Welcome to How's Your Stool, the show where we pull up a stool and find out how things are really going. Not just the gigs, not just the music, but what's happening when the amps and the lights get turned on. Because if you ask a musician how they're doing, you'll get one answer. As you check the stool, you might get the truth. I'm your host, Dave Randall. And today, I'm sitting down with Randy Bowen. So let's get a stool sample. Well, we're here. We're here. Randy. Randy Bowen, thank you very much for coming out and sitting down with me today. And uh, like we were just talking. Uh just a conversation. And uh heck, I I know you back to Lindsay days, but I don't really know you. Um can you tell us a bit about yourself, where you're from, and um where you grew up, and sort of dive in there, kind of get the interviewee stuff out of the way. Sure. Okay, so I was born in Redund. Um my dad uh both my parents always worked. Uh my dad had not had trouble finding a career path until he found teaching. So he went to uh teaching college at McDonald uh well it was McDonald's. McDonald College. McDonald College. Yeah. So I was we we lived in Verdun until I was four, and then we moved to St. Anne's because that's where he was going to school. We lived in St. Anne's till I was seven, and then we moved to Point Clair where uh we could afford to buy a house, a semi-detached thing. And that's where I grew up on Del Mar in Point Clair. Okay, yeah, yeah. And I grew up in the fields. Because it's all fields, right? Well, yeah. West Island, West Island, Lakeside Heights, yeah, yeah. On my bike. Yeah. I I just go sit in the fields. I go sit, yeah. I find a clump of uh a clump of bushes, I go just sit there. Yeah. I loved it. It was all by myself. It was fantastic. Is this when you started getting interested in music? Uh well, I got interested in music because uh I have two older brothers and they both played guitar. Uh my middle brother played sax as well, and my eldest brother played the bass, and he started a band. In um uh he was was he still in high school? Doesn't matter. But they rehearsed in our basement, and there was a drum kit down in the basement. And my cousin and I, my cousin and I were kind of like brothers because uh my my uh my mom and his mom were almost like twins. You know, the uh and uh she uh my aunt Andy Joni lived in LaSalle and we lived in Point Clair and they'd swap us off each weekend. So Neil would come stay with me, and then I go stay with him. So we grew up, literally grew up together. And um so Neil and I would sneak down the basement and look at that drum kit. No, the guitars, whatever. We'd look at that drum kit, and uh we'd sit on the throne, you know, we'd go sit on the throne and pick up the sticks. And you were how old here? Uh eight. Ah, okay. Yeah. And it was it was like wild. And uh, and we just tap the snare drum because we were we were warned, don't touch anything. Okay, and we didn't, you know, we didn't, but it was just so exciting, sure, you know. And then um, so my brother, my eldest, that band, my brother's band, I don't know, it was you know, it was a high school band. They lasted, they did one gig at uh Sunnyside, you know. Uh oh yeah, that's yeah, my park, yeah. Exactly. And um and that was it. Uh, and then the the the the drum kit went away and all the gear went away, and my brother got interested in photography, other stuff, right? Right. But he was always interested in music, and so he got um, he always we always had, even when we lived in St. Anne's, he somehow found a record player. We had no money, you know. My parents couldn't afford both both of them worked all the time. I had a key to my house in Point Clair when we first moved there. I was seven, I had my own key. I'd come home, I'd unlock the door, I'd make my own lunch when I was seven, and walk back to Northview. You know, my yeah, it was freedom, right? It's fantastic. And but that was, you know, we didn't have a nanny or anything like that, or there's no daycare. No, yeah, whatever. And um anyway, he my brother Gary always had uh found a record player or something, you know, one of those box things. Yes. And um I remember when he brought home Rubber Soul by the Beatles. That's my first, it's not my first musical memory. My first musical memory was um uh there was a song called Action by Freddie Fender. And it was like a it was like um not a B-side, but it was it was like a secondary hit for Freddie Fender. Sure. And um I just love that song, and I only heard I I heard it for the first time for the first time since then, about 20 years ago. And I thought, wow, did I, you know, but I I know I liked it because it's I I've always liked it, like the Dave Clark Five and the Beatles, because that they have call and answer vocals. I've always loved call and answer vocals, sure. Or get off my cloud, hey, hey, uh I always liked that. And um, so that was my first musical memory. Then I remember seeing the Supremes on um Ed Sullivan. Okay. And I thought it was the most glamorous thing I'd ever seen. I thought the wharms, you know, and glittery costs. Glittery and slender, you know. And uh and the hair. And the hair, you know, the bouffe my hair and all that stuff. And I didn't I didn't care. I had no idea. They were just beautiful ladies, you know. I had no concept of whatever, I didn't care. I just love the music and I love them. I remember that. I'll never forget that. Then I saw the Beatles a second time on uh at Sullivan, not the first time, the one that really blew the blew the doors off their career. Um and then we moved to Point Clair, and my uh then my brother had the band, and then he bought a nice stereo. So he had a dual, I don't know if you remember, dual turntables. Yeah, and he had a little pioneer power ramp, and he had COSS cans, headphones. Oh wow, yeah, top shelf stuff. Yeah, back then. And uh uh he he was very generous and he let me listen to all his records. He said, I just want you to take care of them. I was just a young buck, right? And he trusted me with his records, and he had lots. That was his thing, you know. And um so I uh I remember uh uh in the Court of the Crimson King, I remember when he brought that on. Oh gosh. I was only 10, right? Yeah. And I that I that album blew my mind. I thought, what, you know, and Santana and and uh all that stuff from you know late 60s, and it was really it just for some reason just spoke to me. I just I couldn't stop listening to it. It worked well with your grassy knoll out in the field. That's right. The grassy knolls all over the place, you know. I used to go in there because I you know everybody smoked back then. My dad was a heavy smoker. Yeah, he smoked at the kitchen table. Yeah. And you walk down the breakfast. And my mom put up with it. My mom never smoked. Uh anyway, um, so I started smoking in grade four because I go get smokes from my old man at the drugstore up on Braybrook, you know, the little mall there. Yeah. And there's a pharmacy, and I go buy smokes and I buy and I'd save up, you know, money. I go buy my own pack of smokes. Because they're only 20 cents or something. I know, nothing. And so I go smoke in the grassy knolls by myself. Yeah. And uh grade four. And think about life. And think about life. I