bust a "move"

things have been thinging around. this is essential to the continued vitality of stuff, and things.

i don't want to put the cart in front of the horse (unless the horse was better at pushing than pulling which seems unlikely) but i think i am responsible for Tom Allen's departure from CBC Radio 2 Morning. If you don't believe me, look at my previous post. Funny right? If i were a "big wig exec" (and god willing, some day i will be) i would've canned him too. Well first i would have laughed, then i would have eaten some pressed duck and wiped my face with a crisp Laurier, then i would've called him and been like: "Hey Tom Allen-- word on the blogosphere is that you stink. Hit the road. You're making this charming girl's mornings unbearable." Which is my rough assessment of how it went down.
Now i wake up to Bob Mackowycz. I like his Polish last name and laid-back attitude. The music is still kinda ballz, but nothing like the repetitive Groundhog Day nightmare of Tom Allen's hellish reign. Welcome Bob. Cut your fopish hair, but welcome.
So after concluding that i had not only bettered myself by ousting Tom Allen but probably the entire listening community, i was shocked to stumble across this on "The Net" (starring Sandra Bullock):

An Open Letter to Tom Allen:

For many years I have enjoyed spending the morning with Tom Allen. I have enjoyed his music, his chit-chat, his various features --- even his on-air flubs.
The best thing about Mondays was hearing Tom Allen again.

I was keen to see what Radio 2 morning would feature. Although I mostly liked the music Tom played, I am, sad to say, not impressed with the new show. I thought the new CBC was supposed to give us more variety and many genres. Not being a genrist, I am not sure exactly what a "genre" is --- the word does not appear in my Shorter Grove's, but my Canadian Oxford defines it as a kind or style, especially of literature or art. It was an early morning for me today, so I was only able to hear Tom's first hour. However, everything Tom played could be characterized as "Vocal solo (electronically amplified) over ostinato bass, late 20th century." Tom did his best to play various styles within that narrow genre, even singers in different languages. There was some variety in the instrumental accompaniment (although guitars and drum set were rather prevalent) and variation in the rhythmic pattern, but although I wasn't actually counting, I would venture that most if not all of the songs were in 4/4 time. So much for variety.

Thinking of shows that really do play a variety of "genres", I can think of Jurgen Gothe's "Disc Drive", and Robert Harris' "I Hear Music" (both of which have been sacked) and I was hoping that Tom's selections might be more along those lines. Or, going back in the mists of time, I remember Max Ferguson, Alan McPhee, and Clyde Gilmour, all of whom were unconfined by genrism.

And why does that kid keep interrupting with his announcements about the new Radio 2? I know it's not really a kid, just some actor imitating a teenager (did you by any chance borrow Gavin Crawford from 22 Minutes?), but he is getting rather annoying. I do enjoy deadpan parody as much as anyone, and he does have some good lines ("Opera -- in tempo and in tune"), but I must say it's not really that funny anymore --- indeed, it's rather sad. Promo-dude has been around for a while, but he used to at least have the courtesy to wait till the music was over before he cut in. Couldn't the producer make sure promo-dude waits his turn? I have a feeling he is trying to upstage Tom.

So, I don't know how much I'm going to listen to Tom in the future. Even the sparkle in his presence seems faded. I almost get the impression Tom is playing more music because he no longer knows what to say --- which is pretty heavy criticism for Tom Allen. Will there be any more "This day in...", or the Web Goddess, or Mr. Equipment, or any other of the little tidbits that made his show so enjoyable?

Music and Company was a great invigorating way to start the day. My first impression of Radio 2 Morning is that I am in some smoky coffee-house, feeling rather blue, and I might as well crawl back into bed.



What is this guy even talking about?
He starts out like he's Tom Allen fan #1 but it quickly becomes apparent that his critiques are more scathing than my own (in that they're sincere and earnest)!
I found his complaint about the time signature consistency interesting, but any credibility that could have garnered him was pre-emptively lost by his admition of not knowing what genre is (really?) and subsequently providing the dictionary definition...
Also, i wish i woke up in a smoky coffee-house every day.

I regret nothing. Tom Allen blows. Now he's gone.

Take that.

the door to the cabinet is to be opened using a minimum of 15 kleenexes.

i wake up to CBC Radio 2 each day that i wake up.
some nights i don't sleep, and in those cases i am not awoken by CBC Radio 2 at 7:30 a.m., but rather startled by it instead.

In either case, you might be wondering, "why would anyone choose CBC Radio 2?" and that is a fair question. It is worse than CBC Radio 1. Like a lot worse. In fact, it's so bad that i get out of bed just to shut it off. That's why i choose CBC Radio 2 for all my alarm clock radio needs.

The reason it's so bad might in fact be some programming mandate of which i am not aware, but until i crack that code, from my perspective CBC Radio 2 is so bad because Tom Allen is the host of the morning show. According to CBC's website, Tom is "a passionate music lover, storyteller, accomplished trombonist, writer and broadcaster" and his program features "singer-songwriters plus a little R&B, world music, classic pop... and his own inimitable story telling".
Okay.
So the genres listed are among my least favourite in all of the musical world, so it mightn't seem reasonable for me to complain about this, however it's not only that the genres blow. Oh no. Tom also manages to find the worst possible representatives of said genres. Also important to note is that Tom Allen plays the same songs every morning. Like the same songs at the same time. I only listen to the radio for the 5-35 minutes i lay in bed thinking about shutting it off, and i am often shocked terrified that I am trapped in some Groundhog day-esque nightmare, because the same shitty Coeur de Pirate song that was on at 8:12 on Wednesday morning will re-appear at 8:24 on Friday morning.
Who fucking does that?
I understand having favourites or classics on a given show, but unless Tom Allen has OCD unheard of since the days of Howard Hughes (which i doubt because that would be waaaaay too interesting), this is uncalled for. I could also maybe sympathize with the repetitiveness if it were awesome songs every morning. I could probably listen to Hall and Oates "I Can't Go For That" every morning, and I'm probably not alone in that. But we're talking about worldbeat bullshit and awkward romantic adult R&B. These are not "classics". They are songs that are so bad they wake me up.
I thought for a while that maybe that was the point-- songs so bad they wake you up. But then i started to listen to what Tom Allen was saying himself, his "inimitable storytelling", if you will.
It was then i realised that the point was not songs so bad they wake you up, and the Tom Allen himself is an ass-clown. He doesn't know anything about music, and knows little about anything else. Listening to him talk about Arctic Sovereignty almost made my head explode. He has a non-commital, vaguely liberal, politcally-correct tone that makes every "story" sound like a sermon at united church. Every now and then he treats the listeners to a stuttered anecdote (and i use the term loosely) about his musician days. Even those personal stories contain not even a hint of engagement. Tom Allen is like a toast sandwich with a crushed cracker filling.

But do you know what the worst part of all is?

He looks like this:
and i fucking know he's happy about it.