And I Quote...

If the weather gods had cooperated, I would be in New York City today, enjoying a short spring break getaway and meeting a new friend I’ve known online from the Who family. Alas, yet another snowstorm fell upon Toronto, and I’m at home looking at the white blanket that has wrapped the city once again. It seems to be an endless winter, but spring is coming, I’ve been promised.

If you are on Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr. I’m sure you are familiar with these little windows of quotes or sayings. I’m not sure they have a formal name (‘quote cards’, perhaps?) but they make frequent appearances on my newsfeed and daily scrolls. Sometimes I roll my eyes, and sometimes they captivate me. Sometimes I even go searching for one of them via Google because to frame an idea or a thought with a pretty background or photo just seems more elegant than stating the words on a bare typed surface.

The two most common quote cards are the Keep Calm and… eCard series. I’ve very rarely shared any of those, except to pay tribute to the glorious medicinal effects of gin or to make a self-deprecating remark about myself.

What I have noticed after scrolling back is that my use of these cards has had very specific purposes. They appear mostly in my profile or cover photo, and less so in my actual Timeline. In my profiles and covers, they are very much a proclamation of who I am, what I believe, or what I love.

Often, they are a shoutout to my friends and family for a particular kindness, or for being the bantering goofballs that they are.

However, in the past year when menopause hit me over the head and turned me into a moody teenager, many of my cards seemed to be very much the declarations of an often-depressed, sometimes-excited 14-year old. At times, I was lost…

Fighting hopelessness…

And then the strangest thing happened: in the middle of making the use of these cards a bit of a habit, I found out that many friends of mine identified with some of the thoughts I had thrown out there, and seemed to appreciate them. By posting the words and images to encourage myself to climb out of the dark places I found myself in, I discovered that I was not alone and that others responded to the call, however unintentional it had initially been.

When you realize you are not alone, you begin to understand that by connecting with others and trying to support them, you can sometimes make a small difference in their day.

And sometimes you post something you find profound or clever without really thinking of anyone in particular.

And a friend responds with the most touching words, and it all comes full circle.

Legends in Concert

For those of you who read my blog but don't normally connect to Facebook, I finally managed to do my write-ups on the last four concerts I attended. I was fortunate enough to see Rod Stewart, Elton John, Billy Joel, and a quirky indie band called Glasvegas in the last three months, and you can read all about the show and my reviews.

Here are a few photos, the first and last from the Rod Stewart show, and the middle one from Elton John's stage set-up. You'll understand quickly why one of them amused me to no end. Enjoy.

Unplugged

This has been an odd but immensely pleasurable week: I've unplugged from social media in my personal life just as I've plugged in as part of a musical ensemble in my professional one.

Why the retreat from Facebook and Twitter? One reason is that I have found it overwhelming to keep up with the constant stream of posts and links that scrolls past me on both platforms. I have realized in just four days away that I will need to rethink my online presence upon my eventual return, and reconsider the way in which I interact. I have many close friends who live both near and far on social media, people I care about deeply and I will sorely miss them during my sabbatical. They are not the reason I am taking a break: the long Canadian winter seems to have made grumbling complainers of too many of us, and the never-ending cycle of moping and grousing along with a barrage of memes have ceased to entertain me as the cold season has dragged. The dearth of Olympic posts put the final nail in my social media coffin, to the point where I just wanted to hide under the covers and never see another comment about the Canadian hockey team ever again. I'd make an exception for the bearded bobsledders, but the rest was just overkill by the time the games were over, games you will recall I was not watching to begin with.

The other big project I've sworn to get back to is finishing the final novel in my four-part Behind Blue Eyes rock novel series: originally due out in August 2013, I am now aiming for a release date of August 2014. Can I be cheeky and claim a typo in the announcement at the end of book three? In any case, I hope to be deeply into completing the remaining two chapters before diving into endless edits from now until July, and this demands a certain discipline and willingness to be a little less 'social' online.

And so, with the need to regroup mentally and get back to work, I've latched on to a childhood custom long since abandoned and invoked my own personal, non-religious Lent period.


This decision has coincided with another annual tradition at school: we have just completed a week-long drumming workshop with the remarkable Rodrigo Chavez, a percussionist and guitar player with the Latin band Cassava. He is also an extraordinary teacher: the grade 5 and 6 students lit up as soon as the conga and bass drums arrived in the classroom on Monday morning, and armed with maracas, shakers, cowbells (smaller cha cha bells, and larger mambo bells, to be more precise), agogos, guiros, the children quickly learned how to play rhythms of Latin America and the Caribbean. We have, with our advanced and beginner groups this week, performed calypso, samba, salsa, cumbia, merengue, soca, and cha-cha numbers, all of which will be presented to a small audience of parents tomorrow afternoon as a final celebration of the experience.

