Keith Sharp - Music Express: The Rise, Fall & Resurrection of Canadas Music Magazine

Copyright Keith Sharp, 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

Editor: Michael Melgaard

Design: Courtney Horner

Epub Design: Carmen Giraudy

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Sharp, Keith, author

Music express : the rise, fall & resurrection of Canadas music

magazine / author, Keith Sharp ; foreword by Alan Frew.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 9781459721968

1. Music express (Willowdale, Ont.). 2. Music--Periodicals-

History. 3. Musical criticism--Canada--History. I. Title.

ML3484.S532 2014 782.42164 C2013-908374-X

C2013-908375-8

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and Livres Canada Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

J. Kirk Howard, President

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This book is dedicated to the memory of my beloved parents,

Richard and Lily Sharp, who both passed away recently.

My mom died July 4, 2009, and my dad passed away September 12, 2012.

Both were energetic people who enjoyed a great love for life.

Both were accomplished ballroom dancers who married young and

loved the contemporary music of their day Elvis Presley,

Frankie Laine, Johnnie Ray and yes, The Beatles.

They would have been proud of this book

and of my achievement in completing this project.

I was recently purging the contents of my office when I came across several items that one might label memorabilia. Now of course in this day and age, memorabilia has become synonymous with items that tend to have great collectable and/or monetary value. Particularly to those who are so inclined to wheel and deal in such things.

Mostly of great interest and value seem to be items that had previously belonged to the rich and famous of Hollywood, politics, sports, and, of course, rock n roll. For instance, someone at this very moment may own a droplet of Keith Richardss blood from his now famous Swiss Transfusions of the seventies; or perhaps its one of Elton Johns many toupees from a time just prior to the miracle of follicle reassignment; maybe, in fact, its something much simpler like the peas and carrots that Slash threw up backstage in Helsinki just prior to the Guns N Roses concert being cancelled due to the fact that Axl wasnt in Helsinki!

The value of memorabilia, however, may have little or nothing to do with its monetary status, qualifying in fact merely as a souvenir, memento, or a treasured little keepsake. The objects only real significance is the psychological connection the possessor has with it as a symbol of his or her past experience. This, ladies and gentlemen, was precisely the type of memorabilia I found that day in my office.

So you may ask, What did you discover?

No, it wasnt the pink (Ill never admit it) T-shirt from Glass Tigers old Someday video of 1987. Nor was it the enormous white plastic sunglasses from the horrible American Dont Forget Me (When Im Gone) reshoot video of a previously horrible Canadian version by the same name. No, it wasnt either of those.

It was in fact a copy of the very first Music Express magazine that I or Glass Tiger ever appeared in. That, ladies and gents, is indeed a symbol of past experience and I will never part with it. When I hold it and take a look through its pages, I get the exact same feelings I get when I hear an old friend playing on the radio. Like say, Maggie Mae, Every Breath You Take, Simply the Best, or, yes, even Dont Forget Me (When Im Gone). I see the sights, I still hear the sounds, I smell the aromas, and I savour the tastes of great music and of great times.

No magazine symbolized those times greater than Music Express . Yes indeed, if the music symbolized an old friend, then by the same token, Music Express symbolized family.

A great big musical family!

Now, for the record, Id like to be able to say, I remember it well. However, what I need to say is, I remember it well, but not as well as Keith.

I heard once that music is the true international language of the world. In his book, Keith has also given it a name, a place, a time, and a date.

Alan Frew

April 2012

I boarded an Air Canada flight out of Toronto in May 2004. My destination: the Music West Conference in Vancouver. It was my annual trek to attend that gathering of nightclub showcases and music industry conferences, modelled on more successful events like SXSW in Austin, Texas, and Torontos own NXNE festival.

To be honest, I dont know why I bothered going. Few new bands or artists ever get discovered at these things, and attendance from out-of-town industry delegates had dropped off drastically in recent years. The few conferences that were actually staged usually featured guest speakers who didnt believe their own verbiage. Still, it was a good chance to touch base with key West Coast industry types, like top managers Bruce Allen and Sam Feldman, and musician mates like The Payola$ singer Paul Hyde and Trooper front man Ra McGuire (who could usually be found hanging around the clubs), while also executing store checks for my magazine, Access .