A Pirate Radio legend who landed on London's shores to help launch the
world's first music industry college program needs help.
And friends of Tom Lodge, one-time Pirate Radio DJ and music director who
helped found Fanshawe College's music industry arts and now living in
Southern California where he is battling colon cancer are holding a benefit
Sunday to help pay the cost of his naturopathic treatments.
"He was sounding weak when I first talked to him about it several months
ago, but since he started following this treatment program his energy level
has been back to normal, his voice much stronger," said Tom McGuire, 59, a
former student.
McGuire is hoping MIA alumni will turn out for the fundraiser Sunday at the
London Music Club where a variety of musicians will perform from 3 p.m.
until 8 p.m. Scheduled performers include Lodge's son Tom Jr., Brody and
Lionel and many others.
The goal is to raise at least $7,000, the outstanding balance for Lodge's
treatment program.
The colourful and adventurous British-born Lodge, now 75, first came to
Canada in the early 1950s, settling in Hay River, Northwest Territories,
where he worked as a commercial fisherman on Great Slave Lake until he and a
friend got caught on a ice floe. His friend died, but Lodge was rescued and
he wrote his first book about the tragedy.
Lodge then moved to Yellowknife where he worked in a gold mine before
joining the CBC as an announcer, became a station manager then returned to
England as a correspondent, where he took a job as a disc jockey and program
director on Radio Caroline, the radio station built on a ship that sailed
off the coast of England to dodge the BBC's monopoly.
Radio Caroline, on which the movie Pirate Radio is loosely based, was
outlawed a few years later and Lodge came back to Canada to work as a DJ at
CHLO in St. Thomas.
While there, Lodge met senior Fanshawe officials and agreed to open a
Creative Electronics program in 1970. When college budgets tightened a few
years later and refocused on programs that led to jobs, Lodge convinced the
province the program would feed the music industry, changing the name to
Music Industry Arts in 1972, the name that continues today.
In the mid-1970s, Lodge moved to California where he began practising Zen.
He now has an ashram called Stillpoint Zen Community", in the mountains near
Santa Cruz, California, and goes by the name Umi, given to him by his Zen
master.
Lodge wrote a book about his experiences on Radio Caroline titled *The Ship
That Rocked The World*.
Music industry experts say Lodge and others on the ship helped fuel the
British Invasion of North America, exposing the British by giving air times
for songs by then-unknown bands such as the Rolling Stones, The Who, Kinks,
Yardbirds, Animals, Hollies, Cream and others.
"Tom was such an adventurer, such a free spirit," said McGuire.
"But he's always flown under the radar. He'll do something great, then
wander off to the next project. T here is a real lack of recognition for
what this guy has achieved. This guy played a huge role in the development
of the British invasion and the entire Canadian music industry. There are
many music executives out there who got their start at Fanshawe."
E-mail joe.belanger@sunmedia.ca, read Joe's
column<http://www.lfpress.com/comment/columnists/joe_belanger/>or
follow
JoeBatLFPress <http://twitter.com/JoeBatlfpress> on Twitter.
*IF YOU GO *
*What:* Benefit for Tom Lodge, who helped found Fanshawe College's music
industry arts program, to help pay for cancer treatments
*When:* Sunday, 3 p.m. to 8 p.m.
*Where:* London Music Club, 470 Colbourne St.
*Who:* Various artists, open mic
*Admission:* Free
*Donations:* Can be made at the benefit or at http://umiji.org/donations
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
This e-mail service is edited, managed and moderated by
George Lessard http://mediamentor.ca
Messages posted here are now automatically posted on Twitter at:
https://twitter.com/creative_radio
Make a donation via PayPal:
http://members.tripod.com/media002/make-a-donation-via-paypal.html
Creative-Radio is an independent forum for people active in or interested in the use of radio in development, in particular promoting public health, improved education, protection of the environment, improved livelihoods, good governance and conflict mitigation. Since it started in 1996, Creative-Radio has been in the forefront of radio's resurgence as a tool for social change and peace-building, and it helps promote best practice in these areas.
Creative-Radio Moderator
mediamentor@_NO_SPAM_gmail.com
Remove _NO_SPAM_ for use
RSS feed:
http://rss.groups.yahoo.com/group/creative-radio/rss
Change your subscription
- to daily digest mode by sending a blank message to:
creative-radio-digest@yahoogroups.com
- to individual e-mails by sending a blank message to:
creative-radio-normal@yahoogroups.com
- delivery on hold by sending a blank message to
creative-radio-nomail@yahoogroups.com
Caveat Lector- Disclaimers, NOTES TO EDITORS
& (c) information may be found @
http://members.tripod.com/~media002/disclaimer.htm
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Developing Nations license.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/devnations/2.0/
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Because of the nature of email & the WWW,
please check ALL sources & subjects.
Members who post to this list retain their copyright but grant a non-exclusive license to others to forward any message posted here. They also grant the list owner permission to maintain an archive or approve the archiving of list messages.
Other use of e-mail to this list requires the permission of individual writers
