About

courtesy Michael Parkinson

Music

This is a decidedly incomplete list of acts I’ve worked with. It wasn’t until 1990 that I began keeping details on individual gigs, so before that, I’m relying on memory. There are more than a few names missing, so if we worked together, and you’re not on the list, drop me a line and help me fill in the blanks.

My tastes are extremely varied; I love big band-era swing, folk, rock, punk, country, and pretty much everything in between, and I want to play it all. That’s one reason I enjoy working freelance, and goes a long way to explaining the lengthy list of acts included here.

My goal is to include individual write-ups along with audio, photos and in some cases video samples where possible. It’s a fairly daunting – and ongoing – task. Hopefully every month will bring more content.

Writing

This site includes a fairly extensive sampling of my writing taken from the last decade or so. Everything here has been previously published, but in every case, I am the owner of the work. If you like something and wish to share it, that’s fine, but please remember to give me proper writing credit.

Writings

I pretty much fell into this part of my career. In the early nineties, I called a magazine to complain about its coverage of the arts, and by the end of our conversation, the editor had hired me as a writer. I’d already written for a few publications (Goldmine, The Georgia Straight, etc.) and had lectured at a few colleges and schools, but the monthly deadlines got me writing on a regular basis.

The majority of my writing deals with music-related themes, but I try to look beyond the obvious. Rather than document instruments and release dates, I like to explore the individual’s motivations, world views and beliefs.

In addition to my regular ongoing projects, I have recently finished writing a book with Mark Volman about his adventures in the music business, from the Turtles to Frank Zappa and Flo & Eddie and beyond. That came about after I had written a short feature on him a couple of years previous. I am happy to say the book is now available at all major retailers.

I interviewed over a hundred of Mark’s friends, lovers, family and more, and covered a whole lot of ground. This is not a typical biography at all. The story is told via those voices, with Mark offering comments along the way. So what exactly did I do? As Mark puts it in his introduction, “John was responsible for preparing the interviews, conducting the interviews, transcribing the interviews, and editing the interviews. Without John, there is no book.”

More info…

Record Collection

Not truly pertinent to this website, but certainly of great interest to me, is my rather sizable record collection. Record Collector magazine recently published an article about it. (February 2022 issue / #528)

Quick tour (video by Tom Zillich)

Surrey Now-Leader article about moving my collection to our new home.

Note: This website is focused on the music of John Cody, but we have plans to also include his writings. Until that happens, you can peruse a list of written pieces on the “old site” here.