 45 single. Jazz musicians had already been exploring this new freedom with the likes of John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman abandoning structured, song oriented swing in favour of long jam oriented suites with extended solos that could take up the entire side of an album. Many Rock musicians were fully aware of these developments and were eager to engage in some of the same freedoms.
This brings us to the other change in rock in it's second generation aside from the technical development of the LP, and that is the fact that both the artists and audience had now grown up listening to Rock and Roll and were not just high school kids and working class youth but now included middle class, educated and cultured youth who would never have been caught dead listening to Rock and Roll in the 1950's. It's often forgotten that in Rock's first decade few university students took it seriously and instead listened to either jazz, folk or pop vocals. However by the late sixties there were a whole generation of youth who had grown up with Rock and Roll as well as being exposed to jazz and classical music as well as poetry and high literature and art. For these musicians the freedom of being able to explore these ideas in the context of Rock and Roll was perfectly logical. Others had also developed ideals of virtuoso musicianship that opened the way for extended jazzy solos and instrumentals. Add in to this the influence of psychedelic drugs, pot and/or heroin as well in place of the liquor and pills of the 1950's as an added ingredient. The new medium of FM radio, looking for a way to differentiate itself from AM radio's top 40 formats eagerly embraced these new approaches.
Later this sort of experimentation would lead to sprawling, wretched excess of course. And hopelessly wrongheaded ideas like rock operas and classical rock fusions. Which would in turn lead to an inevitable back to basics reactions like punk, new wave, glam, pub rock and revivals of rockabilly and garage.
But as necessary as these reactions were, that doesn't mean that some of the early extended explorations of the psychedelic era should just be dismissed as bloated hippie crap. Some of the classic examples still stand as solid rock songs in their own right. Some are really just basic garage or R&B songs stretched out with long solos, (ie Iron Butterfly, CCR, Chambers Bros, Black Sabbath, Ten Years After, The Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray") while others are jazz influenced jams (Paul Butterfield, Jefferson Airplane, Pink Floyd, Pharaoh Sanders crossover epic) and then there are conceptual art pieces like The Velvet's "Heroin" or Arlo Guthrie's comedy jam.
The Top 20 over 7 minutes long (I figure they are so long that a Top 40 would go on forever);
1. The Chambers Brothers ~ "Time has come today";
2. Credence Clearwater Revival ~ "I heard it through the grapevine";
3. Paul Butterfield Blues Band ~ "East/West";
4. The Velvet Underground ~ "Heroin";
5. The Chambers Brothers ~ "Love peace and happiness";
6. Iron Butterfly ~ "In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida";
7. Credence Clearwater Revival ~ "Suzie Q";
8. Led Zeppelin ~ "Stairway to Heaven";
9. The Temptations ~ "Papa was a rolling stone";
10. The Doors ~ "The End";
11. Pink Floyd ~ "Interstellar Overdrive";
12. Black Sabbath ~ "Warning";
13. The Velvet Underground ~ "Sister Ray";
14. The Paul Butterfield Blues Band ~ "Work Song";
15. The MC5 ~ "Starship";
16. Vanilla Fudge ~ "You keep me hanging on";
17. Ten Years After ~ "Going home";
18. Quicksilver Messenger Service ~ "Who do you love";
19. Pharaoh Sanders; ~ "The creator has a master plan";
20. Tangerine Dream ~ "Journey through a burning brain" (a remix, couldn't find a embeddable copy of the original;
21. Arlo Guthrie ~ "Alice's Restaurant massacree";
Monday, 11 July 2011
Blink and you'll miss it.
As mentioned in an earlier post Toronto radio station CKLN was finally, deservedly ordered off the air in April. Refusing to take "fuck off" for an answer CKLN's stubbornly inept management recently announced that hey had gotten permission to broadcast again as a "micro broadcaster" with a less than 1 watt signal. No that's not a typo, not even one whole watt with a range of about 700 feet. No that's not a typo either, 700 feet. Wow. That should carry clear across the street. Thus reaching that much coveted "people who happen to be driving by for a split second" demographic. They could literally reach more people by putting the speakers out the window.
My reconstruction of the conversation in a car of loyal CKLN listeners driving down to listen in on their car radio;
(sounds of static)Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.."You're listening to.." Bzzzzzzzzzzzz
1st CKLN fan; "Wait! Back up!"
(gears shift and..)Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...."CKLN.." Bzzzzzzzzzzz"
1st CKLN fan; "Wait! Go forward!"
(gears shift and...)Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz...."88.1fm" Bzzzzzzzzz
2nd CKLN fan; "This is stupid"
I'm guessing they are going to have to play a lot of really short songs.
That's where I can help. No really, I can offer some free advice here. The genre of "absurdly short punk songs" is much beloved if inherently limited one. Remember the first album by DRI where half the song were less than 30 seconds long? Actually some were less than 20 seconds long. Then Napalm Death once took this sort of thing to it's logical conclusion by having a one second song called "you suffer". In the immortal words of Napalm Death singer/guitarist Justin Broadwick;
"We played that song in front of 30 local kids, like, every weekend. We played that song 30 times."
There is even a word for this; "Micro Thrash". Therefore in the spirit of radio brotherhood I offer up for further research some bands known for songs 90 seconds long or less (this list is by no means exhaustive);
The Accused
Adrenaline O.D.
The Angry Samoans
Black Flag
The Circle Jerks
The Descendants
Destroy All Monsters
Discharge
D.R.I.
The Feederz
The Germs
Glue Gun
Government Issue
The High Fives
Minor Threat
The Minutemen
The Mr.T Experience
The Misfits
The Mono Men
Muck and The Mires
The Mummies
Napalm Death
The New Bomb Turks
Operation Ivy
The Ramones
Rancid
7 Seconds
REO Speedealer
Screaching Weasel
Social Unrest
State of Alert
The Subsonics
The Teen Idles
T.S.O.L.
The Undertones
Verbal Abuse
The Vibrators
Voorhees
Wehrmacht
Wire
Need some Can Con? No problem;
Beyond Possession
Bloodshot Bill
Bored Stiff
The Brutal Knights
Cub
Death Sentence
Dementia 13
DOA
The Evaporators
Danko Jones
Deja Voodoo
Thee Goblins
The House of Knives
The Leather Uppers
Maow
Maximum RnR
Molested Youth
The Rocket Reducers
The Sadies
The Screamagers
Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet
The Sick Boys
The Smugglers
The Sophisticatos
The Subhumans
The Ugly
The Vapids
The Viletones
These actually range in quality from the obviously stoopid and proudly goofy to those who surprisingly managed to come up with proper songs, with a beginning, middle and end, sometimes even a solo, in under 90 seconds. Some of these are classics, all should be required listening for any aspiring rocker. Less is more.
THE MISFITS ~ "RETURN OF THE FLY" (this video has a long intro which pads out the song length which is only about 90 seconds);
WIZO ~ "The Count";
FIZZY BANGERS ~ "SHORT ATTENTION SPAN":
DEJA VOODOO ~ "STOP";
DUANE EDDY ~ "SOME KINDA EARTHQUAKE";
SHADOWY MEN ON A SHADOWY PLANET ~ "INTERLUDE/COUNTDOWN" (TWO SONGS);
MAOW ~ "MS. LEFEVRE";
THE GRUESOMES ~ "MY BROKEN HEART WILL NEVER MEND";
THE JAM ~ "BATMAN THEME";
THE ANGRY SAMOANS ~ "THEY SAVED HITLER"S COCK";
THE VIBRATORS ~ "YEAH YEAH YEAH";
THE CYNICS ~ "BUSINESS AS USUAL";
T.S.O.L. ~ "SUPERFICIAL LOVE";
THE NEW BOMB TURKS ~ "I WANT MY BABY DEAD";
THE DESCENDENTS ~ "I DON'T WANNA GROW UP";
THE VANDALS ~ "TO ALL THE KIDS";
WIRE ~ "FEELING CALLED LOVE";
THE MINUTEMEN ~ "POLITICAL SONG FOR MICHEAL JACKSON TO SING" (live);
THE FORGOTTEN REBELS ~ "ELVIS IS DEAD";
THE UNDERTONES ~ "SMARTER THAN YOU";
ADRENALINE O.D. ~ "SUBURBIA";
CAUSTIC SODA ~ WELCOME TO DUMPSVILLE, POPULATION YOU";
MR.T EXPERIENCE ~ "SPEEDRACER";
THE RAMONES ~ "CRETIN HOP";
THE CIRCLE JERKS ~ "WASTED";
DEAD KENNEDYS ~ "I LIKE SHORT SONGS" (live);
BLACK FLAG ~ "REVENGE";
SCREECHING WEASEL ~ "I HATE LED ZEPPELIN";
OPERATION IVY ~ "BOMBSHELL";
7 SECONDS ~ "NOT JUST BOYS FUN";
GLUE GUN ~ "THE SCENE IS NOT FOR SALE;
DEATH SENTENCE ~ "FEEL FUCKED";
BEYOND POSSESSION ~ "NO RELIGION";
DRI ~ "Who am I?";
DISCHARGE ~ "HEAR NOTHING SEE NOTHING SAY NOTHING";
VOORHEES ~ "KEVIN KEEGAN";
NAPALM DEATH ~ "YOU SUFFER";
And then here is of course an entire compilation called "Short Music for short people" which has 99 songs 30 seconds and under.
