Back in 1993 I was just getting into these wee record thingies, and I missed out on subscribing to Arlington, Virginia's Simple Machines Records' Working Holiday single-of-the-month club. I found a copy of January's single in a skateboard/record shop called Sk8 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. I enjoyed it, and as a result I started ordering a bunch of stuff directly from Simple Machines. Jenny Toomey and Kristin Thomson ran the label, and they were also two members of the up-and-coming band Tsunami. They created quite a buzz with this label...and they even published a guide for how to set up your own label. Where was the guide to setting up a blog when I needed it? The staff at Simple Machines liked receiving my orders because I would include oddball stuff with my order (their favourites were the Canadian Bazooka Joe comics because the jokes are provided in both French and English). Anyway, I managed to acquire all 12 of the singles with some difficulty (as most or all of them sold out), and then I bought this nifty carrying case (from Simple Machines, of course) to keep them all in:
At the University of Winnipeg in 1995, I landed a DJ show with CKUW and I used to play nothing but my obscure 7" singles, which I toted into the DJ booth in my little container like the complete and utter geek that I happily was...OK...am. The name of my show, "This Is My Show (You Can Have It)" was a very lame parody of this, Veronica Lake's "This Is My World (You Can Have It)" song from their The Man Who Was Not With It 7" EP which I will share with you later on down the alphabet:
At the University of Winnipeg in 1995, I landed a DJ show with CKUW and I used to play nothing but my obscure 7" singles, which I toted into the DJ booth in my little container like the complete and utter geek that I happily was...OK...am. The name of my show, "This Is My Show (You Can Have It)" was a very lame parody of this, Veronica Lake's "This Is My World (You Can Have It)" song from their The Man Who Was Not With It 7" EP which I will share with you later on down the alphabet:
I confess that I had to pull out the EP to remember what my radio show was called. I was a bit surprised when I saw the picture on the front. Remind you of anyone's blog pictures? I had no idea what was on the cover. Really. Anyway, I only hosted the show for one term, and no one listened. No one. How do I know that? I know that because at that time, CKUW was not a real radio station. It broadcast only in the basement lockerrooms and in the smokers' coffee area. I would put on a record, then walk up from the basement where CKUW was housed and into the smokers' den. That place was always packed with smokers and their chatter was far louder than the music. I should have turned up the volume, but I was too shy and didn't want to attract too much attention. People were trying to enjoy their cigarettes and all. So, I guess you could say I'm taking my discography from an audience of zero to the whole world, thanks to this blog. But I'm still trying to keep a low profile...and have been very successful thus far!
The March 7" featured C-bands on both sides, so let's give 'em both a look in, shall we? Codeine's "Ides" (March theme, get it?) is very sombre and depressing, as you might expect given the band's name. Which makes it a very unlikely pairing with The Coctails' upbeat and whistling-infused sing along "Working Holiday". However, post boxing day, any song about working and holidays also sounds sombre and depressing to me. Or maybe it's all the reminiscing. Too many memories floating back and too much time taken with this self-indulgent post!
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