In seven days, Toronto's 1050 CHUM will be re-christened "The Team" as it switches from an oldies station to an all-sports one. The listening fanbase, well aware of the inevitable for several months now, have been encouraged to call into the station and say what CHUM has meant to them. To be sure, I've heard some fascinating, funny and heartbreaking stories and memories. But even better, CHUM has been replaying music sets from classic DJ's of yesteryear. Decades before the onset of the point-and-click generation, this was pop radio for those lacking an attention span. Rapid-fire inter-song mini-monologues, circus atmosphere (Dick Clark, I'm talking to you, and I applaud it), the DJ as eclectic personality and party host. In other words, nothing like today's radio. But the most fun part of these flashbacks has been the literal time-machine aspect. Like any Canadian under the age of 50, I've heard Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild" half a billion times, but I'd never heard it announced as a "new" Steppenwolf single, as I recently did during a 1969 flashback. It's a bizarre concept for me to hear that song and realize "oh yeah, this song was once "new", once upon a time, somebody heard this for the first time while listening to the exact show that I'm hearing right now". However, once a flashback show would end, I was left with a bitter aftertaste. You see, once the show was over, they would, of course, return to regular programming, and I struck by how IDENTICAL everything was. Songs from the same time period, outdated DJ delivery -- for God's sake, CHUM has been in cryogenic holding pattern ever since it switched to the oldies format back in 1986. And that's really sad. It's sad that they've spent fifteen years serving as a jukebox for baby boomers. Hearing the magic in the flashback shows -- and recalling that everything they did was actually new and exciting at that time -- makes it soberingly clear that the magic happened such a very long, long time ago.

Some of the great CHUM memories have been conveniently ignored. Since 1986, CHUM has rarely played a song that was released before I was born. Before 1986, it was still the most exciting pop radio station on the AM dial. I discovered it in 1983 and kept my ears glued to it pretty much up to the time of the switch to oldies. That's a good two or three years of my life, and when you're ten years old that's practically geologic. There was no internet, I had never heard of music papers and Much Music was something that we saw only one weekend every three months when the pay channels would offer free previews to promote their product. CHUM was my entire musical sphere. I can't imagine how many nights I spent glued to my radio, absorbing the music-that-we-now-know-as-retro-80's. I collected every CHUM chart (published in the Toronto Star every Saturday) and I used to study those charts all the time. When I went to camp during the summer, I didn't write my parents asking for food or extra clothes, I wrote them to remind them to collect my CHUM charts. One year my dad had a close call when he threw out the paper and forgot to keep the chart. Once he realized his mistake, he had to dig through the garbage to retrieve it for me. When he told me this story, boy was I stressed. Like you should be worrying so, ten years old, ack. I don't think I ever worried about my parents as much as I worried about whether or not they were remembering to collect those CHUM charts. Anyway, the charts were an endless source of entertainment. I loved tracking and memorizing the progress of my favourite songs. I think this prepared me for later in the decade, when I turned in my music stats for baseball stats. I could name the position of Van Halen's "Jump" during each of it's 18 weeks on the chart. I vividly remember Michael Jackson's "Thriller" debuting at #1, which made it (I believe) the only song ever to do so on the CHUM chart. It stayed there for five weeks (a "record" for consecutive weeks at #1 during the time I was collecting). I even documented the "freak stats". The Parachute Club's "The Feet of the Moon" was on the chart for 12 weeks, yet never made it higher than #15. Whitney Houston's "Saving All My Love For You" was the only song, during the years I collected, to debut one week (#27) and drop off the chart the next. And I was proud of the fact that I correctly predicted the #1 song on the year end chart for two straight years. On the "Top 84 of '84" I correctly guessed "Jump", based on it's 18 week run and over ten weeks in the top 10 despite only one week spent at #1 (although it spent four weeks at #2). The next year, I felt I was going out on a limb by picking Corey Hart's "Never Surrender", mainly because I hated the song and was apprehensive about choosing a tune that I knew was such crap. It spent five weeks at #1, but it did so on the rebound, so to speak, in the wake of the "Help Africa" songs, which dominated the charts during the spring.

