William Shakespeare was an inquisitive guy. Think about it, “To be or not to be?” “Hark what light from yonder window breaks?” And the one I’ve been thinking about a lot recently, “What’s in a name?”

And before I get too into this last question, I’m guessing that little Billy Shakespeare probably bothered everyone around him asking tons of questions when he was a kid. Things like, “Prithee, why is the sky this particular shade of cerulean?” Or perhaps, “Verily if one doth burpeth and farteth at the same time is it true that one will die before the morrow, if not immediately?” He must have been a handful.

To get back to the “What’s in a name” question; the reason I’ve been thinking about it is because of an article I read recently. Apparently, the Queen’s Engineering Faculty received a $100 million donation. That’s right, $100 million or to put fully numerically, $100,000,000 – that’s a lot of zeros following the 1.

The person who gave this donation got the right to name the entire Engineering Faculty. Yep, not just naming a building, or a lecture hall, or a bunch of study carrels, or washroom stalls, but naming the whole darn faculty. And this is where my concern arises. You see the person who made this massive donation is named Stephen Smith, and when given the opportunity to rename the entire faculty he chose the name Smith Engineering.

Now I’m not suggesting that there’s anything wrong with the name Smith, it’s a perfectly fine name but it’s hardly unique. Not only is it not unique, Smith is, in fact, the most common last name in all of Canada. As it turns out, slightly more than 1 in 200 people have the last name Smith (and I know that’s true because I looked it up online and Google would never lie to me). And this is where the problem arises.

There are 5,000 students currently enrolled at Smith Engineering. That means, if 1 in 200 has the last name Smith, then there are 25 current students in the program who can all pretend that they or their father or their uncle or their aunt or someone related to them made the donation and created Smith Engineering. And there are over 28,000 students at Queens altogether meaning that 140 of them could plausibly claim that the faculty was named after one of their kith or kin. And that’s not counting all the alumni.

Even more problematic, when the real Stephen Smith, or his relations, walk along the grounds of Queen’s to Smith Engineering and proudly say “I (or my dad, uncle, bubbe, whatever) gave this donation to the Engineering Department, people would be right to be skeptical. “Sure, Mr. Moneybags, how do we know it was you – it could have been anyone, or at least anyone named Smith.” And since there are 38,000,000 people in Canada that means the donor could credibly be any one of 190,000 people.

This “What’s in a name” conundrum makes me glad that we settled on Gordon’s Acoustic Living Room as our name when we started out in the music biz 53 years ago. Now it’s true that we have not accrued $100 million in earnings, but on the other hand, no one is going to confuse us with any other band on the planet (and that seems like a fair trade off).

We will next be treading the boards at the Free Times Café (College just west of Spadina) on Sunday, November 19. There will be at least nine of us on stage, so pretty much the full band (at our September show there were five of us and a special guest so we were perhaps more Gordon’s Acoustic Mud Room than Living Room). And by “full band” I do mean that the bagpipes will be back – just thought I should warn you.

And as a special treat, there will be no cover because our very own flute, saxophone, and guitar playing singer Wayne Smith (no relation to Stephen Smith – or maybe he is related to a Stephen Smith but not that Stephen Smith – or who knows, maybe he is related to that Stephen Smith) has asked that it be waived. He’s not covering your food and drinks though, he’s not made of money (or maybe he is, after all he’s a Smith).

Hope to see you there.

Jonathan

P.S. I thought I should remind/warn folks that January 25 – Robbie Burns Day – is on a Thursday this year and we are planning to celebrate it back at the Free Times. So as that all-bagpipe night creeps ever closer let us remember the words of the immortal Bard “Hark, what caterwauling doth emerge from that café, it is the bagpipes, and they make a truly unholy racket” (or words to that effect).

