Something worth checking out…

Almost a decade ago when I was attending Univeristy on the island, I did a lot of extra-carricular things to pass the time and keep myself out of trouble. One of those things was to write reviews and articles for the campus paper between exams and essays. I wrote for the paper for a few years and I enjoyed it quite a bit, writing reviews of movies, music and doing the odd survey and editorial. It was something I enjoyed, but one thing that was a lot of fun was the music reviews.

Every week there was a massive ten page list posted on the entertainment wall, and we would sign our names up for what material we wanted to review. If more than one person wanted to review the same album, a random draw was made and that person got the CD to review. We could sign up for a maximum of five albums per week. So if you wanted to get a new alternative or rock album, that was tough to accomplish since everyone signed up for all the good ones. I learned very early that if you wanted to review anything, you’d have to ignore the popular stuff, and review all the stuff that no one else wanted to touch with a ten foot pole.

My taste in music is massive in variety, so I didn’t mind signing up for the country music albums and other genres that no one wanted to listen to let alone review. So by going that route, I was getting 20 CDs a month and writing a lot of reviews by taking a chance and looking at the stuff no one else wanted or knew about. I didn’ have a problem reviewing a band or artist that I never heard of before. Some were not good to listen to, while others were so good that they are still in my CD collection today. I remember one week, I was the only person who signed up to review the following album:

The album is titled Vergito, the third release from Canadian jazz/new age guitarist Jesse Cook. I had not listened to his music before but I spent the entire week listening to this album over and over and over again, as I was blown away by the brilliance of the music and the passion coming from it. It was the best album I had reviewed that year, and it quickly became a favorite in my CD collection. Let me say this much: the guy can play the guitar. Pure and simple, some of his rips on this album made my jaw drop when I was first listening to it. Combine that with a very percussive backbeat, some Middle-Eastern touches on some tracks and Latin and flamenco on others… it makes a wonderful combinate. I liked this album so much, that it led me to not only keep the CD, but purchase his other two CDs so that I could listen to more of his stuff. All it took was one listen and I was hooked. Here is a video of one of the songs from that album that I reviewed for the paper. Check it out:

Just a small sample of the amazing music this canuck has been making over the last decade. Needless to say, I gave the album a rave review, but it never got printed in the paper since the editor preferred to post reivews of more mainstream that the students would actually recognize. The cool part was that as long as write the reviews, we get to keep the albums we review, which is pretty cool. I expanded my CD collection with some new unique stuff, and Vergito was one of the better albums that came my way during that time and was likely the best album I reviewed during my time at the campus paper.

So why am I looking back at this one review today? Check out the following picture for the answer:

When I got news that he was coming to Hamilton, this was one show I didn’t want to miss. I only bought one ticket for this concert though. I would have gotten one for Leah, but that’s the weekend she’s going back home to the island for Thanksgiving to visit her Mom. I’m excited about the show, which is only two weeks away. From what I was told when I got the tickets, the show is almost sold out and I was lucky to get my ticket this week cause they don’t expect to be any left by the end of this week. So I have another great show to look forward to, and is the reason why I decided to reminise about when I started to listen to this great artist’s music.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend, and I’ll be around again later today to post again and leave some notes. Until then, take care…

Peter