{"id":1874,"date":"2008-12-15T13:56:51","date_gmt":"2008-12-15T18:56:51","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2008-12-30T00:07:32","modified_gmt":"2008-12-30T00:07:32","slug":"the-titanic-of-winnipeg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/the-titanic-of-winnipeg\/","title":{"rendered":"The Titanic of Winnipeg"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having crossed Canada several times and lived in half our provinces, I can tell the mostly American patrons of Rock Town Hall one thing for sure about rock and roll in Canada. While Ottawa may be our capital, we have a hands-down, undisputed capital of rock and roll: Winnipeg<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

In Winnipeg you either play hockey, play in a band, or both. Neil Young<\/strong> grew up there, The Guess Who<\/strong> (also known in Canada as “The Prairie Beatles”) were all from The Peg, and more recent artists like Chantal Kreviazuk<\/strong>, Remy Shand<\/strong>, and Bif Naked<\/strong> all picked up and instrument and headed to the basement on cold winter nights. <\/p>\n

Whatever you think of Winnipeg, and the reports are not all good, Peggers are extremely proud of their hometown and their is a bit of an island mentality to the place. The best way to illustrate this phenomenon, and the point of this post, is a movie called The Phantom of the Paradise<\/em>. <\/p>\n

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The Phantom of the Paradise<\/em> is a 1974 “comedy-horror-musical tragedy” from a young director named Brian de Palma<\/strong>. The movie is generally regarded (when it is regarded at all) as a precursor to The Rocky Horror Picture Show<\/em>. The movie flopped across the world and even in the rest of Canada. In Vancouver, Edmonton, and Calgary the film lasted a week and never returned. In Winnipeg, well…<\/p>\n

Phantom<\/em> is the biggest movie ever in Winnipeg. I first learned of this after three rocker friends of mine of a certain age referenced the movie constantly, as though it were The Godfather<\/em> or Star Wars<\/em>. They did not know that us non-Winnipegers did not know what the H-E-double hockey sticks<\/em> they were talking about. I was sat down and forced to watch it. Better than I imagined, with a great soundtrack by Paul Williams<\/strong>. Of course, I didn’t like it enough to put on a massive party called “Phantompalooza<\/a>,” like they do in Winnipeg every year. Oh yeah, pretty much the whole cast, including Paul Williams, attends this event. In case you’re wondering, this is not “hipper than though” digging on this movie; this is genuine love from people who were 8 to 12 years old when the movie hit.<\/p>\n

I wonder, could this phenomenon happen in today’s Internet world? Probably not. Did it happen with another movie or record in your town?<\/em> I am interested to hear…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having crossed Canada several times and lived in half our provinces, I can tell the mostly American patrons of Rock Town Hall one thing for sure about rock and roll in Canada. While Ottawa may be our capital, we have a hands-down, undisputed capital of rock and roll: Winnipeg. In Winnipeg you either play hockey, […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":294,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[121,34],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1874"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/294"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1874\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}