1982
Page 2
I joined the Thornhill Community Band as the new drummer in 1982. The insiders called it the TCB. You might think it was a real honour to be selected as the drummer. You might think it was an indication of my superior level of talent at the time. But the Thornhill Community Band was almost totally volunteer, and there was very little quality control.
I only got involved in the TCB because, in the beginning of Grade 9, Don Margison’s father had inquired if I’d be able to play drums when the old percussionist, a retired gentleman named Reginald who’d been with the TCB since the late ’70s, quit. Don had told his father that I was a very good drummer. This was probably a mistake. Mr. Margison was the lead trombone player in the TCB, and he was quite accomplished. He wore sweaters over collared shirts, and one of his sweaters had his name inscribed on it, along with a little picture of a trombone. In other words, he was good enough to have his own trombone sweater. Mr. Margison was in his fifties and he was balding. He was usually frustrated that other people weren’t as good at their instruments as he was, and at TCB practices his face and his balding head would get red with irritation. He would also drink at some of the practices, and he would get red then, too. Sometimes it was difficult to tell if Mr. Margison was red from blowing hard into his trombone, or from drinking in excess, or from his mounting frustration over working with amateurs.
I had agreed to come in for an audition after Don Margison told me of his dad’s request. Don was an acquaintance who was an excellent young piano player. He’d seen me playing “Tom Sawyer” by Rush on a drum kit in the music room after school. He thought I was good. He didn’t know that I played “Tom Sawyer” well only because I had practised it over four hundred times, because in 1982 that’s what aspiring drummers did. Don just knew I was a drummer who could play “Tom Sawyer.” And that his dad needed one.
As part of the stringent audition process for the TCB, I met with two of the executive members—a nice bearded man named Jack and Mr. Margison. I was very intimidated at the audition. My father dropped me off, and he was waiting outside while I went in to the high school music room. The bearded man named Jack was also in his fifties, and had a big belly and wore corduroy pants and a flowery shirt underneath a vest. He greeted me by saying, “Hey there, man!” like bearded people talked in the 1960s. I think he might have previously been one of those guys that other musicians call a “jazz cat.” He played the bass saxophone in the TCB. On the evening they invited me to audition, he took a seat next to Mr. Margison in the music room and I stood in front of them. Mr. Margison sat upright and looked quite stern. Strangely, the audition involved no music performance but rather an “informal chat.” I assumed this was a ruse. I was prepared for a minor interrogation to see if I was the right young man for the job. “So … can you play drum kit well?” bearded Jack asked me in a friendly way to get things rolling.
“Um, yes,” I replied, trying to sound confident. “I mean … I think I can. I mean, of course.”
“Well, that’s very good, man. Right on.” He turned to Mr. Margison and nodded with a satisfied look. “And what about percussion, then? Can you play percussion?”
“Yeah. That too.” I didn’t know exactly what they meant by percussion, but I could handle a tambourine and shakers and I had played bongos. Once, I played bongos on BBC television in England when I was five years old with a bunch of other kids. I’m not sure I knew how to play very well. But since I’d done it on TV, I must have been good enough.
Then it was Mr. Margison’s turn to speak. He cleared his throat first to signal his intervention.
“Well, that’s all very fine. Thank you for coming. But I hope you know this isn’t a rock band, young man. Can you actually read music?”
As he said this, Mr. Margison turned his head sharply towards bearded Jack as if to suggest that this should have been the first question asked. Mr. Margison had worn a look of disappointment on his face since the moment I walked in. I’m not sure what Don had told him, but I wasn’t living up to expectations. It seemed strange that he needed to clarify that the TCB wasn’t a rock band. I was quite sure Mr. Margison wouldn’t fit in with any rock bands.
“Um … I’m okay at that. Like … reading music, I mean,” I responded.
Bearded Jack could tell I probably couldn’t read music very well, but he didn’t seem to mind. He was nodding along as if nothing about this conversation really mattered much. Mr. Margison was looking distraught.
