Hanging By a Thread, by Simon Leblovic

"You hang in there," the voice on the phone said. But that failed to offer much comfort.

He felt like he was living in his own private hell. What had happened to him this time? Over a year ago he had gone ballistic and left his job. Then he had gone back to visit someone he thought he knew and there had been a terrible night, which had ended in a hurried return trip. Following his return he began taking medication in an attempt to quell his manic rage, while he still continued to fume over past events. But could he really be sure of what had happened? Perhaps most of it had taken place in his deluded mind.

The rage over past events slowly dissipated with time. The months dragged on and he was left in a lethargic state of depression. There was nothing to do and so he crawled through the days with little energy or purpose. He felt like hanging himself by his old guitar strings just to end the misery. Ah, what cheery thoughts. Perhaps he could find distraction in dwelling once again on past memories, no matter how mundane or far off in time they might be? The lonely days passed and nothing changed. He envisioned a bleak future where his few relationships slowly but surely came to an end. Everyone seemed to have moved on with their lives, while he could only wallow in clouded memories with nothing to do and nowhere to go.

While he was hanging around time passed like a slowly moving river. He knew the best course was to move on and leave mistakes and bad memories behind. Time heals wounds, but how much time did he have and how many more mistakes could he afford to make? He felt that the world and the people in it were all too much. He was weak and the world was too hard for him. And so once again he slipped into dark despair. He wished he could melt into a pool of liquid and evaporate in the sun. He wished he could turn to dust and blow away in the wind. He wished he could sleep and disappear forever in a dream. He wished he could disintegrate and become one with all things. Anything else but to try and live in a world of deception and confusion.

ln our last days we must gradually let go of the past, as the shells of our bodies break down and deteriorate. Little remains but the fading memories and dreams of what we were at various times in our lives. He felt he didn't belong here or anywhere. Thoughts came and went, when all he wanted to be was dead in the head. Faces and memories from the past invaded his sleeping dreams. But he just wanted to forget it aII. What to do now? Who knows what the future might hold. He was hanging by a thread and ready to let go.

Late 1970s Hamilton music scene; Simon Leblovic interviews Gary Pig Gold

After finding Simon's recollections of his Rocking Horse days and his early music influences, it was a joy tonight to come across this interview with Gary Pig, where the two gents discuss such great local acts as Interchange, The Specs, Dave Rave Conspiracy, The Loved Ones, Simply Saucer, and Next Big Thing.

By Simon Leblovic

In the words of the late, great Jackie Gleason, "How sweet it is!" I want to tell you about Gary Pig Gold, who I last saw in Toronto in the winter of 1988. I first met Gary in Port Credit, Ontario in 1975, and I remember him then as a lighthearted guy who loved 60's pop music. Gary knows so much about music and is such a talented writer, I thought it was high time that someone wrote something about him. Here then is a "pinch of piggy."

In early 1976 I was living in an old, dilapidated band house on Margaret St. in Hamilton, Ontario. The house had formerly been inhabited by The Wild Ones motorcycle gang. The Wild Ones would visit sometimes, acting as if the house still belonged to them by doing things like carving their initials in the kitchen table. I shared this rented house with the other members of a five-piece band from Burlington called Interchange. Interchange was one of my first bands, and I sang with them from 1975-76. I got kicked out of the band and left the house in 1976. Later on I learned that Gary was now living in that same house on Margaret St., where he was working with Interchange. He continued to live and work there with the band after they became the frisky pop quartet known as The Specs.

In 1977 I was singing in a Hamilton band called The Loved Ones. I took The Loved Ones name from a novel by Evelyn Waugh, which was later made into a movie. Following the demise of The Specs, Gary ended up playing bass in The Loved Ones. We played a show at the Hamilton YMCA in the fall of 1977, opening for a band called Simply Saucer. The Loved Ones broke up immediately after that show, but Gary went on to produce some of Simply Saucer's music.

In 1978 I put my first Toronto band together, called The Hits, with a bass player named Paul O'Connell. In the fall of 1978 Gary began playing drums with the band, and we changed our name back to The Loved Ones. I remember Gary showing his vocal skills by patiently trying to teach me the harmony parts to the songs Lets Spend the Night Together and Mother's Little Helper by the Stones. Back then, singing harmonies for me was like diving into a swimming pool with my eyes closed. But for Gary, singing harmonies was a piece of cake.

My second and last time playing with Gary on stage was with that version of The Loved Ones in Toronto. We played three nights at the Beverly Tavern on Queen St. West during New Year's of 1978-79. I remember Gary playing the drums, wearing blue hockey gloves. I also recall Martin Goodman coming to the Beverly Tavern shows. Shortly after the Beverly gig I ended up leaving the band. But three of us from that version of The Loved Ones reformed later in 1979 as the band Rocking Horse. But this band did not include Gary, who went on later to resurrect The Loved Ones name for his own purposes.

During the 1980s I ran into Gary in Toronto from time to time, and that's when he began giving me copies of his Pig Paper. Later on he generously mailed me copies of the Pig Paper, along with music cassettes and articles. Through the years Gary always kept me informed about his latest doings. He recently went hog-wild answering my interview questions about his illustrious career and his own sweet self. Gary can't resist sticking his snout in a sweet trough!


An Interview with Gary Pig Gold by Simon - Sept. 2005


1. Where does the name Pig Gold come from?

Way back when I was a budding young Martin Scorsese in high school, a mockumentary I made about my hometown of Port Credit, Ontario, Canada won an award at a local film festival, and was then chosen to be shown on the PBS television station in nearby Buffalo, New York. However, due to some of its, um, controversial segments, before allowing my 16mm epic to be broadcast, their legal department suggested I indemnify both myself and the TV station by crediting the film to a fictitious production company instead. Come the very morning my film teacher had arranged for us to re-shoot the opening credits, when I still hadn't come up with a new name for myself, a little plastic stamper fell out of my Wheaties cereal box with a pig on it. Voila! "Pig Productions" was born.

Then, a few years later, my friend John and I decided to write and print up a satiric programme for a Who concert in Toronto, and then distribute it outside the venue the night of the show. Again, there was some, yep, questionable content in our little mag, so I again covered my legal ass with the nom de plume "Gary Pig," and John became, yes you guessed it, "Johnny Pig!"

That Who Pig Paper became such a little success (even Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey got copies!) that we did another one the next year when The Kinks played town (Dave Davies especially loved our Kinky Pig Paper!) Lo and behold, soon local bands were approaching us to review THEIR shows and records, and so The Pig Paper became a monthly (if we were lucky) periodical for the next several years. And those years, roughly 1977 thru 1980, were the peak years in the birth of the global Do-It-Yourself indie rock movement. So you see, with Gary Pig, I already had my punk name in operation!!

By the way: that little pig stamper from the Wheaties box? I still have it, and it remains my official operational logo to this day.


2. When did you first become interested in music and what does music mean to you now?

My dad was a semi-professional big band drummist back in the Forties (he'd wait with his drumsticks backstage whenever Benny Goodman or Artie Shaw would come to town, hoping to sit in!) and my mother remains a key member of the Mississauga Chorale Society to this day (some years, she gigs more often than I do!) So my childhood was surrounded by music. I even learned to print and draw at a very young age by copying the labels off old Bing Crosby 78's! Music remains my lifestream, as it always has. And most likely always will.


3. Can you tell me some of the highlights of your illustrious life and career?

Struggling to remain on stage (without soiling my bright white Miami Vice pants!) when a severe case of the runs struck me during an important very-high-profile encore with the Endless Summer band. Watching an EXTREMELY pissed (as in thoroughly sauced) P. F. Sloan struggle to jam on his song, "Eve Of Destruction" with the Dave Rave Conspiracy at a big industry showcase we were playing in New York City. Singing harmonies with the late, very great Del Shannon at one of the last big outdoor festivals he ever performed. TRYING to sing harmonies on a cover of J. Lennon's "I'm So Tired" at a recording session with Andrew Loog Oldham on a rainy Sunday afternoon in none other than Hoboken, New Jersey! (This town reminds me of Dublin, ALO said).


