GAB AND GONE Wavelength Talking


The CBC announced recently that they will be shutting down their archive building in Montreal. Much of the precious material that makes up the archive is to be ‘recycled’, and thousands of 78 RPM vinyl records, 200,000 + CDs, and rare music books and scores will be destroyed as drastic budget cuts begin to bite huge chunks out of the Canadian cultural identity.
This is not a fake proclamation brought to you by the twitter-ati, but an apparent attempt by the country’s national broadcaster to streamline and ‘enhance’ the way it preserves history for future generations. There’s a collective national amnesia characterised by a lack of imaginative solutions when it comes to preserving and re-using outdated formats and delivery systems in this country.

I can only speak from my own experience, but after 35 years of living away from the Canadian national story it's evident to me that it's being wiped out.

Where is the imagination and the enthusiasm for trying to preserve this legacy? There’s a possible solution which can suggest an alternative, but I’ll come back to that later.*

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Let me rewind to 1979 when there was an afterthought to punk rock, which rose from the ashes of The Sex Pistols and the death of Sid Vicious.

You may remember it as New Wave, CFNY and The New Music, The Heatwave festival, XTC’s ‘Making Plans For Nigel’, The Police, Teenage Head and Martha and the Muffins.

In Toronto (and in other remote cities spread out across the land) there was a new generation fired by the initial spark of punk rock but who were just a bit too young to get involved at the beginning. The new crowd started to go to crusty, older punk clubs like The Turning Point at Avenue Road and Bloor. This was the post punk generation, an ardent group inspired by music on 7” singles purchased at The Record Peddler at Church and Queen street and by fanzines picked up at Records On Wheels on Yonge Street. The post punks made their way to The Beverley Tavern at Queen and John where they could hang out with friends and swap cassette tapes of local bands; this was a DiY alternative culture shaped by fans.

In 1980 the punks of ’77, including The Diodes, TheViletones and Teenage Head were tired, still bleeding from cutting themselves, strung out on smack, jealous of each other, and bored with playing music - that’s what it felt like to me anyway. It’s not that the singles and the albums they released were bad, it just seemed like that scene was OVER.  They’d had their chance, but the odds had really been stacked against them, but those initial recordings have survived the test of time. They are now lost classics of the Canadian music scene, a vital if somewhat marginal part of history, but the punks did change the landscape and held the door ajar for whoever might follow their lead.

In 1980, punk, as manufactured by The Pistols, The Clash and The Ramones, had morphed into the next generation -  hardcore and post punk - and somehow The Diodes and The Viletones never successfully embraced that change.

We had Youth Youth Youth and The Young Lions and they never cut themselves up onstage. We all played together without a sense of competition. I think we all tried to not become jaded like the slightly older punks of ‘76-‘78, and we realised we could help each other and get more gigs if we co-operated and formed alliances.  Rent Boys Inc, Vital Sines, Kinetic Ideals, The Dave Howard Singers, Breeding Ground, Fifth Column, A Neon Rome, Plasterscene Replicas, Woods Are Full Of Cuckoos & L’Etranger; all names you may never have heard of, but these bands made The Beverley Tavern, The Cabana Room and The Rivoli their own. The audience loved those places, too. There was still no support from any Canadian record labels and almost nothing from any local Toronto media - so we did it all on our own.
I seem to remember not even trying to find a bigger Canadian label to sign us. There was no point as they were all were bitterly disappointed and badly burnt by the failure of the previous generation of punks and any of their attempts at crossing over to try and find larger audiences. This kind of stuff was never going to translate well to North Bay, Thunder Bay or Whitehorse. It wasn’t designed to appeal to your Fleetwood Mac lovin’, long haired, flared jeaned hippies as they were the ones who were buying all the records and listening to CHUM- FM.

That was the thing, the Canadian music business always looked to the American Top 40 and were forced to do it the way their American offices told them to. England was still a lot cooler as the source of the most exciting bands. There was no such thing as a cool Canadian music industry in 1980. CBS and Capitol didn’t care, Peter Goddard at The Star never cared, and Jeannie Becker (then with City TV’s ‘The New Music’) certainly didn’t.

