Long overdue website update

A new front page for my website. Contains photos, videos, old song lyrics, piano bars and pubs, music hall links - take a look: London Bobby

Cruise Lines Throw Baby Out With Bathwater

Today's Globe and Mail article - "Cruise lines update old ships with new tricks" detail the efforts they are making to keep up with the times. But not all changes are improvements.

The demise of "the formerly sedate piano bar" is lamentable and I for one only cruise on ships with such a bar. There has been a sea-change in music, from melodic, interesting songs to monotonous thump-thump which the younger set like to dance to now. The cruise lines vigorously market to this younger set but the fact is repeat cruisers are people with disposable income and available time, and this tends to be the older generation and this older generation likes pre-thump music.

The same change in music is closing cafes by the score along the Mediterranean coast as music licenses are cancelled due to complaints by nearby residents. Once upon a time it was pleasant to listen to the music from afar but not now, all that can be heard is the relentless thump of the bass.

I know this makes me sound like a dinosaur but dinosaurs have rights too and one is to have access to pleasant music and not to be assailed with music volume turned up to the threshold of pain.

What's the matter with Sony?

In 1979 Sony gave us the Walkman and in 1992 the Minidisk recorder/playback system which I love. Then I suppose they had a big downsizing and fired all their development staff because since that date they have sat on their rears and watched Apple do all the innovating.

Sony make beautiful hardware but their software is pathetic. Their big flatscreen TVs look handsome but have a tiny and backward brain. They flaunt net access in their promotion but the TV comes without WIFI or Bluetooth built in, WIFI is an expensive extra, Bluetooth is not available at all so a keyboard is not attachable. Trying to input URLs or searching on Youtube is a hunt and peck affair reminiscent of the computers of 1980.

It's inexcusable. How could they make such beautiful hardware with such crappy software to run it? Wake up, Sony!

Band-in-a-Box, but which box? Not a Mac.

BIAB for MAC

I have been buying Band-in-a-Box since the Atari version, back in the last century. The last version I bought for Windows was around 2004, it did everything I wanted. Then I switched to Mac and I found I had to keep my old PC laptop going to use the program.

I worked the piano bar on cruise ships and I had my laptop on the piano, BIAB running, earphone port plugged into an amp, and the display where the music stand would be. As it played the backing instruments the notation was presented to me with lyric and chord symbols close by the melody line. It was so easy to read and play that I could play anything! All the standards, Sinatra, Elton, Croce, Billy Joel, bossanovas, anything. (I turned so many passengers on to BIAB that I seriously considered becoming a rep and signed with PGmusic to do that. However, the ship frowned on it so that didn't go anywhere.)

The fly in the ointment was that I was using a PC, subject to annoying interruptions in service. So I switched to Mac and bought BIAB for Mac. The computer was steady as a rock but the program was rubbish compared to the PC version so I struggled on with the PC until I retired.

Yesterday I blew $89.27 usd and upgraded to the latest Mac version, highly touted on PGmusic's website. I thought surely in the last few years they must have fixed some of the most glaring deficiencies, and the price is the same as the full-featured Windows version. What a disappointment. The interface is still clunky, the lyrics still come up in a little box in the control area, hard to read and nowhere near the melody line, impossible to sight-read during a live performance. Basic conveniences that every other program now has, like "Open Recent" in the drop-down file menu, are missing. Yes, the RealTracks sound great but the old midi sounds were quite adequate for the piano-bar environment.

Apple is a major player in the sphere of music and so is BIAB. I am surprised and disappointed to find Mac marginalization at PGmusic.

London Bobby

Time traveller from the last century

Can't be everywhere.

I'm missing a regular weekly treat, the Corktown Ukulele Jam at the Dominion Hotel, 500 Queen Street E., Toronto. This week the theme is Gordon Lightfoot and I love his music. It's a hoot, this jam, close to a hundred ukulele fanatics turn up with instruments. It starts at 8PM, be early or sit at the back.

They have a quiz on their web page identifying ancient pictures, last week it was this one, from 1954:

First thing I did when I got to Canada was to have the jacket made, I wanted one that would look good on TV which was black and white at the time. I never did land a TV gig wearing it but finally got thirteen weeks with CITY-TV wearing my pearly suit, in black and white, in 1972 just as colour came in. They used a little b&w remote system in a van, sold the van and cameras etc. to Venezuela right after my series finished.

