Category Music
Rumours of Glory IV – Cabaret Nicaragua
To mark the release of Bruce Cockburn’s memoirs, Rumours of Glory, this week I am telling some little known Cockburn tales that you won`t find in the book. I wasn’t there in 1987, but I doubt the tent had changed much from the previous year when I had watched Mike Peters put on an inspired […]
Rumours of Glory III – After the Flood
It was January 20, 1981. Bruce Cockburn was scheduled to give a performance, a sold-out show at the National Arts Centre (NAC) in his hometown of Ottawa. I had done a radio interview by telephone with Bruce a few days before, talking about the show and his upcoming album. I don`t remember now exactly what […]
Rumours of Glory II – Encounter ’76
This week Bruce Cockburn publishes his memoir, Rumours of Glory, and I am taking the time to reflect on some of my interactions with Bruce over the past 40 years. “Thanks to Encounter ‘76-the messages were deeply appreciated and the money put to good use.” – Bruce Cockburn, liner notes to his 1976 album […]
Rumours of Glory I
The first time I heard Bruce Cockburn’s music on the radio was more than 40 years ago, a song called “Musical Friends” taken from his first album. That was about 1970 or 1971 on CHOM-FM in Montreal. I don’t know exactly when I first saw Bruce Cockburn in concert, sometime fairly early in the 1970’s […]
I Hate Christmas Music
The season is almost upon us, retailers pumping out the Christmas carols (and less spiritual seasonal songs) in an attempt to stir up a buying frenzy and make their bottom line happy for another year. Storekeepers seem to think customers have a Pavlovian reaction to Christmas music – hear it and they spend. The world […]
All This For A Song
It’s a monument to creativity, seven floors in downtown Brussels devoted to musical instruments. But there was no cigar box banjo. Admission is free at the Musical Instruments Museum on Wednesdays, so we planned our visit for then. That turned out to be a good decision: I hate wasting money and Vivian wasn’t enthralled as […]
Parliamentary Palace II – Michael Jackson Was Here
There was a movie (which I have never seen) that was very popular in 1969 titled “If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium.” That I think is a pretty common feeling for anyone traveling through a number of countries in a short period of time: you can feel a little disoriented when you wake up […]
Songs of Innocence
We interrupt these vacation memories for an important cultural announcement: U2 have released a new album, their first in five years. It is already the most widely distributed album of all time, as it was made instantly available for free to the subscribers to Apple’s iTunes service, at least 500 million people. “Free” to subscribers […]
random thoughts from lorne 
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