Despite the ubiquitous references in all manner of TV shows and movies, I was never asked, on my first day back at school, what I did over my summer vacation. In fact, I don’t ever recall a teacher ever showing the slightest interest in any aspect of my life outside of school. Perhaps others of you actually had a “what I did on my summer vacation” experience but not me. I don’t think I missed anything, but I thought I’d use this occasion to tell you, dear readers, one of the things I did this summer.

Over the past few months, I spent some time contemplating the difficult and challenging question of determining the essence of Gordon’s Acoustic Living Room – the band that I am a member of. One of the reasons that I had this opportunity was that the band took a hiatus over the summer and so I could ponder these bigger questions as opposed to how to play an A7sus chord on the mandolin, the sort of practical question that often take up time as we prepare for our gigs.

As regular readers of these missives will know, and as those who have actually seen us live or on video can attest, we are, when we are at full strength, a 10-piece ensemble. But we are also nothing if not flexible, and so on occasion we have operated as a nine, eight, seven and even on occasion, a six-piece group. During my contemplative time I pondered the question “Is there a number below which the Living Room would no longer be the Living Room, and if so what would that number be?” To take it to the extreme, if one member of the band was doing a solo show, could that be seen as a Gordon’s Acoustic Living Room show? What about if one member of the band did a show with nine other people, none of whom were members of the band, could that 10-piece group be the Living Room or would it be something else entirely? These are weighty questions.

One reason I was thinking about these issues is because at our upcoming show on Sunday, September 10th, yes the second not the third Sunday of the month, we will be performing as a six piece with a special guest. And no, the special guest won’t be Sting, even though he is playing in Toronto this week. I don’t want to get into the complicated history we have with Sting, there is a non-disclosure agreement in place and I may have said too much already.

The other reason I’ve been thinking about the essence of the band is because one of the people who will not be present is Rory Gus Sinclair – our bagpipe player. As far as I know, this will be the first gig in our 53-year or so history where Gus will not be present. Don’t worry, he’s perfectly fine, he’s just decided to take a few months to travel across Canada and the US with Mary, his partner. It’s kind of an Easy Rider thing but with a camper van rather than motorcycles and also a happier ending. Gus’s current exploits are further proof, if any was needed, that 70 is indeed the new 20.

What this means is that there will be no bagpipes played at our show, which will be a first for the Living Room. I want to reassure folks that there will be at least one pipe tune played, but it won’t be played on the bagpipes (something that I personally think is a great leap forward).

There are a couple other things about the show that I want to alert people to. It will, of course, be at the legendary Free Times Café (College just west of Spadina). Due to a film festival event being held at the Free Times, doors for the show won’t be opening until just before eight. We’ll get started around 8:15 and don’t worry, it will all wrap up before 11. And because of all these changes, there will be no cover.

Hope to see you there.

Jonathan

P.S. For those who feel a Living Room show isn’t really a Living Room show without the bagpipes, Gus has agreed to play a medley of pipe tunes on Sunday at 8 pm Eastern Time wherever the hell he is, just as if he were at the Free Times – and it’s possible that if he’s a only five or six hundred kilometres away, and you listen real hard, you might be able to hear them.

Spring is finally here!

One of the lovely markers of spring is hearing the whistling of birds in the trees. I will admit that there are occasions when birds start whistling at ungodly hours in the morning, and this can be annoying. I also recognize that the term “ungodly hour” does not describe a precise time of day. For some it might be 5 in the morning, for others 9 in the morning, and for others still, it might not even be the morning at all but rather the afternoon. Whenever your ungodly hour, the whistling of birds at that time can be a drag. On the other hand, it is still birds whistling and that sound always has its charms. While I’m on this topic, that topic being whistling birds, because I’m going to be pivoting a bit on the topic in the next few paragraphs, it is important to distinguish between birds whistling and other sounds that birds make – for example the cawing of crows. Crows cawing is not a soothing sound at any time of day. This may be why a large aggregation of crows is sometimes referred to as a murder of crows because murdering the crows is what people might want to do after hearing them cawing.

