Turn up the radio
I couldn’t find the Ennis Sister’s “Turn Up the Radio” on youtube. The best I found was a short sample on their webpage. (It’s the first song on the Ennis Sisters album.)
Maureen, Karen and Teresa Ennis don’t really make that saccharine cuddlepop girl rock that I crave, but they have incredible harmonies and really solid songwriting that just settles into the songtrack of my life. Strangely enough, the Ennis Sisters were in the background and I never really placed them together with the songs until they played BVMC and sang them onstage in front of me. I’m sure they still think of me as that freaky freak in Calgary.
A sidenote: Teresa has since recorded a solo album of her own. I’m listening to it as I type. HellojQuery152023106263694353402_1309243846453 Is that Pete Townshend’s “Blue, Red and Grey”? Looks like I have another one my “Must Buy” list.
In actuality, “I’d Never Walk Away” is one of my comfort songs for when I’m feeling crappy and self-absorbed, but not crappy enough or self-absorbed enough to actually blog. In light of that, I’ll post that instead of “Turn Up the Radio” and take a little comfort in hearing it again myself. I’d never seen the actual video before tonight. Awww, that’s cuddlepop country enough for me!
So turn up the radio! Well, actually don’t. Radio in Calgary still pretty much sucks. Then again, radio everywhere pretty much sucks right now, so that’s not a particularly uncommon sentiment.
Commercial radio is a vast and barren wasteland these days. I gave up on commercial radio back in about 1990. I remember the moment as if it were only yesterday:
A young and handsome Mark Zaugg with a full head of hair is sitting in his DeLorian outside of work waiting for his shift to begin. (LOOK, it was me, in a rust-bucket of a cow-car, but let’s not ruin the image, okay?) I casually turn on the radio to hear the dulcet tones of Terrence Trent D’Arby singing “Sign Your Name.“ No, I will not post a link. This was on the supposed rock station at the time (yes, I continue to loathe it above all other stations in Clagary..) “Screw that!” I said as I confidently changed the station (was it still CKIK then?) just in time to hear… Terrence Trent D’Arby’s “Sign Your Name.“
“Awgh!” as I flipped to the AM band. Sadly, I was tuned to the mighty CKXL which was well into decline by then, which, even more sadly, just started playing Terrence Trent D’Arby, “Sign Your Name.“ Quickly I changed over to the top 40 station - whatever did they call CFCN radio back then? Oh! AM106 - just in time to hear the end of - and I only wish I could make this crap up - Terrence Trent D’Arby’s “Sign Your Name.“
In panic and frustration, I went back to the FM band and went to the soft-rock station. I may as well have signed my own death warrant. The same song played more-or-less concurrently on five different stations. I turned off the radio and swore off shlock ever since.
For the record, it was during that job that I received my introduction to that truest of Canadians, Stompin’ Tom Connors, with this song:
That’s the precise moment I knew that these were my stomping grounds, too. Poor Mr. Bug must have had a devil of a time as I swirled down my whirlpool of inanity and insanity. Oh, who the hell am I kidding? He actively fomented it.
I’ve been charting my own course ever since and it takes me down some wild and wonderful paths. Now, it’s not that I don’t listen to radio at all - far from it. I most actively listen to the Mothership, CKUA, and I still flip over to CJSW. But the newcomer to the list and the one I’m enjoying the most as of late is AVR. Go figure. It’s eclectic enough at least, dropping an MUFFY-bomb shinazzle just before heading into a soaring ballad, followed up with maybe throat singers or something. Awesome!
In the meantime, you’ll see me bobbing my head along to my iPod and you’ll have a rough idea what kind of weird crap I’m actually listening to.