Rockin' Canadian Style

The young and the wreckless

Today is Canada Day, when we beer-drinking, snow-shoveling, plaid-wearing "eh"-sayers celebrate the birthday of our fair nation. In tribute to this occasion, I'd like to share some fond memories of Canadian rock'n'rollers from a few decades ago.

During my teenage years, I was discovering all of the great Canadian bands actively recording and touring at the time, not for a moment realizing that this was a Golden Age of sorts. The late 70's and early 80's were special enough as they were, simply because I was young enough not to have a care in the world except "what album will I buy this week?"

My main sources of music news were the Toronto radio station Q107 and the Toronto TV show The New Music, and on rare occasions maybe CHUM-FM. Between the three of them, I was able to keep current with the scene and appear pretty knowledgeable to the average Joe on the street. Not that I was trying to impress anyone... or was I?

The fertile 70's laid the groundwork for a thriving music industry in Canada. At the time, you could never say there was a glut of bands out there. There were just enough to keep you happy, with no real difficulty keeping up with their creative output. Today, on the other hand, you seem to need a wi-fi receiver brain implant in order to know everything going on in Canada, let alone the rest of the world. Yes, just plug me in Matrix-style. No, I wouldn't want that. 

When I became a serious music listener as a teen, a Canadian government group, the CRTC, had just modified its requirements for TV and radio broadcasters to play a certain percentage of Canadian content (thus, the abbreviated CanCon). The requirement jumped from 25% to 30% in the 80's. That's a fair bit....

But this was not a problem for radio stations like Q107, for they were proud of the fact that Canada was producing so much amazing music at the time. Yes, bring on the Canadian content! Sure, we still got Def Leppard and Ted Nugent over the airwaves, but hey, there was no shame in blasting some good ol' Rush or Triumph back in the day. Not to mention the lower-tier acts who comprised the exciting scene right here at home. 

Some of my fave rockers at the time were Santers, Coney Hatch (and then singer/bassist Andy Curran when he went solo - with no tattoos), FM (prog rockers with a difference), Max Webster (then Kim Mitchell when he went solo), Killer Dwarfs (inducing heavy mental breakdowns everywhere), Helix (give me an "R"), Kickaxe, and Harlequin. Oh, and April Wine, though most of their best music was made in the 70's. 

Other cool bands that really kicked were Lee Aaron (the original Metal Queen), Goddo (juiced on lizard fuel), Prism, Frank Soda, Teenage Head, Aldo Nova, Headpins, Loverboy, Toronto, Streetheart, Queen City Kids, Trooper, and the Pat Travers Band (snortin' whiskey and blazing solos!).

And the dawn of the music video gave these artists the chance to get their music (and faces) out to the whole country - and maybe the world - through sometimes shoe-string budget videos (check out the Killer Dwarfs' "Heavy Mental Breakdown"). Some bands were quite inventive with the new medium, creating unforgettable images to accompany their hit songs. In fact, I just now revisited a bunch of those videos and man, some of them still get me going.... again, I'll cite Heavy Mental Breakdown by the Dwarfs as a favourite. MuchMusic, Canada's answer to MTV, was a glorious thing for music-hungry fans in its early days. 

Good times.....

Mime your own business!