I do an open format radio show on Radio Regent online out of Regent Park in Toronto every Friday from 5 p.m. til 7,called CORBY's ORBIT playing everymusic, so far no Death Metal or light opera but who knows?http://www.radioregent.com/
Illustration by John Kricfalusi
Corby's Orbit
Listening in All the High Places illustration by John Kricfalusi
Joni Mitchell ~ born Roberta Anderson, 7 November 1943 in Fort Macleod Alberta ~ has made songs, paintings and honest declarations of freedom (and bondage) all her life.
She has suffered abuse by the media and her peers and made her stand over all the shamers and blamers. She has titled her 19th and most recent album (2007) with her career's most accurately descriptive verb ~ Shine.
In the title song, she comes out laughing at the stubbornness of dualistic thought, which has interfered with her at life's every turn. Her paintings and philosophic contributions have yet to be seriously appreciated. Best to encounter her in the music itself, or in Malka Marom's book Joni Mitchell: In Her Own Words.
The songs of John K. Samson bleed out through the deliberate and epic patience of his band The Weakerthans. The songs render the listener progressively more and more helpless as the lyrics congeal into private articulations that make more sense to the feelings than to the mind. They have never had breakout success, although in 2005, Left and Leaving was named one of the ten best Canadian albums of all time in Chart magazine's reader poll. The song Pamphleteer, from that epic second album, has an organic connection to Aside and My Favourite Chords and the title track, but stands above them, perhaps most for its noble Canadian stubbornness against “all that I could never overcome.”
Nowadays, the band is essentially broken up, although they claim to be merely “cryogenically frozen”.
It all sounds weird, I know, but that is because they are from Winnipeg, even more so than they are from Canada. Here is a summation from someone who has insightfully explained the significance of the band, and their special city, from an article in GEIST: http://www.geist.com/fact/essays/city-still-breathing-listening-weakerthans/
“ One of my favourite Weakerthans songs is about politics, or maybe about the limitations of politics. It’s called “Pamphleteer” and it’s written from the point of view of a weary, discontented activist standing on a street corner at rush hour, handing out leaflets. The song borrows nicely from the literature of the left; it ends with the line “A spectre’s haunting Albert Street,” echoing the first line of the Communist Manifesto: “A spectre is haunting Europe.” And it quotes from the protest hymn “Solidarity Forever,” like this:
Sing “Oh what force on earth could be
Weaker than the feeble strength
Of one” like me remembering
The way it could have been.
The quote is from “Solidarity Forever”— there’s a footnote in the lyric sheet that says so—but what I love about it is the way that the lyrics subvert the anthem, so that it’s no longer about political struggle but about lost love.”City Still Breathing: Listening to the Weakerthans byPaul Tough
Paul McCartney ~ The Song We Were Singing ~ Flaming Pie
* MINOTAURS ~ All Hail / Interview with Nathan Lawr ~ AUM NEW DISK ~ @ Junction City Music Hall tonight
5:20 Pentatonic Boom
* Terry Gillespie ~ The Devil Likes To Win ~ Home Boy NEW DISK ~ @ Dakota Saturday and @ Junction City Sunday
5:40 Maximum Explosure
Greg Brown ~ Pledging My Time ~ A Nod To Bob ~ Bob Dylan (b. 24 May 1941) Don't Think Twice Songs @ Hugh's Room
Misda Oz vs. Mirkan Dede ~ Ab-i Beki ~ Buddha Bar X
Van Daler & Low Pressure feat. Natasja Saad ~ Real Love ~ Buddha Bar X
Jamie XX feat. Romy Madley Croft ~ Loud Places ~ In Colour ~ @ Echo Beach Monday- Tuesday 22-23 May
Selwyn Birchwood ~ Are You Ready ~ Pick Your Poison NEW DISK
6:00 Glimmerland Slim
Dani Nash feat. Mark Calderone ~ Interview / Wired Up (live) / Waiting For A Wave (live) ~ @ Cameron House Wednesday 24 May & @ The Horseshoe Thursday 25 May
* Anne Lindsay ~ The Cold Told A Tale / Dogs In The Hollow ~ Soloworks ~ @ Aga Khan Museum Saturday for World Fiddle Day
Corey Gulkin ~ So It Goes ~ Northeast Southwest ~ @ Tranzac Saturday for Little York Folk Festival
Easy Star All Stars ~ Human Nature ~ Thrillah ~ The Music Of Michael Jackson feat.Treson & T-Dot Batu @ Lula Lounge Sunday
6:30 Brass Moon Cool
* Brother Neil ~ Interview / Away Avenue Away (live) / Time (live) ~ Away Avenue Away NEW DISK
Lee Konitz ~ If I Had You ~ The Art Of Jazz Saxophone / Toronto Music Listings
* Kim Doolittle ~ Let Love Be Your Goal ~ Into The Blue NEW DISK live on Corby`s Orbit next week and @ Hugh`s Room Thursday 8 June for CD release party
Paul Oakenfold vs.Afrika Bambaata and The Soul Sonic Force ~ Planet Rock ( Swordfish Mix) ~ Swordfish Sdtrk.
