Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / The Lost Legends of Canadian Glam Rock [Episode 257]

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The Lost Legends of Canadian Glam Rock [Episode 257] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

0:00
Speaker 1: We're totally bummed rock and roll. I mean, I'll leave you.
0:05
Speaker 1: You're reading little hands this, It's time to rock and
0:07
Speaker 1: roll roll.
0:09
Speaker 2: I totally booked. Welcome back to book don Rock, the
0:17
Speaker 2: podcast for those about to read and rock. Emeric Senich,
0:20
Speaker 2: thanks for joining me. If you can find the video
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Speaker 2: version of this episode on YouTube at Booked on Rock.
0:25
Speaker 2: You can also find it online at booked on rock
0:27
Speaker 2: dot com, and if you like what you hear and see,
0:30
Speaker 2: be sure to give the podcast a five star review
0:32
Speaker 2: and subscribe wherever you listen or if you check it
0:35
Speaker 2: out on YouTube. This episode's guest is Robert Dayton, the
0:38
Speaker 2: author of Cold Glitter, The Untold Story of Canadian glam.
0:43
Speaker 2: Dayton taps is Canadian Roots to reveal mind blowing stories
0:46
Speaker 2: of musicians fighting to be heard. Dayton has spent years
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Speaker 2: researching and interviewing groundbreaking musicians trapped by geography, colonial mindsets,
0:56
Speaker 2: and the difficulties of penetrating a cultural behemoth that is
0:59
Speaker 2: the United States. You get to many of the bands
1:01
Speaker 2: in the book, including one that featured a sixteen year old,
1:05
Speaker 2: then unknown Canadian singer Brian Adams. Find a playlist of
1:10
Speaker 2: the bands we discussed in this episode. In this episode,
1:13
Speaker 2: show notes, Robert, Welcome to the podcast.
1:17
Speaker 1: Oh, thanks so much for having me tell us about yourself.
1:20
Speaker 2: Your website bio says you are from Fort Saint John,
1:23
Speaker 2: British Columbia. You're a multi disciplinary artist.
1:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, and and you know, both those things were kind
1:29
Speaker 1: of were important for me to put in my bio.
1:32
Speaker 1: Bios are hard to write, especially if you're writing it
1:34
Speaker 1: by yourself, which most people are. I certainly am. And
1:36
Speaker 1: it's always a challenge like, oh, I have to write
1:39
Speaker 1: about myself. Uh, And you know, how do I get
1:41
Speaker 1: the ego out of this? It's not an easy thing.
1:43
Speaker 1: It's a rough challenge.
1:45
Speaker 2: But well, multi disciplinary artist means you have many creative
1:49
Speaker 2: muscles you can flex. Is that the good way?
1:53
Speaker 1: And I remember, you know, I've lived in a few
1:56
Speaker 1: different cities, and you know, I remember like when I
1:58
Speaker 1: you know, and I really at one point it was
2:00
Speaker 1: very important for me to put uh, Fort Saint John,
2:03
Speaker 1: because that's where I spent almost half my life. That's
2:06
Speaker 1: where I'm from, That's where I was born. It's what
2:09
Speaker 1: is it on the map? It's an isolated place. It's
2:11
Speaker 1: on the Alaska Highway. It's way up in Northern British Columbia,
2:15
Speaker 1: and you know, I had so many insecurities about it.
2:18
Speaker 1: And you know when I moved to the big city
2:20
Speaker 1: at nineteen, I moved to the big city and I
2:23
Speaker 1: was like, hey, you know, I was so I didn't
2:25
Speaker 1: even on to tell anyone where I was from. I
2:27
Speaker 1: was so insecure about where I was from. And na, man,
2:32
Speaker 1: so I get over that and now it's like, no,
2:34
Speaker 1: this is in my bio. This is where I was
2:35
Speaker 1: born and raised, this is where I'm from. And then
2:38
Speaker 1: I moved to another city. I moved to Toronto, and
2:40
Speaker 1: you know, I remember someone going, what's your focus And
2:42
Speaker 1: I'm like, what's my focus? What do you mean by that?
2:45
Speaker 1: And then someone said, hey, just say multidisciplined area And
2:47
Speaker 1: I'm like, all right, MULTIDISCIPLINARYA you do a lot of
2:50
Speaker 1: different things. And you know that applies to the book.
2:53
Speaker 1: I mean, the book has so many different factors. And
2:55
Speaker 1: you know, my history is acknowledged with that. What you know,
2:58
Speaker 1: my background is anowed with that. And then you know
3:01
Speaker 1: it's all this stuff that I love that's mixing so
3:03
Speaker 1: many different things.
3:05
Speaker 2: You know.
3:05
Speaker 1: Being in bands, for myself, I thought it was normal
3:07
Speaker 1: that you want to put on a show and you
3:10
Speaker 1: find out, no, it's not normal to want to put
3:12
Speaker 1: on a show. You went to dress up to like
3:14
Speaker 1: have a theme, to have a concept, to have like makeup.
3:16
Speaker 1: That's not normal as Oh okay, So that's a bit
3:20
Speaker 1: multidisciplinary in its own right, and a lot of these
3:22
Speaker 1: bands do that.
3:23
Speaker 2: So, yeah, you talk about a scene that needs some
3:26
Speaker 2: light shed on it, and that's what this book does. Actually,
3:29
Speaker 2: on the back of the book is a quote from actor,
3:32
Speaker 2: writer and comedian Neil Hamburger, who describes the music scene
3:36
Speaker 2: you cover in this book as being quote a mysterious,
3:38
Speaker 2: undocumented scene that was hiding in plain sight up north.
3:42
Speaker 2: Tell us about Canadian glam and why was it so marginalized?
3:46
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny, it's kind of a catch all
3:48
Speaker 1: cruts in a way. Canadian glam a lot of people
3:50
Speaker 1: when I bring it up, or when I have brought
3:52
Speaker 1: it up, even when I started writing the book, We're
3:55
Speaker 1: going is there such a thing? And you know, I'd
3:58
Speaker 1: interviewed these bands and some would say, yeah, we glam,
4:00
Speaker 1: and someone say, well, we're not glam. And some of
4:02
Speaker 1: the bands that said that they were glam were less
4:05
Speaker 1: glam than the bands that didn't say they were glam,
4:07
Speaker 1: but I was going, Okay, I'm gonna put some qualifiers
4:09
Speaker 1: in for what what is glam and what isn't glam,
4:12
Speaker 1: you know, and I give people a little bit of
4:13
Speaker 1: background on glam in general and overall, and then we'll
4:16
Speaker 1: do it in Canada. We'll go, Okay, what's what's what's
4:18
Speaker 1: in Canada here? And yeah, some of these bands are
4:22
Speaker 1: definitely not known, and I hate saying that, but yeah,
4:28
Speaker 1: they need to be known. They need to be Basically
4:30
Speaker 1: these bands, all of these bands, everyone needs to hear.
4:33
Speaker 2: The Alkans all starts what early seventies is when this
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Speaker 2: starts to it starts to fill.
4:38
Speaker 1: This I mean glam in general. You know, some people
4:42
Speaker 1: like the pinpoint that glam in general started when you know,
4:45
Speaker 1: Mark Bolan had some glitter put on his face and
4:47
Speaker 1: went on Top of the Pops and performed Hot Love,
4:50
Speaker 1: which is part of his new sound where everything's this
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Speaker 1: fifty sound is more heightened, it's bigger, it's more visual.
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Speaker 1: He's got this glitter on his face. Top of the
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Speaker 1: Pops is one of the only shows, really the only
5:00
Speaker 1: show that's playing brand new stuff in England. You know,
5:02
Speaker 1: you don't have a lot of channels back then, and
5:05
Speaker 1: everyone's around the telly watching Top the Pops to see
5:08
Speaker 1: their favorites do their songs, do their hit songs are
5:10
Speaker 1: soon to be hit or whatever, you know, and get
5:12
Speaker 1: to see this show and so, you know, a whole
5:15
Speaker 1: nation of people who love music are watching it. All
5:18
Speaker 1: the music lovers in that nation are watching it. And
5:21
Speaker 1: the little glitter on his face and there's some debate
5:23
Speaker 1: about who put the glitter on. Was it Chilita Seconda
5:25
Speaker 1: or was it said there was a couple, a couple
5:28
Speaker 1: of women. It's in the book. I'll have to just
5:31
Speaker 1: go back to the book. So that would have been
5:32
Speaker 1: like seventy one. That's that's glam overall that some people
5:35
Speaker 1: like the pinpoint as being, you know, but then there's
5:37
Speaker 1: all these vestiges and all these things that influenced all
5:40
Speaker 1: this stuff that comes before, you know. So so you know,
5:42
Speaker 1: history isn't so nice and tidy, and this book isn't
5:45
Speaker 1: so nice and tidy. Because Canada is a big country.
5:48
Speaker 1: We're going from you know, all the way from west
5:50
Speaker 1: to east and up, you know, and all these bands
5:53
Speaker 1: in each province and territory. But you know, we we
5:56
Speaker 1: have glam overall that we got glam in Canada. So
5:58
Speaker 1: I was going, well, then there's these acts that are
6:01
Speaker 1: somewhat glam likes. So I put it as nineteen seventy.
6:04
Speaker 1: I said, let's just start around seventy and around eighty
6:07
Speaker 1: and we'll be kind of I was going, that's kind
6:09
Speaker 1: of because some of this glam stuff goes a little
6:12
Speaker 1: later too, so we'll just keep it sort of nice
6:14
Speaker 1: and tidy.
6:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, and a daunting task because you break it down
6:18
Speaker 2: into sections British Columbia, Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Alberta in Saskatchewan,
6:23
Speaker 2: Manitoba and Ontario. How did you go about the process
6:26
Speaker 2: of putting this all together and getting information and quotes
6:30
Speaker 2: from the people who were there.
6:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was about a ten year process.
6:33
Speaker 2: Wow, ten years.
6:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it took about ten years give or take,
6:39
Speaker 1: you know, off and on. But yeah, it was a
6:42
Speaker 1: long process, and a lot of it was going to
6:45
Speaker 1: these cities. My previous book, I would just go on
6:48
Speaker 1: a book tour and go, well, I'm going to Montreal,
6:50
Speaker 1: Well going to montre it's twenty and eighteen. I'm going
6:54
Speaker 1: to go to Montreal and interview these guys because you know,
6:57
Speaker 1: the book is happening, I'm writing it, I'm writing process,
7:01
Speaker 1: and the other book is finally out. So I'll go
7:03
Speaker 1: do a book launch event and then I'll meet these
7:05
Speaker 1: guys in Montreal and I'll interview them on and on
7:08
Speaker 1: and on. It kind of happened like that. Okay, Toronto
7:10
Speaker 1: I was living in, so I tracked them down there
7:12
Speaker 1: and then it was like, oh, this book's getting out
7:15
Speaker 1: of hand. It's it's over four hundred pages. This book
7:18
Speaker 1: is over four pages and there's a you know, there's
7:22
Speaker 1: an addendum chapter of other stuff like magic, comedy and
7:26
Speaker 1: stuff like that. It's like another one hundred pages fashion
7:29
Speaker 1: and so because fashion's pretty key. So yeah, it became
7:32
Speaker 1: over four hundred pages. So I didn't know what I
7:34
Speaker 1: was getting into, you know, I thought, oh, just be
7:37
Speaker 1: a couple hundred pages, and you know, it just grew
7:40
Speaker 1: and grew and grew and grew.
7:42
Speaker 2: Right what, I like the way it's broken down, because
7:44
Speaker 2: it's not like you have to read it from page
7:45
Speaker 2: one to page four hundred. You could just look through
7:48
Speaker 2: the different sections of the different areas and read about each.
7:52
Speaker 2: Like I said, so many bands and artists to cover
7:54
Speaker 2: in the book. Let's get to some of them. An
7:57
Speaker 2: Apologist any that we don't cover, but they're all in
7:59
Speaker 2: the book. Any that you want to add along the
8:01
Speaker 2: way feel Free.
8:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they're you know, there's they've made some incredible music,
8:06
Speaker 1: they really have.
8:07
Speaker 2: They have, you know, And that's the one great thing,
8:09
Speaker 2: and I've said this so many times doing this podcast,
8:11
Speaker 2: that I discover new music. For example, the first band
8:15
Speaker 2: Sweeney Todd and their original singer which the name escapes me,
8:20
Speaker 2: now what was it, Nick Gilder. And there's a version
8:23
Speaker 2: of the song that there's like six different versions of
8:27
Speaker 2: that hit single you Roxy Roller. The only one that's
8:31
Speaker 2: on Spotify is his version that he did after he left,
8:35
Speaker 2: but there's five other versions out there, and a very
8:39
Speaker 2: interesting version apparently with a kid by the name of
8:41
Speaker 2: Brian Adams, yes, sixteen years old at the time. Let's
8:45
Speaker 2: start with this band, Sweeney Todd from Vancouver, British Columbia.
8:49
Speaker 2: Tell us about this band, Brian Adams. How does he
8:52
Speaker 2: get involved because he's there for just like a year. Maybe.
8:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, It's it's interesting because, like, you know, it was
9:00
Speaker 1: great that I was able to you know, apart from
9:02
Speaker 1: the introduction, I was going, well, let's let's move across Canada,
9:06
Speaker 1: starting at the western part of Canada, which is British Columbia,
9:09
Speaker 1: and it goes, well, that's great. The first chapter can
9:12
Speaker 1: be Sweeney Todd right off the bat. We can start
9:14
Speaker 1: with Sweeney Todd because that's the one that a lot
9:17
Speaker 1: of people know, Roxy Roller, and even if they don't know,
9:20
Speaker 1: it's it's a really it's a really good place to
9:22
Speaker 1: start the book. You know, Sweeney Todd with Nick Gilder,
9:25
Speaker 1: you know it's happening. And then you know, Nick Gilder
9:28
Speaker 1: gets and the and the guitarist at James McCulloch, they
9:31
Speaker 1: get called away for you know, the two of them
9:34
Speaker 1: get called away for Nick Gilder's solo career in La,
9:37
Speaker 1: so him and the guitarist, so it's it's not you know,
9:40
Speaker 1: but it's under Nick Gilder, and so they get called
9:42
Speaker 1: they move to La and then all these different versions
9:44
Speaker 1: of Roxy, like Roxy Roller is climbing up the charts.
9:47
Speaker 1: It's actually not even their first single, but it's the
9:50
Speaker 1: one that's becoming the hit, and it's like, well, we
9:52
Speaker 1: got to cash in on this, we got to do this.
9:54
Speaker 1: But then you know, Gilder puts out the version. He's
9:57
Speaker 1: got the masters, so he's put out that version, which
10:00
Speaker 1: I think, God, I have to check back to the book,
10:03
Speaker 1: but there's all these different versions. And then, you know,
10:05
Speaker 1: so Sweeney Todd goes and they record a new version
10:09
Speaker 1: with their new singer, Clark Perry, and he's in the
10:11
Speaker 1: band for maybe just a couple of months, and they
10:14
Speaker 1: released that and then Brian he's out, and Brian Adams
10:18
Speaker 1: is kind of hanging around. He's going, hey, he's a
10:20
Speaker 1: teenager by this point, sixteen years old. Yeah, and he
10:24
Speaker 1: joins the band and he is able to mimic Nick
10:28
Speaker 1: Gilder's voice perfectly. He's able to sing like Nick Gilder.
10:31
Speaker 1: Nick Gilder has what is the koyeest voice in rock?
10:37
Speaker 1: You know, it is like this upper range, slinky, sexual
10:41
Speaker 1: cooi voice, more so than say, you know, like you know,
10:45
Speaker 1: you can see t Rex is a big influence there,
10:47
Speaker 1: but more so than Bolan even. It's just this voice
10:51
Speaker 1: and Brian Adams, who's now known, you know for his
10:54
Speaker 1: more raspier, kind of earthier voice, He's able to replicate
10:58
Speaker 1: Gilder's voice. And people people were disputing and going, wait
11:02
Speaker 1: it is you know, is there some technical trickery. My
11:05
Speaker 1: brother saw him perform, saw that lineup of Sweeney Todd.
11:09
Speaker 2: Wow with Brian Adams. Huh.
11:12
Speaker 1: Brian Adams said there was no trickery afoot. And Bud
11:15
Speaker 1: mar the bassist who's been through variously, he had been
11:18
Speaker 1: through the most lineups of Sweeney Todd and he's the
11:21
Speaker 1: one I interviewed for for the Sweeney Todd chapter. And
11:24
Speaker 1: he's so accurate. It is incredible, you know, because we're
11:29
Speaker 1: going back forty I'm interviewing these people where we're going
11:31
Speaker 1: back forty years, you know, so there's fact checking, there's
11:35
Speaker 1: a lot going on. But he is totally accurate. It's incredible,
11:39
Speaker 1: and he's going, no, there's no trickery. At one point,
11:42
Speaker 1: you know, he's talking about when the when you know,
11:44
Speaker 1: the song of Roxy Rollers becoming a huge hit, and
11:47
Speaker 1: I believe I think Brian Adams was in the lineup
11:49
Speaker 1: at that time. And they're playing Nathan Phillips Square in
11:51
Speaker 1: Toronto and it's packed, it's packed with all these people
11:55
Speaker 1: over ten thousand. I can't remember the exact amount. I
11:58
Speaker 1: look up in the industry Canadian Industry magazine and it's
12:01
Speaker 1: giving one tenth that amount. I went Oh my gosh,
12:03
Speaker 1: did he exaggerate the amount of people that was at
12:05
Speaker 1: the concert to see them do Roxy Roller. The following
12:10
Speaker 1: week's edition of this industry magazine Prince a retraction, saying
12:15
Speaker 1: that they got the number wrong. Budmar was spot on.
12:18
Speaker 1: It was ten times that amount. It really was. The
12:22
Speaker 1: magazine got it wrong. Bud Mar got it right. The
12:24
Speaker 1: magazine from backus in nineteen seventy five got it wrong.
12:27
Speaker 2: Bud Bar just tells you how big of a band
12:29
Speaker 2: they were. Ten thousand.
12:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was more than ten thousand, I believe. Yeah,
12:33
Speaker 1: it was there to see these rock stars. And it's
12:37
Speaker 1: in the book he describes the madness they're in.
12:41
Speaker 2: What was the song, Brian, It took a shot at
12:44
Speaker 2: Nick Gilder and the lyrics, right, there was one song. Yeah,
12:47
Speaker 2: second album.
12:48
Speaker 1: That's kind of a joy to write about. The hatchet
12:50
Speaker 1: is long buried, I'm told. But at that time it
12:54
Speaker 1: was a diss track. It was a glamorock, Canadian glam
12:57
Speaker 1: diss track. Song for a star. This great song. It's
13:00
Speaker 1: on the second album, If Wishes were Horses and that's
13:04
Speaker 1: all Brian Adams singing. On the second album. There's a
13:06
Speaker 1: couple of Nick Gilder written songs on there that Nick
13:09
Speaker 1: Kilder even does on his first solo album, So you
13:11
Speaker 1: get these different versions like cantalized and stuff. Then there's
13:14
Speaker 1: these songs that are actually written by teams Brian Adams
13:17
Speaker 1: with the rest of the band, and one is song
13:19
Speaker 1: for a Star and it opens this is a wonderful song,
13:23
Speaker 1: glam goodness, it's just incredible.
13:25
Speaker 3: But he's opens, he's this is a song for a
13:28
Speaker 3: star if you really are a star. So and it's
13:34
Speaker 3: kind of a diss at Gilder, who hadn't even met yet.
13:36
Speaker 3: And then on the cover of the first Nick Gilder
13:39
Speaker 3: solo album, there's a puppet and it's a red haired
13:43
Speaker 3: kind of marionette that Nick Gilder's holding and some say
13:47
Speaker 3: and it's called you Know who You.
13:48
Speaker 1: Are is the name of the album. Oh say that
13:50
Speaker 1: that might be a dissit.
13:51
Speaker 2: Brian Adams shot, I love the story. When you had
13:55
Speaker 2: the chance to get a quote from Brian about that album.