Want some thing a little less punk and obnoxious? How about Elvis Presley, Duane Eddys, Hank Williams, Ersal Hickey, Chan Romero, Mac Wiseman, Ray Campi, Link Wray, Arch Hall jr, Cliff Richard, Glenn Glen, Merle Travis, Roscoe Holcomb, Hobart Smith, The Byrds, Bluecaps and The Swingin' Blue Jeans? There are also demos from Johnny Horton, Willie Nelson, Elvis (again), Cliff Richard (ditto), and Buffalo Springfield. Then there's the Alan Lomax collections which have some really short tracks by blues, folk and gospel singers including Josh White, Jimmie Strother, Moses Clear Rock Pratt, May Fortune and others.
Of course CKLN could also just play some of those Cabaret Voltaire, SPK, Throbbing Gristle, Nurse with Wound, Ramleh and John Cage records that sound like static anyway.
I actually did that once; while doing an overnight show I played John Cage's "HPSCHRD" which is basically 20 minutes of three or more harpsichords playing randomly buried under mountains of distortion. Eventually somebody called in;
Caller; "Are you on the air"
Me; "Probably"
Caller; "It sounds like I'm going under a tunnel and I'm not"
Me; "Well let's see (turning up volume);
JOHN CAGE ~ "HPSCHD";
Me; "Sounds fine to me. I'll be playing some Cabaret Voltaire later, you may want to stick around for that."
Hey it was 3:30 in the morning.
My reconstruction of the conversation in a car of loyal CKLN listeners driving down to listen in on their car radio;
(sounds of static)Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.."You're listening to.." Bzzzzzzzzzzzz
1st CKLN fan; "Wait! Back up!"
(gears shift and..)Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...."CKLN.." Bzzzzzzzzzzz"
1st CKLN fan; "Wait! Go forward!"
(gears shift and...)Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz...."88.1fm" Bzzzzzzzzz
2nd CKLN fan; "This is stupid"
I'm guessing they are going to have to play a lot of really short songs.
That's where I can help. No really, I can offer some free advice here. The genre of "absurdly short punk songs" is much beloved if inherently limited one. Remember the first album by DRI where half the song were less than 30 seconds long? Actually some were less than 20 seconds long. Then Napalm Death once took this sort of thing to it's logical conclusion by having a one second song called "you suffer". In the immortal words of Napalm Death singer/guitarist Justin Broadwick;
"We played that song in front of 30 local kids, like, every weekend. We played that song 30 times."
There is even a word for this; "Micro Thrash". Therefore in the spirit of radio brotherhood I offer up for further research some bands known for songs 90 seconds long or less (this list is by no means exhaustive);
The Accused
Adrenaline O.D.
The Angry Samoans
Black Flag
The Circle Jerks
The Descendants
Destroy All Monsters
Discharge
D.R.I.
The Feederz
The Germs
Glue Gun
Government Issue
The High Fives
Minor Threat
The Minutemen
The Mr.T Experience
The Misfits
The Mono Men
Muck and The Mires
The Mummies
Napalm Death
The New Bomb Turks
Operation Ivy
The Ramones
Rancid
7 Seconds
REO Speedealer
Screaching Weasel
Social Unrest
State of Alert
The Subsonics
The Teen Idles
T.S.O.L.
The Undertones
Verbal Abuse
The Vibrators
Voorhees
Wehrmacht
Wire
Need some Can Con? No problem;
Beyond Possession
Bloodshot Bill
Bored Stiff
The Brutal Knights
Cub
Death Sentence
Dementia 13
DOA
The Evaporators
Danko Jones
Deja Voodoo
Thee Goblins
The House of Knives
The Leather Uppers
Maow
Maximum RnR
Molested Youth
The Rocket Reducers
The Sadies
The Screamagers
Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet
The Sick Boys
The Smugglers
The Sophisticatos
The Subhumans
The Ugly
The Vapids
The Viletones
These actually range in quality from the obviously stoopid and proudly goofy to those who surprisingly managed to come up with proper songs, with a beginning, middle and end, sometimes even a solo, in under 90 seconds. Some of these are classics, all should be required listening for any aspiring rocker. Less is more.
THE MISFITS ~ "RETURN OF THE FLY" (this video has a long intro which pads out the song length which is only about 90 seconds);
WIZO ~ "The Count";
FIZZY BANGERS ~ "SHORT ATTENTION SPAN":
DEJA VOODOO ~ "STOP";
DUANE EDDY ~ "SOME KINDA EARTHQUAKE";
SHADOWY MEN ON A SHADOWY PLANET ~ "INTERLUDE/COUNTDOWN" (TWO SONGS);
MAOW ~ "MS. LEFEVRE";
THE GRUESOMES ~ "MY BROKEN HEART WILL NEVER MEND";
THE JAM ~ "BATMAN THEME";
THE ANGRY SAMOANS ~ "THEY SAVED HITLER"S COCK";
THE VIBRATORS ~ "YEAH YEAH YEAH";
THE CYNICS ~ "BUSINESS AS USUAL";
T.S.O.L. ~ "SUPERFICIAL LOVE";
THE NEW BOMB TURKS ~ "I WANT MY BABY DEAD";
THE DESCENDENTS ~ "I DON'T WANNA GROW UP";
THE VANDALS ~ "TO ALL THE KIDS";
WIRE ~ "FEELING CALLED LOVE";
THE MINUTEMEN ~ "POLITICAL SONG FOR MICHEAL JACKSON TO SING" (live);
THE FORGOTTEN REBELS ~ "ELVIS IS DEAD";
THE UNDERTONES ~ "SMARTER THAN YOU";
ADRENALINE O.D. ~ "SUBURBIA";
CAUSTIC SODA ~ WELCOME TO DUMPSVILLE, POPULATION YOU";
MR.T EXPERIENCE ~ "SPEEDRACER";
THE RAMONES ~ "CRETIN HOP";
THE CIRCLE JERKS ~ "WASTED";
DEAD KENNEDYS ~ "I LIKE SHORT SONGS" (live);
BLACK FLAG ~ "REVENGE";
SCREECHING WEASEL ~ "I HATE LED ZEPPELIN";
OPERATION IVY ~ "BOMBSHELL";
7 SECONDS ~ "NOT JUST BOYS FUN";
GLUE GUN ~ "THE SCENE IS NOT FOR SALE;
DEATH SENTENCE ~ "FEEL FUCKED";
BEYOND POSSESSION ~ "NO RELIGION";
DRI ~ "Who am I?";
DISCHARGE ~ "HEAR NOTHING SEE NOTHING SAY NOTHING";
VOORHEES ~ "KEVIN KEEGAN";
NAPALM DEATH ~ "YOU SUFFER";
And then here is of course an entire compilation called "Short Music for short people" which has 99 songs 30 seconds and under.
Want some thing a little less punk and obnoxious? How about Elvis Presley, Duane Eddys, Hank Williams, Ersal Hickey, Chan Romero, Mac Wiseman, Ray Campi, Link Wray, Arch Hall jr, Cliff Richard, Glenn Glen, Merle Travis, Roscoe Holcomb, Hobart Smith, The Byrds, Bluecaps and The Swingin' Blue Jeans? There are also demos from Johnny Horton, Willie Nelson, Elvis (again), Cliff Richard (ditto), and Buffalo Springfield. Then there's the Alan Lomax collections which have some really short tracks by blues, folk and gospel singers including Josh White, Jimmie Strother, Moses Clear Rock Pratt, May Fortune and others.
Of course CKLN could also just play some of those Cabaret Voltaire, SPK, Throbbing Gristle, Nurse with Wound, Ramleh and John Cage records that sound like static anyway.