But back to whistling. Birds are not the only animal that whistles, people whistle too. I think whistling is great. There are folks who are professional whistlers and can amaze you with their skill, but you don’t need to be one of those people to enjoy whistling. I often find myself whistling as I’m walking down the street, running errands, or doing whatever.

I will admit that I didn’t begin whistling regularly until 10 or 15 years ago. Rather than whistling, I used to just sing snippets of songs that came into my head – and I can tell you there are a lot of those snippets hanging out in my head. In most cases I had no idea those snippets were even there and then suddenly I’m singing some tune that I hadn’t thought of in years. And then I had an epiphany.

My epiphany came one day when I was walking into the copy room at work. I had in my head a song by a local Toronto band called Frank Atom. They were a great band but don’t bother looking up their tunes on Spotify or looking for their videos on YouTube because it’s as though they don’t exist, which is a real shame because they did exist, and they wrote some really good songs.

The song in my head that day was a catchy ditty of theirs called ‘Porn Star’. Now don’t get the wrong idea based on the title, the song actually was a sensitive portrait of a man who lived alone in his apartment and was uncomfortable with people. And, as with a lot of really good songs about loneliness and anguish, the tune itself was kind of upbeat providing a contrast between the music and the lyrics (see for example ‘I’m A Loser’ or ‘Help’ by The Beatles, but there are thousands of examples). The chorus of the song, as I recall, went something like “There’s a porn star in my pants/and he’s dying to get out.”

Now I can give you all the context for this song, but I know that if I walk into the copy room singing “There’s a porn star in my pants/and he’s dying to get out” there is no way to justify or explain things because there is no justification for walking into a copy room singing those lyrics. And that was my epiphany. I realized that if, rather than singing the lyrics to that song, I whistled them, nothing bad could happen. If someone asked me what I was whistling I’d just say “Oh a song I can’t remember the name of” and if they asked what the lyrics were I could say “I forget them. That’s why I’m whistling.”

When the members of Gordon’s Acoustic Living Room get together, we don’t do a lot of whistling. We don’t need to whistle because we play a wide array of instruments, some of which make whistling type sounds – come on down flute and tin whistle – and some that don’t. And we can explain songs that need explaining because we play in clubs where people gather to hear the songs that we’re playing (and no, we don’t have ‘Porn Star’ in our repertoire yet because it’s actually not an easy tune to play).

Speaking of playing in clubs, we will be at the Free Times Café (College just west of Spadina) on Sunday, May 21. The show starts at 8pm and since Monday is a holiday you can stay until the end of show around 11pm. We’re going to be taking the summer off from playing at the Free Times (though we may have other gigs, we’ll let you know) so you’ll want to see us now or you’ll have to wait until September 10th. And if you need yet another incentive to come to the show, in honour of spring there will be no cover.

Hope to see you there.

Jonathan

P.S. In case you were wondering, bagpipes do not sound like birds singing, they don’t even sound like crows cawing – indeed the sound of bagpipes has been found to be very effective in keeping crows away from gardens and farms, unfortunately, it also keeps the gardeners and farmers away too.

You may have heard that the federal government has decided to prohibit their staff from using TikTok. This move by the Canadian government mirrors decisions made in many other countries around the world. You may be wondering, as I was, why? What harm has TikTok wrought?

My first thought was that it was all about the songs. You see, TikTok is apparently responsible for the fact that the average length of songs, particularly singles, has dropped by almost 30 seconds over the past few years. That’s right, if you listen to pop radio you will have discovered that songs are getting shorter and shorter. No more Hey Jude, no more Stairways to Heaven, no more Fight the Powers, long songs are dead and short songs rule the airwaves and cyberspace (and I know you probably don’t trust my take on pop culture but it’s not just me who has noticed this trend, check this article from Billboard.

As it turns out however, the federal government was not at all concerned about song length when they decided to ban staff from using TikTok – which just goes to show that they have no interest in the real issues that matter to hard-working Canadians. Apparently, their concern was that TikTok, which is owned by a Chinese company, could be an agent of the Chinese government.