13:59
Speaker 2: This is the late nineties. It's at a gallery opening
14:02
Speaker 2: and you tried getting him to talk about the second
14:04
Speaker 2: Sweeney Todd album which he's on, he could share this story.
14:08
Speaker 2: I love it.
14:09
Speaker 1: Yes, it was. It was at it. It was at
14:11
Speaker 1: an art opening for a baskett. It was a basque
14:14
Speaker 1: at art show. It was basket and Al Hanson, fluxus
14:17
Speaker 1: artist Al Hanson, who some know is just As Beck's grandfather.
14:22
Speaker 1: So yeah, al Hanson's daughter was there, Beck's mom and
14:27
Speaker 1: Brian Amas was wandered around looking at the baskets, probably
14:30
Speaker 1: pricing him because he can. He's walking away, and I
14:32
Speaker 1: just kind of go, hey, I really love that second
14:35
Speaker 1: Sweeney Todd album. Turns around, walks towards me, and he says,
14:40
Speaker 1: you and one other guy he kills bugs for a living.
14:45
Speaker 1: The funny thing is, is I suspect that I know
14:48
Speaker 1: that guy, but yeah, in his own right, Well.
14:53
Speaker 2: I love I was sixteen years old. Yeah, so tell
14:55
Speaker 2: me a little bit. I was sixteen years old, I
14:57
Speaker 2: asked him.
14:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm just keeping at like, so what was the
15:00
Speaker 1: his process?
15:00
Speaker 2: What was it?
15:01
Speaker 1: I was sixteen years old?
15:02
Speaker 2: At least he confirmed his age, shall we know?
15:05
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, all right, one that I know the other guy,
15:08
Speaker 1: the other guy who kills bugs for a living. We
15:09
Speaker 1: suspect that it was our my friend Terry, who you know,
15:13
Speaker 1: I'd done music and stuff with over the years and
15:15
Speaker 1: and there was a period where he's killing bugs for
15:17
Speaker 1: a living. And oh there's a fan of the second suite.
15:20
Speaker 2: Also there's a story behind that quote. That's great.
15:23
Speaker 1: And Terry drums in a very seminal drummed in a well,
15:25
Speaker 1: he's done a lot of things, but he's even got
15:27
Speaker 1: a teen pop sensation that he does called Eye Candy.
15:30
Speaker 1: But he's also the drummer in a band called Slow Slow,
15:33
Speaker 1: which is a pivotal part of the North with some
15:35
Speaker 1: say Seattle sound or grunge sound, but it was like
15:37
Speaker 1: the Pacific Northwest sound, very pivotal band.
15:41
Speaker 2: Rock podcast will be back after this, patience, boys, all
15:46
Speaker 2: good things to those who wait. One guy he's known
15:54
Speaker 2: here in the States is Thor. That's somebody we know about.
15:57
Speaker 2: And we're not talking about the Marvel Comics character. Let's
15:59
Speaker 2: just clarify, but this is, yeah, the Canadian singer. You
16:04
Speaker 2: couldn't forget him if you caught one of his shows.
16:05
Speaker 2: I mean, he would stand out. Imagine a member of
16:09
Speaker 2: Kiss decided to become a bodybuilder. That's pretty much what
16:12
Speaker 2: he was like, which makes perfect sense that he actually
16:16
Speaker 2: opened for Kiss in nineteen seventy six. So tell us
16:19
Speaker 2: who Thor is. And he's got some great quotes in
16:22
Speaker 2: the book.
16:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, Thor is incredible, and you know, I actually had
16:27
Speaker 1: a real run in with him in the summer. I'll
16:28
Speaker 1: get to that. So Thor, Thor the Rock Warrior. I
16:32
Speaker 1: get to his real early history, which is which is
16:34
Speaker 1: a joy, you know, get to see where it all
16:36
Speaker 1: comes together. Because he always loved bodybuilding, you know, weightlifting,
16:40
Speaker 1: all that stuff. He was He was a bodybuilder. He's
16:43
Speaker 1: a bodybuilder champion. And he loved rock music and he
16:46
Speaker 1: loved comic books. So he was able to combine all
16:49
Speaker 1: three and one of his early bands, which was at
16:51
Speaker 1: a real pigroll glamavant in Canada. It was at the Commodore,
16:54
Speaker 1: and the Commodore is a very legendary venue in Vancouver.
16:57
Speaker 1: It's it's known, you know, it's known for and wide
17:00
Speaker 1: as being a legendary venue. It's a beautiful venue and
17:04
Speaker 1: the Commodore got some great shows. They did have the
17:06
Speaker 1: New York Dolls with Sweeney Todd opening, and they also
17:08
Speaker 1: had this event that was you know, the band Twitch,
17:11
Speaker 1: who were also in the book, which had had an
17:14
Speaker 1: real element strong elements at the time of Orror Rock,
17:17
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, Proto Corps paint and stage
17:20
Speaker 1: shows of flash pots and burnings and oh yeah, scary stuff.
17:25
Speaker 1: And then Zee Whiz Kids coming over from Seattle, which
17:28
Speaker 1: was Zee Wiz Kids came out of the Cockads, but
17:30
Speaker 1: Tomato later Tomato A Blendy went on to the Screamers
17:33
Speaker 1: and all that, and they were they were kind of
17:34
Speaker 1: like the Cockettes but more glam and so they're performing.
17:37
Speaker 1: And then is John Michael body Rock. So before Thor
17:40
Speaker 1: became Thor, he had a bodybuilder band with spotters and everything,
17:44
Speaker 1: so it was all like do the muscle stuff like that.
17:47
Speaker 1: And then he became Thor with the Imps, these little guys,
17:51
Speaker 1: and so yeah, he he became Thor the rock Warrior
17:55
Speaker 1: and keeps the dogs away and and you know, the
17:58
Speaker 1: Imps even went on to do solo stuff after Frank
18:00
Speaker 1: Soda so to cover his story as well. But it
18:03
Speaker 1: was really impressive. You see a show and it's pure
18:05
Speaker 1: showman shap He blows up, you know he was when
18:08
Speaker 1: I saw even his comeback in two thousand and five,
18:10
Speaker 1: he's still bending the bar with his mouth, blowing up
18:14
Speaker 1: the hot water bottle. He's made movies, he's made there's
18:17
Speaker 1: a comic book. There's a few comic books. Yeah, movie
18:21
Speaker 1: Rock and Roll, Nightmare, and then further movies as well.
18:23
Speaker 2: Picture of him doing the split in the book off
18:26
Speaker 2: the stage, and I think you have a shot of
18:29
Speaker 2: that Marvel comic image in here, right, you got his
18:32
Speaker 2: album cover?
18:33
Speaker 1: Oh here it is yet Oh yeah, it's not a
18:34
Speaker 1: Marvel comic, but it is that it is a door
18:36
Speaker 1: comic book. That's by ken Langraf, who's done all sorts
18:40
Speaker 1: of stuff. Ken langrap Is is a really incredible comic
18:43
Speaker 1: book artist, and so he had done this Thor comic
18:46
Speaker 1: and he's known for other stuff as well. You know,
18:48
Speaker 1: some stuff of his work is actually getting released reissued
18:52
Speaker 1: right now by various comic book companies. He's such a
18:55
Speaker 1: great comic artist, ken langrav So this melding of Thor
18:59
Speaker 1: the Rock War with ken Landgraf is great. And there
19:02
Speaker 1: was even a one Thor comic that ken Landgraft put
19:06
Speaker 1: together for a thing called Rock Comics. It was done
19:08
Speaker 1: by the great Neil Adams as well. So, so Thorn's
19:11
Speaker 1: been Thorne's even been photographed by Robert Maplethorpe, so he's
19:14
Speaker 1: been captured by some of the greatest artists. Yeah, he's
19:17
Speaker 1: just incredible. And I was in Vancouver in the summer.
19:19
Speaker 1: I was at Neptune Records, the Great Neptune Records in Vancouver,
19:23
Speaker 1: shout out to them. And I was, uh tour on
19:26
Speaker 1: tour with a fellow who's quote on the back of
19:28
Speaker 1: the book, Greg Turkington. We were doing a show and
19:31
Speaker 1: you know, I'm asking Rob who graciously loaned some of
19:34
Speaker 1: the wonderful images in the Thor chapter and a couple
19:36
Speaker 1: of other chapters of the book, particularly in the British
19:38
Speaker 1: Columbia section. So we're asking him about just some various
19:42
Speaker 1: Thor anecdotes. Then in walks Thor and Thor walked right
19:47
Speaker 1: just it was kismet. I was visiting Vancouver and there
19:50
Speaker 1: and Thorne's just like, oh, yeah, you know, you guys
19:53
Speaker 1: want to go for coffee? I got he was like, yes,
19:56
Speaker 1: let's have coffee with Thor. So he's still incredible.
20:01
Speaker 2: Thunder on the Tundra is the big one I think
20:03
Speaker 2: is most popular one.
20:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, keep the dogs away, Keep.
20:06
Speaker 2: The dogs away. You're right, yep, that's the other thing.
20:08
Speaker 1: I mean.
20:08
Speaker 2: The songs are legitimately badass tunes. I mean, it's legit music.
20:13
Speaker 2: It's like kiss. I'm a kiss fan. Everybody likes to say,
20:15
Speaker 2: wellther they're all show and no music. I'm like, I
20:18
Speaker 2: don't know about that. Music's pretty good. It's pretty good.
20:21
Speaker 1: There's a lot of kiss stuff I love, so yeah,
20:24
Speaker 1: a kiss. I mean, when you want to talk about
20:26
Speaker 1: what got me to write the book, you know, I
20:28
Speaker 1: got this old it was, you know, I got this oldest,
20:30
Speaker 1: oldest brother, my oldest brother, a guitarist, you know who
20:33
Speaker 1: you know, brings home the second Sweeney Todd album brings
20:35
Speaker 1: home all these kiss albums. All my art, all my
20:38
Speaker 1: art that I was making as a as a little kid,
20:40
Speaker 1: was all kiss art. I remember doing show and tells
20:43
Speaker 1: when I was five or six, bringing this like thing
20:46
Speaker 1: made out of construction paper. There's like Gene Simmons Santa
20:49
Speaker 1: Clause with cotton balls for a beard and bringing in
20:53
Speaker 1: for show and tell and the teacher going, don't you
20:55
Speaker 1: do anything besides kiss?
