The Friday Morning Listen: Uncle Seth - Forgive and Forget, Vol. 1

In my youth, I was a typical American boy, meaning that my knowledge of the world wasn't so hot. What I got out of geography classes always seemed to involve stuff like capitals of countries, origins of rivers, and bauxite production statistics. So where's Malaysia? C'mon, you're kidding! More ridiculous than the lack of world geography awareness, I seemed to know even less about Canada. I mean, it's right "up there!" Did high school geography teach me about the Canadian provinces? Uhm...what's a province?

One night way back in the late 70's, while watching late night television (which could only have been Saturday Night Live or maybe professional wrestling), an ad came for a rock concert. It showed the typical long-haired rock stars clad in flowing silks and funny boots. The stage was filled with smoke and the lights flashed off of the guitars. Part of the voiceover: "Live, at the Moncton Coliseum...Styx!"

Woa, I thought...where the heck is Moncton?!

Hey, it was the pre-Internet age? I'd never heard of Moncton (which, by the way, is in New Brunswick). Besides, it's in Canada. Not on my radar. Yet.

A few years later, I had a college roommate who turned me on to a bunch of Canadian bands, my favorite being Trooper (who had a minor hit with "Raise A Little Hell"). Said roommate knew about this stuff because he was from Madawaska, Maine. Go ahead, look on a map. When people say that Bangor is "getting up there", you can see how off they are. Madawaska might as well be in Canada. I mean, Gary used to come back from weekends at home with cases of Budweiser with "Import" stamped on the label (No, that didn't make it taste any better).

This Trooper thing made me realize that, other than a few counterexamples like Rush, etc., maybe the music rags that I was reading were failing to expose hungry ears to all of the possibilities out there.

Ah, but times have changed. As the major labels flail around in an attempt to annoy just about everybody, independent bands have become more and more aware of the power of the Internet. Enter the podcast.

Article Author: Mark Saleski

Mark Saleski is a writer and music obsessive based out of the Monadnock region of New Hampshire. He has contributed to Jazz.com and also writes reviews for Blogcritics.org. He produces the weekly feature The Friday Morning Listen. …

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