It’s not necessarily that China would use TikTok as a springboard to gather confidential information about Canada. What might that information even be? Why Nanaimo bars are named after a city on Vancouver Island? Why the Leafs suck decade after decade after decade? These are big questions, but somehow I don’t think China particularly cares about the answers.

Perhaps China’s interest in Canada is not so much about our secrets but rather the secrets other folks share with us. You see, Canada is a member of what are called the Five Eyes. The Five Eyes consist of the United States, Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada, and we share a lot of information between these countries and that could be why China is interested in us.

And while we’re on the topic of the Five Eyes, can I just say that it’s a stupid name. I’m sure a bunch of “intelligence” folks came up with it, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t dumb. If there are five countries wouldn’t there be ten eyes not five?

Now I realize that I’m being a bit anthropomorphic – if you can be anthropomorphic about a country – but if you hear that Canada is ignoring a threat – and that seems to be something we’re pretty good at – isn’t the allegation that Canada is keeping its eyes closed. You’ll notice that it’s “eyes” plural, no one says Canada is keeping it’s “eye” closed. So the name for this five-country thing should be the Ten Eyes, not the Five Eyes. Plus, what’s the logo for this group, five individual eyeballs, that’s just a bit creepy frankly.

And this then brings us back, as it always does, to Gordon’s Acoustic Living Room. You see, I’m kinda old school, not really, really old school, like pen and paper old school, but old school like e-mail old school. I’m not creating cute little TikToks about the band, largely because I don’t know how. But even if I bothered to learn, I get so rambly that I suspect whatever I rambled on about wouldn’t fit on a TikTok – which apparently is about 15 seconds. And one more question about TikTok – how much Tik could a TikTok Tik if a TikTok could Tok Tiks?

Anyway, back to the Living Room. We will once again be gracing the stage at the legendary Free Times Cafe (still on College just west of Spadina), on Sunday April 16th. The show will start, as it always does, at 8 pm and there will be lots of great music, good food and plenty to drink. And to celebrate the actual arrival of spring, there will be no cover.

So please join us if you can. Hope to see you there.

Jonathan

P.S. While I haven’t looked, there are probably lots of TikToks with bagpipes (and please don’t send them to me) and while that would be the bad news, the good news is that they’d all be really short.

There was a period of time when Toronto was obsessed with being seen as a “world class” city, whatever that means. Fortunately, that almost pathological desire to be recognized by people outside of Canada’s borders (because within Canada’s borders hating Toronto is pretty much the order of the day) seems to have faded away. It does need to be acknowledged however, that there’s a lot about Toronto that has legitimately led to international recognition – if not notoriety. Two particular examples leap to mind.

First, are there the many outstanding musical venues in this city. There is, for example, the much venerated and newly renovated Massey Hall as well as the lovely Koerner Hall. The neon palms of the famous El Mocambo are lit up again and there are many smaller clubs and bars opening up regularly (also sadly closing regularly). One of the real jewels of the bar/club scene is the legendary Free Times Café (located on College just west of Spadina). The Free Times regularly hosts international, national, and local artists of great repute. But more about the Free Times later.

The other international claim to fame Toronto possesses is electing mayors who flame out in scandal. I could go back in history and set out all the various scandals that have beset the mayors of this city over the last 150 years, but that would require research and I’m too lazy to do that. So, let’s just look at the last two mayors the city has had shall we.

First there was Rob Ford. What can be said about Rob Ford that has not already been said or depicted in a really bad movie? A blustering, crack addicted alcoholic whose life always seemed on the verge of collapse and who lived in a state of denial. Ford’s antics or exploits or whatever term you want to use became regular fare on news shows across the globe. It got so bad that Toronto City Council had to essentially take away his mayoral duties.