Being part of a musical ensemble can be the opposite of being online, in a sense. Rather than being alone in front of your computer, looking at and commenting on words and photos that might be far away geographically, you are physically surrounded by peers that you must look at, listen to, and sense. Observation and interaction are essential, and the connection between the playing musicians is an incredible bond that is not easy to describe but which feels rich, meaningful, and intimate. There are smiles, nods, and a sense of great joy as you build a piece of music from its messy, uneven origins to a tight, cohesive sound.  While I can personally attest over and over to the fact that you can develop a close bond with someone online, the immediate interdependency of playing live music together is something unique and akin to belonging to a small village.

My goal this week was to extend my knowledge of and abilities with the two cowbells. I finished today by learning how to play the cha-cha and mambo bells in unison, using two drumsticks to do it. I also further developed some of my conga drum techniques and tonight, the palms of both hands are a bit tender from my efforts.

The guiro

 The cowbell

 The agogo

Maracas!

You would think, given how much time I usually spend on social media, that my leaving it might have made me twitchy. On the contrary, it has been liberating in a manner I didn't expect. One of my closest friends there has given up Facebook for Lent, and her absence has made it easier to let go. Of course, I already miss the banter with her and with our small group of close friends, but I believe that the break will be a good thing in the long run. We all need to recharge our batteries and rediscover those things we set aside to be in front of the screen over the winter months. Besides the completion of my novel, I'm planning to exercise and read more, to finish all the non-fiction writing I meant to get to since mid-December (there are pending concert reviews of Rod Stewart, Elton John, Glasvegas, and an upcoming Billy Joel show on Sunday), and if winter decides to end sooner rather than later, I'd like to resume my long dog walks once again. The last thing I need to work on is finding myself once again; as clichéd as it sounds, I've lost a bit of focus and calm in the last few months and want to redress the balance in my life.  I don't want to forsake the online people I consider to be close friends for those I see in my daily life, and need to find a way to keep connecting with all of them without abandoning or compromising either group. As soon as I figure out how to do this, I'll be back.



You can find out more about the Latin band Cassava at http://www.cassavalatin.com.

Passing On the Olympic Torch

I am not what you would call a sports junkie. I've never watched the Super Bowl, nor have I ever followed the NFL or CFL seasons, and any attention given to our national winter obsession has been spotty at best since the 1970s, when my father and I enjoyed Hockey Night in Canada together, cheering on the Leafs or the Canadiens (yes, I realize that sentence would make some locals in either city scream). When I picked up a racquet in the late 1980s, my love affair with tennis was cemented and I tuned in to all the Grand Slams; not only was it exciting to watch, but I think my game vastly improved by picking up pointers and strategies from the players. Wimbledon is the only tournament I still make an effort to catch these days, although I still have attending it and the US Open on my travel bucket list.

The only two constants in television sports viewing from childhood to middle age have been the FIFA World Cup and the Olympics. Soccer, as it's called here in North America, was a passion developed again from my father, whose lifelong love of the game in general and the German national team in particular seeped down to me and meant that we could sit together every two years (let's not forget the Euro Cup!) and cheer them on, usually pretty far into the championship, occasionally right to the end. Most of the time, he'd be cursing our Italian neighbours in what was a friendly rivalry between normally civil gentlemen. 

The Olympics are another grand global spectacle that I became fascinated with early on: I have a distinct memory of sitting in my uncle's house in Mauritius in 1976, squinting at the small television set to catch glimpses of track and field events taking place thousands of miles away back home in Montreal. From that summer onward, I was hooked. The winter version took a bit longer to get under my skin, but by the time Vancouver was hosting the 2010 games, the love affair was complete. The whole country was mesmerized, our athletes dominated the podium in a manner that was unheard of for this modest, underachieving nation, and our school ran parallel activities that made me so enthusiastic I was on a west coast schedule that almost killed me for seventeen days. It was the first time I went out and bought some memorabilia. My little Sumi and Quatchi keychains still make me smile, although not as much as the expression "I've got a bigger Quatchi" evokes, thanks to the inappropriate innuendo that comparing stuffed toy mascots seemed to bring out in my equally immature and close colleagues.

Fast forward to yesterday, and the opening ceremonies of the Sochi Olympics. We’ve all seen the recent stories and images in the media of the corruption, the tainted water, the latest and not-so-recent violations of human rights and subsequent demonstrations, and finally the rounding up and systematic hunting down of stray dogs.  All of it is ugly, brutal, and sadly unsurprising, and points to a country that has sunk deeply into dictatorship once again. Frankly, on a political level, it’s not much different from Beijing was except that Russia looks even more menacing in its wild west, uncontrolled manner. 