This of course sowed the seeds for our own destruction, as there wasn’t enough of a scene to try and make a living and there wasn’t much of a music business to be able to take it to the next level. No manager or booking agent who knew anything about the music business would want to get involved with any of these bands. There was no help from the government, no FACTOR (aka no free money), and no support from any other media or industry; in fact, we were probably in an even worse situation than the punks a few years before. They at least, for a moment or two, had some big labels looking to cash in on the punk rock ‘explosion’ and they had relatively large marketing budgets for promotion and advertising. Since that brief period, no Canadian labels wanted to touch anything odd or daring that was part of an unproven, very cynical and suspicious underground.

As the dust settled at the dawn of the new decade, the world was shaping into a form that was belligerent.  Reagan was antagonizing the Soviet Union and Thatcher was dismantling the Unions.

To give all this a bit of context, and as 1980 evolved, the most exciting album that we were all listening to was the Clash’s London Calling. Its heady cocktail of multi-genre styles and rhythms, broad lyrical references to Spanish civil wars, nuclear meltdowns, jazz and searching beyond your own backyard, signposted the direction for many of the new bands just starting out.

Events dominating world headlines included The Canadian Caper (as portrayed in the Oscar-winning film Argo), where American diplomats disguised themselves as Canadians to escape the fallout from the Iranian Revolution. In June, CNN was launched, the Republican party nominated Ronald Reagan as their ‘leader’ and dropped its support for the ‘Equal Rights Amendment’. Later in the year, the Solidarity Trade Union was established in Poland and Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham died. In November Reagan was elected president in a landslide. The world prepared for the worst.

 Notable albums that came out in 1980 were; I’m The Man by Joe Jackson, Eat to The Beat by Blondie and Quiet Life by Japan.  The first Public Image Ltd album was released in Canada, and the single ‘Cars’ by Bowie acolyte Gary Numan became a huge hit.

Justin’s dad was re-elected Prime Minister, and Quebec voted against separation. The Rock Against Radiation ‘Festival’ was held at Toronto City Hall in July featuring DOA, The Viletones, Forgotten Rebels, Stark Naked And The Fleshtones and Joe College. The Heatwave ‘New Wave’ festival was held outside the city in August and featured Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, Rockpile, The Pretenders, and Teenage Head. New kids on the block, Kinetic Ideals, released their first 7” single ‘Life In Shadow’. L’Etranger, The Space Invaders and The Rheostatics (amongst many other new local groups) play at The Edge, and the Toronto office of Rock Against Racism opened. Rumours are spread and an ad is placed in Smash It Up for a new label called Edge Records. As per Gary Topp: “It didn't go very far. We were thinking about local artists (like The Sharks), maybe even Mink de Ville.”

In December, U2 played their first Toronto show at the El Mocambo the night after John Lennon was murdered.

The Edge - the old Ryerson Polytechnic’s  ‘Edgerton’s Club’ at Gerrard and Church - was run by promoters “The (2) Garys” who presented new bands from across the pond and New York, along with lots of great new Toronto bands. I got a job there as a bus boy clearing tables and decades later I bumped into many former Edge work colleagues who, like me, were inspired by the wide variety of music The Garys’ were bringing into the cramped Victorian house.

Lots of futures and destinies were shaped seeing the likes of Gang Of Four, The Police, Sun Ra, John Otway, The Members and The Psychedelic Furs alongside local talent like Drastic Measures, The B Girls, L'Etranger, The Rheostatics, Blue Peter and The Spoons. There should be a plaque on the wall outside that place as yes, unbelievably, the original building is still there!

When The Edge closed, it was a sign of the times. The stage was too small and The Garys realised that they could put on bigger shows at The Concert Hall at Yonge and Davenport, which they did. The Garys were riding the crest of the wave as bands like The Police and XTC, who sold out The Edge, filled the 2,000 capacity Music Hall on The Danforth just 12 months later.