20:56
Speaker 2: That's awesome. I was the same way. Yeah that the
20:58
Speaker 2: Lynch Box, the whole thing Thor experienced to come back
21:01
Speaker 2: in the two thousands. You mentioned that there was a
21:03
Speaker 2: documentary on him, and he's still tours today, right, He's
21:06
Speaker 2: still yeah, Yeah.
21:07
Speaker 1: He still tours today, he tours Europe. He's doing a
21:11
Speaker 1: lot of shows in Europe. And sometimes Frank Soda, who's
21:14
Speaker 1: covered in the book as well, you know in the
21:16
Speaker 1: the Thor and Frank Soda chapter, you know, because Frank
21:18
Speaker 1: Soda was in the ims backing Thor and doing all
21:21
Speaker 1: and you know, Frank Soda does these things like exploding
21:24
Speaker 1: televisions on his head and stuff like that as well.
21:27
Speaker 1: So all these great theatrical elements and so yeah, and
21:31
Speaker 1: so sometimes Frank Soda joins him. Still. So I was
21:34
Speaker 1: able to interview both Thor and Frank Soda, and it
21:37
Speaker 1: was a real joy to talk to both those guys.
21:40
Speaker 2: Robert Daton the author of Cold Glitter, The Untold Story
21:43
Speaker 2: of Canadian Glam, and the book also gets into some
21:46
Speaker 2: of the hot spots, like Faces in Vancouver. Tell us
21:49
Speaker 2: about Faces.
21:50
Speaker 1: Part of my research was trying to find hangouts where
21:53
Speaker 1: they're glam hangouts, where woul people buy clothes, where people
21:57
Speaker 1: go hang out. And you know, I was told, well,
22:00
Speaker 1: you know, early on, you know some people were around
22:02
Speaker 1: at that time going eh, there wasn't really anywhere, and
22:04
Speaker 1: then it's like wrong, there was there were some places
22:08
Speaker 1: to buy clothes that were amazing, like Bo Grummels, on
22:11
Speaker 1: and on and on. But then there was this bar, Faces,
22:14
Speaker 1: and it was it was a gay bar, and there
22:16
Speaker 1: was an incredible bunch of gay bars at that time
22:20
Speaker 1: in the seventies in Vancouver and stretching on. You know,
22:23
Speaker 1: Vancouver got gentrified, but you know there was you know,
22:26
Speaker 1: there's less I think now, but Faces was just this
22:29
Speaker 1: great place that started in the early seventies. It was
22:32
Speaker 1: a place you'd go and dance. It was a place
22:35
Speaker 1: you would go and dance. And the manager Dennis Robbins,
22:38
Speaker 1: I was able to talk to him. Here's Dennis Robbins
22:41
Speaker 1: and him and Jerry Cole was Jerry Cole was the DJ.
22:44
Speaker 1: And so they'd go to Seattle and they had you know,
22:47
Speaker 1: the finger on the pulse. They get all the great soul,
22:49
Speaker 1: R and B and glam songs for people to dance
22:52
Speaker 1: to and they really open up the dance floor so
22:55
Speaker 1: where you know, you dance and you're the star as well.
22:58
Speaker 1: Apparently there was a line of glos are leading you
23:00
Speaker 1: to the door, and it was, you know, all these
23:03
Speaker 1: wonderful characters at Faces. And because I just really love this,
23:09
Speaker 1: there was a group that they formed called the Facets,
23:12
Speaker 1: and the face Atts were a play on San Francisco's
23:14
Speaker 1: Cockads because you know, Dennis and I think Jerry, a
23:17
Speaker 1: couple of the the other folks in the face Etts
23:20
Speaker 1: had actually met the Cockats in San Francisco, and so
23:24
Speaker 1: they did their own take for the Faces Club called
23:26
Speaker 1: the Facetts. And at one point they dressed as cheerleaders
23:29
Speaker 1: and you know, shaking pom poms, and there's some great
23:32
Speaker 1: photos from the book of the Facetts. At the Lou
23:35
Speaker 1: Reed show they did lou Baby and and you know,
23:39
Speaker 1: did a cheerleader routine in front of Lou Reed, you know,
23:42
Speaker 1: at the Lou Reed Transformer, which is a pivotal glam
23:44
Speaker 1: album in general.
23:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, you two talk. You mentioned that in the book.
23:48
Speaker 1: But they did performances as well at Faces. So those
23:52
Speaker 1: were the real performances that happened there.
23:54
Speaker 2: But what was the comment on Lou Reed's Transformer? Was
23:57
Speaker 2: there something about in Canada they weren't selling the album?
24:00
Speaker 2: There was something in So in an.
24:02
Speaker 1: Issue of The Body Politic, which is a very important
24:05
Speaker 1: queer publication that came out of Canada Toronto, came out
24:10
Speaker 1: of Toronto. In an early issue, there was an article
24:13
Speaker 1: asking and when would it be? It would have been
24:15
Speaker 1: like maybe early seventies, this issue right around that time,
24:19
Speaker 1: and it was basically going where is the game music?
24:22
Speaker 1: And then in that article the writer says, yeah, RCAA
24:25
Speaker 1: were not going to release it in Canada because they
24:28
Speaker 1: didn't see a market for it. They didn't see a
24:30
Speaker 1: market for Transformer, so they did, Thank god, they did
24:34
Speaker 1: release it in Canada, and you know, Lou Reed toured
24:37
Speaker 1: it in Canada, you know, you see, he did the
24:40
Speaker 1: you know, Transformer tour in Vancouver that the Facesets were
24:43
Speaker 1: at and it looks like quite a show. So thankfully
24:46
Speaker 1: it was released. But that's that's kind of what we're
24:48
Speaker 1: up against. You know, Canada is a bit culturally conservative.
24:52
Speaker 2: So and there's some other interesting sidebars along the way. Also,
24:57
Speaker 2: there's one on the guests who saw glamour boy Burton
25:00
Speaker 2: Cummings not exactly a fan of these fellow Canadian bands.
25:04
Speaker 2: Apparently you call this song simultaneously shitty and great. Tell
25:08
Speaker 2: us about this song.
25:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's shitty and great. Yeah, I think that's accurate.
25:12
Speaker 1: I apparently Burton Comings did come around, so but at
25:17
Speaker 1: that song, he's you know, being very very cynical and
25:23
Speaker 1: harsh lyrics about glam rock and you know, and these lyrics,
25:28
Speaker 1: you're it's these lyrics are a real eye roll, you know.
25:32
Speaker 1: Was it like twenty five thousand dollars make you look
25:34
Speaker 1: like a woman tonight? Something like that? And I think
25:37
Speaker 1: it's the gist of it. And you know, so you
25:40
Speaker 1: got these like just bad and you're like, oh man,
25:45
Speaker 1: And then but then he gets to these lines about
25:48
Speaker 1: these beautiful poetic lines, this other part of the song
25:52
Speaker 1: about the archer and all this, and just it's amazing.
25:56
Speaker 1: Burton Cummings blows my mind and how sometimes he can
25:59
Speaker 1: be both yeah, incredibly shitty and incredibly great. He's got
26:03
Speaker 1: this fantastic voice. But then some of the material is
26:06
Speaker 1: like you look at like, I mean, look at the
26:08
Speaker 1: album Lady Love, which you'd see in every thrift store,
26:12
Speaker 1: his solo album. It's like him on the piano on
26:15
Speaker 1: the cover and he's looking up between a pair of
26:18
Speaker 1: giant legs, these woman, a giant woman's legs. So it's
26:22
Speaker 1: like he's like a little little man playing the piano
26:25
Speaker 1: looking up between their legs. That's the album cover, and
26:28
Speaker 1: you yeah, that's burden coming, you know, like like it's
26:31
Speaker 1: when you think of Glamorabole, you go Wow, there's some
26:34
Speaker 1: incredible stuff, amazing stuff in this song and incredibly shitty
26:39
Speaker 1: stuff in the same Yeah, and I'm sorry, I should
26:44
Speaker 1: really backtrack. Also with that song by the guests, who,
26:46
Speaker 1: of course they're that song is in the book. Guess
26:48
Speaker 1: who is not really seen as glam per se. I'm not.
26:51
Speaker 1: I'm not putting them in as a Glam act. But
26:53
Speaker 1: they did do a song that was about Glas.
26:58
Speaker 2: That's the Yeah. That's what's cool about these sidebars. There's
27:00
Speaker 2: a connection to Glam that doesn't necessarily have to be
27:03
Speaker 2: the band is Glam book on Podcasts. We'll be back
27:08
Speaker 2: after this.
27:08
Speaker 1: During our brief indomation, let's take a buying cript from
27:11
Speaker 1: Lambda Fantasy to Everyday Life.
27:15
Speaker 2: Now here's a name that I know of so well,
27:18
Speaker 2: but I did not know it's from Canada. K Tell.
27:21
Speaker 2: Anybody who's i would say fifty or older, even in
27:24
Speaker 2: the maybe mid forties here in the States, know about it,
27:27
Speaker 2: and I didn't know it originated out of Canada. For
27:29
Speaker 2: those who may not know what k Tell is, can
27:32
Speaker 2: you just fill them in on that and give us
27:34
Speaker 2: some of the history, which is also covered in this book.
27:37
Speaker 1: Cay Tel's pretty interesting. You know, I almost wonder and
27:40
Speaker 1: I really need to talk to someone about this. Did
27:43
Speaker 1: they eliminate the need for door to door salesman because
27:47
Speaker 1: it was all about order now, call now, get these devices.
27:51
Speaker 1: You know, it's very much that kind of thing, that
27:54
Speaker 1: kind of marketing. They had all their products that slices,
27:57
Speaker 1: the dices, all that stuff you get. And they also
28:00
Speaker 1: got into what most of us know now records, and
28:05
Speaker 1: they were able to really make compilations and it was
28:10
Speaker 1: all about making compilations where they hit it really big,
28:12
Speaker 1: putting all these songs together, licensing, getting all these songs.
