Terry David Mulligan talks with Canada’s punk poet laureate, Art Bergmann has been tearing up stages, and terrifying the music industry, for half a century. Often referred to as “Canada’s Lou Reed,” Art’s story is one of rock and roll’s great tales untold. Until now. From his days helping to lay the foundation of the Vancouver punk scene with The K-Tels, to his acclaimed solo work in the ’80s and ’90s, and a late career resurgence that has culminated with being named to the Order of Canada, The Longest Suicide chronicles every unlikely twist and turn Art’s life has taken.
Jason Schneider
Working with veteran music journalist Jason Schneider, Art lays it all out in his own inimitable way, with dozens of people who took part adding their own voices to corroborate (and sometimes dispute) the often-incredible chain of events. With cameos by John Cale, Bob Rock, The Clash, Bob Geldof and many others, The Longest Suicide is both a triumphant story of personal survival, as well as a unique glimpse inside the rise of alternative rock. Above all, it is a tribute to Canada’s most unheralded singer-songwriter, whose greatness is only now being widely recognized.
Illustrated throughout.
From the Introduction:
“The story of Art Bergmann’s career is perceived by many to be a succession of failures, but the story of Art’s life? If Art doesn’t have the best story, it is always the most magical.”
— Michael Turner, author of Hard Core Logo
Praise for The Longest Suicide:
“ a brisk, plain-spoken and thoroughly well-researched rip through the genuinely wild, wildlife of a genuinely committed rock-’n’-roller.”
— The Toronto Star
Just about then Blue Rodeo will be backstage at the Northern Alberta Jube prepping for the second of two nights on that stage. There’s a nervous energy, that’s to be expected. While that never really goes away, remember that this is Blue Rodeo. Been touring since 1984. 16 or more studio albums, four live. A truckload of awards. So, backstage there’s a lot of laughs, storytelling, small acoustic jams, great food and wines, friends and family.
Blue Rodeo bring with them their latest album Many a Mile.
As always, Jim brings with him great stories
From the studio
From lockdown
From ”the road”
And from inside the band.
From their latest album Many a Mile, Jim says he and Greg Keelor have different views of the road.
Jim’s is I think about you. The Yin and Yang about leaving home to make music.
In Opening Act Greg writes about his love/hate relationship of the road.
And it all works.
That’s the very dynamic that keeps this band active and totally interesting.
Rebecca and Megan Lovell are Larkin Poe – “we are students of the blues”
Georgia Born – Nashville Based.
Friday they released their 6th studio album Blood Harmony
When I hear the title, I think of the sound of their voices – together!
Just like all of the great ones…
The Every Brothers
The Beach Boys
Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart
Neville Brothers.
Wood Brothers
Staple Singers.
Bros. Landreth
Brothers Gibb
What they all have in common is family and the blood ties that go with it.
Sisters and Brothers have always made exceptional music – usually because they started as kids in grade school and worked at their harmonies as they grew up. It’s second nature – like breathing.
The bonus with Larkin Poe is they play like they sing..and walk a fine line between roots, blues, rock, and gospel.
Rebecca and Megan bring with them stories and kind words about Canadian festivals and audiences.
After all, they talk about being True North in their music. When explained that those words are in the Canadian Anthem, they celebrate the connection.
Complete interview onMulligan Stew Podcast and video version on Terry David Mulligan YouTube Channel
The film is a documentary Doug and the Slugs and Me. The Me is Teresa.
The doc is working its way through film festivals and will eventually appear on CBC Gem.
It’s been said if there was no Doug and the Slugs there would have been no BareNaked Ladies.
Led by the charming and clever writer/artist man Doug Bennett, The Slugs cut a swath through a sea of really average 80’s bands to become the darlings of Canada’s music charts. Lots of hits. One after the other.
They sold out all 40 of their Commodore Ballroom gigs.
So….what happened to The Slugs and Doug Bennett? That’s the bittersweet and complex story of this film.
Doug Bennett died at age 52 in 2004. The music lives on.
It took me the whole of Summer 2022 to read and complete Tara McGuire’s book Holden After and Before.