and I, you know, I I don't even I know. I I don't even know what I thought about. Anyway. I was, yeah. I I just I loved there was so much freedom, right? I had so much freedom, it was crazy. Like kids today don't have that type of freedom at all. You know, you have to tell uh it wasn't like my parents were were um uh neglectful or uninterested. Yes, they're just working. Yes. And um, but I hadn't because my old man had become a teacher, okay, I had to pay attention in school. That was the one um invariable, the one law. You gotta pay attention to your classes in your classes. And I I was sort of lucky because I like school and I like my teachers. And I was a good student, it wasn't a great student, but I was a good student. And um I really I did really like my teachers. I don't know why. I just like liked them, almost every single one of them. Which uh which elementary stuff Northview. You went to Northview, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and then Lindsay course. Yeah, and um uh and I just l I just kept listening to music. Then one of the big things that happened to me was in grade seven, because we moved from Northview to Lindsay, grade seven, and so now now there are kids from Valois, you know. So at Northview we had Dollard kids, you know, bust in, yeah, and then Lindsay we had uh the Dollard kids and the Valois kids. Yes, right? So uh the townies. The townies, yeah, and which is great. And so I met my buddy Tom in grade seven. We were in the same class, same homeroom class, and we became fast friends, and uh still to this day, and um we both he had we were both crazy about music, and so we go over to his place, he had a stereo, not as nice as my brother's, but he had a stereo, and um uh we just that's we discovered David Bowie together. Wow, and Roxy music. But Dave Aboe was really the beacon, you know, the beacon of if this would have been 74, 73, something like the prime of his prime of his career. Yeah, I mean you could arguably arguably the prime of his career, yeah. But really certainly the the um the coming out of his career, right, when he became a household name, right? Yeah. And oh my god, like Ziggy Stardust, I just like okay. Yeah, I knew from that moment, I didn't know how, but I knew, even though my brothers both played guitar and their guitars around the house, and I had uh in my my mom's side of the family, there's lots of music. So like my uncle was a barbershop singer and he played the ukulele and a banjo, and we get we always our that side of the family always got together for dinners. Yes, you know, and so there's always music around. So my uncle Al would and he could whistle like crazy, so he would play Ain't Miss Behaving and all his stuff. Really, it was really neat, right? And I had two older cousins, brothers, and they had a duo, and I thought they were Simon and Garfunkel. They play, play the guitar and sing that. Uh my cousin uh Wayne had a has a beautiful voice. He just opens his mouth and his beautiful voice comes out, you know. And so we grew up around that. There's always music around. And even so, even though there was guitars around the house the whole time, I didn't know how to, I didn't know what to do with the thing, you know. And my cousin Neil and I would look at it, you know. Because we we would play air guitar on my auntie Joni's uh uh tennis rackets. Yeah, yes. You know, we jump on the bed and we put you know, put uh the the Beatles on Rolling Stones and we'd air air guitar tie. But then one day, I guess I was in grade 10. Yeah, it must have been, maybe grade nine, doesn't matter. Um we were over at a a buddy's place, uh not a close friend, but he lived on um he lived on Ivanhoe, I think it was Ivanhoe, one of the crescents. Yeah, I know the area. Yeah. And um, of course, this is when we started smoking dope, right? So I started smoking dope uh to be honest, in um I gave up smoking cigarettes in grade seven to start smoking dope in grade eight. Isn't that funny? And I loved it, you know, I loved it. It became the music, the dope, like it became a culture, you know. We didn't get in trouble. It was just Tom and I would you know would puff and put on Aladdin Sane, you know, and just uh you know, or anything, you know. And um anyway, one day, one day we're in the in this guy's basement, we're smoking dope, and there's a guitar there. And I think we were listening to Band on the Run or I don't remember, it doesn't matter. And uh I picked it up and I went, that's how you hold it. I had this epiphany like left-handed, like Paul McCartney. No, nope, it was it was right-handed, and I I of course I couldn't form a chord, I didn't know anything, but I felt it. Yeah, you know, and I went, that's how you do it. A little light went on. And so both my brothers um and my c and uh my cousin Neil when he when we both started high school, he's a year older than me, we drifted off because we weren't spending the weekends together anymore. Up till when we were 12, we spent every weekend together. But then he found friends in high school, just like I found friends in high school, and we split apart. Um it was friendly, but we just had different interests. He was much more cerebral, and uh um he had found a guitar during this this period when we were uh adolescents, that would be the the word we use, right? And um so I was in this guy's basement, I picked up a guitar, I went, that's it. And simultaneously Neil had already started learning chords. And uh and my brothers, of course, both played. So the three of them would show me something uh when I when they sh found out that I was interested in playing, and so Neil taught me the first uh the first song, uh uh Heart of Gold. I mean, I just I couldn't even, you know, but E minor seventh and the D, okay, cool, you know, and the G, yay. And um uh and then I just I couldn't s put the thing down. So I threw high school and there was a there was um uh some classmates in high school who also played now better than me. And there was one guy's name's Dave, and there was Linda and um somebody else. But anyway, we're all sh pooling information, you know. Uh there's another guy from Beaconsfield that had a lot of. What was your year? What was your graduating year? 76. Oh, so you're two years ahead of me. Yeah. So there's a guy by the name of Dave. Uh big there's two Dave's and both uh one of them was quite good, and uh he was in a grade older than me, and uh then there's another Dave from Beaconsfield, and he had a strat. Uh yeah big time, you know, whoa. Uh anyway, they all we all sort of shared stuff, you know. And then um high school ended and I applied for CJP. I had no intention of going to C I didn't know this. I wanted to be play rock and roll, right? I didn't I didn't I wanna you know I knew what I wanted to do. And so but I applied because that's what you did, you know. And um that summer after I graduated, I worked and uh and then the fall came and I because I applied at Dawson New School. I wanted to go to to music, I wanted to go to music school, so I applied at Marionapolis. I think that's the place with the music uh program. Sounds right. I think it's Marionapolis. Sounds right, yeah. But of course I couldn't read music. I'm a rock and roll guy. So they you know, I couldn't