Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
I've been around for a long, long year
Stole many a man's soul and faith
As we became aware of what Jagger was saying Steve declared, “This is one fuckin’ heavy song”:
By the time Keith Richards tore into his blistering solo I understood that I was listening to the best rock song ever recorded. After listening to songs like No Expectations, Street Fightin’ Man (which just might be the second best rock song ever recorded) and Salt of the Earth, I declared Beggar’s Banquet to be the best rock album in history.
While we had been away on our barnstorming tour of Canada, Drew Burns acquired the lease on the old Commodore Ballroom on Granville Street and started running rock shows there. His first was Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels. The Commodore had been built by the George Reifel family who had enjoyed handsome profits by running their liquor down the U.S. coast during prohibition. It opened its doors December 3, 1929. In its early days it featured all the Big Bands and Vaudeville acts.
The Commodore held about twelve hundred people. You ascended a wide ornate staircase to the second floor and entered the cavernous ballroom alongside the long bar. The ceiling was high and the seating was arranged in levels around the perimeter. There were large round pillars running in two rows beside the enormous dance floor. The floor was loaded on railroad springs and, when packed, would actually bounce up and down by a few feet.
Bruce Allen booked The Seeds of Time's first gig at The Commodore for the 5th Day Club. Our performance earned the following review:
The Seeds Of Time give forth with
homebrew philosophy a la tongue
in-cheek, couched in music that is
cleverly arranged and very, very quaint.
The Seeds can also rock ... they are
solid instrumentally to the point
of being one. In fact, they derive so
much sound from their organ, bass,
guitar and drums that in their
rendition of the circus-sounding
tune written by Charlie Chaplin
I could have sworn I heard brass.
Brain McLeod
On November 30th Trisha and I went to see Big Brother & The Holding Company. This was the first time I had seen the legendary San Francisco band and it turned out to be their last commercial gig with vocalist Janis Joplin. She brought everyone to tears when she stopped in the middle of Piece of My Heart, turned to the band and sobbed, “I love you guys.” They played a benefit concert for the Family Dog in Frisco the next day, December 1st and then she was gone. Her solo career barely got started. She died less than a year later of a heroin overdose.
In December, we were hired to play a Battle-of-the-Bands in Rutland, BC, a tiny community just northeast of Kelowna in the Okanagan. Even though it was supposed to be a contest, we were paid to attend as a draw and were assured, 'wink, wink - say no more, say no more', of winning. We played a community centre dance in Vancouver on Friday night then packed up Sub-A-Lub to drive all night to Rutland.
Geoff, Steve and Lindsay shot heroin in the bathroom before we left. It began to snow around Hope and escalated into a heavy blizzard by the time we started up the Hope-Princeton Highway into the Cascade Mountains. This section of the highway leading up to Manning Park is steep and treacherous. The fresh powdery snow falling on top of the solid ice made the road conditions so slippery that poor little frozen Sub-A-Lub could not make it. Jim gunned it, the van fishtailed and we started sliding backwards.
“You guys have to push!” Jim ordered, “Hurry!”
None of us had any winter clothing except John. He had a big warm overcoat and a fake fur hat. It looked like the coonskin cap that Davy Crockett wore only John’s had lost its tail. John loved that cap; he called it Muskie.
So we all fell out of the van onto the icy highway struggling to stay on our feet. Slipping and sliding, we put our shoulders to the back end of the van. I was wearing loafers and the smooth leather soles made it impossible to get any traction so I kept falling on my face. Geoff, Steve and Lindsay were wasted on smack. Our task was not made any easier as each of them took breaks to throw-up in the snow.
We opened the back doors so that Jim could see us in the rear view mirror over the equipment. As we came up to the crest, and the grade eased, the van started to accelerate slightly on its own. Geoff fell into the back with Steve and Lindsay pulling themselves in after him. I ran as fast as I could but my feet could not get a grip. I dove, caught hold of the door and was just able to drag myself in too. That left John. He was running about three feet behind trying to catch up.
Jim was screaming, “I can’t stop now or we’ll never get going again! - RUN!!!”
John stumbled, lunged forward, grabbed the lip of the doorway and managed to get one foot precariously on the bumper. I caught hold of John’s heavy coat and held him in but Muskie, his beloved cap, fell off onto the snowy highway.
“Nooooooooooooooooooooo!” John screamed, “Stop! Stop! Stop!”
“I can’t stop!” Jim shouted back.
We all held John so that he wouldn’t jump out after Muskie. We lay there in the back of Sub-A-Lub holding John for a long time as Muskie got smaller and smaller until it disappeared in the darkness behind us. He mourned the whole trip. He never really got over it.
The Rutland Battle-Of-The-Bands was a contest between us, the 'professional' band from the big city, and three local bands. There was a Panel of Judges comprised of the school principal, the student council president and the head of the pep committee. The first band came out in matching blazers and started with a cover of Goody Goody Gumdrops by The Nineteen Ten Fruitgum Company. The second band was a clone of the first and attempted steps, like Paul Revere & The Raiders used to do, while playing Do Something To Me by Tommy James & The Shondells.
Jim had worked with us on a four song set that would have presented a polished, professional show. However, while watching the other contestants’ performances, we realized that the Judges criteria included points for uniforms, choreography and congeniality. We knew we were fucked.
As we were announced, and made our way to our instruments, it was still our intention to play our homogenized little set. But when Geoff looked down at the Judges table and saw the disgusted looks on their faces he turned to Lindsay and said, “Heroin.” On Geoff’s audible, our entry into the contest became our eighteen minute version of The Velvet Underground’s, Heroin. Geoff had never sung it so convincingly. He scared the shit out of everyone, including me:
I don't know just where I'm going
But I'm gonna try for the kingdom, if I can
'cause it makes me feel like I'm a man
When I put a spike into my vein
And I'll tell ya, things aren't quite the same
When I'm rushing on my run
And I feel just like Jesus' son
And I guess I just don't know
And