I started a new job in February.  And it’s sapping the fiber of my very being. I’ve had jobs that have made me tired before. But they were office gigs where the exhaustion was mostly mental – from dealing with asshat employers and bigger asshatted customers. In my current job I work alone, but for the first time in 30 years of employment I’m actually working. Up at 4.30 AM and usually home by 5 or 6PM. Eight to nine hours of driving and walking. When I finally get home I eat dinner, stare blankly at photos of cute cats, idiotic diatribes about Monsanto, Rob Ford, hockey and Chemtrail conspiracy theorists on Facebook. It’s all I can do to keep Mr. Sandman at bay. By 9PM I’m done. I haven’t accomplished much except kiss the cat and pet the family good night.

Since February writing this blog has been a Herculean effort in endurance and semi-conscious perseverance. Twelve cans of Pepsi is the amount of caffeine required to keep me awake long enough to hammer out a few thousand words that I can only pray make sense and has the minimum amount of typos (thank God, Segarini proof reads it in advance).

I’ve got too much shit to do in the rest of my life. I need to re-edit the two Encyclopedias so I can release a 2014 update in the new year. I’m co-writing Skip Prokop’s autobiography, Sunny Days, which we hope to continue with now that he’s recovered from his near fatal heart attack; I’ve got my Time Lapse Humanities Sci-Fi novels on the go; my ongoing Life’s A Canadian Rock Part 2 biography (which I started posting on DBAWIS and then had to stop because I can’t focus long enough to remember what fucking band I was in at the time); and the sequel to Life’s A Canadian BLOG which is written but just needs to be edited. Oh, and I’m editing several novels by OTHER people as well as writing two monthly columns for Canada In Tune magazine. No wonder I’m so friggin’ tired.

Shakespeare knew all about this when he wrote in Hamlet:
To die to sleep,
To sleep, perchance to Dream;
Aye, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death,
What dreams may come…

As Warren Zevon so succinctly opined: I’ll sleep when I’m dead  .

Warren finally shuffled off this mortal coil allowing him the relief he so wished for. I’m so fucking jealous right now.

People keep telling me “Oh, you’ll get used to your new schedule – it just takes a while for your body to get used to it.” My body isn’t tired. It hurts but it isn’t tired. I’m tired tired. I’m riding the subway everyday with my head propped up against a window doing that “transit nod” (also known as the “subway slump”). There’s drool running out of the side of my mouth and I now have a permanent kink in my neck. Riders on the train must think I’m homeless or the character known as Charlie in the song “M.T.A.” by The Kingston Trio.

Rather than riding endlessly underneath the streets of Boston it’ll be Toronto. Kennedy to Kipling and back again ad infinitum until someone on the TTC cleaning staff pokes me with a broom to see if I’m still alive.

I look around me at the other riders and it’s the same story. We’re a society of people not getting enough zzzzzzzzzz’s. And that’s just the transit riders. I fear the notion that there’s just as many people at street level driving automobiles and transport trucks who are just as tired. Forget distracted driving. How about somnambulant driving?

This isn’t news. It’s not even a new problem. We’ve been sleep deprived since those fuckers started messing around with daylights savings time. The farmers had it right – up at dawn and back to sleep by sunset. But it was a simpler life back then…with only back-breaking labour and child rearing to punctuate the monotony. Now we’re filling every semi-awake moment with stimulus. Either to distract us or to sedate us. There’s 700 channels of shit and nothing on. But we’ll be damned if we put that remote control down even when our eyelids are at half-mast.

It has not gone unnoticed by artists. Here, in no particular sleep dis-order, is a list of some of the most observant ditties about counting sheep and other sleep related activities:

1) THE DIODES – “Tired of Waking Up Tired”
It’s not often that a punk anthem becomes a slogan but The Diodes’ seminal “Tired of Waking Up Tired” entered the modern vernacular and has never seemed so apt. Featuring a cool live video of the band at the Peppermint Lounge in 1981.

I’m tired of waking up tired, waking up tired, yeah, wakin’ up tired
I’m tired of waking up tired, waking up tired, yeah, wakin’ up tired
Too much time to kill is killing me …
Think like a computer, make like Casanova
Perpetuate a myth, about yourself
Too many hours in a day, to think about non-stop motion ..

2) THE WALLFLOWERS – “Sleepwalker”
The young Jakob Dylan – is there any doubt that he is the son of Bob? – gave us 2000’s “Sleepwalker” where he discusses the pratfalls of fame and living through it while asleep at the wheel.

Sleepwalker, don’t be shy
Now don’t open your eyes tonight
You’ll be the one that defends my life
While I’m dead asleep dreamin’

Cupid, don’t draw back your bow
Sam Cooke didn’t know what I know
I’ll never be your valentine
The sleepwalker in me
And God only know that I’ve tried

3) CHRIS THILE & MICHAEL DAVE – “Sleep With One Eye Open”
The duo vying for a spot alongside Mumford & Sons and The Lumineers takes on the Lester Flatt (of Flatt & Scruggs fame) classic -as made popular by Dolly Parton – about a daughter who sneaks out of the house while Daddy’s sleeping. Lock up your daughters…or sleep with one eye open.

From now on, all night long
You ain’t gonna have a chance
To treat your Daddy wrong
You’ve been stepping, so they say
Between midnight and day
I’m gonna sleep with one eye open from now on

5) THE BEATLES – “I’m Only Sleeping” and “I’m So Tired”
Lennon either liked to sleep, couldn’t sleep or was obsessed with sleep. He’d revisit the theme as a solo artist with the scathing attack on former band mate Macca with the tune “How Can You Sleep”.

I’m so tired I don’t know what to do
I’m so tired my mind is set on you
I wonder should I call you but I know what you would do
You’d say I’m putting you on
But it’s no joke, it’s doing me harm
You know I can’t sleep, I can’t stop my brain
You know it’s three weeks, I’m going insane
You know I’d give you everything I’ve got
for a little peace of mind

6) THE TREWS – “Tired of Waiting”
The Trews entered the Canadian music consciousness hitting the ground running with the rock anthem “Not Ready To Go” in 2004 as well as this little ditty about wasting time and running out of energy just waiting on someone.

I am wired and fading
Looking blind and blaming
Following and trailing words
You might be saying
I am tired of waiting
I’m tired of waiting I am tired

7) THE 5^th DIMENSION – “Last Night I Didn’t Get To Sleep At All”
How many of us have lost sleep thinking about a true love/crush/sweetheart? This is the official theme song written by Tony Mcauley who also happened to write the classics “Baby Now That I’ve Found You” and “Build Me Up Buttercup” as a member of The Foundations, as well as “Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)”  (Edison Lighthouse) and “Don’t Give Up on Us” (David Soul).

Last night I didn’t get to sleep at all, no, no
I lay awake and watched until the mornin’ light
Washed away the darkness of the lonely night (lonely night)
Oh, and last night I got to thinkin’ maybe I, I, I
Should call you up and just forget my foolish pride
I heard your number ringin’, I went cold inside
And last night I didn’t get to sleep at all

8) THE CHORDETTES – “Mr. Sandman”
Nearly 40 years before Metallica turned the Sandman into an evil entity ripping asunder the very souls from people’s dreams, four young ladies named The Chordettes wondered aloud if Mr. Sandman might bring them the man of their dreams.

Mister Sandman, (yeesss?) bring us a dream
Give him a pair of eyes with a congeal of gleam
Give him a lonely heart like Pagliacci
And lots of wavy hair like Liberace
Mister Sandman, someone to hold
Would be so peachy before we’re too old
So please turn on your magic beam
Mister Sandman, bring us
Please, please, please
Mister Sandman, bring us a dream

4) THE EELS – “I Need Some Sleep”
A sleeper of a soundtrack song from ‘Shrek 2’. This lullaby dirge evokes the mood of a groggy, tired creator (Mark Oliver) and being run-down by life’s constant grind.

I need some sleep
It can’t go on like this
I tried counting sheep
But there’s one I always miss
Everyone says I’m getting down too low
Everyone says you just gotta let it go
You just gotta let it go
You just gotta let it go
I need some sleep


9) THE ROMANTICS – “Talking In Your Sleep”
Nothing like building a relationship of love and trust while spying on your better half while they sleep. Creepy, stalkerish behaviour that led the Romantics to a #3 hit on Billboard by February 1984. But it’s the Bucks Fizz version from the same year that topped the charts in the UK. The video, with its shirtless, douche bag vocal delivery is a lot more on point, thematically.

I hear the secrets that you keep
When you’re talking in your sleep
I hear the secrets that you keep
When you’re talking in your sleep

When I hold you in my arms at night
Don’t you know you’re sleeping in the spotlight
And all your dreams that you keep inside
You’re telling me the secrets
That you just can’t hide

10) PETULA CLARK – “Don’t Sleep In the Subway”
Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent’s 1967 song inspired by the 1961 Broadway Musical “Sleeping In the Subway” sees Petula Clark imploring her lover not to storm out after an argument. Swallow his pride rather than bunking on a rainy park bench or in the subway (I guess naming it “Don’t Sleep in the Tube” didn’t quite have the same ring to it).

Don’t sleep in the subway, darlin’
Don’t stand in the pouring rain
Don’t sleep in the subway, darlin’
The night is long
Forget your foolish pride
Nothing’s wrong
Now you’re beside me again

11) SANTO & JOHNNY “Sleepwalk”
Sometimes you don’t need lyrics to get your point across. The dreamlike slide work on this 1959 instrumental classic evokes the mood of drifting off to La La Land on a black starry night. Try to get this out of your head now.

12) THE TOKENS – “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”
You’ve heard it a million times. It has become iconic and a cliché simultaneously. And it’s the earworm that’ll wash out that Santo & Johnny song in a heartbeat. You’re welcome.

Wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh
Wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh
Wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh
Wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh
In the jungle, the mighty jungle
The lion sleeps tonight
In the jungle, the quiet jungle
The lion sleeps tonight

Send your CDs to: Jaimie Vernon, 180 Station Street, Suite 53, Ajax, ON L1S 1R9 CANADA

=JV=                                                                            

Jaimie’s column appears every Saturday.

Contact us at dbawis@rogers.com

Jaimie “Captain CanCon” Vernon has been president of the on again/off-again Bullseye Records of Canada since 1985. He wrote and published Great White Noise magazine in the ‘90s, has been a musician for 35 years, and recently discovered he’s been happily married for 17 of those years. He is also the author of the Canadian Pop Music Encyclopedia and a collection of his most popular ‘Don’t Believe A Word I Say’ columns called ‘Life’s A Canadian…BLOG’ both of which are available at Amazon.com or http://www.bullseyecanada.com

I think my first interview with the label was in 1978. There was a position open in the publicity department and Quality’s Larry Macrae (with Cam at Quality) had recommended me for the position.  I had to meet with the VP of Sales and after making me sweat it out for over an hour in the lobby he finally called me into his office. His desk was clear of any papers and the first thing he said to me was along the lines of “You won’t see a stereo in this office as I don’t need to hear a record to be able to sell it”. Well this was a revelation to me and also made me a little queasy. Noticing my earring I was quickly questioned about my sexuality, drug use, alcohol and tobacco habits and just about everything else you can’t ask in an interview today. I thought I was doomed. When I responded “Beach” to the question of where I lived a faint glimmer of hope appeared. “One of my big account’s owners has a house down there” barked prospective boss’s boss. “I would assume you mean Vito” I replied as the co-owner of Records On Wheels lived around the corner from me. “Donna, get me Vito on the speakerphone now” he bellowed and within seconds the two were conversing about me while I helplessly listened. Vito said nothing bad and within the week I had the job.

I was now in the PR department and working with bands I had never heard of, The Madcats, Lynx, as well as I few I knew such as Blondie and Wednesday (they played my high school a few times). It was a baptism by fire. The President of the label was a wonderful gentleman by the name of George Struth (with The Spoons). He grew up through the ranks of Quality and was actually the man who wrote “Guess Who” on a bunch of Chad Allan & The Expressions test pressings of “Shakin’ All Over” and sent them to radio stations hoping they would be fooled into thinking it was a hot new single from England. George didn’t look very rock’n’roll but his office sure did. He had the coolest Casablanca Records clock which meant he had worked with Kiss (Casablanca moved over to Polygram for distribution a few months before I joined Quality) and his office walls were covered with gold records and photos of him with bands. He was the kind of boss who hosted family get togethers at his home with his lovely wife Muriel and we would sit around and play euchre well into the night. He seemed to like me and his door was always open.

Quality was considered a major label back in the seventies and also had the added bonus of having its own pressing plant on site. We also had mastering facilities and an art department. The only thing we couldn’t do was print the album jackets. You could listen to a test pressing in the morning and have copies of a single in your hands by the afternoon. It was pretty cool. One my second go-around at Quality in 1982 I remember we did a deal for Josie Cotton who was breaking out of Los Angeles with her single “Johnny Are You Queer?”. We needed to strike when the iron was hot so as soon as the deal was put together over the phone we were mastering a single in the plant and had the record on the air of Chum-AM that evening. I know it doesn’t sound like a big deal today but back then it was pretty remarkable.

One of the first things I learned as a publicist for a label is that the A&R department wants to become your best friend. They realise that you are the key to getting their artists exposed and your exposure will lead to sales which will lead to another album. The A&R department at Quality was run by John “Disco” Driscoll. He earned his nickname. He knew his dance music inside out and back then Quality made a good portion of their profit in the dance market. In me I think he saw someone who was a little more street and might have some insight as to what the kids were listening to. I soon started to listen to demos of young bands that he didn’t quite understand. One of the tapes that floored me was “I Wanna Dance Like Fred” by an Oakville band by the name of The Rockaderos. It was damn near perfect  power pop. I took the cassette over to Segarini’s house for a second opinion and he was sold as quickly as I was. We let John know that we were interested and arranged to go and see them play in some pub in Oakville. They were good live, not great, but it was apparent they had more than one great song and a deal was quickly put together. Bob produced and we had a regional hit with their new wave tribute to Fred Astaire.

Much more on Quality Records the next time the letter Q rolls around. For now here are some of the artists I got to work with at the label.

