The Canadian Society for Traditional Music is dedicated to the study and promotion of musical traditions of all communities and cultures, in all their aspects. The scope of the Society's activities is intended to reflect the interests of all its members, including ethnomusicologists, folklorists, performers, music enthusiasts, and the music community at large.
Listening to Barry Manilow is Like the Chicken Soup for your Soul
I didn't buy a lot of music when I was a kid or a teenager, or any time in my life really. I am satisfied by turning on the radio or letting the television babble on or I like silence. The absence of all but the hum of the refrigerator and other essentials.
However, Barry Manilow's Greatest Hits was the first album I ever bought. Mine was a cassette tape because my Mother had given me a cassette tape player for Christmas. Also, my Mom was the person who started me listening to Barry Manilow. She had several albums which we would put on while we worked together sewing, making bread or pies or folding laundry and so on.
Barry Manilow's Greatest Hits was the First Full Album I Ever Bought for Myself
I bought Barry Manilow because I wanted to hear him. Not just occasionally on the radio, randomly. I wanted to play his songs over and over and hear him sing all those words to an audience of just me. I was lonely and Barry Manilow always made me feel like someone else was out there and heard me, would care and understand what I was feeling.
Of course, I never met him and doubt I ever will. I don't need to meet him. Too often the illusion is spoiled by the reality anyway.
I don't still have that original cassette. I don't have the cassette player any more either. Most of the time if I think of a song I want to hear these days I just find it on YouTube and let it play. Sometimes I play the same one a couple of times. Sometimes I share the YouTube link on Facebook.
Sometimes I will send the song to my nephew, Zack for his younger perspective on my older music. Zack sings with the choir and has performed at school, in front of a paid audience in high school too. So Zack knows music more than I do. He doesn't think much of most of the music I love. Not because it's old or seems dated. He says most of them can't really sing very well. I never hear the difference myself. I just like the song.
I haven't tested Zack with a Barry Manilow song yet. Today could be the day. Hard to choose which one to send. No doubt I will find lots of them on YouTube.
Crash Test Dummies from Winnipeg, Manitoba won the Juno Award for Group of the Year in 1992.
The Crash Test Dummies are a Canadian band, originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba. Wikipedia says they started in 1988. But I remember them mainly from the early 1990's when the Superman Song came out and became huge across Canada. I bought the first and the second cassette tapes as they were produced and out there. But, I have no idea where they are now and it wouldn't matter if I did. I no longer have a cassette player. How is that for making you feel older?
I don't know what made me start thinking about the Crash Test Dummies this morning. I used to absolutely love the deep voice of the lead singer, Brad Roberts. Maybe something poked my memories. I looked up the band, found the website (and a Facebook page which seems to be maintained by Brad Roberts who lives in New York City now) and listened to the latest songs (available on the site). The voice is what I remember and yet softer, a bit mellowed over time, experience and life.
On YouTube I found many of the songs I remember: Superman's Song, Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm (yes, that is a song), Peter Pumpkinhead, Swimming in Your Ocean, Afternoons and Coffeespoons, God Shuffled His Feet, Two Knights and Maidens, and a newer song I hadn't heard.
The Crash Test Dummies are Still Making Music
I didn't know there were more albums/ records/ CDs out. For me they seemed to drop off the edge of the planet sometime in the 1990's. (I'm not especially musically inclined, usually I just listen to the radio if that). So I didn't know the band had another four or six (I lost track) CDs together and several projects which the band members had done on their own. Ellen Reid who sings back up and lead on some songs, like Peter Pumpkinhead, has a blog where she also sells her CD.
This CD which I found on Amazon is a best of the Crash Test Dummies. You can also get a best of Brad Roberts (see Crash Test Dude below). I'd rather have the whole package though, I enjoyed the voice but the Crash Test Dummies would sound a bit plain without Ellen and the variety of instrumentals too. I ordered the CD from Amazon before I began writing this.
The Arrogant Worms are from Ontario, Canada. Three men who write and perform comedy to their own music, in their own way. Not everyone will like them. They will step on some toes (quite a feat for worms). But, if you let your guard down they will make you laugh too. Don't forget I did warn you - they step on toes - before you listen/ watch the video posts below.
