Old Enough to Forget

Back in the mid '80s when I was working downtown I'd often spend my lunch hour rummaging through the racks at A&B Sound, or if I was in the mood to dumpster dive Sam the Record Man had row after row of discount records. I picked up a lot of questionable stuff, like Stephen Still's Thoroughfare Gap  and Dan Fogelberg's Captured Angel ... don't ask why I remember those two in particular. It's not like I remember anything from them. I'm not shitting on the records, I just don't remember them, but I remember buying them. I don't think I played them more than once or twice. I also remember one album I kept seeing and ignoring: Coney Hatch's Outa Hand. Over the years I'd see the Carl Dixon's name pop up. Sort like a Canadian Waldo. Oh look, there he is with April Wine ... oh man, that's cool. Hey Aldo Nova is covering a Coney Hatch song written by Carl, "Hey Operator" nice. Look there's Carl on the Speed Channel doing mu...

In 1989 rock was alive and well. Seemingly out of nowhere Alannah Myles was suddenly everywhere, and propelled by "Black Velvet" she became an overnight sensation that took over a decade of hard work to achieve. I may as well get right to the elephant in the room right off the bat. "Black Velvet" is still an amazing song. Considering that musically the song is essentially a generic vamp on a bass-driven 12-bar blues shuffle, the song is immediately identifiable. It was also played to death and while it never got old, it sure did get overplayed. It also became the high water mark that everything else would be measured by. Fair or not, that's how things go sometimes. Hair metal and an abundance of musical excess and fret shredding was the flavour of the day, and Alannah Myles managed to be of the times but a step removed at the same time. The guitar work of Bob Bartolucci, who I remembered from the GNP album (also from 1989, I don't remember which came first),...

I was ten years old when I first heard Ian Thomas' "Painted Ladies" on my AM radio. I still really like the song, and throughout the '70s, he was the consummate singer-songwriter. Even his 1979 single "Pilot," which was equal parts irritating and cool with its quirky recorder (yes, a recorder) runs, was one I kind of liked but never really loved. However, when Ian performed it on SCTV with Bob and Doug (his brother Dave), it took on a second life. I knew Ian Thomas from many of his own songs, but also from the various covers of his material by artists ranging from Santana to Chicago. But it was Manfred Mann's Earth Band's retooling of "The Runner" that really floated my boat (oddly, I never did pick up a copy, and it is still on my list of things to look for one day). Fast forward to the summer of 1983, and I'm lining up to see Strange Brew , and in the opening credits, Ian Thomas delivers the title track, and it was a killer. It would ...