And then, following Rob Ford, John Tory was elected mayor. Tory was often touted as the anti-Ford – his antithesis if you will. But John Tory and Rob Ford had an awful lot in common for two people who were considered opposites. They were both white men whose families had a long history with the Conservative Party and had also amassed significant amounts of wealth before they came on the scene. They also both had four letter last names. Sure, Tory is thin and Ford was rotund, but other than that they’re pretty similar. If you were asked to imagine the anti-Rob Ford, it probably wouldn’t be just a slightly taller white guy who is also a life-long Conservative and who too is heir to a family fortune.

The big contrast that was touted between Tory and Ford was, apparently, that Tory’s personal life was above reproach – he might be boring, he might be bland, but he wouldn’t get put the city in the spotlight in the same way the previous mayor did. Well guess what, after being elected to his third term as mayor just last year, Tory had to resign because of an affair he had with a junior staffer just before it was revealed in the press. So, as it turns out, that’s one more thing he had in common with his predecessor.

If we look at the Toronto ledger then, on the negative side we have recurring mayoralty scandals, on the plus side we have wonderful musical venues, so let’s focus on the positive shall we. And in particular, let’s look at the Free Times Café (I did say where it was located, didn’t I?).

I’m very pleased, indeed honoured, to let everyone know that on Sunday March 19th, Gordon’s Acoustic Living Room, the band that I am proud to be a small part of (I’m not being modest here, there are 10 people in the band so I’m just 1/10th of the whole) will be returning to the legendary Free Times Café to once again provide a wildly eclectic evening of songs in many genres delivered by musicians who would love nothing more than to play for you. Because we are so happy to be back at the Free Times after a couple months of being away, there will be no cover. The show starts at 8 and we hope to see you there.

Jonathan.

PS. If you didn’t catch our virtual Robbie Burns show on January 25th, please go to our website – www.galr.ca – and you can watch the whole thing. Just a warning, as if you didn’t expect it, there are a hell of a lot of bagpipes in that show. And as an additional warning, those same bagpipes – along with the person who plays them – will be at Sunday’s show as well.

February’s regular performance has been cancelled due to conflicts in scheduling for everyone. Mayhem, I tells ya! We look forward to seeing people again in March.

Note: In the event of a stream interruption, please check back here for updates!

We are doing Burns again this year, and again it will be remote– but with a twist. Instead of all the performers linking in virtually with all the risks of dropped connections (sigh), the performers are all joining Rory and Mary at their house for a more fulsome and enjoyable experience.  

The show starts at 8 pm. Come back here before then for the link to the live broadcast!

We will have:

• A Highland Dancer from Highland-in-6 Dancers
• Bagpipes
• 8 musicians with Scottish themed tunes or other tunes including pipes.
• Poetry by Julian Goss
• The address to the Haggis with neeps and tatties
• Singer Heather Morgan to close off the night with Auld Lang Syne. 

There will be a live comments function so tell us what you think and where you are on the planet!

Looking forward!

Rory And Mary 

You’re invited to attend a musical performance featuring a diverse group of musicians!

Come and experience the unique sounds of bagpipes alongside a variety of other instruments and styles. The performance will take place Sunday @ 8pm at the Free Times Café. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear the fusion of different cultures and traditions in one concert.

And remember, if you’re feeling down, just remember the bagpipe player’s motto: “You may not be able to play well, but you can always play loud!”

We look forward to seeing you there!

The above was written by ChatGPT with this prompt: Write an invitation to a musical performance that features a very diverse group of musicians, including bagpipes, and finish with a joke about the bagpipe player.

Have you ever thought about how one little letter can change so much? Take for example the three letters “est.” On their own, when capitalized, EST can stand for Eastern Standard Time, the time those of us living in Ontario use during the fall and winter (other than folks in Kenora and west who are in a different time zone, but you knew that). EST can also stand for Erhard Seminar Training, a cult like program that was popular (among some folks) in the 1970s and 80s (and if you want to go down that particular rabbit hole that’s up to you).

