Vancouver - Laid Back Excellence in Music
Sunday, May 10, 2020
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| Link to video is below |
In my native Buenos Aires there is a barrier between culture and the unwashed masses that is as formidable as the one I first noticed in 1977 at the new CBC building here in Vancouver on 700 Hamilton. This was the invisible line between the French side and the English side.
My first real job in Vancouver (I arrived in 1975 from Mexico
City and the only job I could find was washing cars at Tilden-Rent-a- Car on Alberni Street) was
shooting station ID slides for the new French CBC tv station. They were offered
slides by the English but they wanted their very own. I was hired because I was
not English but Argentine.
In my Buenos Aires there is the music of the Teatro Colón, an
institution (my opinion) stuck in the ballet and music repertoire of the 19th
century. The opera house is beautiful and it takes lots of money to witness an
opera there.
The masses are able to enjoy good music and good dance (the tango) on the street in Sunday markets. I have noted lots of professional talent particularly this tango couple a mere one block from our favourite Buenos Aires hotel room, the Claridge.
The masses are able to enjoy good music and good dance (the tango) on the street in Sunday markets. I have noted lots of professional talent particularly this tango couple a mere one block from our favourite Buenos Aires hotel room, the Claridge.
Vancouver has a more laid back approach to music of any
kind. Some years ago I went to the Orpheum to watch a performance of Art
Bergman and his post-punk, punk band. I cannot conceive that happening at the
Colón. And I stood up (as if I had been at the Commodore) to enjoy The
Pretenders at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Lou Reed played there, too.
This crossover signals a more universal taste here in my
Vancouver.
In this terrible lockdown that has made venue concerts
verboten a few have risen to the occasion and given us music to listen from our
homes. There is the stuff from the Isolation Commissions.
But dear to my heart is my friend violinist Cameron Wilson
who not only has done his Isolation Commission work with a solo violin interpretation
of a The Who song, but continues to impress, un-depress and make us all smile
with his Wahs and now with a new living room recording with noted guitarist
Bill Coon.
Cameron Wilson - The Wahs and Isolation Commissions
With Bill Coon - There Will Never be Another You
With Bill Coon - There Will Never be Another You
