Meantime, here's David M, speaking to a few points of relevance to the Pointed Sticks interview (and his own set). On the Retinal Circus show that never happened (which I first heard about through him; apparently collectors often ask him for copies of gig posters for that particular piece of history):
I think that the promoter couldn't get proper licensing, or the capacity was limited by the fire marshal, or the building wasn't habitable, or something technical like that. It got cancelled abruptly and without much explanation. There was some speculation that the city didn't want the show to happen, but it's likely that the promoter just couldn't make the venue work. As for why the poster might be in demand, obviously it's because of the nostalgia Vancouver old-timers have for NO FUN. The fools!Asked what year that was, he writes:
It would have been the day after our Thursday/Friday/Saturday at the Smilin' Buddha and 8 days before our Monday to Saturday at the Cave, so it would have made our insane career trajectory of November 1979 even more insane.
On the Small Salute to David Bowie, there have been a few changes and additions to the set we previously discussed. He has apparently altered the description in the poster, above, from "40 minutes of David's Bowie" to "44 minutes and 14 seconds of David's Bowie". He had actually mentioned that there might be a "short set as a warm-up and for fun, consisting of a few songs that wouldn’t exist if David Bowie didn’t exist (and perhaps something by Elvis Presley, who shares Bowie’s January 8th birthday)." But I do not know what exactly he is doing. He has said that he would "rather surprise people" than go into a list of which songs he plans. We did talk about his salute to David Bowie here, however, and I've seen the set one and a quarter times (the quarter happening in front of the Rickshaw during their February Bowie salute, which I shot a little video of.We had also been booked by Perryscope to open for Talking Heads on October 6, 1979, at the Commodore. It was going to be two shows, 8 P.M. and midnight. But a couple of weeks before that date Talking Heads management decided to bring their new signing Pearl Harbor and the Explosions along as opening act. That kind of thing has started up again, I've noticed, now that the "real money is in live shows".
Then I asked David about CanCon. Specifically, I wrote: "I'm curious in particular - a lot of bands that WERE good, like the Payolas and Doug and the Slugs, really started to blow goats the more they chased radio play. But did that have anything to do with Canadian content regulations? The Replacements were getting a bit blowy, in their later career (before the reunion), and that had nothin' to do with CanCon..."
David M. replies:
Allan,An industry arose because of Canadian Content that provided very nice livings for a lot of hard-working Canadians by emphasizing the “Canadian” over the “Content”. Jim Vallance told me back in 1979 that “a hit will buy you a house”. Ra McGuire told me at around the same time that “you guys would have hits if you weren’t so fucked up”, to which I replied “you guys would have hits if you weren’t so fucked up looking”.Money money money money.As for music, I think Phil Ochs covered the importance of that with “Bach, Beethoven, Mozart & Me”, just with that title, and he was probably clinically insane.Zeus preserve us from the fragile egos of old musicians, especially me.David
All images lifted off David M's "Small Salute" Facebook page, which, I discover, is distinct from the Music Madhouse event page, previously linked. So go check it out, there's lots else there. That's David and Ozzy with a Jim Cummins' Bowie.
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