JB's Warehouse & Curio Emporium

  Feeling nostalgic this holiday season, I'm diving into Christmas records that my family owned when I was a kid, starting with a late 1970s dive into Columbia Records' vaults, Christmas Pleasures. Click here for side one .  Mitch Miller and the Gang - Winter Wonderland       Ah, Mitch Miller. On the one hand, the man had an ear for hits, turning Columbia Records into a pop powerhouse during the 1950s. He helped shape the role of a record producer, transforming it from a passive to active role in the studio. On the other hand, he had a fondness for schlock, and resisted signing rock acts, leaving Columbia behind in that genre until the mid-1960s. And then there was Sing Along With Mitch . Growing out of a series of albums that started in the late 1950s, Miller welded large vocal ensembles with old-fashioned tunes that listeners could sing along with. They sold well with older audiences, leading to an NBC television series which ran from 1961 to 1964.  How...

"It remains not only acceptable, but in fact popular, to dump on Christmas music. It is the boring, predictable music-nerd equivalent of foodies who go out of their way every November to point out that “turkey sucks, actually” (which is, for the record, a lie). Holiday music is, by definition, the only genre that’s cordoned off into a little sliver of the calendar, and, even then, people argue that the sliver isn’t sliver-y enough." - Rebecca Alter, " Christmas Music is the Best Genre of Music ," Vulture, 2020. How I feel about holiday music depends on the day, the song, and the interpretation. Sometimes I'll hear a truly wretched Christmas song and wish some Scrooge had blown up the master tape. Other times, a good song can lift my mood and make me appreciate the season. Or, like many people, Christmas music will invoke childhood nostalgia . In my case, that means the handful of records my family pulled out when we decorated the Christmas tree. One of my favour...

This installment of my "Ghost City" column for The Grid was originally published on January 22, 2013. Toronto Star , October 26, 1948. Until 1948, anyone headed to the southwest corner of Bloor Street and Concord Avenue typically went to peruse the area’s long succession of furniture businesses, looking for that perfect addition to their home décor. The granting of a liquor license that year to the Concord Tavern ushered in the intersection’s long association with music as a venue and instrument seller.

This post offers supplementary material for an article I recently wrote for Torontoist , which you should read before diving into this piece. Globe , December 12, 1921 Ontario implemented prohibition of liquor sales via the Ontario Temperance Act in 1916. It was about as successful as such things go, which is to say, people still wanted to drink. Its repeal began in 1924 (after which weaker beer was allowed), then replaced entirely in 1927 by the creation of the LCBO. A follow-up to Mr. Jennes's transgression appeared in the Globe five days later. Along the line, his last name lost an "e": Fred Jenns, bartender at the Brunswick Hotel, was fined $50 and costs or 10 days for obstructing  the police. Jenns held on to an officer when he entered to look for liquor. The explanation was that Jenns kept a little liquor for his own use, and that he did not mean to obstruct the police.

This post offers supplementary material for a Torontoist post I recently wrote , which you should dive into before reading any further.  Source: the Globe and Mail , November 14, 1966. While the Globe and Mail ran a picture but no article regarding the November 12, 1966 appearance of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable show in Hamilton , the Star did the opposite. For some reason, Nico's name was spelled ENTIRELY IN CAPS throughout Gail Dexter's review. A sampling: The films are simple enough--The Underground and Edie [Sedgwick] and NICO and lots of black leather projected on a huge screen to intense rhythmic noise. The action builds to a sado-masochistic climax and then The Underground comes on stage. The group plays with a persistent heavy beat so loud that the floor of the new gym vibrates, and they play for two hours with lights, films, and optical patterns flashing behind them. Songs like "Heroin" (it's my life and it's my wife) to which Gerard ...

When I hit my teens, I started imitating my father’s interest in building a healthy music library. It started with an occasional cassette, then the gift of The Beatles 1962-1966 (aka “The Red Album”). During a stop at Sam the Record Man on a grade eight trip to Toronto—a stop I insisted the group I was with make, even if it cut into others’ precious time at Yonge Street head shops—I bought my first large haul of pre-recorded music, some of which is now laughable but was influenced by peers at the time—Poison’s Open Up and Say...Ahh!  anyone? In early 1990, my father clipped an article from the Detroit News listing record stores worth investigating on future cross-border trips. Both of us, along with my sister, would rapidly expand our collections thanks to at least two stores listed in the piece. Twenty-three years on, most things associated with this article are gone. Nearly all the stores profiled. The massive tape collection I built up. My father. Yet, along wit...