But before I knew it, Jack had jumped up and was shaking my hand. “Well, okay then, man. Welcome to the band!”
Mr. Margison looked angry. His face was getting red. He had been out-voted by the bearded man named Jack. His balding head turned a shade of deep red that I had not witnessed yet. It was more like burgundy.
With this probing test over, I was in. There were about thirty members of the TCB, including trumpet and French horn players, clarinetists, a tuba-playing woman, and Jack the bass saxophone man. Most of the band members were older men, and many of them were balding and also had beards. The conductor was a kind lady named Amanda. During my first year playing drums in the TCB, we practised the theme from Superman, and I played a repeating marching drum roll at the start. This meant I was in the spotlight. I was also in the spotlight because I wasn’t old. And I may have drawn attention because I was the only one with dyed and gelled and semi-spiked hair. I was never sure if Mr. Margison and the older, white, conservative people in the Thornhill Community Band ever really liked me. I was pretty sure they just needed a drummer and I was the only one available. We wore special blue shirts with a V-neck and white trim in the TCB. I got mine oversized and let it drape over my black New Wave pants. I was intent on being my own man, even though I was scared that most of them hated me. We met twice a week and practised a few songs that we considered our hits.
I have made a short list (or shortlist) of the biggest hits of the Thornhill Community Band in 1982:
theme from Superman
theme from Star Wars
“How Deep Is Your Love”
“William Tell Overture” (theme from The Lone Ranger)
“New York, New York” (theme from New York, New York)
As you can see from this list, the TCB had an affinity for performing themes from famous movies and TV shows. Crowd pleasers. It didn’t seem to make much of a difference that we almost never played for a crowd. The elderly trumpet player named Marvin declared that our Lone Ranger theme would “bring the house down!” There was much excitement about this at practice, but I’m not sure that it ever happened. Or that there were many houses we could bring down. We did do a few gigs, including a big Christmas concert at the Thornhill Community Centre. At the Christmas concert, we had some local high school tap dancers perform while we played the theme from New York, New York. That was our showstopper. Unfortunately, the community band never really sounded very good. The members were mostly very nice and earnest, but there wasn’t much of what you might call “soul.” Maybe that was fitting for Thornhill.
THORNHILL WAS THE quintessential suburb. I’ve never lived in any other suburb, but I imagine they all look like Thornhill, with people who act like they did in Thornhill. It was the kind of place where men watch sprinklers on their lawns. Have you ever noticed that men like to watch sprinklers? They do. Or at least, they did. But I think they probably still do.
When suburban men reach a certain age (let’s say, north of thirty-five), they like to stand at the foot of their front lawns and watch their sprinklers distributing water on them. This seems to be a biological need. It may look like a banal exercise, but men take it very seriously. You might expect that these men are involved in another activity while they are watching the lawn—like thinking. But I’m not so sure they are. I think they’re not thinking. Watching the lawn is like a middle-class, suburban form of meditation for men. It becomes more common as they age. Their heads are empty and they are just watching sprinklers. Sometimes men will rub their bellies while they watch their lawns. Perh
aps these men are so tired from a busy week that this is their respite. Or maybe these men feel a sense of accomplishment and worth by looking at their lawns. Maybe, in the moments when their heads aren’t empty, they’re thinking, “This is MY lawn! Look what I’ve done. I’ve got myself a lawn with a working sprinkler! I don’t have to think. My belly feels good. I am feeling my belly.” Maybe that’s what suburban men are thinking.
This suburban sprinkler-watching activity divides along gender lines, too. Women have never stared at lawns and watched sprinklers, not in 1982 and not now. Not with the same dreamy look. Not for hours at a time. Women are more proactive and productive. They would start weeding or planting or they would point out the names of flowers or they would think about how things could look better. But men are different. Men will spend hours watching their sprinklers.
