Where I Belong

by Alan Doyle

  “Santa figured you should have a guitar of your own,” Dad said with a smile. “And God knows I never gets to play mine anymore.”

  I could not believe it. “It’s mine? My own guitar?”

  I lifted it out of the case and strummed it, and it was every bit as good as Dad’s Marlin, maybe even a bit better. I looked around at my brother and sisters, who all seemed to know that in the world of Christmas gifts, this was a big one. This was way more expensive than any of the other gifts but also the one thing that would be more appreciated than anything else under the tree. My brother and sisters, in their usual way, were so happy for me. They had this look on their faces like they’d just seen a really cool thing: a boy getting his first guitar.

  I played that guitar until the brown fingerboard turned white. Grooves formed in the first three or four frets where I beat the wood back. I must have played ten thousand songs on that guitar. It still hangs on the wall of my studio.

  My first guitar, a Citation. Check out the wear on the neck and frets. I played it till my fingers bled.

  CHAPTER 11

  When I was in Grade 8, I was one of two goalies in the Goulds Minor Hockey League. I had saved up my tongue-cutting money and paid for the registration myself. I knew from day one that I wanted to be the goalie, but Dad was worried that we could never afford the equipment. As luck turned out, the league owned goalie gear, so we did not have to pay that extra expense. At the first skate of the first season, I asked if I could be goalie, and I have never played a single game in any other position.

  I wanted to be like Ken Dryden of my beloved Montreal Canadiens. He seemed different from all the other players, even different from all of the other goalies. He was tall, like a basketball player. He was the only English guy who taught himself to speak French. Moreover, he spoke eloquently about things other than “giving the game 110 percent” and “getting pucks to the net.” And when he talked about his team, it was like he was talking about his family. He acknowledged the team’s strengths, knew they had a dozen or more superstars, but he was humble enough to concede that the only way they’d ever win was by playing as a team. Then, Dryden did the unthinkable. He quit the NHL to go back to school to finish his law degree. Once finished, he did the unthinkable again. He came back to the NHL and won the Cup a few more times. He was incredible. He was my idol. He still is.

  The Goulds Minor Hockey Midgets, with me (the largest Midget) in the middle.

  After I started playing goalie, I came to love the position for its unique vantage point of the game. I was in the game, but I could also see it as an outsider, too. To this day, my undiagnosed ADHD runs my life. I am a scatterbrain at the best of times, as easily distracted by squirrels as by bright lights. But when I’m playing goal, I’m totally focused. When a player is approaching and about to shoot, the rest of the world vanishes.

  I love hockey now and I loved it in Grade 8 as a goalie for the Goulds team. As luck would have it, hockey led me to one of my earliest and most valued musical friends. He was a goalie, too, a new kid who had just moved to the Goulds from Bell Island. Greg Hawco was his name. He was a strange dude. He would sit next to me on the bench and talk endlessly about the straps of his goalie pads or the laces of his gloves. I did not know it at the time, but I was meeting my first real gear pig.

  After a few weeks, I told him I played guitar and was even hoping to get gigs with my uncle Ronnie’s band. He looked at me wide-eyed. “I play the drums, you know.”

  “Really?” I said.

  “Yeah. It would be cool if we jammed,” said Greg.

  From that point on, instead of him talking about the merits of one kind of goalie pad over another, he talked about music, drum gear, guitars and Queen. Yes, Queen, the band. Greg was obsessed with Queen. How Queen was easily the greatest band in the history of music. How they were more orchestral and complex than the Beatles. How they were way more lyrically profound than Bon Jovi or Poison. How Freddie Mercury was the greatest front man and rock singer of all time.

  “I like John Denver and Def Leppard,” I said. Hawco looked hugely disappointed and paused for a moment. Then he carried on about how Zeppelin and the Doors had a lot more to offer than Ratt.