4. What was your official job title and what were your functions in the frisky band known as The Specs in Hamilton in 1976-77?

Other than help those guys pay a quarter of the rent by freezing in the attic of their condemned house, you mean?? I guess I started out as roadie, graduated to sound and lightman, and even got to be the manager sometimes, whenever dirty work arose that nobody else wanted to deal with, that is! MOST of my quality time was spent listening to records with rhythmic guitarist Roy Furness though. And THEN there was that fateful night when YOU burst into our kitchen, after having just witnessed the very first Ramones show in Canada!!


5. What is the title of your story about the Specs, and where can that story be found now?

That story has never, ever been told. But if it ever is, I'd definitely call it "I Gave Up University For THIS?!!"


6. Tell me us some things that you especially would like to have mentioned in your story?

Just the Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing BUT The Truth ..Whenever possible, that is.


7. When and why did you leave Canada and move to the States?

Like most things in my life, such a big move was never really planned or thought out: What with growing up on American television and especially American Top Forty radio, I guess it was only a matter of time before I jumped the Pine Curtain, as Stompin' Tom Connors might say. At first, I'd just sneak over the border to Buffalo to buy records when I should've been at school. Then I'd go visit my pal David who'd enrolled in art school in Brooklyn, when I should've been at work. Then a three-week exploratory visit to Surf City, USA with Roy Furness in 1979 lead me to return there for what turned out to be three whole years! I almost toured Australia with Jan and Dean once too, but alas I didn't have my passport. So I stayed in L.A. and put the California version of The Loved Ones together instead. For quite a good while there, we were the absolute scourge of the Orange County house party scene (parents out of town in Vegas for the weekend? Let's buy a keg or three, print up loads of flyers, pay off the cops and put on a show right there in the living room at ten bucks (U.S.) a head!!)


8. Do you prefer living in Canada or in the States and why?

I haven't really noticed the difference, or even thought about it! I just do what I do, regardless of where I happen to be living at any particular time. But I will tell you this: Even though I LOVE being able to order in Thai food at four in the morning in the City that Never Sleeps, I still keep all of my records safely at home in Oh Canada. There's a moral here somewhere, I think.


9. Can you tell us some of the major differences between living in the States and living in Canada?.

Other than the all-important after-hours Thai food factor? Not a hell of a lot, at least so far as I'm concerned.


10. Please tell your fans your favourite:

colour(s) -
Swimming pool blue and a bright rich gold (see? I could've been Gary Pig Blue maybe!!)

pop artists and pop groups -
Oh jeez, that's a tough one. Today, it'd have to be The Monkees, Raquel's Boys, Elvis Presley and Frank Lee Sprague. But tomorrow never knows!

breakfast cereal -
besides all-Canadian pig Wheaties? Kelloggs has got a great new guilty morning pleasure called Cinnamon Bun Mini Swirlz, which I actually just finished yet another heaping bowlful of just a few minutes ago! Not all that good for the teeth, but with enough milk the stomach survives.

Beatle and Beatles song -
Fave Beatles have got to be the dead ones, and fave Beatles song? Howzabout "Please Please Me," which may just very well be The Very First Power Pop Song EVER (not counting Buddy Holly of course)

Beach Boy and Beach Boys song -
Brian's my fave, though I prefer his brother Carl's voice, and Dennis Wilson was the only Beach Boy I ever did get to spend any time with. Fave Beach Boys song? "The Little Girl I Once Knew," no contest!

musicians you have worked with -
Does P.F. Sloan count??

musical artists -
EVERY musician I've ever worked with just has to be my favorite, otherwise, the others will feel hurt and left out!

songs of others -
He's The One (original, Bangles-type version) by The Masticators, When Patti Rocked by Dave Rave, Earn That Love by Mark Johnson, Run Better Run by The Cheepskates, and I only produced ONE of those, I'll have you all know!

songs of your own -
Goodbye To Greatness was not only the easiest to compose (it practically wrote itself as I took a walk down Manhattan's East Side late one night), but it always plays SO well and so easily, on stage especially. I'm quite proud of that one. Gotta take another long walk one of these nights I guess.

Doug Pelton memory -
Probably my very first, as he tapped my shoulder in Grade 9 math class, introduced himself in his own very inimitable fashion, and asked me if I'd watched Laugh In the night before. Doug is my oldest pal.

Martin Goodman memory -
Again, I first met him when he showed up for a midnight teenaged jam at our friend Richard's house, wearing one of his father's old overalls from the gas station and carrying a cardboard version of Pete Townshend's Woodstock guitar. And I still have a tape of every single note we performed that fateful night!

Roy Furness memory -
We were stuck sitting by the roadside in the middle of New Brunswick someplace one perfect afternoon on tour (our van had just broken down) (again!), and as Roy looked out over the trees and up into the sky, he remarked how he felt we'd just stepped into the front cover of the Creedence Clearwater "Green River" album. That's Roy: a pure, magical mystical root rocker through and through!


11. Please talk a little about your own best and worst memories and experiences, and some things in your life you would like to change if you could, as well as any past regrets.

Regrets? I've had a few. But then again, too few to mention. And I truly believe the best is yet to come!


12. If you could accomplish anything, what would it be?

Get to the end of this interview without skipping off to down another bowl of Cinnamon Bun Mini Swirlz!!


13. What are your wishes, dreams and goals for the future, and what are some of your greatest accomplishment so far?

Wishes, dreams and goals? To write another song, make another recording, play another show, and have some more adventures, that's all. Same as it ever was, as David Byrne used to say! Greatest accomplishment so far? Making it this far (and not just in this interview ;-)


14. To what do you attribute your illustrious career and how has it all been so easily accomplished?

Well, it has been FAR from easy, Simon! But I look at it this way: I'm still having fun. And the best advice for dealing with the music biz, as Nick Lowe once advised, is to keep it as a hobby, in your mind, if nowhere else.


15. Please talk about bands you have been involved such as:

Martin and the E Chords -
Born that first night at Richard Cross' house when Gary met Cardboard Martin. We never really got things out of the basement, as Martin was reluctant to perform on stage back then. But I tell you, I bet we invented Punk Rock anyways!!

Interchange -
My initial escape valve from The Real World, honestly. My reason to quit school, leave home, catch mononucleosis, and make some of the very best friends I've EVER had.

The Specs -
Interchange in sheep's (as in satin) clothing; no more, no less. The very first professional band I ever had the pleasure to work with, introducing me to the wild wild world of musicians' unions, club owners, wicked wanton women of the night, and agents who keep changing their phone numbers every couple of days.

The Loved Ones -
The first real band I ever PLAYED with! And still probably my favorite.

Simply Saucer -
The first band I ever took in to the recording studio and produced, only coz the REAL producer got so fed up he walked out, leaving me the only guy at the mixing board. "This can't be all THAT hard," I thought. "This is just like a great big control panel on my record player!" By midnight, I'd finished the very first Simply Saucer record, which also turned out to be the very first Pig Record! It remains to this day a fervent fave of Steve Wynn, Thurston Moore, AND Cub Koda! And out of the thousands of copies I pressed up and put together in my parents' basement all those years ago, I got less than a dozen left, I'll have yez know.


The Dave Rave Conspiracy -
Hey Gary! I'm going into Dan Lanois' studio on Sunday morning to record. Wanna produce?Sure, I said. Hey Dave! You know my friend at art school in Brooklyn? He has an apartment we can illegally sublet for six months. Wanna move to New York City? Sure, Dave said. Hey, can you release our record in Russia? Sure, said the rep from Melodiya Records who showed up at our first-ever gig in Greenwich Village. Hey, can I play drums for you guys, said by no less than Billy Ficca shortly thereafter. I guess the rest is history, and Dave and I are playing a gig back at that very same club in the Village in a couple of months, believe it or not!