In 1982, on my street and on the streets nearby, you could see dozens of Thornhill men watching their sprinklers on any given Sunday afternoon. Sometimes, the style of sprinkler would mirror the personality of its owner. There was the machine-gun-like, rat-a-tat-tat rapid-fire “pulsating” sprinkler that would sit in the middle of a lawn and aggressively shoot water in all directions. I would later learn that this was also sometimes called the “impulse” sprinkler. It was likely owned and run by the dad of a tough guy. It was often considered the most effective, because it would discharge water in a strong fashion and was close to the ground so it was wind-resistant.
Then there were the “stationary” sprinklers that would just blow some water from a hose onto an area of lawn that needed particular attention. These static sprinklers would generally be left unattended for hours and were regularly featured on the lawns of more passive families. And then there were the vertical-shooting “oscillating” sprinklers that were positioned in the middle of a lawn and gracefully waved a stream of water to the right and then to the left and then back to the right. My father had bought the oscillating kind for our house. He would stand at the end of the front lawn and watch our graceful sprinkler for what seemed like hours. The oscillating sprinkler was very slow. I often wondered if my father would get us one of the machine-gun-type sprinklers. They seemed cooler, and that would make my father tough. And then people would think I was tough. But we never had one of those. I asked him once, but he didn’t seem very impressed with the idea.
I have made a short list of the lawn sprinklers that were available in Thornhill in 1982:
stationary sprinkler
rotary sprinkler
oscillating sprinkler
pulsating (impulse) sprinkler
travelling sprinkler
As you can see, there were distinct and varied types of sprinkler to be utilized in the suburbs in the early ’80s. But ultimately, the point was to watch the sprinkler as much as to water the lawn. And it was all the same, watching sprinklers, no matter the kind. The style of sprinkler seemed to neither heighten nor dampen the enthusiasm. Simply, this is what men in Thornhill did. And so you see, while the Clash were inspiring punks to resist Thatcherism in the UK and a revolution was being co-opted by mullahs in the streets of Iran, grown men in Thornhill were watching sprinklers. That was the problem with Thornhill.
I didn’t choose for us to live in Thornhill. My parents did. They picked our new locale when I was nine, a couple of years after we moved from England. It was all their decision. When you’re nine, these options are not exercised democratically. There was no negotiation. I didn’t feel I had the power to say, “Okay, I respect your decision. You guys do the Thornhill thing, and I’m going to go to Montreal and rear myself in the centre of what will become a hot music scene that will eventually spawn the indie collective Arcade Fire and a bunch of other bands that sound like the indie collective Arcade Fire.” I didn’t have the resources to make that case at the age of nine. And I wouldn’t really have wanted to do so, anyway, because that would have meant leaving my family. And my parents had bought me a guitar and a drum kit, and I would have had to leave those things behind, too. And I was really skinny, but I got hungry a lot, and my mother is the best cook in the world when she’s making Persian food, like ghormeh sabzi. Ghormeh sabzi is a popular Iranian dish often served when family members return home after being away. It’s a herb stew with lots of greens (sabzi) and some kidney beans and lamb and other things that I can’t identify because I’ve never made it. It’s served over rice (polo) and with bottom-of-the-pot rice (tahdig) as well. You might think bottom-of-the-pot rice sounds like a mistake. But it’s not. Persians love it. It’s crunchy and has oil. And my mother is the best cook. So part of the deal with getting my mother’s food was living in Thornhill. But as a training ground to become Bowie, Thornhill was a disaster.
If Bowie was about edge and platform boots and spiked hair and drugs and cross-dressing and cool riffs and distortion and impenetrable-but-profound lyrics and creativity, you could easily make the case that the inverse of Bowie was the town of Thornhill. I’ve tried to picture Bowie walking down my street in 1982. In my imagination he has platform boots on and looks a bit like a sexy woman and he’s singing “Be My Wife” from his 1977 album, Low. But I can’t truthfully picture that. Nor can I picture him on my street as another one of his characters, Aladdin Sane. Or even as the Let’s Dance guy from the 1983 tour with the yellow suit and superblond hair. I can’t picture him even if he were wearing my old North Star runners and hooded sweatshirt from Roots. Not in 1982. Thornhill wouldn’t have understood what to do with Bowie then.
