Southside Shuffle 2008 - revised

Well, another very successful day in partially-sunny Port Credit, down by the lake in Mississauga! The day started with a nice lunch with my friend Brock, then off to a bar for some beers, then down to the "Shuffle", where we met up with my buddy Doug and brother-in-law Emeric to catch some of the street scene along the Lakeshore, which was as usual closed off to traffic from 3-7 p.m. Some quite decent amateurs playing very enthusiastically all along the street, incuding the Dave Murphy band, who we all enjoyed. At six-ish we were joined by my other brother-in-law Brian and watched a bit more of the street bands before he "tricked us" (except Emeric, who had to leave us for the evening at this juncture) into popping into a bar right there on the Lakeshore called "Spice" for some beers on their very nice back patio in the (finally!) sunshine. Then the four of us went over to the main stage/shopping area beside the Credit River to buy our wrist-bands for the big shows that were coming up later in the evening - great value: $20 for the two very good acts that we saw! Then we walked back east along the Lakeshore, as the street portion of the festival was winding down just at seven o'clock, to a block east of Hurontario Street to get to our dinner destination for the second year in a row: the Thai Signature Restaurant, where we just stuffed ourselves with their excellent food and Singha beer, and enjoyed again their very friendly service. Back over to the main event at the park by the river, Charlie Musslewhite and his band went on at 8:30 and did a great set, including "Church is Out", a very good tune that puts me in mind of "Sultans of Swing" by Dire Straits, only way cooler. The Funk brothers, shown here in my favourite Chaka Khan "What's Goin' On" Marvin Gaye song clip from the classic (well, it's a classic to me anyway!)"Standing in the Shadows of Motown" movie, went on at 10:00 p.m. and played right through to almost 11:30!! They had most of the people, young and old, in the big crowd swaying and dancing to the impossible-to-stand-still-to Motown classic hits from the Four Tops, Temptations, Smoky Robinson, Marvin Gaye, the Supremes, Rare Earth, Martha Reeves, etc. *Full disclosure/embarrassing personal moment: Just to sort of round out the day, I managed to keep the guys entertained even after the show by tripping over a concrete bench just beside the sidewalk in front of a bar on our walk back along the street towards home...I went down pretty fast and pretty hard, but escaped without any major damage. Brock and Brian were kind enough to reserve most of their laughter for about four minutes after the incident, for which I am quite thankful! We're all looking forward to next year's Shuffle, and are absolutely not an exclusive group, so we'd be delighted to have some more guys join us in 2009...**note for more info, click on "Charlie Musslewhite" in the above text, as well as on "Thai Signature", then on the word "here" right after the Funk Brothers, to get the Chaka Khan clip.

My Favourite Albums

Just thinking of all the great music I've bought and enjoyed over the years, and decided to put some of my very favourite albums on this blog...here they are (in no particular order and likely with some omissions) : Etta James "Greatest Hits" (best tracks; At Last and Tell Mama). Santana "Abraxas" (best tracks; Black Magic Woman and Samba Pa Ti). Stevie Ray Vaughan "In Step" (best track Riviera Sunrise). Todd Rundgren Greatest Hits (Hello It's Me and We Gotta Get you a Woman). Amy Winehouse "Back To Black" (all tracks; best album of the last decade in my opinion). The Beatles are my all-time favourite group and their best work for me is "Revolver" and "Rubber Soul", but it's really way-too-difficult to pick any bad ones! Steely Dan "Aja" album with "Peg" and "Deacon Blues" as stand-out tracks. Aja was a real sort of turning point for me musically, as it turned me on to jazz and blues in a small way, so I started to kind of "look backwards" to find other "real" jazz and blues music which has been a great source of pleasure to me since that Aja album came out in around 1976. I only then figured out that most of the rock music I was loving as a kid came directly out of the blues and jazz greats of the past. Van Morrison "Astral Weeks", "Moondance" and "Too Long in Exile" (also full of great tracks including "Moondance" itself. America "America". Beck "Guero". Radiohead "OK Computer". Miles Davis "Kind of Blue", Dave Brubeck "Time Out". John Coltrane "Love Supreme". Joni Mitchell "Court and Spark" Robbie Robertson's "Underworld" cd featuring a very haunting track called the Sound is Fading".....hmmmm....now it's getting difficult to stop! I've also been listening to lots of "World Music" by people like the "Buena Vista Social Club" from Cuba and the "Orchestra Baobab" from Senegal (Click here for Baobab live in Poland). What are your favourite albums?

Best Red Wine under $10

This is my new favourite red wine, called Misterio, an Argentinian Malbec. Fantastic, full-bodied wine at only $7.95 per bottle! I've been buying it by the case lately. Decant it for an hour or so and then do a blind taste test against more expensive Shiraz's and/or Cabernet Sauvignons and see how it fares... My opinion is that it tastes more "expensive" than it is.

New iPod Speakers, and New Music for Christmas!!

Just getting into listening to some new music on my new iPod speaker system called iHome Studio Series. It's got really great sound (50 watts per channel) coming out of a cool-looking package. Very portable for use in hotels, friends' homes, etc. A review: http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/reviews/entry/ihome-ip1-studio-series-speakers-for-ipod-iphone/
The new music is: Thea Gilmore: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=search_playlists&search_query=thea+gilmore&uni=1 and Angelique Kidjo: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=search_playlists&search_query=angelique+kidjo&uni=1, the Monsters of Folk: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=search_playlists&search_query=monsters+of+folk&uni=1 plus an Alicia Keys track that has a great chorus (whenever she sings the words "in New York" it just sounds fantastic): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMS5xQ_V0TQ&feature=PlayList&p=025D76AF3E47CCEC&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=47

Recent Music Purchases...

I've been having lots of fun lately adding to my music library. I have now been able to get that Shemekia Copeland music I wanted - it's great! Also got (some of it from some of you folks - thanks!): Angelique Kidjo; Anthony Hamilton; Aretha Franklin; the Bad Plus; Beck; Bettye Lavette; Bob Dylan's latest; Cassandra Wilson; Cat Power; Death Cab for Cutie; Conor Oberst; Gary Moore; Jamie Lidell; John Mayer; Kings of Leon; Lily Allen; Melanie Doane; Missy Higgins; Neko Case; Petula Clark; Prince; Randy Crawford; Rudder; Serena Ryder; Steve Earle; Sugarland; Susie Arioli; the-Dream; TV on the Radio; U2; Buddy Miller; Metric. I've added some hyperlinks to many of the above-noted artists, so if you want to get any info on them, click the artist's name if it's purple-coloured.

"Elderly"??!!??

This article in today's Sun was disturbing on two fronts. Firstly (and most importantly) it's a very sad state of our city when this type of attack occurs against innocent citizens. But secondly (and not to make light of the seriousness of the whole event being reported) it made me wonder when we began referring to a 62-year-old man and his 59-year-old wife as "elderly"! Isn't "elderly" much later than this?? (Maybe I'm being a bit too sensitive, since these ages aren't really that far away from me, and many of my friends and acquaintances are already there!?!)

As letter to the editor of the Toronto Sun April 23, 2009: http://www.torontosun.com/comment/letters/2009/04/23/9212391-sun.html

New Music

Today I got the soundtrack from "Slumdog Millionaire" very interesting stuff produced by a guy called A. R. Rahman. Also got more music from India Arie: Testimony Volume 2. Haven't yet been able to get Shemekia Copeland's new cd "Never Going Back". Saw her on Letterman the other night, and really liked her...just discovered that she's the daughter of the late great blues guitar guy, Johnny Copeland.