The Ghost Rockets -
What do you get when you mix Roger Miller with Paul Revere and the Raiders, garnish with a dash of Buck Owens, then have The Band's pedal steel guitarist join up for the ride? You get the band that probably put the "alt" into country once and for all! Too bad our song "Marcia Marcia Marcia" never made it into the second Brady Bunch movie, though it DID become a big turntable hit in Holland and New Zealand, I kid you not!!

The Next Big Thing -
The culmination of every single musical thing I've ever done or even imagined so far in my rollercoaster life: We've been compared to a rockabilly Neil Diamond, a skiffle Hollies, and (my fave so far) The Everly Brothers meet Peter, Buck and Mary, and that's after only four shows together!! Better check it out for yourselves, everyone:
www.tomlou.com/nextbigthing.html


16. Please talk a little about Marty Murray
You know why I not only like, but ADMIRE Marty Murray so much? Because he dared to review – in PRINT – one of the very first Ghost Rockets demos we ever sent out into the world. The one where we sang a German version of "What Am I Doin' Hangin' Round" right alongside my bluegrass "O Canada." And he LIKED it !!! If I haven't said it before, I say it now: Thank You, Marty, and man, you got weird taste in music !!


17. As the hardest working man in showbusiness, please tell us about some things you are working on at the moment?

On my virtual desktop this week, being written as we virtually speak today, is a review of Jandek's first New York concert, a press release for a John Lennon 65th Birthday concert, starring my friends Bubble, a story about the time Mr. Rave and I were hired to write songs for Bob Dylan's girlfriend, Part Two of my landmark interview with Beach Boys historian extrodinaire Domenic Priore (everyone, Be Sure and read his book, "SMiLE: The Story of Brian Wilson's Lost Masterpiece," and an obituary for my friend, Al Aronowitz, The Man Who Invented The Sixties. Meanwhile, over in the next room I got demos of about five or six new songs in the pipeline as well (The Next Big Thing are back in the studio in two weeks). A pig's work is NEVER done, is it?

Suzuki: Is using oil as fuel an unethical practice?

by David Suzuki, HuffingtonPost.com

In his book Ethical Oil, Ezra Levant raises an important point about the moral implications of products and activities in the global economy. I applaud the move to raise ethics to greater prominence in discussions around trade and economics. Questions around social justice, poverty, environment, and violence have propelled movements leading to action against sweatshops and child labour in the garment industry, to fair trade and shade-grown coffee products, to boycotts of California grapes and trade with apartheid South Africa.

Two days after he was appointed federal environment minister, Peter Kent took up Levant's slogan, trumpeting Alberta's tar sands as "ethical oil." We rightly criticize oil-producing countries that support or indulge in violence, murder, oppression of minority groups and women, and so on. But because Canada does not overtly support or indulge in such practices, does that mean our oil is more ethical? Levant acknowledges that exploiting and using fossil fuels has environmental impacts. Does that mean there is a hierarchy of ethical practices or that one ethical practice cancels out other unethical activities?

The application of ethical standards in our purchase and use of products should be applied universally and not selectively. Canada signed the Kyoto Protocol, which became international law. When Jean Chrétien signed the document, he did so not as a Liberal but as the prime minister of Canada. This meant that, as a nation, we were committed to achieving the targets set by the agreement. On becoming leader of a minority government, Harper declared his intention to ignore Canada's commitment. Is it ethical to ignore an internationally binding legal commitment? This is even more astonishing in light of Prime Minister Harper's outspoken commitment to law and order.


Is oil ever ethical?


Canada is one of the highest per capita emitters of greenhouse gases. Our rapidly melting permafrost releases massive amounts of the potent greenhouse gas methane, amplifying our contribution to the global crisis of climate change. Alberta's tar sands require enormous amounts of energy and water to extract, further compounding Canada's already excessive emissions. Is there not an ethical component to our demand for a greater share of the Earth's atmosphere than most other nations? Rapid exploitation of Canada's tar sands -- by companies from countries including the U.S., Korea, and China -- is not crucial for our nation's survival or even well-being, yet we ignore the impact on the rest of the world. If that isn't unethical, I don't know what is.

Climate change is already causing more extreme fires and weather events, melting glaciers and ice caps, rising sea levels, drought, floods, altered plant and animal distribution, spread of disease, and killer heat waves, to cite just a few impacts. Canada's vast resources and space confer greater resilience than most nations, but the world's poorest areas are especially vulnerable. Floods in Pakistan's great river delta, drought across central Africa, and extreme heat in India are killing people who did little or nothing to contribute to the climate crisis. These deaths may not be as grisly or violent as those in Nigeria or Saudi Arabia, but that shouldn't matter in ethical debates.

Despite the Kyoto agreement and international efforts at Copenhagen, this unrelenting rise in greenhouse gas emissions means countries around the world intend to continue contributing to the enormous problems of unpredictable climate extremes and fluctuations that people for generations to come will have to live with. This is the most unethical practice I can imagine. In the face of overwhelming evidence that human use of fossil fuels is creating an incredible crisis of climate change, wealthy countries like Canada and the U.S., whose use of these fuels created the massive economic expansion that brought about the climate crisis, are now unwilling to reduce their emissions. It's all in the name of economic growth, not survival or the future for our children and grandchildren. That is not just unethical, it's criminal.

In today's world, all fossil fuels are unethical. There is no such thing as ethical oil. People like Ezra Levant, who say they care about ethics, should press for rapid transition from these unethical energy sources to more ethical, equitable, and sustainable sources, such as renewable solar, wind, and geothermal energy.

Dr. David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author, and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation.

Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.

Richard Citroen remembers Hamilton's The Loved Ones

The Loved Ones and Me

by Richard Citroen (c)2009 SOCAN

This is my account of my time Hamilton legends, The Loved Ones.
While this account might not be 100% historically accurate, this is how I remember it.....


I guess it all started for me in early 1977, when I, a 17 year old high school student and aspiring drummer, went to the local A&A Records in Burlington looking to buy a new album with my hard won allowance to add to my record collection.

This record collection was in itself a fairly alarming. My earlier interest in early 70's glam rock like T.Rex had somewhere along the way given way to grim horrors like Rush's live album, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, and other abominations like Yes' Close To The Edge album.

Sure, there was Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti, a couple of Mott The Hoople things, Spark's Kimono My House and some other good things, including some rather good promo albums from my ex-musician/manager/concert promoter/booking agent father's days working for NEMS (The Beatles organization) in the late 60's, but in the main,
it was horrible.

For instance, the only Bowie album I owned at the time wasn't even one of the good ones.
It was the dreaded Young Americans!

So after spending a fair amount of time at the record store, the closest thing to anything that interested me was an album by Foghat. God knows why I bought it, but I did. I got it home and put it on and as their turgid version of "Take Me To The River" filled my suburban rec room, I looked at the alarming number of beards on the album cover and the rest of my sorry record collection and thought to myself, there's got to be something better than....this!

Similarly, I was equally dissatisfied with who I was playing with at the time.

I'd been playing drums since I was 12, and I'd done some fairly dubious things. I'd done the silly KISS army thing with my first band of school pals. We'd done a Halloween gig in a church hall, playing stuff like BTO's "Takin' Care Of Business" and a particularly wretched version of Uriah Heep's "Sunrise" that sounded more like Billy Bragg than the 'Heep. Add to this the fact that we were wearing KISS makeup, and you can imagine how well we went over...

I'd also flirted with "progressive rock", playing with a guy who sometimes wore a kimono, but the attitude of most of the players in that scene (some of whom fancied themselves rotten) got on my nerves, plus my disinterest in replicating the Bill Bruford drumming style with umpteen time changes while singing about Hobbits meant that it really wasn't a fit for me. I mean dressing up like a flower? Oh please....

