Day 998: Crossing Abbey Road

originally published September 24, 2014 This Friday marks the 35th anniversary of what I believe to be the greatest album of all time. Before you flick lint in my beer or pelt me with wads of Big League Chew for not designating this title to Pink Floyd’s Piper At The Gates of Dawn or Dexy’s […]

Day 987: Wolfgang Mozart’s Love Of Poop

originally published September 13, 2014 The deeper I claw through the muck-pit of history, the more perverse and bizarre clumps of trivia get crammed beneath my fingernails. And just when I think I’ve scraped the scabby floorboards of curiosity, I stumble across the intensive breadth of study that academics have placed on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s […]

Day 960: Day Three Of Peace & Music

originally published August 17, 2014 “And maybe it’s the time of year, yes, and maybe it’s the time of man. And I don’t know who I am but life is for learning.” As the bone-soaked and weary revelers packed together their tin-foil hash pipes, their mud-crusty jean-shorts and their near-sentient hangovers to leave the festival, […]

Day 959: Day Two Of Peace & Music

originally published August 16, 2014 “Said I’m going down to Yasgur’s farm, going to join in a rock & roll band. Got to get back to the land and set my soul free.” Somewhere amid the cultural symbolism and the anthemic declarations of a generation’s identity lies the actual music performed at the Woodstock festival. […]

Day 958: Day One Of Peace & Music

originally published August 15, 2014 “I have come to lose the smog And I feel to be a cog in something turning.” I have been trying to reconcile my relationship with the Woodstock festival for more than 20 years. “These are your grandparents,” I told my daughter as the movie played in our living room […]

Day 956: ‘Scuse Me While I Bust This Guy

originally published August 13, 2014 “Show them as scurrilous and depraved. Call attention to their habits and living conditions; explore every possible embarrassment. Send in women and sex; break up marriages. Have them arrested on marijuana charges. Investigate personal conflicts or animosities between them. Send articles to newspapers showing their depravity. Use narcotics and free […]

Day 954: Edmonton Summers Exist For The Folk Fest

originally published August 11, 2014 As my fingers bluntly stab my keyboard, weighted down by a hangover from sun and loud music, I wonder how I’ll get through today’s chosen topic on Chinese science education without passing out. It wouldn’t be my first afternoon spent with the lopsided grid of a keyboard’s footprint etched into […]

Day 936: Number One With An Irreverent Bullet

originally published July 24, 2014 Here’s the part where the guy twitching in the hungry crosshairs of 40 tells you how the music topping the charts these days won’t inspire so much as a quiver of his trigger finger. But really, who cares? The purveyors of popular song have no interest in capturing my iTunes […]

Day 922: Riding That Train, High On Cocaine & Pretty Much Everything Else

originally published July 10, 2014 Within a span of about five months, the notion of the Grand Hippie Music Festival had deteriorated from a three-day swoon of good vibes, great drugs and phenomenal tuneage at Woodstock into an angry and disorganized mess at the Altamont Speedway in northern California. I’ve written about the latter already, […]

Day 916: I’m About To Lose My Worried Mind – Led Zep 4Ever!

originally published July 4, 2014 With practically the entirety of recorded music’s history available at the touch of a trackpad, it’s hard to find a lot of common ground among the masses. Back in the sepiatone days when I was in high school, there was certainly a cultural splintering effect afoot – some grooved to […]