  The next fall, I was going into Grade 9, which meant moving from St. Edward’s elementary school in Petty Harbour to St. Kevin’s High School in the Goulds. I couldn’t have been happier. I was going to school in a town that was not my own, with new people. I knew a few of the fellas in the ninth grade already. Greg Hawco had introduced me to Brian Foley, whose dad was a well-known singer in and around the Goulds. Brian was a great guitar player and, more important, he was willing to play bass. (That’s how most bass players are born—by playing guitar first and then turning to bass after.) We three very quickly connected and decided we should start a band. The school band room had a drum set as well as a bass guitar and amp. I borrowed an electric guitar and amp from a guy in Grade 10 who never played it. I could not believe such a thing—to have a piece of equipment like that and not use it.

  We asked our music teacher to let us stay after school one day to jam. We had no microphones, but that was not about to stop us. I set the up drums and the amps on opposite sides. I turned them up as loud as they could suffer. After some fussing about, I announced, “I can sing and play ‘Summer of ’69,’ by Bryan Adams.”

  “Nah,” said Brian Foley. “Let’s do ‘Living After Midnight,’ by Judas Priest.”

  “Queen,” Hawco demanded, not even bothering to name a specific song.

  “I can’t sing their songs,” I admitted sheepishly.

  “Fine,” Hawco said. “Adams it is.”

  I did not realize the lesson I’d just learned: that in a band, the singer just about always gets what he wants.

  We launched in and I gave “Summer of ’69” a go. I yelled as loud as I could over the blaring bass and guitar amps. But then the drums kicked in and I was drowned out by Greg’s bashing. We jammed that one tune for about two hours—until the school janitor finally kicked us out. When I hitchhiked home that day, my ears were ringing with a high-pitched whistle. But still, I could not wipe the smile off my face.

  As cool as that jam was, Brian, Hawco and I knew that if we were going to get serious, we needed a microphone. Brian’s dad had a small vocal PA in his garden shed.

  “You b’ys clean the junk outta the shed and you’re welcome to jam in there,” his dad offered.

  Brian and I cleaned it out the very next day. Greg was late … but that’s a drummer for you. Drummers and tardiness go hand in hand. (The stereotype is almost always accurate. Sorry to you most rare punctual drummers out there.)

  We cleared a two-by-twelve space, figuring that should do it. The next day, a Friday, we begged Mr. Dave Brown, our music teacher, to let us take the drum kit and bass rig home for the weekend.

  “You’ve got to promise me you’ll return it in the same condition. Don’t blow my speakers.” He could not have been more delighted we wanted to start a band.

  “Mr. Brown, when this drum kit comes back, it will be so shiny that you won’t recognize it,” I assured him. He may or may not have believed me.

  That Saturday, we met early at Brian’s and set up the drums, amps and one microphone. (When I say “we,” I mean me and Brian. See above note about drummers.)

  We had no microphone stand, so we jammed a hockey stick into a bucket of rocks and duct-taped the mic to the blade. By the time Greg showed up, we were ready to go. I’d say we jammed for six or eight hours that day and never got through a full song. We did what every young band should. We sucked. It was wonderful. That’s how you learn who should play what instruments, what songs to sing and what ones to skip. I always tell young bands, “Don’t be afraid to suck in rehearsal.” It’s the most fun path to discovery.

  We fantasized about doing gigs and how one day we’d have a van with all our gear and we’d drive to St. John’s to play a club. We switched instruments and argued and fought over who was speedi
ng up and who was playing the wrong part. Just like a real band. It was as cool a day as I’ve ever had.

  After a few of those weekend jams, we set our sights on the St. Kevin’s Christmas concert. We figured we could persuade the powers that be to let us play a couple of tunes. Brian was making waves that he should play guitar sometimes and we should get another bass player. Bern was keeping a keen eye on what we were up to, and I asked him if he’d play bass with us at the concert. He agreed but made sure we knew he didn’t want to be in the band full-time. That was good enough for us. The gig was booked.

  We were to play two songs at the concert—“Summer of ’69” and “Johnny B. Goode.” I would sing, and Brian and I would play guitar. Greg would drum and Bern would play bass. We rehearsed a few more times in Brian’s shed. But winter was coming and it was getting really cold in there. We needed a heat source or we’d be done for the winter.

  “Hey, guys. What about this?” I said. I pointed out a coal barbecue in the corner, and beside it, a fresh bag of coals.