Eventually I opted for a more straight ahead approach, which suited me better, but after playing with pretty much every "hot" guitar player in town that owned a pair of platform shoes, I realized that I was getting nowhere.

One of the problems for me was that a lot of these guys were merely dabbling. Rich kids with expensive equipment, just killing time before going to law school or wherever, which was something that my father had warned me about. He would say things like "If music is what you really want to do, you shouldn't waste your time with people who are going to run home to their mums when things get tough. This lot wouldn't last 5 minutes in London." etc.

He also tried to tell me, after seeing some of the grizzly combos I would play with, that while it wasn't the be all and end all, it WAS important to get the visual image right and always have at least one or two good looking guys in the band. "That way girls will come come to your shows, and before you know it, the boys will come too, because they know that the girls will be there." Naturally, I thought that this was just old fashioned nonsense, especially since at the time I was playing with 3 guys, two of whom wore glasses and the other a beard, but of course dad turned out to be right...

Another problem for me was, no matter who I was playing with, good or bad (and I'd had plenty of both) was at some point, usually half through the proceedings, we would have a bash at somebody's dreadful "original", which was generally either a ballad or something John Denver would have rejected as being too corny. More importantly, these songs had nothing whatsoever to do with the other rocking songs that had come before it. I would say things like "Oh very nice. That one's got real potential" while groaning inwardly. Obviously I couldn't keep doing this, so I thought to myself, sod this!

I'd done pretty much everything that they tell you that you're supposed to do, and that didn't work, so why not try doing what you're NOT supposed to do?

It was then that I thought of a singer that I vaguely knew, named Simon Leblovic. I first clapped eyes on Simon in 1975, when he was fronting a Stones-y cover band called "Interchange", who had played a lunchtime gig in the cafe/auditorium at Lord Elgin High School, which I was attending at the time.

Simon cut an interesting figure on the day. Think Freddie Mercury doing a Mick Jagger imitation and you've pretty much got it. While I thought he was a bit "over the top", he certainly LOOKED like a singer! The rest of the band weren't very good, so naturally they had to put up with some catcalls from the local wiseacres, but they did have a "Keef" figure in guitarist Roy Furness and they played the Stones' "Starfucker", which impressed me, mostly because I enjoyed the number of time the word "fuck" was shouted over the school p.a system.

Over the next couple of years, Simon and I struck up a nodding acquaintance, mostly running into each other at the Burlington Mall and having a chat at various local "Battle Of The Bands" shows, most of which were usually won by Bill Wood's band "Darwin", which seemed fair enough, as those guys, especially keyboard player Michael Dana, could play rings around most of us, and Bill was a pretty good front man.

Interestingly it was at one of these Battle Of The Bands where I first saw a band called Simply Saucer. They stood out like a sore thumb among this gang of platform shoes and feather cuts and obligatory versions of "Stairway To Heaven" by not only playing their own Velvet Underground meets Hawkwind tunes like "Here Come The Cyborgs", but also wearing Salvation Army clothes and their Lou Reed-style singer/guitarist Edgar Breau wore sunglasses at night, all of which seems nothing now, but was practically unheard of in 1975.

But more on them later...

So here it is, the spring of '77 and I'm thoroughly fed up with playing with the usual tiresome heavy riff merchants, so I call up Simon Leblovic, inquiring what he was up to and did he by any chance needed a drummer? As it turned out, he did.

He told me that he had a band out in Hamilton with a guy who used to be in Teenage Head, (a band I'd actually heard of) and their drummer was leaving, and if I wanted to come down, that would be fine with him. I asked him what sort of stuff they were playing and he mentioned "Sunshine Superman" by Donovan. I thought was an interesting choice and told him so. Simon suggested that I come by the following Sunday, and oh by the way, could I give him a ride into town? I said sure...

So the big day arrives and I meet Simon and the other guys. There I was with my Don Brewer afro, wearing some baggy 70's nightmare jeans, with brown earth shoes and an awful t-shirt with Farrah f**king Fawcett on it (Sorry, but it's true) and looked at my potential new band mates. There was Steve Park with his wild curly red hair looking like a demented Ronald McDonald giving the impression that he carried a knife in his back pocket to the left of me, and Gary Pig dressed like a cast member of Leave It To Beaver to the right, with Simon doing his pouty Freddie Jagger thing in the middle. God knows what they thought of me, but I thought to myself, what have I gotten myself into?

GARY PIG GOLD sez: Personally speaking, as I usually do, I thought Richard was a cool guy, and a very good drummist. But I have to say I much preferred my Beaver look to his not-so-grand-Funk wardrobe.

Well, I needn't have worried, for as we went into the first number, The Kinks' "You Really Got Me", the room exploded!

Given my past experience, I was expecting some sort of grim heavy metal noise to come out of Steve's Marshall amp, but what actually came out was something that sounded so close to the original Dave Davies guitar sound that it made no difference. Amazing!

Next up was The Who's "My Generation", which also sounded great, and again I was amazed when Gary went into all those great bass licks and didn't miss a note! The other thing was without exchanging a word between us, we all instinctively did the "Live At Leeds" arrangement. This was the first example of the musical telepathy that Steve, Gary and myself had. Simon was doing his best to hang on, but it was really the three of us that was where the real action was.

After playing a feedback laden version of Bowie's "Suffragette City" and a couple of other similar numbers in which I managed to break not one, but two drum heads, Steve, without looking at the others simply said, "Would you like to join the band?" Naturally I said yes, for all sorts of reasons really, but one of them was this:

All three of them, Simon, Steve & Gary had started to write their own songs, some of which they played for me, and after hearing them, I realized that while they weren't exactly classics at this point, they at least sounded of a piece with the other material that we were playing. Also they LOOKED like a band. THIS was what I was looking for. Hooray!

BTW: We never did play Sunshine Superman...

Over the next few weeks, it was one revelation after another, as I quickly realized that this was what being in a REAL band was all about. All were passionate and knowledgeable about what they were doing, especially Steve. As a regular reader of Rock Scene magazine, I was naturally aware of people like The Ramones and The Patti Smith Group, and you'd have to have been living under a rock (or perched on a toadstool in a prog rock band) not to know who The Sex Pistols were, but the guys introduced me to the following: Television's Marquee Moon, The Flamin' Groovies' Shake Some Action, Iggy & The Stooges' Raw Power, the amazing first Blondie album, David Bowie's Pin-ups, and the first 3 Roxy Music albums in all their screechy glory. Add Johnny Thunders (Born To Lose/Chinese Rocks was the first 12" single I ever saw) and Eddie & The Hot Rods to this mix, and my reaction to all this new and not so music was basically where have I been???? In a basement in Burlington listening to f**king Foghat, that's where!

So here I was with my new band mates....

GARY

Gary was an amazing bass player, probably the best one I ever worked with, but even then he was a bit of a will 'o' the wisp disappearing and reappearing at odd times carrying his guitar in a battered old case filled with fanzines and posters for upcoming gigs for people like The Diodes and The Viletones etc. He also published his own fanzine called The Pig Paper and generally had his fingers in a lot of pies. Gary always reminded me of the Cheshire Cat out of Alice In Wonderland.

SIMON

Simon had all the usual pretentions that most vocalists seem to have, but I liked him all the same. He had pretty good taste in music (I remember him talking up Cheap Trick, who nobody had even heard of at the time)and seemed to grasp instinctively that during this period, the way to go forward musically was to actually go backward, which was something that I wholeheartedly agreed with. While some of his stage mannerisms were sometimes a bit much, and would have benefitted from a slightly more relaxed approach, he was a pretty good looking guy, and a decent front man.

STEVE

Steve, his prodigious musical ability aside, was a tough Hamilton boy, and always liked to let you know that you weren't, but despite this, I liked him immensely, as he really was a at heart a nice guy, and his passion for the music was infectious.
He really took me under his wing, basically going, don't listen to that, listen to this. Don't wear that, wear this etc. Needless to say Steve's crash course in cool resulted in 180 degree shift in my musical thinking for which I am eternally grateful, as well as a new attitude towards style and pop culture in general.

