December 7, 2017
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So You Wanna be an Outlaw (a brief review)

A few days ago, I purchased Steve Earle’s latest offering, So You Wanna be an Outlaw. Some of Earle’s recordings have really resonated with me. El Corazón, Transcendental Blues and The Mountain are albums I still listen to regularly today. I think they’re fabulous and they keep on giving. We were disappointed, though with a Steve Earle performance at Massey Hall a few years ago, the one where  he had a guy with a drum machine instead of other musicians accompanying him. It was at best so-so. I haven’t heard some of his more recent recordings. Townes, his tribute to Townes Van Zandt, was pretty good, but uneven.

I’ve listened to the new one several times now. The rockers in the set, with their rough & tumble production, didn’t do much for me, and the addition of some Willie Nelson guest vocals on the title track didn”t help much. Those performances are OK but the tunes are just not all that memorable. You Broke my Heart is a beautiful country tune. So is Walkin’ in LA, which features some guest vocals by Johnny Bush. I’d say the latter is the highlight of the album.

The last tune on the recording, Goodbye Michelangelo, seems to be a tribute to Earle’s old friend Guy Clark. It’s heartfelt, but filled with forced rhymes. It’s just not good enough to pay tribute to Guy Clark.

I want So You Wanna be an Outlaw to be a fabulous Steve Earle album, but I doubt it will get a lot of play around here, at least not in its entirety. More likely I’ll add the 3 or 4 songs I really like to a playlist with some other material and forget about the rest.

December 4, 2017
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Tis the season….for WHAT?

I ventured into my local Canadian Tire store this morning. The big Christmas machine was in full swing. Christmas music. Loud Christmas music, the kind that sounds like sappy pop music with lyrics all about presents under the tree and shopping lists and like that. Displays everywhere. Already on a Monday morning and the place was a-bustlin’. I found the items I came for and headed straight for the cash.

As I checked out, I noticed what for this store is a big change. They had security scanning machines set up at the door, which was manned by a uniformed security guard. I guess it isn’t just the season for giving and shopping but for shop-lifting as well.

I went through the scanners at the same time as another shopper. Bells went off. I waited to see if it was me or the other shopper who set them off. It was her. She had checked out at the cash next to the one I was at and she was holding her receipt. I hung back to watch. The security guard ushered her back to the end of a cash desk. He was very friendly to her and did some magic to one of the items, wished her a good day and she was on her way….almost. The bells went off again and the guard motioned for her to go back to the end of the cash, again. She sighed and went back, having more patience than I would have had.

There must be a serious amount of shoplifting going on to make it worthwhile for the store to install the equipment and pay Buddy to stand there and deal with folks every time the bells go off. I wonder if thieves for the most part stop when the bells ring at the exit or just keep on going. I can’t imagine that security guard chasing down a petty thief.

 

December 3, 2017
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The click-bait is getting a bit tiresome….

Anybody else getting seriously tired of this kind of crap littering the social medias?
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Eugene’s social media rules to live by….

  • Avoid clicking on click-bait (including quizzes, personality tests and so on)
  • Avoid facebook memes
  • Try not to get sucked into facebook politics. Just unfriend contacts who post anything that smells bad.
  • Change my facebook feed from “top stories” to “most recent” each and every time
  • Just say no to clicking on facebook ads and sponsored posts

Am I missing any?

November 30, 2017
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Other Instruments

It occurred to me that I’m drawn to music that features a different set of instruments than the two guitars, bass and drums used by so many pop bands. One of the things I love about old country music, for instance is the ever-present pedal steel. My dad listened to a lot of old jazz and the interplay of horns fascinated me. Later, when I first heard Clifton Chenier play boogies on his big piano accordion, I was hooked.

No wonder I fell hard for the banjo. Although today it’s been creeping into pop music, back in the day no self-respecting rockin’ guitar-slinger would give it the time of day. Here’s Jerron Paxton on banjo, what he calls the people’s instrument.

This morning I was surfing around the YouTube and came across a performance of L’inconnu de Limoise, featuring button accordion, pipes, a stand-up bass, and 3-count-em-3 hurdy gurdies. Stopped me in my tracks. Love these guys.

Ever heard the Nykelharpa? Here’s Griselda Sanderson

This post is a shout-out to all the great musicians who play the “other instruments”!

November 27, 2017
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Calling Long Branch Gardeners

The Long Branch by the Lake Garden Tour will take place Saturday June 23, 2018. Over 30 gardeners are already planning to participate. Your Long Branch garden can be part of the tour too. Visit the website for more information. For my international visitors, this is Long Branch Ontario Canada, in the SW corner of Toronto.

November 26, 2017
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Spirit of the Narrows

Last evening we went to see Anne Lederman’s Spirit of the Narrows at the Small World Music theatre, a cozy space on Shaw St. we had never been to before. This two-person play is about First Nations and Métis people in Manitoba told through Anne Lederman’s personal experience, hearing a tape of a Métis fiddler, wondering about this “crooked” music with its enthusiastic foot stomping, and going to rural Manitoba to meet, record and try to understand the music and the people making it.

Anne Lederman played herself, various fiddlers and others. Capucine Onn played young Anne. It was a very well-conceived show, punctuated by excellent fiddling by both players. Anne Lederman is originally from Manitoba, but she’s a well-known Toronto performer, having been a founding member of Muddy York  and also the Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band. She has also played with other bands and has a number of her own CD’s out, plus she teaches fiddling in Toronto.

Capucine Onn is from Blyth Ontario. She started playing violin very early at age 2. She plays in a band called Jellybean Blue and teaches Suzuki violin and voice in Huron County.

The play offered a unique and respectful taste of Métis culture through the efforts of a non-native fiddler to gain some understanding of the culture through the music. She was clearly very aware of her outsider status when visiting the fiddlers, and notes in the play she sometimes was not sure if she was welcome or not. It seemed the degree to which she was let in had much to do with the fact that she was an accomplished fiddler.

Spirit of the Narrows had some great musical performances, and it was an inventive way for Anne Lederman to tell her story. I found the music to be very compelling and for reasons I cannot explain, some of the tunes caused me to tear up.

This was the first time Spirit of the Narrows played in Toronto – while I’d like to recommend it, unfortunately last night was the last of a very limited number of performances.