PERFECT YOUTH: The Birth of Canadian Punk

by Sam Sutherland

  “A band would cancel out or something, and Bob would get us in at two in the morning,” says Bergmann. “We never knew when that would be, so one night they came to get me from this club in the middle of the night, and I was totally high on acid. That’s the night we recorded ‘Hawaii.’”

  The song landed on the 12" Hawaii EP, but slowly stirred up controversy when a friend of the band, Ross Carpenter, claimed that Bergmann had stolen the melody and lyrics from him. A former bandmate of John Armstrong in Active Dog, Carpenter was shocked when he picked up the record and saw Bergmann listed as the sole writer. Likely not wanting to incite a division within the small community, Carpeneter kept his complaint to himself, until, years later, it became apparent that “Hawaii” was still not just popular, but making money. He made his feelings known, though not directly to Bergmann.

  “All I remember seeing is the title, ‘Let’s Go to Fucking Hawaii,’ and I thought, ‘That’s a fucking great idea for this song,’” says Bergmann, who used the phrase to anchor what he thought was an original song. “I used to pride myself on remembering stuff. But I just don’t remember that moment when I heard that song. But he says he sat me down and played it for me, showed me the lyrics. So finally I wrote him, ‘What the hell happened? Because I don’t remember.’ And he told me. And he’s not a guy to lie about it. So we just split everything 50-50.”

  Songwriting credits and royalty rates weren’t the only problems facing Bergmann and the K-Tels. The band’s increasing profile meant that they had finally landed themselves on the radar of the actual K-Tel corporation from which they took their name. Naturally, they were served with a cease and desist notice. While Bergmann maintains they could have beaten the conglomerate in court, it would have taken “lots of years and lots of money.” Instead, the band opted to change their name right before the release of Hawaii, adopting the deceptively sweet-sounding Young Canadians.

  Hawaii became the first EP released on the city’s brand-new Quintessence Records imprint. Located on 4th Avenue, Quintessence was the only local store to carry punk and new-wave records. Around the time that the newly christened band was trying to figure out how to release their material, the store was in the process of expanding; owned by Ted Thomas, Quintessence employed the kind of enthusiastic nerd-types that populate independent record stores to this day, and one, Gerry Barad, had convinced Thomas to invest some money in putting out records, which up until that time had consisted solely of single releases from Tim Ray and A.V. and the Pointed Sticks. The Young Canadians fit right into the niche that they were beginning to carve out in the new scene.

  Quintessence followed up working with the Canadians in the most appropriate way possible, teaming up with Bergmann’s longtime co-conspirator, John Armstrong and the Modernettes. Driving home from a late-night session with Barad, Bergmann had put a Modernettes rehearsal tape on the car stereo; after four or five songs, Barad asked who the band was. It was the beginning of a fortuitous career; today, Barad is the Chief Operating Officer of Live Nation, a behemoth of the live entertainment industry.

  “The next thing you know, I get a phone call. ‘Do you guys want to make a record?’ I’m like, ‘Do I?’” laughs Armstrong. With the same deal as the Young Canadians, the Modernettes recorded their first EP in fits and starts, whenever Bob Rock and Little Mountain were free from the bigger projects that paid the studio’s bills.

  “We would sit around every night and see if we got the phone call,” says Armstrong. “If Aerosmith or AC/DC fucked off early, we would get the rest of the night. So we’d go in and set up real fast and start working. It was very weird. The first time I was in the live room, I looked around and went, ‘You could put four of my apartments here.’ Way off in the distance was a grand piano.” The result was the Modernettes’ first EP, the six-song Teen City. The lead-off single, “Barbra,” became a “Hawaii”-sized anthem when Quintessence made the 12" its second-ever EP release. Oh, and the fuck-up is intentional — Armstrong had written the song in a drunken stupor, hence the misspelling of the name Barbara, a mistake that is spelled out in harmony-laden chant in the song’s verse, no less.

  Both Teen City and Hawaii sold briskly, and both bands began to tour regularly between Vancouver, Winnipeg, and San Francisco.

  “Oh, they thought we were huge rock gods,” laughs Bergmann, when asked about touring in small-town Canada.