  The guys looked at the barbecue and then back at me. “Good idea,” they said.

  For the next few jams, we coughed out songs through thick black barbecue smoke. One day, Brian’s dad came home from work early, saw smoke billowing out of the shed and came running over.

  “What in the Christ are ye doing?”

  We stared blankly. What did he mean?

  “Are ye trying to suffocate yourselves?!”

  Still nothing but blank stares.

  And so, Brian’s dad got us a kerosene heater. Admittedly, it burned a whole lot cleaner than the barbecue and kept us warmer, too.

  After a few more jams, we were getting the tunes down. Greg started counting us in by clicking his sticks instead of shouting, “One, two, three, four.” Our solos were starting and finishing at the right times. We were becoming a band. But we were a band without a name. We argued for a few days over what the band name could be. I think the only band all three of us liked was Van Halen, so we decided our band name should have three syllables and be two words.

  “What about ‘First Attempt’?” I asked. I figured we may as well let people know that we were new, and if the tunes sucked, maybe they’d cut us some slack.

  “Stupid,” said Brian.

  “Not great,” said Hawco.

  But no one had a better idea. (This, it turns out, is how almost every single band in history gets named—by default.) So for the Christmas concert gig, Brian and I got a black sheet of cardboard and cut a stylized “F.A.” into it, mimicking the famous Van Halen “VH.” We stuck the cardboard to the outer drumhead of Greg’s bass drum. At least we all agreed on one thing: that drumhead looked incredible.

  Later, Brian’s parents came in.

  “F.A.?” Brian’s dad asked. “What’s that stand for, F—k Aff?” Brian’s mom clipped her husband in the head.

  The day of the gig, we went to school early. By “we,” I mean Brian and me. We decided that we needed a drum riser that looked more like Alex Van Halen’s in Van Halen. From the school cafeteria, we nabbed two long tables with pressboard tops and placed them side by each in the middle of the gym stage. We took the newly adorned F.A. bass drum and placed it up there. We walked to the back of the gym to survey our work.

  Unprompted and in perfect unison, we both said, “Deadly.”

  We took our time setting up our amps on chairs so they looked bigger and higher, like Marshall stacks. We duct-taped our cables and distortion pedals to the stage floor and tried to decide if the mic stands should be straight up and down like Eddie Van Halen’s or turned at a sharp right angle like Brian May’s from Queen. We jigged and rejigged gear right until it was time to open the doors.

  When our time came to do our tunes, we set up behind the curtain and Greg gave a few thump thumps on the bass drum. The two tables that hoisted his kit were starting to drift apart. Hmm. Perhaps we should have lashed them together. We asked one of the bigger fellas on the side of the stage to crawl under the tables and hold them together as we played.

  “Um … sure,” the guy said. It surprised me then and thrills me still: it is amazing what the most unlikely folks will do to help out a band.

  Dawn, the most awesome MC, took the stage. “And now, ladies and gentlemen,” she began, “you are about to hear St. Kevin’s answer to the Stones, the Beatles and the Who. Please welcome First Attempt!”

  The crowd cheered louder than they had for any other act at the concert, and just as the curtains parted, we launched into “Summer of ’69.”

  I have almost no memory of those next few minutes. I’m pretty sure we played about twenty beats per minute faster than usual. The whole tune went by in a flash. We had rehearsed that song so often, it was like a muscle reflex. I only recall reminding myself that the bridge went to F, an odd but very cool chord progression for a pop song in the key of D major, as it turns out. When we hit the last chord, I finally took a breath and looked up to see everyone in the gym standing and dancing.

  I had no idea what to do next. I had not thought of anything to say between songs. I must have had a puzzled look on my face because I looked back at Greg on the kit and he said, “Just go, b’y, go!”

  So I started in on the famous opening guitar riff to “Johnny B. Goode.” The place got even rowdier. By the time we hit the big guitar solo in the middle, the place was on fire. Greg kept shouting, “Go, b’y, go!” through the whole song. I still was not sure what he meant.