"Flee." - Dave Marsh, summarizing the discography of Chase in the 1979 edition of The Rolling Stone Record Guide .  All three of  Chase's records were bestowed with the guide's lowest rating on a five star scale, which wasn't a star but a square, defined as "worthless: records that need never (or should never) have been created. Reserved for the most bathetic bathwater." Was Chase's style of jazz-rock fusion deserving of snarky scorn? A YouTube search came up with a ltelevision performance that lives up to their horny billing. The group's career was cut short when leader Bill Chase and three other members were killed in a plane crash in 1974. Source: National Lampoon , May 1972 

One in a series of testimonials from famous, semi-famous, and not-at-all-famous users of Vidal Sassoon products. One presumes Warhol was amazed by the artful way the spray kept his wigs in place. As for Animotion , their lasting legacy is a tune that was used for years as the theme music for CITY-TV's Fashion Television . More of this campaign to come... Source: a 1985 issue of Rolling Stone (forgot to note the date) - JB

Over thirty years later, Conn used many of the same selling points that Mr. Sousa stands by when they produced a short promotional film called Mr. B Natural . Forty years after that, Conn's efforts to promote the fruits of their quality craftsmanship provided the material for one of the funniest segments of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 . With a tagline like "cultivate your musical bump" this ad cries out for MST3K -style riffing and/or groan-inducing double entendres from hecklers at the back of the town square or orchestra hall. Ad source: Photoplay , November 1923 - JB

While cleaning out a box that had been buried in the depths of my bedroom closet, I found several clippings from the year I was arts editor at the Ontarion . The piece above, printed in the fall semester's edition of the Contrarion (joke issue), was a poke at one of my least favourite duties: editing album reviews. While there were many reviewers who did a good job of assessing the pros and cons of a given album, others made me believe they had no opinion at all. These reviews either pulled out the cliches listed above or, worse, simply listing the tracks without any indication of whether they liked the disc. I knew there were people just wanted the CD and had to go through the formality of writing something...but still. Even "song two had a nice tambourine solo" would have shown some thought.

Warning: pictures after the jump may disturb readers who don't want to see humans who resemble campfire treats.

Scene from a psychogeography walk last week: The display greeted the group of walkers as they emerged from a neighbourhood park onto Brock Avenue. Nearly every traditional and commercial symbol of the holiday season was present amid the carefully constructed carnival of lights. The jolly big elf, snowmen, penguins, gift-loaded trains, nativity scenes...little was left out of this west-end front yard apart from an illuminated thank you note from the beancounters at Toronto Hydro. It would have taken a supreme show of willpower from any bypassers not to stop and observe the display and find subtle touches that would be missed by others. Just as remarkable was the simplicity of the lights next door. Knowing there was no way to compete with the neighbouring display, the house on the right opted for simple yet colourful strings of lights to provide a cozy December glow.

I recently flipped through a long-abandoned index of mix tapes and stumbled upon a milestone that happened ten years ago today—the last weekday afternoon radio show that I hosted in Guelph. The excuse I need for a long entry on my broadcasting days... *** You might say I would wind up on the radio one way or another. As a kid I taped mock radio programs on my Fisher-Price cassette recorder, complete with fake ads and song intros. I imagined it would be fun to have a studio at my disposal, with an endless tower of records to play in a WKRP in Cincinnati setting. The radio station was always the same (CHJZ - no idea what the letters stood for), as was the advertiser ("Harrison, we're the quality people"), who sold ACME-like products with a gravelly-voiced pitchman named Doc. *** I first volunteered at CFRU early in my first year at U of G. I figured that organizing the scattered stacks of vinyl in the station's record library would give me a good idea of wha...

Ferric, chrome or metal: which style of tape will you pick up from the chemist shop? Except for the Boots tape, I used all of these brands during my mix-tape/ Nightlines -recording days. I learned the quirks of which brands my recorders liked and which were problematic—certain styles of Memorex tapes were to be avoided, unless I enjoyed excessive squealing or shifting speeds. Some brands carry associations—Scotch was tapped for school presentations, Acme or Mastercraft for childhood experimental improvisations, BASF for the mass quantities Dad bought to record half of CBC Stereo/Radio 2's lineup. While I left nearly all of my pre-recorded cassettes by the curb before my last move, most of the mix tapes I made in high school and early university still exist, though it's been eons since I've listened to any of them. Though now that I'm about to undertake heavy-duty housecleaning... Flipping through an unfinished attempt to index the mix tapes, here's a good exa...

