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The Band Gemini played Moving in stereo perfectly

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The song titled Moving in Stereo, by The Cars on their 1978 album debut LP, was is a song for the ages! It must be in the top 10 songs to silent to on headphones. The other way I loved listening to it was when it was played by my childhood friends band in Brantford called Gemini!

I clearly remember watching these guys in my parents backyard performing for my little sister’s birthday party. It was the song that I thought they did the best while playing live.

They played it in a very simple but yet secure form. It was very tight from beginning to end. Their version of the song was very haunting and ominous-sounding, just like The Cars.

This song “travels” around your speaker system during the first set of verses and once during the middle of the song. Each channel is faded in/out, in order. It’s a cool effect when you’re in your car, as the sound moves from front right, to back right to back left to front left. Gemini didn’t have the same panning effects in their PA system or have that futuristic vocal effects, but it was true to the original form of the song.

They also had a strong resemblance to the Cars stage presence. Nicely done boys!

I recently saw a show that used it in one of it’s episodes. It was in an episode of Family Guy that rips off the Fast Times scene. Very funny stuff indeed! God I love that show.

So in case some of you out there have never heard of this song, check out the below video. This is a live version, so it does not represent the sound quality of the album, but you get the idea. When I listen to this song today, I can close my eyes and still see the band Gemini performing it at my little sister’s party!

Keep on Jammin’ Gemini where ever you are!





Hockey filled holidays

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Well this 2008/9’s holiday season was full of both work and lots of fun for all of us here! We worked hard but played harder.

At work, we had less OR rooms open, so natural we had less staff working! This doesn’t mean that the work load on each of us there was any less. Just like any other work place during slow times, there were times when we had nothing to do (just waiting for the OR patients to arrive) and at other times it was fast paced and chaotic (when we were inundated with patients)! Then after all the craziness, came the fun!

We eventually got up and drove to my home town of Brantford early that Christmas morning to celebrate with my family. We ate a lot of GREAT food, had a few eggnog based beverages (NOT too many) and then hours later we headed back off to T.O. We brought back with us my brother and his son, with all his new hockey equipment in tow from his cache of this year’s Christmas gifts from the family!

The weather was great, around -3 (C) with light flurries. It was about 9:00 PM, we had a quick drink, got our gear ready and then headed off to the local out door rink at Dieppe Park! Once we arrived, we put on our equipment and headed off to the pleasure skating rink, to get our ice legs ready, before hitting the hockey ice pad.

The hockey rink had around 8 guys on it once we arrived. Once we skated onto it, the guys asked us if we wanted to join them on their teams for a game? After they said this, my nephew’s eye’s just opened wide with excitement! The look in his eyes said, finally playing some REAL hockey, on a traditional out door Canadian ice pad!!!

These guys were around 17-20 years old. My brother and myself being of, shall we say developed years, were a little worried about how our performance would be, in front of the little guy. As it turned out, we did great. We still had some decent rushes in us and had some nice tape to tape passes (really we did, ask the little guy!) that night. After 12:30 AM, 3 hours later, we decided to call it quits.

The next morning my joints didn’t feel all that bad, to my wife’s surprise, and we then proceeded on back 2 more times that day! The following day we also managed to get back out there 2 more times, but now the aches and pains were starting to set in.

While my they were here in Toronto, we also met up with more family and friends. We even talked my cousin and his son into heading out onto the ice for a laugh!

After a couple of days here, our guests headed back to their home in Chicago. Now it was time for some ice … not the one at the rink or the ones in a drink … if you know what I mean!?

Hopefully you all had a blast! Happy Holidays everyone.

The 1980s band called Toronto

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Toronto is one of the many favorite 1980’s bands that I enjoyed listening to and playing during that same time period.

Toronto had a sound that was a nice mixture of both Rock and Pop. I guess the best way to sum up their timbre, is to call it Melodic Rock. The band’s tunes stayed playing in the back of my mind, long after the music was turned off. Even today, every time I hear anything from them, it just brings back some great memories and really, isn’t that what music is all about?!

The band that I played many Toronto songs with, didn’t have a name back then. They were (the drummer) Domenic Nardone, a female bass player (who for the life of me I cannot remember her name right now), Eddie S. (guitar) and myself. We practiced this material over and over again until Eddie, who was the youngest in the band, started to flip out once in a while and go all heavy metal on us! This was just his way of getting back at us, I think?! In his mind, he thought that practicing was just to get together and JAM like wild men! The bass player sang like Holly Woods perfectly and she also had some decent bad bass chops, not as intricate as Chris Noto! This women had a some good ear training.

Even the score, Girls Night Out and Start telling the truth (which I really wanted a keyboardist for the band to play this one but couldn’t find one in our area) were just some of the fabulous dishes that this band served us up during in their hey day.

At the time there were so many other great bands out there, flying through the airways, that took away some of Toronto’s thunder. The music wasn’t all that technical, the structure of the songs did not challenge the imagination that much, but they had that certain harmonic gift, that made me always want to hit the repeat button over and over again!

So here I hope to jog some of your musical memories, out of the old brain box, for some of you fellow Toronto fans. And I know your out there!

Toronto the band maybe gone, but their certainly not forgotten!
Keep on Jammin’

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