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Of all the musical performances I’ve heard and/or seen, without question Bruce Springsteen’s performance of My City Of Ruin on the televised Tribute to Heroes broadcast had the biggest impact on me.
I couldn’t comprehend how he could sing that song without breaking down and crying, a mere week after the attacks. I was in awe of his professionalism. And, moreso, I was in awe of the song. At the time, I hadn’t realised that it was a song on his upcoming album, and I thought he had written it specifically for the broadcast. Under that belief, I was amazed at how he could have written such a beautifully poetic and powerful song, so close to the event (I thought) it described.
Even knowing that it was written before the attacks, I am no less amazed at how beautiful and poetic it is. It was perfect. It opened the show, and it was a perfect performance. I cried when I heard it on that broadcast, and I still get teary-eyed practically every time I listen to it. No other song even comes close to eliciting that kind of reaction from me.

I know it’s corny and ultimately worthless, but:
On this anniversary, my heart goes out to the friends and families of those who lost their lives as a result of those attacks.
It also goes out to the friends and families of those innocent Iraqis, and of the 1000+ soldiers, who’ve lost their lives as a result of the mis-guided retaliation of those attacks. And to those innocent Iraqis whose lives have been saved as a result of that mis-guided retaliation.

Confession time.
It’s been years since I’ve stepped foot in a libary.
As the computer has gradually taken up more and more of my spare time, and since I spend all day reading and writing, I find it more and more difficult to set aside time to read. And any reading I do is reading of a book or magazine I’ve purchased. My reasons, then, to enter a libary have dwindled to, well, none.
This is my great shame, I suppose.

The last time I entered a libary, I was looking for a book for my son, who was probably 4 or 5 at the time. So, that’s like 6 years ago.
At that time, I was looking for some material for him to read, or (probably, since he probably wasn’t quite able to read yet) for me to read to him. One of my favourite early-school year reads was the Noddy series of books, by Enid Blyton, so I thought I’d look for some at my local libary.
The libary didn’t have them. Or maybe they were signed out.

Anyway, I left the libary with my Noddy. And I haven’t been back since.

There. There’s my libary story. And, yes, I know how to spell it. I choose not to.

Just so stuntmen and key grips can keep their jobs, my family went to see Hero last night at the gigantic movie complex where one’s snacks end up costing as much as a Swiss Chalet meal.
The movie is gorgeous, both visually and poetically, and I appreciated the morality and philosohy it contained. I recommend it to everyone.
My only criticism is that, during the wonderfully balletic battles between adversaries, the danger of death/dying seemed to be largely absent. I enjoyed watching them as pieces of art and movement, but they lacked the notion of consequence. As such, it made it difficult to invest my emotions in the outcome of each battle.
But that’s a minor quibble. A wonderful movie, in my opinion.

Had my first rehearsal for Enemies, an improvised soap opera, last night. It will run for three consecutive Thursdays at the ARTS Guild, beginning Sep.30. This year, most of the action takes place in Las Vegas, so we’re hoping it’s a big, bright, glittery production.

I was involved, last summer, in the second season of the show, and it was a fun, interesting, challenging experience. This year should be likewise.

Basically, what happens is we are given a pretty detailed (6-7 pages each) synopsis of the three episodes (written by Sean McQuaid). We then spend the rehearsal process familiarizing ourselves with the necessary plot points, improvising as we go along. The goal is to have a quasi-improvised performance of each episode. The challenge is to familiarize ourselves enough with the plot so that we all know where we are headed in the scene/episode, yet not so much that we lock ourselves into any scripted dialogue. We want to know where we’re going, but we don’t want to really know how we get there.

I’ll be directing, and acting in this season’s episodes. Also performing will be Graham Putnam, Carly Martin, Joey Weale (all returning with me from season two), and (returning from season one) Patty Larsen.

Just gotta say…without question, the best cheeseburgers in Charlottetown are found at Cedar’s Eatery.

Without question. Go ahead, prove me wrong.

