Friday 21 November 2008

Book ~ "Here For a Good Time : On the Road with Trooper, Canada's Legendary Rock Band" (2006) Ra McGuire

From Amazon ~ "We're Here for a Good Time" - "Raise a Little Hell" - "The Boys in the Bright White Sportscar" - all Canadian anthems - all recorded by Trooper. "The Globe and Mail" calls them "honest-to-God Canadian legends". "The Toronto Sun" lauds the ongoing strength of their "Boomer/Gen X cachet". They have sold millions of albums, have travelled tens of thousands of miles, and, for thirty years, have borne first-hand witness to an amazing era in popular music: "sex, drugs, and rock & roll" and the long hard road where careers are made and broken. Ra McGuire, Trooper's charismatic leader, singer and songwriter, still travels that road, performing 100 shows a year from Tofino to Torbay and everywhere in between. Famous for his quick wit and sometimes too-candid stage banter, McGuire has always had a knack for keeping audiences on the edge of their seats. In this book, he reveals the peaks and valleys of his life on the road, and the joys and challenges of being a 50-something rock star at large in the country he knows like the back of his hand.

We saw Trooper last month and that's where I discovered that Ra McGuire had written a book.

McGuire has a blog and this is three years of his posts.

It was interesting to read of his account of being on the road ... I didn't realize they still tour as much as they do.

He lives in White Rock, BC, and sounds like a nice fella.

He's very proud of his son, Connor, who is also a singer. I downloaded Connor's album and it's very good ... it's acoustical.

1 comment:

John Mutford said...

I'm not a big fan, but I think they have the ultimate career. Enough success and hits behind them to keep touring Canada (they even visted Rankin Inlet, Nunavut when I lived there!), yet not so big they have to worry about pappazzi or being bothered in the bathroom by autograph seekers and such.