Hello from Toronto via Hong Kong

sundial

New member
I am totally new at forums, this is actually the first one I joined. What brought me here is my recent acquisition of a digital HD system last month and thereafter every evening in the study with the system playing music. Since it can play lossless music, which is so different if the system is up to it, I've looking for FLAC and downloads. And somehow it took me here!

In fact I have posted something on Steve Winwood before introducing myself toady, talking about etiquette...

I live in Toronto now after moving from Hong Kong last year. I listen to all sort of music. Jazz, prog rock and classical are my favorite, but I also love kunqu and Pingtan which are very poetic.

As an architect, honestly I have allowed chef names on my superhero list now. Well, when you get older you get more realistic, don't you. Satisfying your stomach sometimes is more fulfilling than worshipping star architects. Works for me!
 

wljmrbill

Member
Welcome to the forums. Music does give us incite into our inner self and ability to express oneself on this journey of life. ENJOY.
 

John Watt

Member
sundial! You've got an interesting blend of pursuits, architecture and music, nice, very nice!
It's one thing to listen, or make music, it's another to have an inspiring environment.
One of my Scottish ancestors helped found the Bank of Japan,
and negotiate the hundred year lease for Hong Kong.
I also lived in Toronto three times, from 1970 to 1981, being a lead-guitarist vocalist.
Who cares what other architects, or musicians, have accomplished?
We can only live our own lives, and bettering yourself is the best way to try and live.
Is this, uh, constructive advice, or just some free old man talk?
Sometimes I'm not sure.

Bay-an-uck-let, blessings on you.
 
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sundial

New member
The history of Hong Kong is quite fascinating in the sense that it managed to grow from a fishing village to a metropolis in 100 years. It met a few scots there, they are pioneers in helping the city grow in all sorts of ways. Round of whiskies for the folks...
Just an observation: Two months ago, my wife spot the Miles Davis Band in town, Toronto, and the tickets were quite reasonable. Immediately, we bought two tickets. Next morning, I felt something not right, then thought again and again and realized that Miles had already passed away. And of course.
Two weeks ago, I was thinking whether to go to the Steely Dan concert in October. It would be on my own and I don't have a car yet in Toronto. Much pondering and mental organization went on for a week; and then came the news that Walter Becker had gone. Finally I decided not to go for some other reasons.
So you see, may be we would listen to dead musicians more often as we get older...Sad but true though. Hope everyone should get to see their musical hero whenever a chance arises!
 

John Watt

Member
In high school, as the artist, I was picked by a concert promoter who came to the school,
to make psychedelic posters for three bands he was booking into a Wainfleet bar, the Cove.
That was alongside Lake Erie, where a large American cottage community existed.
The Guess Who, Johnny Winter and The Spencer Davis Group, with Stevie Winwood.
Tickets were part of my pay, but being under eighteen, my parents wouldn't let me go.

I've been listening to Miles since the late sixties,
and his last recording, Do-Bop, with hip-hop producers, is all I listen to now.
In a band in Burlington, living in a house, when they all had day jobs,
I hunkered down with "Pretzel Logic" and figured the whole album out.
I went out of my way to see them when they first performed on, I think,
Don Kirshners' Rock Show, late on a Friday night, where they did two songs.
They staged off stage for over fifteen years, I think, before they started touring.

I left Toronto the last time in 1981, and parking and towing has only gotten more predatory.
But the subways and buses are so efficient it's better to use them if you live downtown.
Oops! I'm thinking downtown like Toronto used to be, before the amalgamation.
if I was still up there, I'd be wondering what Doug Riley, Dr. Music, was doing.
If he's doing a cover charge house gig, that's where the musicians would be.
 

Krummhorn

Administrator
Staff member
ADMINISTRATOR
Welcome to the forum, sundial :wave:

As a professional musician myself I have always felt that architecture and music work together.

We hope that you will enjoy your time here.
 

John Watt

Member
I'm not going to start admining, er, editing myself, to conform to online content,
even if I should.
I was going to add that one of my ancestors was the only white man the Chinese asked,
to remain in China and be an intermediary between them and the "Opium War" Europeans,
giving him an ocean-side property after the Chinese won that war.

I Googled the Opium War to see what is displayed,
and it said two Scotsmen were the biggest opium traders,
eventually coming to own a great majority of the land in Scotland.
It was the British government that began that,
saying they have the legal right to trade tea from India for opium in China.

There are ancestral lands with rights of return for some Scottish citizens,
especially Sons and Daughters of the Gael, who speak Gaelic.

This might be very disturbing for me,
but not sad in the way news from America is, today.
From a musical point of view,
the country singer who was singing onstage when the shooting began,
simply ran, when he could have had a heroic moment for the disUnited States.

Maybe this will be better.
I was sponsored in a Toronto residence by Professor John McCallum,
Electronics at York University.
He left to design the internet for the University of Hong Kong,
and write their curriculum.
If I hadn't been a non-smoker, non-drinker, beyond my onstage electronics,
and guitar and singing abilities,
he wouldn't have made the offer.
 
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