Free Pussy Riot photo from www.freewoodpost.com

From uk.eurosport.yahoo.com

Photo from michaelnassar.net

Photo from the dogingtonpost.com

So why is it that I can’t get excited about any of it if I managed to get addicted to the Beijing circus? Canada scored a record amount of medals in Vancouver, and many of the 221 athletes representing us seem poised to stand on the podium again. I keep hearing over and over from some of my friends that despite the house of horrors that is the Putin regime, we should ignore politics and support our athletes with cheers and encouragement.

I can’t do it. I don’t know what has changed for me in four years, but I can’t bring myself to turn on the television and get interested in any of it. My brain knows that the IOC is corrupt, and likely no more or less so than FIFA and its band of cronies, and that this has always been the case. Certainly, Toronto's experiences with a failed Olympic bid widened my eyes even more to the charade and lack of transparency involved in the process.  Perhaps it’s also that I hardly watch television anymore, or that the proliferation of social media and the endless 24-hour news cycle has made me an even bigger cynic and quite world-weary.  Maybe it's that I have a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach that something will go horribly wrong in the next two weeks. I certainly don’t wish anyone harm, but my brain can’t help but envision that construction shortcuts were most certainly taken and that such corruption can sometimes lead to disaster. Add that to other serious threats (there was already a report of an attempted plane hijacking yesterday) and my decision has been made. Good luck, Team Canada, get out there and do your best, but I won’t be watching any of it. In fact, I'm going to take the opportunity to detach a bit from social media and give some much needed attention to other personal writing projects.

Yesterday, while the opening ceremonies droned on, I was busy at work ignoring it all, and I am relieved that the nine-hour time zone delay will make it easier to keep the circus off my radar for the duration. On this Saturday morning, as I wrote my first draft, I watched Liverpool FC destroy my beloved Gunners 5-1, and that humiliation seemed a much more pleasant alternative than tuning in to see how things were going in Sochi. I'd even almost prefer to watch the Azzurri defeat the Germans at a FIFA final. Almost.

The Pen and the Heart

I’m a writer. I’ve written all my life, indeed had the bones of two novels done by age 18, and songs under my belt even younger. It’s finally hit me in the last two years just what it means to be a writer, beyond getting to say I’ve published some prose and had people record my work. That might be icing on the cake, but it’s not the cake itself: it’s the very act of needing to put words down on paper that defines who I am.

I’m struggling at the moment to finish the last novel of a four-part series that began as a journey to write a decent musical novel way back in 1979, and I’ve realized the difficulty is partly due to not wanting that adventure to end, because saying goodbye to these imaginary friends will be painful. I love them, flaws and all, because beyond being a lot of fun to create and develop, they represent the values and ideas that I embrace and reject as a person. My doubting hero is the mirror of my own lack of confidence, and the people I have surrounded him with all come from a set of core beliefs that have guided me through life. It was not a conscious decision when I wrote my series, but looking back, I can see that redemption, trust, and the love of friends and family are all ideals that define me.

What I’ve come to understand in the last few months is that, beyond just reflecting what is important to me, I write as a way to demonstrate those values, and that creating a story or writing a song has been an act of love in itself. The Behind Blue Eyes series was a love letter to music, to my hometown of Toronto, and to readers who wanted a rock and roll band to seep into their imaginations. In the series itself, those near and dear will often find what an author friend called “Easter eggs” during a podcast I appeared on over a year ago. Like some of my short stories from the past, my books are filled with nods and winks to close friends and family, all designed to make them smile and remember details of our common past or present. Having those dear people recognize the little nuggets of affection I threw here and there in my series gives me great joy.

Photo is by :http://mms92.deviantart.com/art/Love-is-in-the-books-170002704

More recently, I’ve written short fiction stories to amuse myself, to push some new boundaries, and to keep myself engaged creatively while I allow my book series to unfold properly in my head. There is never a rush with writing, for me: Behind Blue Eyes first hit a sheet of paper in 1979, and so waiting another few weeks or months for a suitable ending to present itself is not alarming. What I’ve discovered in my recent foray is that my process is the same: no matter how big or small the audience, I write for love and to express affection. In so doing, I may never be the most talented or successful writer, and that matters not one tiny bit.  I know everything coming out of me will be meaningful to someone, and that the people who matter will recognize themselves in my words. 

So if you see yourself somewhere in my work, or you recognize your city, your face or other particular feature, or a shared incident or expression that is too personal to be a mere coincidence, it's just my way of reaching out to remind you that you are dear to me. I hope it makes you smile like it did me while I was writing it.

Snow Days

I’m back from four days in the tundra with a large school group of 11 year-olds. For those of you with an interest in geography, the Canadian Arctic begins just 89 km north of Toronto near the Mono Cliffs: situated on Bruce Trail, which runs from the Niagara Escarpment* to Tobermory, the Mono Cliffs are the highest elevation point in Ontario, where you can see the CN Tower in the distance on a clear day. I didn't verify this fact during our winter trip because frankly, with day time highs of -27 C and wind chills of -33 C, my glasses spent the better part of their outside time fogged up above my wrapped cheeks and mouth.