London Bobby, time traveller from the last century.

Canada's Got Talent Looking For Fall Guys

Canada's Got Talent is coming to Toronto so I took a look at the website and read the participant agreement/release. After all, I am a good act and at my age a novelty, definitely an asset to such a show if I say so myself and, now I'm retired, I have time.

I've read a few showbiz contracts and this one takes the cake. Words like arrogance, bullying, gotcha by the balls, exploitation and slavery come to mind as I read it. And on their part a complete abrogation of any responsibility whatever for anything.

It gives them specific permission to to make secret recordings backstage or anywhere and use them to make the participant look ridiculous. It gives them permission to use the participant's name, work, pictures and videos in future broadcasts, advertising, even merchandising without compensation. And it insists on using the term participant, not performer. Performers have to be paid.

No wonder Susan Boyle blew her top. I won't be signing it, I pity anyone who does.

London Bobby
Time traveller from the twentieth century.

I left my cash with Tony Bennett

To be fair, I bet he was heartbroken he didn't get to sing "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" for the Torontonians last night. About twenty minutes into his set it started to rain and the promoters, citing safety concerns for crew and audience, announced a ten-minute break to let the storm pass over. About forty-five minutes later, after a few more ten-minute delay announcements, they cancelled the show.

There had been a long intermission after Diana Krall's set with slow clapping from the crowd indicating impatience. If they had kept the intermission to twenty minutes perhaps the show would have been finished before the rain came. Presumably an outdoor theatre has a sharp eye on the weather so the long intermission was unconscionable. So we didn't get The Big Finish.

For James Taylor's show the previous week the parking was free, apparently prepaid by the promoters. For the Bennett/Krall show it was twenty dollars, this price not mentioned anywhere in the promo. Line-up to get into the parking was chaotic, about forty-five minutes. For twenty bucks a little more efficiency would be appreciated. More gates, better signage. And lower cost, this is not downtown.

While our theatre scene is quite vibrant, outside the theatres Toronto has some catching up to do. Nearly anywhere else in the world there is some place to eat after the show. I am not asking for fine dining but there must be something more civilized than Chinese takeaway or McDonald's drive-through. The chance of finding anything to eat near the Rexall Centre is particularly grim, it is a cultural oasis in an epicurean waste-land, about fifteen kilometres from downtown Toronto.

It is nice to see a live star in a live performance, but to tell the truth the theatre is so big I was watching the giant video screen most of the time. So is the cost, the parking, the line-ups, the driving, the weather uncertainty all worth it? Not really.

Bob Smtih
Time traveller from the twentieth century.

Let's hear the solution, not just scaremongering.

To: Jenni Byrne, Here For Canada Campaign Manager

Dear Jenni,

re: www.ipodtax.ca

I have received your email with the link to ipodtax.ca. I am replying here since your email address will not accept my email. I am a conservative but I don't think scare-mongering is a good thing to do, it is rather transparent and annoys the recipient.

It might be a good idea to address the problem that the tax is intended to address and that is how to compensate the creators of intellectual property for their work in a fair manner. Now that distribution by records, tapes, CDs and DVDs is down the tubes, how do the creators, of which I am one, get compensated? If it is not solved there will be very little original creation done and we can just lay down and die under the tsunami of remixing and karaoke pulp from the US which passes for pop culture so let's hear your solution.

I feel that the Conservative party is doing nothing to solve this problem, nothing to protect creators of intellectual property and nothing about the defense of a fragile Canadian culture against overwhelming American invasion. It seems the party's attitude is, if rape is inevitable, lay back and enjoy it.

And, by the way, would you please set out in clear language how the conservative party intends to support the CBC, if it does intend to support it at all?

Mind you, I think the HTML programming that went into creating ipodtax.ca is brilliant and I am thinking of using large chunks of the programming to improve my own website. Fair enough?

On Apr 12, 2011, at 8:46 PM, Jenni Byrne

Here For Canada Campaign Manager, wrote: www.ipodtax.ca

This is rather symptomatic, I sent the above message to Jenni Byrne at that email address and received the following as a result: Delivery has failed to these recipients or distribution lists:

hereforcanada@conservative.ca
There's a problem with the recipient's mailbox. Microsoft Exchange will not try to redeliver this message for you.

