My Fave Five Songs for April

With this post on my fave five songs for April I am introducing a new blog, “Rob’s Record Shop”.  The new blog will be my home for music, new music, old music, record reviews and more.  You can find this post and previous  fave five posts on Rob’s Record Shop, https://robsrecordshop.wordpress.com/.

Now, onto my fave five songs for April

Miss Me Too: Griff

There are artists that just know what they should be doing.  In our current generation of music we can look at Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish as role models for up and coming your musicians.  Griff is one to join that elite group.  She was identified early in her career and have been able to work with the best in the business.

Miss me Too is from Griff’s most recent album Vertigo Vol.2 and is the lead off single. Miss Me Too is reminiscent of the new wave pop/dance female artists such as Dua Lipa, Elle Goulding that are coming out of the UK, but more importantly have a lot to say the composition of their music as singer, song writer and producer.  Griff (Sarah Faith Griffiths) the 2021 Brit Award Rising Star shows why she earned that accolade with Miss Me To; it can be difficult to differentiate yourself as a pop/dance music artist however Griff sets herself a apart from the masses.  She will ride a top the wave of female driven music for years, Miss Me Too is the start of the ride.

Too Good to be true: Kacey Musgraves

From new album Deeper Well, we hear Musgraves again being introspective, but unlike 2021’s “Star Crossed” it is a good introspection.  Like 2018’s Golden Hour, Musgrave is in good spirits, and this is heard in the song writing and vocals.

Too Good to be True is full of hope and in two and a half minutes she expresses the hope we all have love when she sings “For both of us, it’s been a year a tidal wave without a warning”.  When I hear this song, I feel the rush of the day melt away and I can sink into a calm that musically causes me to go to gentle wave of my body whether I’m standing, walking or sitting or sitting here writing this. Is there anything else we want a good song to do to us?

Cave: Wild Rivers

The opening guitar of Cave transports me back to early Rolling Stones, from their Tattoo You age and ‘Waiting on a Friend”.  

Wild Rivers, based out of Toronto was formed while Devan Glover and Khalid Yassein attended Queen’s University in Kingston Ontario.  The trio was completed when Andrew Oliver joined.  Wild Rivers was awarded the 2023 Juno for Breakthrough Group of the Year; they’ve supported The Chicks on tour in ’23 and in 2024 are on tour with Noah Kahan.

Devon’s vocal Oliver’s guitar work are the key to this song and as good as this sounds  through my air pods now, I have the impression Wild Rivers would deliver a knock out version of Cave live.  Wild Rivers has a tightness that takes years to perfect, the formation of the band feels like it is the most natural of acts. Cave has me visiting the brief catalogue of their singles, EPs and LPs. In 2024, Wild Rivers should be bigger than the 2023 breakthrough artist.  

No Angels: Justin Timberlake

Is this a comeback? Or have we just not paid attention to Justin Timberlake? 

The new album “Everything I Thought it Was” comes 6 years after his last LP “Man of the Woods”.  I was immediately drawn into the dance floor trance of No Angels and was not able to escape.  I’m now dreaming of the hot mixes I’ll hear from my DJ friends that will include the new JT. 

Capricorn: Vampire Weekend

The cold opening of Capricorn unassuming as it is, is not something you miss. It’s taken me 5 albums to ‘discover’ Vampire Weekend and this years’ release “Only God was Above Us” comes 5 years after their previous LP.   

I love the indie feel of “Capricorn’ there is an intimacy to the lyrics and arrangement that appeals to me.  It has a ‘it feels good to be home-ness’ about it.   

Self-admittedly Vampire Weekend are very new to me and very deserving of a visit to their previous 5 records.  Capricorn is a perfect entry point for me learn more about the band.

You can listen to my fave five songs for April here, here’s my April 5 playlist on Spotify, https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1OoLtjWVGvrN2qEki7AzPT?si=fe1c361f462d4f87.

As I did last month, here are the albums I’ve been listening to (a lot); Sheryl Crow “Evolution” and The Black Keys “Ohio Players”.  

Thank you for reading this post; to catch all my posts and be notified as new ones come up, please follow me on WordPress.  I can be found on X @robertdekker & @RedHrtBlueSign and on Facebook athttps://www.facebook.com/rob.dekker.54.  If you prefer email, please contact me at rdmedia@bell.net.

Page Turners of 2024…so far

In 2023 I set a goal of reading 30 books, I met and exceeded that by reading 31.  I set the same target for this year.  As I reach the one third mark of the year how am I doing?  Well, I’ve completed 12 books and started reading “The Next Age of Uncertainty” by Former Governor of the Bank of Canada, Stephen Poloz, it’s my 13^th read of the year.  I am two books ahead of my goal.  Here is quick look at those 12 books.

As I look back to the past few months of reading, I’ll bunch a few books together, the first, the political and historical  books, here are three books: The Duel, Steve Paikin’s John Turner and the Biography of Senator Marie Charrette-Poulin.  