*  (from the Italian scarpa, which I googled during the indoor portion of a geology lesson before my cell phone went from 75% to 8% battery within minutes outside and froze to death)

I’m at once a city mouse and a lover of the scorching, humid weather southern Ontario enjoys in the middle of a typical summer, and so this week was a challenge on many levels. Most people do not appreciate how much outright lying and acting is involved in maintaining a happy group of students in the course of giving them a proper education. “Oh, no, dear, it’s absolutely not too cold to be going outside today. We just need to get properly bundled up and we’ll be completely fine!” “The sun is shining, and it will help keep us warm.” “Just a few more minutes out here and we will be back inside for lunch.” And so it goes, one cheerleading fib after another, delivered with a reassuring smile to encourage your young charges not to give up walking in the foot-deep snow as you curse your own lack of judgement for forgetting to put your tights under your long johns, which are under your ill-chosen jeans and all-too-thin plastic rain pants that work just fine from the porch to your car in Toronto. Forget the Oscars; “best performance by an actor in a leading role” belongs to every teacher, every day.

So how did the city mouse fare in the country? For starters, I learned a few handy winter survival tips: there is no substitute for wool socks, no matter how many layers of cotton or synthetic ones you pile on before putting on your boots. I can also now add “warming the feet of students under my armpits in the middle of the forest” to my impressive list of teaching credentials. I am fairly confident that I could build a reasonable quinzee for temporary shelter if I were ever caught outside in the middle of nowhere in January with a dead cell phone (I refer you back to the battery freeze mentioned earlier). If nothing else, my awe and admiration for Canada’s First Nations and early settlers grows with every visit out here: it takes huge courage to resist the urge to just pack up and move to Florida at this time of year, and I respect those who came before us and stuck around in these harsh elements and built this country. Personally, I would have begged my ancestors to return to France so I could spend the winters on the Riviera.

The night sky in the country is a spectacular site to behold: two evenings in, it was clear and dark, and there, just beyond the Orion constellation, was my favourite cluster of stars—the Pleiades. In Toronto, there are barely three or four sisters visible but out here, all seven of them said hello. It was magical, and reminded me of the summer of the great Ontario blackout in 2003, when the electrical grid bathed my urban neighbourhood in darkness and taking my old dog Sheba out for her last walk gave me the chance to see the evening sky as nature intended.

We always talk to students about stepping out of their comfort zones to experience new things and grow, and it’s not a bad rule for us older types either. In the spirit of doing just that, I volunteered to accompany a group on a snow-shoeing expedition. Nervousness about injuries (hip fractures and shoulder tears are surely not any more fun the second time around) were quickly replaced with the delight of making fresh tracks in the deep snow: I fell twice, but recovered each time with no damage to anything more serious than my athletic pride, and thoroughly enjoyed the 45-minute outing. On the last night here, I once again shook off the fear of the unknown and took myself out with a small group on an evening hike through the woods: my night vision is dubious at best, and I felt great trepidation at going on an expedition in near darkness. However, I discovered that a good foot shuffle and grandmotherly pacing did much to keep me stable. I stumbled a few times but recovered and pressed on for a good hour without falling. Score another one for fearlessness, although the Ibuprofen gel should get an honourable mention for saving me the following morning from the aches and pain that came with the slow, often clumsy stepping style.

The Canadian mantra is that if you’re dressed for the weather, winter is a lion that can be tamed; as horrific as all my mismatched layers might have looked had I come upon Anna Wintour on the trail, I did embrace the outdoors while communing with nature. That said, once I was safely back inside the confines of the dormitory and the students were tucked in bed for the night, I reached for the eucalyptus oils and finished each day with my favourite routine: the steaming bubble bath.

The Return of the Random...

It's been forever. July of last year, in fact, if you discount the concert reviews I also post to my commercial website. I'm back. I've missed writing about things that have nothing to do with music, or my books, or the music that made me want to write my books.

I'm off to a school overnight camp this week, where I am hoping to put some thoughts to paper and resurrect this blog as a release of energy and ideas, and just to enjoy writing again for no other purpose than to be creative and to interact with some old friends and possibly meet some new ones.

It's about to get busy again.

A Summer of Concerts!

I have been so fortunate to have spent a good part of the summer at fantastic concerts. For those of you who are music fans, here are some reviews and reports from my favourite shows of midsummer. Enjoy.