There is even a song about Ontario sucking, so don't think it's just you.
The Arrogant Worms met in university in 1990. Maybe they were chasing the same bird.
By 1991 they were performing on campus radio in Queens University, Kingston, Ontario.. That same year they appeared on CBC Radio's Basic Black program. With encouragement from fans their first album was released in 1992, indie style.
Currently there are a dozen albums with Space being the latest of them.
Current members of the group are: Mike McCormick, Chris Patterson and Trevor Strong.
In 2003 the Canadian Arts Presenters Association recognized the Arrogant Worms as Touring Act of the Year.
More recently, the Worms were awarded the Peter Gzowski Award for donating their time and talent to the cause of literacy in Canada.
This was one of my favourite movies in the 1980′s. It didn’t make a big splash for many others but for me it was fun, light and memorable. I can still recreate the music in my head even though I haven’t seen the movie in years. (See below for some of the music and songs from the movie).
The Pirate Movie was not the only pirate movie out at that time. It had been based on the Gilbert and Sullivan opera: The Pirates of Penzance. Unfortunately, this was the movie everyone seems to still think is the worst. A shame because it is so much fun, so much a happy ending, feel good and yet silly movie. I enjoy the music, the romance and the fantasy. The costumes are wonderful and the feeling of being back in time is not technically perfect but it feels and looks good.
The stars of The Pirate Movie were Kristy McNichol and Christopher Atkins, If you are a fan of 80′s movies you will know Christopher Atkins from The Blue Lagoon with Brooke Shields. But, do you remember Kristy McNichol?
The Story of The Pirate Movie
The movie was filmed in Australia, so as you are watching the beach, the waves and the sand and thinking now great it all looks – you know where you can find it.
Kristy McNichol is Mabel, a kind of nerdy girl who wishes she was pretty and popular. Mabel goes to a pirate festival where she watches a handsome young man in a swordplay demonstration. He invites her to a party on his boat. Mabel misses the launch but tries to catch up. A storm comes up and she ends up washed overboard and lands on a beach where her dream of pirates becomes the movie.
Frederic is the young man in her dream. Frederic and Mabel have adventures underwater, over water and around water with singing and romance, teasing and laughter. Frederic is a pirate who wants to leave but because he was born on a Leap Year the pirates say he can’t leave until his 21st actual birthday and just being 21 years old isn’t enough. The Pirate King has a great song at this point, it’s one of my favourites from the movie: I Am the Pirate King!
Frederic is cast adrift but notices a group of young women on an island and he manages to land there. In a twist, Mabel is now the leader of the group (rather than the quiet nerd from reality) and her sisters are all conservative, prim and proper. Of course, Frederic and Mabel fall in love. But, she can’t marry until all of her sisters have married. She can’t just run away because her Father is the very important Major-General and an orphan… which means the pirates (when they come ashore and spy all those prim and proper young women in their white lace dresses) can’t harm. They are all orphans!
So the Pirate King leaves in peace and the Major-General and his daughters are safe. But, Mabel wants Frederic and she doesn’t want to wait until the last of her (several) older sisters marries first. She Mabel and Frederic dive for treasure which was stolen by the pirates from her family. This is where the song Pumping and Blowing comes in. It’s sexual but it all happens while Frederic is in an old diving suit underwater and Mabel is keeping the air supply going from the rowboat above. If you need a great song to exercise to this one would work.
By the end of the movie Frederic and Mabel have exchanged rings but the Pirate King is back and wants to take the treasure, orphans or not. The Major-General and his daughters are all expecting the worst. Frederic and Mabel are about to be killed and then… Mabel wants a happy ending! It is her dream after all. This happy ending scene is fabulous. I especially like the words to the song they sing.
The Pirate Movie ends with Mabel waking up from her dream and there is the young man from the pirate festival. He helps her up, she asks if his name happens to be Frederic. He says no. But Mabel notices she is now wearing the ring Frederic gave her in the dream.
This movie is so under rated it is sad. I thought it was so wonderful and still get a laugh from watching it. Maybe the reviewers just took it all too seriously. It’s not meant to be serious, it’s all about a happy ending.