Of these, “The Duel” was my favourite.  It highlights how successive governments can work together and how they don’t.  From the Liberal PM Louis St. Laurent to Conservative Diefenbaker and Liberal Lester Pearson, there are threads to link each of the governments.  Author John Ibbitson take us from the earliest of Canada’s 13^th and 14^th Prime Ministers.  Here is a Steve Paikin interviewing the author on the TVO show The Agenda, https://www.tvo.org/video/the-making-of-modern-canada.

I really enjoyed this, the playing off of each PM was fascinating.  What would a Harper vs. Trudeau version of this look like?  

Speaking of Paikin he does a good job of telling the life story of another Prime Minister in John Turner in An Intimate Biography of Canada’s 17^th Prime Minister.  Turner was a victim of circumstance of Pierre Trudeau coming out of Lester Pearson’s shadow in the Liberal leadership of 1968.  Those years of the late 60’s and early 70’s were golden years to be a Liberal in Canada.  There were many liberal bright minds who all could have served as PM after Pearson.  Turner had to wait until both Trudeau Sr. and Jean Chretien served to take his turn as PM. In this account of Turner’s life, we learn more about the Turner-Mulroney battles on Free Trade, elections, and the debates. We also read of his loyalty to the party and previous leader, even though it may have cost him the election in1984.

In “She Dares to Succeed: A Biography of the Honourable Marie-P Charrette-Poulin”, Fred Langan shares the story of a Senator and her rise through self-determination, hard work, kindness, and the appreciation of others.  I’ve known the Senator for a few years but got to ‘know’ Marie through this book;  Her trials, tribulations, and successes personally, professionally, and politically send a message that to succeed you must persevere and push on in what you believe.  On personal note, some of the accusation made of the Senator by the government cause me extreme discomfort and disappointment and disillusionment. 

The next stack of books would be under ‘autobiographies’, Here I have Bernie Taupin’s Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton and Me;   Draft Day: How Hockey Teams Pick Winners or get Left Behind by former NHL GM Doug MacLean and Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator  of Nike by Phil Knight.  

I picked up Draft Day after hearing him on the podcast “The Steve Warne Project”.  Steve Warne is an Ottawa broadcaster most known for his time on TSN1200.  It was a good read and the behind the scenes in hockey was fascinating to read.   A must for the hockey fan, especially while playoff are taking place.

Shoe Dog was recommended to me, and from the start this memoir read like a movie about a man (Phil Knight) with a dream and not allowing any country, person or other shoe stop him from what he truly believed in.  The determination of Knight was undeniable from the moment he realised what he was meant to do.  If you’ve never believed that hard work brings good luck and good luck comes to those that work hard, you must read Shoe Dog.  This will be one of my top reads of the year.

I wondered when, after Elton John published “Me” I might be able to read Bernie Taupin’s take on the rise the two of them experienced. Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton and Me takes us behind the glamour of the 70’s and into a life fans of Elton never knew.  Taupin’s ride into fame not unlike Elton’s, each had demons they fought through.  Looking at life from backstage, as Taupin did was a unique look at the learning, the work, the songs, the fame, the loves he experiences.  

His tale seemed a bit darker and that was entirely expected as Taupin was the ‘writer’ of the pair and he use of words was more descriptive, for the better days and the bad.  I felt this was a realistic telling of what being a star was really like in the 70’s and 80’s with the booze, drugs and the life of a rock star.  Like Shoe Dog, this is top shelf book for my books of 2024.

Alright, in a few words here are my thoughts of the other six books I’ve read so far this year.

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann, like Shoe Dog is the story of true-life events and is the basis for the heralded move of the same name.  Killers of the Flower Moon tells the story of the deaths members of the Osage nation in Oklahoma who became rich in the early days of oil in America.  The investigations of the US Marshall into the killings are the early days the FBI.  Read this book and then watch the movie.

Signal Moon (Kate Quinn) and A Very English Murder (Verity Bright) are period mysteries that were enjoyable.

Simple Lies another from David Baldacci I’ll keep reading his books as long as they remain page turners.

Librarianist from Canadian author Patrick deWitt, a story of…wait for it, Bob Comet, a Librarian .  I wish there would have been a turning point somewhere in the story.  Even the greatest surprise in the story didn’t affect the life of Bob.  Maybe the idea of The Librarianist is some lives just don’t have exceptional turning points.  I will give this to The Librarianist,  is a well written and I always felt the need to carry on until the end.

Murder Most Royal (Her Majesty the Queen Investigates #3) by S.J. Bennett is the third in a series and was published after the death of the Queen.  I’ve groewn fond of this series and look forward to the fourth “Death in Diamonds” reaching Canada soon as Bennett takes the storyline back to 1957 and the early years of her reign.

Now back to reading book 13, “The Next Age of Uncertainty” by Stephen Poloz.

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Thank you for reading this post; to catch all my posts and be notified as new ones come up, please follow me on WordPress.  I can be found on X @robertdekker & @RedHrtBlueSign and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/rob.dekker.54.  If you prefer email, please contact me at rdmedia@bell.net.