I actually did that once; while doing an overnight show I played John Cage's "HPSCHRD" which is basically 20 minutes of three or more harpsichords playing randomly buried under mountains of distortion. Eventually somebody called in;
Caller; "Are you on the air"
Me; "Probably"
Caller; "It sounds like I'm going under a tunnel and I'm not"
Me; "Well let's see (turning up volume);
JOHN CAGE ~ "HPSCHD";
Me; "Sounds fine to me. I'll be playing some Cabaret Voltaire later, you may want to stick around for that."
Hey it was 3:30 in the morning.
Thursday, 7 July 2011
FOX NORTH is outraged, OUTRAGED I tell you!! And it's all your fault!
Ever since SUN TV (AKA FOX North) went on the air smack in the middle of the last election FOX North has been searching for a wedge issue comparable to the anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-gay hysteria that their American mentors have used so successfully. Not that they haven't also pushed those buttons as well, but they must sense that that sort of thing will exclude them forever from mainstream Canadian society.
That brings us to the arts, yeah that's the ticket. Attacking "elitists" is the new black. The poisonous idea that anybody who makes the mistake of actually treasuring arts, culture, education, science or the environment over greed, guns and god is naturally an "elitist".
Never mind that those who scream this the loudest are always rich and powerful media types and politicians who get out of their limos long enough to plant themselves in front of another microphone and complain about how they are once again being silenced and victimized for their "patriotism" by "the elite".
Of course they are utterly shameless and cynical hypocrites who deserve to be treated with the utter disdain usually reserved for those wingnuts who walk around with their sandwich boards warning us about the end of the world. Combined with the contempt given to telemarketers who scam us while we are trying to have dinner, with perhaps a touch of the "shut the fuck up" we save for those ignorant louts at hockey games screaming at the ref and cheering the most concussion inducing body checks with all too revealing glee. (Significant aside; I can't help but noticing that these types usually don't actually play hockey themselves). I seriously doubt these soulless opportunists have any actual beliefs other than lust for power, greed and attention who will not only yell fire in a crowed theatre, but then blame the resulting stampede on those damn liberal elitists. And the artists on stage of course, let us not forget the real enemy.
In the recent (and ongoing) budget debate in the U.S.A. the Republicans have used deficit hysteria to once again demand the cutting off of such perennial straw men as the National Endowment for the Arts, PBS and NPR. Hey it almost make sense to ask about taxpayer funding during a recession and budget cuts right? Until you realize that arts funding in the USA counts for less than one tenth of one percent of the entire U.S. budget. That's right, you read that correctly. Less than one tenth of one percent. Mind you most Americans think it's more like ten percent. Gee, I wonder how they got that idea? Could it be that Republicans find it useful to attack the arts so as to distract voters away from the cost of the massive tax cuts and giveaways Republicans have pledged to protect even at the cost of total economic collapse? What a cynical elitist idea and you should be ashamed of yourself for even thinking that. GET A JOB YOU STONERS!!!
And yet; I can't help but remember in the previous election Stephen Harper's speech attacking the "cultural elites" in Quebec which cost him the lead in the polls there and which he has never recovered from. After that he kind of backed of a bit. But now the election is over and he has his "More centrist" (remember when they promised that?) majority promising massive cuts to deal with the deficit they would like us to forget they did not in fact inherit from the previously Liberal government. I can't help but noticing SUN TV, AKA FOX North's new fixation on attacking the arts in Canada, especially those artists that most of us have frankly never heard of.
First there was Ezra Levant attacking some band B.C. called "Living With Lions" for accepting a FACTOR grant. We had the spectacle of this comically smug tightass proclaiming his love for The Clash and punk rock and demanding that the band return the money and demanding that “public funding” to be cut to “so called musicians", "a bunch of losers" and a “crummy band". He also brayed his outrage of their "anti-christian" message calling them "Christophobic", which is a little rich coming from a blowhard who made his bones by attacking Islam on a regular basis.
He demanded that the band "return the money" to the taxpayers. Which the shell shocked band then did. Clearly the band should be renamed "Living With Pussies" All of which proves by the way that punk is truly dead. And so is satire.
Then enjoying the taste of easy blood FOX North picked another easy target. An award winning interpretive dancer who I am apparently not elite enough to have ever hard of named Margie Gillis.
The resulting ambush interview between SUN TV's mini-skirted attack bunny Krista Erickson and the almost comically soft spoken and polite Gillis has become a much re-posted horror show of an absurdly uniformed and arrogant host alternating between rank sycophancy of the most cloying sort and text book bullying tactics borrowed from FOX and every other talk radio dick with delusions of grandeur. Constant interruptions, blanket assertions, manufactured outrage, faux working class self pity, bizarre digressions and non-sequitors, oh and of course a completely gratuitous invoking of "Our Troops". It has to be seen to be believed.
(aside update; It turns out you can't actually see it after all since SUN TV regularly uses bullshit copyright complaints to ban any and all embarrassing clips from Youtube. They have had to do this quite a lot lately given the tendency of SUN TV's "Flagship Show" host Ezra Levant to engage in the sort of vitriolic race-baiting that actually got them on the receiving end of a police investigation for violating the country's hate laws, seriously, he's that disgusting. For months the response from the SUN Bunker was to defiantly state that they would never, ever, apologize or cave in to "political correctness" so there, take that. Until the police paid a polite call, then SUN fired off a hurried and half-assed apology. Then they had all the numerous Youtube evidence banned. Not to state the obvious but this is the same SUN TV which has always demanded "openness and transparency" of The CBC. And Native Band Councils. And Arts Groups. And Unions. And any political parties they don't like. Just sayin. Back to our rant already in progress.)
Then a strange thing happened. Normally polite Canadians were revolted by the spectacle of a perfectly nice (if somewhat goofy) hippie lady being attacked by this hard faced bottle blonde harpy and did something they rarely do in large numbers. They got off their butts and complained to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (AKA CBSC). I know there's been complaints before, Howard Stern got a bunch and earlier this year there was a whole kerfuffle over a Dire Straits song (which I also blogged about on here) but there has literally never been a deluge like this. That entire Dire Straits clusterfuck came as a result on just one single complaint for example.
How bad? The CBSC got an astounding over 4,350 complaints an a matter of weeks where they normally get around 2000 in an entire year. In fact they got so many complaints that the CBSC took the unique step of actually putting out a press release begging people to stop sending in complaints as they were completely overwhelmed. Allow me to paraphrase; "We heard you the first 4,350 times! Now please stop, really, we are totally swamped over here". Wow; Nice work people. Seriously, I am impressed.
Just to add salt to the wounds according to the BBM surveys thus far the ratings for SUN TV are so pathetic that at times they have only averaged 7,000 viewers nation wide. So I guess they should be happy that over 4,350 people were watching at all.
For some reason Sun TV and Erickson don't see it that way of course and have been predictably whining about being "bullied" and "threatened" with "four letter words". SUN TV's owners blamed the whole thing on Facebook. Turns out they are outraged at the idea of people using the media to push political agendas. Yeah; this is all your fault Facebook! Shame on you. So let us never forget that the real victims are always the right wing media, our most vulnerable resource.
Now the CBSC doesn't have the power to ban Erickson or fine FOX North and I'm fine with that but I like the fact that Canadians were actually willing to show support for their artists. Harper learned that one once already but that was before the recession so it's nice to see it again. I think Canadians also stood up as well for basic civility, if Erickson had merely asked a question about tax dollars and arts funding that would be one thing, but honestly, she's a snide whining bitch.
But then again if they are going to suckerpunch the straw man of arts funding then FOX North and Erickson have a few questions to answer themselves.
First of all Krista Erickson herself made her name working at the taxpayer funded CBC for years so if FOX North can smugly demand that the hapless band "Living With Lions" return the their funding to the taxpayers than surely Erickson can do the same. Now. And if we are really going to make the tired argument of pay based solely on "merit" then the next obvious question is exactly what are Erickson's qualifications anyway for being some sort of expert on public policy, I mean aside from the obvious fact that she is exactly the type of imperious pinch faced, blow dried, bottle blonde, mini-skirted harpy that right wingers get a hard on for. I mean if we are supposed to give jobs only to the most qualified and experienced than why not give the gig to former Reform M.P. Deborah Grey? She's actually done policy and media stuff and could do actually do a credible job. She also has impeccable conservative credentials and is even good on camera, she certainly wouldn't behave like a rabid chihuahua. I'm guessing that FOX North is assuming that there is little demand to see Deb Grey in a mini-skirt. No offense to Deb Grey. She seems nice and polite.
