My sax was stolen yesterday. Its rare and not easy to replace. Even worse my son was playing it and now he doesn't have a sax. Could you fellow musicians keep an eye out on Ebay or when you're in pawn shops accross Canada... or ...anywhere? If someone figures out what they have (a little research on the net will do) they will try to sell it to someone who knows what it is. That's my only hope.
SML Strasser-Marigaux "Gold Medal MK I", tenor sax, ser #20349. Pretty mint condition, currently in a "King" case but earlier than a King SML... serial number places its birthday around 1968 in Paris France.
There will be a reward for its return. Don't know what it is yet but I will provide it.
Here's an interesting story about SML saxophones:
http://www.saxontheweb.net/SML/more_of_story.html
Country dogs. Who could make a golden retriever vicious? They have the run of the land and are far from any social circle. Horses, cattle and sheep are herded. Why not runners and their dogs? A surfer paddling his board looks like a seal to a shark. A runner and his dog passing by the mouth of the long farm gravel drive are either intruders, rustlers or strays. It’s a clampdown or a shot into the sky that keeps the crows away. Bare your teeth. Raise your hackles. Bluster. Cut off the angle. Get under the wheels. Nip at the heels. City dog lowers her haunches and pulls her tail in as she runs. Ears flat to the head and lips tight she abandons her charge to draw the attacker further away. She’s fast and schooled in the evasive tactics of play. Comes in handy when it’s no longer shinny and the real game is on. Snarling golden reaches the tether of his own limits far at the corner post of the property. He returns with a bouncer’s swagger back down the gravel drive to his place on the porch. Runner is done yelling. Runner and dog talk each other down for the next kilometer. Good girl. Good girl. Never mind. Chest heaves. Near miss, car accident adrenaline turns to wild awareness and the countryside turns brighter colours. Fuji greens and Kodak blues. There are birds in the tree coming up. A willow hanging over the roadside stream. Small blackbirds all with a different song. One squawks. One trills. One screams. One is so impressed with a new scale that she repeats it without a breath in between. Glissandos. Shrieks. Hundreds of birds all affected by the dog battle. They must have been silent for the time it took to play out the farm perimeter Discovery channel highlight reel. Now they are all phoning in their coverage to any other bird that will listen. They jam the airwaves to reach all species within birdcall distance. The cacophony is a massive spiral made from so many delicate instruments. A loud snowflake. An Escher painting made of bird sound. One lone tree with acres of empty grassland around. It’s all coming from one place. It is an arcade tree. All the pinball tilts and high score bells and a hundred kids with their heads down into their own little worlds. It all adds up to something big and strange. All of them tune each other out and the one lone pheasant punctuating the pasture, with its sleepy green head and red beer-belly, ignores the arcade roar like any senior at the bus stop outside a “Playdium” -- Another generation’s folly. The city dog sits down and looks at the tree. The runner pets the dog's head gently and stares. They are both thinking the same thing. If the country dog sees the Buddha on the road this must be what happens.
If you want to buy a picture of my big ol head while I'm talking and slightly hunched over you can get it at this gentleman's site.
http://editorial.gettyimages.com/source/search/details_pop.aspx?iid=52581469&cdi=0
I mean...what's the market value of that? If this is a hot item I have more stuff for eBay than I thought. Break out the dryer lint! At least I should be showing some skin.
Here are the things I said to induct the Tragically Hip into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. There may never be a more worthy band in this country. I will see you after victory at Augusta.
"A rock band is a booby-trap. A comfort food that ain’t always good for the chef. Sweet greens and candied blues served on a thick bed of gut churning stress and co-dependent dysfunction. The Tragically Hip grind through all that sand in the gears and through improvisation, trust, fear and friendship they…together…spit out miraculous black pearls of songs. It’s an achievement best understood by other musicians…their peers
I would like my friends Johnny Fay, Gord Downie, Robbie Baker, Paul Langlois & Gord Sinclair to know that they are being inducted into this Juno Hall of Fame not only by a faceless jury of music business illuminati but…here...as I speak they are also being inducted into this Hall of Fame by their fellow musicians, performers and writers.
An induction by your peers,.. after the usual homoerotic hazing ritual similar to those performed when first crossing the equator in a naval vessel,.. has to do with being recognized for staying true to oneself and owning the moment. Fellow musicians know best when someone is faking it. Lets face it… we Canadians stole rock from south of the border. That’s where it was born.
The reason the Hip’s music so well defines a sense of being Canadian is because they have stolen the essential gears and elements from the music they loved and applied the grease of their own lives. Now their machine runs on their own pure DNA and spits out new life.
That is the ONLY way to build culture. That is the ONLY way to make a legendary band that others will imitate. Give them rules to break, give them money and let them go. Then they make REAL new music. A screaming purple headed, mucous covered ball of crowning ruby flesh…..type….. music -- you women know what I’m talking about.
Music that springs back out of you like a thousand languages you can’t even speak. A slap in the face after a loud ride on the red-hot balls of puberty or an angel dropping rose petals on a feather bed. You know, …The Hip. Each time it would have been sensible for them to repeat themselves they went back inside the clubhouse and relied on each other to come up with something new. Abiding by the loudest unspoken rule of band life – use your initial success to clear space for doing something different. As musicians we know that, in this way, they will continue to change music and speak freestyle. We know their success through bravery is what has allowed Canadian musicians the option of a good life without leaving their roots behind.
Take this Hall of Fame award as a baton and keep running just like you have with all your other Junos. We’re happy to keep passing it to you for the anchor leg…smiling and nodding as you race off the floodlit track, through the tall grass and out into the dark distance… again."
After I was finished, and the band came up to get their awards, Gord Downie read a poem. You might want to read it...and... you can do so here at www.thehip.com