50 years of live music shows

 well,i finally found a subject worthy of writing a blog about….my history of experiencing live music for the last 50 years.i was checking out a  new village voice edition(yes,the venerable and irreverent rag from yester year is now in digital only format)and came a cross a weekly entry called “sound selections”(where different bands expound on their favorite live gigs or albums).this week it was a group called “bad suns”and the singers favorite gig was seeing bono at the beacon theatre a few years ago.now,i love u2 and think bono is a great singer but to think that this young man had such a limited listening history made me realize what amazing luck i've had to see some of the most influential musical maestros of the 20th century and even a smattering of 21st century acts.

i'll start with my first three musical acts(allman bros,bob dylan and the band and van morrison)in 1973 all the way up to "the music of alice coltrane,presented by her son,ravi coltrane in 2025.in between,from starting out in vancouver b.c. to moving to toronto and nyc in the late eighties(and experiencing some of the most important hip hop,jazz,rock,african and soul acts)to paris and back to vancouver in the last decade.i won't remember them all and some of my recollections could be a bit sketchy but it will add up to a roster of acts that have informed my music and transformed it into the unnameable genre that constitutes my sound.hopefully i've created music that is unique and as inspiring as the musicians i have encountered along the way.in this era of cheap preprogrammed beats masquerading as drum tracks (yes i've been guilty of the same vice in the past while experimenting with drum machines)and uninspired flaccid vocals where the singer sounds like they ingested too much sedatives i'm still trying to keep the inspirational and deep musical tradition that started way back in the early 20th century in new orleans with louis armstrong and duke ellington and many others.

a little aside about u2

i actually was invited to the march 24th 1981 u2 show at the commodore ballroom(one of the best smaller venues(1000 capacity) in vancouver)by my girlfriend brenda at the time but passed.i remember saying to her that i wasn't that into them and had only heard the one song"i will follow".at the time they sounded like a lot of the other bands from across the pond playing a mix of "new wave/punk". 

krs one,concert hall,1988

fela kuti,concert hall,july 25/1988.

womad festival,harboufront,1988.

slim gaillard,bamboo club,1988?

mccoy tyner,bamboo club,1988?

gil scot heron,bamboo club,1987?

1986 to 2004.the big move to toronto then nyc.

in 1986,expo came to vancouver.basically a circus that foreshadowed big changes to the city.40 years later it's obvious the changes were mostly for the worse.now,one of the most expensive cities in the world,it is a playground for the rich.back in '86 it seemed like a great time to leave and after a tour with my band the beverly sisters where we played in toronto,montreal,london and ottawa,toronto seemed like the place to go.great scene with an actual art/music community primarily situated on queen st west i felt connected to the international music community.close to nyc and with a connection to london.something vancouver could never approximate situated on the edge of the continent 3000 miles away.part of the learning experience for me was the music press in toronto but also in nyc(mostly thru the village voice weekly).toronto had now magazine,a weekly paper that reported on musical happenings and also politics and culture.

i had evolved musically when i went to david thompson university in 1980,to study music with the influence of the instructers that were involved in the jazz world.that really opened me up to the possibility of expanding my listening options.whereas in toronto i was influenced by music critics that would cover everything from country to jazz and what was then called world music.which brings me to the influence of jamaican music.toronto at the time had half a million jamaicans and working in construction and as a bike messenger i was able to meet many people from the small island community and was able to gain more knowlege about reggae and the new sound,dancehall.at the same time the local college station ckln,transmitting out of ryerson college was playing the latest hip hop coming out of new york on saturday afternoons with ron nelson.this was also the way i found out about the live hip hop shows that were mostly presented at the concert hall at the corner of yonge and davenport.

so here is the beginning of a new chapter in my ongoing musical education.

 

sonic youth,town pump,nov 10/1988

well my tolerance for loud guitar noise and mediocre singing has greatly diminished since the eighties.but having said that i could see how of all the bands performing this style of noise rock these guys stood out.they definitly were pushing the edges of the musical genre.was not expecting this style of indie rock to get bigger and bigger and by the time nirvana and other nineties bands were becoming huge i was so over this music.i blame the record industry run by white guys my age that couldn't relate to hip hop and so pushed the indie rock scene as the obvious successer to classic rock when the culture had already shifted to hip hop.the numbers of people gravitating to hip hop didn't register until the download era since in the nineties hip hop was mainly mixtapes.

etta james,town pump,1985

the club was packed and the adoration was palpable.etta put on a rambuctious show.all the hits nd then some.i was surprised that a large portion of the audience were gay men.i wasn't expecting that.