Mumford & Sons and The Gentlemen of the Road Stopover—Simcoe, Ontario, August 23rd and 24th, 2013

The Proclaimers at the CNE Bandshell, August 16th, 2013

Bad Company at Casinorama,August 3rd, 2013














Heart with the Jason Bonham Experience, Toronto Molson Ampitheatre, July 23rd, 2013

Something Else

This week on the Backstory of my website, I am so proud and delighted to feature my good friend Ron, who took the imaginary band from my rock novel series and gave them a sound with his song 'Something Else'. The backstory itself is really interesting because the lyrics came from a band mate who didn't know about the series and still made a connection. Sometimes life is stranger than fiction... Check out Ron's story here.

Ron with Pete Townshend, the man who started it all.

The Eagles play in Toronto— A Review

I'm not a devoted Eagles fan, but I do enjoy live shows and thought The History of the Eagles 2013 Tour was a worthy addition to the bucket list of bands to finally see. I wasn't disappointed. You can read my review here.

Photo courtesy of Sue Long.

The Beauty of Getting Older

I’m shaking my head right now. Not because I am surprised at how often cutesy articles about the pitfalls of getting old appear in online blogs, but rather for how well received and lauded they are by the reading public. Yesterday’s offering in the Huffington Post attempted to inject humour into 40 things that are ‘effed’ up about turning 40, and I remain puzzled by the gush of praise and disturbed by the amount of people who seemed to identify with the self-indulgent, superficial ideas the writer shared.

It’s not that I don’t get that there are parts about growing old that suck, because I do. Every age has its “effed up” parts, usually determined by the limitations or obstacles that occur at various life stages. More importantly, it also has its joys and its priviledges, not the least of which is the ability to reach it. Perhaps I would be more forgiving of the shallowness of this article if I hadn’t lost a friend this year who won’t ever see 40, but the truth is that I just can’t identify with the musings of the middle-aged woman in question because I don’t choose to be defined by her standards or complaints.

I’m now 50, and I can trace the evolution to my present self back to my early to mid 30s. That is when I consciously shed my cautious and careful younger self and took some chances that those around me found reckless. Meet a mate on the internet? What a frightening idea that was in 1996, but that single act of fearlessness changed my life forever, most of it for the better. It gave me the confidence to trust my decisions, no matter how wild and horrific they seemed in the moment, and to ignore the naysayers who tried to convince me to play life safely.

17 years later, I can tell you what is truly “effed” up about turning 40, and then 50: it is losing friends and family to fatal illnesses, old age, and random accidents, and missing them so much it makes you ache; it is finally having enough money to enjoy the many friends and places you’ve fallen in love with, but not having enough time to see and enjoy them all with the frequency you’d prefer; it is filling your bucket list with two items every time you empty one and realising you’ll never reach the bottom of the pail before your time on Earth runs out.

That’s my list of three: everything else is gravy, which is an odd choice of words for a veteran vegetarian. Being 40, as a dear friend once told me, is about making yourself an “ef off” card, and turning 45 is about getting it laminated. I’d add that 50 is the time when you start waving it about at will. It’s when you seriously consider creating a world around you that sheds negative energies and judgemental folks, and getting rid of anything that doesn’t work for you anymore. Instead, you surround yourself with friends and family who bring you joy and make you laugh—weeping with laughter on a daily basis is a highly recommended, essential component to this joyful existence. It’s also about nurturing your passions and pursuing the acitivites you love regularly, and developing a generosity of spirit so that like-minded people can find you and enter your life.

It’s certainly easier to whine about your weight, your wrinkles, and your outdated wardrobe and musical tastes, but surely being 40 and older means you’re past worrying about those superifical things that seemed so crucial in your teens and 20s. So, in remaining faithful to the theme of the “effing up” of being 40, I offer you these alternatives: let your “efs” be  a pledge to be fearless, fierce, fruitful, fabulous, forgiving, fantastic, and frivolous. And if it offends you that someone calls you ‘ma’am’, practice the ‘ef’ of being more like the French and insist that they call you Madame. You’ll raise more than an eyebrow or two.

The Rolling Stones at the ACC

My sister and I went to see the Rolling Stones together last night at Toronto's Air Canada Centre. This was our third Stones show together, and the first in almost ten years. Enjoy my Rolling Stones review and leave a comment to let me know what you think either there or here.

The view of the stage from our seats.

The graphics during Honky Tonk Women.

Tumbling Dice.

The whole crowd was on its feet for most of the night.

Wings Over America Revisited

Wings Over America is the first tour I remember wanting desperately to see. I was only 13, and already a Beatles fan: the "red" and the "blue" greatest hits albums had come out a couple of years before, and had been well worn out on the family's little suitcase plug-into-the-wall record player. At the time, my mother put her foot down and scoffed at the idea of two young girls going off (my sister was only 11), a notion she would finally abandon a year later when Queen rolled into town and was I finally allowed to see a rock show.

