Full Metal Jacket

Made from denim, the "jean jacket" was the uniform of rockers (who couldn't afford leather) back in the 70's and 80's. I wore mine conservatively; no giant hand drawn Rush or Led Zeppelin logos or album art on the back panel (I remember a guy in high school who painted an amazing Caress of Steel album cover onto the back of his jacket). Instead, I wore just a handful of my favourite band patches and pins across the chest. Let's see, there was Rush, The Police, Van Halen, AC/DC, and Led Zeppelin... my bands of choice at the time. Some of my favourites looked like this:

I also had a jacket dedicated to Rush, which I wore only to their concerts. It was one of those olive drab army things from the local military surplus store, a style that was popular back in the 80's. The jacket is long gone, but I've kept every one of the buttons, pins, and embroidered patches that used to adorn the jacket. There are stories behind many of those collectibles, how I hunted them down and sometimes happened upon them unexpectedly. And here's what they look like:

There are a couple of non-jacket items in there: the red Toronto Airport luggage tag bearing the YYZ code that inspired the song of the same name; and the key ring-fob to the right of the luggage tag. 

Oh, and the seemingly unrelated Eraserhead movie button to the left of the red tag.... well, real Rush fans will know the connection there. Alex Lifeson wore that same button onstage back in the 80's. So now you know.

Funny how the wearing of patches and buttons dwindled in the 90's but then seemed to resurface in the 2000's. Or maybe they were always there but I simply didn't notice. No, I'm pretty sure I'm right about this. A fashion cycle, maybe? I now see young people wearing buttons and occasionally a patch or two. It seems there's a more minimalist approach now, whereas back in the day, you'd see jackets absolutely covered in buttons and patches. It was often pretty gaudy, but hey, especially for metal-heads, putting your band loyalty on display was tantamount. 

From Mop Top to Hippie Hair

Summer 1981. Beatlemania was in full swing. Wait, you say, didn't that happen about twenty years earlier? Well, yes, the real Beatlemania hit the North American shores in 1964 and drove legions of girls to hysterical fits for a couple of years. But the musical stage show, a tribute to the Fab Four, originally a Broadway production, went on tour from 1979 to 1984. And I caught a show midway through this amazing condensed recreation of the careers of the lads from Liverpool.

I was seventeen years old at the time, and though I'd travelled to The Big Smoke - AKA Toronto, Canada - a few times with family and friends, this was my first solo trip from small town (more like small city, with a population back then of about 21,000) to massive metropolis. It was a little intimidating taking to the streets of Cabbage Town (so many nicknames for T.O. - oops, there's another one) by myself, but I had a general idea of the layout of the downtown core. The streets are nicely laid out in a grid pattern so that it's hard to lose your bearings and get lost. Or at least get lost for very long. I think I did a little confused zig-zagging that day as I tried to locate the O'Keefe Centre but it all worked out in the end. And once inside the venue, all worries dissipated.

My friends in early high school weren't sophisticated enough to know anything about the legendary Beatles, who called it quits in 1970, when I was still playing with trucks in the sandbox. No clue about music back then. Anyway, I only knew one person at that time who would have enjoyed Beatlemania as much as me, and he wasn't even available that day. Ah, crumb!

So intrepidly I ventured out from the backwoods into the seething city streets. It was all pretty exciting, nervousness aside. And then the adrenaline surged again when the curtain went up on that special evening, and the sights and sounds of the 60's washed over me for a couple of hours. The musicians onstage struck similar enough appearances to the real Beatles that I really felt like I was in the presence of rock'n'roll royalty. The passing of time and the growth of the group was aided by frequent costume changes. From the skinny suits and mop tops to beards and bell-bottoms, all of the phases of the Beatles' career were brought to life once again. Images from that magical mystery decade were projected behind the band, loaning context to the music through establishing shots and funky graphics of major social, political, cultural, and economic events of that era. Anything newsworthy - it was tied into the performance to create the ultimate multimedia show.

My Beatlemania T-shirt is long gone, but the souvenir program lives on (pictured below).

From She Loves You to Let It Be, the vast catalogue of influential Beatles hits transported me to another time and another place. It was a little sad when the show finished. I felt like it could have gone on for hours more, working through the dozens more songs that changed a generation.

Axe Man

When I was in my early teens, I took it into my head that learning to play guitar would be good for me. Perhaps to increase my coolness, and thus my popularity, with both the guys and the girls. That didn't really pan out, since I eventually became a bit of a guitar nerd hanging out with like-minded string-benders, talking about fuzz boxes and neck action... those are guitar terms, by the way. Cough.

