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I was raised on this album. The puppets on the cover mystified me. I loved puppets, still do but I had no idea that it was a Winnipeg kids show until years later. My first girlfriend's mother dated Uncle Bob, the puppeteer. The whole album sounds like it was done in one take in the studio. Did he bring his puppets with him? There's some amazing moments including Marvin Mouse singing "Hey Tuttle" to Tuttle Turtle. When I first heard "Hey Jude" I thought it was. a cheap ripoff of "Hey Tuttle." Later I wound up covering "Hey Tuttle" as "Hey Lil Hamm" for my act Canned Hamm. Artist Michael Dumontier of Winnipeg's Royal Art Lodge wound up giving me other Funtown albums, all deliriously shoddy. My dear friend Christina Rice wound up making puppet replicas of Tuttle Turtle, Marvin Mouse, and Petite that I treasure to this day. If you like I'll share more on this. I highly recommend the album.
Jul 6, 2025
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Somehow stumbled on this vid from Sep 1, 2017 with 827 views. Made for the Halifax School Board Music Department in the 70s. I love the opening medley and the image of the band on the back cover.
It was published by Waterloo Music Company and I grew up in KWC, so it's a meaningful find. I fell down a little rabbit hole on the Canadian music industry.
Here's the discog for more info: https://www.discogs.com/release/7811645-A-Ukuleles-Of-Halifax-Ukulele-Yes-?srsltid=AfmBOooN-uXInncYqLXq3e54j24f7kWn1qJE0-Wv59gIqEqeChNLoHeg
Jun 5, 2025
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⭐If you’ve got kids check it out on YouTube. Absurdly cute and frustratingly catchy.
Feb 1, 2024
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someone on here was asking what people do to jolt their creativity. this is mine. John & Faith Hubley animate an audio recording of their daughters playing in their yard. It’s magical. This 9 minutes reminds me of how i saw the world as a little girl. 🫀
Jul 2, 2025
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🎵I just joined a few days ago as my friend Chloe recommended it (she also wants a mug). I find it neat like early Tumblr -or MySpace which I loved until it stopped loading and felt forced to join the cold and creepy Facebook which kept on getting creepier and creepier and then made Instagram creepy too. I have been finding the internet really nasty lately what with AI, Twitter, Spotify, and all these techie supervillains running about. This does feel nicer.
Jul 9, 2025
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Hi, self promo time! "Cold Glitter" is my new book from Feral House. It has lots of wild stories and fabulousness on a dime so no, you definitely do not have to be Canadian or a Glam head to enjoy it. Over 400 pages of PIZZAZZAMATAZZ and ten years in the making. Get it from Feral House or ask for it at your favourite shop or library.
"Dayton's deep plunge into the crystalline depths of Canadian Glam is a strange swim indeed, something only an author this obsessive could provide -- a mirror ball's worth of wild reflections on an ice-cracked world long gone. No need to know anything beforehand about Canada or its music to be thoroughly dazzled by this scintillant dip! C'mon, shoot the boots!"
Guy Maddin, director of Rumours (2024), My Winnipeg (2007), and The Saddest Music in the World (2003) among many.
“The always-entertaining Robert Dayton details a mysterious, undocumented scene that was hiding in plain sight up North. Written with the enthusiasm of a renegade entomologist who just uncovered a rare, precious, and peculiar bee, the book is loaded with colorful characters and alternate-universe tales.”
Gregg Turkington, actor, writer, and comedian best known for his character, Neil Hamburger.
"Cold Glitter is a province-by-province walking tour of the soft sequined underbelly I never knew I had, as a so-called Canadian. It is enlightening and hilarious and in the end inspiring. Cold Glitter creates a home for the perverse and the ecstatic, in a nation vehemently down on both.” Dan Bejar, musician (DestroyerCold Glitter is a province-by-province walking tour of the soft sequined underbelly I never knew I had, as a so-called Canadian. It is enlightening and hilarious and in the end inspiring. Cold Glitter creates a home for the perverse and the ecstatic, in a nation vehemently down on both.” Dan Bejar, musician (Destroyer
Jul 4, 2025
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I'm not an SNL fan finding it hacky from the get-go (John Belushi? not funny) and not as fresh and edgy as it positioned itself to be (nor inventive...shows like SCTV blew them out of the water). Lorne Michaels just poached the cast from the right places to make something that wasn't far off from the broad yuks of Laugh-In or Rich Little. But I needed to buy this particular 1976 episode for 1.99 from YouTube because the host was Louise Lasser who was then starring in my favourite television show Mary Hartman Mary Hartman. There's never been anything quite like Mary Hartman with its deadpan sensibilities. I'd call it skewed but it was right on target with the issues of the day (and it was also a rather feminist show). It was more than mere soap opera parody dealing with the curious denizens of the town of Fernwood, USA. It lasted just two years and over 300 episodes at five nights a week (which must have utterly been exhausting for Lasser) and was a culutural phenomenon.
Louise Lasser's character Mary Hartman had a total nervous breakdown on the show and Lasser did similarly during her opening monologue on SNL. It's fascinating to watch as an exercise in awkward comedy out of step with the rest of SNL. What is real and what isn't here? When she rubs her gums is she really high on cocaine? She discusses her personal problems. How planned is this? This is true comedic risk-taking that doesn't always work but is fascinating to watch. She mostly performs solo (or, as in one sketch, across from a dog) leaving the rest of the cast to fill the rest of the show with their by-the-numbers work -the sole exception being a bizarre song sketch about television technology featuring SNL's two stand-out talents: the no-holds-barred Dan Aykroyd and the very under-rated Laraine Newman. It was said (perhaps falsely) that Lasser was the first host to be banned from SNL but with SNL later having guest hosts like Trump and Musk, today being banned from SNL reads like a badge of honor.
Jul 19, 2025