It was not to last, of course, as I found over the ensuing years, that what seemed so cutting edge and forward thinking at the time morphed into a backwards looking conservatism that I'm not entirely comfortable with even today, but it certainly was fun while it lasted.

But that was all to come later. Now back to our story...

So the songs came thick and fast and after about 2-3 weeks, the four of us had worked up 3 sets worth of 60's Kinks, Brian Jones-era Stones and Who covers, with a smattering of Stooges, Eddie & The Hot Rods and Patti Smith songs. This is where I discovered that not only was Simon a pretty good harmonica player, he could also do a pretty good impression of Patti Smith and Steve could do Lenny Kaye's guitar licks in his sleep, another bonus, as I reckoned that this was the way forward. Still, everything was going well, and soon it was time to book some gigs.

Enter one Steve Prendergast, who in later years went on to manage both Honeymoon Suite and Brighton Rock, but at this stage was a rookie booking agent who quickly booked us on to the Southern Ontario bar circuit.

I don't know where Steve came from but I didn't much care for him on either a business or personal level, and I'm pretty sure the feeling was mutual.
I suspect that Gary felt the same way about him too, because pretty much the minute Prendergast came on the scene, Gary went a.w.o.l.

GARY: Actually, I just went to my parents’ cottage for a month. Might’ve forgotten to tell you guys of course, but…

Normally this wouldn't have been a problem, but unfortunately we had gigs booked, and the dates were looming up, and with our bass player missing, something had to be done. So the word went out and we auditioned a several replacement bass players but the results were not encouraging.

One guy came by who not only looked like Elliot Gould in M.A.S.H., but was also blind, and played the cello. An interesting guy to be sure, and a pretty good player too, but obviously not what we had in mind. It was then that I thought of a guy I knew named Dru Davy.

I'd known Dru for years. He was the right age and looked pretty good, and while he wasn't the bass monster that Gary was, I reckoned his simple approach might work, so I called him up and arranged an audition for him.

He showed up with his Dan Amstrong Lucite bass guitar and passed the audition, so Steve set to work getting him up to speed, which was no easy task, since there were 3 sets of material to learn and about 2 weeks to do it. Dru really came through for us at short notice, and we hit the road, playing small town Ontario. Places like Port Colborne, Brantford, etc.

I remember arriving at the first gig in Port Colborne, passing the "Coming soon: Myles & Lenny!" posters by the entrance, setting up on a stage that was about the size of a dining room table and doing our sound check, where we launched into our fairly raw version of The Stones' "Live With Me" at top volume.

Simon was wearing a black suit jacket and sunglasses, crooning into the microphone standing stock still while the rest of us created an electrical storm around him. It was great! Perfect in fact.

However the club owner thought we were a bit too "punk" and asked us to tone it down a bit. Of course we ignored him and did what we were going to do anyway, but this was my first inkling that we might be headed for trouble, but I thought no more of it, as there was the music to sort out. And what great music it was!

Our version of Patti Smith's "My Heart's Pumping", a version of "Gloria" that morphed into "Satisfaction" played at breakneck speed, and The Stooges "Search & Destroy" in which I managed to hit practically my whole Premier double kit at once!

Our version of The Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There" and The Stones version of "I Wanna Be Your Man" with Simon's wailing harmonica and Steve getting all kinds of feedback out of his little red Gibson SG and big Marhsall amp was always a highlight, as was our version of The Stones' "Midnight Rambler" and The Who's "My Generation/See Me Feel Me" which we used to close the shows with. With me doing my Keith Moon/Aynsley Dunbar impression and Dru doing his best to hang on, people loved it...it was great!!

Things were going great until we hit Dunnville....

What a nightmare this was!

It would appear that the Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin loving locals weren't too impressed with our various leather pants, eye-liner, ballet slippers and stripey tops. We were greeted with such taunts such as, "Hey girls!" and "Get off the stage queers!".

Nor were they ready for our Stooges covers and generally raw and feedback laden approach to what we considered "Classic Rock".

Well, not only did we go down like a lead balloon, we got fired from the gig by the owner, and were replaced by another band called "Mythral" (whatever that means) that did, you guessed it..... Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin covers.

I remember sitting there drinking with the rest of the guys, looking on in disgust while guys with moustaches and skanky girls who looked like they knew how to fix your car danced to Mythral's rendition of "Walk This Way". The next day people even yelled things like "Go home fags!" at us from passing cars while we waited on the street for our ride home. Can you believe it? I would imagine that the locals in Dunnville are STILL listening to Aerosmith & Zeppelin...have a nice life kids.

So after the Dunnville debacle, we decided it was time for a re-think. It was pretty obvious to us that the cover band bar crowd weren't as interested in The Stooges and Patti Smith as we were, and although it was discussed, we didn't really feel like working up a pile of Peter Frampton and Foreigner covers to play in front of people who didn't give a shit.

Dressing up like novelty acts like Rheingold or The Imps was out of the question, so we decided that since people were calling us "punk" anyway, that we would concentrate on playing our own material and try and become part of the punk/new wave scene that had recently sprung up in both Hamilton and Toronto.

Gary Pig was of course just the man to help make this happen with his connections in both cities, so we called him up, said goodbye to temporary bassist Dru Davey, and Gary came back into the fold, bringing Roy Furness along with him on rhythm guitar.

GARY: Simon, Steve and I had actually been conspiring to get Roy into the band from the get-go, and were just cooling our collective heels til he got home from his final tour with that legendary proto-power-popping Hamilton bar band The Specs.

While I was happy that Gary was back, I viewed the addition of Roy Furness as something of a mixed blessing. For a start I remembered him from Interchange and hadn't been very impressed. Also Roy was already nearly 30, which was good deal older than the rest of us (Steve Park and I were 18, Simon 21) and he had something of a grim workmanlike manner about him, which I didn't think was a good thing.

GARY: Roy only looked thirty. Must’ve been his three-cigarettes-per-song habit.

However he made up for this by being probably the most sophisticated songwriter in the band, although again his obvious Stones fixation was, to me at least, a step in the wrong direction, as I would have liked to have seen us move more in the direction of The Who or The Patti Smith Group, since I thought we did that type of thing better than any of the competition at the time.

Nevertheless, we re-grouped in Steve Park's basement, threw out the old set, and started working on new material such as the fabulous "Let Me (Be The One") which I believe Steve & Simon wrote, that was pitched somewhere between The Vibrators, The Ugly Ducklings and Johnny Thunders, so was basically the perfect sound for 1977.
Add to that Roy's great minor-key Flamin' Groovies style "I Should Have Known" and we all knew we had a couple of winners.

Stylistically we eschewed the rama-lama guitar style that was already starting to sound like a cliche and came up with a sound that pre-dated The Strokes by several decades.

We still covered songs, but they were fairly obscure things such as The Ugly Duckling's "Nothin'', The Flamin' Groovies' "Shake Some Action" (which sounded particularly good with our Gibson/Marshall guitar sound easily trumping the Groovies comparatively weedy sounding Fenders Bassman amps) and taking a leaf out of the Beatles Cavern playbook that said that if the audience doesn't know it, then it's OUR song, we did a cover of The Boomtown Rats "Looking After No.1" which was only available as an import single at the time.

This was a particularly tricky piece of music to play. It was actually more complicated than King Crimson's "Lark's Tongues In Aspic", although you'd never know it to hear it.

As well as continuing to write new and exciting material, we were also working on covering Roy Loney's then current single. While I wouldn't exactly call it a sit-down, my understanding is that apparently either Steve or Gary had a word with either Frank or Gord from Teenage Head, who were also interested in covering the same record. We decided to do the b-side, "Second Cousin" since it was more our style, while they would do the a-side which was more in keeping with what they were doing. This what a little something called "Wild One", which worked out rather well for them!

