Richard Kuzniak sent me the photo above of the Private Collection, a band he used to see weekly at the El Patio nightclub in Yorkville. Ivan Amirault wrote to me with info on the band and the clippings seen below:
The Private Collection, RPM, May 13, 1967 from left: Aldo Tarini, Dan Salhani, Jacques Chartrand, and Dave Mouslaison
Dave Mouslaison – lead guitar, organ, vocals Aldo Tarini – rhythm and lead guitar, vocals Jacques Chartrand – bass, vocals Dan Salhani – drums, vocals
The Private Collection were from Sudbury but relocated to Toronto. They performed regularly at The Flick and El Patio, managed by Mike Burak, a part-owner of the clubs. RPM magazine reported on October 2, 1967 that the band had just done a session at Sound Canada with Rick Shorter producing.
Ivan wrote to me “They were a very good harmony band. Dave Moulaison was later in Aaron Space who recorded a great LP on Warner Brothers only in Canada.
“Jocko Chartrand was also in Buckstone Hardware who had a 45 on Apex here in Canada. It also came with a picture sleeve. The core of that band was from North Bay, about 1 1/2 hours east of Sudbury. Joko also made a couple of fairly good solo singer/songwriter type LPs in the 80s.”
Ivan has over two hours of home recordings of the band, plus a few songs from their never-released studio sessions.
The Private Collection. RPM, October 2, 1967The Private Collection, RPM October 28, 1967
A Group Called Bubs profiled in the Ottawa Citizen
David Leroux of the Raphaels sent in the scans and story of his next band:
“A Group Called BUBS” became an offspring of former members of The Raphaels and The Skaliwags.
A number of us got together starting with my brother Ralph Leroux (drummer), John Bacho (guitar) and Chris Saunders (guitar) who had been with the Skaliwags. Former Raphaels Daryl Wadsworth (organ) and Claude Gravel (guitar) and now Don Burnet (bass) had been a replacement for Peter from The Raphaels. The new band proceeded under the name “A Group Called BUBS”! Essentially, BUBS was a British slang term for “Brothers”.
The BUBS had an original mission of doing the show band concept with the audience reaction that goes with that sort of organized show. Our inherited slogan: The organization that manufactures happiness! Recording was not a priority. I think we were having too much fun.
I have heard some tapes made by various folks but not sure where they wound up. My only tapes now are the “Farewell to the BUBS” poems and radio interviews from CFRA that they gave us on the final farewell night at Pineland. In the week preceding the Farewell Concert, CFRA had me on the nightly show to judge the farewell poems submitted and each hour choose one to be awarded albums from CFRA. Al Pascal was very supportive of us and our show.
As a result of times and events, The BUBS realigned somewhat with new member Terry McKeown (bass) and for a short period of time, Yvon Farmer (organ) from the Beau-Geste.
The BUBS had a good four year run in the latter part of the ’60s. We then sat down one day and looked at future considerations we could make at that time for ourselves. We laughed and moved on with great memories and no regrets. From time to time when travels bring us together, we can always count on a great evening of “unplugged” concerts for friends and family.
The reformed version of the Skaliwags, from left: Pete Christensen, Gerry Foster, Eddy Mitchell, Ralph Leroux and Chris Saunders
Turn Him Down 1st issueThe Skaliwags (sometimes misspelled Skalliwags) came from Ottawa, Canada like a band I profiled last month, the Raphaels. The Skaliwags had been around since 1961, based in Gatineau. Lead singer Eddy Mitchell remembered Big 12 shows at the old Coliseum from noon to midnight, where each of the 12 bands would play two short sets and as many as 8,000 kids would attend during the day. Those shows gave the band many contacts, including John Brower (who would later produce the Rock and Roll Revival festival where the Plastic Ono Band would record Live Peace in Toronto) and local DJs including Al Pascal of CFRA.
365 Days a Year 1st issueAlex Sherman of Sherman’s Music was owner of Excellent label and put up the money for the singles. The Skaliwags went to RCA studios in Montreal to record their first single in February of 1966. “Turn Him Down” reached #1 on CFRE. The flip, “365 Days a Year” is equally excellent.After this single, the band splintered. Lead guitarist John Bacho left to join the Townsmen, and bassist Andy Cody left the band to get married. Ed Mitchell recalled the Skaliwags recruiting Chris Saunders and Ralph Leroux from The Slaves of Time. Ralph Leroux is the brother of David Leroux of the Raphaels. Pete Christensen of the Raphaels joined on bass.
Turn Him Down 2nd issueI’ll reproduce Eddy Mitchell’s comment below:
I was the singer for the Skaliwags. The version of the group that recorded “Turn Him Down” consisted of Ed Mitchell singer, John Bacho lead guitar, Gerry Foster (real name Gerry Fortier) rhythm guitar, Andy Cody (real name Andre Cote) bass guitar and Gil Brooks (real name Jules Leclair) drums. The names were changed so as not to appear to come from Gatineau, since we thought that it make a difference to Ottawa kids.
365 Days a Year 2nd issueThe second record, “Me Minus More” was recorded by Ed Mitchell, Gerry Fortier, Ralph Leroux, Peter Christianson, and Chris Saunders. I left the Skaliwags in October of 1967 and joined another Gatineau called Musical Fantasy who went nowhere, and I quit music altogether on December 15, 1967 when my lung collapsed on stage at what was then called Immaculata High School on Bronson Ave.
Paul Warman (spelled Paull Warman on the green label releases) wrote all four songs the Skaliwags released, including their second release, “Me Minus More” / “Broken Man Am I” from 1967. Eddy Mitchell said in an interview on Brian Murphy’s Capitol Roots radio show on CHEZ 106.1 FM in Ottawa in the early ’80s that the band was trying to find a song as catchy as “Raindrops keep Falling on My Head”. The band broke up after the second single.
Eddy wrote to me about Paul Warman:
Paul Warman who passed away in January of 2011, was our manager. He never played in the group and as you know he wrote all four songs. He also wrote another song titled “You Ain’t Pulling the Wool Over My Eyes Babe”. We actually recorded the song and one of the guys in the group kept the acetate. It was destroyed in a house fire several years later. As to photos, you have everything that I have, except some that go further back to the really early days.
Paul Warman passed away on Jan 23rd, 2011 at the age of 67.
Skaliwags releases: Excellent E-5001 (1st issue, gold label) – 365 Days a Year / Turn Him Down Excellent E-5001 (2nd issue, green label) – 365 Days a Year / Turn Him Down Excellent E-5001 (green label) – Me Minus More / Broken Man Am I
Thank you to Alex for the promotional photo seen at top, and to Ivan Amirault for the scans of the Skaliwags 45s, the additional photos, and the clip of the Capitol Roots show.
Does anyone have better quality scans of these photos and promo pics?
The Raphaels from top left: David Leroux, Claude Gravel, Greig Lund, Daryl Wadsworth and Pete Christensen
Until now, this 45 by the Raphaels has been unknown outside of Ottawa collectors circles. Both songs are well-written mid-tempo numbers with harmonies.There’s not much info on the label other than Ottawa, Canada 1965 and the matrix number QC 272. The QC prefix indicates a Quality label custom pressing.The songs are “Someday” by Peter Christensen and “I Change My Mind” by Dave Leroux.
I didn’t know anything about the group until Alex Taylor commented, below. I’ll repeat his comment here in its entirety:
The Raphaels, like The Beaux Geste, were among the most promising garage bands from the Ottawa-Gatineau scene, and that too this day, remain the least known. Their single was cut at HH Bloom studios on Bank Street in Ottawa (the QC prefix was Bloom’s own). This was the same place that Don Norman & The Other Four had cut “Mustang Sally” and where Those Naughty Boys made their first demos too. Only a couple hundred copies of The Raphaels single exists (the single was custom pressed in Toronto by Quality Records).