But I’m talking about the letters “est” which can be a suffix (for you grammar fans – and you know who you are) but can also just be the last three letters of lots of words. Just one small letter in front of “est” can give us a fest or a vest. And if I say we’re going to have a rest that’s very different than if I say we’re going to have a test. And you’d feel even better if I said you were the best – which you are for reading this far.

And while we’re on this road, let’s think about “quest.’ Adding the “qu” to the “est” sets up an adventure and challenge. And then if we put “re” in front, it becomes a request and if we put “be” in there, then it’s a bequest. And those are very different things. I mean, you ask for something when you make a request and you get something when you receive a bequest.

Now lest (there’s another one) you think this is just idle musing, I’m now going to knit this altogether by tying it to the next show from your faves – Gordon’s Acoustic Living Room.

On December 18th, the 10 or so members of Gordon’s Acoustic Living Room (maybe 10, could be nine, possibly eight, we’ll see, there are a lot of moving parts these days and your mileage may vary) will once again be gathered at the Free Times Café (College, just west of Spadina) to resume what has been a much anticipated but pandemic-delayed holiday themed event – our famous December all request show. Yes, the all request show – where you make the requests and we respond to your requests by bequesting you the songs that you’ve requested.

You might be wondering how we compile the requests for this wonderful show and that’s a very good question. One option, of course, is to have people at the show shout out their requests. But we are now living in a time when we are still concerned and careful about the spreading of germs (but not so concerned and careful that we’re bottling ourselves back up at home), so we don’t want to encourage people to shout things out, other than of course “encore,” or spontaneous shouts of joy and/or incredulity during our performance. The other difficulty with people shouting out requests during the show is maybe they’ll shout out something that we don’t really know very well, or something we do know but we just don’t want to play.

And then of course there’s the thorny issue of privilege. If we only allow requests at the show, then that privileges those who are able to attend, and while we love the people who are able to attend, and in fact couldn’t really do a show without the people who attend, we don’t want to unduly privilege those people beyond giving them the privilege of hearing us play, which frankly and modestly I would have to say is a pretty big privilege. And we need to keep in mind that some people who might like to make requests live some distance from Toronto and we don’t want to leave them out. So, we are extending the ability to request songs to everyone who receives this e-mail or more specifically the link that appears in the next paragraph that will take you to our all request webpage.

And that that link is: https://www.galr.ca/vote/.

When you click on that link you will see almost 400 songs that the fine folks of Gordon’s Acoustic Living Room are willing to play for you on December 18th. Now of course, while we’d love to, we can’t play all 400 songs because if the average song is three minutes that’s 1,200 minutes of music (not counting the time between songs for jolly banter) which divided by 60 turns into 20 hours, and while we have a great deal of stamina and would love nothing better than to play for 20 hours straight, the folks at the Free Times Café, as wonderful as they are, won’t allow it. What we do instead is we choose among the most requested songs for each musician to make up our set list. And on top of that, we will also be sprinkling in a few holiday themed tunes.

I hope you can join us at the aforementioned Free Times Café on the aforementioned date of December 18th at the heretofore unmentioned time of eight PM and watch as we bequest you with your requested songs. And while enjoying the performance you are encouraged to ingest (we’re almost done with these) some fine food and drink. And did I mention that in the holiday spirit there is no cover charge.

Hope to see you there (and even if you can’t make it, make a request, it’ll be like you are there).

Jonathan

P.S. You should be aware that making an appearance at the all request show will almost certainly be bagpipes who I think are best classified as a musical pest and unwanted guest.

Hello all Roomers, and Rumours of Roomers!

Come to the Free Times Café this coming Sunday for good music starting at 8pm. But don’t miss the good food either! You can make a reservation by calling 416-967-1078 and have some of Judy’s fabulous food.

See you there!

Rory Gus

PS Jonathan is in Vancouver this weekend so no ranty blurb this month.