The Toronto scene was changing in ‘79/’80, and in our own little world we were struggling to carve out a network of fanzines.  There were new bands coming in from the ‘burbs, which added to the shaping of our experience in a way that made sense to us.

These fanzines, while not a new concept, bypassed the established modes of spreading news and information and were written by the same people as us. They were our age and they didn’t have to pander to advertising budgets, corporate sponsorship, deadlines, and my personal favourite, ‘editorial control’!

Little pockets of resistance were popping up all over the place.

We loved the DIY nature of the philosophy: rip things up and throw them down on a piece of paper, cut out a newspaper headline or individual letters from other magazines, decorate it with your own doodles, cartoons, ranting slogans and handwritten scribbles.

The xeroxed zines covered a wide range of subjects from politics to music and the ideas shared were reflected in the titles: Schrik, Casual Casual, All That Jazz, This Tiny Donkey Looks Rather Lost, Goog Poogly, Animal Reflex, Cause And Effect, Sounds From The Streets, Civil Disobedience and many others. More local fanzines were soon being sold at The Record Peddlar and Records On Wheels and at second hand record stores like Vortex at Church and Dundas.

A few connections were made at The Turning Point and if the owner didn’t throw you out because you weren’t old enough, you met with friends and promised to come back again next week to see Blibber And The Rat Crushers and perhaps buy a copy of their new cassette tape.

There were lots of DiY ‘tapezines’ starting to be sold at The Record Peddlar during 1980.  I shared a warehouse space at 291-A King St. West with Margo Timmins along with characters such as Dave Howard, Michael Rullman, Dave Rave and whoever may have been in the neighbourhood who needed a place to crash on a particular night.  Conveniently, for a few of the new bands, the building next to 291 was empty and haunted so served well as a fantastic place to rehearse. My ‘Smash’ tapes were launched here with me crouched over the dual tape player left behind by a recently departed to England, Hunger Project. 

The first Smash Tape is probably the best with the cream of
the new breed of Toronto bands such as The Kinetic Ideals, The Dave Howard Singers, Vital Sines and Rent Boys Inc featured for the first time anywhere. There was the alternative electronic scrapes, scratches and feedback of the ‘Urban Scorch’ tape which featured The Diner's Club, The Party’s Over and Fifth Column. Fifth Column, while widely being seen as part of the Riot Grrrl movement from the early 1990’s, were forging their own path in Toronto from 1979 and their zines and tapes were called, ‘HIDE’.

There was a zine called ‘Sounds From The Streets’ (edited by Dave Rave who had just been transplanted into the Toronto zeitgeist via Liverpool) which produced 2 tapes and held 2 famous benefit gigs, one of which was featured on CITY TV’s The New Music. NOW Magazine even put us fanzine editors on the front cover. Many of these cassettes have been lost because of the disintegrating chromium dioxide tape which just won’t play anymore.

Luckily some of this material and many of the fanzines do still exist and are lovingly filed away as they are folded neatly into protective plastic, kept in sturdy boxes and stored far from any flood threat in many a basement across this city.

1981 TIMELINE

Well, a lot happens in the world during 1981, you’ll just have to buy the book to find out more.

What’s perceived as a disaster for the local music scene is actually the spark that starts a new underground. The Edge is closed in June as The Garys expand to bigger venues.

Those of us with fanzines or just beginning new bands go back to the roots and take over trusty and crusty venues like The Turning Point, The Cabana, Larry’s and The Beverley.

Greg Keelor once of The Hi Fis (now of Blue Rodeo) complained in 1981 that there were no venues for them to play and proclaimed that “the scene in Toronto was evaporating”. They shipped out to New York and came back to kick start the CAN ROCK renaissance in 1986.

While many of the old punks were bored, lots of new bands started by kids still in high school were starting to flourish.

Bands like Bush Tetras, Pigbag, The Stray Cats, The Slits and Bow Wow Wow were breaking big in the UK, dominating the music press and making a huge impression on the new musicians just starting to play in front of an audience for the first time.