  “We were welcomed like long lost relatives,” says Armstrong. “In those days, the punk rock community in every town always seemed to be composed of the best and the brightest. The scenes were always filled with really smart and interesting people. There wasn’t a bunch of thuggishness and nihilism. It was just a bunch of really cool, young people having a good time.”

  The sentiment is echoed by conversations I have with bands across the country. The importance of great Canadian bands visiting these cities on tour cannot be overstated. In less developed scenes, they meant big shows and a chance for locals to hone their chops in front of a real audience, and they proved that New York and London weren’t the only places producing great punk rock. A Modernettes show in Edmonton really was a big deal, because the Ramones certainly didn’t have Alberta on their tour itinerary. These bands, not so unlike the kids in the audience, showed burgeoning musicians in cities across the country that they didn’t have to adopt a fake English accent to play punk and escape their hometown.

  “When we played in Saskatoon, we were big time to them,” says Armstrong. “We had a record out. A real record. We played in the States. They thought we were rock stars. It’s flattering for about two seconds. And then you’re like, ‘Oh, if you knew the truth . . . Let me tell you the truth. I’m just as fucked up as you are. It’s just as hopeless. We don’t have any money. We better have a drink.’” At the very least, the band’s frugality made for some unique marketing, as Armstrong started carrying a can of spray-paint on tour, and under the cover of night, would tag the succinct slogan: “Get Modern or Get Fucked.”

  The band’s drummer, John McAdams, felt the same financial pinch of the band’s supposed success. A former technician with the CBC, he had left the safety of a government job to hop in the van with the Modernettes. “When I left the CBC, I was able to go on unemployment for a year,” he says. “Then unemployment ran out, and I figured I could drive a taxi. I could pick which days I wanted to work, could gig whenever I wanted, and probably make good money. It worked out fine. I remember driving around one night, and three or four punks got in the cab. They were checking me out, then one went, ‘Hey! Oh, hey! Aren’t you . . . Aren’t you Jughead? From the Modernettes?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ ‘What the hell? Aren’t you rich? I thought you were rich!’ ‘No, I’m driving taxis so I can pay my rent and eat. Where do you wanna go? Wanna give me a tip? Give me a good tip if you think I should be rich.’”

  The Young Canadians sometimes fared a little better; they spent one tour opening for the Boomtown Rats across the west coast, and another playing with XTC. While the sobriety of XTC didn’t mesh perfectly with Bergmann’s lust for liquor and drugs, the immense respect he has for the band is apparent. The Boomtown Rats, less so. He dismisses them as “sucking fucking ass” and says everyone but Bob Geldof was a “plain idiot.” And then he tells me the story about pissing on them in Edmonton. Still, things were going well enough that, when they returned from tour, Quintessence put the band in the studio again with Bob Rock to record a follow-up EP. This Is Your Life contained some great songs, but none with the hit power of “Hawaii.” It was the beginning of the end of the band, and of Quintessence.

  “We didn’t know the guy in charge was a raging coke addict and he blew about 10 grand worth of income,” says Bergmann. “So the record tanked, or they just blew all the money. Same old story.”

  The Modernettes weren’t even able to get a second record out of the label before it folded. Returning to Vancouver with an exciting batch of new songs, the band demoed their new material, eager t
o show Quintessence owner Ted Thomas and get back in the studio. When Armstrong finally played the new demos for their label, he was dejected when Thomas turned him down, telling the band he didn’t hear a hit.

  “I found out later that it had nothing to do with hearing a hit,” says Armstrong. “He didn’t have any money. And he had no more credit.” Despite selling over 5,000 copies of Teen City, the band returned from another tour to find the label folded and no royalties headed their way. With no money and an endless pit of van repairs, gas, rehearsal space rent, and real-life expenses piling up, both bands began a slow dissolution. At the same time, Bergmann and Armstrong had been hanging out with another group of musicians and jamming as Los Radicos Popularos, a fuck band consisting of some of the biggest names in the scene, the least serious super-group ever conceived. Hanging out in the apartment of one of their old White Rock buddies, the new band coalesced around vocalist Bill Scherk.