The Models

A five-piece new wave band from Edmonton who were years ahead of their time. A black punk rock bass player, drummer in full facial make-up and a gangly bespectacled lead singer who had a leg kick that would make any Rockette blush. When I was fired from Quality I jumped aboard their bus and toured across the country for four months as their tour manager. “Janie, You’re Wrong” was a minor hit and their guitarist Brent Macnab became a local hero in “One Horse Blue”. Sadly we lost Brent last year. The band received as much press for their album covers than they did for their music which was unfair as they wrote some damn great pop songs.

Rick James

When Motown moved to Quality for distribution things never looked better for the label. One of the superstars at the time was Rick James. His ground breaking album “Street Songs” totally set the table for Prince and gave us the monster hits “Super Freak” and “Give It To Me Baby”. Rick was not allowed in Canada (legal reasons) and every year we could invite a few journalists down to his house outside of Buffalo for a day of interviews. Regulars were Norman Otis Richmond and Jeanne Beker. It was always a cool trip and Rick appreciated the cases of Beck’s beer we would bring down to his homestead. As interviews were done I would end up hanging around the indoor pool with the likes of the Mary Jane Girls passing time. He was a super freak.

Andrew Matheson

I have written about Mr. Matheson many times in these pages. It was at Quality where we first crossed paths as we released his album “Monterey Shoes”. At that point I had no idea about his Hollywood Brats past and no clue as to what the future would hold for us. Fifteen years later I signed him to MCA and went to Norway to record the album “The Night Of The Bastard Moon” and to this day we can still be spotted on the deck of the Lion On The Beach tossing back a jar or two.

The Spoons

Yet another band that I still see some thirty years after our initial meeting. They came to Quality via a distribution deal with Ready Records (which also included The Demics and Steve Blimkie & The Reason). After the very successful re-issue of “Arias & Symphonies” last year Gord and Sandy are set to re-issue their full length debut “Stick Figure Neighbourhood” in the coming weeks. If you are a fan and want to help the cause go to http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/thespoons

Japan

One of the coolest bands I ever worked with at Quality was Japan.  The English band came to us via a distribution deal with Ariola Records. Outside of their brilliant music (and style) they introduced me to legendary manager Simon Napier-Bell and super producer John Punter. The stories from those two alone were an education I could never buy.

=CC=

Cam’s column appears every Thursday

Contact us at: dbawis@rogers.com

Cameron Carpenter has written for The New Music Magazine, Music Express, The Asylum, The Varsity, The Eye Opener,  The New Edition, Shades, Bomp!, Driven Magazine, FYI Music News, The Daily XY, New Canadian Music and Don’t Believe A Word I Say.

Now in its 9^th week, The Bobcast gets better and better with every show.  I’ve been lucky enough to attend pretty much every recording and I’m consistently impressed by all the work and talent that has been put into this operation.  Brian Jedan, producer extraordinaire, is the organizing force and boundless energy behind it, and his enthusiasm and drive for this project is really inspiring.  His crew, from the videographer, the sound guys and everyone else he’s recruited, who donate their time, energy and of course skill to the show deserve recognition and praise – truly this podcast couldn’t exist without them.  The lovely and extremely patient Chloe, soft-spoken but self-assured, manages to keep the ragtag band in line, on time and on point throughout the night with her trusty clipboard and iPhone timer.  Her poise and calm for someone so young really amazes me, and it’s been amazing to see her at work.  Budding photographer and dear friend Bobby Singh slides into his role as in-house paparazzi very well, to the point that he’s been able to catch even me in a candid moment or two, and I can tell you that’s not easy.  His dedication to the show is also wonderful, he’s there pretty much every week making sure that no moment of hilarity, poignancy or debauchery goes unsnapped.

Xprime, the adorable box of baby animals band that really does have a knack for house-banding and theme-songing keep us boppin’ our heads every week.  I also really loved how much they’ve started to contribute to the show banter between their playings in and out of guests and song smatterings.  Every week I’m flabbergasted by something off the cuff drummer Phil has to say, and every single one of them has tossed out a killer one liner that leaves me and the audience in stitches.   A special shoutout must also go to the alcohol handling professionals, Cherish (who provides the location as well as the libations) and Anthony Dell’Orso, both of whom keep our thirsts quenched for all the laughing, cheering and applauding that we do every week.  Of note as well, Dell’s own band The Joy Arson will be appearing on the Bobcast in a few weeks for what’s sure to be yet another memorable episode.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention our charismatic and marvellous hosts, Roxanne Tellier and my rockdad Bob.  I’m so excited that Bob has brought Roxy on as a Don’t Believe a Word I Say columnist as well as cohost for the Bobcast.  She’s funny, she’s a wonderful writer, a performer and incredible entertainer.  Her contribution to the Bobcast, and how well she plays off Bob is always a joy to watch unfold, and to relisten to later on.  And most of all, she’s a super cool lady, and I’m glad to know her and call her a co-writer/worker/friend now.  As for Bob, what can I say about Bob that I haven’t already said?  I’ve known him for a couple of years now and he never ceases to amaze and entertain me.  He’s an absolute radio natural, and it’s so great to see him use those talents live and in person.  I’m so glad to know him and I’m so happy to be a part of this fantastic journey that he’s taking us all on!

You may be wondering why I’m waxing poetic about The Bobcast and all of its wonderful qualities.  The first reason is, I had an absolute BLAST at the recording on Monday.  For the third time since the podcast’s inception I was able to book the musical guest, and for this time around I chose the Blue Stones.  Currently my favourite indie band, I knew this duo would not only put on a great performance, but, having interviewed the boys myself, I knew they would be able to chat with Bob easily and entertain all around.  And did they ever!  Seriously, I laughed, I cried (I truly teared up a little over the outcome of the game), and I even got to hear Bob say that I’M ALWAYS RIGHT.   In front of actual live witnesses.  That’s something I’ll never forget.  So thank you Tarek and Justin for putting on a great performance, being great interviewees and making me look good!  You guys rock, literally and figuratively.

(Us and the Blue Stones at the Global Warming Tees photoshoot)

But more than that, it was just such a wonderful reminder to me of what truly exciting and amazing things can happen when you get a room full of likeminded and ambitious people in a room.  It’s not rocket science here; putting together a crew of people who are extremely accomplished and talented in all sorts of different yet compatible areas (Bob’s natural showmanship with Brian’s business savvy for example) is a surefire way to create success.  And that’s exactly what the Bobcast is; the product of bringing together talented people who are amazing at what they do, putting them and their energy together and just seeing what happens.  And what happens is…amazing.

It’s exactly what’s happening with the magazine I am now working on, Addicted (check out my neat little logo below!) Born out of necessity; the need to have a written outlet for my dear friend Mark Munroe’s social media reach to be connected to, Addicted has grown into so much more than the little blog it started out as.  By pooling together our talents, we became something so much greater than a group of people struggling on our own in our respective areas.  Mark’s innovative nature and social media presence, my writing skills, networking ability and unquenchable love of music, the lovely Emer Schlosser’s writing and editing prowess and experience and her undeniable love and knowledge of the film industry, Lifestyle editor NateDaniels’ energetic nature coupled with his technical skill….really I could go on ad nauseum about all the amazing people we’ve pulled into the Addicted fold.  Every day we grow, add new writers who continue to wow me with the things they cover and how well they do it.  The response and support we’ve received from family, friends and the rest of the world is mind blowing.  It’s a true testament what I said above; you bring together a group of individuals who are each great and passionate about something, and you sit back and watch it snowball into greatness.  It’s a wild ride, and I’m loving every minute of it.

Speaking of talented people coming together, tomorrow (Thursday) at Cherry Cola’s aka home of the Bobcast, punk rock legend Denis Tek of Radio Birdman will be performing, and he’s brought along two extremely talented tattoo artists/musicians (Steve & Art Godoy) to back him.  It’s not every day that this level of combined genius blows through our fair city, so if you’re around you should definitely swing on by the bar for a beverage and some great tunes.  Check out details here: https://www.facebook.com/events/569814449725784/, and see you there!

Xo

N

 =NE=

Nadia’s column appears every Wednesday

Contact us at: dbawis@rogers.com

Nadia Elkharadly is a Toronto based writer with a serious addiction to music. Corporate drone by day, renegade rocker by night, writing is her creative outlet.  Nadia writes for the Examiner (.com) on live music in Toronto and Indie Music in Canada.  She has never been in a band but plays an awesome air guitar and also the tambourine.  Check in every Tuesday for musings about music, love, life and whatever else that comes to mind.

Now, back to our regular programming.

I write music history.  More accurately, I write about specific bands or artists or music “scenes” seen mainly through their (and my) eyes.  I don’t write indiscriminately.  I pick subjects carefully.  The first extended piece I wrote was about a little-known band out of Tulsa, Oklahoma calling themselves Rubbery Cargoe which would find its way to Memphis, change its name to Cargoe and take a place in that city’s music history alongside Big Star and Ardent Records.  I slaved over that piece, wanting to make sure I got everything right.  What I found was that no matter how meticulous you are, you can never get everything right.  Realities are personal and, as such, different.  Everyone I talked with had a different slant.  When I interviewed band bassist Max Wisely and guitarist/keyboard player Bill Phillips, they argued over certain things right there over the phone— things they had seen at exactly the same time.  All my life, my father had hinted that truth was a matter of perception.  I began to see what he meant.

I still write about the music of the past.  I have a story about Cowboy waiting in the wings, and a look at Seattle’s Seafair Bolo Records, a very small but major player in the Pac NW’s sixties rock and R&B’s scene.  I am waiting to write the saga of Notary Sojac— waiting for the time and the feel to be just right because those guys were to me what The Allman Brothers Band were to the people in the South and of all that I write, this is the one I don’t want to screw up.  And, of course, Fort Worth’s Jim Colegrove— the “Coolgroove”— I am absorbing what he has chronicled and am feeling the need to set things right.  I am even working on a look at go-go girls through the eyes and experiences of Elaine McAfee Bender, who actually worked as one during the music explosion of mid- to late-sixties’ Fort Worth, Texas.

There are lots of us out here scrambling to get the information before the information is gone.  A small portion of us are digging for the gold one finds only by uncovering that which has remained somehow miraculously uncovered.  Jaimie Vernon has taken the biggest bite, putting together what has to be called an encyclopedia, its scope so large that I quake in its shadow— The Canadian Pop Music Encyclopedia.  It comes in two volumes and is mind-boggling in its scope.  Pop culture’s Mike Marino is mowing his way through the sixties and seventies with his posts on Facebook (and elsewhere) about rock music in Detroit and San Francisco, his view so skewed he makes me laugh every other paragraph (but without that view, I would understand so much less).  Seattle’s Peter Blecha is really digging deep, writing about not just rock or R&B, but about the true history of music around the Seattle area.  If there is a unique barbershop quartet or accordion orchestra or miner’s choir attached in any way to his city, he is on a mission to find it.  I dig his pieces on Pac NW rock.  I love his pieces which go way beyond.

Writers aren’t the only ones, though, and that is the crux of this column.  Music lovers come in all shapes and sizes and filmmakers love music too.  And the public is finding their films.  I read somewhere that music documentaries are now the big thing on the arts circuit.  Go figure.  And they said all of those college level rock history classes were wasteful.

I think of all the rockumentaries released in the past ten years, the biggest will be Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me.  I personally am amazed that Big Star has become as huge as they have— legendary beyond legendary.  I remember grabbing #1 Record out of the racks when it was released and taking it home and thinking these guys are damn good, but I had already found Cargoe, a band on the same label (Ardent) with much the same artwork on the cover.  I mean, I dug Big Star but I loved Cargoe.  The future generations, though, chose Big Star and now they are bigger than life.  I used Big Star in a piece I wrote about warped realities and how they change history (click here).  I had hoped that films such as Nothing Can Hurt Me would help set the record straight, at least as far as music history was concerned.  Now, I’m not so sure.  Watching the trailer, I can only imagine what younger generations will see or think or feel.  They have no conception of the record business back then and are so invested in the legend, they might misperceive.  But better they misperceive Big Star and Ardent than superstars who have received way more than their share of attention.  In a too-little-too-late kind of way, it is the little guys’ turn.

Is this movie worth seeing?  There is no doubt in my mind, especially judging from the trailer (click here).  Will I go see it?  No.  I lived my musical life begging people to listen to music they just didn’t hear, Big Star‘s and Cargoe‘s among it.  I took it personally.  I love that both bands are now getting more attention than they did at the beginning, but I also hate it.  I remember seeing Kurt Cobain refusing to give an autograph to a kid with a nasty “Where were you when we were playing the garages”.  I hate to admit it, but I’m a bit like that.  I want to say “Where were you” regarding Big Star, but how unfair would that be to people who weren’t into music or were not even born yet.  Like I said, I take it personal.  You, however, shouldn’t.  Parts of this movie are no doubt amazing and the fact that they are seeing the light of day at all is a mindblower.  The music?  Hey, it’s Big Star.

If you still aren’t sure, you can read my history of Cargoe (posted here).  Big Star and Cargoe took similar paths.  Maybe this will help you understand.  When you finish reading, go see the movie.

Thanks to Youtube and its ilk, there are lots of films/trailers/clips which round out the picture one might get from just what TV and radio might portray.  Here is a collection of films you might enjoy, if only for the kitsch or even historical value.

Immediate Records 1^st Anniversary Promo Film—

What the hell?  Immediate was a Brit label, wasn’t it?  Sonofagun if they didn’t have a hit right out of the box, though, with American band The McCoys and Hang On Sloopy.  At the time this film was produced, the label was plugging a second hit by Rick Derringer (Zehringer) and band titled You Make Me Feel So Good.  The things you learn, eh?  Like that Mick Jagger was producing Chris Farlowe, who had a #1 hit in the UK with Out of Time.  Those crazy Brits, eh?  It is nice that the successes were included (the label had been around, after all, for only a year), but the film’s main focus was on the next act to clobber the charts— The Twice As Much.  Yeah, right.  If you’ve never heard of them, you’re not the only one.  Still, this is as good a promo film as I have seen from a small UK label in its first year.  Immediate would go on to have major success with Small Faces and Itchykoo Park and Tin Soldier.  Those songs completely dented my head and made Immediate a favorite label, regardless of the lack of success in the US with their other releases.  (Watch the film here)

So that you understand, Immediate Records was the brainchild of Rolling Stones-connected Andrew Loog Oldham.  He utilized the success of the Stones by including Jagger and Keith Richard in a handful of projects.  The label lasted from ’65 to ’70 and released records by Amen Corner, Humble Pie, The Strangeloves, PP Arnold, and The Nice, among others.  You can find the label’s UK discography here.