But now I'm engaging in the sort of nasty "persecution" that conservatives so love to complain about suffering. Sorry about that. Won't happen again. So how do you respond to these tea-bagger douchebags? How about by pointing out the indisputable fact that SUN TV gets more taxpayer money than all these silly dancers and musicians combined? No shit. I kid you not.
SUN TV is owned by Quebecor, which also owns the SUN newspaper chain (obviously) along with the free daily "24 Hours" commuter paper and a bunch of other papers and magazines. All presumably profitable. And it turns out they also get a lot of taxpayer grants from something called The Canadian Periodical Fund. How much you may ask, since clearly nobody at FOX North will. Well check this out;
"Granted to magazine publishers under the Canadian Periodical Fund.
A list of Quebecor properties and the commensurate amount they received from taxpayers for 2010-11, via the Department of Canadian Heritage.
Chez Soi: $487, 735
Cool: $191.136
7 Jours: $327,160
TV Hebdo: $1,157,100
TV Hebdo Teleromans: $8,480
Les idees de ma maison: $376,943
Clin d’oeil: $480,749
Cote Jardins: $33,678
Derniere Heure: $154,966
Echoes Vedettes: $188,704
Le Lundi: $376,018
Moi & Cie: $7,947
Tout simplement Clodine: $99,489
Clodine Hors serie: $4,366
TOTAL $3.7 million."
And keep in mind that's in JUST ONE YEAR, not the decade that Erickson was so hot and bothered about. Soooo...Krista, Ezra, howabout it? When is Quebecor going to return that money? All of it? As a taxpayer I demand to know. Now. Why should I have to subsidize your no doubt generous salaries? Surely Quebecor doesn't actually require an annual taxpayer bailout? And even if they did then surely you would be the first ones to insist that Qubecor must be allowed to fail. No?
And when are you going to do an ambush interview about that? I'm waiting. And I'm sure so are your 7,000 viewers.
pc screen shot
That brings us to the arts, yeah that's the ticket. Attacking "elitists" is the new black. The poisonous idea that anybody who makes the mistake of actually treasuring arts, culture, education, science or the environment over greed, guns and god is naturally an "elitist".
Never mind that those who scream this the loudest are always rich and powerful media types and politicians who get out of their limos long enough to plant themselves in front of another microphone and complain about how they are once again being silenced and victimized for their "patriotism" by "the elite".
Of course they are utterly shameless and cynical hypocrites who deserve to be treated with the utter disdain usually reserved for those wingnuts who walk around with their sandwich boards warning us about the end of the world. Combined with the contempt given to telemarketers who scam us while we are trying to have dinner, with perhaps a touch of the "shut the fuck up" we save for those ignorant louts at hockey games screaming at the ref and cheering the most concussion inducing body checks with all too revealing glee. (Significant aside; I can't help but noticing that these types usually don't actually play hockey themselves). I seriously doubt these soulless opportunists have any actual beliefs other than lust for power, greed and attention who will not only yell fire in a crowed theatre, but then blame the resulting stampede on those damn liberal elitists. And the artists on stage of course, let us not forget the real enemy.
In the recent (and ongoing) budget debate in the U.S.A. the Republicans have used deficit hysteria to once again demand the cutting off of such perennial straw men as the National Endowment for the Arts, PBS and NPR. Hey it almost make sense to ask about taxpayer funding during a recession and budget cuts right? Until you realize that arts funding in the USA counts for less than one tenth of one percent of the entire U.S. budget. That's right, you read that correctly. Less than one tenth of one percent. Mind you most Americans think it's more like ten percent. Gee, I wonder how they got that idea? Could it be that Republicans find it useful to attack the arts so as to distract voters away from the cost of the massive tax cuts and giveaways Republicans have pledged to protect even at the cost of total economic collapse? What a cynical elitist idea and you should be ashamed of yourself for even thinking that. GET A JOB YOU STONERS!!!
And yet; I can't help but remember in the previous election Stephen Harper's speech attacking the "cultural elites" in Quebec which cost him the lead in the polls there and which he has never recovered from. After that he kind of backed of a bit. But now the election is over and he has his "More centrist" (remember when they promised that?) majority promising massive cuts to deal with the deficit they would like us to forget they did not in fact inherit from the previously Liberal government. I can't help but noticing SUN TV, AKA FOX North's new fixation on attacking the arts in Canada, especially those artists that most of us have frankly never heard of.
First there was Ezra Levant attacking some band B.C. called "Living With Lions" for accepting a FACTOR grant. We had the spectacle of this comically smug tightass proclaiming his love for The Clash and punk rock and demanding that the band return the money and demanding that “public funding” to be cut to “so called musicians", "a bunch of losers" and a “crummy band". He also brayed his outrage of their "anti-christian" message calling them "Christophobic", which is a little rich coming from a blowhard who made his bones by attacking Islam on a regular basis.
He demanded that the band "return the money" to the taxpayers. Which the shell shocked band then did. Clearly the band should be renamed "Living With Pussies" All of which proves by the way that punk is truly dead. And so is satire.
Then enjoying the taste of easy blood FOX North picked another easy target. An award winning interpretive dancer who I am apparently not elite enough to have ever hard of named Margie Gillis.
The resulting ambush interview between SUN TV's mini-skirted attack bunny Krista Erickson and the almost comically soft spoken and polite Gillis has become a much re-posted horror show of an absurdly uniformed and arrogant host alternating between rank sycophancy of the most cloying sort and text book bullying tactics borrowed from FOX and every other talk radio dick with delusions of grandeur. Constant interruptions, blanket assertions, manufactured outrage, faux working class self pity, bizarre digressions and non-sequitors, oh and of course a completely gratuitous invoking of "Our Troops". It has to be seen to be believed.
(aside update; It turns out you can't actually see it after all since SUN TV regularly uses bullshit copyright complaints to ban any and all embarrassing clips from Youtube. They have had to do this quite a lot lately given the tendency of SUN TV's "Flagship Show" host Ezra Levant to engage in the sort of vitriolic race-baiting that actually got them on the receiving end of a police investigation for violating the country's hate laws, seriously, he's that disgusting. For months the response from the SUN Bunker was to defiantly state that they would never, ever, apologize or cave in to "political correctness" so there, take that. Until the police paid a polite call, then SUN fired off a hurried and half-assed apology. Then they had all the numerous Youtube evidence banned. Not to state the obvious but this is the same SUN TV which has always demanded "openness and transparency" of The CBC. And Native Band Councils. And Arts Groups. And Unions. And any political parties they don't like. Just sayin. Back to our rant already in progress.)
Then a strange thing happened. Normally polite Canadians were revolted by the spectacle of a perfectly nice (if somewhat goofy) hippie lady being attacked by this hard faced bottle blonde harpy and did something they rarely do in large numbers. They got off their butts and complained to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (AKA CBSC). I know there's been complaints before, Howard Stern got a bunch and earlier this year there was a whole kerfuffle over a Dire Straits song (which I also blogged about on here) but there has literally never been a deluge like this. That entire Dire Straits clusterfuck came as a result on just one single complaint for example.
How bad? The CBSC got an astounding over 4,350 complaints an a matter of weeks where they normally get around 2000 in an entire year. In fact they got so many complaints that the CBSC took the unique step of actually putting out a press release begging people to stop sending in complaints as they were completely overwhelmed. Allow me to paraphrase; "We heard you the first 4,350 times! Now please stop, really, we are totally swamped over here". Wow; Nice work people. Seriously, I am impressed.
Just to add salt to the wounds according to the BBM surveys thus far the ratings for SUN TV are so pathetic that at times they have only averaged 7,000 viewers nation wide. So I guess they should be happy that over 4,350 people were watching at all.
For some reason Sun TV and Erickson don't see it that way of course and have been predictably whining about being "bullied" and "threatened" with "four letter words". SUN TV's owners blamed the whole thing on Facebook. Turns out they are outraged at the idea of people using the media to push political agendas. Yeah; this is all your fault Facebook! Shame on you. So let us never forget that the real victims are always the right wing media, our most vulnerable resource.
Now the CBSC doesn't have the power to ban Erickson or fine FOX North and I'm fine with that but I like the fact that Canadians were actually willing to show support for their artists. Harper learned that one once already but that was before the recession so it's nice to see it again. I think Canadians also stood up as well for basic civility, if Erickson had merely asked a question about tax dollars and arts funding that would be one thing, but honestly, she's a snide whining bitch.
But then again if they are going to suckerpunch the straw man of arts funding then FOX North and Erickson have a few questions to answer themselves.
