Why A Blog?

Why a blog, indeed.

I know... "everybody's doing it" is not an acceptable reason.

In fact, I think I just heard the echo of a voice from my formative years grilling me about "all my friends" and "jumping off a cliff"... or something to that effect.

So, that's not it... really.

Oh sure, I have some very good web-buddies who beat me to the blogosphere, and I thoroughly enjoy a virtual glimpse into their lives via this medium, so you might say there was some subversive coercion going on (but far be it from me to point the accusing finger.)

As someone who used to keep journals, scrapbooks, photo albums and transcripts as well as tapes of my work on radio, I understand the desire to collect thoughts and "memory triggers" (audio and visual.)

What was once intensely personal takes on a different dimension in the ether... and a blog seems to be the preferrable alternative to chatting with your monitor (especially disconcerting if you don't have voice-recognition software installed.)

So, we come to LocoWorld.

It's like an abandoned Amusement Park crouched under the outskirts of town.

Shrouded in darkness like a mysterious whisper, it beckons with the promise of both terror and delight. Admission only is free. You have been warned.

(Sometimes, late at night, when the air is electric, you can hear the ancient calliope sluggishly awaken... riding a surge of mournful music that gradually becomes a deleriously rollicking, mocking refrain. The siren call of Now Playing: ... )
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Music is the one constant in my life.
It may be the only thing that has consistently given me pleasure, as well as provided common ground upon which to meet people, and share an interest. Enjoying it freely never used to be a crime. Times change. I suppose.
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Now that I'm (more or less) committed to this blog (or "Bleaggh!" depending on your perception/pronounciation of same)... I thought I would use it as I did my old Music Matters column published.... oh, so many years ago. Basically - news, views, reviews and opinion on current events in "the Industry"... as I understand them.

Since I could talk about music until my tongue atrophied, the thrust of this blog will be primarily concerned with "what's happening", musically speaking.

I grew up poring over every word and photograph in Rolling Stone, Creem, Circus magazines etc. - as well as a number of "underground" newspapers smuggled into Canada via the States. I believe it was The East Village Other that granted me semi-celebrity status amongst my fellow "heads", for a time, when I brought that scurrilous publication to high school.

Then there was my own creation - a mimeographed "newsletter" (precursor to the 'zine movement, in my humble estimation), heavily modelled after the free-wheeling zaniness and barely disguised obscenity of the early drug-fuelled underground movement.

It was the Psychedelic Sixties, baby!
We had red, green, purple, blue, and I think (I may have been hallucinating), some serious magenta mimeograph 'master sheets' - no wonder we gave full expression to our artistic abandon. This was cutting edge technology at the time, after all! It was also something we didn't want the parents to see.

But of course, they did. Eventually. Predictably.
(If I recall correctly, I managed to convincingly lie my way out of that one. Most likely I attributed it to a "school project" of some sort - while I was good at casting aspertions, I excelled at laying blame. Yeah, I never did figure out how to be corrigible.)

Since that time, I have indulged my passion for music and writing in many different venues - the internet being but the latest in that long line. Although, I have to say... I have never enjoyed it more than I do right now.

Now... if that horrid, HORRID Sony Corporation would restore Rock'n'Roll Jeopardy Online, I would be momentarily placated - and might even forget (for a while) their Rootkit Debacle.

Nahhh... NOT going to happen.

- Loco -
(Now Playing: Why? - Bronski Beat)