We Didn’t Get Famous— The Story of the Southern Music Underground, 1978-1990

Don’t run away!  Admittedly, this says “Southern Music” but this isn’t the Southern Music most of us have learned to hate.  You will find no Lynyrd Skynyrd here nor .38 Special.  What you will find is seven musicians who played in bands which comprised a scene which existed more outside the area in which they played than within.

I co-owned a store when the whole punk and new wave thing was coming on and went from there to Peaches in Seattle (around 1978) where punk and new wave was struggling for a foothold.  Working at Peaches gave me an inroad to the music trends, mostly which seemed to revolve around The Bee Gees and Saturday Night Fever.  It wasn’t long, though, before harder-edged and more creative music began to chip away at the whole disco scene until it was dead and not just dying.  Some of that music came out of The South and created (in the minds as much as anywhere) the aura of a “scene”.   Out of that scene would come a number of small record labels and bands which, while not putting the music scene on  its ear, had impact.

This film is basically an interview-fest with seven musicians from that era— Mitch Easter (Let’s Active), Bob Hay (The Squalls), Vanessa Hay (Pylon), Tim Lee (The Windbreakers), Sherry Cothren (The Germans), Mark Reynolds (Carnival Season), and Peter Holsapple (The dB’s).  The amazing thing is how Camilla Ann Aikin, the filmographer, edited it.  It is quick and concise, so if you have any kind of attention deficit disorder, wait until you don’t.  Information?  It’s packed with mostly personal observations of the regions and the different music scenes.

An aside:  I worked with Howie Wahlen who loved this whole scene so much that you would have thought he was living it, so imagine my surprise when I found out that Let’s Active was not an international smash.  To listen to him talk, everyone was into them, so I assumed everyone was.  Normally, I would browbeat anyone whose view was so skewed, but in this case, I preferred Howie’s scenario to the one which actually existed— i.e., The Gospel According To Billboard.

Click here.

Louder Than Love— The Grande Ballroom, Detroit—

Mike Marino was the first person to mention to me the grandeur and importance of Detroit’s Grande Ballroom.  While people shout praises for The Fillmore, The Fillmore East, The Avalon, and even Tulsa’s mighty Cain’s Ballroom, one cannot deny the majesty of The Grande.  Anyone who was anyone in rock back in the sixties and early seventies passed through there:  Cream, The Who, The Grateful Dead and Pink Floyd were only a few who played the venue and always to packed out crowds.  MC5, The Tymes and The Stooges put in their time as house bands.  Few cities have venues with as much music history packed into so few years.

Louder Than Love is a movie dedicated to preserving the memories of not only the superstars which passed through Detroit, but the burgeoning local scene which developed at the same time.  Musicians lined up to talk about those days and when you splice in the music clips, you have a film any real lover of rock history has to love.  Sadly, the ballroom fell on hard times and slowly disintegrated and that, too, is chronicled.  While the end is sad to see, it pales before what was.  They called it The Grande for a reason.  (Click here)

Family Band— The Cowsills Story—

Few remember (and others are trying to forget) the days of The Cowsills.  When I talk with the younger set and they mention The Osmonds and The Jackson 5 (it amazes me how often they come up), they never mention The Cowsills.  They don’t know them.  They seemingly don’t care.  Until I explain just how huge they were— on the charts, on TV, in the press.  Inevitably, the question regarding their lack of place in music history comes up and you would think that someone would have an answer somewhere as to their virtual overnight disappearance from the music scene after a meteoric rise to the top, but they don’t.  It just happened.  Sure, there were rifts within the band and a lot of avoiding publicity, but there was a lot more to it than that.  When this film was put together, it answered a lot of the questions which had surrounded the band since their initial split-up.

I shake my head when I think that the members of the band had never really left the scene.  Not really.  They stayed in touch with the music and never stopped writing and even performing, but for decades, for all intents and purposes…..

There was an amazing amount of talent in this band as is proven by various projects involving individual members since those days.  This film tells the story of why they left and where they went.  Here is a short trailer for the movie.  Maybe it will whet your appetite.  If not, you’re missing one of the really gripping stories in rock music.

MC5— A True Testimonial—

Of all the bands I have seen and heard in my lifetime, MC5 were the the only ones certifiably fucking insane.  Actually, I have never seen them, at least not live, and what I’ve heard has pretty much been on vinyl, outside of the handful of clips on the Net.  Still, there is something about the band— something over the edge.  They were downright scary, I guess you could say, and one of the guys in the band admits it.  It was the combination of politics and warped spiritualism (if that was what it was) and this sense of synergy— of taking not only the music but the show to the very limits.  Watching the preview of A True Testimonial brought it all back— the lack of control and the possibility of everything going awry— very awry.

They came around at a very volatile time, did the band, and they threw themselves out front and seldom looked back.  They were loud, raucous and mentally unstable at their most visible and yet not so much out of the lights.  I think they threw themselves into the fray without really knowing what would happen and sometimes, things did happen.  Mostly, not good.

There was this guy at the University of Oregon who got booted out of college because he locked himself in his room and played the beginning of Kick Out the Jams out the dorm windows until the University officials somehow breached the door and arrested him.  Or so the story goes.  I only remember hearing “Kick out the jams, motherfuckers” over and over again for a good half hour to 45 minutes and then silence.  Hell, Viet Nam was happening.  Students were having sit-ins.  It was an anti=war culture.  As far as we knew, he was taken to the basement of a nearby building and tortured.  That is what MC5 did to you.  Messed with your mind.  Made you paranoid.  Made you join fringe political groups.

Did I join any fringe political groups (well, outside of The Resistance)?  No, but I was a wimp.  I played their album at a low volume so as not to bother the guy next door.  But I liked it.  I finally gave the album to a friend who was so disturbed that they had changed “motherfucker” to “brothers and sisters” that he wanted to file a suit citing First Amendment Rights.  That is what the MC5 did to you.

I did a few hours research trying to find out if the movie was available through regular channels and found a lot of conflicting info.  Truth be told, I suck at research so maybe I just couldn’t find the right sites.  What I did find was a preview clip of the movie— fifteen minutes of what looks like a hell of a documentary.  Watch the trailer here…..

Teen A Go-Go— Fort Worth in the Sixties—

I might never have heard of this film had I not gotten involved in writing a story about Space Opera.  I spent close to three years on an off-and-on basis interviewing various people about that band and, of course, the pond from which it spawned.  Space Opera, it turns out, began life as The Mods, one of many so-called garage bands inhabiting Fort Worth at the time.  There were tons of them, at least compared to other cities and towns, and they all for some ungodly reason had records!  There were enough for David Campbell to piece together a three-CD set of just sixties’ Fort Worth bands— The Elite, The Cynics, The Mods and so many more.

How did it happen and why Fort Worth?  This film tries to see if anyone knows and, not oddly, no one really does.  Of course, there were a number of things which allowed a teen scene to form— radio station KFJZ and its top jock Mark E. Baby (Mark Stevens), buildings ready-made for teen dances, teens who were picking up rock ‘n’ roll fever until music became the very core of their existence.

By the time I had completed the story, I was amazed at the depth of what most called a teen scene.  It was more like a teen explosion!  The sixties scene in the Pacific Northwest was big enough but was limited because of distance between cities and towns and the lack of focus of rock radio.  While we lived in a wading pool, they swam in the deep end, diving board and all.

What this film does is get so many interviews from the musician of those bands, most of whom seemed as incredulous as anyone that, in retrospect, it was as big as it was.  I laughed all the way through the film at the dumbfounded look on their faces as they told their stories.  It is a series of what-the-hell moments packed into an all-too-short documentary (one hour, 32-minutes) with a few clips and lots of pictures.

Watch the trailer here.

It’s Everything— And Then It’s Gone— Mid-Seventies Punk in Akron, Ohio—

“Failure doesn’t happen overnight, it drags on.”— Buzz Clic, The Rubber City Rebel

Something is wrong with me.  The whole Akron music scene of the mid-seventies which spring-vaulted Devo to international fame, for me, looked like a huge success.  I guess not so much for the musicians in bands like Tin Huey and The Bizarros and The Rubber City Rebels who saw their dreams crushed beneath what to me has always seemed an uncaring and soulless record business.  I was in San Diego at the time running a record shop which, by default, carried a number of new wave and punk singles.  It was new and few in the city were paying attention, so it seemed something worth pursuing.  The result was a number of singles passing through the store by bands no one knew except a small handful of kids who would drop by once a week or so in search of something new and exciting.

That was how I knew of the Akron scene.  Of course, I had no idea so much of what caught my ear was Akron-spawned.  I just knew I liked the bands.  Bands like Devo, of course, long before they became the MTV darlings and rich kids’ musical mascots.  More important to me were the bands which would not make it but were still part of the core of a New Wave movement revolving around a zine scene which included Bomp Magazine.  Indeed, at that time, Bomp had also become a record distributor, a wholesale clearing house of oddities you could maybe find if you knew the out of the way stores who seemed to give a shit, which is how many punks looked at it.  It was a scramble and a crapshoot, finding fringe music in those days, but Bomp made it less so.

Our store had an arrangement with Greg Shaw, head Bomper.  He would send us records and we would sell them, although I am pretty certain that it was Suzy Shaw and not Greg who made quantity decisions.  We never knew what we would get so every shipped box was a Christmas present.  I found my favorite Suicide Commandos 45, Match/Mismatch, in one of those boxes.  I spent the next few weeks walking around spouting “Waiter, my check!” while people backed away from me, afraid to make eye contact.  The Suicide Commandos were not from Akron, of course, but it didn’t matter because beneath that vaunted 45 was a copy of Akron’s The Bizarros‘ I Bizarro and Devo‘s Jocko Homo and even though I had no idea where either band was from, I was hooked.  They weren’t punk and they really weren’t New Wave— at least, not in terms of what I considered New Wave— crunchy power pop of major chord construction.  They were something else.  Exactly what, I didn’t know.

Though it seems tame in terms of today’s music, the music coming out of the Akron bands were a real step in a new direction.  Tin Huey had an amazing creative edge to their music.  The Rubber City Rebels were punkish, but a punk people who didn’t necessarily like punk could listen to.  The Bizarros stretched their sound on occasion but on the whole were straight ahead rockers with a twist.  And Devo?  They were Devo.

This documentary goes into the evolution of a scene which did not really exist except in retrospect, but what a retrospective!  Rare film clips and excellent editing of interviews and pictures of bands and musicians which rarely see light of day make this a treat.  Yup.  They have a short clip of Devo‘s first ever live show.  They key on the Akron of the day.  They talk about The Dead Boys and The Numbers Band and The Pretenders and even Joe Walsh, for chrissakes, because The James Gang was the house band at a bar in Kent, Ohio— ten miles distant— and Joe was the first “local” to really hit it big.

I wish someone would do a documentary on every region for each generation of bands and do it like this one.  This fills a huge black hole in the history of not only Akron rock, but rock, period.

Watch it here (it’s about 55 minutes long, so pop some corn and get comfortable— it will be worth it)…..

You Must Be Weird Or You Wouldn’t Be Here— The Cellar, Fort Worth—

The more I get to know musicians and music people in and around Fort Worth, I am beginning to understand that it was a world all its own.  Aside from the A Go-Gos and the teen scene, there was this place they called The Cellar, a basement dive which opened early evening and closed at 6 AM— or at least, those were the musicians’ hours.  They had waitresses in high heels, panties and bras and some of the musicians were underage, but who cared?  Like I said— a world all it own.

Randy Cates, bass player for Gypsy, was the first person to talk with me about The Cellar.  Other people mentioned it, but Cates talked about it.  It was school for him.  He played with the best the city had to offer and more.  He met musicians he would never have met otherwise.  And he got to play.  That was all he ever wanted, was to play music.

There must have been other after-hours clubs— ones where you could hear music all night, drink until the wee hours and occasionally see touring musicians in the flesh.  Members of Canned Heat passed through.  And others.

Cates:  “The Cellar was kind of a cool, avant-garde coffeehouse/jazz bar that stayed open until like six o’clock in the morning.  In front of the stage, there were cushions that people sat on and behind the cushions there were chairs.  The waitresses wore bras and panties.  It was a beatnik-type place that started out and turned into a legendary rock kind of a place.  There were three of them.  One in Dallas, one in Fort Worth and one in Houston.  The bands would play two weeks at each bar.  Most of the big bands like Led Zeppelin or Johnny Winter, when they would get off, after their shows they would all wind up at The Cellar.  So there was lots of music being played and lots of sitting in with lots of great people.  It was kind of a cult thing.

I became aware of it in 1964.  In 1966 I was still a senior in high school and was playing there every night.  I would play until six o’clock in the morning and then go to school.”

Sound intriguing?  Yeah, to me, too.  This film cycles through a number of people involved with The Cellar in different capacities.  The fact that places like this even existed blows my mind.  Would never have happened in Oregon.  Not like it did in Fort Worth.

Watch here.

Yonge Street:  Toronto Rock & Roll Stories—

You can say all you want to me about Canada— badmouth them, make jokes, diss their medical or political systems— but I won’t listen.  I love Canada.  They’re like the Northern US to me (though they would surely be quick to put the kabosh on that kind of slanderous talk).  I’ll bet most people in the US don’t even realize how crucial Canada has been to the US entertainment industry.  Hell, half of Hollywood is Canadian!