28:16
Speaker 1: And then they were also able to do it reader's
28:19
Speaker 1: digest style sometimes and take the longer songs and cut
28:21
Speaker 1: them down, make them really short, pack all these songs in.
28:24
Speaker 1: So it was like twenty big hits, on and on
28:26
Speaker 1: and on. And they were you know Phil Chives, the
28:28
Speaker 1: founder of k Tel, you know, he's he's Canadian, and
28:31
Speaker 1: they were out of Canada. They were out of Winnipeg.
28:33
Speaker 1: Ktel was out of Winnipeg, Manitoba. So when you look
28:37
Speaker 1: at these KTEL album covers too, they look especially glammy.
28:40
Speaker 1: You know, you get these stars coming out at you
28:42
Speaker 1: on the covers and everything. They really they really I
28:45
Speaker 1: don't know who their layout person was, but they really
28:48
Speaker 1: made things look bigger than life. And of course they
28:51
Speaker 1: had a lot of TV advertising with the big booming
28:54
Speaker 1: voices of boom, you know, rapid fire of all the artists,
28:58
Speaker 1: get this and this and this on each thing. They
29:00
Speaker 1: even as well celebrated Canada. They would put a lot
29:04
Speaker 1: of Canadian content on their albums. They had one called
29:07
Speaker 1: Canadian Mint. It was really a pivotal, pivotal album because
29:12
Speaker 1: it's all Canadian and there's a lot of glammy stuff
29:15
Speaker 1: on that one, even acts that aren't glammy per se
29:18
Speaker 1: or doing songs that are kind of glammy. A lot
29:20
Speaker 1: of these bands would be on there, stampeders on and
29:23
Speaker 1: on flood, you know, they'd all be on these camps.
29:25
Speaker 2: But they did spread out into bands like the Kinks.
29:29
Speaker 2: And I know that because as a huge Van Halen fan.
29:32
Speaker 2: Van Halen cut their teeth during their club days on
29:34
Speaker 2: a lot of Kink songs. And there was an article
29:37
Speaker 2: that talks about whether it was David Lee Roth and
29:40
Speaker 2: one of the guys in the band had k tell
29:42
Speaker 2: Kink's greatest hits, and so that's how they were able
29:45
Speaker 2: to memorize all those songs by having the k TELL compilation.
29:49
Speaker 1: Didn't a Kinks apparently.
29:53
Speaker 2: Wow, you know, I think that. I think Dave was
29:55
Speaker 2: the one who told that story. I love the k
29:58
Speaker 2: TEL had a an album about people's encounters with the
30:02
Speaker 2: Lockness Monster.
30:04
Speaker 1: Yeah. So KTEL of course, as I say, like, did
30:07
Speaker 1: a lot of repackaging, and they had incredible distribution, so
30:11
Speaker 1: people would hear about these Canadian acts and all these
30:14
Speaker 1: acts from all over the place because KTEL had range.
30:19
Speaker 1: Distribution was incredible. One of their albums, though, is a
30:23
Speaker 1: little harder to find this and it's an original album.
30:26
Speaker 1: So there's not a lot of original k TEL albums.
30:29
Speaker 1: There's very very few, in fact, and this one was
30:32
Speaker 1: done just for the KTEL label and it was done
30:35
Speaker 1: by Alex Harvey of the Sensational Alex Harvey band. Gaytail's
30:39
Speaker 1: a mystery. I really try to figure out the origins
30:42
Speaker 1: of some of these things, and it's been difficult, you know,
30:44
Speaker 1: even trying to speak to k TEL. It's difficult to
30:47
Speaker 1: try to get the origins of how Alex Harvey of
30:51
Speaker 1: the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, which is a great well
30:55
Speaker 1: loved European glam band. You know, he's he's incredible. I mean,
31:00
Speaker 1: he's such this charismatic front man. He's he's the best.
31:05
Speaker 1: But he was also, I guess, interested in the Locknest Monster.
31:08
Speaker 1: So there's spoken word kind of audio audio documentary interviewing
31:14
Speaker 1: people around Locknst and sightings of the Lockness Monster. And
31:18
Speaker 1: there's one little song on it. It's kind of a
31:20
Speaker 1: jaunty little folk song, but it's mostly spoken word. Richard
31:24
Speaker 1: O'Brien from Rocky Horror Picture Show shows up on the
31:28
Speaker 1: album to talk with them.
31:30
Speaker 2: That's gotta be hard to find nowadays.
31:32
Speaker 1: It's elusive. I have not been able to find a copy.
31:35
Speaker 1: I've got a couple of the other original k TEL albums,
31:38
Speaker 1: and you know, I've got one called fun Town that's
31:40
Speaker 1: a puppet album Archie Wood and Friends. I had that
31:44
Speaker 1: album as a kid because up in Fort Saint John,
31:46
Speaker 1: British Columbia. Ktel of course would get out there too.
31:49
Speaker 1: Again incredible distribution, and I'd stare and look at these
31:53
Speaker 1: puppets on the album cover and go who are these guys?
31:56
Speaker 1: I'm like a little kid, going who are these puppets? Yes,
32:00
Speaker 1: the story, and I know nothing about these puppets, and
32:04
Speaker 1: and you know, they're doing these songs and it seems
32:06
Speaker 1: like it's all one take, and it's these puppets singing
32:09
Speaker 1: over stock move backing tracks, doing all covers. One called
32:13
Speaker 1: Hey Tuttle, where tuttle Turtles singing to Marvin Mouse, you know.
32:16
Speaker 1: And and when I first heard Hey Jude, I went
32:19
Speaker 1: there ripping off, Hey Tuttle, this is this is a
32:21
Speaker 1: Tuttle Turtles song? What's going on here? And I find
32:23
Speaker 1: out that no, no, And then I find out years
32:26
Speaker 1: later that this was a Winnipeg where KTEL was the
32:29
Speaker 1: home base of It was a Winnipeg children's show that
32:32
Speaker 1: ran for years with Uncle Bob Schwartz, who then I
32:36
Speaker 1: also found out, you know, you know, I moved to Vancouver.
32:38
Speaker 1: I find out all this info, and I find out
32:41
Speaker 1: from friends who are from Winnipeg as well, Like I
32:43
Speaker 1: find out that uncle Bob Schwartz is the puppeteer and
32:46
Speaker 1: host of Fun Town, that he dated my first girlfriend's
32:49
Speaker 1: mother and stuff. I'm like, oh, this is legit. Yeah,
32:55
Speaker 1: he did this album for KATEL, So anyone outside of
32:58
Speaker 1: Winnipeg would go, what is this? What are all these
33:00
Speaker 1: puppets and then people in Winnipeg would know that it
33:03
Speaker 1: was this regional children.
33:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just trying to imagine, you know that. Yeah,
33:07
Speaker 2: with some business meeting, you know, like got a great idea.
33:09
Speaker 2: We got a album where people talk about their encounters
33:13
Speaker 2: with the Lockness Monster. All right, let's do it, Let's
33:15
Speaker 2: do it.
33:17
Speaker 1: It's kind of amazing. They do this. They do fun Town.
33:20
Speaker 1: They do it called rock Fantasy. That's pretty glammy and
33:23
Speaker 1: it's about the land where animals are people and the
33:25
Speaker 1: people are the animals. And you know, my band July
33:28
Speaker 1: fourth Toilet we covered that whole album for Start Finishy
33:30
Speaker 1: dressed as the animals and we were all the animals
33:32
Speaker 1: who sponified like Sir Dandy Lyon singing you don't need
33:36
Speaker 1: a crown to be a king, and we're going, what's
33:37
Speaker 1: the story? Who recorded this? And we couldn't get to
33:40
Speaker 1: the bottom of it. We tried to reach out and
33:42
Speaker 1: find info. Definitely know that, you know, Kateel would buy
33:46
Speaker 1: labels like the label that you know, Juwel Aikins was
33:49
Speaker 1: on with Birds and the Bees, and so some of
33:51
Speaker 1: those songs were covered or done for Rock Fantasy. But yeah,
33:56
Speaker 1: that Rock Fantasy, the Land where animals were people? So
33:59
Speaker 1: so the original was that KTEL did were pretty bonkers.
34:02
Speaker 2: I'm just thinking, was there ever a documentary done on
34:05
Speaker 2: k TEL? There should Boy, there's your next project right there.
34:09
Speaker 1: Well, I think or has there been? Making you think
34:11
Speaker 1: that there was some sort of short film? Did Clinton
34:15
Speaker 1: Ends do it? Filmmaker clint Ends. I'm trying to think.
34:18
Speaker 1: I think clint Ends might have done something with the
34:20
Speaker 1: k TEL that like some Winnipeg folks might have done it,
34:23
Speaker 1: because there is the Winnipeg Film co Op and there
34:25
Speaker 1: is a Winnipeg film scene, and so I'm trying to
34:28
Speaker 1: think if there was, But has there been a feature
34:30
Speaker 1: length doc on k TELL? I'm not sure.
34:33
Speaker 2: Books on rock podcasts will be back after this.
34:36
Speaker 1: Never ever, ever, under any circumstances, say I'll be right back,
34:40
Speaker 1: because you won't be back. I'm getting out of the
34:42
Speaker 1: beer you on one. Yeah, sure, I'll be right back.
34:49
Speaker 2: Let's go back, because I know we were starting really
34:51
Speaker 2: with the year nineteen seventy, but let's go back one
34:53
Speaker 2: more year to nineteen sixty nine. Toronto's Rock and Roll
34:56
Speaker 2: Revival nineteen sixty nine and the theory you pos in
34:59
Speaker 2: the book. It's a preposterous theory, you call it. But
35:02
Speaker 2: aren't the best theories preposterous? Yeah?
