My Life in Concert.com

Welcome to the My Life in Concert podcast! Join me, your host Various Artists, on my musical time travel as I look back on (almost) every live gig I have seen from 1975 to the present. This podcast series started life as a blog on Salon.com’s late, great OpenSalon.com in 2010. It gained a regular readership there until OS closed in 2015, and is now being resurrected as a podcast in February 2020. I’ve been a lifelong tunehead and fan of many genres with a particular passion for live shows, big and small. And while I’ll be discussing the music played, the podcast won’t simply be a critique of the performance.People recall a gig’s small moments that can end up defining the event in one’s mental hard drive sometimes more than the tunes: what happened before and after; things seen and heard; technical malfunctions, musicians passing out on stage, etc. Therefore, the podcast is about the “concert-going experience” rather than simply being a description of the performance: a mixture of concert review, music history, memoir, and philosophical musing. While my main musical bases in the 70s were glam in the earlier part of the decade and punk in the latter half, my tastes have exploded through the years. The podcast will go on to encompass live concerts in many genres: r&b, jazz, folk, pop, electronic, hip-hop, country & Americana, pop, blues, reggae, and more.I grew up in and have returned to London, Ontario, Canada (with a 20-year stop in Ottawa). While I will be remembering shows from a variety of locations including Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Detroit, NYC, and more, many of the early episodes will focus on concerts that took place in the Forest City from the 70s through the 90s … and now again in recent years (it will be Ottawa-heavy in-between.) There will be notable local visits by Elvis Costello, The Smiths, Iggy Pop, Marianne Faithfull, Radiohead, Joe Jackson, Steve Earle, k.d. lang, Gang of Four, and more. I’ll also have special episodes devoted to the local and regional live bands I saw regularly from the late 70s through early 90s. Along the way I’ll be dropping back into dearly departed local live venues including Fryfogle’s, the Cedar Lounge, the London Arena, the London Gardens, Bullwinkle’s, Wonderland Gardens, and the Embassy along with ongoing stalwarts like Centennial Hall and Call the Office. Outside of London, I’ll also be remembering great nights at long-gone venues such as NYC’s Danceteria, Toronto’s CNE Stadium, and Ottawa’s Barrymore’s.While London was my starting base, I’ll also be looking back on shows in Canadian and U.S. cities where I saw Neil Young, The Clash, Lou Reed, Aretha Franklin, Joni Mitchell, Janelle Monae, Sonic Youth, The Rolling Stones, Patti Smith, PJ Harvey, Ornette Coleman, Laura Nyro, Bootsy Collins (who head-butted me), The Jam, Paul McCartney, the Buzzcocks, Al Green, and plenty more. You can also check out the mylifeinconcert.com blog for written entries, original ticket scans, and related visual and audio; VATV My Life in Concert on YouTube for live clips; and follow us on Facebook. (Instagram coming soon!)Come out and join me at the show!

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My Life in Concert.com

(EP30, nos.23&24) The Circle Jerks/Psychic TV, The Reggae Lounge, Wednesday, November 16/Danceteria, Thursday November 17, both in New York City, USA, 1983: Back Against the Wall with Discopravity

March 28, 2023 • Various Artists

My final 1983 gig-going-entry recaps a couple of shows I took in during a crazy/nuts four-day trip to NYC.

While I will be discussing the performances by hardcore titans The Circle Jerks and post-Throbbing Gristle offshoot Psychic TV, I’ll also be looking at the madcap trip to Manhattan as a whole, recounting the hijinks that MZ, Miss B, myself, and others got up to.

If you’ve heard or read EP 25 on the Flipper show at Fryfogle’s, then you’ll have somewhat of an idea of what to expect.

Tune in for destroyed hotel rooms; terrified cousins; "Peace, Love and Groove!"; Danceteria bathroom hallucinations; Brooke Shields' husband, Broadway Bob; and pterodactyls and manifestations.

You can also read the original blog entries for The Circle Jerks and for the Psychic TV show on the mylifeinconcert.com blog.

Next On Stage –> I am jumping back further into the past as I recall a cabaret show that happened between my first and second “official” gigs (Roxy Music at the London Arena on February 5, 1975 and Bob Seger at the London Gardens on May 19, 1978).

I saw the cabaret in Portsmouth, England, in August 1977, and it featured early-60s popster Susan Maughan, she of the 1962 hit, “Bobby’s Girl,” and possibly the legendary Tessie O’Shea.

I had initially planned to discuss it as part of upcoming compilation episode but have instead decided to make it a stand-alone episode.

The EP's Special Guest is my 96-year-old mother—we’ll call her Vera Various Artists—who attended the cabaret along with me and my late father.

My mum shares her vague memories of the evening, including that she feels the legendary Tessie O’Shea was on the bill. If my mother is right, then boy do I wish I could remember that. I wouldn’t have known who she was then but I sure do now.

We do both remember humourist Pam Ayers and the Famous People Players being part of the show.

My mother also recalls the venue itself, the Portsmouth The Hippodrome but also The King’s Theatre in Southsea, as she grew up in Petersfield, but later moved to Portsmouth after marrying my dad, and both my elder siblings were born there.

In the interview, she discusses listening to the radio as well as records in the UK as a girl in the ‘30s, and also music and live shows she enjoyed after to moving to Canada in the mid-50s and onwards.

I also talk about my experiences on this trip in the ultimate UK punk year—1977—amid the Queen’s Silver Jubilee.

Tune in for dangerous radio batteries, hanging out in British record stores to hear the latest releases, what double album of my mum’s drove me nuts in the ‘70s, punk rock mania, not seeing The Sex Pistols, and what Ethel Merman was really like live.

That’s all coming up in Episode 31, Concert no. 001.5, entitled UK 1977: VA’s Mum on Ethel Merman and Susan Maughan at the Portsmouth Hippodrome and the Music of Her Life + My UK Trip Amid the Year of the Punk Rock Explosion and Silver Jubilee

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