Which makes me anxious to see a documentary titled Yonge Street:  Toronto Rock & Roll Stories.  Stories about one of the most unique areas in the history of music.  Yonge Street to rock is what Nashville is to Country.  If you don’t think so, you have to catch this film.  Rather than regale you with information, which surely must bore you after reading this far, I will let the musicians do that.  Here is a series of stories from the movie.  All are short.  All are complete.  If these don’t make you want to see the film, there is something bad wrong with you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-3q0EFCmOQ&list=PLCF5777EC90F4305C&index=7

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y08GsasDZ0s&list=PLCF5777EC90F4305C&index=8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c23wQin0Zvc&list=PLCF5777EC90F4305C&index=9

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRIPZLc3OvQ&list=PLCF5777EC90F4305C&index=10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skgXocp0BTc&list=PLCF5777EC90F4305C&index=14

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXbE9VkH3Gw&list=PLCF5777EC90F4305C

Man, I still have a long list— Boys From Nowhere:  The Story of Boston’s Garage Punk Uprising and The Last Pogo and The Last Pogo Jumps Again and so many more that I think I will revisit this topic in a future column.  Truth is, I need to do some research before I can properly do the films justice.  I do have to say that I’m pumped, though.  I am pumped to see music history chronicled, whether it be in writing or on film.  I am pumped to see some of the old-timers once again flying the standard and some of the younger people digging deep to find the good stuff.  Is there hope?  As far as music and culture goes, I think so.  As long as we don’t get lost in the past.  And as long as we don’t limit ourselves to the narrow view of the past.

Notes…..  I’m starting the morning with a video passed along by good friend Gary Heffern, who uncovers some of the best of the buried— at least, as far as the States goes.  Ever hear of Dirtmusic?  Neither had I until Heff started talking about them incessantly.  I have to give it to him.  He’s passionate about what he’s passionate about.  And I picked up a little of that passion.  A very impressive video/song from a group which should be making inroads worldwide.  Click here.  You won’t regret it*****  I’m not saying that Robbie Basho is for everybody, but when I was in college, That Guy was heavily invested in his music.  You know.  The guy who was first with everything groundbreaking and on the fringe with everything else?  That Guy would be saying that it’s about time these days because a few people have finally taken up the gauntlet for Basho and music history.  They are working on a film which will highlight Basho’s life and music.  I listen to Basho maybe once a year, but each time I do, it is as a tribute to his musical vision.  He was not quite like anyone else and had more influence on a handful of musicians than anyone except those musicians will ever know.  Check out the fundraiser here*****  This just in from Paige Anderson & The Fearless Kin— new video of them performing a song titled Stella Jane.  Not only is it a killer song, the last half of the video is an interview with Paige about The Kin and its path.  I love these kids.  Watch here*****

=FGJ=

Frank’s column appears every Tuesday

Contact us at dbawis@rogers.com

“Frank Gutch Jr. looks like Cary Grant, writes like Hemingway and smells like Pepe Le Pew. He has been thrown out of more hotels than Keith Moon, is only slightly less pompous than Garth Brooks and at one time got laid at least once a year (one year in a row). He has written for various publications, all of which have threatened to sue if mentioned in any of his columns, and takes pride in the fact that he has never been quoted. Read at your own peril.”

There was a similar situation with another friend who professed to hate funk, soul and R&B. I loved that stuff, and faithfully tuned in to Soul Train every week. I just didn’t mention it to the other friend.

Bowie. “Sorrow.” How dare a possibly bisexual rock star hold a saxophone?

The cable company in London, Ontario, in 1975, also offered some FM stations on cable, that’s what I listened to, along with CFTR and flipping, dissatisfied at the shortening playlists, between CKSL, CJBK and CHLO. Chief among these was M105 out of Cleveland, Ohio and some Detroit FM stations. The playlists in the mid-1970s are still with us, basically, only now they’re called “classic rock.” Same songs. Forty years later.

I was listening to a lot more music on records. Supertramp’s Crime Of The Century was inescapable, so I got a copy of that. My parents had most of the Beatles LPs, although they were really classical music fans. At the time, we didn’t have a very good stereo in the house. We had a console behemoth with a turntable in a top-loading well that I’ve since realized had a motor that ran much slower than it was supposed to. The first LP I bought with my own money was Leon Russell’s Carny, because of the single “Tightrope.” I had no idea he’d left Oklahoma in his teens — at which point he’d already cut quite a swath through the bar scene there — for Los Angeles, where he became a key player in the legendary studio outfit the Wrecking Crew.

“Tightrope,” Leon Russell. The single was enough for me to buy the LP. The original “This Masquerade” is on here, not to mention forgotten classics like “Acid Annapolis.”

A friend’s older sister had a copy of Leon Live, which made a distinct impression along with Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon, Deep Purple’s Machine Head, Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and a couple of other records, including a band from Hamilton, Ontario, named Lucifer, who had a regional hit with a cover of Wynonie Harris’s jump blues classic, “Don’t Roll Those Bloodshot Eyes At Me” and some LPs another friend’s neighbor had by this band named Sparks — Kimono My House and Propaganda, specifically, as well as a record they’d cut when they were named Halfnelson, wittily titled A Woofer In Tweeter’s Clothing.

“Don’t Roll Those Bloodshot Eyes At Me.” Wynonie Harris. Who were Lucifer, the band from Hamilton who covered this and had a hit with it in the early 1970s? (“You better shut your peepers, dear, before you bleed to death.”)

Sparks. “Beaver O’Lindy.” Strange, by all means. But you can’t deny the pop attraction and songcraft.

“Mighty Quinn Medley.” Leon Russell, Leon Live. The entire history of popular music from 1954 to 1973 in less than 12 minutes.

And then, in September, 1975, we moved to England. For a year. My father was a university English professor and took a sabbatical to work on his PhD thesis. I can’t adequately explain what that was like socially. Completely different school system — different priorities, different underlying philosophical notions taken for granted. Completely different anthropological environment that I couldn’t figure out or navigate. Plus, as far as my new peer group was concerned, I talked funny, and was expected to explain what life was like in America. What could I do? I was listening to Steely Dan, Bowie’s Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust, Caravan (from Canterbury, where I was going to school, but nobody seemed to know their work), the aforementioned records and Frank Zappa’s Just Another Band From LA, Apostrophe and Overnight Sensation. I didn’t have sufficient rhetorical finesse to explain that, somehow, if they listened to Frank Zappa and Steely Dan, they would eventually understand America at least as well as I thought I did. The few who knew that Canada and the United States were different countries wanted to know if I had ever visited a town they called Oh-SHAH-wah (I said it was a place east of Toronto where they made cars) and what life was like in Mani-toh-BAH. (I said it was a province, that it was pronounced “Man-i-TOH-bah,” and that I’d never been there, but a friend of mine had grown up in its biggest city before moving to London, Ontario.)

Madness. “Return Of The Los Palmas 7.” It’s from an early 1980s LP< but the montages are Britain in the 1970s.

Frank Zappa. “Camarillo Brillo.” If you’re English, listen to this and Steely Dan’s Pretzel Logic and you’ll understand America.

I rode the bus back and forth from the cottage we lived in on the Kentish Downs on single-lane country roads for an hour each way to and from school, listening to Steely Dan on a bulky cassette tape player in a bulky briefcase, reading Rolling Stone.

But when the sun went down, I tuned in Radio Caroline, ignorant, as I was of so many things at the time, of its history. It was the first pirate station, on air in 1964, shut down with the passage of the Maritime Offences Act in 1966, defiantly broadcasting, run aground in 1967, towed to Holland, off the air, and, by the time I listening in 1975, in its second wave.

There were some peculiarities about music in England in 1975. There was Top Of The Pops, for one thing. It was a weekly television show that featured whatever was on the BBC’s pop charts, with the artists lip-synching and miming to the recording of whatever chart-topper they were enjoying. There was always a dance number, featuring another chart recording and the accompanying strenuous gyrations of in-house dance troupe Pan’s People. In some cases, there were pre-recorded video accompaniments for a particular record. When I was there, that was the same Ampex Digital Optics effects-fest for Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and a montage of customized lowriders shot on 16mm film to accompany War’s “Low Rider.”

Three-and-a-half horribly typical minutes of Top Of The Pops’s Xmas show from 1975.

Then there was The Old Grey Whistle Test, a program name I still don’t understand. No lip-synching here. The real deal. Real playing, and everything from Jesse Winchester to a performer named Patti Smith whose work confused, frightened and annoyed me as a 15-year-old. Again, thank ignorance. I figure it out eventually, with Smith’s book Just Kids confirming some of what I thought I’d figured out, and filling in a lot of what I hadn’t.

Patti Smith talks and then performs “Horses” on The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1975. I had no means of processing or understanding this when I saw it when it originally aired.

BBC Radio 1 had certain portions of its programming set aside for pop music, but I was used to turning on the radio and hearing hits or at least recent adds with potential, so the notion of scheduled listening was unfamiliar and seemed kind of presumptuous. “You mean I’m supposed to tune in when you want to play rock and roll records? Forget it.” I still remember one of the few times I heard one of BBC’s pop shows, as host and Rolling Stone contributor Paul Gambaccini pretending to “eat crow” (I can’t imagine how that went down among an audience for whom that expression is not a common idiom) because the Bay City Rollers had reached number one in the United States). They were going to play a Bay City Rollers record I was already sick of. I tuned out.

“Rollers Show.” Nick Lowe. On the US release Pure Pop For Now People, not the UK version, Jesus Of Cool.

But Caroline was different. I didn’t know, when I found it, aimlessly twisting the dial one night, that it was the first pirate station, signing on in 1964. I didn’t know it had been off the air and on the air and off again, and that its ship had been salvaged and moored in Holland. It never occurred to me that its evening and all-night programming didn’t carry commercials (they ran a Dutch pop station during the day, whose revenue paid for Radio Caroline, along with the cash generated from the Caroline Roadshow, a roving discotheque than toured England constantly). It did occur to me that the promotions for “Loving Awareness” (whatever that was) weren’t generating any revenue.

Radio Caroline. “Loving Awareness” promo. I found it curious and amusing, but couldn’t figure out how they hoped to make any money with it. Not that I cared. “Loving Awareness” promos were annoying but necessary interruptions between sets of new (to me, anyway) music.

I didn’t care.

What I liked was the music. The jocks seemed to play whatever the hell they wanted. It was almost entirely stuff I’d never heard or heard of. Some of it I had. It was all great, insofar as it was all new — to me, anyway. Some of it I knew. Most of it I didn’t.

“Radio Sweetheart.” Elvis Costello.

“Radio Radio.” Elvis Costello & The Attractions. “So you had better do as you are told. You better listen to the radio.”

Elvis Costello’s vituperative indictment “Radio Radio” started out as a benign, affectionate thing called “Radio Soul.” (It’s not on YouTube, sadly, but it’s among the Flip City demos and bootlegged in various places. Probably among “bonus tracks” on one of the many reissues of earlier Costello albums.) When I first heard that number (and some of the lyrics in its angrier, later versions) it immediately made me think of Radio Caroline. “I was tuning in the shine on the late-night dial, doing everything my radio advised / With every one of those late-night stations playing songs bringing tears to my eyes.”

Because I was such a dedicated Rolling Stone reader at the time, I was missing the New Musical Express’s coverage of what was happening in London through early 1976: a thing people were calling “punk rock.” I didn’t find out about that until the fall of 1976, after we’d left England and returned to North America. We lived an hour’s train ride from London and I was 16, so it’s unlikely I would’ve seen any of it at the time. Once I did find out about it, of course, I made up for what I’d missed.

Kate Phillips writes about a new band called the Sex Pistols. New Musical Express. Dec. 27, 1975. First coverage. I was neither aware nor paying attention.

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Justin’s column appears here every 4th Monday

Contact us at: dbawis@rogers.com

Justin Smallbridge is, among other things, a writer, producer, broadcaster, voiceover artist and record collector.

But I am lucky. I had a terrific mother, who was funny and smart and strong and she loved me, despite my failings. Even when I was at my most hateful, a rebel without a clue, Mum encouraged me and found the good in my mutinous soul.

My mother was just always there, usually chasing after me.  I wasn’t a clingy kid. You’d more likely find me way up, at the top of a tree, or posing beside the mannequins on a revolving display stand, than hanging off her skirt. I was the kind of kid that kiddy leashes were made for; darting madly into crowds, racing towards excitement. I wasn’t a brat – that would not have been tolerated – but I wasn’t easy. (Pat, holding Jodi,me in front of Mum)

My sister Jodi and I got into scrapes all the time. Once, we thought it would be lovely to bring home lilacs for Mum. So we helped ourselves to armfuls of the flowers, oblivious to the fact that they belonged to a private school. When the caretaker spotted us and started yelling, we ran, with the flowers leaving a trail of petals behind us, up the street and up the stairs of our apartment building. Thrusting the shredded lilacs into my mum’s arms I said, “Hide us! He’s coming!”

How she kept a straight face when the caretaker arrived, having followed the trail right to our door, I’ll never know. As he ranted and raved about the desecration of the school’s trees, she calmly told him that her girls couldn’t have done it; they’d been home and in their rooms all night. Of course, we were scolded later, but also warned that, if we were going to pursue a life of crime, it might be an idea to hide our getaway route a little better.

Jodi developed juvenile diabetes at 12. Always frail, she now became angry at the world. Heading into her teenage years with the stigma of twice daily injections and a restricted diet, she seethed with rage, flailing out at the rest of us for being healthy. My mum was a tower of strength, keeping her in line with love and laughter.  Jodi and I thrived on Mum’s ability to put a funny spin on even the worst tragedies. Our humor was dark at times, but there was always laughter, and always music.

I left Montreal in 1976, and within a year, both Jodi and Mum joined me in Toronto. For a while, we all lived in the same apartment building, just floors apart, and when my Grandmother and Aunt Pat moved to Toronto as well, they took an apartment in the building behind ours. Our strength came not just from laughter, but from proximity.

When I was singing fulltime, Mum couldn’t have been more supportive. She wouldn’t let me lift a finger in the house, lest I break a nail, or be too tired to perform that night. She lived through the joy and heartbreak of my first two marriages, the birth of my daughter Cara, and later, Cara’s son Carter, and never passed judgment on the way I chose to live my life.

