About moi - Part 2: The Rock Years (see,
told ya!)
At the tender age of nineteen,
having developed my craft to the point where I felt I
should leave Chilliwack before the neighbours formed a
lynch mob to quell my incessant racket once and for all,
I moved to the big city - Vancouver. Life in the fast
lane; fast cars, fast women, big bucks and big excitement
- yep, you guessed it, I didn't see any of that. I did
however play in a few bands, did some touring, worked
at various awful jobs, had a few nice girlfriends (not
at the same time of course. Mostly), made some great friends
and generally had a blast.
Eventually I decided I should stop having so much fun
and become serious about this music thing. I enrolled
in the Bachelor of Music program at Douglas College in
New Westminster. The real reason was that I was sick and
tired of doing crappy jobs and wanted to sponge off a
student loan for a while. But that's another story.
The scholastic ambition lasted a good two years. The thing
with classical percussion was that it was very good for
learning to count bars of rests but not quite as good
for actually playing anything. That and the fact
that two years of sponging off student loans was growing
into a debt that looked decidedly unpleasant on paper.
Come to think of it, it didn't look too rosy off paper
either.
So, after a period of unemployment, I got a fairly good
job delivering teeth for a dental lab. Actually, I was
delivering dental appliances, but I like my version better.
And I answered an ad in "The Georgia Straight",
Vancouver's artsy paper. To be honest, I don't really
remember the wording of the ad, although I know there
was something in there about a "chaotic pop group".
Later, after deciding the ad wasn't Rock 'n' Roll enough
for our image, it mutated into a rather more grandiose
version: "Kick-ass double kick
drummer wanted for heavy metal band. Must have hair, attitude
and spandex". I had none of those things, but I placed
the call anyway. I met the boys in a downtown pizza place
that one of the guitarists worked for. And thus a major
turning point in my life occurred: I was the new drummer
for "Sister Lovers".
Yep, I know what you're thinking. "Wow, the
Sister Lovers?!?" That's right kids, a band no one
had ever heard of that later went on to be a band that
ten or eleven people had heard of. I'm being a bit self-effacing
here, to be honest. We had somewhat of a following in
Vancouver. In fact, we were doing rather well before it
all went pear shaped. Sister Lovers, named after a Big
Star album, consisted of Petey Wheatjeans (guitar, vocals),
Kleinz (guitar, vocals, keyboards), J,
(bass) et moi, (that would be drums and other noisy bits).
Our
first album was a ten song cassette entitled "School
Sux". Running the gamut from pop to punk, it was
released in early 1993 to rave reviews in the music press.
Many of the rave reviews were written by friends of ours,
but that's beside the point. Containing SL classics like
"Love Graffiti", "Hi Genie", "Gary
& the Wolves", and "Nothin' Short of Nothing",
a track that later appeared on Vancouver compilation CD
"Hum Buzz Thing".
Our next major release, on our own "Horrifying Circus
Music" label, was "Paula Stop Pretending",
a tribute to the late Paula Pierce of the Pandoras. This
four song 7", recorded in May 1993 at Fir Street
Studios in Vancouver, entered CiTR radio's singles chart
at #8, and CFOX's indie chart where it reached #5. Shortly
after we recorded a single for Australia's Zero Hour Records'
tribute to "Paul Collins and the Beat". Our
version of "Dreaming", from The Beat's 1982
"The Kids are the Same" album, was "accidently"
leaked to CiTR where it went to #2 on their demo charts.
I
should back track a bit here and mention that at some
point in there (August 1992, but who's counting) I met
my future ex-wife at a gig we played at Vancouver's notorious
"Lunatic Fringe" club. It wasn't really notorious,
however the resident soundman "Bozo" (because
he was the splittin' image of that famous cartoon clown
- and that's not a good thing) was well known to the local
bands as being a bit of a....err.... how do I put this
nicely? I can't. He was a knob.
Anyway, after indulging herself in some solo billiards,
a very attractive young lady by the name of Kimberley
approached us with an unexpected and, I thought, rather
original line: "I figured if I played with myself
long enough someone would eventually come and join me".
Gulp... Kim was there to see her roommate's band who was
on the same bill, as well as celebrating her 24th birthday.
She and I struck up a rapport and the rest, as they say,
is unrepeatable in front of a family audience. Oh, and
that's Kim playing the femme fatale voice-over on "Love
Graffiti".
So,
where was I before I so rudely interrupted myself? Oh
yes.... fame and fortune. No, that couldn't have been
it - we're talking about me here.
Early 1994 saw the release of arguably the most ambitious
and controversial project since the "Hindenburg",
Germany's infamous intercontinental mass sucide bomb,
or 'explodenzielballoonenstein', of 1937. "Video
Graffiti", an epic 115 minute "mockumentary"
with individual interviews, live footage, the videos we
had done for three of our singles, and most importantly,
a live animation sequence of J's
infamous comic strip "Doubting Thomas" - based
very loosely, I might add, on my cat "Thomas".
I don't think he was as much a skeptic as he was aloof
- a typical cat in other words.
kick
drummer wanted for heavy metal band. Must have hair, attitude
and spandex". I had none of those things, but I placed
the call anyway. I met the boys in a downtown pizza place
that one of the guitarists worked for. And thus a major
turning point in my life occurred: I was the new drummer
for "Sister Lovers".
,
(bass) et moi, (that would be drums and other noisy bits).
Our
first album was a ten song cassette entitled "School
Sux". Running the gamut from pop to punk, it was
released in early 1993 to rave reviews in the music press.
Many of the rave reviews were written by friends of ours,
but that's beside the point. Containing SL classics like
"Love Graffiti", "Hi Genie", "Gary
& the Wolves", and "Nothin' Short of Nothing",
a track that later appeared on Vancouver compilation CD
"Hum Buzz Thing".
I
should back track a bit here and mention that at some
point in there (August 1992, but who's counting) I met
my future ex-wife at a gig we played at Vancouver's notorious
"Lunatic Fringe" club. It wasn't really notorious,
however the resident soundman "Bozo" (because
he was the splittin' image of that famous cartoon clown
- and that's not a good thing) was well known to the local
bands as being a bit of a....err.... how do I put this
nicely? I can't. He was a knob.
So,
where was I before I so rudely interrupted myself? Oh
yes.... fame and fortune. No, that couldn't have been
it - we're talking about me here.