TURN ME LOOSE<\/p>\n
So I go with Jake to this venue on a spit of land in the lake which he keeps putting down for drawing a bridge and tunnel crowd which I think is wholly cool and in the dressing room we get engaged in a conversation with someone who looks so familiar yet I just can’t place.\u00c2\u00a0 Jake asks the guy if he knows who I am and he says yes which makes me even more anxious about interacting, since I can’t remember his name.<\/p>\n
And then when we turn to walk away, Jake tells me it’s Mike Reno.\u00c2\u00a0 OF LOVERBOY!<\/p>\n
All these years later, in comparison to the acts of today, those early eighties acts seem much cooler than they did back then.\u00c2\u00a0 Jake tells me Loverboy doesn’t even have a manager.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve just got an agent, to book gigs.\u00c2\u00a0 And they do five million a YEAR!<\/p>\n
Back in the summer of ’81, before MTV even launched, when videos were still a novelty, I remember going to the Country Club in Reseda, and in between acts, when the big screen dropped, they played the video for "Turn Me Loose".\u00c2\u00a0 I remember it being a play on silent movies.\u00c2\u00a0 I remember thinking to myself THIS IS A GREAT FUCKING RECORD!<\/p>\n
I’M AN ADULT NOW<\/p>\n
So the reason we were at this gig, the Indie Awards Show, was because one of Jake’s clients, the Pursuit of Happiness, was being inducted into the Indie Hall Of Fame.\u00c2\u00a0 Turns out that first video was made before they had a deal, on Queen Street, for bupkes.\u00c2\u00a0 And, after Jake gave an introductory speech, the band lit into "I’m An Adult Now".<\/p>\n
It was MESMERIZING!<\/p>\n
We think of the past as nostalgia.\u00c2\u00a0 With acts like the Stones having us wondering what all the excitement was about.\u00c2\u00a0 But Moe Berg, in his cardigan that nobody would wear, and seemingly polyester tight-pegged pants, was alive with the spirit of rock and roll.\u00c2\u00a0 Of rebellion.\u00c2\u00a0 Of changing the world.\u00c2\u00a0 The audience was there to see the headliner, Stars, but they were treated to a piece of rock and roll history.\u00c2\u00a0 I hope they know that.<\/p>\n
THIS WHEEL’S ON FIRE<\/p>\n
So I’m sitting next to some guy I don’t know at the Hall Of Fame Awards last night.\u00c2\u00a0 And this is rare in Canada.\u00c2\u00a0 Having come here so many times, especially at the CMW table, I tend to know all the players.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’m uncomfortable, and this guy wants nothing to do with me, and then, after the main course he reaches into his pocket and retrieves a tiny reel of tape and tells me THIS IS WHAT MADE DYLAN GO ELECTRIC!<\/p>\n
The guy starts spinning a tale.\u00c2\u00a0 Which I’m taking with a grain of salt.\u00c2\u00a0 How Levon and the Hawks were recorded by Mary Martin, and somebody in Albert Grossman’s office heard the tape and made sure that Dylan did too and he hooked up with the Band and from there it was all history.<\/p>\n
Oh, this guy’s waxing rhapsodic.\u00c2\u00a0 About how Ronnie Hawkins said Dylan had stolen his band but they’d already broken away from him.\u00c2\u00a0 How they’d learned to play before Ronnie says he taught them.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean it’s all interesting, and the guy is convincing me that he knows what he’s talking about, he’s here to induct Duff Roman into the Hall Of Fame, still, I’m not quite convinced.\u00c2\u00a0 I figure I’ll throw him a curve ball, a ringer, to see what he comes up with, this archivist, this musicologist.<\/p>\n
So, where are the Basement Tapes today?<\/p>\n
And this Jan Haust kicks back, looks me in the eye and says "I’ve got them."\u00c2\u00a0 My heart started to pulse.\u00c2\u00a0 I thought of those years in Woodstock.\u00c2\u00a0 I felt close to the legend.<\/p>\n
Why do you have them?\u00c2\u00a0 Why doesn’t Dylan have them?<\/p>\n
Because Garth was the producer, even though Robbie Robertson eventually edged him out in the credits, and Jan knew Garth.<\/p>\n
I googled the guy back in my room.\u00c2\u00a0 He did have tracks in the new Band boxed set.\u00c2\u00a0 He was for real.<\/p>\n
YOU’VE MADE ME SO VERY HAPPY<\/p>\n
And on the other side of Jan was David Clayton Thomas.<\/p>\n
Oh, you wouldn’t have recognized him.\u00c2\u00a0 He looks like a banker, or a college professor.\u00c2\u00a0 And he too didn’t want to have much to do with me until Denny Somach gave me an introduction, despite my having told him I saw Blood, Sweat & Tears in the summer of ’69 at an outdoor show in Bridgeport, Connecticut.<\/p>\n
Turns out Duff Roman was a deejay, who mortgaged his house to try to break David Clayton Thomas and his band.\u00c2\u00a0 They drove to New York in a 1959 Cadillac Sedan de Ville, which experienced two flat tires en route, and although that band got on "Hullabaloo", in an excerpt that was shown last night, with Montreal Canadien hockey jerseys draped on the set, David Clayton Thomas didn’t break through until he joined Blood, Sweat & Tears a few years later.<\/p>\n
After dessert, David took the stage.\u00c2\u00a0 And then, with that descending figure, the band launched into the last track on the first side of one of the biggest albums of 1969.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, it was "God Bless The Child".<\/p>\n
It was weird.\u00c2\u00a0 It was so Canadian.\u00c2\u00a0 You see there’s no border between the stars and the hoi polloi in Canada.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a fluid society.\u00c2\u00a0 A giant high school.\u00c2\u00a0 One without bullies and unapproachable cool people.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s CIVILIZED!\u00c2\u00a0 And the people are warm, and educated, and they want to know you, they take you right in.\u00c2\u00a0 And despite Bryan Adams and Celine Dion and so many other superstars being from Canada those of us in the States have no concept of the country.\u00c2\u00a0 Which has its own heritage, its own TV shows, the unrecognizable to me host of last night’s show being on the biggest sitcom, its own PRIDE!\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, they’re proud to be Canadians.\u00c2\u00a0 They want to pull each other up.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t want to put down their brethren as much as honor them.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like entering a time warp.\u00c2\u00a0 The way it used to be.\u00c2\u00a0 Back in the sixties.\u00c2\u00a0 And when David Clayton Thomas did a note perfect rendition of that album cut we all knew so well, it reminded me of what a long strange trip it’s been.\u00c2\u00a0 How over so many years, the good music has remained.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’m here still believing in it.<\/p>\n
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