After suffering a double stroke that left her partially paralyzed, she fought to re-learn how to walk, and eventually was able to triumphantly show me her first baby steps. When my sister died, Mum and I were devastated, and it was only through sharing each other’s strengths that we were able to carry on. And still we laughed, and joked, sometimes through our tears. (Jodi, 1982)

My friends adored my mother, and loved to spend time with her. We’d have regular Rummoli nights, where she’d display her cutthroat gambling techniques, wiping out her opponents and winning all the pennies we used as chips. Mum drew people to her, and her friends spanned all age groups. No one was immune to her charms.

Mum adored Christmas. She would transform our humble home into a winter wonderland, with her collection of heirloom and newfound ornaments. She’d make sure anyone who dropped by was treated to a holiday they would never forget, and always had a few small presents tucked away so that no one was empty handed when the gifts were unwrapped. After her stroke, she was unable to decorate with her previous flair, but we compromised with a tiny artificial tree and a selection of her favorite foods to enjoy on Christmas Eve. Christmas Day, she would spend with Aunt Pat and Gram.(Me, Gram, Mum, Cara in front)

My grandmother, bless her, died on April Fools day, in 1992, and my mother finally gave up her own struggle 8 days later. I had just come home from bartending, about 3 a.m., when two policemen arrived at the door. Apparently they had been given the wrong phone number, and had been unable to reach me earlier. They told me that mum had had another stroke, and a heart attack, and was in critical condition. I cabbed it to Sunnybrooke. She was on the operating table, but they let me in for a moment to see her. As I stroked her hair, and assured her that I was there, she murmured, “don’t let them bring me back, I can’t face it again.”

As horrible as that was to hear, I understood. Going through rehab had nearly broken her spirit, and even those tiny steps relearnt had strained her. I told the doctors what she had said, but they were adamant that she was too young and would be strong enough to make it through.

I was brought to a waiting room, where I pulled out the book I had in my purse. Ironically, it was an Ashleigh Brilliant book of funny sayings and drawings, called “I May Not Be Totally Perfect, But Parts of Me Are Excellent.” I had bought it for Mum, but I paged through it, to relieve tension, and find a laugh as I tried to send healing thoughts to her.

Although the door and windows were closed, I suddenly felt a soft breeze against my cheek. Tears rolled down my face, but I smiled, and said, “Bye, Mum.” A few moments later, a doctor entered the room to tell me that she had died, but I already knew that she was gone. She was only 64 years old.

A lot of odd things happened in the days following her death. Music boxes would start to play, strange, mystical items would suddenly appear.  My aunts told me of dreams they had had about her, laughing and dancing, a young carefree girl once again. I knew she was somehow letting me know that all was well, and that I mustn’t let my grief consume me. She was wise and wonderful that way. (Aunt Anne, Mum, Aunt Pat and Gram)

All these years later, I still miss her. Despite being a mother and grandmother myself, I will always be Terry’s little girl in my heart. And I too will always remember her laughing and dancing. Her indomitable spirit gave me the strength and courage to reach for the stars, for even if I failed, she’d always be there to help me up again. And that’s really all a child can ask for in a mother. Happy Mother’s Day, Mummy.

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Roxanne’s column appears here every Sunday 

Contact us at dbawis@rogers.com

Roxanne Tellier has been singing since she was 10 months old … no, really. Not like she’s telling anyone else how to live their lives, because she’s not judgmental, and most 10 month olds need a little more time to figure out how to hold a microphone. After years of doing things she didn’t want to do, she’s found herself working with a bunch of crazy people who are as batshit crazy and devoted to music as she is, and so she can be found every Monday at Cherry Cola’s, completely unable to think of anything funny to say, as the co-host of Bob Segarini’s The Bobcast. Come and mock her. She’s good with that. And she laughs. A lot. But not at you.

My annual Mother’s Day Tribute to my Mom. I wish you all could have met her….

As most adopted children can tell you, one of the first things you remember being told is how you were chosen to be part of your adopted family, not a random act of passion borne to fruition by parents who sometimes weren’t really trying to make a baby. Any time this information was imparted on an adopted child, it was meant to soothe and/or dispel any doubts the child had of being loved or being perceived as an ‘outsider’.

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Truth be told, parents who adopt have already let you know how much they want and love you by simply taking you in to their homes and lives. My dad wanted a son but, more than anything, wanted his wife to be happy. My mom had had eight still-born children when they finally decided to adopt. My almost older brothers and sisters, all laid to rest, side by side, where my mother and father are interred, constitute a family that was not to be, but my mom spent her life being a mother to so many others, she made sure all the love she had to give did not go un-given. My mom was born to be a Mom…and she proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt throughout her entire life.

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Mercedes Ormi Walters, was born in Arkansas City, Kansas on June 30^th 1919. Half Cree, half English, she somehow found herself on the west coast by the time she was 12, living in Los Angeles with the Brumbaugh  family, and at one point, spending weeks in the hospital after falling asleep in MacArthur Park in the blistering Southern California sun. She eventually ended up in Stockton, California with two sets of parents; Jim and Anne Brumbaugh, and Albert and Kate Walters, who both adored her, but never, to my knowledge, socialized or spent any time with her together. We always visited the two sets of parents separately on holidays and birthdays.

She eventually met my dad, who had moved to Stockton from Genoa, Italy and had started a grocery business with his brothers, and they married sometime in the ‘30s, an almost 20 year difference in their ages, but in love enough that their marriage lasted until both were gone. Come to think of it, there were no divorces for any of the 4 Segarini brothers.

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I was born on August 28^th, but my mother sent me a birthday card every February 26^th as well. That’s the day they brought me home, six months after I was born. It was never a secret that I was adopted, and armed with my mother’s “you’re here by choice, not by chance”, mantra, whatever stigma attached to being adopted that could be turned into insults by schoolyard bullies never penetrated. I knew how much I belonged with my family.

I don’t think I have ever known anyone who loved kids more than my mother. The number of people who grew up in Stockton who called my mom ‘mom’, or ‘Aunt Merce” are legion. My friends were always welcome in her home. Even after I moved out, they would visit her far more often than they visited me, and nothing could have made her happier. Our home was a safe haven for anyone who needed a place to be…or a plate of pasta.

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Some Mom Stories

The Sleepover…

I was 12. My friends and I decided to have a sleepover one night, and my mother suggested we ‘camp out’ in the back yard. So it was that 5 12 year old guys found themselves pitching sleeping bags in the yard and looking for mischief to get into. It was a perfect summer evening and someone (I don’t recall who) suggested we steal some beer from their dad’s garage, or swipe a jug of home-made wine out from under my dad’s wash basin in OUR garage. My mother overhears this and makes a further suggestion. She tells us to sit tight and retreats into the house to make some phone calls. I figure we’re busted and she’s calling everybody’s parents. I was half right.

She comes back and explains to us that if we tell her what we want to drink, she will go to the liquor store and buy us the booze. She has spoken to everybody’s mothers and they have agreed to this as long as we adhere to one rule.

“You will not leave this yard” my mother says as sternly as possible.

“Yes, Mrs. Segarini” my stalwart friends answer in unison.

So, armed with a list that includes beer, sloe gin, rum, and whisky, off to the liquor store goes my mother. She returns with pints of this and cans of that, and we are the happiest bunch of 12 year olds you could possibly imagine. We proceed to drink everything she has given us. By midnight, no one is awake.

There is a fly buzzing in my ear. I open one eye. It is incredibly bright. I open my other eye. It makes a noise like a drawbridge being raised. Slowly, my eyes focus on the scene before me. There is a pair of pants in the little tree in the middle of the back yard. One of the guys is asleep (or passed out) under the tree with his sleeping bag on his head, another is stretched out in my mother’s herb garden, and still another is flat on his back with a cat asleep on his chest. I sit up. I look around. There are pools of vomit everywhere. The door off the patio into the garage slams shut, causing an explosion in my head, then, my mother’s voice.

“Rise and shine, sleepyheads!” she chirps, sounding like she is screaming at the top of her lungs. Bodies stir. There is groaning. “Who’s ready for a big breakfast?” Again, she sounds like she’s shouting. More groans. Mom takes the wooden spoon in her hand and uses it as a drumstick against the metal bowl in her other hand. It sounds like a fire truck is about to run us over. “Breakfast is served!” The thought of food reaches everyone’s brain. Stomachs begin to react. “Pancakes with butter and syrup, eggs, and lots of hot, greasy bacon!” followed by what can only be described as maniacal laughter, “Can you smell that bacon?” (This picture of my Mom beautifully restored by Brian Goguen)

That was it.

The retching starts anew, my friends are losing what’s left in their stomachs all over the yard, and even the cat gets sprayed as it tries desperately to jump out of the way. Years later, it dawned on me…my mother…is a genius.

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The Long Walk…

I was 15. Long story short, my Uncle Al makes a bet with me that I can’t walk from San Jose to Santa Monica without giving up or taking a train/bus at some point. Challenge accepted. With a friend, and armed with papers from the Stockton Police Department, California Highway Patrol, our parents, an emergency credit card, a wack of cash, sleeping bags and knapsacks full of clothes and survival gear (!), we embark on this trip down Highway 101 which is to culminate in my mom driving down to meet us and a few days in Disneyland.

In the two weeks it took, we slept under overpasses, stayed in hotels twice because of bad weather, slept in a park in San Luis Obispo, a police squad car in Santa Barbara, and generally had a great time. We would show our letters to the authorities when we needed their help (Obispo and Santa Barbara) and all were accommodating, even getting us press along the way. Everything was fine until we reached our destination, Santa Monica. We stored our gear in lockers at the Santa Monica Bus Depot and went to a movie and out to dinner to celebrate. Figuring we’d spend the night in a hotel and call my mom in the morning, we went back to the Bus Depot to collect our stuff only to find the building locked up and no one there. Fine. I’ll just call the authorities, and we’ll sleep wherever they put us and collect our gear in the morning. I call the authorities, tell them our situation, and there’s a squad car at the phone booth before I hang up. The next thing we know, we’re standing in front of a detective who doesn’t believe a word of what I’m telling him, and unable to provide our papers which are locked up in the Bus Depot, find ourselves being put up for the night in separate jail cells. My mom was there exactly 8 hours later…and considering Stockton was about an 8 hour trip back then, she must have driven like the devil.

The one thing I will NEVER forget about our overnight stay in jail was the breakfast. Hot buttered and jammed toast, thick, delicious, perfectly cooked bacon, scrambled eggs with scallions, 3 maple syrup-ed pancakes, and a perfect cup of coffee.

The other thing I will never forget was watching my mother tear this detective a new one, our papers sitting in front of him from the knapsacks the police retrieved from the bus depot, and the humiliation dripping off his brow when he apologized to us for not believing us. Mom 1 – Santa Monica Police Department 0.

Mom Provides Irrefutable Proof…

The first band I actually put together was called the Family Tree. We were determined to play our own music, (Mike (Durr) and I both wrote), plus some classic rock and roll like Little Richard’s Rip It Up, and some British Invasion goodies I would find on imports I would buy at Lewin’s, an awesome record shop on Hollywood Blvd. in L.A that was worth the 350 mile trip, if only to feel the slick, glossy, flimsy LP covers that England favoured over our sturdy, but dull, cardboard equivalent. It was because of Lewin’s, that people in the Central Valley towns we played thought I had written Drive My Car, If I Needed Someone, and Nowhere Man, because those songs weren’t released in the U.S until Yesterday and Today, and we learned them from the imported Rubber Soul, and Revolver LP’s months earlier.

In order to accomplish this dream of playing great original and cutting edge cover tunes, we had to rehearse, and rehearse a lot.

We did just that.

In my mom and dad’s house.

We would set up after dinner and rehearse until 10 pm almost every night. My mother would make dinner for my dad, my aunt Della, herself, and usually the whole band, and then we would set up and play. Vann’s drums were in Della’s bedroom, the guitar and bass amps in the dining room, and the mics, and a little P.A were in the living room.

The first time we did this, we had been playing for about an hour when, at the end of one of the songs, we heard knocking at the front door accompanied by someone constantly ringing the doorbell. My mom came out of the kitchen wiping her hands on her apron and made a beeline to the door. Looking over her shoulder, we saw two policemen standing on the porch.

“Mrs. Segarini?”, said one of the cops, “May we come in?”

“No”, said my mom, sounding stern and a bit annoyed. “What do you want?”

“Well, we’ve had a noise complaint from one of your neighbors”.

Kragen. Mr. Kragen from next door. Mr. Kragen, whom I was sure was an ex-Nazi, hiding in Stockton since the end of WWII. This man had kept every ball that ever accidentally got tossed into his yard. He would come out and turn the hose on you if you hopped the fence to retrieve them. By now, he must have had enough footballs, baseballs, and whiffle balls to start a rec centre. He was, up until this moment, just a cranky old buzzard that hated kids. Now…now he was Satan.

It was around 9 pm when this happened, and my mother pointed out that we could play music until 11 pm if we wanted to. That was the law. The police said they were sorry, but getting a complaint meant we would have to stop playing.

“They aren’t that loud”, said my mother through the screen door. The cops shuffled their feet.

“Well, your neighbor says he can hear them in his house, so…”, The cop began. My mother cut him off.

“I can prove they are not that loud, officer”, she said, unlocking the screen door.

The two cops stepped into the living room, and my mom pointed to the corner.

There, next to the P.A, was my dad in his Barcalounger.

Sound asleep.

We played until 10 that night, and every night thereafter. They never came back.

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My mom always had my back. Through thick and thin, she was there for me and my friends no matter what. She loved her kids. All of us.

There are so many great stories about her, I’ll have to tell some more down the line, but I just want to say how much I miss her, how much her love and involvement in my life means to me, and how I pray her and my dad are together again, keeping their ever-watchful eyes on me, my family, and our friends.

Love you mom. Happy Mother’s Day.

Mercedes Ormi Segarini Jume 30^th 1919 – August 18^th 1997

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Segarini’s regular column appears here every Friday

Contact us at dbawis@rogers.com

Bob “The Iceman” Segarini was in the bands The Family Tree, Roxy, The Wackers, The Dudes, and The Segarini Band and nominated for a Juno for production in 1978. He also hosted “Late Great Movies” on CITY TV, was a producer of Much Music, and an on-air personality on CHUM FM, Q107, SIRIUS Sat/Rad’s Iceberg 95, (now 85), and now publishes, edits, and writes for DBAWIS, osts The Bobcast every Monday night at Cherry Cola’s, and continues to write music, make music, and record.