Rock a Billy, Surf Music, Funk bass and Burundi drums with extended percussion breaks replaced punk attitude and Chuck
Berry as inspiration. The DIY attitude influenced an enterprising collaborative organisation called Start Dancing promoting an all ages club night. It began in a church hall in Scarborough but ended up moving downtown where it was easier for the fanzine writers and other bands to hang out.

If you were too young to get into The Turning Point you went to Start Dancing.

Ideas were shared and inspiration evolved as the zine culture spread and more bands started playing at The Cabana and The Bev every weekend. The Rheostatics got one of their first gigs at Start Dancing when it was at The Desh Beghat Temple on Claremont.

Still, the big bands would come through the city. Siouxsie And The Banshees played at The Music Hall, Peter Tosh played at Convocation Hall, The Cars at The El Mo, The Pretenders at The Maple Leaf Ballroom, The Boomtown Rats played at Seneca College Field House and unbelievably, Killing Joke played at the tiny Larry's Hideaway in 1981 when they were selling out 2,000 capacity venues across the UK.

Almost every week there was some band we were all reading about in the NME coming to visit Toronto as The Stranglers, The Beat, Bow Wow Wow, Steel Pulse and Black Uhuru all played at The Concert Hall.

I don’t know if Torontonians then knew how lucky they were as Toronto was becoming an important stop for any band wanting to crack the American market.

Local reggae bands like Truths And Rights and 20^th Century Rebels played with recent arrival Leroy Sibbles and in keeping with the shared cultural experience bands like The Young Lions, Youth Youth Youth and L’Etranger would be added to these bills.

Rock Against Racism had an office in Toronto and regularly put events on protesting against the KKK and the rising tide of racist attacks which were being reported in the papers across the city. Inspired by the first Tom Robinson album budding journalist Nick Jennings (and friends) wrote to an address on the back of the sleeve and a few weeks later received information about how to set up a branch of RAR.

This was how it was done. Inspiration, motivation, ambition and snail mail.

RAR were a strong presence in Toronto and over the next few years raised awareness of important issues for a young audience just out of high school and already suspicious and sceptical of politicians and the way the established system worked. Bands like The Clash inspired a generation of young musicians to get involved with their audiences and their communities. This idea wasn’t lost on Andy Cash and Charlie Angus from L’Etranger who went on to
become elected members of Parliament in later years.

The reggae music scene in Toronto was inspiring because there were so many talented musicians fleeing Jamaica, literally for their lives, during the mid 1970s. Leroy Sibbles was one as was Jerry Brown who settled out by the airport, then just called Malton. He set up a basement studio where Earth, Roots And Water recorded their debut album, ‘Innocent Youths’ which was released in 1977. The studio and one of their regulars Willi Williams were responsible for The Clash’s, ‘Armigideon Time’, one of their most
dynamic tunes.

Rumour has it that when The Police became worldwide superstars they offered a support slot on their tour to Earth, Roots And Water. For whatever reason, they turned it down.

As the 1980’s progressed the airwaves were opened up allowing college radio stations like Toronto based CKLN to reach a much wider audience. Promising to actively promote small independent local bands, stations like CKLN, CHRW and CKCU were all of a sudden inundated with tapes and self financed limited edition 7” and 12” vinyl singles from bands across the province and eventually from much further afield.

One such band that got everybody’s interest in Toronto was The Dub Rifles from Winnipeg. Packing a terrific live show, The Rifles easily blew many of the Toronto bands away and proved that there were other vibrant scenes across Canada including DOA in Vancouver. Ottawa, Montreal, Halifax and southern Ontario were all being connected through a string of indie record stores, a tiny college radio network, and fanzines.

We were bypassing the major labels and the mainstream FM radio stations. Famous Toronto indie record store The Record Peddler, started their own label called Fringe releasing 12” EPs by Breeding Ground, Vital Sines and Youth Youth Youth.

