Gen X at 40

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Brent's Playlist

So go ahead. Pick any day's tunes picked by Brent Bambury as heard on CBC Ottawa's All in a Day. You won't find a better music selection on radio anywhere - certainly not the deeply dowdy CBC.

I will note some of the best picks below as I hear them:

  • Tuesday, June 3, 2003: "Radio Radio" by Elvis Costello. I had this his second lp, This Year's Model, in grade 11 - the Belgian pressing. Still have it.
  • Friday, June 6, 2003: "Radio Gaga" by Queen. I had this, too, but my relationship with Freddie Mercury flagged what with punk's accusations and later '80's quasi-folk Bragg and Pogues as well as the Mancunian simplicity of the Smiths. More than a guilty pleasure: thanks, Wayne.
  • Monday June 9, 2003: "Rain Dance" by the Guess Who. I think we bought this album at the Towers Mall in New Minas around 1974. Who plays non-hit Guess Who? Who knows about it?
  • Wednesday, 11 June, 2003: "Crazy Train" by Ozzy Osbourne and "Baby Don't Tell On Me" by Count Basie.
  • Monday, June 30, 2003. "Definition" and "Morning Passages" by Philip Glass. Two Philips Glass pieces on a drive home show.
  • Wednesday 9 July, 2003: "Get Down On It" by Kool and the Gang and "Amants de Paris" by Edith Piaf. Both cool in their own place and time.
  • Tuesday, 12 August 2003: "Twentieth Century Boys, by T. Rex and Iggy Pop with "Lust for Life". Brent admits "I'm Bored" is his favorite Iggy tune.
  • Wednesday, 20 August, 2003: "Ol' 55" by Tom Waits. Ross. Brent's playing your music.
  • Thursday, 28 August, 2003: "In the Cold, Cold Night" by The White Stripes. Racketless rock - what's with today's kids?
  • Friday, 8 September 2003: "Dandelions & Bullet Holes" by Sarah Harmer. A live half hour with Kingston's own who I saw last winter in PEI. I was taken again by how true and easy her singing is. New album in a few months.
  • Wednesday September 24, 2003: "This Flight Tonight" by Nazarath. He is toying with 70's junior high anthems.
  • Friday, 3 October 2003: "Bizarre Love Triangle" by New Order.
  • Wednesday, 29 October 2003: "Mexican Courage" by Tijuana Bibles. Brent went ape over this record saying it was the most inportant music since the spheres or some such thing.
  • Thursday, 13 November 2003, "Who's Been Talking" by Isaac and Blewett. Nber Brent picks up NBers recently highlighted at Switching to Glide".
  • Friday, 28 November 2003, "I Love Rock & Roll", by Joan Jett. An important classic.
  • Friday, 9 January 2004, "C'mon, C'mon (We're gonna get it Started)" by Sloan.
  • Thursday 14 January 2004 "5:15" by The Who - a mod kid stoned out of his skull on the train coming home at the end of the day: is it really "...gravy outrageous..."?
  • Friday 12 March 2004 "My Generation" live by Oasis and "Ball and Biscuit" by the White Stripes - both in the first half hour!
  • Tuesday, 29 June 2004 - even with Brent on vacation the show plays the Great Lake Swimmers' great tune "I Will Never See The Sun" which one review describes as "augmented by a nearly inaudible sample of a TTC public address announcement, finds a tuneful refrain in the couplet, 'I will never see the sun/Spadina, St. George, Bay and Yonge' "
  • Friday, 17 September 2004 - Brent took a long break and so did I with this list but playing at 4:08 pm the version of the South Pacific song "Happy Talk" by Captain Sensible, guitarist for The Damned, a piece my grey matter had all but let slip away, was dandy. Backed by a synth pretending to be a theatre organ. Fromage.