Holy crap, I’m having a hard time trying to find time. I’ve neglected this blog for four weeks. Oh my. The nature of working freelance just isn’t working out for me, especially when you consider that what I’d really like to do is work on my writing with blogTO and gitpop and anyone else who’ll publish me. That and make some music. I haven’t done anything about that in months, and I’ve got one dilly of a plan I’d like to launch someday soon.

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So, I basically look like I haven’t done much if you use this blog to keep score of my personal life. Fortunately for me, that’s not the case. I’ve actually been quite busy trying to sell our house and setting up a new site.

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It’s a fairly common scenario: young folks reproduce, and then they start to wonder how having a little one crawling around at their feet will affect their carbon footprint. My wife and I went through this when our youngest popped out seven and a half years ago. At that time, it took a boatload of research for us to figure out where we could track down things that mattered to our newfound sense of environmentalism, like cloth diapers, green cleaning products and organic foods. If only there had been an online website with a local focus that told us everything we needed to know.

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First up - happy birthday, Meg!

Next, I’ll make a half-hearted apology for keeping a relatively low profile lately. I’ve been too busy to blog. Oh well, I’m sure you’ve been getting by.

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I had a great chat today with Ron Hawkins, perhaps best known for his work with the band Lowest of the Low. We got to talk about lots of things like his new solo LP Chemical Sounds, the recent amicable split of LOTL, his upcoming tour of Australia, and how becoming a father totally changes your perception of cheesiness.

Look for a complete article next week as part of my column at blogTO: http://www.blogto.com/author/steve

Word of caution: I got so much good stuff, it just might take two articles to fit it all in.

Thank you very for your time, Ron. I really appreciate it.

I just did a profile of Hamilton-based electronic musician cisc over at blogTO: http://www.blogto.com/music/2008/01/cisc_set_to_play_enpeg_showcase/

Definitely worth checking out if you’re into the blips & bleeps & clicks & clacks.

i just posted an article about T.O. band the Deborahs at bolgTO …

http://blogto.com/music/2008/01/groovin_with_the_deborahs/

 Check it out.

The new year is upon us, and with it comes a whole whack of ill-advised promises to do better this time around. I just wanted to take a few minutes to mention what I’d like achieve in the next twelve months as far as this blog and others are concerned. So, without further ado …
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Yup, another year’s over. I figured before I got all carried away about the next year, I’d take a moment to reflect upon the last twelve months and share some of my favourite things with you. Read the rest of this entry »

I may have finally found my dream job. Sure, the pay is lousy, but the gig is a blast.

I’ve wanted to take a kick at the music journalism can for pretty much my whole life, and now that I’m doing it I couldn’t be happier. It’s a totally new situation from me. Before, when I was desperate to play in a good band, I’d network my ass off to get a musician’s phone number just to have them ask me never to call again (I had no idea at the time that guitar players are a dime a dozen).

Nowadays, thanks to the magic of the internet, I’ll an drop interesting musician an email through his/her website asking to help promote their show and they gladly send me their phone number, usually within twenty-four hours. And so far they’ve been a pretty decent lot to talk to as well.

Tonight, I get to talk to Richard “Demon Rich” Underhill, the brains-of-the-operation behind the Shuffle Demons. I can’t wait!

(BTW, has anyone else noticed that the spellcheck tool in the Google Toolbar doesn’t recognize “internet” as a real word? Oh, the irony is richly ironic.)