The first issues of The Nerve Magazine in Toronto published in 1984 had no college radio play charts. By early 1986, it featured a monthly double page spread detailing charts from across the country signifying just how important this new market had become.

By the end of the decade a whole sub genre was built around this ‘college radio network’ which linked together all corners of North America.

There were breakthroughs as a few bands were able to generate interest from various labels. Tulpa were able to get a deal with UK based Midnight Music, The Dave Howard Singers, after moving to London, were also able to get a distribution deal in England and had a indie chart hit with his single, 'Yon Yonson'. The Sturm Group had the attention of a high profile indie label in the UK but were unable to secure a release. Most bands continued to furrow the well trodden path down indie-dom which meant their releases were getting distribution from sea to shining sea in the land of the brave and the free.

The Rent Boys moved to London in July 1983 leaving behind a trail of destruction, controversy and broken hearts.

The rise and success of The Cowboy Junkies and Blue Rodeo managed to capture the imagination of a coast to coast audience which gave Canada a much needed reminder of traditional roots music. This was the fertiliser that was needed for a band like Tragically Hip to thrive.

The post punk promise of unfettered possibilities and of establishing a successful independent DIY alternative scene in Canada was pushed to the side. The small indie labels established in the early 1980's found it impossible to compete with the marketing budgets of the major companies. The expensive videos produced for MTV and Much Music became more important in the marketing campaign for any new release. There was also the matter of geography, as the simple act of touring across Canada to support your latest album would, at the very least, drive you crazy, or at worst kill you.

The Canadian music business towards the end of the ‘80s and into the '90s became a more sterile and parochial industry signing bands who sounded derivative, chasing audiences instead of building them from the street up.

And then the internet happened...

Now I come to the later* bit. There are pockets of amateur and independent archivists spread out across the country bypassing the technocratic red tape of Canadian government beaurocracy. The online world and the internet provide a unique opportunity to connect these pockets and to share this material with 21^st century media platforms (yes, I hate the jargon as much as you do).

Physical delivery systems such as cds, tapes, and vinyl (the recent
blip of interest notwithstanding) are now almost dead as compared with what is available for free online.  There is another world of rights management, streaming music sites, film and TV soundtracks which give us a unique opportunity to make much of this material relevant again, here in the 21^st century.

A publishing company based in Toronto called CCS have boldly stepped into the breach sharing my sense that there is the possibility of a new lease of life for much of this music.

There’s been no interest from any Canadian record company to compile a compilation or even see the potential and the possibilities of releasing a limited edition colour vinyl Sturm Group box set. CCS are an active and well connected rights management company who have an established reputation in the world of film and TV
soundtracks, royalty collection and advertising.

And yes, I do actually believe that the most subversive achievement would be to have The Woods Are Full Of Cuckoos, ‘Awesome Penguins’ as the soundtrack to the next Pittsburgh Penguins season ticket subscription drive or Rent Boys Inc’s ‘Beauty Is Above the Law’ covered by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers or Broken Social Scene covering A Neon Rome or Metric doing a snappy version of Fifth Column's 'Boy/Girl' or how about Mark Malibu And The Wasagas on the soundtrack for the next Quinton Tarantino flick?

There’s also not a lot out there from this time that has the menacing dynamics as heard on The Kinetic Ideal’s, ‘No Exit’ or Breeding Ground’s ‘Slaughter’.  Both of these songs would fit in nicely on the soundtrack for whatever superhero Marvel might be regurgitating this week or the next series of ‘Orphan Black’.

Essentially, it’s the songs from this post punk period that I believe can still be re-interpreted and covered by new bands and artists looking for some fresh inspiration and they can be applied in other ways that can only be thwarted by our limited imaginations.

Together with CCS and their ‘pool’ of music and the informal link of amateur archivists across the country we are striving to rescue this music and to preserve it for future generations. Canada has the sixth biggest music industry in the world, you’d think there would be some space in there for a scene which has been ignored for too long.

Bring on the cancon!

There’s a lot to be said for plugging the gap that
the mainstream still choose to ignore.