H/T: Silas

Sydney radio newsman Jay MacNeil is attracting hundreds of comments, “likes,” and shares on his Facebook video denouncing CBRM council’s 10-2 vote to ban teen dances from civic facilities.

You’re making it hard. You’re just making it hard. There are people in this community who spend their entire day trying to find ways to inspire and engage the youth of their community, and around your council table there are a bunch people who find ways—on a shockingly recurring basis—to disengage youth.

View the whole rant here.

H/T: Jancie Fuller via Leah Noble

Cape Bretoner Gordie Sampson now lives in Nashville, where he produces about 75 song demos a year, mostly in the country-pop vein. In a CBC Radio interview this morning, he reflected on what makes country music different:

I write country song for the most part… The lyric is more important in this genre than really any genre I think. The lyric and the melody together really has to move the listener. In R&B or other types of modern music, the idea is to make people dance. In country music it’s, often times, its to hurt people’s feelings. To make them re-think that relationship that they just ended last week. It’s a bit more visceral.

The full interview, part of the Information Morning Cape Breton’s excellent Leaders in their Field series, is we well worth a listen. Gordie will be back in Cape Breton Sunday for the Cape Breton Island Film Series annual benefit for l’Arche Cape Breton.

From the New Yorker’s Cartoon Issue.

Country rock artist Steve Earle (center, in spotlight) played Dalhousie University’s Rebecca Cohn Auditorium last night with his current band, The Dukes (and Duchesses), featuring Allison Moorer. She is Earle’s sixth wife out of a total of seven marriages. The evening’s highlight was Moorer’s unusual rendition of the great Sam Cooke civil rights anthem, A Change is Gonna Come. The ensemble plays tonight at Membertou Trade and Convention Centre, Sydney.

[Direct video link here.]

(L to R) Damian Moynihan (drums), Larry Björnson (bass), Scott Macmillan (guitar), and Damian Moynihan (drums), and Rob Crowell (saxophone)  played the Economy Shoe Shops’s Monday Night Jazz session to a an appreciative but subdued crowd. The bar’s co-founder, David Henry, a Halifax fixture, died of cancer Saturday after a brief illness.

What is it with civic politicians in the Maritimes? They’ve jumped on the concert bandwagon with abandon and are flinging money around the way Keith Moon used to fling furniture. The long serving and long suffering mayor of Summerside is a tad closer to the chopping block than HRM’s potentate but it’s troubling the ease with which processes are ignored and checks are written. The Roman circuses were used to keep the civic populace quiet, peaceful, and accommodating. Maybe it’s time we threw a few politicians to the lions.

As Costas points out, the song is 20 years old, but its bittersweet lyrics could have been written yesterday.

Not only is this just a wonderful piece, it’s a nostalgic reminder of just how much rhythm and music there was in early machinery. Aside from the occasional pile driver, I can’t think of anything today that carries on that tradition. Even the once ubiquitous make-and-break engine seems to have unfortunately gone completely from our shores.