the early days
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- Liner notes from No Escape, a Young Canadians compilation CD
by Buck Cherry / Spring '95
Bob Denver x Charles Manson = Iggy Pop
William Burroughs x Roy Rogers = Keith Richards
Chuck Berry
The equation yielding the Young Canadians (nee the K-Tels) is a little more obtuse.
The K-Tels came
together out of the rubble of the Shmorgs, surely one of the worst
names any drunken yahoo ever spray-painted on a wall. Fittingly, in
retrospect, they were also pretty lousy, terminally infected with a
sort of Asylum Records/singer-songwriter/LA/country sound that wasn't
helped by the addition of several "lead" guitarists, and by lead I mean
the types who never sully themselves with actual chords and only ever
have to change the skinny strings. Art Bergmann was never comfortable
playing lead. Just singing was an accomplishment akin to an acrophobe
going up to one of those glass-walled elevators on the outside of a
hotel, although the times when the band was forced to play as a
three-piece proved Art to be in every way superior to the employees.
Typically, it would take him a few years to figure it out.
Art and I
became friends, then roommates, living in various soon-to-be-condemned
dwellings. We liked most of the same things - an affection for the
Kinks, early Who and Yardbirds, David Bowie and the Velvet Underground
- and, more importantly, hated all the same ones: mid-70's Fleetwood
Mac, the Eagles, the Doobie Brothers, Supertramp, Elton John, Dark Side
of the Moon. By the summer of '77, half a dozen of us like-minded types
were living in a huge hundred-year old house on the outskirts of White
Rock and a friend of Art's showed up after a trip around the world with
a cassette he'd picked up in England. On it were the Sex Pistols and
things were never the same.
Being a few
years younger, my friends (& after Art taught me how to play
guitar, my bandmates) were already listening to the Dolls, Raw Power
(earlier Ig albums were out of print) & Roxy Music, and the more
Art sat listening to Shake Appeal and Stranded in the Jungle with us
(Dr John and the Allmans records forgotten in the corner - sniff), the
less his band wanted to have anything to do with him.
We'd make many
trips from our suburban outpost to downtown Vancouver to see DOA, the
Subhumans, Victorian Pork, the Dishrags, and the Shades, usually
missing the last bus back to the suburbs and wandering the streets with
growing hangovers until the next day. Moving to town seemed a good way
to avoid that. People usually lose socks or books when they move - in
spring '78 when Art, Bill Shirt, Gord Nicholl and I moved to Vancouver
en masse Art lost the Shmorgs. He says: "I told them 'I'm going to
town, you want to come?' and they said 'Nah, you go and have fun with
your weird new friends.' So I did."
The rest of us
had already joined a band in town, but it took Art about a year to get
a group together. Little did we know he'd been writing songs all this
time while sharing the house in lower East Van (where the Clash visited
after their first North American show and where Art had scooped my
girlfriend, who later screwed him over for another acquaintance).
Despite some ugly moments, we then all moved into three identical row
houses on Victoria Drive in early '79.
At this time,
Art unveiled the K-Tels and with only a couple of gigs they were in the
first rank of bands in the city, joining DOA and the Pointed Sticks. I
saw them after the surprising news that Art's new band was going to
play someplace called Gambado's, an art gallery in Gastown. We all
dutifully trouped down to see what the old fellow had come up with -
some of us had been less than kind during his layoff - and went home
chastened, tails tucked appropriately legward.
Not only had
they written a set that included most of the soon-to-be-recorded Hawaii
EP, but the band collectively put together a batch of covers that
defined their manic virtuosity: A Question of Temperature, I Had Too
Much to Dream Last Night, Palisades Park.
He'd chosen
well, Arthur had; a couple of highly skilled players who never let the
technical ability get in the way of amphetamine-rush tempos and
feedback. Bassist Jim Bescott had the same veins-bulging,
near-hemorrhagic, tomato-in-the-microwave singing-quality that Art did,
despite being physically akin to Jerry Lewis circa The Geisha Boy and
per gig he managed to unload more bodily sweat than a hungover Sumo.
And, in those Mel Bay "Play Guitar In 3 E-Z Lessons" punk days, a bass
player who could play that well and that fast using his fingers was a
shocking sight.