First of all Krista Erickson herself made her name working at the taxpayer funded CBC for years so if FOX North can smugly demand that the hapless band "Living With Lions" return the their funding to the taxpayers than surely Erickson can do the same. Now. And if we are really going to make the tired argument of pay based solely on "merit" then the next obvious question is exactly what are Erickson's qualifications anyway for being some sort of expert on public policy, I mean aside from the obvious fact that she is exactly the type of imperious pinch faced, blow dried, bottle blonde, mini-skirted harpy that right wingers get a hard on for. I mean if we are supposed to give jobs only to the most qualified and experienced than why not give the gig to former Reform M.P. Deborah Grey? She's actually done policy and media stuff and could do actually do a credible job. She also has impeccable conservative credentials and is even good on camera, she certainly wouldn't behave like a rabid chihuahua. I'm guessing that FOX North is assuming that there is little demand to see Deb Grey in a mini-skirt. No offense to Deb Grey. She seems nice and polite.
But now I'm engaging in the sort of nasty "persecution" that conservatives so love to complain about suffering. Sorry about that. Won't happen again. So how do you respond to these tea-bagger douchebags? How about by pointing out the indisputable fact that SUN TV gets more taxpayer money than all these silly dancers and musicians combined? No shit. I kid you not.
SUN TV is owned by Quebecor, which also owns the SUN newspaper chain (obviously) along with the free daily "24 Hours" commuter paper and a bunch of other papers and magazines. All presumably profitable. And it turns out they also get a lot of taxpayer grants from something called The Canadian Periodical Fund. How much you may ask, since clearly nobody at FOX North will. Well check this out;
"Granted to magazine publishers under the Canadian Periodical Fund.
A list of Quebecor properties and the commensurate amount they received from taxpayers for 2010-11, via the Department of Canadian Heritage.
Chez Soi: $487, 735
Cool: $191.136
7 Jours: $327,160
TV Hebdo: $1,157,100
TV Hebdo Teleromans: $8,480
Les idees de ma maison: $376,943
Clin d’oeil: $480,749
Cote Jardins: $33,678
Derniere Heure: $154,966
Echoes Vedettes: $188,704
Le Lundi: $376,018
Moi & Cie: $7,947
Tout simplement Clodine: $99,489
Clodine Hors serie: $4,366
TOTAL $3.7 million."
And keep in mind that's in JUST ONE YEAR, not the decade that Erickson was so hot and bothered about. Soooo...Krista, Ezra, howabout it? When is Quebecor going to return that money? All of it? As a taxpayer I demand to know. Now. Why should I have to subsidize your no doubt generous salaries? Surely Quebecor doesn't actually require an annual taxpayer bailout? And even if they did then surely you would be the first ones to insist that Qubecor must be allowed to fail. No?
And when are you going to do an ambush interview about that? I'm waiting. And I'm sure so are your 7,000 viewers.
pc screen shot
Monday, 4 July 2011
"The Rodeo Song" writer dies
If you are a (probably) white Canadian over the age of 30 you probably remember "The Rodeo Song". The infamously filthy non-hit that could never, ever. get played on the radio anywhere. And yet we all knew it, and used to sing it idiotically in high school to show how bad ass we were. Yeah sure there's gangsta rap and death metal but really, who could listen to that crap? Besides it wasn't nearly as funny. And juvenile. And filthy. It actually came as a bit of a surprise to discover that it was actually a legitimate song recorded in 1980 by a band from Alberta called The Showmen, who actually recorded a full album, which is more low key.
The Showmen ` "The Rodeo Song" (note whoever posted this on youtube obviously thought it was by the late American country singer Chris LeDoux, in spite of the fact that he sounds nothing like this. He did have a song with that name though, as did David Allen Coe);
That does mean that there was an actual songwriter for this. It was in fact Gaye Delorme, a usually respectable and successful song writer and session guitarist who also worked with a number of thoroughly respectable people including Jann Arden, the Powder Blues Band, Lenny Breau, David Foster and even the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. He also produced KD Lang's first album. He did have another comedy hit though as he also wrote the Cheech and Chong semi-hit "Earache my eye". This was another hit with the easily stoned back in the day. It's since been covered by the likes of Metallica and Korn. I'm not sure this is the legacy a respected producer was looking for but on the other hand most musicians slave away their entire lives without anybody noticing so what the Hell. Delorme died June 23 aged 64 of a heart attack.
CHEECH & CHONG ~ "EARACHE MY EYE":
As for The Showmen, they never lived down their notoriety and broke up some time in the 1980's after recording another album which included a straight forward cover of the classic "Make me do anything you want" failed to break through.
The Showmen ` "The Rodeo Song" (note whoever posted this on youtube obviously thought it was by the late American country singer Chris LeDoux, in spite of the fact that he sounds nothing like this. He did have a song with that name though, as did David Allen Coe);
That does mean that there was an actual songwriter for this. It was in fact Gaye Delorme, a usually respectable and successful song writer and session guitarist who also worked with a number of thoroughly respectable people including Jann Arden, the Powder Blues Band, Lenny Breau, David Foster and even the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. He also produced KD Lang's first album. He did have another comedy hit though as he also wrote the Cheech and Chong semi-hit "Earache my eye". This was another hit with the easily stoned back in the day. It's since been covered by the likes of Metallica and Korn. I'm not sure this is the legacy a respected producer was looking for but on the other hand most musicians slave away their entire lives without anybody noticing so what the Hell. Delorme died June 23 aged 64 of a heart attack.
CHEECH & CHONG ~ "EARACHE MY EYE":
As for The Showmen, they never lived down their notoriety and broke up some time in the 1980's after recording another album which included a straight forward cover of the classic "Make me do anything you want" failed to break through.
Thursday, 30 June 2011
Wildman Fischer and the problem with "Outsider Art"
Wildman Fischer died a few weeks ago and it got some sympathetic coverage from music journalist Bob Lefsetz saying among other things;
"Wild Man Fischer was an institution. A club you became a member of in high school or your college dorm. Someone cool but friendly, not a football player or a cheerleader, would start talking about a record, with a smile on his or her face, and begin singing..."
and
"You remember the cover of that initial double album. With his electric hair?
Maybe you don't. Maybe you're just too young. Maybe you equate music with money, learning about the riches of Led Zeppelin or seeing all those acts on MTV.
But once upon a time, it was about music.
And it was certainly about creativity.
Could you question convention?"
Exhibit a)
Bongo George Coleman ~ "I wish I could sing";
For those who don't know, Wild Man Fischer was a mentally ill street person who was known for his off key singing for change on the streets of 1960's L.A. Back in the days of the hippie counter-culture some found this sort of thing endearing, or a refreshing change from corporate culture, or something like that. So Frank Zappa brought him into the recording studio for an album of off key caterwauling and rambling that some hipsters (including notably Dr.Demento) found, and still find endlessly amusing. It didn't last of course because Fischer was mentally ill and soon ended up coming to blows with Zappa who recoiled in horror, canceling his record deal. Turns out when a mentally ill street person is no longer amusing they are just crazy and actually scary. Who knew? In fact those records have been spitefully kept out of print ever since by Zappa and his estate which pretty much destroys any "but how else is Fischer supposed to make a living?" argument.
Exhibit b)
The Shaggs ~ "My pal Foot Foot";
Any of this sound familiar? Remember the late Wesley Willis? Another mentally ill street person brought into the studio to record a couple albums of demented, utterly talentless rambling. A few years ago, before Willis died, Jim DeRogatis wrote a thoughtful piece about this wondering about the ethics of a bunch of white middle class hipsters and fratboys openly laughing at the large lumbering brain damaged black man cavorting for their amusement. That's a question I had been wondering about before and since. And setting aside the issue of race which doesn't apply here since Fischer was white, Lefsetz' comments brought the issue back.
Exhibit c)
Hasil Adkins ~ "The Slop";
I get the theory of "outsider art" or "naive art" that Lefsetz is getting at here, that those amateurs who are untainted by "corporate culture" can give us an alternate voice untainted by the excesses of that culture. It's the basic message of "One flew over the cuckoo's nest" and to a lesser extent "To kill a mocking bird". But I don't buy it. This always seems to me to be a rationalization to give otherwise decent people an excuse to laugh at a geek show that would never be allowed in modern society.
Exhibit d)
The Legendary Stardust Cowboy ~ "Paralyzed";
I like some of Lefsetz's often insightful comments and I don't question his sincerity, besides anyone who despises Gene Simmons even half as much as I do can't be all bad. But I call bullshit on this bullshit. By any rational standard the actual music they created is terrible. If it were not coming from someone the audience is fully aware is mentally ill there is no way it would have been treated as anything other than a silly joke for the amusement of largely white hipsters and drunken fratboys. But since it's coming from an "outsider" their records are seen as an alternative to corporate music, which then gives the hipsters a chance to laugh "ironically" at the geek show? I think not.