Aural taste buds and stereophonic sweet teeth will be treated to the most salivacious music just now emerging from the upper shores of the Lake Of Shining Waters. MINOTAURS have historic roots in the cavities of Ontario's geomystical rock candy arcana. Their new disk AUM is being released and performed live at Junction City Music Hall this very Friday. Some tracks and facts will be available at 5:15 when major Minotaur Nathan Lawr rings up the Orbit. Semi-Jamaican jammer Terry Gillespie, currently sojourning in the temperate zone has a new live disk, Home Boy, out and is touring the left side of Toronto with his recent confections. He'll be playing and conversing live at around 5:30.
Saturday May 20 (7-9 p.m.) Dakota Tavern, 249 Ossington Ave., Toronto (with full band). Brian Blain opens. $10.00
SundayMay 21 (8-10.30 p.m.) Junction City Music Hall, 2907 Dundas St. W (full band). Jenie Thai opens. $10.00
Dani-time will commence at 6:00 when all-day jawbreaker Dani Nash, whose carmelized singing and Skittles drumming will coalesce at the Horseshoe Tavern next Thursday evening, serves up some live tunes and chat about her wide-ranging career and talents.
And down around 6:30 we should be ready for Brother Neil and his new Kinder Surprising disk, with some more live performance and assorted jelly beans. Don't tell your dentist but it will be so-waaay so-weet.
*Christine Bougie ~ Who Has You Now? / Interview / I Can Never Remember His Face / Do I Ramble ~ Whistle Up A World NEW DISK ~ @ Burdock Wednesday 17 May 6:30
5:40 Incidental Insights
* Clara Engel ~ Your Halo Is A Swarm Of Bees ~ @ Array Space tonight
Tommy Emmanuel ~ Struttin` ~ Endless Road ~ @ St. Lawrence Center For The Arts tonight
Miranda Lambert ~ That`s The Way That The World Goes Around ~Revolution
Selwyn Birchwood ~ Police State ~ Pick Your Poison (Alligator) NEW DISK
* Kobo Town ~ World Is Turning ~ Where The Galleon Sank
* Lori Cullen ~ Strange Is This Life ~ Sexsmith Swinghammer
6:00 World On A String
* Amely Zhou ~ Birds Have Returned To The Forest / Back Home / Interview ~ @ Aga Khan Museum Saturday for World Fiddle Day brought to you by Small World Asian Music Series
6:10 Peripheral Periscopes
Lee Scratch Perry ~ Curly Dub ~ @ Danforth Music Hall Sunday
Common feat. Stevie Wonder ~ Rewrite The Black American Story (Thank-you Diva Dee)
Fred Hammond feat. John P. Kee ~ They That Wait
Painting: Mary Pratt ~ Dishcloth
6:30 Home Stetch
* John Stetch ~ Phun Toon / Interview / Vulneraville NEW RELEASE ~ @ The Rex Jazz & Blues Bar Saturday 9:45
6:40 Exhilarating From One To Ten
* Louis Simao ~ Flor Amargurada ~ A Luz ~ @ Burdock Thursday 18 May
Da Lata ~ Da Do Da ~ Mash Banana /Toronto Music Listings
*The Eisenhauers ~ Thank You For The Years ~The Road We Once Knew NEW DISK (Mothers Day Sunday)
* Scott Helman ~ Intro Kites ~ Hotel De Ville NEW DISK
Burnished by Robbie Robertson's robust imagery and his flair for nuanced incident,
The Band's Acadian Driftwood
from 1975's Northern Lights Southern Cross LP presents an episodic insight into the historic disgrace known as the Expulsion of the Acadians.
"They signed a treaty and our homes were taken..." From 1755 onwards, Maritime French settlers were uprooted and forced from their land by Charles Lawrence and the British government because of their language and allegiances, transformed into refugees by a harsh political environment. "Loved ones forsaken, they didn't give a damn." There was no claim to neutrality permitted: all were removed. Racial and religious motivations expedited British political and military goals. Roman Catholicism was unwelcome, and the Mi'kmaq alliance with the French needed to be dismantled as well. The pathos of this epic song is enhanced by Byron Berline's haunting fiddle and Garth Hudson's synthesized military fifes, by the lyrical coda of nostalgic patois and by the retrospective knowledge that this would be the last great song produced by this country's most musically significant rock ensemble ever.
Joni Mitchell ~ born Roberta Anderson, 7 November 1943 in Fort Macleod Alberta ~ has made songs, paintings and honest declarations of freedom (and bondage) all her life.