That probably sounded extremely eggheaded, but don't misunderstand me: I pored over the charts because I loved the music, and since we rarely bought records or taped off the radio, the charts were my personal nostalgia. That, and my dad's collection of music videos. Back then, videos were aired on programs like CityTV's "The New Music". All these programs were on after I'd gone to bed. Fortunately, my dad was not like the other dads. He wasn't stuck in the 70's. He greatly enjoyed 80's music, and once we got a VCR in 1983, he would stay up late to tape the videos. He would tape the songs that interested him, and we would confer during the day over what videos we needed to watch out for. Of course, the songs I heard on CHUM were the basis for those requests. He would tape the shows on Friday night and I couldn't wait to wake up the next day and watch the things he'd taped. I had the contents of those video collections nearly memorized too, a collection which grew to something like twelve six-hour cassettes.

Economics wise, CHUM probably made a wise decision in switching to oldies when they did. FM was becoming the only decently-fi option for radio. CHUM switched in June 1986. FM stood for "Fleetwood Mac" (although some adult contemporary was fine, it just wasn't "my" music). MuchMusic was still not on basic cable. There had been a lull in the music of the day, I didn't like the R&B styles of DeBarge and Ready For the World. Duran Duran and Tears For Fears were both on an extended hiatus. Plus, I hated the other major AM pop station 680 CFTR: their playlist was far narrower in scope than CHUM's and the DJ's couldn't compare. All these factors contributed to the reality (it was not so much a "decision", it just sorta .... happened) that I basically gave up listening to music for over two years. It took Much Music, Def Leppard, INXS, home taping and CFNY to resurrect me from the musical dead in late 1988-early 1989 (essentially in that order, too).

Thus, that June 1986 goodbye to CHUM was of tremendous importance in my musical growth (or lack thereof, considering the circumstances). This one can't compare. I enjoy the oldies tremendously. I wake up to CHUM nearly every morning. Henny in the Morning rocks my world (Humble and Fred only WISH they could be so funny). But for fifteen years, CHUM has been peddling decades-old memories. It hasn't meant anything in terms of musical trends or sales for fifteen years. It hasn't shaped anyone's musical tastes for fifteen years, because every on-air lament of the end of CHUM is mourning the loss of the CHUM that's being paid tribute with those flashback shows. That's not a knock on those people's warm memories, that's just the truthful facts. CHUM isn't dying now, it really died fifteen years ago.

Goodbye CHUM, from someone who's not a member of your core audience.

I have been vociferously reading "We Rock So You Don't Have To", a collection of articles about "alternative" bands that were published in "Option" during the 1990's. Each article never fails to mine gold from the personalities they cover. I'm fascinated that each page contains intriguing insights and philosophies (in the context of deeply probing, yet always casual interviews) from my heroes and even from artists I consider to be talentless lunks. Amazingly, the introduction, written by Steve Appleford, is insightful as well:

"...when the music of scowling outcasts becomes a soundtrack for the in-crowd, something's bound to get lost in the translation. And you can't have it both ways: the only thing more repulsive than a whining rock star is a satisfied, successful one".

