The sheer amount of musical equipment I've been through over the years makes me wonder where it all went. I had cheap boomboxes that had a radio and played tapes. After high school, I got my first apartment and bought a mini component stereo from a friend of a friend. I had NO idea what all the components or buttons were for. I only knew how to use the radio, tape deck and record player. I didn't even know how to hook it all up. My brother probably did it for me.

I don't know how he knew how to do it but ever since I could remember, my brother was always taking stuff apart, especially anything electronic. Once he was electrocuted by a tv and was thrown across his bedroom. Luckily it was just a nasty shock and wasn't anything more serious. I remember he had a CB radio. I have no idea where he got it from but I remember talking to truckers on it. My brother was the 10-4 kid and me, being such a cat lover, named myself the pussycat base. Unbeknownst to be at the time that that was so inappropriate for a 12 year old girl LOL. It was fun though and the truckers were harmless.

Years later, I had a Walkman that played tapes. I remember lugging around this silver brick of a thing but I was just happy to be out walking around with my music in my hand. It was the first time I could actually take my music with me. Doesn't seem like such a big deal now but back then that was huge! Then I graduated to CD's and had a Discman. The only problem with it was you had to hold it away from your body because it would skip if it bounced as you walked. Those were the days before I got my first car and I would walk or take public transit everywhere.

When I was twenty-seven I bought my first car. This would have been about 1992 but it was a '73 Plymouth Duster and only had a very old radio in it where you could push the buttons for radio stations or spin the knob to scan for them. I didn't have it for long because it had electrical problems and you couldn't shut it off to get gas or else it wouldn't start again. Then I had a '76 Olds Cutlass Supreme, the car that we had during our newspaper/concert going/Woodstock era, the car that got totalled and probably saved my life when I had my accident, the car that everyone made fun of but affectionately known as “The Tank”. Then there was an '80 Cadillac Eldorado with computer problems, an '83 Chevette with the duct tape on the driver's side window so it wouldn't fall into the doorframe, a '92 Dodge Shadow that was stolen, recovered and written off because of cigarette burns in the seats, a '96 Saturn that was totalled by a deer and now I have an '03 Pontiac Grand Prix GT.

I mentioned my vehicles because the only one that came with a stereo that plays CD's is my current one. At one time I had a portable CD player that had one part that looked like a tape that would go in the stereo and an electrical plug that went into the cigarette lighter. Then in another car I had a stereo installed that you could pull out the whole thing and just have a fake plate on the front so no one would break in to steal it. This meant I had to take it out and put it back in every time I got home and went back out.

Needless to say, I no longer have those previous cars or any of those gadgets. Some of them went with the cars, some of the portable ones went somewhere I can't recall. I'm pretty sure I don't have them anymore but they could be packed away in a box somewhere. I just didn't feel right about parting with them by throwing them in the garbage.

So then followed this grey area in my musical existence where I was only listening to new country as mentioned in a previous blog. I wasn't really paying much attention to much else out there musically. I certainly didn't come across anything that really excited me to the point of wanting to actually buy any music. It may have been where I was in my personal life at the time or perhaps it was the lack of anything that really grabbed my interest.

Once I was free and on my own again, I took another stab at flipping through the radio stations trying to find something to listen to. As it happens, you tend to gravitate towards songs that fit your current situation. Around that time, The Script's “Breakeven” came out. It really hit me hard emotionally. It came out after my marriage was over, and I had eventually ventured into a relationship with a friend who I'd known longer than my ex-husband only to have it blow up in my face. At the time I thought my friend might actually be my soul mate if such a thing existed. That crash and burn experience gave me my first really hard core experience with Karma. I had hurt some really badly and now someone had hurt me in return to the point where I was literally curled up on the floor, crying my eyes out and “praying to a God that I don't believe in”. I may not be religious but I am spiritual in my own way. It definitely brought home the fact that “when a heart breaks no it don't break even”.

It was such an awakening on so many levels. Once again, this person wasn't who I thought he was, there IS such a thing as Karma and it will knock you on your ass and do more damage than anything you could possibly come up with for revenge. No need to get back at anyone for anything because the Universe will do a much better job of it than you. I knew eventually I was going to be okay after I had healed once again. I was really done with relationships at that point, at least for the time being. I've always been independent since a very young age and am quite content on my own.

While I was going through all this heartbreak and to add insult to injury, suddenly I was being forced to move again. I was living on the top floor of an old house. The first floor was a restaurant, the second floor had two apartments. The restaurant and building were sold and totally renovated by the new owners only to find out they could no longer have residential space on the third floor. It was noisy and inconvenient but I was enamored with the small town charm and the farmer's markets with their fresh produce and baked goods. After a mad scramble to find a new home I had no luck finding another place out in the country and was forced to move back to Toronto after being out of the city for about 11 years.

