Tom and Joe latest victims of SNTS.

We Winnipeg radio listening folks suffered another huge loss today at the hands of SNTS.  Yes folks that’s right, Shiny New Toy Syndrome has struck again.

Tom, Nesta, Bubba and Joe at the Garage Giveaway we attended last week.

This morning as I arrived at work and enjoyed my morning coffee before my shift I as always perused the local newspapers and found that the morning show at Power 97 had quit en masse in a contract dispute with Corus Radio the parent company of the station.  Tragic as this seemed I took it with a grain of salt, if three reasonable adults choose to better their situation in live and quit over contractual issues more power to them.  In reality it would have little impact on my life as I have been a life long listener of 92.1 CITI FM.  The station that sent Darlene and I to New York and started my blogging hobby.

Things were going well at work until a great co-worker of mine bounded in with i-phone in hand asking me if I had heard the radio news?   Sure I said the Power 97 staff quit.  No, that’s not all he said they are taking over the morning show on CITI.

SHUT THE FRONT DOOR!

In a heartbeat, a morning team that had been in my life for the better part of 20 years was over.  That great morning team, already handicapped by the loss of Kathy Kennedy casually discarded less than a year ago.  The loss of K.K. was tragic enough, but now Tom and Joe are gone too, turfed for a shiny new toy in the form of Wheeler, Philly and Rena.   The friendship, the loss of Joe’s wife Alana to cancer, hearing about Tom’s many children growing up all flushed down the shitter with the promise of  crappy phone gags and toilet humor.

Colour me not impressed.

I guess that’s what executives in flashy suits like though, shiny new things they can brag about to their friends.  Fuck history, fuck on air friendship. We got us a bunch of potty talking radio jocks.

OH JOY! I can hardly wait, talk radio here I come.

Meet and Greet Canadian Style: Bryan Adams

In case any of you have caught a few of my comments in the blog this week you may have guessed that Dar and I have scored again on the concert ticket scene.

Tonight we are off courtesy of 92.1 CITI FM in Winnipeg on another great rock and roll adventure.  Darlene having the proverbial horseshoe up her ass came through on tickets for tonight’s extravaganza.

Bryan Adams Live in Concert

We are off for dinner at the MTS Centre, then backstage to meet with Bryan Adams and the band.  Given exclusive tickets at the front of the house and a swag package to boot.  WOW!

The only thing I have to get straight in my head is what I am going to ask Bryan when we get face to face.  I had considered asking him about Princess Diana, being that they were close friends before she taken from us.  But Dar vetoed that saying it was just tacky.  So being that we have just experienced Roger Waters and The Wall here in Winnipeg I suppose I could ask him about his experiences performing Young Lust  with Roger in Berlin after the fall of communism.

In any event we are sure to have a stellar night, stay tuned for yet another great concert review in the coming days.

Rock On!

Bob

CRTC Reconciders: Money For Nothing Back on the air.

It’s a great day in Canada today, the forces of good and the sensible have prevailed over one single voice that tried to staunch our freedom of expression.

Mark Knophler of Dire Straights (Shaughn Butts, Edmonton Journal)

As I wrote many moons ago the Dire Straits song Money For Nothing was pulled in its unedited form from the Canadian airwaves.  My local station, 92.1 CITI fm, took a hard-line on this fiasco and simply refused to play the song in any form due to the censorship debate.  Afternoon DJ Shadoe Davis summed it up perfectly in my opinion.  “We at CITI fm refuse to alter in any form the artists original intent, so when a song is banned in its original form we simply will not play it.”

I for one am glad that people like music director Frank Andrews and Shadoe Davis have stuck to their guns on this one.
As I gave frequent example in my earlier posts It’s only rock and roll and they don’t like it and Money For Nothing Revisited I went on ad nauseum about the frequent slurs and vocal images portrayed on today’s hit radio that go completely overlooked.  Then for one person to complain about a song released in the freaking 1980′s to have a classic yanked.

Needless to say I was a bit upset, come to grips people. The gay rights movement has made substantial gains since the late 20th century. So why pick on a song that was in no way mocking a gay person.  The satire of the song, should you choose to listen to it is that a dullard is expressing his beliefs on the rock and roll industry.

That’s the point of the piece people!!

So lets all just relax a little and lets see that little jem from the creative minds of Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits again, shall we.

UPDATE

I did some more digging so Mark can tell you himself where the song came from.  It’s a great interview but the Money For nothing part starts around the 8 minute mark.