Don’t Believe A Word I Say with Bob Segarini

The Weekend Roundup for December 4th 2009

Make Your Lists! Deck Your Halls! Shop Now! According to some Radio Stations, Christmas started last month!

As usual, this time of year brings out the Best and Worst lists we all like to disagree with, argue about, and discuss. They’ve already started a bit early this year, just like the odd practice of radio stations playing all Christmas music 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for up to a month before Jesus gets swaddled, Santa cops your cookies, and your dad gets another tie, pair of socks, or 3 pack of Fruit of the Looms, while Mom gets a new Swiffer, or slow-cooker, and the kids get 2 or 3 thousand dollars worth of the latest technology, cell phone apps, and video games that allow them to virtually kill lots and lots of virtual people from the comfort of the family couch, instead of torturing the family cat.

The Christmas season seems to be starting earlier every year, a Hallmark Card retail-store driven avalanche so numbingly obvious and omnipresent that by the time the actual day arrives -  a day we used to celebrate with Midnight Mass, a family get together, and a real, honest to goodness Joy to the World feeling -  I can hardly wait to toss the damn tree on the fire, ornaments and all, drink something besides eggnog and turn the TV on again without fear of another night of Charlie Brown’s Christmas, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman reruns and Christmas episode television shows that have some maudlin message attached to them as a high-five to Jesus, Santa, and all those Grandmothers out there who send internet chain letters to everyone all year long that promise wealth, health, and happiness to the people that forward the heart warming stories of non existent little boys and girls; pictures of embarrassed looking puppies dressed as Nuns; Batman and Robin; and Johnny Depp; old people surfing; and wet little kittens, along to 10 of your friends, who will never speak to you again if you do.

I loved Christmas when it was special. Christmas and New Year was spent at home, no school, my mother making divinity, fudge, and rum balls, salting and roasting almonds, having friends and family over for drinks or dinner, my dad tending bar in the back room of his grocery store, spending time with his customers and the salesmen and farmers that supplied his merchandise, and the whole family driving over to San Francisco to look at the animated scenes in the display windows at the Emporium, City of Paris, and The White House. Failed angel Clarence got his wings only once, because “It’s a Wonderful Life” was an event, usually shown on Christmas Eve, and not three times a day on 17 different stations for weeks at a time.

Let’s face it, Christmas is for kids…and, if you or the negative people in your life haven’t had him or her strangled, suppressed, or denied, the kid in you.

The Kid In You is very important. He or she is that part of you that allows you to be optimistic in the worst of times, have hope in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, laugh at your own foibles, mistakes, and whatever current kettle of fish you’ve gotten yourself into, and deal with the obstacles that life tends to throw in front of everything we hope to accomplish. In other words, without your inner child, Christmas can be a depressing, soul wrenching exercise in regret and self recrimination, another year gone by and what have you done to better the quality of life for you, your family, and others. If you can keep your bearings until New Years, the checklist gets put away, and a new year, complete with a fresh start, opens up like a door into summer. Another year, and another chance to make yourself, and your world, a little better.

Until then, however, this time of year can be tough sledding for some folks.

‘They’, (whoever ‘they’ are), keep saying the economy is on the upswing, that things are improving, and that everything is going to be just fine, but I don’t think that this good ‘news’ is affecting anyone I know. Even my rich friends…aren’t.

My dad always used to say that if you can’t have a good time without money, you won’t have a good time with it.

I used to think he was nuts when he said shit like that.

Now of course, I realize that the odd things my dad used to say weren’t nuts at all. I was just too stupid to understand the wisdom he was trying unsuccessfully to impart to me. My father, as usual, was right.

So this Christmas season, keep my father’s words in mind. We don’t need money to have a great Christmas. We need family and friends, a good sense of humour, and a grasp of why this should be a joyful time of the year. We celebrate a miracle that occurred not in a mansion, but in a manger.

So don’t feel guilty or inadequate because the wine comes in a cardboard box this year, the turkey dinner is a handful of fish sticks and some oven baked frozen french fries, because the cards and presents will be lovingly hand made, destined to become cherished treasures, kept and rendered dog-eared, from opening and looking at them for the rest of your life.

It will be a Christmas fondly remembered for the same reason any Christmas is remembered…for the people you share it with, and the love you feel for one another. You probably don’t even remember what you got for last Christmas, but that’s okay. Great memories last a lot longer than a pair of socks, a Swiffer, or a video game. Count your blessings, not your gifts.

Have a very merry Christmas, and to all of you that celebrate under a different banner at this time of year, (as well as you politically correct folks), Happy Holidays.

Did I mention Best and Worst Lists?

Starting next Monday, I’m going to add a Top Ten List to every column until the New Year. They will list my personal favourites in a variety of categories, some of which will be the usual ones, like movies and television, and others will be a bit ‘different’. I may also mention some stuff I personally think sucks hard, and not in a good way. In a world full of Fashion Show Circus’s posing as concerts, dancers posing as singers, production posing as songs, and hot young pretties posing as actors and  movie stars, I would be remiss not to throw some shit at the shit that’s been thrown at us for the past 12 months.