35:05
Speaker 1: Like this this book, you know, I mean this book
35:07
Speaker 1: like people go, oh, he's covering all these Canadian glam bands. Honestly,
35:11
Speaker 1: I'm having to, like, you know, this is a difficult thing,
35:13
Speaker 1: especially in Canada, where you go, oh, I got to
35:16
Speaker 1: kind of create my own way here and stumble and
35:19
Speaker 1: flail along and figure it out and go, Okay, what
35:23
Speaker 1: are the glam qualifiers? What would qualify as glam? And
35:26
Speaker 1: you know, getting into like endless like discussions with record
35:29
Speaker 1: collectors and music fans who who, like me, collect all
35:32
Speaker 1: these bands and who have done incredible work in their
35:35
Speaker 1: own right as well. You know, people like you know,
35:37
Speaker 1: say Kevin Howees or who you know has done Jamaica
35:40
Speaker 1: to Toronto and has also done the Native North America.
35:43
Speaker 1: We would get into these long discussions or Ian Marshall,
35:46
Speaker 1: who who's you know, done a lot of interesting work
35:49
Speaker 1: as well. You know, we would you know, talk about
35:51
Speaker 1: all this stuff like is this glam? Isn't this glam?
35:54
Speaker 1: We'd listen to Oh yeah, so we you know, you know,
35:56
Speaker 1: like okay, they got the visual sound, they got this,
35:58
Speaker 1: they got the camp sensibility on and on and on,
36:01
Speaker 1: like what's this, what's that? And then it's like I'm
36:03
Speaker 1: looking at the rock and roll Revival, and everyone was
36:06
Speaker 1: super fixated on the John Lennon aspect, but for me,
36:11
Speaker 1: I'm looking at this stuff going. This is nineteen sixty
36:14
Speaker 1: nine and Johnny Brower has made this concert and there
36:18
Speaker 1: is a documentary about it out now too as well.
36:21
Speaker 1: There is a documentary on the Rock and Roll Revival
36:23
Speaker 1: that's come out in the last couple of years. You know,
36:25
Speaker 1: so John Brower, of course, you know, the big thing
36:27
Speaker 1: is getting John Lennon, but he had done a previous
36:30
Speaker 1: thing as well, which had some of these old fifties
36:32
Speaker 1: rock bands, and you think, like old fifties rockets, it's
36:35
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine, it's only like a dozen years later.
36:38
Speaker 1: But let's hear it for you know, the fact of
36:40
Speaker 1: like you hit thirty, you're done or something, I don't know,
36:43
Speaker 1: like the whole agism of rock and roll. You know,
36:46
Speaker 1: these guys were like, you know, these original rock and
36:49
Speaker 1: rollers were probably only like what in their mid thirties
36:52
Speaker 1: if that, you know, playing these concerts, and so he's
36:55
Speaker 1: doing one before the rock and Roll Revival and I
36:58
Speaker 1: think I think the Velvet Underground that too. So it
37:01
Speaker 1: was a mix of like, you know, these rock and
37:03
Speaker 1: roll bands and that, and then he gets but then
37:05
Speaker 1: he gets this big concert. It's all about getting, you know.
37:07
Speaker 1: So the story of the documentary is all about getting
37:09
Speaker 1: John Lennon because it's needs John Lennon. But yeah, the
37:13
Speaker 1: John Lennon Park's pretty interesting because, you know, it shows
37:16
Speaker 1: that the sixties are almost over, the Beatles are really
37:18
Speaker 1: breaking up. They broke up what like a week later
37:21
Speaker 1: or something. It's his first show with the Plastic Ono Band,
37:25
Speaker 1: and they're doing fifties rock and roll covers, but they're
37:28
Speaker 1: kind of like shaggy hippies doing it. You know, they
37:30
Speaker 1: got their long hair and stuff, but they're doing the
37:32
Speaker 1: fifties rock and roll. But then you also have the
37:34
Speaker 1: Plastic Ono Band. I mean, it is the Plastic Ono Band,
37:38
Speaker 1: but you have Yoko Ono. You know, you got Yogo
37:40
Speaker 1: Ono doing her groundbreaking stuff. And I would have loved
37:44
Speaker 1: to have been there to see how the crowd is
37:45
Speaker 1: reacting to Yoko. I'm I'm a Yoko Ono fan. I'm like,
37:48
Speaker 1: how how is the crowd reacting to this? You know,
37:51
Speaker 1: this is really pushing uh rock and roll. Yeah, it's
37:57
Speaker 1: bringing fluxis it's bringing flux to the masses. You know,
38:01
Speaker 1: speaking of I bring up al Hanson from Flexus earlier.
38:03
Speaker 1: Now I'm bringing up Yoko Ona from Flexus. So we're
38:06
Speaker 1: bringing the art to the masses here at this giant
38:09
Speaker 1: concert in Toronto. And then you're having like Alice Cooper band.
38:13
Speaker 1: It's their earlier days too. You know, they haven't teamed
38:15
Speaker 1: up with bob Ezrin yet, but they're doing an incredible
38:19
Speaker 1: performance and it's almost blinding. It's you know, they're way
38:23
Speaker 1: more tripped out by this at this point, but it's
38:26
Speaker 1: still you know, heading into their you know, like they
38:28
Speaker 1: later become a real glam you know, they're known as
38:31
Speaker 1: a glam band, but at this point they're you know,
38:33
Speaker 1: they're they're more trippy. There's and uh there's incident.
38:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's where the chicken incident took place there, and.
38:42
Speaker 1: Then they're backing up who are they backing up?
38:45
Speaker 2: Geen Vincent.
38:47
Speaker 1: Vincent and and and also you have like little Richard's
38:51
Speaker 1: back and he's in full form, like full force. He's
38:54
Speaker 1: wearing a mirrored like top and he's like, now, turn
38:58
Speaker 1: the lights on me, Like he's like, so and reflect
39:00
Speaker 1: and be blind. So it's incredibly visual and he's like
39:03
Speaker 1: just incredible. Hey, I saw him in the late nineties
39:07
Speaker 1: and he was incredible. Like he's like, you know, he's
39:10
Speaker 1: he's a great just I mean he is. Little Richard
39:14
Speaker 1: is everything. Little Richard is everything. Let's just stop and
39:18
Speaker 1: say this right now. Little Richard is everything.
39:21
Speaker 2: Yes, performance, the music, the look, the whole thing. Your
39:25
Speaker 2: theory is maybe that this might be this might be
39:28
Speaker 2: the start of glam right there. I mean, that's that
39:31
Speaker 2: chicken incident, by the way, wasn't it that Alice threw
39:35
Speaker 2: the chickens in the audience thinking they would fly, and
39:38
Speaker 2: then people threw him back up on stage and one
39:40
Speaker 2: of them hit one of the fans and it just
39:42
Speaker 2: became a whole mess. But then he got headlines from it.
39:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the thing is it is it's trying to
39:48
Speaker 1: parse the actual incident, you know, from the legend like
39:54
Speaker 1: that creates the legend and it propels a really excellent
39:57
Speaker 1: documentary to see on Alice Cooper. My dear friend Reg Harkama,
40:01
Speaker 1: who was also helpful with the book as well. Reg
40:03
Speaker 1: directed a doc called Super Duper Alice Cooper. It's a
40:06
Speaker 1: great doctor.
40:07
Speaker 2: Oh I've heard of it.
40:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I really recommend that. It's a great doc
40:11
Speaker 1: that gets into that and actually it's incredible doctors. It
40:14
Speaker 1: gets into so many aspects of their career. It also
40:17
Speaker 1: gets into the early aspects of where they were in LA.
40:20
Speaker 1: It's funny because the last night I was out front
40:23
Speaker 1: of Cantor's. I think I was probably not far from
40:26
Speaker 1: where the Alice Cooper, the original Alice Cooper band got
40:30
Speaker 1: their figure skating outfits from. I think I was in
40:32
Speaker 1: that neighborhood last night. I was talking with some folks
40:35
Speaker 1: about this, and you know with the GTOs, the great band,
40:39
Speaker 1: the GTOs, you know, these incredible women basically saying dressed
40:44
Speaker 1: like this, so and you see that and Glenn like
40:47
Speaker 1: a lot of incredible Like I talked about, like the
40:49
Speaker 1: glitter on Mark Boland's face. Mark Bolan didn't do that.
40:52
Speaker 1: A woman did that. You know, like these incredible women
40:55
Speaker 1: doing this, you know, and and so in this case
40:58
Speaker 1: it was the GTOs, whose album one of the best
41:00
Speaker 1: names for Now and Ever Permanent Damage. You know they
41:03
Speaker 1: did that. Of course, you know Alice Cooper later, you
41:06
Speaker 1: know connects with Bob Ezrin, the Canadian producer Bob Ezren,
41:09
Speaker 1: who really pushes their sound forward into the glam era.
41:12
Speaker 1: But yeah, at that rock and Roll Revival they got
41:14
Speaker 1: there's that chack rock, there's that performance, there's all that
41:17
Speaker 1: early rock and roll sound. It's called the rock and
41:20
Speaker 1: Roll Revival. And then we're moving further into like art
41:23
Speaker 1: and performance with Yoko Ono and it's got all those elements.
41:26
Speaker 1: And also the mcs were you know, Kim Valley was
41:29
Speaker 1: MCing the show too, and he's done some you know,
41:32
Speaker 1: glammy stuff in his own right. He's the Nasty Saven Galley.
41:36
Speaker 1: You know.
41:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think it's that preposterous. I think that theory.
41:39
Speaker 2: There's there's some merit to that.
41:41
Speaker 1: It's nineteen sixty nine and you know, the sixties are over.
41:46
Speaker 1: To me, that's the real concert that shows the end
41:48
Speaker 1: of the sixties and moving into the glam era.
41:50
Speaker 2: Yeah.
41:50
Speaker 1: I know, we could talk Woodstock or all the mon whatever.
41:54
Speaker 1: I think the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival concert was
41:56
Speaker 1: the one that really propelled us into the glam era.
41:58
Speaker 2: Let's talking about thunder Mugs because it's such a great name.
42:01
Speaker 2: Who is thunder mugging and What did the mother of
42:03
Speaker 2: one of the band members say about that name and
42:05
Speaker 2: what it means?
42:07
Speaker 1: You know, he tells me the story's going. You know
42:09
Speaker 1: he's going. You know, he's telling the story, and he
42:11
Speaker 1: comes up with a band named Thunderbug. Because again, this
42:13
Speaker 1: is a band we talk about the visual sensibility Gland.