  “For me and Art, it was such a relief to not be the guy,” says Armstrong. “Art was in a three-piece, I was in a three-piece. I was just tired of being the singer, songwriter, and guitar player. I think Art felt the same way. Plus, the band didn’t owe any money, so every time we played, we just split the money up amongst ourselves. And all of a sudden, I was actually making money playing music.”

  In what Bergmann describes as “probably not the smartest move on my part,” he broke up the Young Canadians. The other members of Los Popularos, as they were now known, quit their bands, and Armstrong made his break with the Modernettes official by pushing his drummer down a flight of stairs.

  “It was an accident,” says Armstrong. “But of course no one believed me.” McAdams had shown up at Armstrong’s door in the middle of the night, one of the only times anyone ever saw him drunk and out of control. An (equally rare) sober Armstrong, yelling at McAdams to go away, finally went to the door and shook his friend violently: “When I let go, he was just kind of boneless.” McAdams fell down the flight of stairs in front of Armstrong’s door. An ambulance was called. The Modernettes were finished.

  Los Popularos were not long for this world. Too fucked up on booze and drugs to function (what Bergmann calls “aggressive socializing”), the band’s material lacked the ferocity and energy of their past work. “Together, the sum of our parts didn’t add up to the passion and fury of Young Canadians,” says Bergmann. Press agreed; the group was called “cluttered and flat,” and unlike the rest of the the Vancouver scene, which has seen a swell of modern interest and reissues in the last decade, no one seems eager to revive Los Popularos.

  “We overindulged in everything we could get our hands on,” says Armstrong. “And in that band, there was no one telling you that you were fucking up, because they were fucking up, too. So there wasn’t a voice of reason anywhere.” After a succesful tour down the west coast to play with the Dead Kennedys, the band started to plot a full cross-Canada tour. Realizing that their fun project had careened wildly out of control, Armstrong quit abruptly. The band left on tour anyway, and broke up in Toronto when their ’66 Oldsmobile died. It took months for Bergmann to get back to Vancouver, paying his way home by working on a low-wage seismic crew in a Northern Ontario oil patch.

  Armstrong still plays, still writes, and still lives in Vancouver. Today, Bergmann lives a few hours outside of Calgary, ironically close to another rich deposit of oil. He never became Canada’s best-known punk poet, but amongst those who have been exposed to his caustic, brilliant work over the past decade, he is revered and respected. To call his catalogue “cult” would be to discredit its ambitious populist leanings; Bergmann is the voice of a generation that got lost somewhere in the haze of liquor, drugs, and bad business of the Canadian music industry. Gratefully, he’s still here, and still writing. And if you can track him down in the wilds of Alberta, he’ll talk your ear off about Russian military history, Ian Curtis, and what it meant to be truly fucked up and alive on the Trans-Canada Highway in 1977.

  THE SECRET OF IMMORTALITY

  CALGARY

  The Golden Calgarians [© Sue Smith]

  April 15, 1979, 3:00 p.m. MST

  It’s Easter Sunday, and the gym is full of orange-clad prisoners sitting politely through an opening set by teenage art-punk band the Hot Nasties. Punk rock being the latest international curiosity, dominating the newspapers and nightly news, the powers that be in the Calgary Correctional Centre — known locally as “Spy Hill Jail” — have seen fit to invite two of the city’s most popular bands to perform for the population. The Nasties are shaking nervous, but finish their set without incident. The Sturgeons, a more chaotically Pistols-influenced outfit, aren’t so lucky. Their set is immediately interrupted by the incessant need to dodge projectiles, painted Easter eggs brought by inmates’ girlfriends being hurled from an increasingly agitated audience. After two songs spent half-hid behind their amps, it becomes clear that the band will be lucky to finish their set, or leave alive. Frontman Al McDonald steps up to the mic.

  “We don’t give a shit, at least we’re going home to have Easter dinner with our families!”

  The room is immediately on its feet. The guards are immediately on the band. The Hot Nasties and the Sturgeons are rushed out of the prison before a riot erupts. They go home for Easter dinner.