Exhibit e)
Herbie Duncan ~ "Hot lips baby";
There are plenty of other examples of clueless amateurs who accidentally made some oddly cool records in the first three decades of rock and roll; Hasil Adkins, Jenks Tex Carmen, The Legendary Stardust Cowboy, The Shaggs, Lucia Palmoa, King Uszniewicz, Mrs. Elva Miller, Herbie Duncan, Bongo George Coleman, even Florence Foster Jenkins and I gleefully recommend them all without having to engage in the fetishistic worship of the mentally ill. And spare me the smug hipster "if you don't get it you just aren't as cool as us" implications of your "club". By the way Bob, "clubs" are not cool. Clubs exist to exclude people, and that's not rock and roll.
Exhibit f)
King Uszniewicz ~ "Doo Wah Diddy";
Exhibit g)
Mrs. Elva Miller (w/Jimmy Durante) ~ "Inky Dinky Doo";
"Wild Man Fischer was an institution. A club you became a member of in high school or your college dorm. Someone cool but friendly, not a football player or a cheerleader, would start talking about a record, with a smile on his or her face, and begin singing..."
and
"You remember the cover of that initial double album. With his electric hair?
Maybe you don't. Maybe you're just too young. Maybe you equate music with money, learning about the riches of Led Zeppelin or seeing all those acts on MTV.
But once upon a time, it was about music.
And it was certainly about creativity.
Could you question convention?"
Exhibit a)
Bongo George Coleman ~ "I wish I could sing";
For those who don't know, Wild Man Fischer was a mentally ill street person who was known for his off key singing for change on the streets of 1960's L.A. Back in the days of the hippie counter-culture some found this sort of thing endearing, or a refreshing change from corporate culture, or something like that. So Frank Zappa brought him into the recording studio for an album of off key caterwauling and rambling that some hipsters (including notably Dr.Demento) found, and still find endlessly amusing. It didn't last of course because Fischer was mentally ill and soon ended up coming to blows with Zappa who recoiled in horror, canceling his record deal. Turns out when a mentally ill street person is no longer amusing they are just crazy and actually scary. Who knew? In fact those records have been spitefully kept out of print ever since by Zappa and his estate which pretty much destroys any "but how else is Fischer supposed to make a living?" argument.
Exhibit b)
The Shaggs ~ "My pal Foot Foot";
Any of this sound familiar? Remember the late Wesley Willis? Another mentally ill street person brought into the studio to record a couple albums of demented, utterly talentless rambling. A few years ago, before Willis died, Jim DeRogatis wrote a thoughtful piece about this wondering about the ethics of a bunch of white middle class hipsters and fratboys openly laughing at the large lumbering brain damaged black man cavorting for their amusement. That's a question I had been wondering about before and since. And setting aside the issue of race which doesn't apply here since Fischer was white, Lefsetz' comments brought the issue back.
Exhibit c)
Hasil Adkins ~ "The Slop";
I get the theory of "outsider art" or "naive art" that Lefsetz is getting at here, that those amateurs who are untainted by "corporate culture" can give us an alternate voice untainted by the excesses of that culture. It's the basic message of "One flew over the cuckoo's nest" and to a lesser extent "To kill a mocking bird". But I don't buy it. This always seems to me to be a rationalization to give otherwise decent people an excuse to laugh at a geek show that would never be allowed in modern society.
Exhibit d)
The Legendary Stardust Cowboy ~ "Paralyzed";
I like some of Lefsetz's often insightful comments and I don't question his sincerity, besides anyone who despises Gene Simmons even half as much as I do can't be all bad. But I call bullshit on this bullshit. By any rational standard the actual music they created is terrible. If it were not coming from someone the audience is fully aware is mentally ill there is no way it would have been treated as anything other than a silly joke for the amusement of largely white hipsters and drunken fratboys. But since it's coming from an "outsider" their records are seen as an alternative to corporate music, which then gives the hipsters a chance to laugh "ironically" at the geek show? I think not.
Exhibit e)
Herbie Duncan ~ "Hot lips baby";
There are plenty of other examples of clueless amateurs who accidentally made some oddly cool records in the first three decades of rock and roll; Hasil Adkins, Jenks Tex Carmen, The Legendary Stardust Cowboy, The Shaggs, Lucia Palmoa, King Uszniewicz, Mrs. Elva Miller, Herbie Duncan, Bongo George Coleman, even Florence Foster Jenkins and I gleefully recommend them all without having to engage in the fetishistic worship of the mentally ill. And spare me the smug hipster "if you don't get it you just aren't as cool as us" implications of your "club". By the way Bob, "clubs" are not cool. Clubs exist to exclude people, and that's not rock and roll.
Exhibit f)
King Uszniewicz ~ "Doo Wah Diddy";
Exhibit g)
Mrs. Elva Miller (w/Jimmy Durante) ~ "Inky Dinky Doo";
Saturday, 25 June 2011
Toronto Radio; Out with the Old, In with the New
This spring Toronto had one radio station finally go off the air for good while another finally won it's battle to go on the air. Still another once proud radio icon engaged in yet another one of it's revolving door format changes.
First the deceased;
CKLN 88.1fm was a campus/community radio station based at Ryerson University since 1983, or earlier depending on who you ask. Over the years a lot of good programming went on there and the station was quite influential on the Toronto music scene. Some talented people got their start there, Handsome Ned, Mean Steve Piano, Sucking Chest Wound, Jill Heath, Brian Taylor, Bill Grove, David Scurr, James Bailey, Arnie Achtman, The Blue Demon, Mike Hanson, Gerry Belanger, Charles Watson, Jaymz Bee, DJ Barbie, Dave Neudorf, Michie Mee, Freedom in a Vacuum, The Tape Beatles, Chris Twoomey, Ian Danzig. A bunch of people who later went on to The Flow and CBC and Exclaim Magazine. Oh and I did a show there too for several years before moving to CIUT.
Unfortunately like a number of other campus/community radio stations in Canada CKLN was also full of professional DJ's and show promoters who used CKLN to make money on the side and also became a haven for a cadre of fanatical left wing activist types who engaged in their usual vicious sectarian infighting that inevitably tore the place apart. In 2008 the left wing groups staged coup to seize control of the station. After a year long campaign of harassment, slander, nuisance lawsuits, frivolous complaints to the CRTC, threats and occasional violence backed by the equally leftist Ryerson Student Union (RSU, who also withheld the station's funds to force it into bankruptcy) the leftists got their way. But only after the RSU actually seized the station itself, changing the locks and forcing it off the air for seven months. Unfortunately for them after getting the run of CKLN it turned out that left wing activists didn't know the first thing about running a radio station. So after several months of jaw dropping incompetence the CRTC finally called hearings to decide if the whole sorry embarrassing mess should be allowed to continue. The hearings happened in December 2010 and I testified as a witness. There is no room here to go into the hilarity of the proceedings and the awe inspiring ineptitude of the new CKLN management but suffice it to say the CRTC was not impressed and ordered the station shut down for good. CKLN tried to fight this shut down order in court and via a public campaign claiming "corporate censorship". To the surprise of absolutely nobody the court challenge failed and the public campaign fizzed out and CKLN finally went dark this April.
The Torontoist had the best article about the CKLN debacle which I can't improve on so here it is;
"Timeline: Why CKLN Radio's Broadcast License Was Revoked
by Steve Kupferman on January 28, 2011 3:30 PM
Today the CRTC revoked the broadcasting license of radio station CKLN—an independent community-run radio station located in Ryerson University's campus (and largely funded by its student union) but not officially affiliated with that institution—citing the station's failure to comply with federal broadcasting regulations for the past three years. The decision document announcing the revocation is an epic catalogue of alleged violations, some of them outrageous in their negligence. But the document is long, and you have stuff to do. So we've boiled the whole thing down to a series of key points.
August 13, 2007: The CRTC renews CKLN's license for a term of seven years.
Between August 2007 and March 2009: CKLN is riven with internal disputes. The station fires staff and volunteers, and eventually elects competing boards of directors. (A case concerning the competing boards is currently underway at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.)
The Palin Foundation, the building manager for Ryerson's Student Campus Centre (where CKLN has its studio), locks staff out from March 2009 until October the same year. During the lockout, rather than its usual programming, the station plays a recorded loop of a jazz program, complete with spoken commentary. CKLN is denied access to its transmitter at First Canadian Place, so broadcasts are intermittent.