Last Wednesday night, I sat in a big, modern movie theatre and saw the concert that eluded me 37 years ago. I came out of the documentary footage in awe almost two and a half hours later, with so much going through my brain that I am confident would have completely escaped me in 1976. Wings were musically a very tight, well-rehearsed band, and it was incredible to watch the performance. Each member playing with Paul McCartney—his wife Linda, Denny Laine, Jimmy McCullogh, Joe English— played their parts to near perfection, and the newly mastered soundtrack really highlighted their individual talents. What impressed me was how versatile Denny Laine was, playing guitar, bass, and piano and occasionally singing lead vocals. The Moody Blues song Go Now, along with Richard Corey, were two of my favourite numbers, and I left the theatre realizing just what an integral part of the band he really was.

I have had Wings Over America in my LP collection all these years, and despite enjoying it over the years, the act of watching the concert made me appreciate many things that the simple audio could not manage. Among my discoveries was how much Paul McCartney and Freddie Mercury had in common on a live stage: both had a vaudeville element in their showmanship and sound, and each had a vocal range and texture that was as wide as it was diverse and nuanced as was needed in that musical moment. The horn section Wings had brought along after their foray into New Orleans really brought old and new songs to life, and I loved the added layers of sound to such classics as Live and Let Die.

The acoustic set delivered halfway through the movie was another tactic that was, for me, reminiscent of late 1970s Queen shows, and I loved listened to the pared down versions of Bluebird and Yesterday. It was also interesting to see guitar upon guitar standing in front of the drum kit, and then catching each musician swapping them out by themselves instead of what has become the standard of watching assistants do this at live shows. The generosity of seeing McCartney giving each of the band members their turn in the limelight was impressive, whether it was letting Jimmy McCullogh sing or do his impressive guitar solos, or handing the vocal lead to Laine. It seemed to be a true team effort, and nowhere was this more evident than in the appreciation bestowed upon them by the enthusiastic crowds. My favourite piece was Magneto and Titanium Man, a great rocker from the Venus and Mars LP that really got us started in the theatre. One of the best things that night was that there were less than twenty people in the audience, which meant we could hoot and holler as though we were really at a concert and not get chided by other patrons. In fact, our row of six screamed and clapped after every song, and that helped make the evening very memorable.

Sometime this week, the DVD will be released commercially. Highly recommended to anyone who is a fan, and for those of you who want to see what big tours were like in the heyday of the 1970s.

Paul McCartney at the piano for The Long and Winding Road.

Denny Laine sings Richard Corey.

Backing vocals by Linda McCartney and Denny Laine for Bluebird.

The Bay City Rollers on a Saturday Night

Just two years before I began to rummage through the racks of Sam the Record Man’s downtown store for LPs by Queen, The Who, Supertramp, and Genesis, I experienced the typical teenage girl’s obligatory musical crush. It was the era of David Cassidy and his brother Shaun, Leif Garrett, Bobby Sherman, and Donny Osmond, but none of these American artists cause my heart to flutter. That honour went to the Bay City Rollers, and though the term boy bands hadn’t been invented in 1975, but could certainly have applied to them. The Tartan terrors emerged from Scotland and success in the UK to quickly become a global phenomenon selling millions of records to largely young female fans. It was a time of innocent, heartfelt adoration, and much like the early Beatles and Elvis before them, and Duran Duran, New Kids on the Block, N’Sync, and One Direction afterwards, everyone had a favourite Roller and behind the hype, the songs were pure pop fun with catchy melodies and simple lyrics. My favourite Roller was Alan Longmuir, chiselled and very much a man next to his more boyish band mates. I’m still drawn to the rugged rather than to the cute and cuddly, and it’s interesting to note that my twelve year-old-self expressed similar tastes.

My love for the Rollers lasted until 1977, when a combination of growing up and evolving tastes led me away from them. By that time, their star had also faded and they broke up soon after. What followed for me was a period of exciting musical discovery, mostly towards prog rock and what is now considered classic rock. I am ashamed to admit all these years later that I threw away all my BCR LPs in a gesture of youthful desire to appear cool. It is something I regret deeply, because the band was an integral part of my youth and denying them a place in my vinyl collection seems absurd to my confident 50 year-old self.

Last Saturday, I jumped into a car and drove an hour and a half north to meet 6 girlfriends for a concert by Les McKeown’s Bay City Rollers at CasinoRama. He was their lead singer, and the only original member taking the music on the road with a back-up band. Unlike their appearance at the CNE in August 1976, I could actually hear him this time and appreciated his enduring vocal abilities. His banter was light-hearted and nostalgic, and the optimistic cheer from someone who endured sexual abuse at the hands of his manager and robbery from his record label to then climb out of the abyss of alcohol and drug abuse and depression was commendable and left me in awe of his courage. When the concert was over and he thanked us for the support, I felt such joy in knowing that his story, unlike so many other similar ones, had a happy ending.