I I took grade I took grade nine music when I was in grade 11 and learned to read because I played Alto Sachs for that one year. Okay. I loved it. It was fantastic. And uh played in the junior band, and uh it was just terrific, but my reading skills were just like zero, right? So I could there's no way I could pass that the entrance exam to Marionopolis. So I so uh Dave Patton, you know our buddy, sure, he went to the new school, the Dawson New School down on McGill downtown, this old, old building right across from Victoria Square. And he said, why don't you apply there? Okay, because you can there the new school was you can make your own curriculum. So you met your uh you met your professor and you would you would um flesh out a curriculum. I didn't even know what a curriculum meant, you know. Um and so I knew I got accepted. Wow. And then right after Labor Day, when I was supposed to go down to to uh register, I said nope, I didn't say it to I didn't say anything to anybody. Uh well I I guess I told my dad and he said, Well, I guess you better go look at your go look for a job. Because I said, I don't want to, you know, I I want to buy a guitar. So I put on my uh my grad suit, the suit that my dad my parents bought for me for the graduation, you know, with uh it was uh a double breasted, you know, uh typical typical 70s classic, you know. Herb Darling. Herb Darling. And uh and I went up and down Hymas and I went up and down the service road. I went to every company, I went to um Avon, I went to uh you know GM and Chrysler and all that stuff. That that that experience I so I don't interrupt, I just I had that exact same experience and that is how I memorized my social insurance number. Totally. I must have written it 20 times in a day. Totally. I know I can, you know. So so you were you were searching for job, sorry. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so I went and I got a job sweeping floors at Ryder Machinery, uh just just uh east of Delmar on the south side of the Yeah, they know where it is. Yeah. And I was I was there for four and a half months, which seemed like an eternity back then, right? But my parents were supportive. They didn't they didn't say, no, no, no, you know, you're going to school. But if I was if I was gonna live at home, I had to pay room aboard. If I'm not in school, I gotta pay room aboard. Okay, cool. And so I got the job and I bought my Les Paul. Wow. That was that's a big investment. It's a big investment. I bought it secondhand down on St. Antoine at the pawn shops there. Yep. Jack's? No, it wasn't. It was called it might have been Jack's because there was Steve's, of course, but Steve's was only the one shop, the one room. There was uh Jax, there was Goldens, yeah, there was There's some that just didn't have names. Some that didn't have names. It might have been in Goldens, it doesn't matter. It was the second athlete, but I didn't get ripped off. No, it was beautiful. It was like uh Les Paul Custom, black Les Paul Custom. Still haven't? No, it got ripped off. Oh yeah. Anyway, we can talk about that later. Um anyway, uh it was a marvelous guitar, heavy, heavy, yeah, you know, one of the heavier Les Pauls. Okay, the seven those mid-70s Les Pauls were really heavy, too heavy, really. You know, yeah, yeah. I've heard a lot of people with um say that they end up with sore backs or next. Yeah, yeah, sore next and stuff. I never had that, but they were definitely it was way too heavy. Um and then I got I I got bored with that job, so I got uh a job uh washing dishes at Pfizer. Okay. I don't know how I got that gig. And I uh I wanted to play guitar, so that this was a part-time job. I could still pay the room aboard at home. And uh so I I it was a five-hour a day job, four and a half hours to go to wash dishes. And they were good to me. And I bought uh then I saved up and bought my Marshall. I bought the head first, and then I bought a cab. All again down at one of them. Yeah, uh I bought the cab at Melody something. It was right beside Golden's, doesn't matter. I can't remember the name of it. I remember that whole block. I remember the whole block. And I walked in and it was an Ampeg V4, so I couldn't I couldn't find a Marshall cab, or I couldn't afford a Marshall cab, whatever it was. Everything had to be secondhand, but it doesn't didn't matter. Yeah, and the V4 cab was actually quite a nice cab. So I bought that, and so I had my Les Paul, I had my Marshall 50 watt, and I had the V4 cab. I'm ready to rumble, you know, it's good. So uh Were you playing with other people at that time? No, I was getting ready to play with other people. Okay. And I'd started uh and it wasn't like it was organized, it just that's the way it just sort of flayed out, right? I was accumulating this gear, and then um I met this guy. Uh we had moved in grade 11. We moved from Point Clair to Beaconsfield. Okay. My parents had bought. Um my dad had got a consulting job, you know, and uh because he was sort of um he was ambitious, and he got a consulting job with the Greenfield Park School Commission, which paid more money, and so he wanted to buy, he wanted to, you know, strut a little bit. So we bought this house in Beacon Beacon Hill that we couldn't afford, but it had been empty for two years. And it had been a repo, and it belonged to one of the expos that Willie Willie Smith or Willie Davis. Anyway, pretty sure Willie Davis went through divorce, repo people came in, ripped the house apart, ripped all the the um the wallpaper off the walls, and they just made a mess of the place. Yeah. But it was beautiful, ranch style, dark wood, really beautiful place. And we moved in there and we had furniture to put in the place. But uh, I had my own room in the basement with a big thick door. It was his temple, because he was a Buddhist, so it was his temple, and I lived in his temple. And um all I did was play guitar, practiced three hours a day, four hours a day. I don't remember how much, I just I couldn't stop. And then I met a guy, the um I met some of the kids in the neighborhood, because I was on the bus for the first time in my life, and I actually got to school on time for the first time in my life, because I always walked to school, and I'd be walking through the fields, I'd hear the Lindsay bells ring, you know. Because he had three minutes or four minutes between the two bells. Remember anyway, uh yeah. And um I met some of the kids on the bus and they're talking music and blah blah. And this guy knows that guy, and they're having a jam in his basement. And and uh, do you want to come along? Yeah, it'd be great. And Dave Patton was one of those kids. Okay, and um anyway, I met this guy at this one of these jams. I couldn't tell you which jam and whose basement it was, uh, but he became my first musical partner. So he was from Beaconsfield, his name is Fat Sandy Filto, and he lived on the other side of St. Charles Road, the west side of St. Charles Road, down near the tracks. Uh and he came from his family, I think there were four or five kids. And um uh anyway, he played the bass, and he was as serious about it as I was, and you could tell right away. I think I know who that Sandy was. Yeah, you would have seen him played a