As for The Raphaels, they fell apart at the close of 1966, right around the same time The Skaliwags were breaking apart. In early 1967, Raphaels member Pete Christensen joined up with the remaining Skaliwags for a second stab at fame!
Since first writing this post, David Leroux wrote to me with more info about the group:
David (Dave) Leroux: Lead vocals and lead guitar Claude Gravel: Rhythm guitar and vocals Peter Christensen: Bass guitar and vocals Daryl Wadsworth: Organ and vocals Greig Lund: Drums and vocals
My name is David Leroux and I was a member of the Raphaels. The Raphaels name came from the artist/painter Raphael. My school principal suggested it in my Rideau High School days. Since I was one of the early folks with long hair not yet allowed in schools at that time, I quickly agreed with him! He said we were all good artists!
We were always a definite part of the “BIG 12” shows. The “action” pictures from from those shows.
My Mom made all our frill shirts…and that my sister ironed them for each gig! My poor Mom was our biggest fan but passed away in 1973 at the age of 42 from cancer. The shorts and suspenders were my idea. In those days the friendly rivalry between bands was pretty cool. Everyone was looking for that little edge over the other for recognition … quite fun at times.
I still cherish and hold safely the original metal press of the record!
The website finding was an incredibly timed event. We have not seen each other in about 40 years. Two of the members last month accidently found themselves standing at an ATM machine and then recognized each other. They knew where I was located through some previous email contacts. We are having a band reunion this coming Saturday as a result!
After the finish of the The Raphaels, I eventually formed a new band called “A Group Called BUBS” with my brother, Ralph, from the Skaliwags and guitar player, John Bacho along with other local musicians of the times. The “BUBS” had a very successful time and then we all decided it was time to say it was fun and time to move forward. CFRA radio gave us an incredible farewell concert at Pineland of those days. We all moved on in life but have maintained contact and reunion times over the years.
I am now moved on as a Labour Law Advisor with the Federal Department of Labour working and living in Kingston, Ontario.
David Leroux, August 2012
Thank you to Dan Lee Laymann for sending the scans and transfers of the 45 and alerting me to its existence. Special thanks to David Leroux for the photos and news clips seen here, except where noted.
Raphaels, OttawaPeter Christensen of the RaphaelsDaryl Wadsworth of the RaphaelsDavid Leroux of the RaphaelsClaude Gravel of the RaphaelsThe RaphaelsRaphaels Agency Photo, thanks to Ivan Amirault for this scanThe Raphaels in POT, December 1966 Thanks to Alex Taylor for this scan
Raphaels profiled in POT, December 15, 1966Raphaels featured in CFRA Swing SetRapahels in the Ottawa CitizenRaphaels reviewed by Ian Connerty
Billboard, November 13, 1965Ivan Amirault sent in these two great ads for Patrician-Anne, who had a single featuring a P.F. Sloan original “Blue Lipstick” b/w “What About Me” on Arc 1113 from late ’65.She also has the great “Changin’ Time” on the CTV After Four LP that is best known for the song “Four in the Morning” by the Quiet Jungle (as the Scarlet Ribbon).
Patrician-Anne was the stage name of Patrician Anne McKinnon, sister of singer and actress Catherine McKinnon, and wife of Brian Ahern, a long-time producer and musician.
Brian had his own groups, the Offbeats and the Badd Cedes, whose song “Dolly Magic” was released on two singles as the Chapter V: Verve Forecast KF5046 with “The Sun Is Green” and again on Verve Forecast KF5057 with “Headshrinker”, all three songs Ahern originals. Brian also played with 3’s a Crowd. More on the Badd Cedes at Nova Scotia Classic Rock.
Patricia often appeared on Frank Cameron’s TV show, Frank’s Bandstand. An Arc LP Do You “Wanna” Dance (The Best of Frank’s Bandstand) has covers of “I Only Want to Be With You” and “As Tears Go By”, credited to Patricia McKinnon, along with a couple songs by the Offbeats, “Wild Weekend” and “Swingin’ Shepherd Blues”.
Patrician-Anne is also featured on various volumes of CBC-TV’s Singalong Jubilee, which I haven’t heard.
The Ugly Ducklings – Somewhere Inside (Pacemaker PACE-086, 2011) The Ugly Ducklings – Thump & Twang (Pacemaker PACE-087, 2011)
Review by Rebecca Jansen
Considered by many to be Canada’s premier ’60s garage rock outfit, for decades fans of The Ugly Ducklings had to content themselves with the group’s handful of Yorktown singles and one LP, Somewhere Outside. So it was with some shock I discovered these two (two!) CDs just released by Pacemaker, and as far as I can tell all but one cut on them are previously unavailable!
The Somewhere Inside set comes first chronologically and has as its basis a January 1967 appearance on CHUM radio in the Ducklings’ hometown of Toronto. Framed by on-air interview segments are six live in studio recordings, three demos, and one alternate mix. The live in studio tracks are all of good fidelity, and of the familiar numbers also recorded for Yorkville, “Nothin'” features a more elastic and looser Roger Mayne lead guitar, while this “My Little Red Book” is a bit faster and more like the Love version.
Another of the tracks listed as “live” is “My Watch” which is an original Dave Bingham and Glynn Bell composition and has a solid funky blues quality to it. The cover of “I’m A Man” did turn up previously in Sundazed’s Garage Beat ’66 compilation series, but it goes well with the short take on “Home In Your Heart”.
Of the three songs listed as demos (only here does the fidelity vary, though never too badly), all are covers. “Somebody Help Me” was a hit for the Hollies, “You’ve Got It Made” is the blues song, and “Out Of Sight” the soul number. There is also a great alternate mix of “Postman’s Fancy” which has a more psychedelic effect than the original side. With all the historic interview and radio segments this disc makes a good addition to the Ugly Ducklings collection.
The recordings on Thump & Twang begin with a November 1967 studio session wherein new member Mike McKenna’s original “The Blues Fell This Morning” is cut. Following Glynn Bell’s departure the Ducklings continued recording as a four piece, still fronted by singer Dave Bingham and backed by original drummer Robin Boers who is said to have added a second bass drum ala Ginger Baker at this time. Aside from two takes of Bo Diddley’s “You Can’t Judge A Book” (one being from a TV appearance), all tracks are written by Bingham and/or McKenna. They’re all solid early 1968 vintage blues rock pointing toward the future Mainline group and sometimes with a bit of a Byrds country vibe. Apparently this was not the kind of hit single music Yorkville had been hoping for however, and after the falling out with their label the Ugly Ducklings broke up.
See the Pacemaker site for more information on this release.
The Esquires – The Singles… Plus (2011, Pacemaker PACE 085) Review by Rebecca Jansen
It’s been two dozen years now since a short b&w film clip of a well-groomed skinny-tied early ’60s instrumental combo began showing up on the Canadian music video channel. They played an original Shadowsesque toe-tapper on Fenders and a Gibson whilst a not too serious drummer paradiddled at a kit with a bass drum that read “The Esquires”. It was too perfect to be a hoax, and the song burrowed into my mind even more than the drum lettering.
About a dozen years ago a CD series was launched by EMI Music Canada called the “Northern Heritage Connoisseur Series,” and part of this series was the 1963 album Introducing The Esquires. Remembering the Shadowsesque group in the film clip and seeing the cover made up to look like the Shadows own famous first LP (right down to the guys’ sweaters) I knew this must be that Esquires. It was, and I would hit replay after the track “Man From Adano” so many times I risked wearing out that button! I don’t know if it’s the memory of the almost Devo-like vintage film clip appearing anachronistically among a lot of modern videos, or the interweaving of guitar and background aaaah-aaaah-aaah-aaahs, but I’d almost swear The Esquires were more the Shadows than the Shadows ever were for this sligthly under two minutes. Like Les Paul’s “Nola” or Link Wray’s “Rumble” before it, it’s one of those tunes that branded itself right onto my brain and will never go, and yet somehow with each relistening making the mark deeper it feels good there.