In it I discuss my formative musical years and how an innocuous friendship with a high school punk took me on a two year roller coaster ride through the 2^nd Wave of the Toronto punk scene as alleged guitarist in hardcore act Swindled. I had previously run the chapters as blog entries in Don’t Believe A Word I Say back in 2010. The band reunited in 2011 with the ever professional Cleave Anderson on drums, we recorded our long awaited debut album (only 30 years in the making) and everyone lived happily ever after. That chapter is the epilogue in the book.

The part of the book that was never run in DBAWIS was the story of the long tail…the aftermath of being a punk, then not being a punk, then paying my respects to the 1^st Wave Toronto punks 20 years later.

I wasn’t there during the first generation’s climb from the primal ooze of Queen Street’s staid bar scene to its culmination and collapse at the end of the 1970s. I have no anecdotes or opinions one way or the other on the Cult of Steven Leckie, The Crash ‘n’ Burn Club as punk Petri dish, or Michaele Jordana’s fempunk strides amongst the male snotterotti. Much has been written in recent years in an attempt to clarify the scene and its importance to the origins of punk on the world stage. I recommend Liz Worth’s book ‘Treat Me Like Dirt’ (http://bongobeat.com/index2.php) which is an oral history of the scene.

My experience with these legendary figures came as part of a revival in the early 2000s. Here, for the first time, is a bit of back story on the acts I crossed paths with and, occasionally, swords. 

THE SONIC REDUCTION

On December 7, 1998 I became the Canadian content editor at the short-lived Sam The Record Man.com website for legendary music retailer Sam the Record Man.

During JUNO® Awards week 2000 I was approached by Jason Sniderman one day to discuss something important for the company. His Dad, and store patriarch, Sam Sniderman wanted to honour 30 years of the Junos with a sale on all Canadian music product from past and present winners and nominees. After a week or two of research of the warehouse database and the floor of the massive mothership store on Yonge Street, I had to break the news to my bosses and Jason that out of the 1000+ winners and nominees over the last 35 years less than 200 compact discs existed, in print and as inventory, representing the voice of Juno celebrities. There was no product for some of the oldest stars and little remained in production from the remaining ‘superstars’ of our generation. The major labels weren’t bothering and the indie labels that once fed the industry like Attic, Daffodil, Arc and Yorkville Records were either gone…or quickly heading there. Needless to say, the Sam Sniderman sale to honour our Canadian superstars was a complete failure.

The Sam’s incident was the impetus to start investing in and building a Canadian classic rock catalog – one that would anchor Bullseye Records for nearly a decade. It would involve the likes of Goddo, the entire Klaatu back catalog, The Kings, Guess Who, Brutus, Brave Belt, Segarini, Killer Dwarfs, Santers, Moxy, Figures At Dawn, Silverlode, Honeymoon Suite, and various and sundry solo projects by members of these and other bands.

It would also allow me to honor my punk roots.

THE RESCUE ATTEMPT

The hunt was on for master tapes and their master rights owners for untapped punk and new wave releases.

Music historian and enthusiast Jan Haust of Other People’s Music had re-issued the much applauded Punk Hole of Fame series in the mid-1990s that featured complete and selected works from the likes of The Curse, The Ugly, The Mods, The Secrets, Forgotten Rebels, Teenage Head, The B-Girls and The Viletones. I approached him about Bullseye putting these releases back into circulation but he balked at the idea claiming he was working on reviving the series. Fair enough, there was other material he didn’t have that I decided to chase after.

I’d already licensed two Goddo titles from Peter Burnside of re-issue label Pacemaker Entertainment (http://www.pacemaker.cd) as he was momentarily cash strapped. I did the same for the album ‘David Quinton’ – he of The Androids/Mods/Stiv Bators Band fame – and Bullseye took over the license to re-issue which allowed me to work with David directly on the re-mastering and packaging which was handled meticulously by former Diodes manager and graphic style guru Ralph Alfonso. The resulting compilation disc, ‘Bombs & Lullabies: 1981-1988’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnJE5crf_XI, contained most of that seminal debut album plus completed demos for his unreleased 2^nd album for Capitol Records – which was never completed after he agreed to tour as Strange Advance’s drummer as a favour to the label. It was something that left a sour taste in his mouth and caused him to walk away from the music biz as a performer for many years. Thankfully, that didn’t last forever.

In 2007 we had planned to repackage the production with even more bonus material – demos, live tracks and outtakes. I had already re-recorded an updated version of my favourite track of his called “When Lullabies End” with Brian Gagnon (Frank Soda, The Hunt) for my next solo album ‘Nightmare @ 20,000 Watts’. I thought it would be fun to get David to do a vocal call-and-response on the track for my album plus a straight re-singing by him on the lead vocal for his own CD re-issue. His version wound up on Bullseye’s ‘Unsigned, Sealed & Delivered V2.2: In Pop We Trust’ compilation in time for release during the Toronto International Pop Overthrow Festival.

Unfortunately, my solo album and the Quinton solo material re-re-issue never materialized due to the global economic collapse in 2008. However, the ‘duet’ of David and I on “When Lullabies End” did make it to iTunes.

WOLFGANG SPEGG: THE KING OF GERMANY

The original label for David’s solo album was Bomb Records and when Bob Segarini – who was part of a new collaboration with Greg Godovitz called The Anger Brothers that I was bankrolling – found out about it he suggested I talk to Wolfgang Spegg who used to co-own the label.

Bomb had been dormant since 1982. Rumours persisted that the label was bankrupt and the catalog was lost in legal limbo with the master tapes lost forever. The only way to find out was to talk to him about it.

Bob was also signed to Bomb in the late 1970s and he was happy to arrange a meeting with the promise that I’d put as much effort into re-repackaging and re-issuing his Bomb solo releases as I had with the Quinton material.

Bob was working daily on Wolfgang’s newest enterprise MusicMusicMusic – a streaming MP3 radio station years before Spotify or Pandora. It would be crushed in its infancy after the company went public and its shareholders dismantled it. A shame – it was a brilliant model and years ahead of the curve (this was pre-Napster days after all).

Bob took me to meet Wolfgang at his swank Toronto condominium apartment. What I didn’t know going in was that Bob had already sold me to Wolfgang. He wasn’t interested in the money I was offering so much as the preservation of the material itself. He still loved music. He loved the small legacy he had grown, but had languished, in that brief shining moment when Bomb Records was making entertainment news. Wolfgang just wanted the music back out there.

He signed a deal on the spot assuring me that he was the legal rep for the master recordings. Sadly, he confirmed that the master tapes had been lost years before. I’d have to scavenge from pristine vinyl to create new masters from Ebay, Musicstack.com and Kop’s Collectables on Queen Street (thanks Chris!)

The collection, in toto, included Segarini’s three albums ‘Gotta Have Pop’, ‘Goodbeye L.A.’, and ‘…On the Radio’; Twitch’s “Twitch & Shout”; The Battered Wives’ self-titled debut and ‘Cigarettes’, Michael Holland’s ‘Do She Want Love’ and True Confessions’ self-titled debut. It also allowed me to add rogue singles, demos, outtakes and anything else I could get the former band members to dig out of the vaults for added value to the CDs.

What I didn’t have access to was American band The Romantics’ ‘Tell It To Carrie’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3hdS0mdIw  EP produced by Bob Segarini that was controlled by Greg Shaw at Bomp! Records; The Scenics’ debut album which was controlled by band leader Andy Ramesh Meyers; The Secrets’ debut album or the Holy Grail of all Toronto punk releases: ‘The Last Pogo’ soundtrack now in the hands of Jan Haust. Apparently, Wolfgang had leased him the rights for 20+ years for $1.00. And Haust was gearing up to release a 25^th anniversary version of ‘Pogo’ to coincide with the original concert and Colin Brunton’s seminal movie.

I was undaunted. I’d been successful in licensing material before and was sure I could get at least a track or two from each of these projects to assemble a ‘History of Bomb Records’ compilation CD when I eventually launched the stand-alone titles of the other artists I now controlled.

The Bomb catalog proved to be a land mine of on going anger and recrimination by many of the former artists who were still pissed at the way Bomb and Wolfgang handled them – or didn’t in the case of those who were never paid.

I had to re-assure the acts that it was I who would be handling the re-issues and the royalty payouts – not Wolfgang. I had to win the trust of a lot of musicians who’d been burned, not just by Bomb but by the music industry itself. It was a lesson in diplomacy and respecting the ideas and input of each of them in getting the albums off the ground again. The babysitting of egos had begun.

BATTERED AND BOWED

Through my ongoing maintenance of the Canadian Pop Music Encyclopedia online I’d managed to make the acquaintance of The Battered Wives’ Jasper Klassen, Cleave Anderson and Cleave’s replacement Pat Mooney online. Later Greg Godovitz introduced me to guitarist John Gibb who lived comfortably in the countryside north of Toronto with his wife. He was effectively retired and watching the star rise on his musician daughter Rebecca Gibb and her all-girl alt-rock band Harlot. The band would eventually implode but Rebecca would go on to become Mrs. Pat Smear – he of Nirvana/Foo Fighters fame.

With the first two Battered Wives albums https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzWtkg2FrJI

now in my possession I called John to tell him the news and that I wanted his input on the re-issues. He was incensed. The albums had already been re-mastered and re-issued by Pacemaker in the 1990s (which I’d written the liner notes for) to little financial gain for him and the band but he was still holding a grudge against Wolfgang & Co. for untold indignities dating back two decades before. He would agree to working with me only if the Wives got some money up front against sales and that all the former members were on board and involved in the packaging and marketing of the albums. It wasn’t an unreasonable request though I failed to see how his music business war wounds were my problem.

This was an issue that reared its head time and again with many of the artists I worked with at Bullseye. The general consensus was that by inheriting a re-issue I was also inheriting their past miseries – if not their debt.

The monkey wrench in getting the albums re-issued would turn out to be the band’s focal point, Toby Swann, who was missing and presumed sailing around the world avoiding all manner of life’s unpleasant realities. If we couldn’t find him we couldn’t have a consensus on the re-issues.

I also needed access to Toby to re-issue his ‘Lullabyes In Razorland’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVbZVhledvM post-Wives solo album from the defunct El Mocambo label. Former label owner Robert-Charles Dunne controlled the title and was considering allowing Bullseye a re-issue if I could get Toby to sign-off on it.

Toby didn’t materialize until 2011…on Facebook of all places. By then Bullseye was a non-entity and the deal with Wolfgang had long expired. The Wives have since re-issued the albums on iTunes themselves.

TWITCH & SHOUT

Though Bob Segarini was never a punk – having invested the majority of his career in the creation of pure pop and honest-to-goodness Rock and Roll (like the masters used to create) – he did walk among them and has always been a vocal advocate of the scene going back to the days of Ralph Alfonso/The Diodes’ Crash ‘n’ Burn club. Bob worked in television for CITY-TV, on radio for both CHUM-FM and Q107 while simultaneously recording and performing live as a solo artist and with The Segarini Band.

He also produced other artists – including the previously mentioned Romantics EP, The B-Girls’ independent debut single “Fun At The Beach” and B-Girls frontwoman Lucasta Ross’s studio act Mensroom. Bob also took a young London, Ontario band named Twitch under his wing after lead singer/guitarist Garwood Wallace tracked Bob down to praise him for his debut album ‘Gotta Have Pop’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6BoZdPfZGs

Segarini became something of a mentor to Wallace resulting in Garwood playing guitar and singing on the sessions for Segarini’s second solo album ‘Goodbye L.A.‘ At one point, Wallace asked Segarini to attend a Twitch showcase at the Nickelodeon on Yonge Street in Toronto. Segarini was impressed enough with the energetic band that he had them do an opening slot for him and his band that same night across town at the El Mocambo on Spadina. Thus, the very first Twitch gig in front of a live audience was on June 2, 1979 to a packed house.

They became the house “opening act” at the El Mocambo for much of the summer of ’79, doing shows with the Ramones, Link Wray, John Lee Hooker, and the Tourists, among others.

Segarini also recorded a Garwood Wallace song, “Rock ‘n Roll Moment”, for the ‘Goodbye L.A.‘ album. By the Fall of 1980, Twitch recorded and released “Sad Girl” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua2Uuj4JFVY, their first single and video for Bomb Records. In February 1981, they began the sessions for the album ‘Twitch And Shout‘, which was produced by Greg Warren and released in June of that year. The album and its first single, “Take It Back”, received a lot of airplay and Twitch played extensively across Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritimes. Various factors typical of the music scene in the early eighties contributed to the band’s demise and they played their final show together at Larry’s Hideaway on March 11, 1982.

In the ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ category, I already knew Garwood. He was a floor manager at Sam the Record Man’s flagship store on Yonge Street while I was there working for Sams.com. We’d initially found a common interest when my music encyclopedia editor at Canoe.ca asked if I could find someone to de-click and digitize his copy of 1970s bubble gum pop act Abraham’s Children’s ‘Time’ album. Garwood offered his service as itinerant audio restoration hobbyist. The work he did on the re-master would later be used by the band to sell to their fans online.

Garwood proved to be the perfect guy to take on the Bomb re-masters – especially given his close personal connection to the material…and the people involved.

I spent a tonne of personal time with Garwood and his awesome wife Janice who watched Garwood suffer through the success and demise of Twitch first hand. I wanted Garwood on the ground floor helping to rebuild Bomb’s image as one of the great, short-lived indie labels.

I think Garwood was sold when I gave him carte blanche in re-mastering the Twitch album and anything he wanted to add as bonus tracks. I also hired Janice to restore all the Bomb album cover artwork from my personal collection of near-mint pressings.

Garwood became the Bomb Records official re-mastering technician – a job that aided in his becoming an independent restoration professional following his departure from Sam’s. We are both exceptionally proud of the work he put into the re-packaging of ‘Twitch & Shout’.

WARM KITSCHENETTE

I don’t recall the exact details in meeting former Dishes member Steven Davey – most probably from emails through The Canadian Pop Music Encyclopedia to  correct (or improve) the band’s entry on the Canoe.ca website. It might have also been through Ralph Alfonso. I don’t recall.