Rickenbacker. Rickenbacker. Yeah, yeah, I remember him, sure. He passed away. He did pass away some years ago. Yeah, in nine in '98. I got a funny story about that, actually. Um not about his about his passing, but he he Sandy had a wicked sense of humor. Um anyway, so he was the first guy, and so it was with Sandy now with we wanted to meet people, we wanted to do something. And so we got our first band together from local guys. There was a guy that played the drums and another guitar player, and um we formed this band called Cobalt Blue. I remember that. Remember Cobalt Blue? I do, yes. Imagine I love that name. Yeah, somebody went to chemistry class. Well, that was that was our buddy Derek. He didn't play, and Derek sort of was sort of our pseudo-sam man. There was, you know, whatever. Yeah. Oh, we have a couple of vocal mics. Yes. But he would, you know, whatever. And he was a good guy. And uh it was his name, and I thought, this is absurd, you know, but everybody liked it. It was for the time, it was a very groovy name. Okay, cool. I'm glad I'm very happy to hear that. Yeah. Uh anyway, so we we did that, and then uh we lasted about a year, and we did play chalets and we played church basements and stuff. Yeah. And there was uh I think you played Lindsay, didn't we? We played Lindsay, yeah. We played BHS. Um we made our own shows. That's fast. Like you were your first band and you're out gigging. We were we were determined. Yeah. We were Sandy and I were like, yeah, we're gonna do this. Now, did you have a format that you were going it covers, obviously, at that time. Uh but did you have a format like we're doing hard rock, uh pop rock, you know, anything what, or just whatever you felt like? Well, basically whatever we could play. I see. Yes. Right? So we would do we'd do Beatles. I saw her standing there. Whatever we could play, what we well enough to satisfy our own that we could actually stand up there and play it without being embarrassed, right? So we but we liked um we did um early Aerosmith stuff, uh Walking the Dog and uh Mama Kinn and Um Uh We got a bit ambitious. We did Dead Dream On, which was um you know probably a little bit out of our leg. It was of course it was all out of our leg, but we didn't know. We just tried to do what we could do. We did Hotel California, huge hit, right? And um we had two guitar players, so we could do the kind of hack through the lead, you know, uh at the end. And Sandy was a pretty good singer, and the other guitar player had a nice voice too. So we had we had three vocals, which was unusual for a bunch of kids. It definitely is, you know. And um we used them. Yeah, so we play Badfinger and uh stuff with vocals, Beatles and I Wanna Hold Your Hand, and uh that sort of stuff. But there was no form, we just stuff that we could actually handle, and we were open. We didn't, I mean, we're we we weren't gonna play um Genesis or anything like that. Not that we didn't, we love Genesis, but we're not gonna play that. I can't play it, I can't even figure out where do you start. You need keyboards and keyboards and stuff, yeah. Extra stuff. Exactly. So that's how we started, and then uh we lasted about a year, and then our drummer at the time, his name is Steve, terrific guy. He moved, his parents moved out to the West Coast, and we all went, oh, you know, like a dagger. Steve, you're not leaving. You know, the the brotherhood, you know, and that really set us back. Yeah. I really that really we were just, of course, we were just 19 years old or whatever. I don't remember 20. And we found another drummer through a mutual friend, Arnie, and he came along, but it took a few months to to get our right, you know, to get back on our feet, and you know, because we were all like we were staggered by it. Isn't it funny? And so Arnie um joined us, and then we had a third guitar player, uh Al Miller. I remember him. Yeah. And um uh Al was as serious as Sandy and I. So now it was Al Sandy and I, sort of pushing the driving the machine. And um, and so we changed our name to the refugees, and we auditioned for an agent. Am I talking too much? Not at all. Um do you think, folks, is you tell them to shut up. Yeah, I don't think so. That's what they're here for. I just if I do this, yeah, it's just I'm checking, make sure everything's still still running. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, anyway, so uh we and we auditioned for the this agent and we got a gig. And there was a gig at um there used to be a place in Il Perot called the Auberge. It was right on the water. It was an old, old hotel. It's gone. It's been gone for I think they tore it down in in 83 or something. It was it was at the end of its end of its time. But we got a gig there, got paid, which is cool. And um and we did really well. It was we thought we did really well. We were so we're five piece, and uh it was three nights, and I think we made six hundred bucks, I don't remember. Wow, I know, and then uh we we sort of passed the audition, and so we got the agent, you know, uh the agents said, Okay, we we'll send you here next week, and we'll send you there next week, right? So we were working, and uh at that time most of the gigs were five nights, six nights, you know. So you go to Rock Island, you play for six nights, or you uh wherever we went, and it was a minimum four nights, unless it was early in the week. We played um we played a gig at the old friars pub on St. James on uh on Drummond. And um that was Monday to Monday to Wednesday, and uh uh we played up in Brownsburg. There was a place called the Brownsburg Hotel. We played up there a lot. A lot. This is own over a stretch of four months, sure. Although it's felt like four years because we were playing all the time. We're trying to manage our voices, you know, um trying to manage the band politics, all that. Just young guys trying to figure it out, right? Girlfriends had come into the into the picture, so um uh loyalties were split, and you know, we were trying to figure all this stuff out. Sure. Yeah. And um, but one thing that was consistent was we were serious about the music, about playing the music. So we were, you know, we didn't screw around. And um we were on time and uh all that stuff, and we're just learning and singing, you know. We there was one stretch we we played 11 nights in a row, but in in three different venues. We didn't have to travel, we're just going up north or downtown, whatever, but still, for young singers, trying to keep your voice together was challenging. And I discovered I had allergies. I didn't know I had allergies, and I'd had all allergies all my life, but I'd never been tested. Right. I just got I was constantly getting uh sore uh sore throats, uh throat infections. Yeah. In high school, I missed a lot of and in elementary school too. I missed a lot of not a lot, but you know, every year I I was home for at least a week on antibiotics, at least at least once every year. I didn't really, I didn't know. And the doctor never said anything, you know, but just part of my child. They give me drugs and okay and whatever. So um, but when we start gigging all the time, uh I started to suspect that I was allergic to whatever, because these are old, old places, you know, these weren't clean