Barry Taylor
managed to combine Dimwit's power, Chuck Biscuits speed, and Jughead's
post-pube kamikaze attack with old-school technique. I wouldn't go so
far as to say he was the best drummer in town, but neither would I want
to say anyone was better. And most of all, they had Art, who had
evidently overcome his reluctance to being lead singer and boss guitar
player.
On stage, Art
sounded like a man trying to hack up an entire disease, went into
slack-faced catatonia one moment and had the front row fearing for
their lives the next. He had taken his guitar prototypes to new
territory: always the man of a million chords, Art simply, ummm, -
expanded the form. Chords led into feedback squeals, then punctuated by
staccato note shards, then wrenched physically back into some
approximation of melody.
Like some old
delta bluesman who created a new style because his Sears & Roebuck
instrument was impossible to play "correctly", Art's '61 Strat had much
to do with the sounds he came up with. Purchased from his older brother
by dint of a summer's worth of newspaper delivery and lawn work, it
looked to be, and was, largely unplayable. Certainly no-one else could
play it. When in tune, and in this case that was an almost laughable
term, chords that contained many of the proper notes in one position on
the neck were found to contain none at all in a different spot. Art
quite casually invented new chord fingerings to accommodate the pitch
and these new voicings, combined with a much-abused Ampeg head and
massive Kelly-Deyong speaker-bottom, created strange and wonderful
overtones, which only encouraged him to create even more arcane
structures.
When "jamming",
half-assed guitarists will watch the other guitar player or bassist's
hands to pick up the chord patterns. To this day, five minutes of that
with Bergmann will leave you no wiser but you will have a dandy
headache.
The K-Tels
opened up the Smilin' Buddha, something I don't think they've been
credited with historically and should be. (And to settle an often
apocryphal anecdote, I asked the late Lachman Jir, owner and proprietor
of the Buddha, if it was really true he fired Jimi Hendrix in the
mid-60's. Legend had it Hendrix was playing in some soul band and
incurred Lachman's wrath for being too loud. Told to turn it down he
said something like "is this quiet enough?", unplugged his guitar and
sat down for the rest of the night, Seattle being too far to walk home.
"You really fired him, Lachman?" "Too bloody loud. The waitress
couldn't hear the orders." "And he just sat there all night?" "Sat
there. Drank rum and cokes." To the day he died, Lachman had no idea
why people made a fuss over this guy he turfed.)
Although by the
time Hawaii was released the local press were quite beside themselves,
as my Ma used to say, "Kind words don't butter too many spuds" and to
go with the per-usual threat of imminent starvation, K-Tel the
corporation had successfully forced a name change, apparently afraid
punk rock might tarnish the name of the Patty-Stacker and the Home
Jerky Maker.
The band (now
renamed the Young Canadians) seemed to be the first to do a lot of
things: first to open Gambado's and the Buddha; first to release a
Quintessence 12" EP; first to perform on live radio; first on the
Vancouver Show (CKVU-TV); first to get a deal to support a major act
across Canada (Boomtown Rats); and one of the first to tour down to the
States.
The second
Quitessence EP This is Your Life was an equally good record, but
without a Hawaii-type hit, sold not nearly as many. It is, to my ears
though, a better record. Data Redux, the capstone for the YC's live
blitzkrieg, was finally recorded with Bob Rock's ear for noise,
studio-quality and with cello, no less. Had they stayed together for a
full album (or even another EP of the unreleased material now on this
compilation)...but they broke up, like all great bands.
I think the
physical exhaustion of being the frontman for a trio that played so
loud and so fast just wore him out. We had plenty of discussions about
how shitty it is to be the guitar player, singer and songwriter in a
three-piece. Within a year or so Art joined Los Popularos, reuniting
with Bill, Gord, and me. Art said publicly he quit the YC's because
they didn't hang out and smoke and drink together and we did. And
that's one of the reasons I love him.
He's a perverse
bastard - he still won't play Hawaii live although he could probably
afford a phone if he did - and after 10 years solo he's on his third
major label & still waiting for Hollywood to call. As a singer,
player, and most of all as a writer, that call's way overdue and all of
us have been waiting for him to get it because he's only a notch below
Lou Reed and Neil Young, and at least the equal of later artists like
Paul Westerberg or Bob Mould.
Somewhere,
someone else is driving his sports car and swimming in his pool. Mind
you, if Art is ever in the neighborhood, he'll break in and drink all
their beer.
- Buck Cherry
Spring '95
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