GARY: Actually, I brought “Second Cousin” to us Loved Ones. It was from a single by The New Legion Rock Spectacular that I was distributing. Had nothing whatsoever to do with Teenage Head …and I doubt Steve especially would have ever been invited to a “sit down” with them guys at that point!

Around this time Gary got us a gig opening up for Simply Saucer. I thought to myself, Simply Saucer???? I remembered them from a couple of years earlier having seen them play in a field. Apparently there had been some changes in the Saucer camp. They had gotten rid of their synthesizer player and were now going for a more stripped down contemporary sound that was very much in keeping with the whole punk/new wave thing.

Anyway, they were doing a show at the YMCA in Hamilton and needed an opening act, and since Gary was pretty much managing them by then, we were in! There was also talk of Toronto gigs in the future as well. Gary even put us on the cover of The Pig Paper, even though we had never even played anywhere!

So there I was thinking to myself, hmm...great band, good songs, cool crowd.
It really felt that we were part of something....

What could go wrong?

Cut to the YMCA in Hamilton with Simply Saucer, and there we were, in our new Salvation Army clothes, having eradicated the last vestiges of the suddenly old-fashioned "glam" look that we had previously sported, and replaced it with a predominately black minimalist look.

Our apprenticeship on the bar circuit was paying off in spades as we bashed through our set like the well-oiled machine that we were. Nothin' and Let Me (Be The One) being particularly well-received by the local scenesters like "Kevin from England". We would have played an encore, but we didn't have any more songs! So I'm figuring that a bright future for our fabulous beat combo beckoned...

Wrong!!!

Next thing I know, the phone doesn't ring when it's supposed to, so I make some calls, only to be informed that Steve Park, our erstwhile leader has jumped ship to join Simply Saucer!!! Apparently they were pretty impressed with Steve on the night as well...

Well, I was shocked to say the least, as I simply couldn't understand why Steve would want to do such a thing, since I thought The Loved Ones were way more happening than Saucer, being generally younger, with way more teen appeal. To leave us to join Saucer was madness to my way f thinking, as it flew in the face of everything that I knew to be true about pop music.

Maybe Steve wasn't happy with the way things were going? A personality clash perhaps? We were all pretty opinionated and argumentative at times, while Saucer's Edgar Breau was a pretty easy going guy.
Certainly The Saucer were a more avant garde proposition than our comparatively orthodox approach.

Given Steve's love for Television and Roxy Music, that might have been a factor. Maybe he felt marginalized by Roy's increasing influence on the band's overall dynamic? This was certainly a concern of mine at the time, that and the fact that there suddenly seemed to be too many Chiefs and not enough Indians in the band. Who knows? You'll have to ask Steve. Still, there was nothing to be done. Steve was gone...

It was a sad day when I went to pick up my drum kit a couple of weeks later. Steve understandably wasn't there, but he left me a note of apology on the door to the basement. I kept it for years....and have often thought about what The Loved Ones might have gone on to achieve had we not been nipped in the bud. Indeed, years later Edgar told me that if he'd known that poaching Steve for Saucer would have led to the breakup of The Loved Ones, he would have gotten someone else.

Still, it wasn't all bad.

The Loved Ones and our solitary YMCA gig became something of a local legend in Hamilton, and people still ask me about it! In that regard were were a bit like Johnny Moped, who did the one gig/legend thing too, or at a stretch, The Police at The Horseshoe gig that was attended by about 20 people, but over 200 hundred people have claimed they were there!

After Steve jumped ship to Saucer, the rest of us continued to work together on and off in various bar band configurations with different people like Ex-Carboard Brains bassist Paul O'Connell making up the numbers, right up until about 1980, but it wasn't the same. Eventually, Simon went on to join The Start, who had a small hit with "Hey You" and toured all over Canada, and I, after playing briefly with a new version of, irony of ironies, Simply Saucer(!), moved to Toronto, eventually joined The Diodes ("Tired Of Waking Up Tired"), relocating to England with them in 1981.

There were even two bands involving both Gary & Roy that were called "The Loved Ones", but quite frankly, they stunk.

GARY: Richard, are you still mad Roy and I didn’t take you to California with us? Coz that version of The Loved Ones, far from stinking, was actually very, very good. At least Steve Wynn of the Dream Syndicate (who used to get us gigs), Rodney Bingenheimer (who played our demos on his radio show) and Michael Nesmith (whose Pacific Arts Records were courting us) didn’t think we smelled in the least.

Sometimes the other guy is more important than you think he is.

Simon Leblovic remembers Hamilton's Rocking Horse band

Riding the Rocking Horse

By Simon Leblovic

Things that you don't think are important at the time seem to take on personal significance as the years pass. I played in a rock and roll band in Hamilton, called Rocking Horse, during the summer of 1979. We got together with the idea of playing some cover songs and making some money. During that summer we played weekends at a seedy dive called Wilsons, which was located at King and Locke Street in Hamilton. The gig was interesting in the way that playing in bars can sometimes be. From the stage at Wilsons I could see people dancing in front of me, while fights broke out between drunks at the back of the club. There were no bouncers, and the place had a barfly kind of feel, where nobody seemed to give a damn.

I liked Rocking Horse because I got a chance to play with musicians who I had played with before in other bands. The members of Rocking Horse were Roy Furness on guitar and vocals, Paul O'Connell on bass, Richard Auto Citroen on drums, Joel MacLeod on piano, acoustic guitar and vocals, and yours truly on lead vocals and harmonica. Rocking Horse played songs by groups that I really liked, such as The Rolling Stones (Not Fade Away, Around and Around, As Tears Go By, Jumping Jack Flash, Happy) The Beatles (Slow Down, Bad Boy, Rock and Roll Music, I Saw Her Standing There), Patti Smith (Because the Night, Dancing Barefoot), Mitch Ryder (Devil with a Blue Dress), Alice Cooper (Be My Lover), The Doors (Love Her Madly) and Robert Gordon (Sea Cruise, Red Hot, Fire).

The owner of Wilsons told me that if our gig at his bar was going to last, we would have to bring in customers, so I decided to try and drum up some publicity by asking The Hamilton Spectator newspaper if they wanted to do a story on the band. One night a lady from the entertainment department of the paper showed up at the bar. She asked if there was anything special about the band that she could mention in her story. After giving it a moment's thought, off the top of my head, I told her that I wore black vinyl as part of the garbage bag look. I don't know why I said this, but maybe playing at Wilsons brought the idea of garbage to mind. After the Spectator story appeared, some people at our shows asked me about the garbage bag look. Although I did wear black vinyl on occasion, at this gig I usually wore blue jeans and a T shirt.

Besides Wilsons, we also played some other shows in the area. The Rose and Thistle was located in Dundas, and we were offered a four-night engagement at the club. So after making some excuse to Wilsons, we headed out to play there. On our first night at The Rose and Thistle we found out that they booked other kinds of entertainment, besides rock and roll bands. In the early evening a male stripper named Mr. Tease did his thing, performing in front of packed houses of adoring female fans. Mr. Tease was a big draw with the ladies, maybe because during his act he walked around the stage on his hands, naked except for some masking tape wrapped around his private parts. One evening while he was onstage, Mr. Tease tossed one of our microphones into the audience. The microphone disappeared without a trace. When we mentioned this to Mr. Tease, he looked at us as if we couldn't be serious about bothering him with such a trivial matter! But besides that nonsense, The Rose and Thistle gig went fairly well. It was a good-sized room and made a nice break from playing every weekend at Wilsons.