I’ve known and really liked Tara for a long time.
We were in radio together and apart but – in radio. It’s a small community, at times.
I’ve written and said publicly that this was the hardest book to read and toughest interview in memory but that’s because of my friendship with Tara. I felt tied to the story and a cloak of guilt that I didn’t know what she was going through – after and before.
But that’s just me – please don’t let me steer anyone away from seeking out the wisdom of this book.
When her beloved Holden died from an overdose, she collapsed and it took many many months for her to stand up and just breathe. Then she decided to commit herself to tell this story but going back through Holden’s friends, reconnecting his texts and emails. Imagining how he handled certain situations and dealing with the guilt that came like a wave.
If you’re a Mother, or dream of being a parent or you currently are a parent, you will find yourself wondering “what would I have done?”
I did. For a whole Summer.
Holden After and Before is a brave, honest, unspeakably painful but simultaneously beautiful attempt by a ‘mother who was a light bulb striking pavement’ to come to terms with her young son’s life and death. Once I began reading, I could not tear myself from this account, which offers a rich tapestry of memoir and fiction – basically, anything Tara McGuire could recall, discover or imagine – about her son Holden, who died accidentally at age twenty-one after he ingested a toxic mix of alcohol and heroin. As I read, Tara McGuire enveloped me with her empathy, her desperate hunger to make sense of the senseless, and her humanity. She inspired me with her courageous and unflinching journey – in the wake of any parent’s worst nightmare – to become a writer as a means of honouring her lost son. –Lawrence Hill, author of The Book of Negroes
Susan Tedeschi co-partner with Derek Trucks in life and music is our guest this week.
We first talked to Susan in May when the first Moon album, Crescent was released. This is the rest of the story
Tedeschi Trucks Band has created “one of those albums” that will become the standard by which all other such albums are created.
It’s an amazing story and we are thrilled to have Susan share it with us. It’s our complete 30-minute interview – with the tracks from the first album.
The concept behind I Am The Moon, the GRAMMY-winning band’s fifth studio recording, was suggested by TTB vocalist Mike Mattison in May 2020, two months after the band was forced off the road by the pandemic.
The 12th-century poem Layla & Majnun by Persian poet, Nizami Ganjavi, was the title inspiration for Eric Clapton’s 1970 double-LP with Derek and the Dominos, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs – an influential album for Tedeschi Trucks Band. Interestingly, Ganjavi’s source material resonated with Mattison and the rest of the band in an altogether different way. Finding complex themes and storylines that inspired their creative process, they forged a new, modern interpretation of the vast 100-page poem.
The thought that started the project was “Instead of Majnun, let’s see this story through Layla’s eyes.
Operatic in scope, Tedeschi Trucks Band explores romantic relationships, collective struggle, faith, and the human experience on I Am The Moon.
“It’s amazing,” Trucks says, “because we wrote most of this music in a pretty short time span. There are even chord changes that mirror other tunes on the albums – themes and variations, lyrical allusions, that pop back up.” He continues: “You always want to do something bigger and thematic. This is the first time it happened naturally.”
The decision to sequence and release I Am The Moon in four distinct episodes came “when we started thinking of records we love,” Derek says, citing Axis: Bold as Love, the 1967 LP by the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
“It’s 36 minutes long. That’s the way to digest a record.”
With that approach in mind, TTB will also present I Am The Moon: The Film, immersive visual companions to each album. The corresponding films will debut three days prior to each audio release, offering fans an early opportunity to digest each album in its entirety as a communal listening and viewing experience via the band’s YouTube channel.
October 21 – Oslo, NO – Sentrum Scene
October 22 – Stockholm, SE – Cirkus
October 25 – Berlin, DE – Verti Music Hall
October 26 – Hamburg, DE – Edel-optics.de Arena
October 27 – Prague, CZ – Forum Karlin
October 30 – Rotterdam, NL – RTM Stage
November 2 – Dublin, IE – The Helix
November 4 – London, UK – The London Palladium
November 5 – London, UK – The London Palladium
November 6 – London, UK – The London Palladium
November 9 – Manchester, UK – Manchester Academy
November 10 – Glasgow, UK – O2 Academy Glasgow
November 12 – Paris, FR – Le Trianon
November 13 – Paris, FR – Le Trianon
November 15 – Paris, FR – Bataclan
HARRISON KENNEDY was awarded the 2016 “Blues Album of the Year” JUNO for his album “This Is From Here”. This was the 6th nomination for the Hamilton, ON. based artist.