Regardless, Steven and the former members of the band were looking to have their recordings released on CD. Word got out that Bullseye was the place to do it.

As Steven was the food critic for Toronto’s weekly NOW! Magazine, he asked me to go out for lunch – which he’d order on my behalf so that he could get a sense of more than one dish in his restaurant review. We did this on several occasions so we could get to know each other and he could explain the vision for the Dishes’ re-issue.

It was important to capture a sense of their place in the Toronto Queen Street circuit during its infancy. In fact, there is strong support for the notion that they started what would soon become the simultaneously exploding alternative and punk scenes.

In the suburbs of Toronto in 1975 Scott Davey and Tony Malone decided to form a band that was the complete antithesis of the mind-numbing music heard on local FM airwaves. They dubbed the band the Dishes.

After some line-up adjustments, in February 1976 the Dishes featured Murray Ball (vocals), Michael Lacroix (saxophone), Ken Farr (bass), and Scott’s brother Steven Davey (drums). They quickly found began a weekly residency at the Beverly Tavern in Toronto. With a strong visual image coupling short hair ‘n’ uniforms and original material that owed much to art-rock pioneers Roxy Music, David Bowie, and the Kinks, the Dishes were an immediate sensation with Toronto’s burgeoning avant-garde art scene.

The Dishes’ success soon inspired their audience of frustrated musicians and artists to start their own bands. Within a year of their debut, The Diodes, Martha And The Muffins, The Cads, The Curse, Johnny And The G-Rays, The Government, and The Viletones were embedded in the scene. Even more significantly, the Dishes’ Beverly Tavern gigs – 14 weeks-worth that year alone – kick-started the about-to-be-hip strip’s scene of cool clubs, art galleries, and trendy eateries.

In May 1977, The Dishes released their EP ‘Fashion Plates‘ on their own Regular Records label. It would sell 4,000 copies. By this time, Malone had left The Dishes to start Drastic Measures and was replaced by 18 year-old Glenn Schellenberg. That year The Dishes worked with performance artist David Buchan on two shows – ‘Geek Chic’ at the King Edward Hotel Ballroom and ‘Fashion Burn’ at The Diodes’ Crash ‘n’ Burn club – as well as a show called ‘Hot Property’ with international art stars General Idea who performed it at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. The band were also featured several times in the pages of General Idea’s ‘FILE’ Megazine. The Dishes also became a regular opening act for Carole Pope and Rough Trade.

At the end of the year, TVOntario recorded The Dishes in concert for its program ‘Night Music’, and broadcast the results over 20 times.

Early 1978 saw the release of The Dishes’ second EP – ‘Hot Property‘, with cover art by General Idea – and the band’s return to the Beverly Tavern for a series of standing-room-only appearances. They also appeared with Talking Heads at the re-born Horseshoe Tavern that Spring.

Material was gathered from the two 7” EPs and a restoration of the audio from the famed TV Ontario ‘Night Music’ performance at Queen’s Park and packaged as ‘Kitschenette: The Best of The Dishes’ http://www.therealdishes.com. We ran into a brief hiccup when Tony Malone caught wind of our plans and attempted to derail the disc saying that the material didn’t represent his contributions to the early growth of the group. In lieu of him providing audio evidence to support his claim – which he was willing to provide only if he could master the disc and supervise all the song choices, artwork and liner notes – we pressed on without him.

Artwork was designed by long time friend of the Queen Street scene Erella Vent showing the group’s playful photogenic whimsy. The alternative press reviewed the disc favourably and the former members seemed pleased that their place in history was finally set in stone.

DRINK TO ME: THE KEITH WHITTAKER EPITAPH

Steven came to me several years later about another project near and dear to his heart which was initially in the hands of Ralph Alfonso’s Bongo Beat label. Steven was anxious to get it out to commemorate the 10^th anniversary of the passing of The Demics’ Keith Whittaker.

Ralph had worked on a lot of Bullseye projects over the years as graphic designer and when I asked if I could expedite the project for Steven he was reluctant but eventually said yes as his schedule was becoming increasingly more pressed for time in those days.

The Demics began in the late ’70′s in London, Ontario and soon moved from the small club setting where their style of punk was barely appreciated to the hotbed of the Canadian punk scene itself – Toronto.

Soon, the band found itself the showpiece act on fledgling indie label Ready Records in Toronto and a 5-song EP called ‘Talk’s Cheap‘ led to some notoriety on cutting edge Toronto radio like CFNY-FM with their track “New York City”.

They were wooed to Tom Treumuth’s Hypnotic Records label who were more equipped, along with the Intercan label, to take the band farther with its distribution deal through Pickwick Records.

The result was the self-titled debut album in 1980 and a re-recording of “New York City” which divided radio listeners and long-time fans who had grown fond of the earlier, raw reading of the tune https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwfkpW63Nj8.

The Demics’ rising star was short lived and the band split up amidst lack of a clear vision and musical direction following the loss of their deal on Intercan/Hypnotic.

In 1996, Jan Haust’s Other Peoples Music released a compilation CD of the Demics’ material. This was followed by Chart Magazine’s declaration of “New York City” as the greatest Canadian single of all time.

Whittaker spent years floundering and bristling at the notion that people thought The Demics were mere one-hit wonders. He openly scorned “New York City” – refusing to play it live with his solo acts.

Whittaker’s health, and social graces, began to deteriorate – but Steven Davey remained his closest ally who constantly pushed Keith to be creative without the Demics monkey on his back. Some home-made acoustic demos were recorded at Davey’s apartment and showed a more human side to a singer whose public persona was always presented as a caustic affront to his followers.

On July 16, 1996, Keith Whittaker died of cancer in Toronto.

Steven Davey had the demo recordings digitally mastered and sequenced for CD. I assembled the artwork around Steven’s liner notes and Don Pyles’ photos. True to the spirit of Keith’s material, Steven chose a cheesy 1960’s modern prairie cowboy motif and we inserted a faux sticker on the cover that announced: “Does NOT include ‘New York City’ by The Demics.” Keith would have appreciated the anti-marketing of that statement.

We launched the ‘Drink To Me’ disc at the very bistro in Kensington Market where Steven & Keith used to drink regularly while Keith held court and told his tall tales. A whose who of Keith’s friends and supporters showed up including Crazy Steve of the Bunchofuckingoofs, members of the Dishes, Greg Keelor from Blue Rodeo, Ian McKay from The Diodes and others. The consensus was that Keith would have loved and hated all the attention.

UN-RETIRED FROM WAKING UP TIRED

As Ian McKay and I got re-acquainted at the Whittaker launch party he asked about the re-issue of the Diodes third studio album ‘Action/Re-action’ which Bullseye was initially supposed to release in 2001. The album was an important closing chapter for the band and they wanted the re-issue to be meticulous because the initial release had gotten short shrift when it came out on Orient Records in 1980.

However, with members John Catto and Paul Robinson now permanently ensconced in England it was difficult for the tapes to be re-mastered, the video footage for the single “Catwalker” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOkvX9gS8_I to be restored and the artwork to be assembled in a timely fashion with all hands on board in the approval process. So it was delayed.

Meanwhile, a bigger battle plan was launched as Ralph Alfonso – still acting as their manager 20 years later – single-handedly cajoled the band’s former label, Sony, into re-issuing the Diodes’ first two albums on CD in 1999; Making way for the group to have a proper comeback – and reunion.

The Diodes did select shows and generated new interest in their history – from humble beginnings in 1976 to becoming press darlings and the first Canadian punk act signed to a major label.

Ralph Alfonso backed by Dave Rave & The Plastic Heroes at Lennon’s Pub, Liverpool 2007. Photo: Wil Woodrove c/o IPO.

Fast forward to 2007 where Dave Rave (ex-Shakers, Teenage Head) who was also signed to Bullseye, The Diodes and I were performing at David Bash’s annual Liverpool International Pop Overthrow Festival being held at the Cavern Club, Cavern Pub and Lennon’s Pub on Mathew Street.

A triple threat at Lennon’s Pub the first night of the festival featured Dave Rave, Ralph Alfonso (backed by Dave Rave and The Plastic Heroes) and the reunited Diodes. All three acts blew the roof off the joint.

Following the amazingly exhaustive sets and Ralph’s and Dave Rave’s impromptu post-gig man-on-the-street sidewalk interview with BBC Radio’s Spencer Leigh, we headed off to an Indian restaurant for a late meal. The Diodes held court and the question came up, once more, about the illusive re-issue of ‘Action/Reaction’. By this point the license for Bullseye to release it had long expired and Ralph’s own Bongo Beat Records currently relinquished control.

John Catto finally spoke up and admitted that the production had been delayed because of him – he just hadn’t been happy with the re-mastering and had spent the better part of a year fixing the recordings which were extracted from sources that needed a lot of TLC.

To everyone’s delight Bongo Beat finally released ‘Action/Reaction’ in 2011 and it was well worth the wait! Ralph never disappoints with his amazing CD packaging and presentation. Ralph would also do graphic design and layout for our re-issue of New York City punks The Fast as well.

I highly recommend checking out any or all of these re-issues. Most are available on Ebay and even Amazon.com

Send your CDs to: Jaimie Vernon, 180 Station Street, Suite 53, Ajax, ON L1S 1R9 CANADA

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Jaimie’s column appears every Saturday.

Contact us at dbawis@rogers.com

Jaimie “Captain CanCon” Vernon has been president of the on again/off-again Bullseye Records of Canada since 1985. He wrote and published Great White Noise magazine in the ‘90s, has been a musician for 35 years, and recently discovered he’s been happily married for 17 of those years. He is also the author of the Canadian Pop Music Encyclopedia and a collection of his most popular ‘Don’t Believe A Word I Say’ columns called ‘Life’s A Canadian…BLOG’ both of which are available at Amazon.com or http://www.bullseyecanada.com

Here’s a collection of videos and some anecdotes to while away a hot, languid afternoon or enjoy anytime you feel the urge. These songs all impacted me in positive ways over the years and all of them have made a lasting impression.

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The humanity in this music, so often missing in music these days, doesn’t make me long for the past, but rather, excited to hear it returning as we speak. There is so much great music being made today, I have every reason to believe that music is healthier than ever, and the personal signature and the unique quality of well crafted songs is much more important than following the herd. Feel free to revisit all these songs as often as you like. Summer is just around the corner, Spring is more than sprung, and the music is all cued up and waiting for us. Shall we?

Louie Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald: Summertime

Yeah, it’s a classic song all right, written by George Gershwin for the opera “Porgy and Bess” back in 1935. The lyrics were written by author DuBose Heyward, who wrote the novel “Porgy”, which the opera was based on. Over the years a gazillion versions of this song have been recorded by everyone from Gershwin to Janis Joplin, and Billy Holiday to Fantasia (an American Idol winner, don’t’cha know). Of all the versions this one rings my bell. Two legends doing a great reading of a song that has been destroyed at more karaoke bars than “Don’t Stop Believin’”, and “Proud Mary”. Regardless of the version, this song captures the feel of summer with an atmosphere both hot and humid, and languid and thoughtful. I can here the crickets and frogs on the water, see the fireflies in the trees, and hear the riverboat’s horn in the distance.

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Eddie Cochran: Summertime Blues

The Who made it their own, and Blue Cheer pummeled it into a career, but the best version of this track is the original by Eddie Cochran. As influential a rocker as Elvis, Haley, Penniman, and Berry, Cochran’s performance of this song both in the studio and live, spoke for millions of teenagers back in the ‘50s whose lives were reflected in the lyric. Summer is all beach and parties and dreamy nights making out for some, for others, it was a sweltering break from school that meant finding a job and working for spending money. Eddie nailed it for the kids who couldn’t afford Spring Break, let alone a summer of leisure. As always, rock and roll’s greatness lies in its ability to tell the truth.

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The Jamies: Summertime, Summertime

Led by brother and sister Tom and Serena Jameson, The Jamies had a hit with this song (co-written by Tom and Sherman Feller, another member of the group) in the summer of 1958 (same as Summertime Blues) back when ‘summer’ records were as perennial and ubiquitous as Christmas songs in the winter. A group formed out of a church choir, The Jamies recorded for several years, but failed to ever match the success of this great, hummable earworm. Sherman Feller went on to become much more famous as the public address announcer for the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. Now THAT”S a great summer job.

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Percy Faith: Theme from a Summer Place

This came out in 1959. I was 13 years old and a frequent guest at ‘make out parties’ held in friend’s basements when mom and dad were busy at the Elks Club or down at the latest Masonic Temple installation or just asleep on the couch watching ‘Gunsmoke’. The best ones were at my friend Jeff Barkett’s house. Why? Because they had a full size billiard table in the basement, lots of overstuffed chairs and couches, and a wicked console record player that had a 45 adapter. We could stack 7 or 8 records on it and dance…and make out. If you left the arm off of the spindle adapter the last 45 would play over and over again. That 45 was always “Theme from a Summer Place”.

Originally written by Mack Discant and Max Steiner and recorded by Hugo Winterhalter (he of ‘Canadian Sunset’ fame), it was the love theme for Molly and Johnny (played by Sandra Dee (A blonde Megan Fox) and Troy Donahue (Also a blonde Megan Fox)) in the movie “A Summer Place”. The film was a chick-flick that no guy at these parties had ever seen, but Percy Faith’s recording of it was a HUGE hit (at number one for 8 weeks at one point, it is STILL the longest running number one instrumental of all time) but every girl had seen multiple times. When we were taking advantage of the song’s overwhelming (for the girls) romantic cachet, we closed our eyes and every girl became Sandra Dee, just like the girls probably thought of us as their own personal Troy Donahues and went limp in our arms while we played tonsil hockey. Making out didn’t mean what it does today. You were lucky to get to 2^nd base if you were brave enough to try. We were all perfectly happy to just kiss until our lips were numb and we couldn’t walk properly for a day or two. The girls used to just stop panting, their rosy cheeks would return to their normal pink hue, and they would leave for home none the worse for wear. We boys, on the other hand, could barely walk, painfully aware that something was missing in the equation. Nevertheless, this song fueled a lot of great nights when I was a kid…I just wish the girls had been a bit more understanding of our plight, or that we were brave enough to go in for the kill. The summer of this song is still one of my fondest memories, but not so much for my testicles.

