About

About School Bus Rock

Since I was a kid I liked listening to music and I’ll listen to almost anything; although, I tend to gravitate towards music that is created by real musicians and not Pop artists.

Sadly, much of today’s music is from the corporate pop machine and is designed simply to make money. The use of catchy lyrics combined with proven musical recipes result in tunes that people like to listen to. That type of music has existed for years, but the tunes are usually forgetten after a few years.

I started creating playlists to play on the School Bus because I wanted to share real music. Real music created by real musicians and music that I personally listen to. There may be a few exceptions here and there. For example, I do envision a playlist that will include some Spice Girls tracks. They are not musicians, but they did help create something interesting and unique. I do not see any Taylor Swift being included in any playlist I create because she is a poster child for the corporate pop machine.

For now, I have playlists the contain rock music from the 70s, 80s,90s, 2000s. Rock is not the only thing I listen to. Other musical genres include Easy Listening, Celtic, Blues, Reggae, Classical and Electronic.

This website has been created to share information pertaining to playlists played on the bus. When I create a playlist I try to include music that will never be heard on today’s radio stations. This website will provide a path to learn more about that music and to help discover even more!

I know music is not for everyone, but for those who do enjoy it, I hope this website will help expand your knowledge and help you discover new things!

About thebusdriver

My name is Richard. I grew up in Dunnville, Ontario and rode a school bus in Grades 1-5 & 9-13. Upon graduating Grade 13 I attended UBC (University of British Columbia) in Vancouver to study Forestry. I did one year at UBC and came back to Ontario because Forestry was no longer my thing. A few months after my return I got a temporary job at Dofasco Steel in Hamilton. While there I was exposed to computers and became interested in how they worked. That resulted in going to Niagara College for a 2yr Computer Programming course. My first job upon graduation was at the IBM development lab in Toronto.

After IBM I worked for companies that developed software for car dealerships. I dealt with and visited customers all across North America. One of those dealerships I used to deal with was located in Wingham! It was Cullen Motors. Cullen Motors was demolished and replaced with the Pioneer Gas bar. I used to enjoy chatting with John Cullen, the owner, and had hoped to meet him when I moved out this way. Sadly, he passed away a few years ago so I never did get the chance.

I also worked with software that was used by university book stores located in places like University of Toronto, Harvard, and Vanderbilt. There were more but those are the only ones I can remember. I also worked for a company that developed a programming language. My job was to test the language to ensure it worked properly. It was an immense task as the programming language could be used on at least 15 different operating systems which included Windows, Unix, Linux, AIX and macOS.

Anyways, I lived in Toronto from the mid-80s to 2016 before I moved out this way. I left the corporate world of the computer industry in 2009, but still worked on some small projects. That included creating websites and doing the graphic design work for a CD. The work with the CD was quite interesting due to the historical nature of the project. The CD contains music from a jazz pianist who was well known in the 40s and is a relative of the fellow who asked me to do the graphic design. One very cool thing about the CD is that my name is in the liner notes right below the name of a Grammy winner! Peter J. Moore won a grammy for his engineering work on some old Bob Dylan recordings. He did a similar thing for the music on the CD.

Now I drive a school bus!