Fortunately, this "indie-loser" mentality which has plagued the music from the days of Reed and Cale busking in the streets of Harlem, in no way detracts from my enjoyment of the book (a side note: a close cousin of the "indie-loser" mentality is the "trainspotter" mentality. Both equate "coolness" (whatever that means, heck, I think the Spice Girls are cool but I'm sure that I'm one of the few Bardo Pond lovers that thinks so) with "exclusivity". Thus, if I'm one of only 148 fans of Generic Alterno-band then it is way cooler than being one of 20 bazillion Britney Spears fans because a) there's so few of us, so we must be that much more diehard and dedicated, and b) none of my friends will have heard of Generic Alterno-band, therefore, I can impress everyone in my musical circle because there's NOTHING cooler than making others feel inferior because I know loads of stuff about bands that they don't know jack about. But I should talk, because I've made two not-so-obvious references already in this article. Proclaimed intellectuals have a natural tendency to say and write obscure bits of information through namedropping as a code to alienate the (assumed) less intelligent beings from the proceedings). When all is said and done, the main thing that Britpop accomplished is the doing away of the indie-loser tag for any band outside the realm of shameless (read: boy band, etc.) pop. Ten years ago, Coldplay and Travis would have garnered a Soup Dragons sized following and been accepting of the fact that they would play small to mid-sized venues until the day came when artistic endeavors had to be put aside due to the need to get a real job to properly support their families. Their fanzines would go hog-wild for that career defining day when one of the bands' singles would miraculously peak at #48 on the UK singles chart. The Smiths had a rabid cult-following and were far and away the best band in the world during the mid 1980's. These accomplishments netted exactly two weeks in the UK top 10 for their seventeen wonderful singles. This, along with the downtrodden nature of their music, meant that the Smiths practically defined indie-loserdom in the UK for years. But now, Travis and Coldplay (Smiths-lite bands if there ever were any) don't have to be mopey for the rest of their lives, they can sell millions of records and go from zeroes to heroes in the space of a year, just like Britney Spears can. Britpop destroyed the notion that an entire nation, from critics to grandmas, couldn't sing along to the same tunes the way they had in the days of the Beatles. If we're living in a world where most of England knows at least two songs from "The Man Who", imagine how much more successful The Smiths would have been if they were around today.

As usual, America trails behind the UK in it's musical open-mindedness. Is the brilliance of Nirvana's "Nevermind" diminished just because everybody bought it? If so, then it's a violation of causality, since sales occur after the recording is made. The record would sound exactly the same coming out of your speakers whether ten or ten million people had bought it. It's the IMPRESSION on the listener will vary according to it's popularity, due to the variety of people that get to hear it -- and GOOD FOR THEM. Almost any artist will say that their music has no absolute meaning. It means whatever the listener wants or needs it to mean. It wasn't Kurt's fault that "Nevermind" found its way into ten million homes. That record is no less a portrait of a "scowling outcast" just because said outcast became rich as a result. This is why there's little wonder Americans revere their dead rock stars more so than their living ones. Dead people don't have to worry about finding the difficult balance between "Whining" and being "satisfied", therefore, it is impossible for them to be seen as failures, and more importantly, they fail to ever lose their coolness. Appleton rightly surmises that indie-losers strive for this for this level of coolness, but snatches away the credibility of anyone not willing to be a struggling, downtrodden loser. But Kurt was a troubled, messed-up drug abuser long before fame found him. He was a depressed rock star, but he was NOT depressed BECAUSE he was a rock star. As long as we further the impression that Kurt Cobain killed himself because "he hated the winners so much he refused to be one", then we're just baselessly promoting a false romanticism. Because at the end of the day, that's all "indie loser"-dom really is.

Mogwai have dispensed with noise. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The scant material of post-"Loveless" MBV (e.g. "Incidental Harmony", "We Have All the Time In the World") suggest that they too had started to smooth out the rough edges of their sound. "Rock Action" kicks off with the astounding "Sine Wave", which marries the lightness of stuff like "Tuner" with the industrial squelch of NIN's "The Downward Spiral", but it all calms down from there. Live, "You Don't Know Jesus" and "2 Rights Make 1 Wrong" were a blur of white noise and electronics. On record they frequently tease an explosion but do not deliver (much like the role of "May Nothing But Happiness Come Through Your Door" on "CODY"). The remainder of the album barely ruffles a feather, as Mogwai stake their claim to dreamy folk-rock a la the calmer moments of Flying Saucer Attack. "Rock Action" leaves the same impression that "CODY" might have -- had the latter consisted only of its first eight tracks. But one of "CODY"'s main strength was the *buildup" to the delivery of that explosion in the final thirty minutes. "Rock Action" features plenty of the buildup, but a lack of the payoff that would have resulted had they tacked on fifteen minutes of "My Father, My King" as track nine.