places, these were dirty, dirty, musty bars. Cigarette smoke, cigarette smoke, everybody's still smoking. Yeah, absolutely. And um uh I learned pretty early that I couldn't smoke dope anymore. If I was if I was gonna keep my voice together, because up in that Brownsburg gig, we there was a bunch of Hell's Angels up there one night. And that was wild. And but they're cool with us. Like we we ran into the ran into them over the years in different cities. They never mess with the musicians, right? They they they're they're they're they're opposite, they're so very supportive of the musicians because we're all renegades, right? Sure. Even though you know quite different lifestyles, but whatever. But anyway, one of the hells, one of the hells guys gave gave me this big chunk of hash. And so uh we were there was the first week we played Brownsburg, so we played Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then we're gonna go to Friars Pub Gig Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then back to Brownsburg for Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So Sunday night, it's the end of Brownsburg. We decided to smoke a big spliff. And uh after the gig, and because we didn't drink or smoke during the gig or during the day, nothing like that. Yeah, only after. Wake up Monday, go down to the gig and and do sound check, and my voice is toast, it's gone. And it's the first time I'd ever lost my voice singing, you know. And we're looking because now we had four singers, it was good. So Gabe sang, Sandy sang, Al sang, I sang. So everybody sang songs. I sang most of the songs, just by default, because I put my hand up, that's all. Not because I was a better singer. And uh so we got through it, I did my best, and then I guess it was on the Wednesday night, my voice is still like just shredded. And we're in the every gig at used to have a dressing room, right? That's long gone, those days are long on. But dressing rooms are on another whole other conversation. But um uh there's a dressing room in this little tiny pub. The pub was only about as wide as his room, and uh it was a watering hole. And so we're in the dressing room, sitting in the five of us, and uh the door opens, it's the manager goes, get your best set together. There's a guy from Capitol Records here. And we're looking at each other, and my voice is shredded. Oh no. So we go out and we played um Could Have Been a Lady. The first song was Could have been a Lady by uh April Wine, right? And it turns out it's Jerry from April Wine. Okay, and he's got his Capitol Records jacket on, you know, the one of those satin things, right? And he was very and he laughed, he came up, is he's such a gregarious fellow, eh? And he comes up and he goes, Well, I've never heard uh that song played that fast before. Nice. Yeah, and it was it was it was very exciting, you know. For sure, yeah. And as the week went along, my voice started to return. But anyway, that band, uh that band flamed out about the end of November. So we basically we gigged almost nonstop for those 12 weeks, almost every night for those 12 weeks. But we're trying to figure out the politics, and one guitar player didn't like the other guitar player. There's nothing, there's no uh it wasn't there was no fights or anything like that. It was just friction and you know, stuff, the usual stuff, right? And um uh we decided, okay, we need a break, you know. We need this is uh so uh the drummer and Sandy and myself, Arnie, Sandy and myself, were looking at each other, going, uh one of the guitar players went back to school, one of the guitar players went uh to find a job. Because we're all just flustered and you know, whatever. And uh so Sandy and Arnie I looked at it, what are we gonna do? We didn't know. So the agent called us up the n probably the next day and said there might be an opportunity for there's a singer, there's a professional singer that's looking for some band guys, and uh, do you want to go meet him? And so, yeah, sure. So we went to meet him, and it turned out to be Larry Hughes from the band Leroc. Yeah, I remember. And Lerock had three different phases, right? There was the first phase, which we I used to go watch of the Mapes, and then um we were the second phase, and then when we split up, we were because we were together about two and a half years, and then we split up. Larry started a third phase. I don't know how long that phase lasted, but Larry was much more experienced than than we were. So he'd he'd done a lot of recording. Um, he'd played in a recording act uh called the Lavend Hill Mob. Uh he was a drummer because he was a drummer. There's lots of drummers that become lead singers for some reason, like Grohl or uh Steven Tyler. Yeah. And uh Larry was the same. So uh we met him and um he had a bunch of his own songs, and we're going, oh my god, like you know, this is fantastic. And so we we got it together, found a gets found a keyboard player actually, he who didn't last very long. A guy from Shady Gee, nice guy, but he was more of a loungy sort of deal, and we wanted to rock and roll, right? This is a rock and roll band. Still a rock and roll band, and um uh and we started gigging right off the hop, and we just played nonstop for almost two and a half years. We played uh in the in the it was actually two years and two months, so 26 months we did 440 shows. Jesus. We played almost every night, you know. Uh it's I mean there's travel and there's stuff because we and we started going on the road, so that was uh a new thing for us, you know. Uh we got a bus and you know, school bus, the classics. So do you have to do like the whole Newfoundland tour? Oh, yeah, for sure. That's the first place we went to. And I was I was petrified, you know. Newfoundland, what's gonna happen? Are we gonna get beaten up? You know, whatever. Anyways, the app was the polar opposite. We loved it, it was fantastic. The people were just so great, you know. We just loved it. And uh anyway, so but Larry taught us a whole bunch of things, taught us to eat properly, you know, um, taught us how to uh speak in public, um how to uh work as a team. You know, we had meetings, you know, just stuff. That's really valuable. Really, really valuable and lessons that that the stuff practices that we use to this day. Yeah, we always did, we always put our hands, the five of us put our hands in the middle before every set. And to this day, in C Spot Run and Orange Man, we do the same thing. Every all these years, that has never, ever, and only twice has somebody not participated in all those years. And it was only once each time. Which which was and that was earth-shattering when it didn't happen. It's like, oh, okay, whoa. You know. Well, I I was gonna ask you a little bit earlier when you were talking about your early, early days, uh about having a plan and stuff, uh I I think that's maybe a little more pertinent today to young people starting out because they realize nothing just happens. Like you just can't go out and become a rock star. Nope. But having a a tutor who's not trying to siphon off revenue from the money you're making, who's just truly there to advise and help you, that is invaluable um help to get young people going. There's there's already enough, like, you know, uh probably probably wasn't as relevant or or or on the nose back in those days. But you know, mental health, like it it's tough. You're telling me you're all you did 400 and some odd gigs and in a very short period of time. That's that's gonna take a toll whether you would want to admit it or not. Oh, absolutely. And and wonderful advice to eat properly, sleep properly, don't do as many drugs as well. Don't do that. But that stopped for me because I couldn't. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh I I mean, when when I started out, yeah, sure. Every gig was a party and you'd drink whatever. And then I soon realized I wasn't having fun drinking and smoking at a gig because I wasn't I was there to to to have fun performing and entertaining, and I wasn't doing a good job, and I knew it. So it was very easy decision afterwards, which led to many five o'clock in the morning after parties, but at least it's after. It's after. My day job boss didn't think so, but no, true. True. Uh well, we uh I I can chime in on that. The um the having a plan to well, first of all, today the music business is so much different than it was. Back then, you could uh you could go out just like we did, a bunch of wet behind the ear kids could go out and learn a craft because you need the reps. It's like being an athlete. You need you need the reps, that's how you learn your craft. So exactly. You look at all those great James Brown, those artists, you know, that's what they did. They just played nonstop because they had to. They had to make a living, yes, scrape out a living. Yes. They all drove in the same car and and and whatever, you know. And uh and that's how they got great by by those reps. Of course, talent has something to do with it. Uh has a lot to do with it, but talent isn't the only thing. Determination, discipline, uh those stuff, and and support group. Now you can't just assemble a support group, you know. It you're lucky if you get a support group because it's the music business, like the arts, dance, comedy, um what have you, they're all the same. It's very, very difficult for for any dancer um uh to break break through, to make a name for themselves, you know. And these days it's particularly hard with the way you know um people are have found different ways to reach audiences through TikTok and uh that sort of stuff. And that's um that that that's I don't fault them for that. They're these are creative people that are trying to, you know, find a way because the infrastructure isn't there anymore. The old infrastructure isn't there anymore. So um, and uh of course with the electronics and all the uh and all the tools you have available to you, you can exp you can find a way to express yourself in a professional way, if you know, but you still need um you still need uh uh desire and um discipline to if you're gonna make this your living, you know, even it's it's hard to make a decision, a life decision when you're you know 21 years old because you can't you can't see for sure. You know, for me and for people like me, there was no question. I didn't want to do anything else. Yeah. You know, there was no there's no way I didn't want to do anything else. Nothing else I could do, nothing else I wanted to do. And you f you felt like that consistently? Consistently. had I I had I definitely had some um I had some really difficult uh periods that lasted months. Now you know I wasn't uh I don't have mental health issues or anything like that. Although there's in my my uh in my family there's lots of mental health issues on my father's side of the family. Sure. Um uh not that we were aware of it but now we become aware but you see oh yeah you know you you can stop and there's I I can feel things um but um I didn't have any like uh debilitating you know mental feeling yeah nothing that shut you down but you see I saw it we saw it sure you know yeah but in in my in my periods like any young person's something sometimes things just don't make sense you're just you don't you know you're out on the road because when we I'll just very briefly once lyrics split up I I started another band called Energerm and we didn't have any direction we uh we still wanted to rock but we didn't have any real direction one guy wanted to play rock um one guy uh wanted to play sort of progressive stuff not not one exclusively but that sort of stuff and I by that time the bass player of that band Paul and myself we had discovered new wave stuff so we discovered the police and we oh my god you know that was okay we're going that way you know and um so that band again a bunch of young guys um that we only lasted about nine months and then I met Chris and Tom the brothers that uh and uh Paul Moore and myself we had a meeting in my kitchen and we all like the same music and we went into um into Chris and Tom's basement we had a jam and it I went this is it we were playing XTC we had like the first four songs were messaging a bottle uh making plans for Nigel uh whatever the other two uh mirror in the bathroom by the English bee oh yeah yeah and this is it you know this is where we're going yeah and um it felt right it felt okay this fits now you know you the shirt actually fits or the pants actually fit oh this is great and so from there we literally went on the road immediately and we never got off the road so uh starting in 83 um up until the time that Paul quit so six straight years uh we were out west uh uh out east and we have Christmas week off and that'd be it's what act what is then uh Sea Spot Run oh so this is this is C Spot Run okay yeah so we started 82 end of 82 after after Energy fell apart and uh but we found you know uh we had found um this vehicle that we believed in you know and uh we started writing songs and um but we're on the road and then when you're on the road you find you find of course you find out about each other very very quickly you know yes you do um because we all live in the same rooms we traveled in the in the same van and um we managed pretty good actually you know the first six years we managed pretty good it was there was a some uncomfortable spots no question but nothing nothing hysterical you know nothing no showstoppers no uh no uh bottles thrown at the wall or whatever it is no alcoholics no you know we would run into all these things over time but um that first six years with the f the the original four of us um but uh the road isn't the life for a lot of people it definitely is not yeah because it's very demanding and depends on what your upbringing is you know like for Chris and Tom and I uh Chris and Tom had a very solid sort of upbringing as as did I and uh Paul Paul sort of moved between and uh and uh I love Paul all to pieces you know he's one of my favorite people on this earth um but he he came from a large family and the parents had split up and um and so they had lived in different places apart and then together and apart so he had sort of a um a mosaic of a a childhood happy but a mosaic and he needed after six years he goes I can't do this I gotta be in one place I'm just tired of he met a girl and um always a girl yeah oh it wasn't no he was yeah it was he needed to be grounded he was the road life was not for him he gave it