Corby's Orbit

Corby's Orbit
Listening in All the High Places illustration by John Kricfalusi

Tuesday, May 30, 2023

Celebrating 5 Years Online - Incidental Reportage Upon The Historic, Current and Projected Trajectory of Roots Music Canada

Resolute roots reportage has been the mandate for the Roots Music Canada website since its re-inception in April of 2018.

We will finally get a chance to celebrate, the best way we know how - with MUSIC!

This Sunday Toronto's Tranzac club, itself an outstanding long-term faciltator of Canadian Roots music, will host MOOSEFEST

Yes, there WILL be folk - and blues, and balladry, and barrelhouse, reggae, jazz ragas, bluegrass newgrass and tallgrass sets, spread over the course of four hours, starting at 7 p.m.

As a long-term contributor, I was asked for a sentence or two describing my RMC experience.

Here is my sentence (or two, as it turned out.)


It was all because Levon wasn’t feeling too well, so Colin came down to sound check At Massey Hall, and then the two of them got to talking, so Lucinda’s sound check got sort of delayed, so then during the show, David Newland got so impatient with Lucinda’s growly comportment that he put up a post complaining about Lucinda’s big book of lyrics being at center stage and yadda yadda, and Corby got ticked and wrote back something typically steely about how the TSO all had big books onstage, and that was so unprofessional and then when Steve Bell came to Hugh’s Room, Newland introduced him onstage, and Corby decided to take the edge off his comment by meeting up with Newland, whom he neither knew nor appreciated fully, and after that encounter Emma Jane told Corby that nobody wanted to write a review of Steve Bell because of his unstylishly ballsy Christian attitude, so Corby, who was deep into church at the time, did some typing and sent it along to Roots Music Canada, and Meghan toned down the steeliness so that when Steve Bell read it, he really liked it a lot and got his whole church to go online and like it too, and Roots Music Canada found out that their server had a peak “like” capacity of two hundred so Corby got to write more after that, about The Wheat Pool breaking up and Jerry Leger at a backyard party, and at that point, Newland got a new job, and his partner, Andy Frank, got sick, and then Gordy The Moose went underground strictly from hunger, so Corby just kept on writing on his blog, which apparently nobody read except Heather, who kept typing back, until one day in Ottawa the apparent became obvious, that RMC would be once again required to swerve upstream in pursuit of the sources and forces that affect roots culture in Canada, giving Heather the opportunity to revive Gordy and send Corby to Wimpy’s to have a burger with Suzie Vinnick and David James, who were just about to start shaking the love around themselves anyways, for an opening story posted five years ago this week, so that soon articles, news, pictures, links and general root-a-baggage were again being spread across the land in a timely and accurate manner, musing lovingly on the muscular recordings of dishy harmony trios, fiddle provocateurs, dubwise guerillas and blues grumblers, relaying reportage on activism and club life, and then, as opportunities for new missions began abounding at festivals and hootenannies, drawing in rootical investigative journalists like Bev and Elizabeth and Leonard and Ian and Jan and Flo, who all went mental into that good night, brandishing phones and cameras to take in the acoustic particulars of the many concert and campfire events that have traditionally carried the secret chord along, including blearily recalled weekends at the Canadian Folk Music Awards, Folk Music Ontario, Mariposas, powwows, Hillsides and kitchen parties, and a magical moosery tour of Folk Alliance in Montreal that brought Gordy into intimate proximity with…but let’s save that story for another post, and just for now wish many more candles to a gutsy little online publication that has kept a light on for all of us here in the musical struggle and illuminated our pathway through the ongoing thundersnow.

Congratulations Heather, and well done.

Saturday, May 27, 2023

Music is Soul


 

Playlist For Corby's Orbit Show of 26 May with Al Qahwa, Artie Roth and Zoe Ackah

 


Commissioner of Selection: Paul Corby 

( Brought to you by Edible Entertainment, Comestible Commentary, and
Potable Programming
)

* Canadian Artists in asterisked red

For Podcast Click HERE

Click on images to enlarge

5:00 Spirits In The Moments Of Time


* Tréson ~ Moments ~ @The Garrison tonight

Easy Star All-Stars feat. Carlton Livingstone ~ Star ~ Ziggy Stardub NEW RELEASE

Christine & The Queens ~ Tears Can Be So Soft ~ NEW RELEASE

* Michael Reinhart & The Singers Of Nunavut ~ Party ~ Quaraaluqtuq (2003)

Sampa The Great ~ Imposter Syndrome ~ As Above So Below~ @Axis Club 12 June ~  NEW RELEASE

* Sacha & Tyler Shaw ~ Confident ~ NEW RELEASE


5:20 Allah Ou Est Lui?

* Al Qahwa ~ Interview with Maryem & Ernie Tollar / Weyn Allah / The Sky Is Falling / Humanity / Bora ~ Weyn Allah ~ PRE RELEASE @ Lula Lounge May 31 for Ernie's Fundraiser and @ Tranzac June 18th for Weyn Allah release concert

5:45 Resonant Lengths 

*Artie Roth ~ Interview / Circle Maker / Sky Blues ~ Resonants NEW RELEASE

6:10 Coop De Grace

* Zoe Ackah ~ Interview / I Miss You (But My Aim Is Getting Better)/  Gotta Stop Loving You (But I Can't) / This Hen (Is Starting To Hate Men) / Cares And Woes ~ This Hen ~NEW RELEASE~ Launch @ The Cameron 331 May 6-8pm


6:40 Closed Circuit

* Lido Pimienta ~ Ein Sof Infinito ~ NEW RELEASE


Jess Klein ~ Never Gonna Break Me ~ NEW RELEASE

* Chris Velan ~ Love With A Capital L ~ Songs About Songs ~ NEW RELEASE

* Keys N Krates ~ Say You Love Me ~ NEW RELEASE

* Loryn Taggart ~ Scandal Monger ~ NEW RELEASE

* The Memberz ~ What Ah Joy ~ NEW RELEASE ~ @ The Garrison tonight and Sunday June 4 at Tranzac for MOOSEFEST






Tuesday, May 23, 2023

What ah joy - New Single By The Memberz In Orbit Friday


My nu-reggae band The Memberz (see above clockwise from top left, Corby, Charmazel, Carlton, Mavriq, Roscoe and M.I.A. Brophy) has exciting news! And buttons! 

Our first single in five years, and a harbinger of our soon-to-be-released album has been released and is available
for your listening and dancing pleasure.
Find out for yourself here:

If you tune in this Friday for Corby's Orbit at 
https://www.iheart.com/live/radio-regent-8119/

you can listen for it at the end of the show, and that will just give you enough time to get down to The Garrison in Toronto for the premiere of the accompanying video.