Since then I've adapted to my new digs and then rediscovered my love of music when I rediscovered Gavin DeGraw. I knew of him from his previous hits but didn't really delve into his music until then. Just when I had gone through such a long drought and was thirsty for something to really sink my teeth into musically, it came back to me through Gavin. I still can't put into words how or why specifically. I've tried to explain it to my family on many occasions only to have their eyes glaze over as if they're wondering if I've lost my mind or something. Needless to say I'm on my own in my real life when it comes to my love for Gavin's music. Online is a totally different story...to be continued.

Just before I turned thirty, I moved up north to go back to school. The company I had been working for closed down and I thought I'd take the opportunity to change my vocation. I'd been doing office work for years but felt such a connection to animals that I wanted to get the training and find something in that field instead. Initially my brother and I continued with our entertainment newspaper, still going to some events and working on the entertainment listings. It soon became apparent that my course for Veterinary Assistant was far too demanding to continue doing the newspaper.

This was originally a four year course now crammed into two years. It also entailed doing shifts on kennel duty as well as stable duty. It had been so long since I had done anything like school work that I found myself up most of the night trying to keep up with the homework. I had such a hard time grasping it all. The instructors were not teachers even though they worked in the field and knew their stuff. They just didn't know how to explain it to anyone else. The courses were all over the place. By that I mean, instead of coordinating the topics they were covering in each subject, they were all doing different things. For example, if we were studying bones, you'd think we'd be doing that all at the same time in Anatomy, Biology, Physiology etc. Had it been done that way maybe I might have been able to put the pieces together to make sense out of it. That's just how my brain functions. It has to be logical, it has to be in order, it has to make sense, there has to be a chain of events. Scattered bits and pieces of information just don't sink in. Even after gets A's in some of my courses I did get a few F's and was forced to leave the program and start over next fall. I decided to take all my electives in second semester and passed with flying colours and was prepared to reapply.

That's when I had my first big car accident. Prior to that I'd only had little bumps and dings. I had to go down to Toronto to do a report on a play for my Drama class. Coming back the roads were icy and my big boat of a car ended up wrapped around a telephone pole. Good thing I hit the pole or else I would have gone down a huge embankment. Good thing my car was such a tank or my injuries could have been much worse. I ended up having extensive physiotherapy, chiropractic and various other treatments and assessments for a solid eight months until my insurance cut me off. All that became a full-time job and I was unable to go back to college in the fall.

What does this have to do with music, you ask? I was so upset that some of my tapes and CD's had gone flying out the window as my car was on a slant and I had to climb up to get out of it. A special tow truck had to come out the following day. I retrieved what I could while it was up on the flatbed. Once my car was taken to the wrecking yard, the vultures picked it apart and took the rest of my music, some of which was given to us by artists that we had interviewed for the newspaper. I felt so violated by the fact that they went through my stuff and these irreplaceable pieces of my life, pieces that I had relished and listened to over and over were now gone forever. I didn't even care about the car. They could take whatever parts they wanted from that. I also realized that a lot of it was very dark music as I was in a very dark place in my life at the time. I felt I needed to move on...not just to more positive music but also a more positive life. It took a bit more time but I managed to get up the courage and get out of a very bad situation so I packed up and ran. It took just as long to heal emotionally as it did to get out. Thanks to my Mom and my music I came out of it a much stronger person.

Back in my twenties, my brother and I had our own entertainment newspaper. He was in a photography course and basically spearheaded the entire venture. We would go to concerts and plays for free in exchange for doing reviews. My brother would do the photography and interviews as he was much more outgoing than I was back then. I would transcribe the interviews, write the reviews and do the listings for all the things happening in entertainment in and around the city. We even took on a “staff” of photography and journalism students to cover events after we had first pick of the ones we wanted to attend. They were able to go to stuff for free as well but also gain some hands-on experience outside of the classroom.

We drove around the city, asking places if we could put our free newspaper in their premises and if they'd like to put an ad in it. We would also try to get contacts, access to events and ads over the phone. I remember driving all over Toronto, back seat and trunk loaded with bundles of newspapers, my brother and I delivering them all ourselves. We soon found out that it cost way more to print and distribute a newspaper than we were making from our advertising revenue. Needless to say we only came out with one printed version and the rest of our editions were all online.

Out of all the plays I've seen, first as a drama student, then as an entertainment journalist I would have to say my absolute favourite would be Les Miserables. Funny enough, I have absolutely no interest in seeing the movie as it would somehow taint my original experience with the play. Besides, that production makes me do the big, ugly, sobby cry.