After the show, we lined up to meet him, patiently waiting for over an hour for the line to move forward. I wanted to shake his hand and wish him well for being a survivor and for taking us on such a sweet journey back in time. When we came face to face, I told him he was every bit as handsome as I remembered from his appearance at Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto in 1976, when they were honoured with an award from the city and met 55, 000 screaming fans at the outdoor reception. He smiled, called me a “wee fibber” in that charming Scottish accent, and then kissed my cheek. At that moment, 37 years after my crush began, everything faded from my senses and I was 13 again. It was the loveliest thing.

Here I am having a laugh with Les McKeown. What a lovely, charming man. (Thank you to Lisa MacDonald of LiveMusicHead for taking this photo)

Hearty

That I am a fan of what is commonly referred to as Classic Rock is of no surprise to the people who know me. I am a child of the 70s, and I came of age in what many consider one of the richest periods in rock music. As a teenager, I loved prog rock, glam rock, hard rock, and was often tethered to the aisles of the downtown location of Sam the Record Man, looking for new treasure. That said, I am finding myself, in 2013, checking out many classic-era bands that I have never connected with live despite their presence in my vinyl collection.

Heart is one of those bands. I have always been a great admirer of the Wilson sisters, Ann for her incredible vocal range and ability to deliver a melody with passion and strength, and Nancy for showing the world that one can be graceful and powerful at the same time. The two sisters were early inspirations for me, and despite making my fictional Sarah Nolan a redhead, she was infused with the spirit of Ann Wilson (and Stevie Nicks) long before she ever hit the page.

Last Thursday night, I finally went to see Heart, at the venerable and acoustically perfect Massey Hall in Toronto. The venue is an architectural beauty, though the seats themselves are not always comfortable and some sections have structural pillars and posts blocking a perfect view. No matter—it was all about the sound for me, and how Heart would hold up after more than 30 years. They not only held up, but they blew me away. I have to admit that I am no great fan of their more successful songs, which are always the ones getting radio airplay: Barracuda, Heartless, Magic Man, Crazy on You, Kick It Out, these are the titles that people know best and the ones that do it the least for me. I suppose it is the over-exposure on classic rock radio, but I tend to feel the same way about The Who's Won't Get Fooled Again, which is akin to blasphemy in Who circles. The gems of the night for me were the beautiful calypso rendition of Dreamboat Annie, and the Asian-flavoured arrangement of my favourite song, Dog and Butterfly. Those two numbers alone were worth the price of the ticket.

But the evening was about much more to me. It was about watching two supremely confident and talented older women still kicking out with determination and passion, mastering their instruments and showing their fans how tight and musically adept they still are, and how women are just as able in a rock world that still largely belongs to men. It was about the beauty of the lyrics, the reflection of the journey taken together as sisters, which is something I get on such a personal level. At the end of the show, they came out with opening act Simon Townshend to do their second encore, after a masterful version of Led Zeppelin's Black Dog. Hearing 'Love Reign o'er Me' as their final song of the night was a beautiful thing, because you could not only sense that deep bond between the sisters in every note, but it was a touching way to include their support act and come full circle after his amazing performance to start the evening.

Mumford & Sons

It has been a long time since I was excited and moved by a new band. Coldplay, REM, U2, the Clash, and maybe before that, we are back in the times of records and simpler times. But I am in love again, with a young band that has but two CDs under their belt and has crept under my skin and under my heart through the din of modern music. They are old souls in such young bodies, lyrically, playing traditional instruments under rich melodies and harmonies, despite an admittedly repetitive arc to their songs, I am entranced by the musical magic they create.

Today, I hit repeat on the subway and bus, somehow drawn to this song over and over again. It captures the essence of Mumford & Sons for me, with hope and despair dancing together, all of it getting under my skin and refusing to let me go. Enjoy.

Watch them here.

Classic Albums Live

Classic Albums Live started ten years ago as a collection of Toronto's best session musicians putting together a recreation of classic rock records of distinction. Their promise was a 'note for note, cut for cut' delivery of whatever album they were playing that night, but in reality, you got so much more: after the featured LP had ended and the band took a well-derserved intermission break, you often got another full hour of hits from the band they were paying tribute to.

For me, my love of this organisation started at the Phoenix Club, another Toronto landmark that is a part of my family history. Like the iconic El Mocambo once had a German swing hall where my parents met on a blind date in the 1950s,  the Phoenix was the former home of the Club-Harmonie, a German cultural centre where I spent many happy hours as a child at concerts, parties, and dances. Resurrected as a nightclub with live events, it was the perfect location for Crag Martin's CAL series of concerts, a decent-sized venue with an upstairs viewing balcony and enough space to watch or dance along.  I have fond memories of seeing Who's Next, Dark Side of the Moon, Harvest, The Wall, Crime of the Century, Rubber Soul, among many shows caught there. My two favourites were both Pink Floyd shows, one because Dark Side of the Moon was accompanied by a television playing The Wizard of Oz on each side of the stage, and The Wall because of the chorus of children singing along to Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2. Brilliant theatrics all around.