Now Pacemaker has collected up seemingly everything else by the Esquires of Ottawa and with a photo-festooned and informative book I can scratch this itch all over again. In the manner of England’s Fluer De Lys or Germany’s Rattles, the Esquires of the earliest demos included here are a totally different group of people than the ones who play on their final Columbia single some years further along. In between still other members came and went, like singer Don Norman who dominated vocally and lyrically for the third through fifth Capitol singles only and then went on to lead Don Norman & The Other Four. Norman’s style was very smooth mid-60s Cliff Richard, and his original songs are as satisfyingly hook-laden as anything by bigger names of the era, particularly “So Many Other Boys”.
Don Norman has become somewhat familar to me before this release, so the real revelation here are the final two Columbia singles from 1966. With new members Ted Gerow on keyboard (a future Staccato, see Pacemaker’s great two disc First Sparks collection), and John Cassidy on guitar the Esquires took a moddish r&b turn for the interesting. Still with second drummer Richard Patterson (destined for 3’s A Crowd), and lead vocals from Brian Lewicki, “It’s a Dirty Shame” is a solid garage-rocker that escaped my ears until now, and the follow-up “Love Hides A Multitude Of Sins” is a totally infectious dancable raver (reportedly Zombies inspired). My poor replay button! The flipsides of both are almost equally deserving of attention as well, and yet what with the lack of support in Canada for homegrown rock & roll this was to be the last heard from the Esquires until much later reunions.
This CD is however loaded with bonus tracks from unissued demos and TV appearances to quality live recordings. And now finally, wonder of wonders, that film clip that haunted me all this time itself is explained; “shot in 1963… (two clips, one I’ve yet to see) are considered the first-ever Canadian pop videos and were made when a local vending machine entrepreneur brought back some early video machines [Scopitones] from France. Having nothing but French pop stars on them, he decided to feature Canadian acts.” That 16mm film of “Man From Adano” stands as a peek into a different time and sound as iconically as the celebrated 1906 Market Street in San Francisco film, as only a few weeks later the Beatles began their invasion! In the footsteps of Lonnie Donegan, Cliff and the Shadows, the Beatles hit first in Canada (many later-famous U.S. musicians have noted how they first heard that group while in Canada), but for me ‘Man From Adano’ will always be the coolest piece of Canadian rock.
See the Pacemaker site for more information on this release.
Matt Faulkner spoke to Bob Burrows, vocalist and leader of Bobby Kris and the Imperials, and writes this article about the group:
Bobby Kris and the Imperials stood at the front of Toronto’s fruitful R&B scene in the mid-60s, alongside other notable acts like Richie Knight and The Mid-Knights, Mandala and Little Caesar and the Consuls. The group was one of the fourteen groups to take stage at the legendary “Toronto Sound” show at Maple Leaf Gardens, where they shared the stage with Toronto garage and psych greats such as Luke and the Apostles, The Ugly Ducklings, and the Paupers.
Originally titled J.S. and the Imperials, with Jimmy Snowden on vocals, the group had a number of lineup changes and recruitments from other bands. In early 1965, Bobby Kris joined the line up, and shortly after the key recording line up of the band was formed.
Bobby Kris (Bob Burrows) – vocals Jerry Mann (aka Jerry Shymanski) – tenor sax Rick Loth – tenor sax Marty Fisher – piano Gene Martynec – guitar Dave Konvalinka – bass Gordon MacBain – drums
The band fashioned themselves primarily an R&B outfit, having a hit with the Dionne Warwick classic “Walk On By”, and boasting a seven part line up, including two saxophones and keyboards. However, their recorded output does little to reflect this side of their sound, as the bulk of the songs on their two singles are more on the folky garage side of things. “Walk on By” was in fact the B-side of their first single, with the Bobby Kris/Gene Martynec penned “Travellin’ Bag” on the top side.
Their second single was fronted with a cover of Dylan’s “She Belongs to Me”, and a Byrds-like Kris/Martynec original, “A Year from Today” on the flip. It only took a lone three hour recording session for all four tracks to be laid down by the group, whom at the time consisted of Bobby Kris on lead vocals, Marty Fisher on keyboard, Gord MacBain on drums, Dave Konvalinka on bass, Gene Martynec on guitar, and Jerry Mann and Rick Loth sharing saxophone duties. Despite the recordings being a departure from their regular material, these singles hold up as worth while listening today, with “Travellin’ Bag” being one of my personal favourite recordings to come from the mid-60s “Toronto Sound”.
“We wrote the two songs as you know. To the best of my recollection we never played either one of them ever again,” said Kris, in one of our many online conversations. “For our normal fan base in Toronto, those songs were, well… an embarrassment, which explains why we never played them live. People who were into James Brown and Ray Charles didn’t want to hear Herman’s Hermits. If we played ‘Travellin’ Bag’ at one of those dances people would have thrown stuff at us.”
“The powers that be behind the recording session – including that wizard in the control room Stan and our supposed manager at the time, Fred White – determined that rhythm and blues was dead meat and that the only way for us to be successful was to make British style recordings. It didn’t occur to them that a lot of those British bands were in fact listening to American R&B. They didn’t want us to record ‘Walk On By’ at all. Not sure how we got away with that. In fact it was the B-side to ‘Travellin’ Bag’. Thankfully some DJ in Toronto turned it over! For some reason or other Eugene and I got commandeered or volunteered to write some songs, although we had never written any songs before. Somebody stumbled across a Dylan song that nobody had covered yet that we all liked. Not sure who did the arrangement on ‘She Belongs to Me.’ Likely Konvalinka.”
“We continued to be an R&B band after the session. We ended up trying some rather extreme experiments with some really fundamental blues songs by Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters and such that was somewhat imitative of The Hawk’s recording with John Hammond Jr. – So Many Roads. But even then we were still fundamentally in the same musical neighbourhood. Unfortunately the pressure from all these supposed wise men to change our evil ways led to us throwing out the horns. No more three-piece silk and wool suits. Now we had flowery shirts or polka dots. Talk about not cutting your own path. Everyone in the world was doing that. Chances of being ‘discovered’ in that environment were about the same as winning the lottery. They say Robert Johnson sold his soul to the Devil. We sold ours to a bunch of dorks on Yonge St.”
“By the way, not long after that, along came Paul Butterfield and others who showed there was still a great market for that approach and style. We did have lots of fun eventually covering a new kind of material. We tried to be selective about it, and still leaned towards the bluesier stuff. That was the most fundamental problem Bobby Kris and The Imperials always had: We were exclusively a cover band. That’s mostly because we were playing teen dances and, later, bars where people expected to hear certain tunes, and you either played them or you didn’t play there. There was very little if any interest in original material in those venues.”
When doing some research on the group, I stumbled upon an interesting ad for one of the band’s shows later in their career. It was in 1968 at the Brass Rail Tavern, and the ad boasted that the show would feature “4 Topless Psychedelic Go-Go Dancers”. “We drank our brains out to get through the night there,” was Kris’s only remark.
During their tenure, the group managed to share the stage with an impressive list of bands, including The Lovin’ Spoonful, The Beach Boys, Jose Feliciano, and Wilson Pickett, who at the time boasted Jimi Hendrix on guitar. Hendrix actually joined The Imperials on stage during one of their sets at the Night Owl. However, by late 1967, enough band members had gone on to other projects, that the group decided to call it quits.