Now comes his latest album Thanks for Tomorrow
Harrison Kennedy was born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario. His family had roots in New Orleans and Tennessee,[ Kennedy sang in the Stewart Memorial Church Choir as a boy, when childhood trips took him over the border to visit relations in Arkansas, Rogersville, Tennessee,[9] and Detroit, Illinois, United States, and all these experiences expanded his love of music., The other border his family crossed was the Canadian border. They decided to stay and live there.
Harrison grew up in a house filled with music and famous visitors such as Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, and Lonnie Johnson. In 1969 he took a hiatus from college to become a founding member of the million-selling Detroit Soul Super Group “The Chairmen of the Board” with whom he toured the world, as well as appearing on Soul Train, American Bandstand, and the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
Harrison Kennedy has released almost a dozen internationally acclaimed albums and developed into one of the 21st century’s most insightful and original Blues singer/songwriters.
To quote my friend Tom Coxworth
For anyone not familiar with Harrison Kennedy, he has been nominated for
12 Maple Blues awards and 4 Junos and was touted by BB King as Canada’s
premier Blues performer
We’re going to talk to Harrison about his family, his spirituality and his music!!
“Before the pandemic, I felt burnt out, I was exhausted, I was getting sick. It wasn’t great, from a mental health perspective and a physical health perspective. In fact, it was quite terrible at points. And now we’re opening things up, and I think a lot of people are asking themselves, ‘What do I keep? What do I bring with me into this new open world, back into social situations?’ ”
I’m reconnecting with a lot of people and a lot of old friends and my parent’s friends and all those kinds of things,” he says of being back home in New Brunswick without losing any musical momentum. “I think it also gives you a sense that it’s a special career and a bizarre and interesting and magical profession that I’m lucky to do”
Saltwire – Atlantic
David Myles and I shared the airwaves at CKUA. Me with The Stew and he with Myles from Home
He did, however, close Myles from Home so he could restart his singing and songwriting career after the pandemic. Also so he could heal himself, as he will explain.
His new album It’s only a little loneliness has the same sweet voice, dry humor, and sharp human focus that’s made him so popular.
Tracks included are
It’s only a little loneliness
Making’ Believe
Mystery
When it comes to my turn
You can’t hurt me
Solitaire
He is back on tour now..click on the link below for dates and times.
Joe Keithley (Shithead) is the leader of hard-core punk band DOA and has been since the late 70’s.
In 2008 The Vancouver Sun named Joe one of BC’s most influential people – of all time!
DOA played for benefits, rallies, protests, and anything with the word environment in it.
Joe and DOA still tour. 20 dates all across Canada in June and July of this year.
So it should come as no surprise that Joe is now Burnaby City Councilor Joe Keithley. It took him years to get voters’ attention in Burnaby but now he’s no long shot, he’s running for re-election.
This month.
There’s a documentary film crew following him around..hoping to figure out how he finds the balance between being an angry rocker and a well-spoken politician.
One of the people making comment is Beto O’Rourke – in Texas.
Joe’s s talking about affordable housing, human rights, quality child care, helping the most vulnerable, and assisting seniors and the homeless. He’s just an all round great guy..and scary good on stage as well.
The Burnaby Election is October 15th . If you can donate or support Joe’s fight…Please contact him at
Blue Rodeo bring with them their latest album Many a Mile.
Sisters and Brothers have always made exceptional music – usually because they started as kids in grade school and worked at their harmonies as they grew up. It’s second nature – like breathing.
The doc is working its way through film festivals and will eventually appear on CBC Gem.
The concept behind I Am The Moon, the GRAMMY-winning band’s fifth studio recording, was suggested by TTB vocalist Mike Mattison in May 2020, two months after the band was forced off the road by the pandemic.
