Music, Personal Tech & Human Rights since 2005

About Stephen Pate

Stephen Pate, Editor of NJN Network, boasts over five decades of writing about music and computers. He’s a former Canadian Association of Journalists member, a serial entrepreneur with successful IT startups, and balances his Microsoft background with newfound Apple affection. He values 5 children and grandchildren above all and expresses his musical talents as a singer-songwriter.

My musical life

I’m a lifelong music enthusiast from PEI, captivated by guitars since age 8.My musical journey started with a guitar from my dad and lessons, though I was too small, and my brother broke the guitar neck.

Later, I tried the clarinet in the school marching band until we realized I couldn’t march.

That’s when my dad’s AA friend loaned me his Ludwig drum set, and I spent years practicing drums.

Through it all, I kept a trusty acoustic guitar for country and folk music. At 20, I persuaded Steve’s Music in Montreal to let me buy a Gibson J-45 on credit.

I played it and sang until my ex-wife took the guitar in our divorce. I missed the guitar, not her, so I replaced it with a ’79 Martin D-35 from Steve’s.

After 20 years of weekend warrior gigs with the Martin and later a Les Paul/Marshall combo, I retired and got more serious. A music store hired me to train their sales team and compensated me with gear – a sweet deal.

I soon realized that great guitars age like fine wine, while budget-friendly ones rarely improve. I decided to sell everything under $1,000 and focus on three iconic brands: Gibson, Fender, and Martin.

It might not be the most diverse collection, but they craft exceptional guitars. I once dreamed of a Ramirez classical guitar but settled for an old Martin N-20, a cherished addition to my collection.

Don’t wait until you’re old to play like me. I only had 15 great years. Age gives you time but your hands don’t work as well. This is why Willie Nelson slow picks a nylon string guitar and Clapton retired.

13 Comments

  1. Stephen, just discovered your news site, and I applaud your work. Keep it up. I quit the financial industry (stockbroker) and turned into a whistleblower/public awareness builder about professionals who financially abuse their customers, and put most of my work into http://www.investoradvocates.ca and video story at http://www.breachoftrust.ca

    totally free, totally public interest, no copyright worries
    hope you will check out some of the largest crimes in Canada spelled out by an insider, cheers, larry elford

  2. I forget whether I shared this with you Stephen. Please forgive me if my memory is faulty.

    http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/njnnetwork.com#

    Congratulations. That is an impressive ranking, an obvious testimony to your good work.

    Take care. If I see your name, I always read the article.

    wb 🙂

  3. Comment by post author

    Stephen Pate

    Thanks and that’s awfully kind of you.

  4. Islander

    Stephen, I salute your work. Will keep reading.

  5. Nancy Rley

    I am very glad there are people like you out there to try to help the disabled.
    I hope you will continue doing your great work. I need your help to bring my problem to the forefront too!!
    Thanks.

  6. stephan pickering

    Shalom & Erev tov, Stephen…do you have a complete listing of your ‘Bob Dylan’ pieces here at NJN Network? stephanpickering47@gmail.com
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח”ם בן אברהם
    Torah אלילה Yehu’di Apikores / Philologia Kabbalistica Speculativa Researcher
    לחיות זמן רב ולשגשג…לעולם לא עוד
    THE KABBALAH FRACTALS PROJECT

  7. Comment by post author

    Shalom & Boker tov, Stephan. Thanks for asking. There are approximately 450 Dylan topic posts on the site. Use the search form on the top right of the page or use this link.

  8. Philippe etienne

    I was there in Woodstock Ny with Albert Grossman, Dylan and others. I produced the funeral buffet honoring Janice Joplin. I met my wife December 31, 1970 at Bob’s house on Ohayo Mt Road..Time marches on. “Those were the days my friend..We thought they’d never end”..Boy were we wrong..
    I’m back in France now but last night in moments of remenicing of Sled Hill Café, Deannies, the Espresso jam sessions (when in town Lee Marvin would be “present”..), the guys from the band, Todd Rungren, Peter,Paul and Mary, Maria M, Mountain..I stumbled upon you, and happily plunged into reading, and learning things I didn’t know. Sara’s family origin, and heartbreak, Sally and Sara’s friendship bringing Bob and Albert together…
    I would like to subscribe but it doesn’t seem to work online and I don’t see the link for email subscribing either? Can you help?