everything he had I can I can I could definitely understand you know yeah yeah for sure and then six months later Tom Chris's brother the same thing he he needed to I I I just can't do this anyway he didn't see it he couldn't Chris and I were so obsessed about moving forward like we rehearsed every single day on the road we rehearsed in in bedrooms like we had we had a very rigid schedule we had um every Mondays because you start the gig where soundcheck you know you uh you load in you soundcheck you do the gig and Monday evenings were meetings so we finished a gig at one two in the morning and we'd have a meeting from three to five in the morning that was Monday. Wednesday uh Tuesday through Friday we would rehearse wherever we could rehearse we'd bring gear back to the hotel room we'd do whatever we'd rehearse every afternoon for two hours do the gig and then at night because they're always rooming together those are songwriting periods and so one guy would have to get out of the room so one guy could write songs. So all four of us wrote songs and so one guy you'd go to Tim Hortons and sit for two hours you'd bring uh uh you'd bring whatever you had with you you'd be little walkmans listen learn tunes write lyrics whatever it was you have to get out of the hotel room that's a Tuesday till Friday Saturday we'd rehearse Saturday afternoon and then of course Saturday night generally you'd uh do the gig and tear down and then Sunday would be travel days so we did that for six straight years and um it was very very rigid and there was no variation there's the now were you managing yourselves at this time no we had a manager. You had a manager but was that manager truly dictating your path for you or were you guys so much no she taught us she taught no she didn't she didn't dictate so much. We looked to her for a lot of advice okay which she provided and she taught us a a almost everything we know you know about being uh her and Larry taught us almost everything we know about being professionals. Sure you know if you're sick there's no nights off in rock and roll yeah you gotta find a way so and we and we got like not often but sometimes we got really sick really sick and um uh but there's no nights off he just somehow Chris I don't know how he did it Chris has a bad back and he um he couldn't move he's like this I don't know he plays the bass and he sings and you know what it's like to sing it's very physical constantly moving your diaphragm exactly and and uh and he'd lie in the dressing room on the floor dirty floor just lie there yeah waiting for the next set oh my god and go do it and there's all kinds of stories like that nasty but anyway um we were just so determined that we're just gonna I don't know we don't know we're just keep going that's what we did and it took a long long time but to get back to the original um premise of this uh thing for young people today it's that's not there anymore you don't have places to go and play every single night to learn to be a musician the way we understand a musician to be right you know if you're um if you're super good like I know a guy um that plays in the Toronto Symphony Orchest Orchestra he plays clarinet he's brilliant so he's got a career yes um very comfortable career but his for every one of him there's a hundred thousand other young people today that can only dream of getting a gig like that yeah you know so he went to school and of course he's exceptionally talented um uh way more you know I mean of course talent is subjective but um certainly way more schooled than uh than any of the guys I've ever played with and myself myself included of course you know because I you know I don't read music but um I feel for these young kids I've not just the kids but I feel for the people these days because they the business the business is a business so the people in the business that aren't musicians are there because it's a business and that business um the premise of that business is to make money so they'll do whatever they'll coerce you they'll do whatever when you start making records and which we started doing and we got a record contract after all those years and we we uh all those thousands and thousands of hours we put in writing recording arranging songs and and all that we it finally paid off in some form and we started getting on the radio we started making videos and uh touring with other acts and stuff and it was very exciting and it was very gratifying but it took a long long time but that those avenues aren't there anymore so these young people you wonder okay well they're in their they're in their room with their laptop and they got their keyboard and they got their software and they're doing their thing. The talent doesn't go away the talent is always there but a lot of it is lying in my opinion is lying dormant of course music has changed um a lot um the instrument is no longer uh the the sort of um end result of learning to play an instrument is no longer required whether you're a singer of a singer of course singers it's an instrument but um you can fix everything yeah you can fake everything and I use that I I don't use that pejoratively fake um but you can fix everything well sorry but this this does hit hits a uh a sensitive point for me is um so as you said uh young performers artists singers songwriters whatever there's just not a lot of places to go out and work your craft and you don't you said you alluded to it with the the whole touring things you don't really get better till you get in front of an audience and one night your favorite song will go perfectly the next night it will suck balls and and but you have to go through all those experiences to find out where you are and and then as the years go by young people don't have that opportunity and so it this this turns quickly into a conversation I was having yesterday regarding AI. There was some talking heads on TV saying how there's there's all these like hit songs coming out which are you can tell I mean I can tell they're AI but at the same time if the computer and the software can put out the same thing that it some young person in their apartment can put together which is real or I mean the song is the song so it's really confusing as to what what to do where to stand on that point. I know because I come from your school which is uh get out there and play and play as often and blood sweat and tears blood sweat and tears and and you will but uh as you cap that off you said you don't really have to be a virtuoso on your instrument anymore even your vocals though obviously there are you do have to know how to do this but uh yeah you can fix it in the mix yeah for the most part yeah and and and I I again I I I I I don't discredit the artists of today I I I believe I just believe a lot of the the talent has lies is lying dormant it hasn't gone away you know um record companies want to make money and they will only because all a record company is is a bank they lend you a money they lend you money then you got to pay it all back so if you have a lavish you know like uh Guns N'Roses when they first started they got their advance they blew the whole advance they owe that advance yeah you know and they made it back but a lot of bands don't