July 2, 2009: After hearing complaints about CKLN's alleged "ongoing difficulties with its governance structure," CRTC staff sends a letter to CKLN requesting responses to the accusations.
September 14, 2009: CRTC staff members meet with representatives of CKLN to discuss the station's compliance difficulties. Face-to-face meetings of this kind are not something the CRTC typically does.
September 17, 2009: CRTC staff sends another letter to CKLN, requesting information on the station's operations and governance structure. The letter informs CKLN management that the station hasn't filed its required annual returns with the CRTC for the past two years.
October 6, 2009: CKLN files its response to the CRTC's letter of September 17. It promises to hire paid management staff and resolve its internal difficulties.
February 10, 2010: The CRTC sends CKLN a letter requesting tapes, logs, and program schedules relating to the week of January 10, 2010. CKLN sends the tapes on time, but files the schedules and logs almost two weeks late. The tapes are full of static, and they don't match the logs. Later, the CRTC reiterates an unfulfilled October, 2009 request for tapes and logs from June 2009 (which was during the lockout period) and again CKLN sends them after the deadline. When a CRTC staff member asks why the material is late, a CKLN representative says that the person responsible for sending the stuff was "in the Caribbean for a month.
March 1, 2010: In response to the CRTC's continued insistence on receiving those required annual returns, CKLN sends a letter saying that it has "no knowledge as to why the returns had not been filed," and that they'll be in the mail within a few days.
May 12, 2010: The CRTC adjourns a public hearing on CKLN's alleged regulatory violations, but requires CKLN to file monthly reports beginning June 14.
July 7, 2010: A scheduled host doesn't appear at the station for his or her show, and so a CKLN volunteer broadcasts the online stream of a Seattle, Washington, jazz radio show as a substitute. The CRTC takes this and other lapses as evidence that the station's infighting is ongoing. CKLN has not hired management staff and is still controlled by a "working board."
September 14, 2010: CKLN tries to file its annual return for the broadcast year of 2006/2007 with the CRTC, but sends in the wrong form.
October 13, 2010: CKLN tries to file four years' worth of annual returns with the CRTC, all at once. But the data for each year goes only until April 30—the CRTC requires data ending August 31. CKLN promises to file corrected returns within a month, then doesn't.
December 8, 2010: The CRTC reconvenes the previously adjourned public hearing on CKLN's alleged violations. Ron Nelson, head of the station's working board, tells the CRTC that the board has no experienced guidance. "We have never been a program director at a radio station before," he reportedly said. "So we had to do a lot of consulting with the NCRA and other radio stations and their program directors, such as CHRY and CIUT, to find out how to do our job properly."
January 28, 2011: The CRTC revokes CKLN's broadcast license, effective February 12."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On another note, not an entire radio station but rather the last remaining shred of a once respected radio station's glory years. In the 1980's CFNY was Toronto's Alternative, Toronto's New Wave. Then at some point in the late 1990's they changed formats, substituting new wave for Madonna and (gasp) Phil Collins. There were protests, mass firings and resignations, an ownership change and CRTC hearings, which I also testified at come to think of it. The new owners promised to bring back the old format and foster new talent. Instead there were more mass firings and a re-branding as "The Edge 102.4" whatever that means. One of those few from the glory days who managed to survive was DJ Alan Cross. But only just. In 1992 he was given the choice of doing a new project of doing a historical retrospective show called "The Ongoing History of New Music" which would give The Edge some CFNY gravitas. Or Cross could dust off his resume. He reluctantly chose to do the show and given his deep musical knowledge and research skills honed when he had earned a history degree he was able to turn it into a much respected show. Recently he was unceremoniously dumped off the Edge who have long ago learned that gravitas doesn't sell nearly as well as marketing. Sometime this year CFNY also closed their street level audience friendly studios at the Eaton Center. Speaking of which this year Q107 also closed their street level studios across the street at the Hard Rock Cafe. Why in an age when radio is under challenge from newer user friendly media forms these corporate geniuses would want to isolate themselves from the public I'm sure I don't know. But then again I also couldn't for the life of me figure out why CKLN's far-leftist fanatics wanted to turn that place into an insular sectarian cult either. Hey how did that turn out again? Oh right.
Alan Cross in action;
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now for the new;
The Caribbean Radio Network (or CARN) has been pushing laboriously for a license since 2002 and after having been shot down a few times finally got permission from the CRTC to broadcast at 98.7fm in June. CARN Had to get past objections from the CBC (because of their fears that CARN's 98.7fm signal would interfere with the CBC's 99.1fm signal) as well as unrelated objections from Rogers, Astral and CTV (because they're dicks). Also Ron Nelson from the soon-to-be corpse of CKLN also complained on the air calling CARN "vultures" for having the temerity to claim that CARN would be "The Voice of the Black and Caribbean Communities in Toronto" a role that CKLN had claimed. It has been noted that once upon a time The Flow made the same claim only to abandon that role to become a more mainstream (and more profitable) station. For that matter the same has been said about CFNY and Proud fm so we shall see. CARN is not actually on air yet and there will be a delay while they get ready, they will also probably have different call letters.
On another note there is the never ending saga of 1050 CHUM am. Once the powerhouse of Toronto rock radio from the 1950's to the early 1980's. CHUM ruled the roost in Toronto for twenty years presenting everyone from Elvis to the Beatles and could claim the title of "The Voice of Young Toronto". The CHUM Top 30 charts became a fixture and eventually branched on to a television version as well. The owners of CHUM Group also started a CHUM FM sister station as well. I have fond childhood memories of all of it. However times were changing as AM lost ground to FM and top forty lost ground to more specialized rivals like the avowedly hard rock Q107, the new wave CFNY and more eclectic campus/community stations like CKLN and CIUT. CHUM seemed not to notice times were changing until suddenly in the mid eighties it's ratings finally tumbled dramatically. In 1986 they switched from Top Forty to Adult Contemporary Soft Rock and Pop, then in 1989 they went to Golden Oldies. When that didn't work they suddenly gave up on music entirely in 2001 to become an all sports station, ignoring the fact that Toronto already had an all sports station. That turned into a disaster and the ratings cratered completely so they desperately switched back to golden oldies only a year later.
They never recovered from this debacle and in 2007 when the network was sold the new owners, CTV, abruptly switched formats again to a 24 Hour news station, once again ignoring that Toronto already had such a station. This time it was widely assumed that the new CHUM was just making time by running a shell station since there was no actual programming at all, just a direct feed from the Cable Pulse 24 television channel, which led to some odd moments when the television announcers referred to video images that the radio audience (assuming there was one) could not see and long unexplained silences. This year brought another change back to...wait for it...another all sports station. This time they took the time to plan it out and got a fair amount of press attention for the big switch over to what they are now calling TSN Sports Radio. Whether there is still any point to having another sports station in Toronto remains to be seen. At any rate the long winding road of CHUM and CKLN is a unique one in the history of Canadian radio for better or (eventually) worse.
First the deceased;
CKLN 88.1fm was a campus/community radio station based at Ryerson University since 1983, or earlier depending on who you ask. Over the years a lot of good programming went on there and the station was quite influential on the Toronto music scene. Some talented people got their start there, Handsome Ned, Mean Steve Piano, Sucking Chest Wound, Jill Heath, Brian Taylor, Bill Grove, David Scurr, James Bailey, Arnie Achtman, The Blue Demon, Mike Hanson, Gerry Belanger, Charles Watson, Jaymz Bee, DJ Barbie, Dave Neudorf, Michie Mee, Freedom in a Vacuum, The Tape Beatles, Chris Twoomey, Ian Danzig. A bunch of people who later went on to The Flow and CBC and Exclaim Magazine. Oh and I did a show there too for several years before moving to CIUT.
Unfortunately like a number of other campus/community radio stations in Canada CKLN was also full of professional DJ's and show promoters who used CKLN to make money on the side and also became a haven for a cadre of fanatical left wing activist types who engaged in their usual vicious sectarian infighting that inevitably tore the place apart. In 2008 the left wing groups staged coup to seize control of the station. After a year long campaign of harassment, slander, nuisance lawsuits, frivolous complaints to the CRTC, threats and occasional violence backed by the equally leftist Ryerson Student Union (RSU, who also withheld the station's funds to force it into bankruptcy) the leftists got their way. But only after the RSU actually seized the station itself, changing the locks and forcing it off the air for seven months. Unfortunately for them after getting the run of CKLN it turned out that left wing activists didn't know the first thing about running a radio station. So after several months of jaw dropping incompetence the CRTC finally called hearings to decide if the whole sorry embarrassing mess should be allowed to continue. The hearings happened in December 2010 and I testified as a witness. There is no room here to go into the hilarity of the proceedings and the awe inspiring ineptitude of the new CKLN management but suffice it to say the CRTC was not impressed and ordered the station shut down for good. CKLN tried to fight this shut down order in court and via a public campaign claiming "corporate censorship". To the surprise of absolutely nobody the court challenge failed and the public campaign fizzed out and CKLN finally went dark this April.
