Category: music

Bruce McCulloch – REELING IN THE YEARS

On By Rick McIn about Rick, friends, music1 Comment

Bruce Ian McCulloch (born May 12, 1961) is a Canadian actor, writer, comedian, and film director. McCulloch is best known for his work as a member of The Kids in the Hall, a popular Canadian comedy troupe, and as a writer for Saturday Night Live. …

McCulloch was born in Edmonton, Alberta. … a graduate of Mount Royal College located in Calgary, Alberta. …

I’m 4yrs older than Bruce. Grew up right next to Mount Royal College.

Bruce just published a retrospective on his formative years called Growing up weird in Calgary:

BruceThirty years ago there were no wine bars. Only bars. The Shamrock, the Calgarian, the Port o’ Call Inn. …

In Alberta in the ’80s it was easy to be a punk. You just slept in one day and you were labelled. As young punks we drank at the Calgarian. Yep, first we took the natives’ land, and then we took their watering holes. These bars were so crappy, they chained up the toilet paper in the bathroom. …

It’s almost certain that Kate, Barb, Jude, myself and many of our friends drank at the next table to Bruce in the Calgarian. We had the same PUNK phase.

Click PLAY or watch Hüsker Dü at the Calgarian 1981 on YouTube.

Of the many bands I saw there, my sentimental favourites were The Breeders.

One New Years Eve (1978/79?) I got blitzed at the Calgarian, finally crashing into the band’s equipment on stage. Friends rushed me out and into Barb’s Volkswagen Beetle. I threw up in it. Rich was so irked he dumped me unconscious on to the snow boots in a basement apartment closet. Then closed the door.

On regaining consciousness next morning, I had no idea what had happened.

knives not allowed

December 1986 The Calgarian was gutted by fire. And finally torn down. 😦

There wasn’t a lot to do in Calgary 30 years ago. On the weekend, groups of people would “go out for cheesecake.” This actually happened …

We drove to Tom’s House of Pizza, drawn by the resplendent neon sign and the jukebox. We played Nazareth and “Cold Ethel” by Alice Cooper. One of the most exotic things you could do here at that time was order a Hawaiian pizza. And we did. I remember the summer that guacamole came to town. …

… I went to 4th Street Rose, an upscale establishment that served salad in a jar (and, yes, cheesecake) …

4th St Rose

read more – Growing up weird in Calgary

How many Caesar salads in a jar did I enjoy at 4th Street Rose?

HUNDREDS. 🙂

related article on Punk Rock in Canada – weird scenes from the 5 and the TCH: metropolitan structure and rock in Canada

Another article published 2011 – Punk at the Calgarian Hotel

Anything But Country

On By Rick McIn music, product complaintsLeave a comment

When country music critic Grady Smith sat down to write his list of the top 10 Best Country Albums of 2013 he made a startling revelation: All the chart-topping country songs of 2013 sounded exactly the same. …

Truck – check. Dirt road – check. Sugar shaker in painted-on jeans – check.

Proof That Every Country Music Song This Year Was Exactly the Same

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

To me Rap & Country are similarly simplistic doggerel.

Unless you embrace the simplicity, both are embarrassingly juvenile.

Fairytale of New York

On By Rick McIn musicLeave a comment

They got cars big as bars
They got rivers of gold
But the wind goes right through you
It´s no place for the old

When you first took my hand on a cold christmas eve
You promised me broadway was waiting for me

You were handsome you were pretty
Queen of new york city

when the band finished playing
they yelled out for more

Sinatra was swinging
all the drunks they were singing
We kissed on a corner
Then danced through the night.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

“Fairytale of New York” is a Christmas song by the Celtic punk group The Pogues, released in 1987 and featuring singer Kirsty MacColl. The song is an Irish folk style ballad, written by Jem Finer and Shane MacGowan, and featured on The Pogues’ album If I Should Fall from Grace with God.

Lorde is cool

On By Rick McIn musicLeave a comment

Ella Maria Lani Yelich-O’Connor (born 7 November 1996), known by her stage name Lorde is a New Zealand singer-songwriter. …

Click PLAY or watch her biggest hit on YouTube. (100 million views)

… reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2013, making her the first New Zealand solo artist to have a number one song in the United States. …

Click PLAY or watch Tennis Court on YouTube.

Some talent. 🙂 She’s still in High School.

Lorde

related – Faster Louder – Lorde – Pop’s new ruler

Olivia Wise – Roar

On By Rick McIn musicLeave a comment

Olivia Wise, teen YouTube star, dies after cancer fight

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Now available on iTunes. All proceeds go to the LivWiseFund.com

Olivia Wise has Brain Cancer. She came into a recording studio for her first time and recorded the Katy Perry song Roar. She couldn’t walk or stand, she didn’t have her full breath or the energy she used to, and she was managing her new pains and new limitations. While her physical condition was rapidly fading, her spirit remained untouched. …

Jeff

To donate to the Liv Wise Fund: livwisefund.com

Talking Heads – Life During Wartime

On By Rick McIn musicLeave a comment

James linked to the dance stylings of David Byrnes in … Once In A Lifetime (VIDEO).

That got me searching for Life During Wartime.

Click PLAY or watch the Stop Making Sense version on YouTube.

Stop Making Sense (1983) and Prince’s Sign o’ the Times (1987) are my two favourite concert documentaries.

“Life During Wartime” is a song by the American New Wave band Talking Heads, released as the first single from their 1979 album Fear of Music …

Its official title as a single, “Life During Wartime (This Ain’t No Party… This Ain’t No Disco… This Ain’t No Foolin’ Around)”, make it one of the longest-titled singles. …

… included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.

Virgin America Safety Video

On By Rick McIn humour, music, product endorsements, travelLeave a comment

Virgin is cool.

… Director Jon M. Chu, Choreographers Jamal Sims and Christopher Scott, Virgin America teammates, and dance stars like Todrick Hall and Madd Chadd to give our safety video a new song and dance — literally. …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

(via Dvora Meyers)

… in December 2002, The Economist had quoted an expert as claiming that “No large airliner has ever made an emergency landing on water” in an article that goes on to charge, “So the life jackets … have little purpose other than to make passengers feel better.”

This idea was repeated in The Economist in September 2006 in an article which reported that “in the history of aviation the number of wide-bodied aircraft that have made successful landings on water is zero.”

Of note is the 15 January 2009 ditching of US Airways Flight 1549, an Airbus A320 narrow-body jet, which successfully ditched in the North River section of the Hudson River …

All on board survived, showing that inflatable slide rafts and life jackets can sometimes serve their purposes, although photographs from the incident show that very few passengers were wearing life jackets. …

Water Landing