I remeber it perfectly.
It was a Friday night and I was sitting on the couch at my friend Wade’s house. His parents weren’t home and we were listening to CBC on the radio. The Piano Has Been Drinking came on and I remember it was like a wonderful slap in the face. Huh? He’s not playing the piano very well, missing a lot of notes, and his singing is like someone who’s chewed a hundred razor blades. What the hell kind of music is this? I loved it.
That was my introduction to Tom Waits. I immediately (well, the next day, let’s say) went and bought his The Asylum Years compilation double-album and was hooked, utterly and completely. I remember Colin (the guy who introduced me to The Clash, and whom I subsequently introduced to Hank Williams) saying that I was out of my mind for liking this guy. In fact, he was ashamed that would even suggest that he listen to John Waite. No, it’s Tom Waits and you’ll love it. And he did. We were two Parkdale PEI boys discovering a shared love of music, and spent the next year or so bringing new (to us) music to each other’s attention. Wade’s impression of Tom Waits: Meh.
Over the years, there’ve been a handful of artists whose records I’d buy irregardless. Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, R.E.M…. I gave up on REM first I think. I hung on to Elvis Costello longer than I should have, but eventually stopped getting his stuff automatically too.
Tom Waits, though. Album comes out. Rob buys it. I think he’s the only artist now I trust to do that.

Ramblin’ Man – Hank Williams
So, I had my Beatles obsession. I was working through all that punk. Naturally, from there, I turned 180 degrees around and became instantly enamoured with Hank Williams when I heard this song. I was wallpapering a bedroom with my father, and there was a Hank Williams album playing. I wasn’t really paying much attention to it, though, because as a punk, country was not cool, guv’nah. This song, though, made me re-evaluate what I was going to choose to listen to. I credit this song, Hank Williams in general (and later, George Jones) for turning the light on in my brain that said “listen to whatever the hell you like. If you like it, listen to it.”

Show’s over.

Last night was the first Thursday night in the past 9 weeks where a roomful of people wasn’t laughing at me. Instead of singing “I’m Glad She’s Dead” as Moe Gorman, at 9:40 last night, I was watching Canadian Idol whomever-singing-whatever. Of course, I should have been at rehearsals for “Enemies”, but I was too sick to go.
I much prefer Moe’s rendition of “Phillip Arsenault’s A Real Arsehole” to Josh (or was it Jason?) Greeley’s rendition of whatever-it-was-that-song-that-he-sang-was.

So, perhaps I’ll do this in some sort of chronological manner.

Important Musical Moment #2

London Calling, The Clash
I was deep and happy into my John Lennon and The Beatles obsession. He and they were all that. I was content playing my growing Beatles and John Lennon collection over and over again. Then one day I was over at a friend’s house, Colin Kennefic, and he put on a new album he just got. It was London Calling. From the very first strum of the very first note, I was hooked. It was a moment so profound for me that I can still remember the feel of the Lazy-Boy Recliner in which I was sitting. The Beatles were great, but it was the music of my older brothers. This music, though, was speaking to me. London Calling, album and song, broke my punk cherry, and from there I dove head first into the back-catalog of 1976-1980’s punk. I swam naked in the fury and anger of that music, and I gobbled up all the musical gobs that those artists spit at me.

A couple of days ago, I came across a blog with a post about personal important musical milestones. I thought I’d begin a series of posts highlighting some of my important musical milestones.

So, here is Important Musical Moment #1

(Just Like) Starting Over, John Lennon
Before December 1980, I was not very ‘into’ music. At that time, I was 14, and listened to the radio a bit, but music didn’t really affect me. When John Lennon was killed, I knew who he was and had a vague understanding of his importance. A few weeks later, when my mother (inexplicably) gave me his Double Fantasy album as an unsolicited present, I graciously accepted it, thinking I’d not play it very much. While there are some great songs on it, and I did play the album quite a bit, I consider this album, and this song as important, not for itself, but because it led me to my (still strong) infatuation with The Beatles. Almost immediately upon hearing Double Fantasy, (and despite the Yoko Ono songs) I knew that John Lennon was going to be an influential artist in my life. I quickly bought The Beatles 1960-1966, and The Beatles 1967-1970 and my life, in terms of ‘musical appreciation’ has not been the same since. Even though this song is not close to my favourite Lennon song (it may not even be top ten?), it is the one that I owe a debt of gratitude to, for introducing me properly to John Lennon, The Beatles and to Music.