The Torontoist had the best article about the CKLN debacle which I can't improve on so here it is;
"Timeline: Why CKLN Radio's Broadcast License Was Revoked
by Steve Kupferman on January 28, 2011 3:30 PM
Today the CRTC revoked the broadcasting license of radio station CKLN—an independent community-run radio station located in Ryerson University's campus (and largely funded by its student union) but not officially affiliated with that institution—citing the station's failure to comply with federal broadcasting regulations for the past three years. The decision document announcing the revocation is an epic catalogue of alleged violations, some of them outrageous in their negligence. But the document is long, and you have stuff to do. So we've boiled the whole thing down to a series of key points.
August 13, 2007: The CRTC renews CKLN's license for a term of seven years.
Between August 2007 and March 2009: CKLN is riven with internal disputes. The station fires staff and volunteers, and eventually elects competing boards of directors. (A case concerning the competing boards is currently underway at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.)
The Palin Foundation, the building manager for Ryerson's Student Campus Centre (where CKLN has its studio), locks staff out from March 2009 until October the same year. During the lockout, rather than its usual programming, the station plays a recorded loop of a jazz program, complete with spoken commentary. CKLN is denied access to its transmitter at First Canadian Place, so broadcasts are intermittent.
July 2, 2009: After hearing complaints about CKLN's alleged "ongoing difficulties with its governance structure," CRTC staff sends a letter to CKLN requesting responses to the accusations.
September 14, 2009: CRTC staff members meet with representatives of CKLN to discuss the station's compliance difficulties. Face-to-face meetings of this kind are not something the CRTC typically does.
September 17, 2009: CRTC staff sends another letter to CKLN, requesting information on the station's operations and governance structure. The letter informs CKLN management that the station hasn't filed its required annual returns with the CRTC for the past two years.
October 6, 2009: CKLN files its response to the CRTC's letter of September 17. It promises to hire paid management staff and resolve its internal difficulties.
February 10, 2010: The CRTC sends CKLN a letter requesting tapes, logs, and program schedules relating to the week of January 10, 2010. CKLN sends the tapes on time, but files the schedules and logs almost two weeks late. The tapes are full of static, and they don't match the logs. Later, the CRTC reiterates an unfulfilled October, 2009 request for tapes and logs from June 2009 (which was during the lockout period) and again CKLN sends them after the deadline. When a CRTC staff member asks why the material is late, a CKLN representative says that the person responsible for sending the stuff was "in the Caribbean for a month.
March 1, 2010: In response to the CRTC's continued insistence on receiving those required annual returns, CKLN sends a letter saying that it has "no knowledge as to why the returns had not been filed," and that they'll be in the mail within a few days.
May 12, 2010: The CRTC adjourns a public hearing on CKLN's alleged regulatory violations, but requires CKLN to file monthly reports beginning June 14.
July 7, 2010: A scheduled host doesn't appear at the station for his or her show, and so a CKLN volunteer broadcasts the online stream of a Seattle, Washington, jazz radio show as a substitute. The CRTC takes this and other lapses as evidence that the station's infighting is ongoing. CKLN has not hired management staff and is still controlled by a "working board."
September 14, 2010: CKLN tries to file its annual return for the broadcast year of 2006/2007 with the CRTC, but sends in the wrong form.
October 13, 2010: CKLN tries to file four years' worth of annual returns with the CRTC, all at once. But the data for each year goes only until April 30—the CRTC requires data ending August 31. CKLN promises to file corrected returns within a month, then doesn't.
December 8, 2010: The CRTC reconvenes the previously adjourned public hearing on CKLN's alleged violations. Ron Nelson, head of the station's working board, tells the CRTC that the board has no experienced guidance. "We have never been a program director at a radio station before," he reportedly said. "So we had to do a lot of consulting with the NCRA and other radio stations and their program directors, such as CHRY and CIUT, to find out how to do our job properly."
January 28, 2011: The CRTC revokes CKLN's broadcast license, effective February 12."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On another note, not an entire radio station but rather the last remaining shred of a once respected radio station's glory years. In the 1980's CFNY was Toronto's Alternative, Toronto's New Wave. Then at some point in the late 1990's they changed formats, substituting new wave for Madonna and (gasp) Phil Collins. There were protests, mass firings and resignations, an ownership change and CRTC hearings, which I also testified at come to think of it. The new owners promised to bring back the old format and foster new talent. Instead there were more mass firings and a re-branding as "The Edge 102.4" whatever that means. One of those few from the glory days who managed to survive was DJ Alan Cross. But only just. In 1992 he was given the choice of doing a new project of doing a historical retrospective show called "The Ongoing History of New Music" which would give The Edge some CFNY gravitas. Or Cross could dust off his resume. He reluctantly chose to do the show and given his deep musical knowledge and research skills honed when he had earned a history degree he was able to turn it into a much respected show. Recently he was unceremoniously dumped off the Edge who have long ago learned that gravitas doesn't sell nearly as well as marketing. Sometime this year CFNY also closed their street level audience friendly studios at the Eaton Center. Speaking of which this year Q107 also closed their street level studios across the street at the Hard Rock Cafe. Why in an age when radio is under challenge from newer user friendly media forms these corporate geniuses would want to isolate themselves from the public I'm sure I don't know. But then again I also couldn't for the life of me figure out why CKLN's far-leftist fanatics wanted to turn that place into an insular sectarian cult either. Hey how did that turn out again? Oh right.
Alan Cross in action;
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now for the new;
The Caribbean Radio Network (or CARN) has been pushing laboriously for a license since 2002 and after having been shot down a few times finally got permission from the CRTC to broadcast at 98.7fm in June. CARN Had to get past objections from the CBC (because of their fears that CARN's 98.7fm signal would interfere with the CBC's 99.1fm signal) as well as unrelated objections from Rogers, Astral and CTV (because they're dicks). Also Ron Nelson from the soon-to-be corpse of CKLN also complained on the air calling CARN "vultures" for having the temerity to claim that CARN would be "The Voice of the Black and Caribbean Communities in Toronto" a role that CKLN had claimed. It has been noted that once upon a time The Flow made the same claim only to abandon that role to become a more mainstream (and more profitable) station. For that matter the same has been said about CFNY and Proud fm so we shall see. CARN is not actually on air yet and there will be a delay while they get ready, they will also probably have different call letters.
On another note there is the never ending saga of 1050 CHUM am. Once the powerhouse of Toronto rock radio from the 1950's to the early 1980's. CHUM ruled the roost in Toronto for twenty years presenting everyone from Elvis to the Beatles and could claim the title of "The Voice of Young Toronto". The CHUM Top 30 charts became a fixture and eventually branched on to a television version as well. The owners of CHUM Group also started a CHUM FM sister station as well. I have fond childhood memories of all of it. However times were changing as AM lost ground to FM and top forty lost ground to more specialized rivals like the avowedly hard rock Q107, the new wave CFNY and more eclectic campus/community stations like CKLN and CIUT. CHUM seemed not to notice times were changing until suddenly in the mid eighties it's ratings finally tumbled dramatically. In 1986 they switched from Top Forty to Adult Contemporary Soft Rock and Pop, then in 1989 they went to Golden Oldies. When that didn't work they suddenly gave up on music entirely in 2001 to become an all sports station, ignoring the fact that Toronto already had an all sports station. That turned into a disaster and the ratings cratered completely so they desperately switched back to golden oldies only a year later.
They never recovered from this debacle and in 2007 when the network was sold the new owners, CTV, abruptly switched formats again to a 24 Hour news station, once again ignoring that Toronto already had such a station. This time it was widely assumed that the new CHUM was just making time by running a shell station since there was no actual programming at all, just a direct feed from the Cable Pulse 24 television channel, which led to some odd moments when the television announcers referred to video images that the radio audience (assuming there was one) could not see and long unexplained silences. This year brought another change back to...wait for it...another all sports station. This time they took the time to plan it out and got a fair amount of press attention for the big switch over to what they are now calling TSN Sports Radio. Whether there is still any point to having another sports station in Toronto remains to be seen. At any rate the long winding road of CHUM and CKLN is a unique one in the history of Canadian radio for better or (eventually) worse.
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