Gene Martynec went on to form Kensington Market in May, and in September Marty Fisher and Gord MacBaingot recruited for Bruce Cockburn’s Flying Circus. Kris auditioned for the vocal position in Flying Circus with a favourable outcome, until, as Kris puts it “they decided that no one could sing Bruce’s songs better than Bruce, which was true.” Kris went on to front Livingstone’s Journey for a brief period before reforming an altered line up of The Imperials in mid-1968. A year later Gord MacBain left the reformed Imperials to go to England and join Mapleoak with Marty Fisher and original Kinks bassist, Pete Quaife, and thus Bobby Kris and the Imperials were done for good.
Special thanks to Nick Warburton and Bob Burrows (aka Bobby Kris). You can check out Nick’s article for a more detailed history of the band here.
Thanks also to Ivan Amirault for the RPM article scans.
Bobby Kris also put out an EP in 1995 titled “Now” which you can check out on iTunes.
Nick Warburton assembled this list of advertised live shows:
Advertised gigs
June 18 1965 – Mimicombo, Mimico, Ontario July 9 1965 – Jubilee Auditorium, Oshawa, Ontario July 17 1965 – Purple Candle Club, Wasaga Beach, Ontario August 7 1965 – Purple Candle Club, Wasaga Beach, Ontario (new line up with Wayne and Loth) August 27 1965 – Dunn’s Pavilion, Bala, Ontario August 28 1965 – Club 888, Toronto September 4 1965 – Club 888, Toronto September 24 1965 – Mimacombo A Go-Go, Mimacombo, Ontario November 5 1965 – Jubilee Auditorium, Oshawa, Ontario (not sure about date) November 28 1965 – Avenue Road Club, Toronto December 18 1965 – Club 888, Toronto December 25 1965 – Gogue Inn, Toronto with The Sparrows and The Twilights December 26 1965 – Hop in the park, Toronto January 28 1966 – Jubilee Auditorium, Oshawa, Ontario January 29 1966 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto March 19 1966 – North Toronto Memorial Arena, Toronto April 13 1966 – O’Keefe Centre, Toronto with National Ballet Company and Susan Taylor April 15 1966 – North Toronto Memorial Arena, Toronto May 8 1966 – Massey Hall, Toronto with The Lovin’ Spoonful, The Big Town Boys and Little Caesar & The Consuls May 14 1966 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto (one of Wayne and Loth’s final dates) June 12 1966 – Modern Age Teen Lounge, Toronto (one of Davis’ first dates) June 26 1966 – Broom and Stone, Scarborough with The Five Rogues July 8 1966 – Balmy Beach Club, Scarborough, Ontario July 9 1966 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto July 13 1966 – Whitby Arena, Whitby, Ontario with The Five Rogues, The Ugly Ducklings and Jon and Lee & The Checkmates July 20 1966 – Don Mills Curling Club, Don Mills, Ontario with Jon and Lee & The Checkmates, The British Modbeats and Dunc & The Deacons July 22 1966 – Jubilee Auditorium, Oshawa, Ontario July 23 1966 – Hunter’s Beach Pavilion, Lake Simcoe, Ontario July 26 1966 – Balmy Beach Club, Scarborough, Ontario July 30 1966 – Purple Candle Club, Wasaga Beach, Ontario July 30-31 1966 – Purple Candle Club, Wasaga Beach, Ontario with R K & The Associates August 2 1966 – North Toronto Memorial Arena with The Stitch In Tyme and Luke & The Apostles (one of Shymanski’s final dates?) August 20 1966 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto August 21 1966 – Jubilee Auditorium, Oshawa, Ontario August 30 1966 – North Toronto Memorial Arena with The Five Rogues and The Fiends September 3 1966 – Port Carling Surf Club, Port Carling, Ontario September 9 1966 – Hawk’s Nest, Toronto September 16 1966 – Jubilee Auditorium, Oshawa, Ontario September 24 1966 – Maple Leaf Gardens with The Last Words, Luke & The Apostles, The Ugly Ducklings, The Tripp, The Paupers, The Big Town Boys, The Stitch In Tyme, The Spasstiks, Roy Kenner & The Associates, Little Caesar & The Consuls and others September 30 1966 – Gogue Inn, Toronto (blue room) October 8 1966 – Club 888, Toronto with The Tripp October 22 1966 – Club Kingsway, Toronto with Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs, The Ugly Ducklings and The Ardels November 27 1966 – El Patio, Toronto December 18 1966 – Boris’, Toronto December 23 1966 – Horseshoe Valley, Barrie, Ontario January 6 1967 – Gogue Inn, Toronto with A Passing Fancy and The Dana January 27 1967 – Shelburne Arena, Shelburne, Ontario March 1967 – The Syndicate Club, Toronto March 24 1967 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto with Franklin Sheppard and The Good Sheppards and R K and The Associates May 13 1967 – Whitby Arena, Whitby, Ontario with Shawne Jackson, Jay Jackson & The Majestics, The Last Words, E G Smith & The Power, Jack Hardin & The Silhouettes, Roy Kenner & The Associates, The Tripp, The Ugly Ducklings and others (possibly one of Martynec’s final dates) May 27 1967 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto June 9 1967 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto June 10 1967 – Scarborough Arena Gardens, Scarborough, Ontario with Eddie Spencer & The Mission, The Magic Circus, The Tripp, Roy Kenner & The Associates, The Lords of London and others June 16 1967 – Bramalea Arena, Bramalea, Ontario with James and Bobby Purify with The Mission June 17 1967 – Don Mills Curling Club, Toronto with The Symbol July 29 1967 – Broom and Stone, Scarborough with BTB 4 and The Dynamics June 13-14 1968 – The Night Owl, Toronto July 19 1968 – Brass Rail Tavern, Toronto October 5 1968 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto June 19-21 1969 – The Night Owl, Toronto
Dates taken from the Toronto Telegram’s After Four section, Globe and Mail and Toronto Star.
RPM, November 15, 1965April 18, 1966RPM, May 16, 1966RPM, June 6, 1966RPM, June 6, 1966
The Factree, from left: Rick Gauthier, Chris Smith and Mike WeaverAs the Factory, 1967
Like the Sinners who I profiled last week, the Factree came from the Niagara region of southern Ontario.
Guitarist Chris Smith spoke to me about the group and shared his incredible collection of photos and memorabilia along with a CD collecting the band’s music.
There are some great unreleased songs. The early “Who I Am” was written by bassist Rick Gauthier and drummer Mike Weaver and recorded in Chris Smith’s garage. Chris lets loose three incredible buzzing guitar passages, one after each chorus. Rick’s bass lines lock in with Mike’s drumming for a solid backing rhythm. It must have been a great sound to hear live.
Another self-recorded song was Chris’s original “Blue Shades”. The vocals boom from a distance over rolling drums and a repetitive guitar and bass vamp to give an eerie effect. Chris provides another cutting solo.
There are two versions of another Chris Smith original, “Something Called Love”, and they make for a good comparison. The demo recorded at a Timmins, Ontario radio station has a cool bizarre ending not used on the Sparton 45 version, which is tighter and has good use of echo.
Mike Weaver and Rick Gauthier wrote the other side of the Sparton 45, “Kaleidoscope” which may be the culmination of their heavy sound, from Chris’ dissonant opening riff to the psychedelic lyrics and trippy middle section. After a great sludgy solo, Rick’s bass slows to a final Hendrix-inspired lick enveloped in echo. More than any Canadian or U.S. music of the time, “Kaleidoscope” reminds me of the hard-driving rock being cut by English groups like Tomorrow and the Pretty Things.
The Factree postcardThe Tree postcard
By 1969 the band was going by an abbreviated name, the Tree, and cut one last 45 for Michael Addario’s Canland Records label, a loose, catchy version of the Electric Flag’s “See to Your Neighbor” with Mike Weaver’s drums and the rough vocals standing out. It was backed with a Creedence-style version of Suzie Q.