As far as all the concerts and festivals I've been to, the absolute number one experience would be Woodstock. Not the first one because I wasn't even four years old yet. We went to the second one in 1994 with all the mud and peace and love, not the third one with all the riots and destruction. First we went to the original site in Bethel. It seemed to have an older crowd vibe to it which felt kind of boring as I was in my twenties at the time. I'm sure it wasn't such a snooze fest once the older performers came on stage but we couldn't really stick around. Then we went to the new site in Saugerties. We soon found out that we were considered “International media” even though we were from just across the border. This meant that we were not entitled to the food tent for the U.S. media. We were not prepared for that at all and didn't really bring any food or very much money, just basically for the road trip and some camping gear for sleeping. Not that we slept as we were camped on a steep hill, in the rain, in an area designated for “International media” and there was too much going on to sleep. I think I ate a lot of hotdogs while we were there as it was probably the cheapest and most filling food available at the concession stands. I also forgot my camera in the trunk of my car and cooked it on the inside, you know the ones you had to put film in. I still have the t-shirt but I lost some of my t-shirts collected from all the concerts I've been to as they were stored in boxes and damaged by a flooded basement.

Wet, muddy, sleepless and hungry we were still elated from the whole Woodstock experience. It almost felt like it probably would have at the original one, just a different mix of music. We felt so privileged to be considered media back in the day when you didn't have cheap concert tickets, VIP seating or Meet & Greet packages to make more money. Musicians were not as accessible back then. Being able to get music for free has forced the industry to make buying music and selling concert tickets much cheaper.

When I was in grade four I was in the school choir and performed at school talent shows. I think I started piano lessons around the same time. I wanted to learn how to play drums but my Mother made me take piano instead. Looking back I don't blame her. My tinkling of the ivories was noisy enough, probably a little jarring on the nerves but not as much as drums would have been. Mind you, my brother took trumpet in school but he'd practice in the basement. I struggled with getting from the music printed in front of me to come out of my fingertips and copy itself on the keyboard. There was just too much of a disconnect for me to really get it. I took classical music for years, finally got fed up and asked to take more modern music instead. I did that for one year and during that time all we did was Christmas carols so I gave it up after that. I just couldn't really grasp it and it was too much of a struggle to be enjoyable. I particularly hated piano recitals because even if I could play it perfectly at home, I would get totally stressed out if I had to play in front of an audience. It was like I'd black out because I can't even remember if I got through them with or without making mistakes. I was just glad it was over...until the next one. I think it was mandatory to do recitals to move up to the next grade in classical music.

It did teach me some things about how to read music. It made it easier to learn how to sing the songs for choir. I'd even help others learn the notes and harmonies. I continued doing the school choir from grade four until the end of high school. With that came the school trips to other cities in Canada and the U.S. We also got to perform in Toronto at Roy Thompson Hall a couple times and all over the city at other schools. Also during that time I did school plays and musicals, either as a lead or in the chorus, even one production doing stuff in the background with the lights and music. We were even approached by the CBC for our drama students to be extras in a tv movie. It was a very long, very boring day that went late into the night so they had to pay us some meager amount and feed us some pizza. It was very handy that we were filming at a pizza place. Still not really enough to fill our bellies. Needless to say, after all that, my brief movie appearance ended up on the cutting room floor.

For as long as I could remember, I had always thought that I would have been an actress. My Mom even had me in a Saturday morning theatre school at Factory Theatre Lab. I believe it was called that though I may be wrong about the name. I remember having breakfasts at McDonald's and always getting pancakes and sausage but the syrup could never touch my meat LOL. After high school I soon found out that you had to have money for an agent and a portfolio and do auditions. I was fine in a choir or playing a character on stage with my fellow performers. I was not fine performing solo in any way. It took me back to my piano recital days so I quickly gave up my dream of becoming an actress. It was so different from my experiences in school with my fellow classmates, people that I already knew, teachers that would always accept me for the roles. I could not handle rejection, I was not emotionally strong enough to take it. I was just too fragile.

In hindsight I'm glad I wasn't a “struggling artist”. I much preferred getting a regular paycheck in something I was also good at doing and still do to this day. I'm not even creative enough to do anything original, just good at copying and evoking emotions. I could not imagine having people in your face 24/7 wanting to know every little thing about your personal life, whether it be true or fabricated. I prefer having my quiet, peaceful life over being in the public eye...assuming I would have even succeeded to get to that point.