The unmistakable art of Jack Davis highlights today's ad pick. Contrast the depiction of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem with the off-kilter characters around them that walked out of Davis casting central. Seeing Davis's work is often comforting, thanks to the toxic amount of Mad books and magazines I read in my teens, along with all of the covers, movie posters and advertisements he has worked on through the years. A sidebar depicted other Columbia releases of the time, including albums from Johnny Cash ( Orange Blossom Special ) and Thelonious Monk ( Monk ). Here's a clip of the group performing on The Ed Sullivan Show around the time this ad would have appeared on newsstands in 1965. Also in this issue: The first excerpt of Ian Fleming's The Man With the Golden Gun . Fleming had promised Playboy the pre-publication serialization rights shortly before his death in August 1964, having been satisfied with the magazine's previous handling of...

Over the lunch hour yesterday, I popped into the neighbourhood used record store and picked up a pair of soundtracks: The Producers (original film version from the 60s) and North By Northwest . I usually test out additions to my CD collection on the road, so when I needed to head out to the east end to snap photos for a future article, I brought along the disc pictured at left, Bernard Herrmann's score to one of my favourite Hitchcock flicks. Driving home along Danforth, I noticed a police car with all lights flashing race up behind me...just as the soundtrack reached the scene where Cary Grant suddenly finds himself holding a knife lodged in the back of a diplomat at the United Nations. My heart jumped out of my body and performed acrobatic stunts I haven't been able to do since grade two. I pulled over to the side to allow the police to race to their emergency and to chuckle at how the music and traffic had coincided so perfectly. Not the right scene, but the pho...

Dance music for a Monday morning...from one of the worst movies of all time, 1964's The Creeping Terror , a dance hall sequence with a twist-a-rific tune that never ends. This is the ultimate movie for those who moan about the lack of man-eating alien carpet flicks coming out of Tinseltown these days. Basic plot: a spaceship crashes in California. One of two creatures inside escapes and dines on the locals, though it doesn't seem to like swallowing high heels. For expert commentary, we're using the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 version of the movie. The music begins around the 51:30 mark.

Recently, I was contacted by the proprietor of I'm Learning to Share for background information about a 78 he found, Sunday in Toronto/The Toronto Subway Song , recorded by local bandleader Ozzie Williams in the early 1950s. We swapped a few e-mails, resulting in crossover entries on our sites (it's the wondrous Warehouse age of collaboration!). Check out the partner post for pics of the record and more . For the dawn of the Yonge subway line, check out the thorough history over at Transit Toronto . As for no fun on Sundays... Once upon a time, Toronto shut down on Sundays. If you were a good, upstanding, preferably Protestant citizen, Sunday was strictly for church and family. Shopping? Evil. Recreational sports? Devil's work. Member of a faith whose holy day was any other day? Sorry! The overreaching moral views that created the Sunday blue laws stretched into other areas, producing effects like a strong film censor office and a labyrinth of laws regarding t...

Canada Day weekend tends to be Christmas in July for my family, as three of us have birthdays that fall within 10 days of each other (you still have just over a week to buy any lingering presents pour moi). For the first time in a few years, music predominated the gifts I received, ranging from the recent round of Leonard Cohen reissues to the new Arcade Fire album. Amy and Gavin are good at throwing me curveballs, with this year's being a very pleasant surprise... Six episodes of golden gouda. For nearly a decade, Amy and I videotaped MuchMusic's year-end roundup of the cheesiest videos of the year, Fromage . Hosted by either faux Frenchman Charles de Camembert or Ed the Sock, these shows usually mixed well-known acts with the hopelessly obscure. The latter tended to provide the most entertainment, due to any combination of low budget, chutzpah, inept dancing, dubious musicianship or jaw-dropping novelty value. Most years also included at least one semi-slutty dance vide...

Forty years ago today, the world shrank a little more. Our World was the first TV program to be broadcast live around the world via satellite. 19 countries were slated to contribute, but five countries (USSR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and East Germany) pulled, allegedly to protest the recent Six-Day War in Israel. The BBC spent nearly a year preparing the broadcast, which was seen by over 400 million people in 31 countries. The most-repeated clip from the show is the UK's contribution, where the Beatles debuted a new song that captured one of the main themes of the summer of '67. See if you can spot some of the other notable rock stars in the audience. (Apologies for the picture quality - this is the fullest, non-colourized clip I was able to find). CBC carried a "pre-game" show, featuring remarks from Marshall McLuhan, which you can watch over at the CBC Archives . This clip also features Canada's contributions to the full broadcast: ranching...