Left to right: Rick Gauthier, Chris Smith and Mike Weaverfrom left: Mike, Chris and Rick
Chris Smith, RCA Studios, 1968Mike Weaver, RCA Studios, 1968Rick Gauthier, RCA Studios, 1968from left: Rick, Chris and Mike
McIntyre Arena, May 19, 1969
Chris Smith answered some of my questions about the group:
I started playing guitar at age 14 like most my age after seeing the Beatles, we figured that’s cool. There were several groups before the Factory. – the Mercy Beats (’64/’65 – there might have been a bigger band with this name, we were just kids in my garage singing Beatles songs); the Spyders (’65/’66 – British rock); the Executioners and the Silencers (’66 – both pop rock); the Moddels (’66/’67 all the cool mod songs and blues); & the 13th Floor (’67 – Doors, Vanilla Fudge etc).
Q. When you joined the Factree they were still known as the Sinners, is that correct? Or was it started as a completely new band?
The Sinners had nothing to do with Factory. Mike and Rick were playing with the Mood – they broke up. I was playing with the 13th Floor. We were looking for a singer and got ahold of Rick to jam. Rick came out but was really only interested in me as a guitar player and wanted to stay with his drummer Mike, so he asked me to jam on our own. This was around ’66 / ’67 – Hendrix, Cream, etc, three man was in, so we wanted to go in that direction.
We came up with the name The Factory. We later changed it to Factree, later our fans kinda shortened to the Tree. The joke was we decided to Fac off. We were about half original, the rest Cream, Hendrix, usual acid rock stuff of the era. We were friends with the Spartons, The Sinners, The Night Walkers, many others, also friendly rivals of everyone – that’s just the way it was.
I wrote “Something Called Love”. We were messing with our garage recordings on a bunch of stuff. The garage recordings were done using two Phillips stereo recorders, Shure PE58 mics one on bass amp, one on guitar, overhead and snare and kick mikes. Run through a Shure mixer, vocals added on during mix. The reverb is the hallway that led to my basement, no processors at that time. I ran 100 feet of cable from the garage, we sang into the PA in the garage, sent it to a speaker in the hall, mike at the other end back to the recorders in the garage. With such long cables no low impedance, no balanced feeds back then, it’s a wonder the noise isn’t too bad considering. That was my start as a engineer for sure.
Pete Borbolli was the DJ friend of the Mood who recorded them on their 45, “Who Do You Love” and “Train’s Late”. He moved to Timmins and asked us to come up. The radio station was old school had real nice full studio for big band era stuff. We recorded “Something Called Love” and some other stuff there. We played a couple of large dance concerts up there hosted by the radio station.
Pete really flogged the music and it was on the playlist and did #1 in the Top Ten. We had a loyal following there and lots of promo and hype to boot. The demo did lead to the RCA contract.
The RCA sessions were a big thing for us small town boys in a real big studio in the big city Toronto. Everything was done in a few hours, we got there around noon and the studio closed at 5:00 so out the door we went. We managed to get it down, so all was good.
The RCA Sparton 45 was promoted by the company and did get considerable airplay at the time so we were happy. The first single on Sparton was to be followed by the second two songs we recorded that day – yeah we did four. It was unfortunate the masters were damaged before the second release was pressed.
We had a falling out with the producer so we decided to [go with] Canland, a friend who had a small music store and some recording gear in a back room. The Canland recording was more home brew and didn’t get the distribution of the RCA 45. It did keep us current and we had product to promote so the live scene was very successful for us.
Q. Regarding the vocals, were you singing lead on your songs and Rick and Mike singing together on ‘Who I Am’ and ‘Kaleidoscope’? How about ‘See to Your Neighbor’, which sounds very different than any other vocal by the band?
Yes, you are right about the vocals. I mainly sing lead on my own and the same for them. “See to Your Neighbour” was sung by Mike.
Q. Can you recall your setup as far as your guitar sound on the recordings and for live shows? You get a great variety of distorted tones on your leads – were there particular combinations of pedals and amps that you preferred?
The Timmins set up was a ’64 Gibson SG and Kimberly Fuzz made in Rochester, NY plugged directly into an Ampex tube mixer then direct to recorder. The garage stuff was Telecaster/SG and Kimberly through a Bandmaster. My set up at RCA was a ’61 Telecaster and ’66 Bandmaster, Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face. The Canland Tree stuff was Ace Tone Wah, Fuzz Face and Marshall Plexi.
Live, my main Factory/Factree/Tree set up was the Ace Tone Wah, Fuzz Face gradually discontinued in lieu of straight over-driven guitar through the Marshall. For the arena rock and halls I used a Marshall and Bandmaster with Sykes cabinets and a Traynor Roto Master Leslie (“I’m a Man” kinda sound). The guitars ’61 Telecaster, ’64 Gibson SG, later ’66 Burns Nu Sonic, ’67 Rickenbacker. The fuzzes evolved from the Kimberly, Zonk [John Hornby Skewes’ Zonk Machine], Fuzz Face, to none. The Ace Tone Wah most of the way in fact I still have it but haven’t used it in years.
Q. Did the group end with Mike Weaver’s sudden death?
Mike was from the club era and wanted to go more commercial away from acid rock, high school & dance concert stuff, so by 1970 we started play more hotel circuit stuff. I wanted to carry on my concert style and didn’t like the club scene on the road – too many nights in the same spot doing stuff I didn’t like. So I left the band.
They continued for a few months when Mike had his first heart attack. He was off a few months then back at it, he became ill again and died a few months later. Either way that was end of the band. Rick finished with another drummer and guitarist but it was over quick.
With the Spencer Davis Group at the McIntyre Arena in Timmins, May 19, 1969. Back row: Spencer Davis, Chris Smith, Rick Gauthier, unidentified. Front: unidentified, Ray Fenwick (?), Mike Weaver. Can anyone help ID the other members of the Spencer Davis Group at this time? Are these still Pete York and Eddie Hardin, or Dee Murray and Nigel Olssen?
Q. In one of the clippings by Kevin Scanlon he writes that there was a deal with Island Records in the works – what happened with that?
The Island thing never went much beyond the rumor. Spencer Davis was talking about trying to set something up but they were pretty much defunct after our couple of gigs. We were hopeful to go to England and pursue the mission, but our own problems and lifestyles, change in direction and factors I discussed before – well it just didn’t happen. As a recap this inability to keep moving toward larger venues ultimately led me to leave my own group.
When I moved on I allowed Mike and Rick to continue as Factree again. Since the begining I was the leader and as such was paid double and had 50% control of any vote issues as well. Just because I was unhappy with direction, I felt I would let them carry on.
Q. What was your next project?
I was playing my thing with Padlok (heavy ’70s rock, half original) – see my web site www.kingoftheattic.com for details, samples and photos.
The Sinners, clockwise from top left: Al Bartok, Mike Weaver, André Germain, Jack Schaefer and Ritchie Gauthier
André Germain writes about his bands from Welland, Ontario, a short distance from Buffalo: The Sinners, Evan Hunt and the Capris and The Penny Illusion. Demos he recorded with the Sinners now seem to be lost, unfortunately. The Sinners evolved into the Mood, who cut a tough version of “Who Do You Love” for the Cove label after André had left the band.