In the past year, I've had the pleasure of seeing A Night at the Opera at the iconic and acoustically perfect Massey Hall, and just two weeks ago, had the utter joy of seeing Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band performed at Roy Thompson Hall, which is home to the Toronto Symphony. What you realise after just seeing one of the shows is that the 'note for note, cut for cut' tag line is not so easily done outside the studio, and that an instrument or musician is often on the stage for just a few seconds to add that extra sound before (s)he disappears again. You also appreciate the majesty of a singer's voice, as was the case with Freddie Mercury, by seeing how many substitutes it takes to fully deliver his incredible range. For Sgt. Pepper, it took an ensemble of 16 musicians from the first song to the last, and a vast array of guitars, woodwinds, a harp, a sitar, and a few different keyboard and percussion set-ups. My favourite number, and the one I was most looking forward to, was Mr. Kite, and the circus tempo and chaotic whirlwind of sounds did not disappoint. The second half of the show was mostly lifted from Magical Mystery Tour, which was a brilliant choice for encore numbers.

If you take a look at CAL's website, http://classicalbumslive.com, you will see that they have now expanded to cities across North America, delivering their shows to a wider audience than those of us who regularly saw them at the Phoenix in the early 2000s. The selection of LPs has grown from those early days as well, and the venues are now bigger. As they mark their tenth anniversary, I am happy for two things— live music still has a place in Toronto, and there is still a great hunger for hearing those brilliant snapshots from the musical past, note for note, cut for cut.

Book Web Site!

We have launched our new book Web site for the Behind Blue Eyes Series. It is up and running, although it will get the special touches of our cover artist and now graphic designer in the next few weeks. I will also be adding Reviews and Media pages to the site. If you have read the books and would like to submit a review, please feel free to send me a message and I would be more than happy to add you onto the new page once it's completed.

This blog will now move away from the books and go back to its old self, where I write about whatever inspires me.

You can find the new book blog at (what else?) behindblueeyes.ca

Roger Waters and The Wall

In 1979, when Pink Floyd's The Wall came out, I was in grade 11 and a mere 16 years old. The LP quickly became a global best-seller, and in my high school circles, it became the perfect anthem of teenage rebellion against authority and conformity.

Saturday night, I was fortunate enough to see the stadium version of an arena presentation I first caught in September 2010. Roger Waters, now 70 and no less energetic and passionate than he was decades ago (and likely more so, if you listen to his interviews)put on an amazing spectacle, a feast for the eyes, the ears, and the brain. There were moving puppets, an airplane crashing and bursting into flames, computer graphics that moved along the rising and falling wall. Beyond that, there were incredible bits of music from fantastic musicians and a lovely appearance by a local children's choir to join him for the famous "We don't need no education" part of Another Brick In the Wall, Part 2.

For me, there was so more much to take in- the devastating human cost of war, the grief that faces those left behind, something Waters experienced when his own father did not return from WW2. There was the questioning of government authority at a time when our basic freedoms are being slowly chipped away by laws designed to vilify and dehumanize individuals to better "protect" us from them. There was a lament for the cruelty of the school system he was subjected to, a system that i hope is no longer displaying the "dark sarcasm" that marked a lot of our own childhoods even 20 years after his.So many targets, so many images, so much to take in that I am quite convinced I wasn't able to do it completely.

There was, also, a rant against the cost of building those walls, whether real or metaphoric, and how the divisions are used to further agendas that measure success in money rather than happiness. Some people might say that it is hypocritical to rail against capitalism during a lavish production that surely is making its profits as it lurches from town to town, but that would be missing the point. There is no harm in consuming music and spectacle, unless one counts the brain cells damaged by the drugs some of the participants took before, during or after the show. To create a masterpiece of music and then and be paid for to bering it to an audience is a legitimate offering. To build guns and weapons that serve no purpose but to kill and destroy is to profit from humanity while purposefully causing it grievous harm for generations to come. Such an enterprise deserves the scathing treatment Waters gave governments and the military during his show, and as a young victim of violence left fatherless, he has every right to question how it affected his life. I applaud him for his efforts to effect change and cannot help but think that The Wall is more relevant now in 2012 than it was in 1979. The music is still as melodically beautiful as I remember it, hummable and lyrical, but the message has only grown more powerful in time.





Our great seats just 4 rows above the floor. Perfectly close for a spectacular show.








One of my favourite graphic images on the wall.

Pete Townshend Rules

Class act, that Pete.