Thinking of the long nights of blues at Grossman's tavern and the Upper Lip - kitty corners to the Gasworks on Yonge Street.
At the Upper Lip during the week, a number of singers from other bands would show up to have the 'Happy Hour All Night' drinks with the JOHN ROCK AND THE ANGELS band. Various singers from other bands would get up on stage and sing a song or two, including B.B. Gabor, Paul James, who opened the show, and the Hock from Downchild Blues Band.
We also got together at the Hotel Isabella.
Downchild was playing upstairs. John Rock was playing downstairs. And drinks were had between sets in the bar on the main floor,
near the entrance. We fueled up for the next sets.
At the Upper Lip, we had a private dressing room in which all kind of monkey business was going on most of the time, and a whole lot of sex against the wall or halfway on the benches that circled the room, being that the floors were a tad sticky. We're not talking luxury here.
Paul James used to open for John Rock. He did a solo number... and he was pretty accomplished even then.
INSERT SEE Paul James song above...
from his birthday bash at the Phoenix.
I'm just beginning to digitize John Rock
songs from hundreds of cassette stage recordings, and the John Rock album
called, "IT'S SO SERIOUS!"
I hope to insert many of these songs into this blog and future book, if my luck holds.
If the truth be told, the only way I can remember many of the stories in this book to be
is if I center the stories around each song. That way I'll have some idea what I'm talking about.
But then the night wore on. And Mike came down from his hut on the roof.
Mike was an OK drummer when he was half way in his right mind. But I remember he came down and we asked him up on stage.
Turns out he was not 1/2 way in his mind; he was 12 times out of his tree!
I was breaking in a new bass player that night. I was teaching John Saunders how to play bass, so it wasn't fair to throw anything too different at him - he'd never been on stage before. And his legs were shaking.
We had a big crowd that night. It was a Wednesday evening, so I wasn't sure why...
In those days I hadn't understood the meaning of the word, "Advertise." So the
crowd was all word of mouth from up and down Yonge Street.
Anyway, we packed the place.
I was standing in the hallway to the stage
and I heard the breathing of the crowd, the chattering talk... the ebbs and flow of the crowd noise, with the occasional cheer and shout, and then the shouts in unison and the feet pounding on the floor.
I heard a guy in the crowd near the front say, "John Rock. I hear he's heavy." Expectations were high.
So I wanted to put on a real blast. Start with a viciously hard rocker called, "NO EXPLANATION". I had written that song with a lot of feeling, as I was sneaking out of a really rough relationship, one that was going to end in death or jail... My death. Or me in jail. It certainly wouldn't be
the princess!
(I didn't feel the need to go one more time into the Don Jail in those days. It had happened before. Invariably they'd throw me in an all black, mostly Jamaican range. The guards were trying to screw with my head.
I guess they thought I was a real asshole, but stories get pretty twisted , when they're told about you and you aren't there.
People can make up all kinds of weird
stuff. Especially the woman I was trying to leave. She was real good friends with a cop
in 52 division. So...
So I got tossed in this all black Jamaican range - and that was the good part. I grew up in Jamaica. A lot of stories were told,
and we made some hooch, got high, and laughed until we had tears in our eyes.)
But not always.
I got bail in three months.
The song I wanted to open with was
about the very woman who had me tossed into the Don Jail recently.
THE SONG GOES LIKE THIS:
"Oh, babe, I'm not ever gonna phone!
Yeah, babe, I'm not ever gonna phone!
Just gonna lie down in my basement...
And chew my lonesome bone!"
The ice is coming, the snow is coming, too!
The ice is coming, the snow is coming, too!
But in our last season together,
Nothing ever grew!"
Hook: "And they'll be no explanation!
No explanation!
No explanation!
No explanation!
There'll be no explanation baby,
Nothing you need to know!"
(C)1984 John Rock etc. etc. Naturally there
are several more verses.
At any rate, Mike came flying down the stairs, jumped up on the stage before we were
ready to play.
I think Mike was Lebanese. He had very good connections for certain items I was trying to avoid.
Anyway, Mike launches into an elaborate drum solo with distinctly different
rhythms than the band was used to playing.
The only 2 people on stage at that moment, other than Mike, was Saunders and I. John had a look of utter horror on his face. He didn't know how to play anything to that rhythm and
I bloody well knew it. I tried to project to him from twenty feet away at least the root notes of each chord. After a while, he understood and he could play at least those notes to the
changes.
Mike wasn't stopping. Somewhere
he'd found a black beret and green fifties shades. And he was wearing them.
So I did the only logical thing.
I launched into some minor chords vaguely reminiscent of Morocco. And we played...we played that same weird, foreign, exotic tune... for quite some time...
The eyes of the crowd appeared to be
glazing over with shock and growing boredom...That first 15 minute song needed
congas and maybe a belly dancer. The rest of the band joined us after our 15 minute excursion across the desert.
We launched into, "YOU'RE GONNA BURN!" Which is a truly nasty
bit of edgework and drama about war
and you're to blame, etc. etc. The lead solo
is the sound of a helicopter landing right in the middle of your head - a monstrous effect I found I could create with my Morley WAH peddle.
Well, that shut all of us up, including the
crowd. Mike, the owner bought drinks for all 200 of us. "A round for all the room!"
We all stopped, had a drink or three,
talked to the audience, shouted back and forth,
then I launched into "Rosemary" which is a sweet love tune that people tend to remember.
And the applause started and continued off and
on for the rest of the night.
We snapped into our trademark blend
of music called: "Rock-Reggae."
"Northern reggae!" One of the Garys, Gary Cormier shouted this to me over the phone with a laugh and some hilarity.
We locked the doors, sold booze at Happy Hour prices - the happy hour that lasted
half a day. And a pretty damn good day it was. A great time was had by all!
But not always.
(C) 2015 by W.G. Milne
Part of a book that is coming, with songs
and artwork inserted. It be called,
"Mainliners on Mainstreet."
No, no, no. Not that!
