Suddenly, bright lights attacked us from all directions. Dozens of trucks and cars roared into our campsite. I crawled out from under the van and stood squinting into the blinding lights. Men jumped out of the vehicles and rushed at us with baseball bats, tire-irons and two-by-fours. It was like medieval villagers attacking Dr. Frankenstein's castle with pitchforks and torches. It was an angry mob and I was scared.
“Get the Hell outta Kelowna ya fuckin’ parasites!” screamed one.
“I’ll fuckin’ kill ya!” promised another.
Dazed by the onslaught, we started to gather our few belongings. Geoff was the only one standing fast. Steve put a hand on his shoulder and said, “Myself? I've always been a lover not a fighter. I suggest we skedaddle and live to love another day.”
Geoff didn't like it but he allowed Steve to push him into the van.
“We’ll teach you to hustle our girls,” threatened a college jock with a bat who appeared to be the ring-leader at the front.
Calmly, Jim stepped up onto the bumper of the Tilden van in front of him. “You look like a pretty smart guy!” he said directly to him.
The leader stopped. The others bunched up behind him. He looked up at Jim and said, “what'd you say fuckhead?”
“Come on,” Jim continued coolly, “a few skinny hippies couldn’t be any threat to you ... could we?”
There were a few chuckles from his friends. He looked around and then said defensively, “ah, no way. You freaks ain't no threat to me.”
It was at that instant that I figured out that Jim was a homosexual. He didn't look like one. I don't think. Actually, I wasn't sure what a homosexual looked like. At least these guys didn't have to worry about Jim hustling their girlfriends. I wondered if they'd spot him. Who knows what they might do if they discovered a homo?
“Of course not,” Jim agreed. “All we want to do is play some music. You like music don't you?”
One of the vigilantes in back piped up, “I like music.”
“Far out!” said Jim enthusiastically. He looked at the ring-leader again. “What about you. You like music?”
“I like Tommy James,” he admitted. “You boys play anything by Tommy James and the Shondells?”
“Yeah!” shouted another. “The Shondells ... Boss!”
“Hey! Mitch Ryder & ...” Somebody started.
Another voice interrupted, “The Detroit Wheels! ... Whoo! ... Devil with a Blue Dress!”
By now Jim had dispelled their anger. The whole lot of them were milling around in one big embarrassed circle.
“Anyone want some cocoa?” Jim asked.
Steve jumped out of the van and ran off to fetch water, John set up the stove and Howard and Norm served hot chocolate to everyone. George and Geoff hauled out the guitars and improvised bits of top forty songs around the campfire. Almost instantly, like an Elvis movie, girls appeared from all directions, joined their boyfriends and we partied into the night. I didn’t see much of Jim but, when I did, he looked to be having a good time rapping with a few of the younger boys off to the side.
Observing the scene quietly, I realized that, although Geoff could turn on the 'tough-guy' image at any time, he was really quite jolly. It’s not a trait you expect from a sexy, rail-thin rock-god. Although people liked to call him, “Stud”, he referred to himself as “Mr. Food & Booze.” Watching him strumming his guitar with a roll-me-own hanging from his lip, it was hard to imagine that he was really Santa Claus trapped in James Dean's body.
Jim booked the I.O.O.F. community hall on the main street so that we could play that night. John had a talent for imitating the psychedelic artwork of the Fillmore and Afterthought poster artists. He drew a few posters to put up around town.
We were disappointed to learn that The Shockers, one of the best and most popular top-forty cover bands from Vancouver, was also booked to play that night over at the big Danceland auditorium on the wharf beside the lake. They were managed by the powerful Vancouver agency called Jaguar Entertainment and represented stiff competition for our little gig. This was a serious problem for us because we had no money for food and needed to earn something if we wanted to eat.
I don’t know if the altercation and subsequent hootenanny in the park had anything to do with it, but our hall was packed that night. We were so successful; we re-booked for the next night. Word spread and we were full for a second night in a row.
Jaguar Enterprises was the most important agency and the centre of Vancouver’s music scene. If you weren’t represented by them, you were nobody ... We weren’t represented by them. Our victory over The Shockers was kind of a confirmation for us. It boosted our confidence and strengthened our resolve to go our own way.
Geoff met a cute local girl named Elaine at the gig. Her parents were away so she invited us to camp out in her back yard. We moved the hootenanny from the park to Elaine’s house and the party continued.
I had only been on the road for a few days but already I was sucked into the cocoon-like state of road bliss. Time and place were meaningless. All that mattered was the moment. No schedules, timetables, deadline or goals; no phones, no meetings, just where I was and what I was doing - A whole lot of nothin’. We weren’t even working on the band. No rehearsing, no writing, no composing.
Except for Jim - He was planning our future, but in the same way that a mad scientist might mix volatile chemicals together just to see what they might do. His plan was for something to happen. Whatever that something was to be, he would be as surprised as anybody.
Donna, a friend of Elaine’s, came to the house. She took one look at Geoff and led him down the hall into a bedroom. When they emerged a few hours later, Donna insisted that we go and play her home town. As we were easily manipulated, off we went to Nakusp.
Nakusp is a tiny town of about eight hundred residents nestled in the Upper Arrow Valley of the Kootenays. It is one of the most beautiful places in the world with high jagged mountains, deep green valleys and towering trees as far as the eye can see. It’s the kind of a vista that you see in 'Beautiful BC' television commercials or in travel magazines illustrating the majesty of Canada.
We rode the Tilden van along the narrow, winding road past blue lakes and white-water rivers deep into the emerald forest. By the time we pulled into the one street town, Howard was nauseous. Jim pulled over, the door opened and Howard threw-up all over Broadway (the main drag in Nakusp). A lady watching us from her living room window shook her head in disgust. We spilled out onto her lawn; half-naked, long haired and painfully skinny. The poor woman ran from her window as if she had spotted Big Foot.
Donna had called ahead to her friend Bonnie in Nakusp and arranged for us to rent the community hall, called Brouse Hall, for five dollars. It was a wooden A-frame with a small stage and a kitchen in the back. We hauled the gear out. Howard walked by with a crash cymbal held up high like a waiter holding a tray. “Pizza?” he said putting the cymbal on the stage. That was a day’s work for Howard.
Fifty people showed up and paid two dollars to see us play. They were mostly hippies from the communes that had sprung up in the area but some of the curious townsfolk came to check us out as well. Their attendance ensured the flow of peanut butter sandwiches. We slept in Donna's front yard. Donna snuck out in the middle of the night and slept with Geoff in a shed. In the morning we moved on down the road.
We heard that we were the centre of a controversy at the Banff School of Fine Arts in the town of Banff, located on the Alberta side of the Rocky Mountains. In the winter, Banff was a popular ski resort but in