Rocking Horse played a really fun show away from Wilsons one day. That summer a neighbour of mine was getting married, and he asked us to play at a wedding party that was being held on a farm out in the country. We agreed to play, and arrived at the farm early on a sunny Saturday afternoon. It was going to be great playing outdoors for a change, getting out of the smoky bar where we usually played. There were a lot of guests, partying outdoors at the farm that afternoon, and I noticed that the place even had a swimming pool. After we arrived, our host kindly offered us a selection of beverages, which included a large bowl full of margaritas. For me that afternoon consisted of singing songs in the sunshine, drinking margaritas, and jumping fully clothed into the pool. After I got out of the water I would dry off by running around the stage. I was having such a blast that I got the band to do every song we knew at least twice, which amounted to us playing about 50 to 60 songs. I think as the afternoon wore on we started to sound ragged, but I doubt if anyone really cared. After playing all afternoon we had to go back to Wilsons and do it all over again that night. I ended up being so tired that I could barely play, but no one at the bar seemed to notice.

Things often end with the passing of summer, and so it was with Rocking Horse. I put the kibosh on the band, and gave it my own personal kiss of death by pulling off a very selfish and nasty act at the end. In the early fall I was recording a demo in the studio with a band from Toronto, and I stayed in the studio, rather than showing up for a Rocking Horse gig in Dundas that was being put on by a pro-marijuana group called Norml. That aborted gig was probably the final nail in the coffin for Rocking Horse, and we broke up shortly after that.

In retrospect, I think that I enjoyed playing in Rocking Horse during that summer of 1979 more than any other band I ever played in. Although it was just a no-pressure cover band, the sound and vibe of the band felt really good to me. Rocking Horse wasn't too heavy, too loud, or too cool, like some of my later bands in Toronto, and I felt very much at ease playing with Roy Furness and Paul O'Connell. Roy and I formed one of the first bands I ever sang with, called Shampain, in Burlington in 1975, and Paul and I formed my first Toronto band, called The Hits, in 1978. So if I could go back and be in a band with anyone I ever played with, then I would definitely choose to play with both Roy and Paul. This may all sound insanely self-centered, ridiculous and absurd, and you may certainly accuse me of living in the past, but I want to say that Rocking Horse stands out in my mind today as my all-time favourite band that I ever played in.


Special thanks to source: http://www.mortyscabin.net

Simon Slinger of The Start remembers 70s music

Many thanks to the Morty's Cabin blog for first posting this in 2009. I managed Simon's band Interchange briefly in the mid 1970s, and also became friends with the guys in The Specs, the band that formed after Simon left Interchange. The Burlington / Hamilton area was a lotta fun in the late 1970s, with Teenage Head and The Oh No's being two great live acts.

The Useless Minstrel

By Simon Leblovic (aka Simon Slinger, when fronting The Start)

If music be the food of love play on. Let sweet sounds lift my spirits, spiraling at the sky. Music is the life blood that expresses matters of the spirit that are beyond mere words. Music fills us with wonder and joy, and as a form of artistic expression brings us closest to the divine. In descibing the musical genius of Mozart's musical compositions, it was said that he was taking dictation from God. In other words don't that music make you want to get up and dance and feel good like you knew it would.

When I was young my parents had a calypso record by Harry Belafonte that used to get me dancing around the living room of our house. I remember hearing "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)" and "Jamaica Farewell," as well as a rhythmic number called "Do Adore Her." Then when I saw Peter Sellers playing the imcomparable Inspector Clouseau, I remember hearing the Pink Panther Theme by Henry Mancini. And I also heard Shirley Bassey sing the theme song to the James Bond movie Goldfinger. All unforgettable blasts from the past.

When I became a teenager I started to get into rock 'n roll music seriously. I remember hearing a 1960's compilation album with a couple of psychedelic songs on it called "Journey to the Center of the Mind" by The Amboy Dukes and "I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night" by The Electric Prunes. I also remember hearing that great make out song called "Go All The Way" by The Raspberries, as well as a sweet song called "Loving You" by Minnie Riperton that became our song with one of my first true loves. I also remember tripping under headphones to "Sweet Leaf" by Black Sabbath and grooving to an American Gangster number called "Superfly" by Curtis Mayfield. And how could I not get down with Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels when I heard songs like "Sock It To Me Baby," "Devil With A Blue Dress On" and "I Got You," the latter of which was originally performed by James Brown. And there were great Canadian rock 'n roll songs like "American Woman" by The Guess Who and "You Could Have Been A Lady" by April Wine. And there was a a song called "Nothing" by a Toronto band called The Ugly Ducklings, who were also known as The Strolling Bones.

At my high school in Burlington I met a guy named Dave McLean. Dave had become a fan of The Rolling Stones after seeing the band play live at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto in the summer of 1972. After meeting Dave my life took a drastic turn down the left hand path. One night I remember hanging out in the basement of Dave's house and hearing "Sympathy For The Devil" by The Rolling Stones. So right then and there, in the fall of 1973 at the age of eighteen, I decided that I wanted to be a rock'n roll singer.

Hanging out with Dave I got into other songs by The Rolling Stones like "Jumping Jack Flash," "Child Of The Moon," "Stray Cat Blues", "Midnight Rambler," "Monkey Man", "Brown Sugar," "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" and "Moonlight Mile." In the basement of Dave's house I also heard songs by Alice Cooper like "Under My Wheels," "You Drive Me Nervous" and "Never Been Sold Before." And the super fine "Something/Anything" album by Todd Rundgren, with songs like "I Saw The Light," "Hello It's Me" and the amazing "Couldn't I Just Tell You."

Dave played guitar and piano, and I wanted to sing in a band with him. And though he wasn't into playing in a band with me, I can still recall singing some songs by The Rolling Stones around town with Dave playing guitar. Those were my first times singing on stage in public at my high school and upstairs at a bar by Lake Ontario called The Tree Top in Burlington. I also remember sitting down with Dave at his house as he played piano, and I wrote lyrics for a concept album that I called "Reflections In Blue." After Dave and I stopped hanging out I found a band called Interchange in Burlington to sing with in 1975. And when my father discovered that I was singing in a rock 'n roll band he called me a useless minstrel.


Interchange


In 1975 I heard the "Toys In The Attic" album by Aerosmith. After that I got into a lot of their early songs like "Dream On," "One Way Street," "S. O. S. (Too Bad)," and "Seasons of Wither." Back then I also liked songs by The Yardbirds like "Heart Full Of Soul" and "Evil Hearted You," as well as "Rebel Rebel" by David Bowie. But at that time I think I especially liked The Rolling Stones and Aerosmith, because for me the song's the thing.. And to my ears the guitar playing of Keith Richards and Joe Perry complemented perfectly the songs that Mick Jagger and Steven Tyler were singing.

In 1976 I ran into another guy from Burlington named Rob Sikora, who loaned me the "Raw Power" record by Iggy Pop & The Stooges that had the song "Search And Destroy"on it. Rob also lent me the the first album by The New York Dolls with songs like "Personality Crisis," "Trash," " Bad Girl" and "Subway Train." He also loaned me the second album by The New York Dolls entitled "Too Much Too Soon" that had songs on it like "Babylon," "Stranded in the Jungle," "Human Being" and a cover of a Sonny Boy Williamson song called "Don't Start Me Talkin." Speaking of Sonny Boy Williamson, I consider him to be the best blues harp player ever. No doubt.

After hearing The New York Dolls I later got into a solo album by their singer David Johansen with songs called "Funky But Chic" and "Girls."(I also liked songs by Johnny Thunders, the guitarist for The New York Dolls, like "You Can't Put Your Arm Around Around A Memory" and "Chinese Rocks." And back then I also got into Robert Gordon singing songs like "Red Hot, "Sea Cruise" and a song that Bruce Springteen wrote called "Fire." At the time I was also listening to the first two Patti Smith albums, called "Horses" and "Radio Ethiopia." And later I really liked a song on the third "Easter" album by Patti Smith called "Because The Night" that Patti co-wrote with Bruce Springsteen. And on the fourth Patti Smith album called "Wave" there was a wondrous song called "Dancing Barefoot."