Recent events have reminded me of my musical past. It all started at a very young age with my little record player that played 45's and had detachable speakers. Back then we had story books that came with the little vinyl discs that fascinated me. I remember setting up the speakers pointing out my bedroom window facing the park behind our house and blasting songs from Winnie The Pooh, singing along at the top of my lungs thinking that this was just too good not to share with the world.

My Mom's boyfriend had an 8-track cassette player in the car, another piece of musical technology that fascinated me. We had a huge wooden stereo console that was a thing of beauty in itself. You lifted the lid to gain access to the radio controls and the record player. The sides of this beautiful piece of furniture had huge speakers hidden inside. You opened the front doors and stacked inside was a plethora of music at your finger tips and by that I mean something you could actually tangibly flip through and hold in your hands. The artwork was so beautiful, the lyrics I spent hours pouring over were inside, sometimes they even came with a poster. I had to learn every word, every note until I could sing it exactly the same as the original.

I grew up listening to the likes of Cat Stevens, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Janis Ian, Phoebe Snow, and Joni Mitchell, just to name a few that stand out in my mind. I may be ageing myself but I don't care. I feel honoured and privileged to have lived in a time where each decade was so much more definitive. The continued social uprising in the 60's where people protested, sometimes peacefully and sometimes not just for racial and gender equality. This carried over into the hippie days of the 70's where people refused to no longer be repressed, more women got out of the kitchen and into the working world. Peace and love were becoming the norm and war was no longer accepted and tolerated as just a way of life. People spoke up instead of keeping their mouths shut. As well as the Woodstock generation carrying over into the 70's there was also disco music. Then the 80's were known for heavy metal and hair bands. The 90's came out with Grunge music. Beyond that, the decades have kind of blurred. They haven't been so clearly defined by the music and fashion of the previous decades. Anyone born after the year 2000 will never really experience these things in their lifetime as I have been so fortunate to do.

I remember when cassette tapes came out. If they didn't come with lyrics I spent hours stopping and starting the tape so I could transcribe it word for word. I had pages and pages of songs written down, other people's songs because I could never come up with something original. If you couldn't rewind them you'd use a pencil and twirl them around until you got back to the beginning. Then there was CD's, almost as good as vinyl records but holding the little booklet insert just wasn't the same as sitting cross legged and having an album cover sprawled across your lap. Sure they were better sound quality, didn't get scratched as easily, harder to break and more portable. I remember having a Sony Walkman and having to hold it away from my body as I walked so the CD wouldn't skip.

I think my past with music has made it difficult for me to move past CD's. If I buy one and there's no lyrics, I feel ripped off. I just can't get beyond the tangible and get into the downloads and hollow sounding MP3's. I need something visual to go along with the audible. I need something I can hold in my hands. Sadly I no longer have my records or record player. Now I wish I still did.

“On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with red roses?” - Meatloaf

On a hot summer night in July, despite my better judgement, I may do just that under the right circumstances. That is when Gavin DeGraw will be making a very rare appearance on my side of the border. Apparently the last time he was here was 8 years ago for a One Tree Hill promo tour. Needless to say, I missed his coming up in the music world.

From 2002 to 2009 I was with someone who pretty much only listened to new country and some of the old twangy stuff I couldn't stand. To find some common ground, I only listened to new country. He played guitar and I sang but it was a struggle to find songs we could do together. During my marriage, that was the only time in my life that I had put on weight. I think it was due to the fact that we were living out in the country, the long commutes, the late dinners, getting older but mostly being so utterly unhappy. It started about a year after getting married. All of a sudden he changed into another person. I was left wondering what the hell happened to the guy I had been with over the previous 3 years, first living together and then married. I guess he was pretending to be someone else all that time and not his true self. In the end, the one interest we shared, our mutual interest in music wasn't enough. Ultimately we found that we had nothing in common.

For many reasons, it finally came to the point where I said “I've had enough, I can't take anymore, I want out, just let me go”. All of the sudden, within a 2 week period, the weight just came off. The stress of going through marriage counselling, living in separate rooms, doing the legal paperwork, then packing up and moving out added to the weight loss. Since that time, my weight once again hasn't been an issue...until now.

I spend far too much time sitting in front of a computer, at work and at home. Although doing the fan pages has added so much to my life, it has also added to my waistline. With this upcoming concert in July, I feel motivated and compelled to look my best for some reason. Mostly for me because I'm fed up with it, partly just in case I finally get to meet Gavin. It probably won't mean anything to him but I feel I must do this for myself regardless. “I've had enough, I can't take anymore”. I'll have to work hard to let it go this time though. So from a hot summer night in July for my wedding to a hot summer night in July for my first Gavin DeGraw concert, things have come a very long way baby. The saga continues...and digresses to my past.