FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1997. All Rights Reserved.


I'll have to check the dictionary, would this be radio goo-goo or radio ga-ga? Koo-koo for Cocoa Puffs? Or wacky on the junk? Fever for the flavor of a Pringles? It's all so confusing, but in a way, also quite exciting.

For four nights, CBC stereo's after-hours weekend oasis for insomniacs, alcoholics, drug-addicts, contemporary music lovers (or any combination thereof) called Nightlines, will be in Calgary. The crew will be recording its impressions of the city's thriving indie rock music scene and spotlighting some of the bigger acts such as Chixdiggit, Red Autumn Fall, The Primrods and Huevos Rancheros. The shows on Wednesday and Thursday night will be broadcast at later dates, while Friday and Saturday will be beamed live nationwide.

The temporary relocation of Nightlines from its regular home in Vancouver is due mainly to the efforts of the show's laid back and likeable host David Wisdom.

"In the last four or five years Calgary has become a city with tons of great music," explains Wisdom in his all-too-familiar voice. "Part of our mandate is to bring along young Canadian bands and record them and present them.

"We have done some Calgary bands [Fire Engine Red, Forbidden Dimension and The Parkades, for example] but I'd like to come there, do the show from a couple of clubs live and see the bands myself. Just see first hand what's happening."

Wisdom, who has never even been here, has over the years made no secret of his fondness for the talent which he's been fed through the various local releases and compilations that the city has exported. And while he acknowledges the healthy variety of music, he admits that from an outsider's perspective, Calgary is seen as a garage rock town. That's one of the main reasons he's such a booster.

"I'm a sucker for the basic garage music there seems to be a lot of - Chixdiggit, Huevos Rancheros type of deal - and there seems to be good humor in the music, from my point of view, coming from Calgary.

"I would say, to me, the Primrods are typical of the city's sound. Fairly heavy and hard but with real substance.

"When I was much younger Edmonton was supposed to be a brilliant music scene. I always thought of it as old fashioned and bluesy. A lot of terrific musicians but nothing I was terribly interested in. Calgary seems to be much more youthful."

One would expect that the man who's been doing the radio show for the past 10 years - he took over from Victims of Ambition poster boy Ralph Benmurgi in July of 1987 - would have lost a little of his own youthful enthusiasm for the show and the music it features. But Wisdom insists that he has no aspirations to leave the show and fail miserably on television.

"I would be happy to stay in radio the rest of my life - I'd be happy to stay at Nightlines the rest of my life. I love doing it.

"Music has been my main thing for decades now and I'm still totally interested. If you asked me what my favorite music was, I would say what's coming out next week."

"I'm interested in new stuff and the future, rather than dwelling or getting bogged down in the past. I love it and I have a great job. I feel amazingly lucky to be able to sit and play music and say what I want about it," he says.

But there is a genuine concern that both Nightlines and its weeknight brother Brave New Waves could fall victim to the merciless budget cuts that the CBC has been experiencing the last few years. A big part of that is because the old guard of the greying Mother Corps have difficulty understanding the music featured on both shows and consequently have a difficult time validating it, let alone nurturing it.

"There is real concern," Wisdom admits as another round of cuts slated for the end of March looms large.

"There are some people who are in the executive of the CBC stereo network that have said for years and years that they want to turn it into an all classical network. It seems to me like a pretty bad idea. If you want to lose all of your younger developing audience, that's the way to do it. I think it's also snobbery. There's wonderful music that isn't classical music and it's just as serious and just as important and just as vital."

And some of it, apparently, is even in Calgary.

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