It was in my even younger years when I first spotted Beatles movies and the Monkees show on TV when the guitar made its first impression on me. I think it's like that for just about every boy as he moves beyond comic books and puppet shows. Music is the next logical step. The great twang of Last Train to Clarksville and the catchy riff of Day Tripper served to inspire me on the instrument. Now mind you, the first guitar I got to play was one abandoned by my mother, who still swears that that was a quality instrument. Hey, even back then I knew it was a piece of crap, but at least it had become my piece of crap for the duration of my self-teachings. It was an unforgiving and likely hastily-assembled acoustic, surely slapped together on an assembly line by Chinese children and housewives. Hey, the sticker I saw inside the soundhole read "Made in China". So don't judge me!

 I bought a handful of books on beginner, and not so beginner, guitar. I didn't exactly track my progress to see how quickly I was picking things up, but there was marked improvement. Probably over the course of a few years, I'd learned to read sheet music not too terribly, but I still struggled to speed up my playing with those more difficult pieces. The books never had anything better than folk and gospel songs, but that was about to change. I reconnected with a childhood friend, who just happened to be a bit of a guitar wiz. Even though he could have sat me down and schooled me further on theory, he instead made my homework fun by showing me how to listen to music and learn to play by ear. That was my most valuable set of lessons ever. Now I could simply play records and tapes, and copy the chords and licks on my guitar. 

What made that early training even better was that my buddy owned a beautiful - but heavy - Gibson Les Paul. And he had a massive Traynor amplifier. Man, I felt like a guitar god when he let me jam on that thing. He had a little drum kit that he'd bash on while I'd push myself through some actual rock songs, the first of which was Rush's In The End. Powerful chords and simple, short riffs helped build my confidence and gave me fuel to practise more and more at home, even if that practise was to be on my stiff, finger-slashing acoustic. 

Time to become cooler.

One day another friend at school offered me his old electric guitar for a nominal fee. What was it... fifty bucks, I think? I didn't know much about guitars at the time but even this truly ancient Kent 12-string looked like a jewel to me. Its tone was kind of listless on first play, but I learned the magic of the distortion and flanger effects pedals (on my jamming buddy's set-up) in conjunction with a killer amp. I set the guitar up as a six-string since this would be easier (not to mention cheaper) for a neophyte like me. 

The one problem with all of this was that I knew my parents could never find out I had this electric guitar. Solution? Easy.... hide it in my closet, behind my clothes. That worked for a while, but after my parents' annual Homeland Security inspection of my room, I was hauled into the interrogation centre for some serious de-briefing. Dad would never understand any of this; I knew that from day one... he hated music - period. Correction: I recall him listening to some bagpipe strangulation techniques on a tape player one day. Does that count? Regardless, he was not a fan. "Turn down that damned jungle music!" was his most uttered line during my teen years. 

In the end, there was nothing to be done. I'd bought the guitar and I guess it was decided by the local authorities that I could keep the device as long as it never interfered with their quiet time. Luckily, my cheap, worn-out little amp (also courtesy of my mentor friend) had a headphone jack so that I could practise privately without disturbing the man upstairs (I had a basement bedroom as a teenager). 

Naturally, Smoke on the Water (or part of it, anyway) became a part of my repertoire. This was back before that song became a cliché for guitar beginners. I was on my way. There's more to this story, but this is a convenient place to wrap up part one. Stay tuned for more later.

Here's that crazy Kent guitar, which now lives in my brother's storage area across the country from me. There's a great story behind this guitar now: when I moved out of my parent's house, I left behind the creaky China acoustic and sold the Kent electric to a friend of my brother. That fellow trucked that guitar around the world, even settling in Japan for a spell. The guy eventually handed the guitar over to my brother, who then informed me that it was in his possession. I'm sure there was a gleam in my eyes when I heard that. I doubt I'll ever see the Kent again, but it's not impossible. I don't know if I even care to see, own, or play it again, but it was charming in its own primitive way back then. But if the guitar ever did come back to me, maybe I could finally throw twelve strings on it and see what it can really do!

Big chunky pickups, a beast of a bridge, and slider pickup selector switches

Teenage Bed-Head

Wow, look at those freaks!

It was in my second year of  high school - 1979/80, I believe, that Frankie Venom brought his punk rock act to the stage of our gymnasium. Teenage Head hailed from Hamilton, Ontario, less than a day's drive from my hometown, forming in '75 and carrying on in various incarnations for many years, with varying degrees of success. The songs the band played at this gig were all great fun and happened to be the first punk-ish rock I'd ever heard. Rock radio beamed into my neck of the woods focused on arena rock for the most part, so non-mainstream bands nearly never got airplay. 