The Sinners (1965-1966)
Ritchie Gauthier (aka Ritchie Stringer): vocals/rhythm guitar Mike Weaver: drums/back-up vocals Al Bartok: bass (later replaced by Glen Boscei) Jack Schaefer: keyboards André Germain: lead/rhythm guitar (later replaced by Dave Pine)
Jack Schaefer and I playing our Kents at Davis Hall (Fonthill) for a frat dance, 1965. (John Whittaker on drums)
In 1964, one of my younger frat brothers was taking guitar lessons and he could chord along when we’d have a drinking party and get to singing songs such as “Lemon Tree”, “Tom Dooley” etc., as long as he had a music book with the chords and notes in front of him. Unfortunately he had a “tin ear” and could not even tune his guitar properly. Already 22 years old, I bought a cheap $20 Kent plywood acoustic guitar with “shotgun stringing” (really high and tough action) with the intention of learning a few basic chords so I could tell him the chord changes as we sang. Didn’t take long for me to get hooked on the guitar. Blisters on the fingers of my left hand, blood on the fretboard, until finally I developed thick calluses.
I borrowed my friend’s Kent solid-body electric guitar and his Paul amp when the frat rented a cottage for a couple of weeks in the summer of 1964. As luck would have it, we got “raided” by a rival frat from Pt. Colborne. These guys came in and smashed everything including the Kent and the Paul amp. One of my frat brothers got his nose broken when struck by a tire iron and another had a wicked bruise on his shoulder when another guy hit him with a small crowbar.
Fortunately, my friend’s parents’ home insurance replaced his guitar so I got to keep the broken Kent. I bought a piece of mahogany and carved another body for it, fitted the neck and the pickguard with its electronics to it and ended up with a decent playable guitar. I bought Ventures and Shadows and other guitar-based records and wore the grooves off of them trying to learn instrumentals such as “Apache”, “Walk, Don’t Run”, “Sleepwalk”, etc. This guitar played a lot easier than my cheap flat-top. Another one of my frat brothers who was into electronics added an input jack to our old Westinghouse (5-watt all tube) hi-fi so I could play the guitar through it. Nothing fancy but it worked.
I took to hanging out at the Melody Shop, a neighbourhood music store owned and operated by Tom Wright. Tom, in his late 40’s, let me take various guitars off the wall and play them through whatever amps he had in store. Sure was nice to have such access to pro equipment for free…
The Sinners
One fine day in the spring of 1965, a couple of weeks after having been laid off from Atlas Steels, as I was sitting in the living room of our family’s apartment playing my Kent, two young guys showed up at the door. They introduced themselves as Ritchie Gauthier and Mike Weaver, musicians whose band had just broke up and who were looking for a lead guitarist for a new band. Tom Wright had given them my name. They told me that they were planning on doing Top 40 material such as the Beatles and Rolling Stones, etc. They invited me to a practice at Mike Weaver’s mother’s house if I were interested. When I told them I didn’t even have an amp, they told me they’d have one for me to use. So, I agreed.
A couple of days later, I grabbed the Kent and off I went walking across town to Mike’s house. When I got there, they introduced me to Al Bartok, the bass player. Played a Fender P-bass through one of those Ampeg flip-top all-tube amps with a 15″ speaker. Ritchie Gauthier was the lead vocalist/rhythm guitarist and Mike Weaver was the drummer/back-up vocalist. These guys were all a few years younger then me, in their late teens.
Mike and Ritchie played some 45’s on a portable record-player and explained what parts they expected me to play on any given song. Graced with a decent “musical ear”, I had no trouble picking up on the simple chord patterns and the lead fills of most of the pop songs of that era. Most were 3 or 4 chord structures in C, D, E, G or A. And so I was drafted into the band.
My Burns Nu-Sonic, 1965
Of course, one of the toughest things a band back then was faced with was coming up with a good catchy name. We bandied a few monikers around and finally settled on one I suggested, “The Sinners”. We then reworked an old gospel tune, “Sinner Man”, giving it a rock beat, and made it our theme song. “Sinner man, where you gonna run to, sinner man, where you gonna run to, sinner man, where you gonna run to, all on that day?!!”
It took two or three weeks of practice to work out enough songs to be able to play a gig. Our song list included such hits as the Rolling Stones’ “Time Is On My Side”, “Walking The Dog” and “Get Off Of My Cloud”, Fontella Bass’ “Rescue Me” which Ritchie sang in a high falsetto, the Beatles’ “I Saw Her Standing There”, Sam the Sham’s “Wooly Bully” and Sonny and Cher’s “Everyone’s Gone To The Moon”. Ritchie and Mike let me take the 45s home so I could work on the guitar riffs and everything was coming together really well.
That’s when I decided I needed to get a “real” guitar and amp. I went to the Melody Shop and asked Tom what kind of a deal he could do me. He’d just gotten a sunburst Gibson ES-330 in trade and offered it to me for $250 with HS case but at the time, that wasn’t my idea of a R&R guitar. Hate to think what that guitar would be worth today! Tom then pulled out a glossy folder advertising a line of guitars out of England. Well, the UK was big news back then with the British Invasion just taking off in N. America! The guitars were the Burns of London line. Already a big fan of the Shadows, how could I resist? I had Tom order me a transparent orange/red NU Sonic. It listed for $325 but Tom sold it to me for $250 with faux alligator case thrown in. I also bought a new Harmony H-306 all-tube amp off of him. 12AX7 pre-amp tubes and push-pull 6V6’s for the power section, footswitchable “Normal” and “Tremolo” channels, single 12″ Jensen speaker, putting out a hefty 15 WRMS. So, in the immortal words of the Bard’s Julius Caesar, the die was cast.
We played a few high school and teen dances and were going over pretty good. There were a lot of high school frats and sororities around at the time and they often held dances to raise funds. A lot of these dances took place at the Knights of Columbus Hall on Lincoln St. W. in Welland. We played there quite a few times. The Rose Festival Committee of Welland hired us to play a big dance at the Welland Arena where two stages were set up, one at each end. The Spartans, another local band, occupied one stage and we the other. We alternated sets.
One of the highlights for me was when Rick Hales who was president of the Welland High & Vocational School Dance Committee hired us to play a Valentine’s Dance in February 1966 at WH&VS, my old alma mater. At another high school dance (Eastdale Secondary School) Al broke a string on his bass during the first set and had no replacement. He made do with the remaining 3 strings but as soon as the set was over (about 9:40 pm) we phoned Bill Nitranski, owner of Central Music. Bill had been building up his music store business over the previous few years and was one of those really nice guys who trusted everybody. He’d rent out equipment such as P.A. systems just on your promise to pay when you brought the stuff back. When we described our plight to Bill, he jumped in his car, drove back to his store which had closed at 9 pm., got a replacement string and delivered it to the high school auditorium where we were performing, all this within 15 minutes! By the time we were to go back onstage, Al’s bass had the new string on it.
After a few weeks Ritchie and Mike suggested we should add keyboards to the band. Right off, I suggested my good friend Jack Schaefer. Jack had taken accordion lessons for 10 years, classically trained, and won 1st. place in one of those kids’ talent shows that were popular on TV back in the late 50’s. The guys agreed to give him an audition. I called Jack and explained to him he’d have to buy an electric organ and an amp if he were to make it into the band. He said that wasn’t a problem. He immediately went out and bought himself a Hohner organ and a huge Gibson Atlas amp with 15″ driver. Jack had an excellent ear and picked up on our songs in no time. Fit right in. Only trouble was that he liked to play everything flat out full volume. Wasn’t long before I had to upgrade my amp just to be heard. Tom Wright at the Melody Shop told me his friend Grant Carson of The Country Diamonds, a local C&W band, was trading in his ’63 Fender Bandmaster for a Fender Dual Showman so I got the Bandmaster at a good price.
