Fare Thee Well, Will Austin

Photo by Sandra Lynn Belanger

He came from British Columbia with the hair of a madman and a head full rock solos. Like Buddy Holly on acid, he went from one weird project to the next, a troubadour of messed-up folk interspersed with space-rock from beyond explanation.

A proud Concordia University alumni, he will now take his squealin’ Bob Dylan renditions to Toronto, where I suppose he will become an investment banker or a used car salesman.

He leaves countless other musicians to mourn his absence, including but not limited to everyone in the Sake Of The Songs benefit shows, the UnPop Montréal festival, the singer-songwriter crew, Loaded/S.H.A.L.L. and other supergroups, as well as the hundreds of bands he’s started that lasted for six months before going into hibernation/indefinite hiatus. And of course SsKKLLffkk.

Godspeed, sailor. You will be remembered. In 2055.

Video Of The Week: Men Without Hats

You can dance if you want to, you can leave your friends behind, 'cause your friends don't dance and if your friends don't dance, well, they're no friends of mine. Or maybe they are, I don't know, I'm not much of a dancer anymore...

Long gone are the days of my breakdancing youth...

I chose this Men Without Hats song for a simple reason: I'll be playing it on Sunday at the Sake Of The Songs benefit show for the Mile-End Mission - which really needs the proceeds these days, what with the minus-30 weather and all - along with a song by Sarah McLachlan (Hold On) and one by Richard Desjardins (Pis J'ai Couché Dans Mon Char).

The evening's theme is ''Canadian Folk'', and while I mostly respect it with the other two artists, I'm stretching it quite a bit with this song - but they expect me to cross certain lines at these shows anyway; there are enough straightforward folkies playing the event anyway, they kind of need me as a mood breaker/comic relief.

I'll likely have the video playing in my head while I'm belting it out, too, and will imagine little people all around me. Maybe.