Old "After the Fact" Band photos - Take 1

Since jumping on Facebook and reconnecting with people I hadn't seen in freakin ages, I noticed some of my old acquaintances in the music biz had put up old band photos of themselves back in the 1980's. They are hillarious! And so are mine!(god I was skinny back then!). I got the scanner out and popped a crap load on Flickr in various stages and re-incarnations of my 1980's 'serious amateur 'music career. Here's the first set. The photo up above was taken sometime in 1987 or 1988 at Ambiance Studios on Rideau street. It seems everybody recorded there back then. On this particular night the "Connection Band" had done the session before and the studio reeked of pot(they were obviously well-connected). Like I said before, a lot of people recorded there.

This one on the right is from 1985 on stage at Gloucester High School battle of the bands. The band is called "The Service"(they seemed to always let me name the band - the FOOLS!). Our singer looks like one of the guys from Duran Duran and we have no drummer, just a drum machine! Gotta love it! It never complains, gets drunk, throws fits or goes after people's girlfriends like the later version(grin). I'm in the early "Always look at my fingers" stage of my playing. That's my first electric guitar, a black Ibanez Roadstar Series II around my neck. At this show I believe we got a training bra thrown on-stage(the singer was very popular). I have some video of this show that I'll put up someday. It's something! (I can't remember if I vomited before this show)

This is a favorite pic of mine. It's my room circa 1985/1986. Check out the owl(you'll see him at every show) and my Boss pedals in my BCB-6 floorboard! I spent many hours sitting on the floor hunched over my guitar, practicing, because I did not take to it naturally like some people. If I didn't practice every day I would start to suck. I would also talk on the phone to people as I practiced, which didn't always go over well, but it could be done as long as you grunted and affirmed in the right places. I listened to many a disgruntled female complain about my male friends as I practiced my modes and just generally agreed with them(good advice to all men out there).

How embarrassing! I'm wearing the exact same sweater/jeans combination from Ambiance studios but this time in in the Men's John at the Trebas school of recording. There's good reverb in toilets and I tried to record there whenever possible(mainly at home). At the time we were slightly affiliated with a "manager lady" named Helen who taught at Trebas. She was very 'interesting' and had genuine expertise in the broadcasting and radio industry. She "managed" bands as a hobby and helped us get organized a bit but we generally didn't see eye to eye and disagreed a lot(I could do a whole blog post on her. What reminded me of her in this pic is that in one of the stalls there was some graffiti which mentioned her by name. It said "Helen (last name) is a big fat rhinoceros bitch!!". She must have failed the guy on some exam..

This is in Chris Williams basement(me and Chris actually). His sister was always taking photos of us, and she was really good I thought. This is our Billy Sheenan Steve Vai pose. Those guys did the same pose in an ad from D"Adarrio guitar strings.
Around the time this photo was taken we were practicing and the lights started to flick on and off (that was his parent's way of telling us to knock it off for a bit). Chris's sister raised Bunnies and her freind had brought a male bunny over to mate and they wanted us to shut up for about 20 minutes so they could get to it. The mal ebunny pole vaulted out of it's owners arms, landed on the female's head, straddling her the wrong way around (butt to head) and started jackhammering away. He soon realized his mistake, switched around before the female bunny knew what was happening (she had been minding her own business and suddenly this fucking rabbit falls four feet out of the air onto her head out of nowhere) and was done in about 15 seconds. When they say " Screw like bunnies" etc.. they mean it.. Oddly enough I recall similar stories from female human friends(grin)

And speaking of photos, soon after this one was taken, we did a show somewhere and I drove our light guy home that night, a guy from Canterbury High School named Dave. Dave was infatuated with our lovely girl lead singer Vanessa (whom you'll see in later blogs - we had a girl and a guy on singing duties). When I got to Dave's house he talked me into coming inside his parent's house to check out his new "Black Widow" speakers in his room, bla bla bla. When I was in his bedroom, I turned around and he was holding a camera and quickly snapped a photo or three of me "for his little sister". With the flashbulb popping and homophobia starting to set in, he assured me that she would get a kick out of me being inside their house at 2:00am because she saw me at a show we did at Cantabury and mentioned something to Dave. Awww.. A 14 year old with a crush on me!(blush - that or Dave wasn't what he seemed and the photos were for god knows what).

I jokingly suggested we take a photo of me at the foot of her bed as she slept to be really funny and he thought that would be great! (he was quite disapopinted when I told him it was really just a joke and I had to get the hell home).

Ahh Light man Dave. He sent Vanessa flowers the next show we did. I'm gonna look him up on Facebook!