You know what’s funny? Even though I turned 50 in 2023 (which still doesn’t make any sense to me and isn’t particularly funny), somehow I enjoyed pop music primarily geared to teenagers more this year than I have since I was a teenager myself. Okay, it’s not funny ha-ha, but it’s funny odd. The past year was also a big one for a band I fell in love with as a teenager, plus a few ‘90s artists and a whole lotta brilliant female voices.
Continue reading46. “Companion (Lay Me Down),” Wide Mouth Mason
It was the “before times,” just a few months before the pandemic, the last time I saw Wide Mouth Mason live. It was the album launch show for their 2019 release I Wanna Go With You, where singer/guitarist Shaun Verreault referred to himself as C-3P0 because of the multiple golden slides he wears on his left hand while playing his lap steel guitars. A clever fan shouted that he should more accurately be called “SV-PO.”
Continue readingReview: The Beaches at FirstOntario Concert Hall in Hamilton, October 27, 2023
Well, that was different. Really good different, but definitely different. When last we left my Beaches concert journey, it was February 28, 2020. There were inklings in my mind that there was a virus going around that maybe I should be a little concerned about, you know, being packed in with 1,500 standing-room-only, die-hard fans. And I started my review of that show by saying, “Tonight I realized that The Beaches are my favourite band.”
Continue readingReview: Extreme and Living Colour at The Fillmore in Detroit, August 14, 2023
Here’s the deal: something happened at the end of this show that kind of blurred my memory of everything that happened before it. I won’t bury the lede: I shook Nuno Bettencourt’s hand.
Continue readingReview: Momma at The Horseshoe Tavern, June 20, 2023
“Yeah I got what they want, I’m a real rock star.” It feels hacky to start this review with that line from “Rockstar,” off Momma’s latest album, Household Name. But maybe I’m feeling hacky and that’s gonna have to be okay for all involved.
Continue readingExtreme Six album review: Reasons to say, “Whoa!”
Extreme’s new album, Six, takes me back to when I was a young hair metal fan, around 1990. I heard “Mutha (Don’t Wanna Go to School Today),” off Extreme’s debut album, on the radio and immediately set up my cassette deck to record it off the radio. Then, after I heard “Decadence Dance” and “Get the Funk Out,” from Extreme II: Pornograffitti, a few years later, I said to myself, “screw this taping off the radio; I’m gonna spend some allowance on that cassette.” On first listen, I couldn’t believe my ears: there were all these amazing funky hard rock songs with jaw-dropping guitar solos, but then suddenly you’re hit with what I thought of at the time as a Simon & Garfunkel type song in “More Than Words” (which I heard months before it became a big hit). And there was a lounge piano song (“When I First Kissed You”), and a more up-tempo acoustic song in “Hole Hearted.” So I knew this wasn’t your run of the mill hair metal band.
Continue readingReview: Buddy Guy at Massey Hall in Toronto, April 1, 2023
Can you use one big smile emoji for a concert review? Or like 5,000 of them to fill the space? Because that’s what Buddy Guy is for me. Just endless smiles. It may seem ironic considering he’s a blues musician, and blues is associated with sadness, but not so much for Buddy’s blues. So much of it is joyful blues.
Continue readingNew Extreme – “Rise”
Excuse me while I catch my breath, wipe the tears from my eyes and let the tingling hairs on the back of my neck settle down. It’s been almost 15 years since Extreme, one of my favourite bands, released new music. But today they rose again with “Rise.” And I can’t get enough of it.
Continue readingReview: Dear Rouge at The Opera House in Toronto, November 25, 2022
Tonight’s Dear Rouge show at The Opera House felt like a joyful reunion. On a night where I got together with a good friend I hadn’t seen since before the pandemic, I felt also reunited with old friends in Dear Rouge, with old friends in their songs and with an old friend in live music.
Continue reading45. “Life Goes By And I Can’t Keep Up,” Dear Rouge
I’m not a jewellery guy. Well, I used to wear an earring, I’ve got my wedding ring, and back in my university days I thought it was cool to take my broken guitar strings and turn them into “guitar string bracelets.” But not real chains and bracelets.
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My Shuffled Life 