promo monkey

Ray Ramsay is more a personality than he is a writer.That is, if you believe a writer is disciplined, their writing carefully structured and all is balanced and clear.Not Ray, or RayMan as he’s credited himself here on his second book of adventures as a record...

spirit and soul

There should be a medal for people like Graham Brown.Perseverence?Optimism in the face of apathy?Either as a sideman/collaborator or leader of his own band, Brown has done valuable work. He’s figured sharply as a guitar player or songwriter with Jr. Gone Wild,...

swank revisited

Swank’s Keep It Together isn’t retro but it could have been.It isn’t of its time but it isn’t timeless either.If it had been released in 1965 or 66, it might be revered as a classic “lost” record a decade or so later.Yet it...

the other prince philip

Woman, musician, daredevil, the 99 years of Prince Philip, Duke Of Edinburgh, would have been dramatically different if he had his way.As it is, most people know very little about him, except that he was grand dad to Sir Harry whose wife is that Meghan creature.And...

ben

Benedict Patrick Bulhozer died 15 years ago. I came across his record, Really Like To Live, while going through my Vancouver vinyl a few months ago , and have been thinking more of him since then. I can’t say we were best of friends – we didn’t have...

al harlow now

Anyone who knows and has followed Al Harlow for 40 or more years might be thinking Al Harlow At Last.Instead of getting the Harlow album they were long expecting, they’re getting Now, unbelievably Al’s first solo album. A lot can be read into an album...

a rainbow like you

I had a little trouble positioning myself as I read Andrea Fehsenfeld’s A Rainbow Like You. One one hand it tells the tale of a rock musician but, on the other, how media willfully can misrepresent somebody, often for their own ambitions.I’ve been both, a...

lost history

The book isn’t so much lost as it is stalled.While still working for The Province, I was asked to write a book about the history of Vancouver rock and roll. Asked might not be appropriate. When The Province asks you to do something, it really means you are being...

An evening with David Crosby

If it’s true that cats have nine lives, that cat David Crosby should be on eight or nine.He is the leonine figure of Crosby, Stills And Nash from 1968 and was the cat among the canaries, sorry, with The Byrds from 1964. He’s 79 this year and lived through...

wizard brothers

Barry Greenfield is a Beatles afficionado so he’ll understand when I say that Paul McCartney needed John Lennon and Lennon needed McCartney. They completed each other just by one another’s character imposing itself. So, it seems, with the Wizard Brothers, ...