In early 1977 I was hanging out in Hamilton, the city of my birth. At a Saturday afternoon jam session that was held downstairs at a club called Duffy's Rock Pile, I ran into a drummer that I knew from Burlington named Lance White. Lance introduced me to a guitarist at Duffy's Rockpile on that day named Sparky, who had formerly played in Teenage Head. After that initial meeting Sparky and I tried to put a band together with another drummer that I knew from Burlington named Richard Citroen. We called the band "The Loved Ones," the name being taken from a movie that I had seen called "The Loved One."


The Loved Ones

As for the Loved Ones band, besides bombing at a few live shows, all we did for the most part was rehearse in the basement of Sparky's house, which was located right across from McMaster University in the west of Hamilton. On a positive note I will never forget hearing the "Never Mind The Bollocks - Here's The Sex Pistols" album at Sparky's house for the first time in 1977. Sparky also played early Roxy Music for me, which I came to appreciate.




As far as my taste in music in 1978, I remember hearing Billie Holiday singing for the first time on her album called "Lady Sings The Blues." Lady Day remains my favourite vocalist to this day. "God bless the child thats got his own." Besides falling for Billie Holiday in 1978, I also decided to look for a band to sing with in Toronto. So I paid a visit to a bar that I knew on Queen Street West in Toronto called The Beverly Tavern. And after picking up a copy of a local entertainment newspaper I answered an ad and phoned a bass player named Paul O'Connell, who had previously played in a Toronto band called The Cardboard Brains. Paul and I put a band together in Toronto called The Hits, and after awhile we started playing a few clubs around Toronto like The Turning Point. I remember that gig because we opened for a band called The Demics, who later had success with a song of theirs called "New York City."

The Hits also played at The Hotel Isabella and The Beverly Tavern in Toronto. I remember when we were playing at The Beverly and I was sleeping on the stage one Saturday afternoon before we had to play that night. And this guy named Jim kicked me and woke me up and told me me that he wanted to join the band. After an introduction like that, how could I say no? So Jim from down east started playing guitar in The Hits. We played songs like "I Got You" by James Brown and "Baby Please Don't Go" by Them, and "It's My Life" by The Animals. We also played a couple of songs by The Doors called "I Looked At You" and "Strange Day," and some early Rolling Stones songs like "Around and Around," "One More Try," "Surprise Surprise" and "Miss Amanda Jones." Paul and Jim ended up sharing an apartment together in Toronto on Bloor Street West. I remember hanging out with them one day, and hearing the great song "Bored" by Iggy Pop for the first time at Paul and Jim's place.



The Start at Lee's Palace


Simon Leblovic of The Start, musical influences, early bands

China, Russia support Syrian violence against protesters

Chinese leaders actions contradict communist ideals

Supporters of freedom and human rights in Syria have had their hopes for change deflated by two powers (China, Russia) that formerly believed in workers struggles against oppressive dictators. With China siding with the bludgeoning Assad family, Lenin and Marx must be rolling over in their graves.

It is both saddening and illuminating to remember that the last time these two countries voted against sanctions, it was in support of Mugabe's murderous regime in Zimbabwe.

Here's a piece from today's HuffPost regarding the thwarted UN effort:

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia and China vetoed a European-backed U.N. Security Council resolution Tuesday that threatened sanctions against Syria if it didn't immediately halt its military crackdown against civilians.

It would have been the first legally binding resolution adopted by the Security Council since President Bashar Assad's military began using tanks and soldiers against protesters in mid-March. Its defeat reflects the deep divisions in the U.N.'s most powerful body over how to address the ongoing violence in Syria, which the U.N. estimates has led to more than 2,700 deaths.

The European sponsors of the resolution tried to avoid a veto by watering down the language on sanctions three times, to the point where the word "sanctions" was taken out, but they failed.

The vote was 9-2 with four abstentions — India, South Africa, Brazil and Lebanon.

It was the first double veto by Russia and China since July 2008 when they vetoed proposed sanctions against Zimbabwe. In January 2007, they also vetoed a resolution calling on Myanmar to release all political prisoners, initiate a wide-ranging dialogue and end military attacks and human rights abuses.

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told the council after the vote that his country did not support the Assad regime or the violence but opposed the resolution because it was "based on a philosophy of confrontation," contained "an ultimatum of sanctions" and was against a peaceful settlement of a crisis. He also complained that the resolution did not call for the Syrian opposition to disassociate itself from "extremists" and enter into dialogue.

China's Ambassador Li Bandong said his country is concerned about the ongoing violence and wants to see speedy reforms but opposed the resolution because "sanctions, or threat of sanctions, do not help the situation in Syria but rather complicates the situation."

Supporters of the resolution expressed disappointment and outrage.

France's U.N. Ambassador Gerard Araud called the veto "a rejection of the extraordinary movement in support of freedom and democracy that is the Arab Spring" and commended "all of those who fight against the bloodthirsty crackdown in Syria."

Britain's U.N. Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said the veto "will be a great disappointment to the people of Syria and the wider region that some members of this council could not show their support for their struggle for basic human rights."

"By blocking this resolution, the onus is now on those countries to step up their efforts and persuade the Syrian government to end the violence and pursue genuine reform," he said.

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said "the courageous people of Syria can now clearly see who on this council supports their yearning for liberty and human rights — and who does not."

"Those who oppose this resolution and give cover to a brutal regime will have to answer to the Syrian people — and, indeed, to people across the region who are pursuing the same universal aspirations," she said. "The crisis in Syria will stay before the Security Council, and we will not rest until this council rises to meet its responsibilities."

Rice accused Russia and China of wanting to sell arms to the Syrian regime rather than stand with the Syrian people — an accusation vehemently denied by Russia's Churkin.

From the outset of the Syrian uprising, the council has been split.

Western members, backed by some African and Latin American nations, demanded an end to violence, and when it was not heeded they pushed for Security Council action, including the threat of sanctions. On the other side, Russia, China and the newly emerging global powers — Brazil, India and South Africa — pressed for more time for the Assad government to implement reforms and for political dialogue with the opposition and strongly opposed even mentioning sanctions.

It took four months of arguments between supporters and opponents of Assad's regime for the Security Council to issue a presidential statement in August condemning the escalating violence.

Britain, France, Germany and Portugal, backed by the United States, then pressed for a council resolution calling for an immediate arms embargo and other sanctions aimed at stopping the Assad government's crackdown on protesters.

But Russia, China, India, South Africa and Brazil opposed that sanctions resolution. They argue the U.N. resolution authorizing the use of force to protect civilians in Libya was misused by NATO to justify months of air strikes against Moammar Gadhafi's regime and expressed fear a new resolution might be used as a pretext for armed intervention against Syria.

The final watered-down draft that was voted on and defeated demanded that Syria immediately end violence, allow fundamental rights and freedoms, lift all media restrictions and allow unhindered access for human rights investigators.

It expressed the council's intention to review Syria's implementation of these demands within 30 days, and "to consider its options, including measures under Article 41 of the Charter of the United Nations."

Article 41 authorizes the council to impose nonmilitary measures which can include economic and diplomatic sanctions.

The draft also would have strongly condemned "the continued grave and systematic human rights violations and the use of force against civilians by the Syrian authorities" and called on all states "to exercise vigilance and restraint" in supplying weapons to Syria.

Syria's U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari, the last speaker after the vote, criticized "the prejudice in certain Western capitals against our country" and insisted a comprehensive package of reforms is now being implemented by the government, "enhancing the democratic process."

Without naming the U.S., Ja'afari said that it used its Security Council veto 50 times since 1945 to protect Israel and deny the Palestinians their rights.

Therefore, he said, it could be considered a party to "genocide, as this language is tantamount to turning a blind eye and supporting the Israeli massacres in occupied Arab lands."

As he spoke, U.S. diplomats led by Rice walked out of the council chamber.