make it back yes don't pay it back because they don't make it the one hit wonder yeah exactly yeah and um so record companies such as they are these days because there are only three of them you know I mean as far as they're all under umbrellas right umg or whatever they are um they eat up they buy up all these little labels and so they have all these boutique labels and that's cool but um they will they don't take chances there's no there there used to be a department in each record company called AR artist and repertoire and they would take a band like the Tragically Hip they'd hear about them one guy in the record company because record companies were people and and their music lovers supposed to be music lovers uh some more than others but um certainly it was very uh the business was very profitable but also very exciting for the record people back you know in the 60s 70s and 80s and 90s because there was the music was so great you know and they were excited to be there and so it it was um even though the the the perhaps the um the um distribution of funds wasn't equitable the uh wasn't always equitable the um at least the people that were in the record companies love music right and it wasn't just um okay I need to you know I need content you know this is the new word is content it's not music it's content okay wait a minute you know uh music is a visceral thing it's a vi it's uh people feel it they feel it very deeply you know um and I always think of this one this one uh uh example which I like to use we played um I don't know fifteen years ago it doesn't matter we played um uh a wedding in Toronto and uh there was no music there was no Here Comes the Bride there was no background music there was nothing and so we're sitting there because you know when when we would get hired from for weddings uh they liked us particularly so they wanted a rock and roll band for their wedding so that means they wanted us for their wedding so but they wanted us to be part of their wedding not just to play you know some anonymous band and so you're always there for the whole day and you're hanging you know you're so you you do your thing and and so you're part of the ceremony and all that sort of stuff. And so we're sitting there it was in an old the oldest school in Canada the oldest uh primary school or something in Canada somewhere in the east part of Toronto we're sitting there beautiful place and there's no music at all and it was so weird so the bride and the groom come up and they're lovely and they do their vows and all that and then we move over to the you know to the reception hall and you know whatever and we're all set up but we have to wait for dinner to be over so we're there for you know four hours and not one note of music is played. It's like being in a doctor's office and I thought this is this is who didn't think of this the wedding planner or whatever I'll just put some background music on. You know whatever put the radio on. Because music music reli uh it can irritate people of course but it it can really soothe people you know and uh it it people have a very intense connection to to the the vibration of it right because it you know it it um we vibrate and music vibrates and we vibrate together it's a physical thing it's a physical thing so when you're in a big show you know you go see Paul McCartney and uh everybody's singing um oh blah dee oh blah doubt whatever they're singing everybody's singing there's a you know 2000 people and there's this energy that you cannot yeah deny you know there's this collective energy that's what music is in in my view and um so I I I'm sad that the the business has become has become um uh what's the word reduced I'm looking for a word doesn't matter but has been whittled down to content yeah you know it's content we're con we're um musicians are now content creators content content content is a coffee in this thermos that's content or the contents of your character that's content not somebody's hard fought uh effort to create something musical you know absolutely and the whole this whole AI thing is like anyway that's uh discussion for another day we are uh coming to our time here okay and I would like very much if uh you would consider coming back for another time oh for sure there's so many topics we didn't touch on uh AI being one of them uh you know the the current condition state of of the gigging market such as it is out there and you are a working musician uh so lots of stuff to talk about there so maybe later this summer we can come back on out just to cap off I was uh looking for this quote it um there pertains to our our last little subject there is uh Hunter S. Thompson one of my favorite quotes of his is the entertainment industry is a cruel and shallow money trench along plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men and women die like dogs there's also a negative side exactly so young kids if you are looking forward to a life of the entertainment industry steal yourselves now steal yourselves Randy it's been an absolute pleasure it's great seeing you again I just want to mention I I was gonna do it at the beginning but you were the first musician I ever did sound for it was at Lindsey Place on the upper upper gym stage I was just there doing like background music I don't know what I think it was like a it was some sort of graduation but it wasn't the full on anyway I just remember um I think it was Mr. Holt came over and said oh we have a fellow coming up to to play guitar and I'm like okay I've never done this and there you were you were like this like idyllic 70s rock star you got this long flowing mane of blonde hair and I don't even remember what you played but but you were a rock star to me and and I mean you were a couple years older so in high school that's a lifetime it's a lifetime yeah yeah but uh from that moment on I knew who Randy Bowen was I've I've watched you uh in uh your your career path uh wiggle waggle I I mean I remember uh Energym I remember uh sure going to a house party where you guys were playing and uh and then next thing I knew C Spot Run was there and you guys are still gigging right yep well good for you and you're gigging regularly uh every week uh um so I want to talk about that more another time but sounds great again thank you so much for taking Dave yeah this is great it's uh it's an important these are important stories to tell sure you know I I not just my story but these are important stories for for young people yes uh and and I I I I'm trying to uh invite people to come and talk about their experiences from from the old days you know if you play during the 80s sure it's a different world in the 2020s totally uh so it's a good juxtaposition um probably not a lot of young people relate to what we're talking about but it is history and it's history for the record you can only that's it all right until next time cheers budget all right that's a wrap huge thanks to Randy Bowen for pulling up the stool and hanging out if you liked what you heard go check him out support local music go to a show buy some merch make some noise before we go one last check in before we go out your duel I'm Gabe Randall this is how yours duel and we'll catch you next time this is banned