Tuesday, March 28, 2023

Charlie Watts, 1941-2021

Another Charlie Watts story: Mick Jagger was pacing his NYC hotel room and singing. "Where's my drummer?"

Charlie Watts knocked on the door. When Mick answered Charlie promptly delivered several smart cuffs to that famous mouth and disappeared. 

Lessons: A) Charlie Watts was nobody's "drummer"; B) Mick Jagger was a member of a band; and most importantly C) don't piss-off Charlie Watts. 


Monday, March 27, 2023

Give me a reason!

I have a playlist that includes a number of acts I've seen perform in smaller venues. I also have the new(ish) AC/DC on CD, which I have ripped and added to the playlist. Now granted AC/DC probably threw a gazillion dollars at the entire album and is one of the last bands to do so. But I am talking about their throwaway tracks -- album padding. If your very best cannot sound as good as AC/DC's worst, well, that's just a little sad. 

 Prajer's blog -- we finally made it!

Link: I'm with my aunt on this issue. 

Saturday, March 25, 2023

Red Rock Bible Camp, summer 1984

At the south end of the Canadian Shield was Red Rock Bible Camp, where I worked as a counsellor one summer. The lake was surrounded by pine trees. A large stone led to a small sandy beach. 

The water was quite muddy and the lake was for the most part shallow. Lake weeds were a constant difficulty. 

Earlier I had been a camper there. The weeds were controlled by chemicals that summer. Campers were told the water would change colour if we peed in it. 

“Is this true?” I asked my counsellor. 

“Well, have you seen the trunks on [my junior counsellor]?”

“...yeah...”

“They used to be white.”

Anyway, swimmers got ear infections that year, so that was the end of the chemicals. 

In the summer of '84 the weeds were dealt with by raking the silt at the bottom of the lake with a string of barbed-wire in a circular fashion using an outboard motorboat and nailing one end of the barbed-wire to the dock. The maintenance fellow in the motorboat was followed silently by a guy in a rowboat. In my memory my buddy stands tall in the rowboat, with his shock of red hair. He is using the garden rake to scoop up freshly shorn weeds from the lakewater and heap them inside the drifting rowboat. 

There was one week when I insisted we build a nose during the sandcastle competition. The nose was left alone until some Wisenenheimer stuffed the nostrils with green seaweed. 

“Everyone’s a critic,” I muttered. 

I remember listening to ZZ Top on the radio of the family car that summer, lots of feedback on a single guitar string (it can't really be heard here but the studio-album recording of the same song definitely brings it to the fore): 


Rabea and Matt show how it's done on a budget of £1500: 

Oh, hey -- it's Sunday! Preach a sermon on 1 John 1:9. Go!

Thursday, March 23, 2023

“Hey Prajer — what would YOU read?”

It’s a question I ask myself, believe it or not. I’ve been at this for nearly 20 years. As my kid said when I began taking guitar lessons and was in the “Michael Rowed The Boat Ashore” phase, “You think he’d know how to play that thing by now.” (BTW don't do what I did — start here instead.) 

I’m still learning, baby! Corrective and other comments welcomed below. 

"Boat? What boat?"

Tuesday, March 21, 2023

Charlie Watts, 1941-2021

This was the first I'd heard of Charlie Watts. Anyone else I should know of?

"Good grief!"

RUSH was at SARStock getting ready to do their thing, when a little, old man burst into the Green Room demanding to see Neil Peart. Neil had his own room and was busy being Neil. He pulled the electronic click-track out of his ears long enough to hear the old man say, "I will watch you! I will watch you!" RUSH got to the stage and started playing "Tom Sawyer." Sure enough, standing in the wings was little, old Charlie Watts, listening to them, but mostly listening to — and watching — Neil Peart.  

Souvenir shop, Winnipeg Arena, Winter 1977(?)

 “You’ve never been?” said Terry. “Check lt out!”

The Winnipeg Jets had a souvenir shop in a small closet with an upper and lower door. Every inch was shellacked with triumphant Jets pictures from newspapers and magazines. The upper door swung out to reveal a large, round tin of Player’s smoking tobacco, and buttons. 

At the time Winnipeg had a “triple threat” with Ulf Nillson, Anders Hedberg and Bobby Hull. I ordered buttons of all three but figured Bobby looked like Bobby, and Anders Hedberg looked just plain weird. To my eyes Ulf Nilsson actually looked heroic, so his was the button I wore. Since it was still the 1970s these buttons were quite large. 

Later the closet was completely closed. I don’t know why I went back — it must have been en route to the troughs in the Men’s Room. 

LEGO makes everything look better. 

This is the CBC story of Scott Templeton's LEGO recreation of the old Winnipeg Arena. Urine troughs and the Winnipeg Jets souvenir closet are (I'm guessing) not included.

Saturday, March 18, 2023

I used to be a concessionaire at Winnipeg Stadium

“Hey kid — c’mere and smoke a little Weed.”

Sorry. But my mother taught me to never ingest unknown smoking materials from a couple of long-hairs leaning in the middle of a concrete ramp of the Winnipeg Stadium.