The overall show is pretty much gone from my memory, but the odd detail remains. For instance, Head's regular guitarist Gordon Lewis was out sick at the time, and Toronto record producer, songwriter, and musician David Bendeth took over axe duties for that evening. I'd heard of Bendeth before; his name came up on Q107 radio's music news now and then; he must have had a band in the metropolitan area at the time. Apparently he's gone on to become a multi-platinum award-winning record producer with a huge list of credits. Look 'em up. Oh, and he happened to be the dude who did the mixing on Teenage Head's new album. So....

But back to the concert: the fairly reserved-looking Bendeth performed with flair, an interesting contrast to Head's regular line-up of scruffy punks. Venom snarled and sneered, hurling himself about to the gnashing guitars. The band was touring in support of their Frantic City album (which went gold in Canada!), so we were treated to rowdy new hits like Let's Shake, Infected, and Disgusteen. Even though I no longer own any of Head's music, those particular songs are still old favourites that I would happily stage dive to. And I am certain that Picture My Face, off the debut Head album, was part of the set that night. 

Years ago, I had a 2-fer cassette tape with both Frantic City and its follow-up Some Kinda Fun on it. A fun raucous bunch of tunes, but sadly, the tape disintegrated decades later. My only remaining souvenir from that high school gig is the ticket stub pictured below. Who knew it would ever come in handy again?

Scorpions Inflict Stinging Solos

These bad boys are running a bit wild....

The German metal meisters Scorpions came to town on a hot summer day back in '84. I was home from college and had to talk a friend into driving us down to Toronto for the show. I had to push a bit for he just wasn't into metal the way I was. None of my friends were, really. But I succeeded in securing tickets and a ride for the big day. He showed up on his motorcycle on the morning of the concert. That didn't impress my parents. I wasn't so enamoured either since I'd never been on a bike before, and I was terrified that I was going to fall off the back as I tried to hang on for dear life as we tore through city streets to John's place. Once there, my heartrate calmed down, and we traded motorbike for his mom's car. Whew.

The 80's heavy metal scene was all about craziness, and the Scorpions' 1984 Rock and Roll Hurricane tour definitely fit that bill. But wait, this wasn't just another concert - this was a mammoth, day-long, outdoor metal fest, featuring some of the most insane and popular bands of that time. The Scorpions' album Love At First Sting hit the stores that springtime, and we were ready for a big show that summer. 

It was a hot weekday (I skipped work, much to the annoyance of my dad) in Toronto, Canada when fans clad in leather, denim, and spandex (!) converged on Exhibition Stadium. A massive stage filled a good portion of the football field. Lots of room for the Scorps to run laps. The show started in the afternoon. 

The first act was Canada's Kickaxe... I can still picture the lead singer running around barefoot, which he was known to do. Why did he do that? Kickaxe entertained us with their hit Heavy Metal Shuffle and an assortment of their other goofy, fun hard rock. Next up was hairband Helix, who had made a splash with recent hits Heavy Metal Love and Rock You. They turned up the volume a little further and got the crowd going. "Gimme an R...!" 

When Quiet Riot hit the stage, the skies were darkening, helping to cool off the hundreds of sweaty, fist-pumping metalheads. We had seats in the stands, shaded from the blistering sun, and we enjoyed a perfect centre-stage view as the lightshow got into gear. DuBrow and company played hits like Cum on Feel the Noize and Mama Weer All Crazee Now. Quiet Riot was riding a huge wave of success after, in 1983, becoming the first heavy metal band to have a top 5 hit song and a #1 album in the same week. 

Next up - the headliners, the Scorpions. These near-legendary hard rock/metal masters were high on my list of favourite artists at the time. Right up there with Rush, Iron Maiden, and Judas Priest. The Scorps did not disappoint; in fact, their performance that night still ranks among the best rock concerts I've ever seen. The sheer energy, musicianship, showmanship, their light and effects show... it was all done with precision and volume. A wild, loud rocking good time. The drum riser really rose - up high! Ramps and platforms everywhere allowed singer Klaus Meine and his manic guitarists to run all over the stage while gnashing out riffs and crushing chords. And of course, the Scorpions were all about wicked guitar solos, which Schenker and Jabs delivered with maximum intensity. 

We stomped, clapped, cheered, (sort of) sang, and punched the air to tunes like Rock You Like a Hurricane, Lovedrive, Animal Magnetism, and Blackout. A visually and aurally stunning concert.