42:16
Speaker 1: This is a band you put on their first couple albums,
42:19
Speaker 1: you know they have you put it especially, put on
42:21
Speaker 1: in Orbit especially, but even the first album, you put
42:24
Speaker 1: it on and you go, oh, this is a visual band.
42:27
Speaker 1: This is loud. You're meant to physically field this music.
42:31
Speaker 1: And you know that's the thing glam in the early
42:33
Speaker 1: seventies is using that recording technology to make things bigger sounding,
42:36
Speaker 1: and you know, it's to make it more visual, make
42:39
Speaker 1: it larger than life. And Thunderbug was like that. So
42:42
Speaker 1: it comes out the name like Thunderbug. You go, that's
42:44
Speaker 1: a very visual name. Well, for his mother, it gave
42:48
Speaker 1: off the wrong visual because it's supposed to be I
42:51
Speaker 1: believe she said it was a bedpan. It's it's slang
42:54
Speaker 1: for bedpan.
42:58
Speaker 2: Who's gonna find out? Who's don't worry about nobody's gonna know.
43:02
Speaker 1: No one's gonna know. I think they might have been,
43:03
Speaker 1: like if I look at one of those, I look
43:05
Speaker 1: at their third on, I think Tada, I think it's
43:07
Speaker 1: it's it's very Their album covers look really glammy too.
43:11
Speaker 1: Even though they were kind of shaggy and harry, they
43:13
Speaker 1: did get into into some of the like because there
43:15
Speaker 1: was a real Toronto soul revival scene in the city,
43:18
Speaker 1: you know, where people would wear costumes and everything, and
43:21
Speaker 1: these kind of bands that would like Mendala and stuff,
43:23
Speaker 1: they would wear like a lot of costumes. They got
43:25
Speaker 1: into wearing costumes too Thunderbug at one point though it
43:28
Speaker 1: kind of backfired on them. But they were more shaggy looking.
43:31
Speaker 1: But if you look at their album covers and you
43:32
Speaker 1: listen to their albums, it's very very glam sounding. And
43:35
Speaker 1: one I think Tada has has. I think it's actually
43:39
Speaker 1: a bedpan. I think they actually did use the bedpan
43:44
Speaker 1: visual and it's got you know, lightning striking the bedpant Oh.
43:48
Speaker 2: Is that the one? Yeah, because I put bad Guy
43:51
Speaker 2: in the playlist for this episode. That's from that album.
43:55
Speaker 1: From that album, Yeah, yeah.
43:57
Speaker 2: That's a great song.
43:58
Speaker 1: The wait bad Guy might be from Orbit, actually, is it?
44:01
Speaker 1: I think Yeah, in Orbit's my favorite. That album, like
44:04
Speaker 1: in Orbit is incredible from start to finish. Yeah, bad
44:07
Speaker 1: guys the last song on in Orbit, that's right. I
44:10
Speaker 1: was I was djaying a show and I brought in Orbit,
44:14
Speaker 1: and I was going, what song do we choose from here?
44:17
Speaker 1: They're all great.
44:19
Speaker 2: Well, speaking of that, I'm wondering what other bands, like
44:22
Speaker 2: thunder Mug that you may be surprised it didn't become
44:24
Speaker 2: worldwide sensations. Rough Trade maybe one of those, because you
44:28
Speaker 2: said they were trailblazers ahead of their time. Tell us
44:31
Speaker 2: about this band and what became of them.
44:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, we talk about that. We talk
44:35
Speaker 1: about how it's in the chapter where I interviewed Kevin Staples,
44:39
Speaker 1: and I also did an email interview with Carol Pope
44:42
Speaker 1: and also interviewed Marilyn Kwit who did a lot of
44:45
Speaker 1: their fashion too, so we get into their look as well.
44:48
Speaker 1: When I interviewed Kevin Staples, you know, because Rough Trade
44:51
Speaker 1: was founded by by Carol Pope and Kevin Staples, and
44:55
Speaker 1: we talk about that they were they were poised for stardom,
44:59
Speaker 1: you know, opening for Bowie on the Serious Moonlight Tour.
45:03
Speaker 1: A little later earlier on doing all these other things
45:05
Speaker 1: too that you know in Toronto you'd see them open
45:08
Speaker 1: for sparks stuff like that, you know, in the in
45:11
Speaker 1: the mid seventies. And they formed in the very early
45:14
Speaker 1: seventies I believe, yeah, because they started playing in like
45:17
Speaker 1: sixty nine as oh for a long time. You know.
45:19
Speaker 1: They released an album in seventy five, and their first album,
45:24
Speaker 1: you Know, was released in seventy five, which was recorded
45:26
Speaker 1: direct to disc, a curious recording process of trying to
45:30
Speaker 1: get the best sound perfectly recording live to geesh, what
45:35
Speaker 1: is the process? A lot of these audio files tracked
45:38
Speaker 1: down that first album. I'm getting ahead of myself that
45:40
Speaker 1: it is in the book. But after that first album,
45:44
Speaker 1: there's a five year gap between albums. They were unsigned,
45:48
Speaker 1: they were doing television, they were doing packed shows, they
45:52
Speaker 1: were getting written about, they were incredibly popular, and they
45:56
Speaker 1: didn't have a record deal until finally they do the Junos,
45:59
Speaker 1: and the Junos is what everyone glibly calls Canada's answer
46:02
Speaker 1: to the Grammys. And they're very provocative on the Judos
46:06
Speaker 1: because they do the song high School Confidential, which became
46:08
Speaker 1: a hit for them, so they were actually asked to
46:10
Speaker 1: perform High School Confidential on the judos and they had
46:14
Speaker 1: their their friend the late Great Sparkle dress up and
46:16
Speaker 1: drag and sashe around the stage. So this is what
46:19
Speaker 1: it is. And I want to be absolutely correct and
46:22
Speaker 1: accurate about this. This is a quote from Carol Pope
46:24
Speaker 1: from the book called Glitter. She says, they asked me
46:27
Speaker 1: not to grab my crotch. I did. It was live TV,
46:31
Speaker 1: and I knew they couldn't stop me.
46:33
Speaker 2: So that's rock and roll. That's rock and roll right there.
46:37
Speaker 1: Then they got signed and that, and then they got
46:40
Speaker 1: signed after right after that performance they got signed. I'm
46:43
Speaker 1: not sure how it worked with the with the labels
46:46
Speaker 1: and the US distribution, the US arms and and all
46:49
Speaker 1: that stuff, but they really did want to push and
46:51
Speaker 1: go further, especially after the Bowie thing, but it just
46:54
Speaker 1: was It's just hard in Canada. It's hard when you really,
46:57
Speaker 1: you know, you want to break out. And they did
47:00
Speaker 1: very very well, I mean, and they still reunite to
47:03
Speaker 1: this day and they're a great great band.
47:07
Speaker 2: Book Don Rock Podcasts will be back after this. Your
47:10
Speaker 2: pants Pockets hold Kids in the Future were their pants
47:13
Speaker 2: and side out? What's this all female group in the
47:17
Speaker 2: book called the Clichs. They took lip syncing to new
47:22
Speaker 2: ambitious levels. Who were the am I pronouncing that right,
47:25
Speaker 2: The Cliches.
47:26
Speaker 1: The clich The Clichets are an all woman performance group
47:30
Speaker 1: and they would often do shows with Rough Trade as well,
47:34
Speaker 1: and they also did their full scaled ninety minute productions
47:37
Speaker 1: with costume changes and everything. And the Clichets, again, it's
47:42
Speaker 1: it's a mixing of art. There's a definite art practice
47:45
Speaker 1: in there where they would they would lip sync songs,
47:48
Speaker 1: but they would twist them around. It's had a very
47:51
Speaker 1: feminist perspective with some of these songs, and they would take, say,
47:55
Speaker 1: for example, that ridiculous Paul Anka song having My Baby,
47:59
Speaker 1: and they would take that twisted on his head and
48:01
Speaker 1: subverted because that song deserves to be subverted. And they
48:05
Speaker 1: were just incredible at lip syncing. Like they took lip
48:08
Speaker 1: syncing to the next level, and they were incredible. If
48:13
Speaker 1: you see footage of them, and they did have a
48:15
Speaker 1: retrospective show, I believe it. It might even still be
48:18
Speaker 1: on it McMaster University a retrospective of the Cliches, and
48:22
Speaker 1: a lot of them came from an experimental dance background
48:24
Speaker 1: as well. They all met through experimental dance and modern
48:28
Speaker 1: dance and yeah, they're just they were great. Then they
48:32
Speaker 1: they didn't want to be known as a nostalgia act
48:35
Speaker 1: because people thought, okay they were. They performed it like
48:38
Speaker 1: Yuck Yucks a comedy club and they went and you know,
48:41
Speaker 1: people thought, oh, they're a nostalgia act or the club did,
48:44
Speaker 1: and it's like, well, no, we're not a nostalgia act.
48:46
Speaker 1: We're an anti nostalgia act. They're using old songs, but
48:49
Speaker 1: they're being anti nostalgic and they're very sharp, very funny,
48:54
Speaker 1: very feminist, very great. And so what they did was
48:58
Speaker 1: they brought in another writer and they wrote a full
49:03
Speaker 1: scale production, like it was a full scale show, the
49:06
Speaker 1: full on ninety minute show. So they would do some
49:09
Speaker 1: performances that were just you know, if they'd opened for
49:11
Speaker 1: Rough Trade, for example, I imagine it would be a
49:13
Speaker 1: much shorter set. But they also had their own their
49:16
Speaker 1: own shows, so full scale theatrical shows.
49:19
Speaker 2: The band considered to be the first glad band from
49:21
Speaker 2: the province of Quebec is Mac, and this is a
49:25
Speaker 2: band who worked their asses off. They could they could
49:29
Speaker 2: have opened for the New York Dolls, which would have
49:31
Speaker 2: been huge, but that fell through.
