Pat Benatar - You Better Run

I said, what are ya tryin' a do to my head? Said, whatcha' tryin' a do to my head?

MTV and the Decline of Music, Part II

“You Better Run”, Pat Benatar, 1981

The second song ever aired on MTV was “You Better Run”. Pat Benatar had already established herself as a powerhouse. She had released the albums In “The Heat of the Night”, and “Crimes of Passion” that had sold millions of copies and had been awarded a number of Grammy’s and the American Music Awards. Pretty safe choice for song number 2 really...

A Toronto based company called CHUM Ltd. launched the Canadian equivalent to MTV, ‘ Much Music’  in 1984, noting the success of MTV in the United States, and wanting a piece of the action. The CRTC, which is the governing legal body in Canada, prevented MTV from either bringing its U.S. channel directly into Canada or setting up a home-grown competitor. As a result, MTV was initially content to sell Canadian rights to its programming for rebroadcast on Much Music. Before this happened we had really only seen MTV in bars on satellite. Not really thinking about whether it was legal or not.

Ramble On - Led Zeppelin

T'was in the darkest depths of Mordor I met a girl so fair...

70's Pick of the Week

“Ramble On”, Led Zeppelin, 1969

Gollum slipped away with Liv Tyler,..uhhhh....I mean Arwen, Elrond’s daughter.  What was going on in this song besides a bit of blatant hero worship of the magical J.R.R. Tolkien, and his beloved ‘Lord of the Rings’?

A long, long time ago...I can still remember how that music used to make me smile¹-

At work I gave everybody on the team a blank cassette tape and asked them to put a song on it that represented their presence within our work group. The idea was that I would then take all the songs, make a compilation tape and distribute it back to everyone. This collection then would be like our groups ‘Greatest Hits”.

Total Eclipse of the Heart

Let's have some fun on a Friday: Is Punk really dead?

Quick Hit

My favourite Bonnie Tyler song is “It’s a Jungle Out There”. In the early eighties this  Welsh singer ran amok on the charts with such classics as “It’s a Heartache”, “Holding out for a Hero” ,”Straight From the Heart” and of course the one everybody knows “Total Eclipse of the Heart”.

Grease - You're The One That I Want

I got chills. They're multiplyin'.

Pick of the Week

“You’re The One That I Want”, Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta, 1978.

Marie Osmond did not want the role in ‘Grease’ because she did not like the way the character Sandy ended up acting.  Henry Winkler did not want the role of Danny, because he was done with the ‘50s tough guy thing.

This left the door wide open for Olivia Newton-John to change her image and for John Travolta to surge – and history was changed forever.

Spinning Thursday Evening........

Arcade Fire - Funeral

Ian Hunter - You're Never Alone

Swing This Baby - Various

Aeorosmith - Honkin' On Bobo

Aaaaaa, Chewy, Chewy, Chewy, Chewy Chewy, Chewy, Chewy, baby always got a mouthful of such sweet things to say

Songs Everyone Should Know  - Bubblegum Music

I was listening to this excellent compilation called Nuggets “Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968)” the other day. Rolling Stone (Magazine) calls this one of the 50 great albums of all time.  The CD collection is a wall-to-wall attack of garage bands of the era. It is quite brilliant really. It includes songs that are quite well known and were one-hit wonders such as ‘Woolly Bully’ to much more obscure, but still great songs like the Electric Prunes’ “I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night”, or “Pushin’ Too Hard” by The Seeds.

The Archies - Sugar, Sugar (Original 1969 Music Video)

Ohio Express - Chewy Chewy (1968)

The Cuff Links - Tracy (1969)

Donny Osmond & The Osmond Brothers-Puppy Love (1972)

Buggles - Video killed the radio star 1979

And now we meet in an abandoned studio, we hear the playback and it seems so long ago...

MTV and the decline of Music, Part I

“Video Killed the Radio Star”, the Buggles, 1979

“Video Killed the Radio Star” was appropriately the first song to air on the brand new TV station ‘MTV’ in 1981, running 24/7 music videos. It is interesting to note that it was released in 1979. (Yes, I have the original 45!)

It would seem the origins of MTV could date back to 1966 when New Zealand record companies would provide the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation music videos to play on the air at no fee. The problem was few bands could or would pay their own way to be recorded. This concept though, was likely one of the seeds from which the ideas of MTV grew, although as we have seen there was considerable footage of music that was being created between 1966 and 1981when it happened...

Stage Fright - Rick Danko - The Band

Now deep in the heart of a lonely kid, who suffered so much for what he did...

Victim of a Song

Stage Fright, The Band, 1970

I remember going to the Plaza Theatre (in Kensington) in Calgary when I was 18 or 19 years old one warm summer night, which seems like a hundred years ago now. . We were there to see the movie “The Last Waltz¹” by “The Band” and the show started at midnight or something stupid like that.

“The Band” was a very successful band in the ‘60’s and 70’s, still revered by many as one of the best.  You have for sure heard some of their songs like, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”, “Up on Cripple Creek”, “The Weight”, “The Shape I’m in” and “Ophelia”. It  consisted of members of a band that supported the original Ronnie Hawkins Band, another band famous in the sixties. Long story, another day, but suffice it to say Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks as they were called, were very influential in the formation of early rock music in Canada. “The Band” was more or less that supporting band. That confusion aside, let’s move on...