I hesitate to do Best of the Decade lists until next year when the decade actually ends, but there are a lot of those out there already, written by those whose math is different than my own. Come to think of it, I was always terrible at math, so maybe I’ll toss one in.

Regardless of my belief that counting to 10 starts with the number one, and not zero, I would like you, Dear Readers, to submit your own Top Ten Lists about whatever you feel like addressing, be it end of year or end of decade…it’s your call. Send them to segarini@fyimusic.ca and I will run as many of them as I can throughout December. Just put “Top Ten Lists” in the subject header of your email.

A&R Online Volume 39

You can hear this show by going to http://www.radiothatdoesntsuck.com/myWimpy.html and click on ‘A&R Online Volume 39’

This has been an incredible year for stumbling across new artists I think have a real shot at lasting careers in the world of music. Some of the people we have exposed here include Myk Gordon, David Borins, Christina Maria, Sara Dell, Isle of Theives, The Free Press, the incredible Ali Milner, and the band I’d like to be in if I were 20 years old, Lake Charles Louisiana’s Research Turtles. They are all walking their own path, making their own music, and are as individual and unique as they are talented.

Thanks to Linda Dawe and Greg Simpson, I’ve got another name for you to remember.

Christopher Dallo

The door this young man is going through was opened by the success earlier this year, of Susan Boyle and Michael Buble, two artists who are blessed with wonderful voices, and unique personalities, and other performers like Andrea Bocelli and Josh Groban. Christopher, like them, is blessed with a wonderful voice and is also a unique individual who appears to neither follow the accepted look, or sound required by radio and television these days, but could very well find the same acceptance deservedly found by both Ms. Boyle and Mr. Buble.

You wouldn’t know it to hear him, or watch his poised, confident demeanor on stage, but Christopher has a leg up on all of  his predecessors…he’s only 17 years old.

One of the great aspects of the showcase I saw him at Wednesday night was the fact that instead of being surrounded by handlers or spending his time ‘working’ the crowd, he was hanging with his family and 3 of his best buds, one of which acted as his soundman. These are great kids.

Talking with two of his friends outside, I found them to be just as genuine as Christopher. When I asked them what kind of music they liked, they spoke of Ray Charles Pink Floyd and Jeff Beck. They didn’t mention one artist from this decade or century. The oldest of them is 18.

Christopher’s parents and uncles and aunts were equally down to earth, proud of him, but also nonplussed by the attention he has been receiving. He seems not only relaxed in this pursuit of success, he seems to not be affected by it at all. I was impressed.

And then I heard him sing.

If you see and listen to this kid and are not touched by the sincerity and purity of his vocals, his reading of the lyric, and his unassuming, humble stance on stage, I would check for a pulse…and he is still a diamond in the rough! What is he going to sound like…write about…and achieve, after he’s had his heart broken, fallen in love, experienced life beyond teenage? I will be listening to everything he does to find out.

I think Christopher Dallo has the ability to reach an audience that transcends generations, and I don’t think there will be a dry eye in the house after he gets done with them.

I was going to quote his glowing reviews and the press release, but I think it would be better to just let you hear him.

Thanks to Linda Dawe for bringing this young man to my attention, and Jeff Burns at Blue Diamond for recording him.

Go to A&R Online Volume 39 at http://www.radiothatdoesntsuck.com/myWimpy.html if you haven’t already.

The first three songs are Christopher:

Christopher Dallo – Vela

Christopher Dallo – Hero

Christopher Dallo – I Believe

The next four are songs I’d love to hear him cover.

Richard Marx – Right Here Waiting For You

Harry Nilsson – Without Her

Eric Carmen – All By Myself

Mario Lanza – Be My Love

Enjoy…and go here for more information, including some video and upcoming appearances: http://www.christopherdallo.org/

Win of the Week

See…commercials CAN be fun and entertaining…

Fail of the Week

You’ve got a great career, a wonderful family, the adoration of millions of people, and are living proof that success can be achieved regardless of race, color or creed, a shining example to children everywhere, and incredibly, made the game of golf cool to an entirely new generation.

What the fuck were you thinking…

Parting Shot

If you don’t give up, every failure brings you closer to success…maybe.

…and this:

Have a great weekend, see you on Monday…

That’s enough for now. Email me at segarini@fyimusic.ca with your comments, complaints, and thoughts…and remember…don’t believe a word I say.

Bob “The Iceman” Segarini was in the bands The Family Tree, Roxy, The Wackers, The Dudes, The Segarini Band, and Cats and Dogs, and nominated for a Juno for production in 1978. He also hosted “Late Great Movies” on CITY TV, was a producer of Much Music, and an on-air personality on CHUM FM, Q107, SIRIUS Sat/Rad’s Iceberg 95, (now 85), and now provides content for radiothatdoesntsuck.com with RadioZombie, The Iceage, and PsychShack. Along with the love of his life, Jade (Pie) Dunlop, (who hosts and writes “I’ve Heard That Song Before” on RTDS), continues to write, make music, and record.