On the Road
Two members of the Inferno 5+1 in front of Club 23, Cornwall, Ontario
Neil Peart, the famous drummer for Rush, describes in his book “Road Music” how he spent a lot of time in his youth at the Lincoln Curling Center grooving to live bands. There’s a good chance we were one of those bands because we played there a few times in 1965. Around this time, we were approached by Mike Addario, the bass player for The Marquis, another local band. Turns out Mike was trying his hand at being a booking agent/manager as well as a recording engineer. He soon got us a full-week gig at a teen club in Cornwall, Ontario. This caused a big shuffle in the band. Al’s mother wouldn’t let him go with us to Cornwall for that gig. We got Glen Boscei to take his place on bass. Jack Schaefer had just gotten a job as a teller at the CIBC in Welland and wasn’t about to jeopardise a burgeoning banking carreer so he opted out of the band then too.
So off we went on a hot August Sunday morning, Ritchie, Mike, Glen and I, with all our gear in a rented U-Haul trailer hitched to the back of Ritchie’s father’s car, to the bus station in St. Catharines. After waiting 4 hours for our bus, we ended up missing it because, having been given wrong info, we were on the wrong loading platform. The Greyhound company ended up having to re-route an Express to Montreal through Cornwall to accommodate us. That was a long day. We’d gotten to the bus station at 8 a.m and didn’t get to Cornwall until 1 am that night. The owner of the club where we were to play had been notified of the bus change and had patiently awaited our arrival. He helped us load our gear aboard a taxi and sent us off to a motel room he’d booked for us. I still have a very vivid memory of stepping off the bus and gagging as the rotten cabbage smell of the town’s air hit my nose. Cornwall’s main industry at the time was a pulp and paper mill and anybody who has ever been in the vicinity of one of those will know what I’m talking about here…
After a bad night’s sleep and a greasy restaurant brunch, we loaded our gear aboard a taxi and went to Club 23 to set up. We were to play from Monday through Saturday, 8 p.m. until midnight and also a matinee from 3 p.m. until 5 p.m. on the Saturday where we shared the stage with Wee Five, the band that would be playing there the following week. This was mid-August and Cornwall was in the midst of a heat wave. The club had no A/C so it got hot in there when the local teens filled the place. Ritchie kept tossing back cold drinks in spite of my warnings and by Thursday evening, lost his voice! All that was coming out of him was a croak. Good thing Mike and Glen were able to take up the slack or we’d have been sunk. Between sets, Ritchie helped Mike write out the words to the songs he and Glen would be doing and that got us through the rest of the week. Meanwhile I developed some kind of intestinal infection and suffered bad stomach cramps most of the week and lost about 10 pounds by the time Saturday night came along.
So, that was my introduction to “the road”, and it was enough to convince me this was not the life I wanted, as much as I liked playing music. Our agent, Mike Addario, was supposed to call us and tell us where we’d be going from there, what gig would be next, but by the week’s end we still hadn’t heard from him. Finally, on the Sunday, we phoned him and he told us we could stay put there at the motel (at our cost!) and he’d be sure to find us another gig. Well, I told the guys I was heading back to Welland while I still had change in my pocket. They had a confab and decided that was the smart thing to do so we packed our gear and took the next Greyhound home.
Recording and leaving the band
Mike Addario had set up a rudimentary recording studio in his parents house’s basement and called his company “Canland Recording”. There, we recorded two songs, our original version of “Sinner Man” and “Ten Dollar Woman”, a tune penned by Glen our bass player. Mike did a decent job of the recording with what little he had to work with and the finished result sounded pretty good. Unfortunately, when he tried to register the songs with ASCAP, the B side, “Ten Dollar Woman” was turned down because its content was considered too risqué. The song was about a prostitute who was too expensive for a cheap would-be client (a five-dollar man). I asked Mike Addario if perchance he still had the master tapes of the Sinners songs we recorded but he said they got lost a long time ago, more’s the pity.
It was around this time that I was really getting into the acoustic guitar and folk music, spending all my time trying to learn Tom Rush and Gord Lightfoot tunes. This pissed off my fellow bandmates who were getting ready to go back to Mike’s studio to record another song for the B-side of our record. One day a friend of mine came along and told me he’d just gone by Glen’s house, heard the band practicing and wondered why I wasn’t there. I walked over to Glen’s and sure enough, I could hear the band but nobody’d told me about a practice… I knocked at the door but nobody answered (probably couldn’t hear me over the instruments) so finally I just walked in. Mike, Ritchie and Glen looked mighty sheepish when I appeared. They had a guy playing lead guitar so it was obvious I was being replaced. Mike and Ritchie mumbled excuses about me bing a “folkie” and not fitting in with the band anymore. So that was that! The new lead guitarist introduced himself as Dave Pine. I’d heard of him and knew he was good on his instrument as well as being a fine vocalist, so I wished the guys well and walked out of there.
Some months later I heard that the Sinners, now called “The Mood”, had gone back into Mike’s Canland Studio and recorded the B-side with Dave Pine singing a rendition of “Who Do You Love” [Released b/w “Train’s Late” on Cove Records, produced by Pete Borbely]. And then, the next thing I heard was that Dave had left the group and headed to Toronto to seek his fortune. Over the years, he headed a couple of jazz/R&B groups up there and managed to make a decent living with his music. Then late one night after a gig, he wrapped his car around a tree and suffered some major injuries. He was in a coma for a while, touch and go, and never fully recovered from the accident. He spent the remainder of his life in a wheelchair and died a broken man a few years back. Tragic!
After Dave left the Sinners, Glen soon was out of the picture as well. Ritchie switched over to bass guitar and Chris Smith, a young guitarist out of Port Colborne, took over as lead guitar. The trio changed their name to Factree and later, Tree. They played locally and released a couple of singles. And then another tragedy. Around 1971, the newly-wed Mike Weaver collapsed on stage in the middle of a gig. His doctor recommended at least a month of rest but Mike was back at his drumming within a week. Shortly thereafter he collapsed again but this time, it was fatal. He left behind a young wife and a baby. Sad…
Evan Hunt and the Capris between sets at the Night Owl, from left: Bob Lightheart, Andre Germain, Evan Hunt, Ron Bovine and John Lane. Photo courtesy Ron Bovine
Evan Hunt and the Capris (1967-1968)
Evan Hunt: vocals John Lane: drums Bob Vida: bass (soon replaced by Ron Bovine: bass/back-up vocals) Bob Lightheart: keyboards/back-up vocals André Germain: lead/rhythm guitar/back-up vocals
Meanwhile, about a year after losing my job with The Sinners, another knock at my door. The man introduced himself as Mr. John Lane, manager and agent of a local band, The Capris. He explained the band had just hired Evan Hunt as singer/frontman. Evan had been vocalist for The Liverpool Set, a Canadian “British Invasion” band which had had fair success in the States doing Beatles and Byrds tunes as well as some original compositions. Mr. Lane said he was ready to do anything it might take to make the Capris a successful band. Tom Wright from the Melody Shop had again recommended me. I explained that I’d sold all my gear. Mr. Lane said that was ok, that I could use his son’s gear. Turns out he was firing his one son who had been playing lead/rhythm guitar for the group because he wasn’t cutting it. His other son John Jr. was the drummer for the band. I asked him to give me a couple of days to think it over.
The next day, Evan Hunt and John Lane Jr. both showed up at my door and begged me to come and try out for the band. So, that’s what I did. I used Mr. Lane’s son’s Gibson Firebird and his Ampeg amp for the audition. Right off, after a couple of songs, one of which was Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth”, the guys in the band wanted me to join. I said OK and that was that.
As luck would have it, the very next day, as I was contemplating going to Tom’s music store to purchase a guitar, I got a call from the guy who’d bought my Burns after I left the Sinners. He explained that his band had just broken up and he needed money so wondered if I was interested in buying the Burns back. Of course I jumped at the chance, especially since he was giving it back to me at half the price for which I’d sold it to him!