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The Beach Boys: All Summer Long

I could have just put the Beach Boys catalogue up here and let it go at that, but in truth, I thought these two songs exemplify the greatness of summer infused tune-dom. There are so many great Beach Boys tracks that float out of the speakers on a salt air breeze, that you could play nothing but their music in the dead of winter and STILL be glowing from a day at the beach. Therein lies greatness.

The Beach Boys: The Warmth of the Sun 

I defy you not to be swept away by the imagery in this song. Brian Wilson understood youth, summer, music, and atmosphere better than almost any other American writer ever. I am still overcome with memories and emotions every time I hear this glorious piece of music. Brian says he was not made for these times, but in all honesty, I believe he was made for ALL times. Sometimes when I listen to this track and close my eyes, I am transported to Pismo Beach outside of San Louis Obispo, or to the sunsets at Zuma or Manhattan Beaches in Southern California. I can smell the salt air and seaweed on the beach, hear the gulls wheeling through the sky overhead, feel the warm sand through my toes, the glow of a day at the beach on my skin, and remember the feel and heady scent of a beautiful girl of summer in my arms, wisps of sun-bleached hair tickling my cheeks, her skin made silky soft by the lotion, the Pacific lapping at our ankles every time a wave reaches the shore. Sometimes, when I close my eyes I experience all of this, and sometimes, when I open my eyes, there are tears in them.

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Chad and Jeremy: A Summer Song 

Another fine example of how well written the songs were during the British Invasion. Like Peter and Gordon, the other important duo from the era, Chad and Jeremy kept releasing songs that stuck with you without beating you over the head, and being witty and clever as only people raised on Oscar Wilde and the Huxley’s can be. I was in a band that was part of a huge review in the Bay Area that included The Kinks, Sonny and Cher, Chad and Jeremy, and others. I spent quality time with C & J (and Jeremy’s lovely wife, Jill) in their hotel room the afternoon before the show. Chad and Jeremy were sitting on the bed singing this song when Jill opened the curtains over the sliding glass doors and stood looking out over the landscaped garden pool outside. She was wearing a short sundress and the sun shone through the window making the dress almost transparent. The song, how beautiful she was, all added up to an image and can still conjure up all these years later. They were such nice people, and Jill was about the most gorgeous woman I had ever been in a room with, her Patti Boyd long straight hair, willowy perfect body, and a lilting British accent that made American girls sound harsh by comparison. It was a great show too, capped off by the Davies brothers getting into a fist fight onstage during the Kinks set. 

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Bob Dylan: Like a Rolling Stone 

Late summer in L.A, 1965. I was walking down Sunset from Vine Street on my way to the Whiskey to meet up with friends and hear some music. Everyone cruised the Sunset Strip in those days, a 2 or 3 mile stretch of Sunset that stood as ground zero for Teenage America at the time. Cars were bumper to bumper (mostly convertibles) filled with kids from the valley who had driven over the San Gabriel’s to spend a night in Hollywood partying. Every radio in every car was tuned to either KHJ, KRLA, or KFWB.  When this song came on, it spread from one car to the next, all of them tuning into the right station if they weren’t already, and turning up the volume. It was a perfect summer night, and as we walked down the street, this song continued to play from a hundred car radios following us down Sunset like a private theme song. We were young, we were dreamers, we were all away from home. We were ALL rolling stones that summer.

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Sly and the Family Stone: Hot Fun in the Summertime 

Granted, Sly was sometimes crazier than a shithouse rat, but the Bay Area never produced a more creative or talented iconoclast. I was still living in L.A in ‘69 (The Year of the Manson) and when this song would come on the radio, it would bring the cool rationale of San Francisco with it. There is something about the languid delivery to the verses in this song that makes you relax, and then the band kicks it up and you start to dance in your mind. A perfect antidote to the heat and humidity, and a complex piece of music that Sly and company make sound as easy as sipping a beer on a stoop. Timeless.

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Seals and Crofts: Summer Breeze 

The Wackers did a Saturday morning NBC television show in New York back in ’73 called ‘Take a Giant Step’. It was a big deal for us, so much so, that Gary Usher flew out to mix our two performances, which I wish to hell I had a copy of. On the bill with us were Astronaut Ed Swickert (a bit of a looney tune thanks to his time in space, a handful of Muppets, (or should I say Muppets full of hands), and Seals and Crofts. Imagine our disappointment when they showed up not live, but on tape. I wanted to tell them how much I love this song, but I was denied! Anyway, I tell them now; love this song, and thank you very much, and by the way, liked your work with The Champs and Glen Campbell, too.

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Diesel: Sausalito Summer Nights 

Hey, it’s Sausilito, it’s summer, and it’s night. More about California than summer, but wow, when you listen to this try to stop yourself from wanting to get into the Vista Cruiser and drive to the West Coast. Nothing says summer like a road trip…except Jill standing in that doorway in a sundress….

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Bryan Adams: Summer of 69 

I’ve included this here because I admire and like Bryan very much as both a fine talent and a good guy, and because while he was learning how to play the guitar in ’69, I was hiding under my bed in Laurel Canyon waiting for deranged Hippies to break into the house and write stuff on the living room walls with my entrails. Well, not really, but the Summer of ’69 for us in the basin would not end well for some. I prefer Bryan’s take on the year and then writing a song about it…how cool is that?

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The Partland Brothers: Soul City 

Also Canadian and written and recorded by two of the nicest guys you would ever want to meet. The Canadian Edition of Time Magazine called this track the great summer song of 1987. I tend to agree. Another couple of guys that I cannot, for the life of me, understand why they didn’t break through to mega success. They had the looks, the chops, the charisma, and the material. WTF?!

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Fourplay: A Summer Child

Fourplay epitomizes California summers for me. I have no idea why that is. They clearly have a New York vibe, they play music generally misunderstood by my peers, and there are very rarely any vocals. That said, this music is an 80 MPH trip over a levee surrounded by farmland and 1000 miles of waterways just outside of Stockton California. The sun is just setting in the West, Mt. Diablo is visible on the horizon, the breeze from the channels cools you and the wind gently whips through your hair while the music both relaxes and inspires you. As the sun finally sets, you pull the little Fiat Spyder convertible into the parking lots surrounding the many bars and bistros dotting the islands, find a barstool or a table, order a cold beer or a Jack and Coke, or a glass of wine from one of the local vineyards, and look at the menu to see whether you should order a barbecued tri-tip sandwich, deep fried asparagus, or plate of pasta. There are times when I really miss my home town. This is one of them. Written by Lee Ritenour to celebrate the birth of his daughter, watch the joy on his face when they play it. This is what music is all about.

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Segarini and Bishop: 1962

Back n 1976 when I was living in Montreal, I had  a real bad attack of homesickness for California. I have no idea why, but I began to long for Cosatanza’s enchiladas, tri-tip sandwiches, Pink’s hot dogs, Del Taco, cioppino, and those warm summer nights when you really could believe that California was the Promised Land. The food led me home to Stockton, and remembering Stockton led me to San Francisco and Los Angelos, and I locked in on the Beach Boys, the group whose music personified California like no musical entity before or since. I was inspired to write this song, thinking I would send it to the Beach Boys and if they recorded it, be a part of rejuvenating their career, maybe even reuniting them with Brian. Ths is just the unfinished demo I was going to send them…until I thought, what kind of an idiot would write a song about California’s beach lifestyle, young love, and times gone by for the originator and master of the genre, Brian Wilson? I decided not to finish the demo, and I never sent the song to them.

Enjoy your summer, enjoy these videos, and don’t forget to hydrate.

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Segarini’s regular column appears here every Friday

Contact us at dbawis@rogers.com

Bob “The Iceman” Segarini was in the bands The Family Tree, Roxy, The Wackers, The Dudes, and The Segarini Band and nominated for a Juno for production in 1978. He also hosted “Late Great Movies” on CITY TV, was a producer of Much Music, and an on-air personality on CHUM FM, Q107, SIRIUS Sat/Rad’s Iceberg 95, (now 85), and now publishes, edits, and writes for DBAWIS, osts The Bobcast every Monday night at Cherry Cola’s, and continues to write music, make music, and record.

You don’t believe me? Just step outside and see me baby

I was a punk before you were a punk

You want some action? I’ll put your ass in traction baby

I was a punk before you were

I was a punk before you

I was a punk before you were

I was a punk before you”

The Tubes (Spooner/Evans/Waybill)

One of the most educational functions of programming the NXNE Film Festival is the 200 films I get to preview each year. When you work in the music industry, be it at a label, as a manager, producer, musician or publicist, one of your greatest assets should be education. You need to know the history of bands, producers, labels and everything else pertaining to music. The older you get the more you learn, and, hopefully, the less mistakes you make. If you are in a band pick up a book and listen to a couple of records that were made before you were born.

Every year I am astounded by how little I know. Because the NXNE Film Festival prefers music themed movies I recently have seen documentaries on the punk scene in Brazil, obscure Detroit via South African musicians, blues greats I only know by name, small town AM radio stations that were powerhouses in the sixties and pretty much everything in between. The hardest part is deciding what films you screen and which ones you have to pass on. It is a delicate balance when programming as you want a full theatre (and this year we are moving to the much bigger Bloor (Hot Docs) Cinema), but you also want to educate and enlighten people. It’s easier for me to get excited by a film but fortunately I don’t need to shell out $10 for each viewing. We have some great films coming this year and I will go into detail about them closer to the festival. We have announced a couple and you can check out http://www.nxne.com for a partial listing.

Quite a few of the films I watched dealt with punk rock. To some younger readers punk began with The Offspring, Green Day and Blink 182 while some of our older readers will swear it started with The MC 5 and Iggy Pop. For me punk started in 1975 with the rise of The Ramones and the New York scene coupled with the explosion in England with The Sex Pistols and The Clash and a Toronto scene that sat somewhere in the middle with the rise of The Viletones and The Diodes. There are some great books dealing with the origins of many local scenes and I highly recommend the following ten:

“Treat Me Like Dirt” – Liz Worth – All about the Toronto scene

“Perfect Birth: The Birth of Canadian Punk” – Sam Sutherland

“Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History Of Punk” – Legs McNeil

“England’s Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols. Punk Rock and Beyond” – Jon Savage

“1988 – The New Wave Punk Rock Explosion” – Caroline Coon

“We Got The Neutron Bomb – The Untold Story Of L.A. Punk” – Marc Spitz/Brendan Mullen

“From The Velvets To The Voidoids: A Pre-Punk History For A Post-Punk World” – Clinton Heylin

“Just Kids” – Patti Smith

“Rotten – No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs” – John Lydon

“Last Gang In Town – The Story And Myth Of The Clash” – Marcus Gray

Where and when you grew up will have a direct influence on which punk bands mean the most to you. By 1976 almost every major city in the world had a scene and their local heroes. I watched docs on the scenes in South Africa and South America and could not believe how vibrant those punk communities were in those early years. The punk scenes in Vancouver and Toronto were as different as those in New York and Los Angeles or even Hamilton and Halifax. Each centre had its own unique set of circumstances, economics, schools and access to other markets to make each scene as individual as a fingerprint.

In Toronto we seemed to borrow from both the U.K. and New York while the Los Angeles scene borrowed from Vancouver. Wasn’t it Vancouver’s D.O.A. who came up with the term “hard core”?

Not counting the forerunners such as The Stooges, The MC 5, The Fugs or The New York Dolls here is my list of the most important punk bands.

1.    The Clash

The Clash released the best and biggest volume of work from the initial punk period. Their first two albums were pure blasts of primal energy but it was the double “London Calling” and triple “Sandinista” where they spread their wings and showed the total scope of the genre. Joe Strummer was a true original and I would love to be able to see what he would be capable of today.

2.    The Sex Pistols

The double-shot of “Anarchy In The UK” and “God Save The Queen” was heard around the world. They followed up admirably with their only studio album “Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols” but by the time they toured America, with Sid Vicious replacing Glen Matlock, they became more of a travelling sideshow.

3.    The Ramones

The Ramones were the band that kick-started the U.K. scene (and Toronto scene for that matter) when they left New York to bring their brand of machine gun rock to the rest of the world. True innovators.

4.    The Viletones

The Toronto scene got very real when The Viletones showed up. “Screaming Fist”/”Possibilities” is the purest punk rock record ever released in this country.

5.    The Damned

The first punk band to release a single in the U.K. when they signed to Stiff and released “New Rose”. They were also the first UK punk band to release a full length album and tour America.

6.    The Dead Boys

One of the most intense live bands of all-time. Led by Stiv Bators and Cheetah Chrome the Cleveland band quickly found fans in both New York and Toronto.

7.    The Jam

Sure they aped Mods but The Jam had the intensity and attitude of punks. Great volume of work and fantastic live.

8.    D.O.A.

Virtually started the whole west coast scene and influenced everyone from The Dead Kennedys to Black Flag. Joey Shithead is the godfather of Canadian punk.

9.    The Diodes

Responsible for the growth and development of the Toronto and Canadian scenes. From signing to a major to building their own club The Diodes influence was huge.

10.  Patti Smith

Let women know they could do it as well as the men. Her sense of fashion rocked a million imitators but her sound has never been duplicated.

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Cam’s column appears every Thursday

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Much liked a loved radio station The Shanghai Cowgirl is  changing formats. My beloved Shanghai will become the second location for “Rock Lobster”. Shanghai/Bovine owner DarryI Fine, along with partners Alan Thomson and Rock Lobster founder Matt Dean Pettit, promise Shanghai-like late weekend hours as well as some speedy seafood take-out. There is something to be said for a 2 AM lobster roll (shades of late night partying in Maine). They hope to have Rock Lobster ready at the beginning of June. 

Cameron Carpenter has written for The New Music Magazine, Music Express, The Asylum, The Varsity, The Eye Opener,  The New Edition, Shades, Bomp!, Driven Magazine, FYI Music News, The Daily XY, New Canadian Music and Don’t Believe A Word I Say.

For the last time this column is brought to you by the late great Shanghai Cowgirl.