I want Jeff Probst's job(s). This man is the luckiest bastard ever. On one hand, he gets to play God with sixteen starving wannabe millionaires on "Survivor". In doing so, he gets a free trip to an exotic location. His "Survivor" host persona is dapper and cool one moment, evil and scheming the next. I wish I could act like an asshole whenever I wanted to while my employers spare no expense in dressing me for the part. On the other hand, he hosts "Rock 'n Roll Jeopardy", which is second in game-show awesomeness to the original "Jeopardy" (mainly because the original is far more challenging. If RnRJ took a trainspottingly challenging "Sports Geniuses" route, then I would reverse my rankings).

I'm no diehard punk and I never was. In fact, I've never heard a Ramones album all the way through. But nonetheless, I know my music history, and therefore, I am saddened by the lack of mainstream attention given to the death of Joey Ramone. The Ramones kickstarted rock n roll just like the Beatles had ten years previous, and yet Joey Ramone's death has been relegated to a three-liner on the entertainment news pages while hippie-cum-yuppies still fawn over John Lennon, his thirty-year old piano, his drug-addled poetry and happily devote scores of column inches to his memory even twenty years after his death.

I've been quite taken with Arab Strap's "The Red Thread" over the last couple of weeks. I can't say that I love this album, because their last record was titled "Philophobia" ("fear of falling in love") so it wouldn't seem appropriate. However, "The Red Thread"'s lone contemporary would be Joy Division's "Closer". Both albums are members of an exclusive club of "varietal despair" albums. The moods are sombre and dark. There is not a speck of positivity to be found. Singing is provided by two extremely unique vocalists. It's near impossible to imaging these songs being sung by anyone else -- (there were very few JD covers until a few years ago, at least to my knowledge. I always thought that it was because JD were "uncoverable". Note-for-note covers are not successful -- indeed, if you want it to sound identical to the original, then why bother? The original can stand on it's own. To do a good cover version, you need to make changes to a song and give it a different spin. This usually means altering the melody, the tempo, taking away some parts and replacing them with new sounds, instruments, etc. However, every sound in a JD song was integral, because the vocals, bass, guitar and even the drums all had their own melody and each provided a crucial piece of the whole. I've always thought it was the result of each band member writing their own part -- a true group songwriting effort. Can you imagine "Transmission" with a different bassline? Or without each and every last note in the guitar solo? Could "Shadowplay" POSSIBLY work with any other drum beat? Let's not even start with finding an alternative to Ian "I'm 23 but my voice could pass for 60" Curtis' perfect vocals. Anyway, I think I'm right, JD must be uncoverable because I've yet to hear one of their covers that didn't suck) -- Ian Curtis' melancholy wail is ideal for his tales of inadequacy and depression, while Aidan Moffat's melancholy mumbling is ideal for his tales of inadequacy and sexual misadventure. All right, I'm not 100% sure about the last one, but I can't argue with the results. He may sound like he's in a constant hungover state, but face it, if YOU were reading your girlfriends secret sex diary, then you'd feel as sick and disgusted as he did, and would want to get wasted into a numb oblivion as soon as possible. Even better, both albums deliver their sorrowful messages with an incredibly varied musical approach. They effortlessly and convincingly swing from simple ballads to noisy dirges to electronic warmth. The two-dollar drum machine feel of AS's "Turbulence" somehow manages to evoke loneliness, while maintaining a passive funkiness, same as JD's "Isolation" ably sneaks the despair through the wall of synthesizer and the infectiously danceable drum beat. AS's "Amor Veneris" and JD's "The Eternal" are both simple, sludgingly slow and dripping with sad imagery. I could go on, but straightforwardly: being in a two member club with Joy Division is a damned special place to be.