  Calgary’s first punk band wasn’t quite, as most famous firsts rarely are. Buick McKane formed in 1976, playing Kinks and David Bowie covers in skinny jeans and short haircuts. The band featured Brian Connelly and Reid Diamond, later of Toronto punks Crash Kills Five and pioneering instrumental jangle-rock kings Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet. They performed regularly for hostile audiences accustomed to generic bar rock and BTO covers, but the band was a stumbling first step into punk, long before anyone else in the oil-rich industrial centre of Alberta gave a shit about beating on brats or saving the Queen.

  When Torontonian Don Pyle was preparing to make a teenage trip to Calgary to visit family, he was shown a fan letter, sent from Cowtown to local heroes and friends of Pyle, the Viletones. At the insistence of the band, who were amongst Toronto’s best-known and most-feared musical exports, he wrote the fan back, asking what kind of bands he could expect to see on his trip.

  “He wrote back, ‘Do not come here. It’s terrible. I’m getting out as soon as I can,’” laughs Pyle. The letter-writer was Steve Koch, who would move to Toronto and eventually end up playing in his favourite band, the Viletones. His brother, Alex Koch, was the drummer in Buick McKane, which Steve described as “the closest thing we have to a punk band.” Pyle, obviously unable to insist on the cancellation of a family trip on the sole basis of a stunted music scene, went to Calgary anyway, where he was invited to watch the band rehearse.

  “At this point, I was just consuming any music,” he says. “It was so weird, because it was extremely loud, and we were in this suburban house, and their mom would come down with snacks.” Not long after, the whole band moved to Toronto — minus their singer, who showed up for practice one day to be told by Mrs. Koch that his band was gone. The rest formed Crash Kills Five with Pyle in Toronto. Eventually, Alex Koch split, and the remaining three formed Shadowy Men. Their move across the country exists as one of the only threads connecting the west coast and east coast at that time, even if they left two years too early to see the birth of Calgary’s first honest punk scene. If they had stuck around, Koch might not have been so quick to dissuade Pyle from visiting his cowboy-loving home.

  On December 21, 1977, Calgary had its first punk show. A high school disaster featuring a group of misfits winkingly called the Social Blemishes, the band wasn’t long for this world, but they seeded half of the Calgarian first wave. At the centre of the Catholic school chaos was a guy named Warren Kinsella, a punk twerp writing short, fast songs about Barney Rubble who would eventually move to Ottawa and play a critical role in the elections that would lead federal Liberal leader Jean Chrétien to three straight majorities. It was an inauspicious beginning to a lifeti
me career of headline-grabbing and shit-kicking, an important first lesson in getting people’s attention — and keeping it.

  When Kinsella and I sit down in the boardroom of his downtown Toronto consulting office, he’s every bit the sharply dressed, espresso-providing professional that I pictured. But he also says “fuck” a lot, tells me about bringing D.O.A. to Calgary for the first time, and ends our conversation by lending me a record valued at a term of my university education. Kinsella, once a Social Blemish, grew into the kind of punk that the idealistic thread of the ’70s promised: one who actually makes a difference in the straight world and brings the ethos of punk into the decision-making of boardrooms and backrooms that most citizens never see. Whether working as a war room Liberal Party strategist or litigating for the rights of Northern Ontario farmers, Kinsella has taken the core values of punk rock and put a tie on over them. And for good measure, he still plays in a band, Shit from Hell.

  After a stumbling beginning in the Social Blemishes, Kinsella formed the Hot Nasties, while a few of his peers started up the Sturgeons. Both bands came from Bishop Carol High School, a Catholic institution that became the ground zero for Calgary punk. A decidedly teenage phenomenon, Calgarian punk started in the school’s hallways and slowly spread into the community at large. With the first Social Blemishes lunch hour show behind them, the bands set about finding a place that would let them play a real concert. Inevitably, that meant renting a hall, which wasn’t easy at a time when media paranoia about punk was at its peak. So just like Edmonton three hours to the north, Calgary’s scene was built inside community spaces, not bars. Bands were too young and too shitty to show up on the radar of the regular rock and roll venues in the city, and questionably procured halls provided the perfect setting for bands like the Hot Nasties and the Sturgeons to develop a sound and, most impressively, an audience.