It seems the 'Here For Canada' campaign only speaks, it doesn't listen.

In praise of ukuleles

Check out the Toronto Uke club, meets every Wednesday and there is no better way to spend an evening.

London Bobby
Time traveller from last century.

The Producers a smash hit in Fuengirola, Spain

Mel Brooks musical comedy 'The Producers' opened at Fuengirola's Salon Varietes Theatre on Friday March 25 for a twelve-day run. It was absolutely first class! The acting was terrific, the direction was expert, every clever witty line came across and the audience was roaring with laughter throughout.

I could nitpick about a couple of minor glitches with the scenery moving but I won't as this was the first night and I am sure it will be fixed by second night. What else can I complain about? The Mars bars sold by the charming usherettes melted in my pocket before I had a chance to eat them both.

The Salon Varietes Theatre is an English language theatre, the only one in Spain I believe. Where did they find these star performers? I don't know but I am going again closing night (Tuesday April 5), if I lived closer I would probably go mid-run as well. This is not to be missed.

This blog is called Bob's Daily Grumble so, alright; they will have to get better insulated wrappers for those Mars ice cream bars.

London Bobby
Time traveller from the last century.

No tracks please, we're musicians!

Tracks are boring. Tracks leave no leeway for expression or interpretation by the performer. Singing to tracks is karaoke, even if accompanied by the odd note on a guitar or a keyboard. Boring! Boring!

Use a band, or an accompanist or, if the worst comes to the worst, play the damn thing yourself. If you can't do that, learn! Don't go trolling round the internet for somebody else's work.

So, if you are performing somewhere and most of what we are hearing is from tracks, I won't be there.

Bob Smith, time traveler from the last century.

Time Travellers from the last century

I'm glad I am not the only dinosaur on the block. The man with the best possible career as a pianist excluding Iturbi and Liberace is Sid Wright, still active and starring in "The Three Pianists" concert. He is 89 and not a household name but worked in London solidly and simultaneously on radio, TV and in clubs for half a century.

I have just reconnected with my favourite entertainer of the 70s, Adam Timoon. Here he is playing Malagueña just a few weeks ago. He use to pack Adam's Inn at the Seaway Hotel when I was working at the Barmaid's Arms, both Toronto hotspots. Click here: Adam - Malaguena

London Bobby

Time traveller from the last century

When is it time to quit?

I have seen video of great artists performing when they were really past it, disappointing and somewhat upsetting when their previous great performances are still fresh in your memory. So I try to monitor myself. Voice: not too bad, appearance: not bad considering extreme age, piano technique: not as slick as it was, memory: senior moments occur, comedy: good! stage movement: lousy. So I had a committee meeting with myself and decided if impresarios still want to pay me, if anybody still wants to see me, I would still perform. So I am back in Toronto and not retired yet. My next gig is at the Nexus Piano Bar in Brampton, it is a particularly good restaurant in my humble opinion.

http://www.nexusfinefoods.com/

Fine dining at a reasonable price, nice ambience, a large saltwater aquarium and a grand piano, it's hard to beat the Nexus Piano Bar. I'll be playing there Thursday, Friday and Saturday this week, 6:30 to 9:30PM.

I would be tickled pink if you come.

The Three Pianists Concert

No grumble today except, perhaps, that my video camera is about three generations out of date in, it seems, about two years. The vicar's wife bravely held the heavy old Sony Camcorder for an hour to make this video. Thank you, Jette, and we excuse the shaky bits and love the selection of shots.

Nothing to grumble about.

London Bobby's Last Public Performance went very well, place was packed and nobody left during the show! Wow! So maybe not the last performance after all. Have to be careful though, don't want to quit because the last performance is lousy, want to go out with a bang!

Did three hours of songs and comedy without referring to lyrics. Wow! Apparently I only need a set list.

Now I have to be careful about this blog, many more like this and will have to change the name from 'Bob's Daily Grumble' to 'Bob's Daily Brag'. A lot of the credit for the success of the evening goes to Pauline, the lovely gaffer of the Winchester Arms. The place was warm, cosy, convivial, just what a pub should be. It made it easy to entertain. Thanks, Pauline. The rest of the credit goes to my fans who showed up to support me, thank you everybody.

London Bobby, time-traveller from the previous century, bringing the good music with me.