  9. Comment by post author

    To subscribe, on the Home Page enter your email address in the block above the label “Subscribe”

    Then press enter on the label “Subscribe”

    If that doesn’t work, please let me know.

  10. Jerzy Pankiewicz, Poland

    Stephen, your tweet about Poland is ignorant. German Nazis murdered about two million Christian Poles. The NJN has published an article about handicapped vicitms of Nazi euthanasia, thousands of them Polish. Please read the NJN!

  11. Comment by post author

    Jerzy, thanks for your comment. The subject is complex. Who suffered the most. Germans killed 3 million Poles, about 10% of the population. They also killed 3 million Jews, 80% of the population. Pole and Jews both suffered at the hands of the Russians.

    Antisemitism
    Polish antisemitism had two formative motifs: claims of defilement of the Catholic faith; and Żydokomuna (Jew-communism). During the 1930s, Catholic journals in Poland paralleled western European social-Darwinist antisemitism and the Nazi press. However, church doctrine ruled out violence, which only became more common in the mid-1930s. Unlike German antisemitism, Polish political-ideological antisemites rejected the idea of genocide or pogroms of the Jews, advocating mass emigration instead.[a]
    Stalin’s occupation of terror in eastern Poland in 1939 brought what Jan Gross calls “the institutionalization of resentment”,[168] whereby the Soviets used privileges and punishments to accommodate and encourage ethnic and religious differences between Jews and Poles. There was an upsurge in the anti-Semitic stereotype of Jews as Communist traitors; it erupted into mass murder when Nazi Germany invaded Soviet eastern Poland in the summer of 1941. A group of at least 40 Poles with an unconfirmed level of German backing killed hundreds of Jews at the racially aggravated Jedwabne pogrom. There was a rash of other massacres of Jews across the same formerly Soviet-occupied region of Łomża and Białystok around the same time, with varying degrees of German death squad incitement or involvement: at Bielsk Podlaski (the village of Pilki), Choroszcz, Czyżew, Goniądz, Grajewo, Jasionówka, Kleszczele, Knyszyn, Kolno, Kuźnica, Narewka, Piątnica, Radziłów, Rajgród, Sokoły, Stawiski, Suchowola, Szczuczyn, Trzcianne, Tykocin, Wasilków, Wąsosz, and Wizna.[169]
    Some locals benefited materially gained from the massacres. Jewish property, taken over by Poles, was a factor behind the beating and murdering of Jews by Poles between summer 1944 and 1946, including the Kielce pogrom.[170]”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_in_Poland

  12. Jerzy Pankiewicz, Poland

    Dear Stephen,

    I am sorry but English Wikipedia is biased, it selects anti-Polish stereotypes.
    One of the Jewish editors Icewhz manipulated and has been banned, but his biased opinions still are repeated.

    I am a mathematican so I demand definitons of used notions. What is ‘antisemitism’?
    Roma and Sinti were murdereded by Germans even if no ‘antiromism’ existed.
    Polish Slavs were murdered but Croat Slavs were allies of Germans.
    Two Jewish writers explain 1941 pogroms using political division in Poland.
    The Netherlands was pro-Jewish but 95% of Dtch Jews died.
    Thousands of respected citizens collected the Jews to deport them.

    People who do not know names of mass executions of tens of thousands of Jews know the name Jedwabne,
    about 400 vicitms. At the same time Romania murdered tens of thousands.
    Name one of the pogrms in Romania. Romanian government and army did it, not illiteral peasants like in Jedwabne.
    Lithuanian people organized tens of pogroms, including the Kaunas one. Kanas was a former
    capital of Lithuania.
    Later Lithuanian voluneers shot about 100 000 in Poneriai/Ponary (Jews, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war).
    Ukranians murdered Jews in city streets of Lvov during Petlyura days.
    Lvov was a city, not a stinking town like Jedwabne.

    How many Jewish refugees accepted Canada 1933-1939?
    https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/ms-st-louis
    Your sincerely,
    Jerzy Pankiewicz

  13. Wizz

    https://njnnetwork.com/2014/01/worst-bob-dylan-video/

    Dylan’s DL Anniversary #10 performance has intrigued / perplexed for years. Maybe Paul Shaffer is often overly exuberant, but he deserves credit for assembling the renowned group of A-Lister musicians — and no less so than your glowing accolades for Carol King!

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