Scribbling a Lament for a Guitar-Slinger Named Al Miller
Jim Algie pays tribute to his former bandmate, Al Miller, a kingpin of the Edmonton and Toronto indie music scenes, who taught him how to play the guitar solo in Teenage Kicks, among many other priceless favors. One of the hardest parts of aging is seeing my old...
Horsing Around with Cowboys at the Sasquatch Music and Arts Festival
Jim Algie talks about the most representative photo he has ever taken of his home province of Alberta, which he snapped at the Sasquatch Music and Arts Festival in Alberta’s Drayton Valley in 2007. We were walking towards the main music stage and had to pass by...
Riffing on the Buzzcocks and Modern English in Mexico City
Jim Algie extols the virtues of breaking free from his maximum security comfort zone for a rocking trip to Mexico City, the biggest megalopolis in the Americas, to see the Buzzcocks and Modern English. . When Rhishja and I were doing our wedding party/honeymoon at...
Bidding Adieu to Gordon Lightfoot, a True Troubadour
Jim Algie salutes Gordon Lightfoot, a true Canadian titan, who wrote some of the only good songs on AM radio when I was getting into music. In the early and mid-70s, Gordon Lightfoot was this lighthouse whose vision and voice were so powerful that they illuminated...
Debut Album by Steven Bradley Kravac: Timeless Pop Songs for Ageless Rockers
The debut solo album by Steven Bradley, who has spent much of his music career as a producer and sound-man and backing musician, reveals the harmonious benefits of staying power in a youth-crazy business. Many middle-aged people are content to either rest on their...
The Strange Ballad of Evan C. Jones: a Tribute/Obit to and for the SNFU Drummer
A pioneer of hardcore punk drumming and vital member of the Edmonton music scene, Evan lived fast, died middle-aged and left a small yet sound legacy. Evan C Jones cracked me up and bewildered me right from the first time I met him until our last message exchanges on...
Shooting Stars like Kurt Cobain: Portrait of a Rock Photographer
As a photographer Martyn Goodacre is mostly remembered for his famous black and white shot of Kurt Cobain, but he framed many more stars of rock, cinema and literature before living in Thailand for many years. The music business is a Roman circus of debauchery and...
Remembering Mr. Chi Pig: the High-flying, Low-Falling Frontman of SNFU
The passing of the cult-famous punk singer of SNFU last year inspired a torrent of online tributes from fans, critics and musicians like Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, but few of them came from those who first knew him as a teenaged skateboarder from Edmonton....
Suicide Notes on Anthony Bourdain, Chris Cornell, Kevin Hines and the Middle-Aged Plumber Down the Street
On the first anniversary of the passing of Anthony Bourdain, Jim Algie looks at the spiking suicide rate in the West and how a man who survived a leap from the Golden Gate Bridge is leading a revolution in suicide prevention and awareness. My brother and I were nine...
On the Night Joey Ramone Died gets 5-star review in Bangkok Post
Jim Algie gets to revisit a past life as a punk rocker in the hugely entertaining ‘On The Night Joey Ramone Died’ writes Max Barclay of the Bangkok Post in the May 15, 2018 edition. “Write what you know” is an axiom familiar to all who have learned the craft...
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