I have to say that in 2007, when then Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty announced that Family Day would be an annual statutory holiday the third Monday in February, I was pleased but also a little bit puzzled. Pleased because who could object to a holiday in February – goodness knows we need one. Puzzled because I thought it was odd for the Premier of Canada’s most populous province to set a day aside to honour a British rock band – and a somewhat obscure one at that.

Continue reading →

If you had the power to ban one song to ensure that you never heard it again, what song would you choose? Think about it for a minute if you need to.

I don’t know what song you chose, but I do know this, it’s a popular song – it is a song that you picked to banish because you have heard it a lot, it drives you crazy and keeps intruding upon your life turning an otherwise nice moment into an auditory hell. I’m pretty sure none of you picked Circle of Tyrants by Celtic Frost (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41PxFzoqULU) or to move to the extreme other end of the musical spectrum Butterfly for Bucky by Bobby Goldsboro (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2y1nBPg4jA). The reason you didn’t pick these songs is not because they are wonderful songs, in fact I’m pretty sure that most people will hate at least one if not both of them. The reason you didn’t pick them is because, before my mention of them, you either had never heard the songs or it had been so long since they had entered your musical consciousness that it didn’t occur to you to put them on your hate list.

Continue reading →