Up until the time Evan and I joined the band, The Capris had been a pretty “square” band, not hip at all, the guys wearing these preppie dress pants and off-yellow cardigans over white shirt and tie. Mr. Lane explained how he wanted “his boys” to be neat and professional looking. Well, Evan and I told him that just didn’t cut it in 1967! Ok for a polka band maybe, but definitely not for a Rock band!. The “Hippie Revolution” was in full swing and all the wild psychedelic clothing was de rigueur for any would-be hip band. Even The Beatles had forsaken their mod suits, grown their hair long and were wearing sandals and beads. Finally, Mr. Lane caved to our arguments and off we went shopping for wild outfits. Mrs. Lane asked us to pick out material, took our measurements and fashioned us each a pair of groovy bell bottoms. Black slip-over leatherette vests completed the outfits. Evan was the only one in the band with shoulder-length hair, however…
While all this was going on, we were rehearsing almost daily, striving to learn enough top 40 material to play a gig. Songs by The Beatles, Paul Revere and The Raiders, Tommy James and the Shondells, Jefferson Airplane, etc. Soon, Bob Vida, the bass player, decided this was not his trip and wanted out so we got Ron Bovine to take over on bass. Ron worked right in and the band, now called “Evan Hunt and the Capris”, came together and clicked.
Mr. Lane was holding up his part of the bargain and got us some gigs, highschool dances, teen dance clubs etc. in the Niagara penninsula. Evan was the consummate showman on stage and knew how to work the audience and we soon built up a following. When we played the Niagara Falls Youth Center, there were at least 800 teens in the audience and some of the girls, screaming in frenzy, were actually trying to get up on stage to get at Evan. So this was the bigtime (even if the money was still smalltime…)!
And then one day Mr. Lane announced he’d booked us into The Night Owl in Toronto! This club was THE happening place. It was the venue where the Loving Spoonful played when they came to Toronto. In fact, John Sebastian of the Spoonful had composed a harmonica tune, the B side of one of their 45’s, entitled “Night Owl Blues”, named after that club. This place was famous. We were to play 3 nights there, Thursday through Saturday. We rented strobe lights and extra electric gear, a couple of amps etc., to round out our stage gear so that we’d appear pro enough to fit into that venue. We couldn’t afford to rent a place to stay in Toronto for the 3 days so we travelled to Toronto and back, 90 miles each way, in Evan’s ’65 fastback Mustang and John Lane Sr.’s Crown Vic, before and after each gig, getting home at 3:30 a.m. after playing until 1 a.m. We had good crowds all 3 nights at the Night Owl and the audience responded well to our performances. It was starting to look like our careers as musicians, as a band, were about to take off…
Then reality set in.. After we finished up on Saturday night, packed all our gear in the rental U-Haul trailer and headed back to Welland, when came time to get paid, John Lane told us we each owed him $10! Say what???!!! We’d just played a prestigious club for 3 nights, played our hearts out, spent hours travelling back and forth between Welland and Toronto, to find out we’d done this for nothing? No, worse than nothing! All that work and effort and we were each in the hole $10! At the time, music, the band, was my only livelihood. Typically I expected to earn at least $100 to $150 for a 3-night gig. Evan, Bob and Ron were just as taken aback as I was at the news we’d just worked for nothing. John Lane explained that he’d booked us in the Night Owl for next to nothing in order to “open doors to greater things”. Well, possibly it was a good business move but we felt we should have been privy to this decision as it directly affected us. Had we been consulted with the facts, we might have agreed to the terms although I doubt that would have happened because, especially in Evan’s and my case, we were relying on the money from our gigs to live on. We had no other source of income. John Lane owned a motel and was financially secure. His son John Jr. lived at home with his parents and didn’t have to worry about starving. So, for that matter, did Bob and Ron. I didn’t have the $10 to give John and neither did Evan. Mr. Lane told us he would take it out of the money from the next gig but Evan and I conferred and then told him to go to hell! We told John Jr., Ron and Bob that we were leaving and would form our own band. Bob and Ron decided to stick with us and that’s when we found another drummer, Jeff Burgess, to replace John.
The Penny Illusion, from left: Bob Lightheart, Ron Bovine, Evan Hunt, Jeff Burgess, André Germain
The Penny Illusion (1968)
Evan Hunt: vocals Jeff Burgess: drums/back-up vocals Ron Bovine: bass/back-up vocals Bob Lightheart: keyboards/back-up vocals André Germain: lead/rhythm guitar/back-up vocals
We changed our name to “Penny Illusion” (I came up with that name out of disillusionment after being cheated out of our fair pay for that Night Owl gig). We managed to find a few decent paying gigs over the next couple of months but it was tough trying to keep things together, being our own agents/managers/bookers. We somehow got hooked up with a smooth talker, a rep from Top 10 Agencies in Toronto who lived in Pt. Colborne. He promised us the world and delivered nothing. The Penny Illusion never recoded anything, we weren’t together long enough to get that together.
Bob Lightheart and Ron Bovine had both graduated from highschool and were faced with tough career choices. Their parents were pressuring them to get into further education, college or university. The music business, after all, was very chancy at best. Come the fall of 1968, both of them wisely chose to go on to university and that was the end of that band. I’d managed to get hired as a casual worker for Canada Post in late 1967 and in October 1969 became a full-time employee and gave up the music business.
Evan went on to sing for a couple of other local bands while getting work driving a delivery van for a local bakery to support his wife and newborn son, Evan Jr. A while later, another son came along but by then I’d pretty well lost track of what was going on with the lives of the ex band members.
Al Bartok, the Sinners’ original bass player, to the best of my knowledge never played in another band after leaving the Sinners. He came down with meningitis in 1991 and was being treated at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Hamilton at the same time that Jack Schaefer, the ex-keyboardist for the Sinners who had pursued a successful career in banking, working his way up to Manager of a business branch of the CIBC in Hamilton, was being operated on for a brain tumour. Al died at the age of 44 on the day Jack was released from the hospital. Then later the same year, after having undergone painful radiation and chemothereapy, Jack also gave up the ghost at the age of 47, leaving behind a wife and two teen-aged children.
Glen Boscei, the bass player, had always had some “issues”. He was later diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia. He lived his life on meds which helped control the disease but at times, when he “went off the meds”, he was not a pleasant person to be around. Finally, a couple of years ago, he allegedly knifed a man in Welland, was thrown in jail and died mysteriously “of unknown causes” there in his cell a couple of days later.
Ritchie Gauthier played in a few bands in the 1970’s and later started his own roofing company, I believe. He retired a few years ago and moved to North Bay.
Evan Hunt died in British Columbia at the age of 59 in 2005. Ron Bovine completed university and became a pharmacist. I have no idea what happened to Jeff Burgess and Bob Lightheart although I suspect that Bob may have taken over his family’s dry-cleaning business.
In the early 70’s some friends and I got together and formed a folk group, “Tobacco Rudy.” We played on weekends at local coffeehouses for a couple of years until the other guys in the band decided to change the format to rock and go off on the road.
I had gotten married in 1971, planned on starting a family and was still working for Canada Post so no way I was going off chasing rainbows. So, I was out of a gig again. I took a hiatus from performing for a few years. I quit Canada Post in 1979 because of an old back injury which came back to plague me. After an ill-fated canoe manufacturing venture, I put the word out and managed to get work playing lead and bass in various local country, country-rock and classic rock groups from 1982 until 1995. Since then, I’ve gotten back into folk music and perform at local coffeehouses periodically. I also get together and jam with a couple of old friends once in a while.
Early September, 2009, the members of Tobacco Rudy had a re-union here at my house along the lake. The only one not present was our drummer, Jim Acursi.
Of the original Sinners, Ritchie Gauthier and I are the sole survivors.
This site is a work in progress on 1960s garage rock bands. All entries can be updated, corrected and expanded. If you have information on a band featured here, please let me know and I will update the site and credit you accordingly.
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