MtH #8 The BS box is broken. Look out!

Infamy and Snacks

There were a few things about this gig that I’ve been at for just about 36 years now ( January 24 1981 was my first show with Gord, the Mill Run Theatre in Chicago) that I didn’t anticipate. Here’s one that could be scary for some people. Because of the high profile and abundance of information about where I am, people from my past who I never would have seen again otherwise, show up from time to time to say hello and possibly trade some old stories and I’m comfortable with that. I don’t have any rabid dogs from former years waiting to bite me in the ass. Well…….there was that one kid from gym class who was a real dick. I snuck his can of deodorant out of his gym bag, took the label off it and put it on a can of spray paint which I slipped back into the bag. For the rest of the year he suffered with the moniker, Purple Pit. His name was Pete. The alliteration became like a dentist’s drill to him. And don’t judge, okay? If you knew this kid you would have applauded me. 

An old friend from my first band, The Synthetic Society (1968!!) came out to Massey Hall this year. I had seen him only once since 1972 and that was a brief “hi, how’s it goin'” at a shopping mall in the early eighties. Last year he managed to get his own self produced CD sent to me through a mutual friend. I invited him to a show at Massey and we spoke for 10 or 15 minutes. Back to him later. AND NOW:

An excerpt from my interview with Barbara Walters

“We talk a lot about the trauma of insights into the accelerating march of days, weeks and years, these sudden temporal perspectives we all seem to get without warning. Michael, you are known as something of a philosopher. Your blog is appreciated for it’s startling depth and the courage to be serious about difficult issues and will likely win you a nobel prize.  There you were, closing in on fifty years of an “against all odds”, storybook music career, abruptly framed and condensed in a ten minute conversation with someone who was there near the beginning of it all. What thought resounded with you as this was taking place?”

“Peanuts”

“Er…..oh, you mean Charles Schulz, the deep thinking cartoonist who had much to say in his comic strip about the passage of time vis a vis the innocence of endless childhood?”

“No……….. peanuts. I was hungry” 

The Synthetic Society

The polarities of survival and spirit and the large questions of intransigence vs. obsequious servility were of great importance to me as a toddler and proved to be harbingers of early onset teen angst. So by the time I actually became a teenager I already had it worked out why it was a bad idea to sell weed, joyride, skip class, sass adults (particularly cops), and at least a dozen other dumb-ass things the other kids were doing. I sailed into puberty with no more baggage than an electric guitar I didn’t own and a tragic case of minefield zits.

The zits waxed and waned lunar-like and during one spectacular new moon I got together with a drummer and another guitar player and started a band. We added a bass player later who thought up our name, “The Synthetic Society” an easy alliteration with a whiff of protest. Then a little later we hoofed out the rhythm guitar player and got Glenn Williams because he could sing, had a good guitar and owned an amp! An amp!! And oh yeah, he could play his guitar behind his neck.

About this whiff of protest. The only thing we rebelled against was the Greaser Bands. They were ubiquitous. The Greater Toronto Area ate, breathed and shat Rhythm and Blues. We proudly proclaimed ourselves the messiahs of the new Psychedelic Rock. Our two best songs were “Delusions of Psychosis” and “Your Head Is Reeling”. As the pot and acid supply increased, so did our fortunes. We never touched the stuff……… I gotta go. 

Merry Christmas….. and if you’re not part of that culture….tough.

I might just get an early blog post off this week. Look for it.