  Then I figured it out. We had used a couple of distortion pedals as links to join three twenty-foot guitar cables together. I ran down the steps and played most of my solo on the gym floor while everyone danced around me. At least that’s what it felt like to me. Photos of that moment reveal me playing my solo in the middle of the gym, with one dude dancing close by and everyone else gathered around looking vaguely confused. But that’s not the point. The point is it felt like there were hundreds of people dancing with me. And that feeling was awesome.

  I made my way back to the stage for the last chorus and the closing riff of de-na-da, bana-dun, ba-dada-ba-baaaaaa. The curtains closed. I was sure the entire crowd was on their feet (because there were no chairs), and I was sure they were chanting for more.

  Here I am playing with my first band, First Attempt, at St. Kevin’s High School. Notice the Eddie Van Halen “Jump” bandana and the Opus penguin shirt. Friggin’ Cool.

  First Attempt was a hit. The principal said we should learn a few more songs and play a set for the next high school dance. We learned “Bad to the Bone,” and “Living After Midnight,” and “I Did It for Love” and “Make Me Do Anything You Want.” We practised for a few weeks, and the principal let us play a set at the next dance. We set up behind the DJ. He did a great job packing the dance floor before we were up.

  When it was our turn, we launched into “Summer of ’69” and a blast of feedback came so loud that it almost knocked me down. Our sound setup was so terrible compared to the pre-taped music that people ran from the dance floor. It took two or three songs to get the sound right, and by the time we played “Make Me Do Anything You Want,” some folks got on the floor. We ended with “Johnny B. Goode” and it was finally going well—the dance floor was packed and people were having a good time. When we were done, our fans cheered for more. But we were out of songs. So we did what any band would do. We played the same songs over again.

  Another high school concert where First Attempt was rocking out. From left to right, that’s Brian Foley on drums, me on Uncle Leonard’s Strat (and wearing the same Eddie Van Halen “Jump” bandana), Greg Hawco in the very cool sunglasses and my brother, Bern, with the wicked ’stache.

  First Attempt went on to play a few dozen dances at St. Kevin’s High School, though I don’t recall us ever getting paid. We even got to play for a few dances in St. Paul’s church basement, which meant playing for Protestant girls. And according to my grandmother, these girls were all scandalous whores who were on the pill, girls who were constan
tly having sex with just about everyone. You can imagine my disappointment when I discovered for myself that these gals were no more willing to make out with a guy like me than the Catholic gals at my own school.

  The band was my first love, but at St. Kevin’s I joined whatever other artistic endeavour was on the go. I became entrenched with some of the most creative people I’ve ever met. We were constantly planning for a concert or a play or something. It would be remiss of me not to mention the artistic melting pot that was St. Kevin’s. Here’s a quick list of just a few of the people who were part of or hanging with the St. Kevin’s gang at that time:

  • Perry Chafe, head writer and co-creator of CBC’s hit series Republic of Doyle

  • Allan Hawco, series co-creator and star of Republic of Doyle

  • Greg Hawco, composer, master of percussion and international orchestral conductor

  • Jillian Keiley, artistic director of the National Arts Centre

  • David Pomeroy, internationally renowned tenor and opera star

  • Keith Power, award-winning composer for film and TV

  • Robert Chafe, award-winning playwright

  • Sheila Williams, principal performer with Spirit of Newfoundland productions

  Program from St. Kevin’s 1986 variety show. We modelled it after the community concerts in Petty Harbour.

  Because I played on almost every song in this show, I must have figured I was a rock star. That’s why I autographed the program below for my teacher, Mrs. Chang. Funny that my signature remains laughably similar to what it is today.

  And that’s not to mention my little sister, Michelle, who has two music degrees and has starred in a dozen or more musicals, including Grease and Chicago.

  I learned so many lessons with First Attempt. I learned that a fast song gets people on the dance floor, but it needs to be followed by a faster song or the energy will drop. I learned that once the floor is filled, the band’s challenge is to keep it that way. And when the energy peaks, it is time for a ballad to give the couples a chance to cuddle. But afterwards, the momentum has to be built up again, often with a fast song that the same couples will want to dance to together. I learned how to use my equipment and that I need heavier strings than most because I play so hard. I came to understand that the technical aspects of concerts were often underappreciated, and that rental and transport of gear was a massive expense.