49:33
Speaker 1: So with Mac and a lot of other bands. These
49:36
Speaker 1: were touring musicians Canada. Another reason that's really difficult with
49:41
Speaker 1: Canada is you know, this book has a map, right,
49:46
Speaker 1: The wonderful designers of this book just really made did
49:49
Speaker 1: it as a map, and so you know, you see
49:52
Speaker 1: this map. Canada is a giant country. Giant, you know,
49:57
Speaker 1: the West coast. Often you would just have to try
49:59
Speaker 1: to get over border. You know, you'd be in Vancouver
50:02
Speaker 1: or something like the West Coast and Vancouver, Victoria, whatever,
50:05
Speaker 1: and then you have to deal with the border, the
50:07
Speaker 1: hassle of the border to get to Seattle and then
50:09
Speaker 1: go along to Olympia Portland. You know, all that stuff
50:12
Speaker 1: is a Tory musician onto La. But then you get
50:15
Speaker 1: the eastern part of the country and you have all
50:17
Speaker 1: these towns and everything in Ontario, Quebec, on and on
50:19
Speaker 1: and on, and you'd be traveling these highways and byways.
50:23
Speaker 1: Sometimes if you're on the West coast, you'd be traveling
50:25
Speaker 1: the East coast. In the east, you'd be traveling west.
50:28
Speaker 1: That would happen too. And if it's winter, it's treacherous.
50:31
Speaker 1: The roads are treacherous. You're clocking all these miles, you know,
50:34
Speaker 1: as we call them, clicks kilometers and you'd be like
50:37
Speaker 1: clocking all this and going, you know, it's not safe.
50:42
Speaker 1: He held these treacherous roads and a member of Mac died,
50:46
Speaker 1: you know, trying to get to one of these shows
50:48
Speaker 1: in one of these towns, because that's what you do
50:51
Speaker 1: as a tour musician, trying to get all these little
50:53
Speaker 1: towns in Canada, and you work your ass off. The
50:55
Speaker 1: back did work their asses off, and they lost a
50:58
Speaker 1: band member as a result. He died.
51:00
Speaker 2: What happened car accident.
51:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was on the highway in middle of winterd Man. Yeah,
51:05
Speaker 1: somewhere in Quebec.
51:07
Speaker 2: You know, a lot these bands were so good, but
51:08
Speaker 2: they were just up against this. I don't know. For
51:10
Speaker 2: some reason, these bands from Canada, it's like nobody wanted
51:14
Speaker 2: to give them the attention they deserved, at least here
51:16
Speaker 2: in the States and other parts of the world. They
51:18
Speaker 2: really should.
51:18
Speaker 1: Well, you know, if you're multidisciplinary again we bring up
51:22
Speaker 1: that word multi disciplinary, it often means you're not playing
51:25
Speaker 1: it safe, and you know, a lot of times with
51:28
Speaker 1: the industry, it's all like you know, we talked about
51:31
Speaker 1: you know, rough trade being extremely popular with people for
51:35
Speaker 1: five years, but the where's the industry. Where the hell
51:38
Speaker 1: is the industry? And it's the you know, the people
51:40
Speaker 1: in Canada love this stuff, but the industry it's like
51:44
Speaker 1: a play it safe. Don't make waves, don't be multi disciplinary,
51:47
Speaker 1: don't confuse me, you know, don't make waves. Please be boring.
51:51
Speaker 1: That are stuff is anything but boring.
51:54
Speaker 2: Oh I know, that's the thing. It's so entertaining. And
51:56
Speaker 2: the music. As I listened to this and put together
51:59
Speaker 2: the playlist, which people can they go to the show notes,
52:01
Speaker 2: click the link and it's a Spotify plays there, I'm
52:04
Speaker 2: just like, damn, this stuff is good and this is
52:06
Speaker 2: stuff I've never heard before.
52:09
Speaker 1: This is great, right.
52:11
Speaker 2: And you talked about the maps in the book. A
52:13
Speaker 2: lot of great photos in the book, and there's one
52:16
Speaker 2: that's a bit creepy. If you've seen The Strangers movies,
52:19
Speaker 2: and this will remind you of those movies. The photo
52:22
Speaker 2: is from nineteen sixty six, a group of people with
52:25
Speaker 2: sacks over their heads with holes cut out for their eyes,
52:28
Speaker 2: looking at the camera. These are known as mummers. Connected
52:31
Speaker 2: to this photo is an album from nineteen seventy five
52:33
Speaker 2: called The New Here we Go, Test Me on this Newfoundland, Newfoundland.
52:38
Speaker 2: You gotta say very quickly. You gotta see Newton.
52:41
Speaker 1: This is ridiculous, you know, because like even on Canadian radio,
52:45
Speaker 1: like Newfoudland didn't join Canada until nineteen forty nine, and
52:48
Speaker 1: it would be grudgingly, so you know, it's like h
52:51
Speaker 1: joining Canada. There was a lot of people who were
52:54
Speaker 1: like in Newfoundland who were going, we don't want to
52:55
Speaker 1: join Canada. And then you get the Canadian radio DJs
52:59
Speaker 1: in Canada going new Found last Yeah, a half hour
53:04
Speaker 1: time change, so it'd be like six pm, you know,
53:06
Speaker 1: and uh, you know Vancouver ten thirty pm and Newfound.
53:11
Speaker 2: I did my homework. I looked it up, went to
53:14
Speaker 2: many YouTube videos and there was just one kid on
53:17
Speaker 2: TikTok and he was teaching you how to say he's
53:20
Speaker 2: just new Finn's got you get to see it very quickly.
53:22
Speaker 2: Newfoundland differently. Okay, you got it. Yeah, I think we
53:25
Speaker 2: got it.
53:25
Speaker 1: We just talk to someone from new Land to really
53:27
Speaker 1: make sure.
53:28
Speaker 2: But I think, so who the Mummers and and what's
53:31
Speaker 2: this song shock absorbers? This really Phil listeners in on
53:34
Speaker 2: the photo the album.
53:36
Speaker 1: The Mummers is, you know, and it's funny you say, say, like,
53:39
Speaker 1: oh the stranger stuff. Well the Mummers pre dates all
53:42
Speaker 1: that stuff. Like like, I really think that mummers is
53:44
Speaker 1: a real folk Mummers is a folk tradition, and the
53:46
Speaker 1: mummers is very different from the Philadelphia mummers. We're talking
53:49
Speaker 1: going back to the aisles hundreds of years showing the
53:52
Speaker 1: pictures of every Yeah, so it enters I call it,
53:56
Speaker 1: you know, uh, folk horror glam there, but you know glam.
54:00
Speaker 1: It predates all this stuff. It's it may even predate Halloween,
54:04
Speaker 1: the actual custom of Halloween. The mummering tradition where you
54:08
Speaker 1: get whatever. And the great thing is is it's also
54:10
Speaker 1: very like again kind of like glam where the fans
54:13
Speaker 1: dress up. It's very like egalitarian where you go you
54:16
Speaker 1: dress up with whatever's in your house and you go
54:18
Speaker 1: around door to door and you know, you go any
54:20
Speaker 1: mummers loud in and you disguise your voice and they
54:22
Speaker 1: have to guess who you are. And so there the
54:25
Speaker 1: Mummering tradition is incredible tradition and every year in you know,
54:29
Speaker 1: and and still practiced in various regions in Newfoundland, lab
54:32
Speaker 1: and Labrador and also you know, there's a mummer parade.
54:35
Speaker 1: I've been a couple of times and dressed up in
54:38
Speaker 1: Saint John's, Newfoundland, where you all dress up in December,
54:42
Speaker 1: and it's sort of around any the solstice not far
54:46
Speaker 1: from that time. So so there is that kind of
54:48
Speaker 1: folk for her tradition. So that's the Mummers, and so
54:51
Speaker 1: I had to put the Mummers in there because there
54:53
Speaker 1: is just such glam overlap, you know. And Shock Absorber
54:57
Speaker 1: was done by Peter Francis Quinlan. He made made this song.
55:00
Speaker 1: I don't know how I stumbled onto this, but he
55:03
Speaker 1: basically says, yeah, oh well, there's no real you know. Again,
55:06
Speaker 1: there's a lot of folk traditions in Newfoundland. But he's going, well,
55:10
Speaker 1: new Land needs a rock song. So he writes this song.
55:13
Speaker 1: His car's bust is shock Absorbs broke on the highway.
55:15
Speaker 1: He goes, I'll write a rock song about it. And
55:17
Speaker 1: it's this really troubled like there's this very flawed, hilariously
55:22
Speaker 1: flawed sexual analogy where I'm gonna be your shock absorber tonight.
55:27
Speaker 1: To me, it's a great song.
55:32
Speaker 2: There's so many entertaining stories and photos and it's all
55:36
Speaker 2: in this book and it's out now. Cold Glitter, The
55:39
Speaker 2: Untold Story of Canadian glamb find out wherever books are sold,
55:43
Speaker 2: pick up a copy at your local bookstore. If you
55:45
Speaker 2: can support your local bookstore. There's a link to find
55:47
Speaker 2: your nearest store at booked on rock dot com. Where
55:50
Speaker 2: can people find you online?
55:51
Speaker 1: Robert right, And I should say that what we talked
55:54
Speaker 1: about today, you know, we just touched on.
55:56
Speaker 2: It tip of the iceberg. Yeah. Yeah, apologies to all
55:59
Speaker 2: of the other bands artist that we did not mention
56:01
Speaker 2: this book. It's only just because we would be here
56:03
Speaker 2: all day, so no, I just a few.
56:07
Speaker 1: There's a lot in there, so please, I would love
56:11
Speaker 1: you all to read it. And you can find me
56:12
Speaker 1: at www. And it's a Farreal House book. See, I'm
56:17
Speaker 1: I constantly do this. Yeah. Oh, one more thing. It's
56:19
Speaker 1: a Feral House book published by farrealh House. And you
56:22
Speaker 1: can find me at www dot Robert Dayton dot com.
56:25
Speaker 1: And I'm probably somewhere out on various other social media
56:28
Speaker 1: blue sky stuff like that too. I'm easy to find
56:30
Speaker 1: that Robert Tayton dot com.
56:32
Speaker 2: Awesome, Robert, thank you man, this was awesome.
56:34
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me today. I really appreciate it. Thanks
56:36
Speaker 1: for taking the time. That's it.
56:47
Speaker 2: It's in the books.