Thornhill was a safe and quiet suburb where conformity was coveted. No one really rocked the boat. The dwellings all looked relatively similar on our street, and most of the houses had big lawns and nice trees. The adults on my street in Thornhill usually referred to themselves as “middle class.” I decided “middle class” must mean “the same.” Differences were expressed only in subtle ways. For example, the Jones family used silver for their house numbers next to their front door, while we and the Mullers had black.
Of course, my family stood out because we were Iranian and the rest of the street was pretty white and old-school conservative. That is, with the notable exception of the Olsons. The Olsons were a black family at the far end of the street, and they were very successful and attractive and charming. They had kids the age of my sister and me, and they created unfair expectations. All of the Olson progeny would go on to be great thinkers and business people and a supermodel. So the Olsons stood out too. But they were like a superhero family. They were in a different league. Who lives in a family where someone becomes a supermodel? And anyway, they were black and not Middle Eastern. There were some occasions where my family may have been exceptional for reasons other than our ethnicity—but the cultural difference always seemed to be unavoidable.
For our first couple of years in Thornhill, our house was set apart from others because of a little exterior twist that involved lighting. My father would put red light bulbs in the lamps that stood on each corner of our porch. These lamps were very distinctive, especially by Thornhill standards. No one used coloured lights on their houses except at Christmastime. This was an unspoken rule. But my parents had a streak of creativity that was often at odds with their desire to have us assimilate. It was like the fact that we had Persian rugs all over our house. But it was okay to be more different behind closed doors. The red lights were on the outside. This was a problem in Thornhill.
If you drove up our Thornhill street on an evening in the late ’70s, you could identify the Ghomeshi house because of the two red lamps holding down the fort. We would turn them on after 6:30 p.m. and then turn them off in the morning. In retrospect, it was rather impressive that my mother let my father get away with the red lamps when it would clearly set us apart. But she did. And the lamps became our trademark in the early days in Thornhill. I suppose I took pride in our red lights. They looked romantic and maybe a bit edgy. Even then, I had an instinct for all things unique. But I was foolish and young.
One day, my father came home in
something of a panic and started unscrewing the red lights on the porch. He seemed upset, and he ran around looking for white light bulbs to replace the red ones. He said something to my mother, and then she looked very serious and concerned as well. No one would tell me what was going on. When I finally got an answer about what was happening, my father explained that Mr. Pile from a few houses down the road had pulled him aside and told him that the red lamps were problematic in Canadian culture. My father shook his head in frustration as he recounted the little neighbourhood confrontation about the red lamps.
“He ees telling me that the red lights are meaning bad thing,” my father explained. “He ees telling me that red lights means we are running cathouse!”
I never found out if “cathouse” was my father’s word or Mr. Pile’s. And I wasn’t sure what “running cathouse” meant. But I could tell it was something bad. And it probably made us less Canadian. And this wasn’t good. And Dana Verner would probably break up with me again, and my mother would be upset that we were different, and people would talk about us. I wondered why “cathouse” was the cause for such alarm. I wondered if the problem was that our house was suspected of having an overabundance of cats. For a couple of years after this incident, I assumed that red lights must represent a form of feline insurrection within an otherwise tranquil home. And this was obviously a negative thing. But it still didn’t make sense that my father had dashed home and changed the light bulbs in such a fluster.
One day, my sister, Jila, explained to me that “cathouse” was a term that meant whorehouse. Jila was three years older than me, so she understood these things. I knew what a whorehouse was. I knew it was a place where hookers worked. It was probably a house full of sexy whores. I knew this because I had seen something similar on the Friday-night Baby Blue Movies on Citytv when my parents were upstairs. But no family in Thornhill would want to be known for running a whorehouse. And we never had the red lamps again.