Ken David Stewart's Recommendations for Today

How Much Fun Can One Man Have? I believe in having fun. Unfortunately my wife and I live in a very small house. We also have two dogs and one cat. As a result we have to live in pretty close quarters. To keep each other's sane we have to have times when one of us goes out and the other one has the house to themselves. Last night was my turn to have the house to myself [except for the animals]. The dogs I had to put outside for a while because they would knock my guitar over. Plus it is hard to concentrate on what you're playing when a dog is trying to sit in your lap. Both our dogs love to go to the dog park. Yesterday the weather was not nice enough to take them. This always means there'll be a price to pay when my dogs don't get a good run. It means that they will try to pester me all evening with their excess energy.   Fortunately, I only planned on practicing my guitar in about 20 min. segments. I seem to have a difficult time concentrating on any one activity for...

Some of Those Old Movies Were Damn Scary I have always said that I am never bored. I actually pride myself on this. The only times I might be bored is if someone takes me someplace I don't want to be. If I am left to my own devices I can always find something interesting to do. This is because I have developed a lot of silly pastimes over the years. I can be alone for long stretches of time and completely enjoy myself. This weekend for a flash in time I almost had to eat my words. I had just finished reading all my subscriptions on blogster. I must commend you guys. You blogsters are very creative writers and the thinkers. When you are not, you are funny which is just as good. I could've started up a blog post of my own but it was getting too late at night and I didn't want to get my mind overstimulated. I often have trouble sleeping so I try and watch something meaningless before I go to bed hoping that this will settle me down. Fortunately I discovered that this was not...

When Giants Walked the Earth This week I have been reading When Giants Walked the Earth by Mick Wall. It is a biography of the iconic band Led Zeppelin. This is the best book on Led Zeppelin that I have read. It is probably one of the best rock biographies that I have read period. Many rock biographies degenerate into tales of substance abuse and not much else. When Giants Walked the Earth reads more like a novel. The story certainly has some fascinating characters including Led Zeppelin manager, Peter Grant, Jimmy Page and John Bonham. Jimmy Page’s extreme interest in Aleister Crowley is explored in great detail. Peter Grant is portrayed as a larger than life character who was notorious for intimidating any business associates who Grant felt did not have the best interests of his act in mind. John Bonham’s Jeckyl and Hyde personality is also discussed in great detail. In addition to being probably the heaviest drummer of all time Bonzo was also known as The Beast when he was on tour...

<script async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-5832938535004868"      crossorigin="anonymous"></script> SNFU Yesterday evening I was visiting my son. He showed me a video which the featured a Canadian punk rock band called SNFU. There was a time when I once enjoyed the music of punk bands such as the Sex Pistols and the DOA. What I liked about punk rock is that you usually didn't have to be a great musician to play the music. It was also a good way for young people to get out a lot of their angst. In the 1990s the music of bands like Nirvana was really in a similar vein. Prior to yesterday evening I was not really familiar with the Canadian punk rock scene. I had heard of DOA from Vancouver but that was about it. The video we watched was called Open Your Mouth and Say Mr. Chi Pig. A good portion of this documentary follows the struggles of SNFU’s front man, Ken Chinn. Ken Chinn has more than a few d...

<script async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-5832938535004868"      crossorigin="anonymous"></script> The Music of 1966 (part two) Okay, let’s get in my time machine. It’s the summer of 1966 and I’m fourteen years old again. It’s the summer holidays, school’s out and I’m listening to CKRC to my transistor radio. Whatever the disc jockeys are going to play I know it’s going to be good. The first song that I hear is 96 Tears by ? and the Mysterians. The organ riff is simple but drives this number. It is the short but wonderful era of garage bands. This was a time where four or five teenagers could buy themselves an electric guitar, portable organ, bass or drums, get together and form a band. If they caught fire in their home town and were very lucky they might cut a single and get it played on their local radio station. This is how bands like The Guess Who from Winnipeg , Manitoba , Canada got their st...

<script async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-5832938535004868"      crossorigin="anonymous"></script> The Music of 1966 (Part one) I woke up from a nap and for some odd reason I started thinking about the music I listened to during my teenage years. I remembered that the music that I enjoyed the most was during the years 1965 and 1966. These were magical years for AM radio. This was still the era where the 45 or single ruled the airways. A band or singer needed one or two hit singles to sell their latest LP release. For the younger people who may be reading this I should explain a few terms. We now live in an era of digital music with ipods, mp3 players and digital downloads. When I was growing up we had just vinyl records. There were two basic forms of vinyl records. One was known as the single or the 45. This was a small record with a donut hole in the middle. You needed to have a plastic record adap...