Suffer Machine at LRAG

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The photo album at left includes some color pictures of Suffer Machine and some BW pictures of other bands at an all ages event held at the London Regional Art Gallery (LRAG) sometime in either late 1984 or early 1985. I've shared to Facebook and asked for help.

It turns out there is some debate about exactly when this happened. Mark Favro (the Mr. Luba of LubaTunes who loves beans) has a video of the "Great Gallery Event 1985" posted on YouTube and the notes on that video clearly say it was 1985. I agree that the video matches the event I've captured some of in these stills. But Mark thinks the date on the video is in error and the event would have been Friday Dec.7 1984 — he has a poster of the "Great Gallery Event" (1984). See the poster at his BOF page.  Unfortunately that poster headlines Sheep Look Up rather than Suffer Machine so something is wrong. The other explanation is that what happened doesn't match what was advertised. And that's not uncommon.

Frank Shaw, the voice for Bits of Food at this event, wrote "Suffer Machine headlined with Dormant Checker Effect, LubaTunes, Bits of Food and Omerta. It was called the Great Gallery Gig and cost I think 2 or 3 bucks. Can't remember the exact date. There were a couple posters of the event. Mark Favro has video of it. Fun times!" Frank's recollections seem to match mine. Although I don't recall LubaTunes playing that night — Mr. Luba (Mark Favro's personna) usually performed with an ugly rubber face mask — Mark has provided video evidence that LubaTunes were there!

Pete Tangredi, who was the voice for Suffer Machine, writes that there aren't very many pictures of his band. I am happy to share what I have here. He thinks the event was in 1984 so perhaps it was. He is able to provide some details though and writes, "Always very cool to see old photos surface. I’m sorry I can’t help with dates (I probably didn’t even know the date when it was happening). I am also clueless as to the other band. I do however remember the names of the other players in my band: Patrick Eynon (guitar), Stephan Beckhoff (keys), Greg Rinehart (bass), Chris Serratore (drums)." 

There's a picture of Pete in full voice from this event that Brian Lambert used in Graphic Underground: London 1977-1990 (2013). There's quite a few of my photos used, with permission, in that excellent book about those misspent days and nights.

The other bands (I'll assume it was Dormant Checker Effect, LubaTunes, Bits of Food, and Omerta) were clearly part of a collective of young teens who were well connected to the London art scene and especially the infamous Nihilist Spasm Band — their music was, in some measure, an update of the NSB.  The Curnoe and Favro names are part of the NSB and the London Arts landscape. That helps to explain why this event was held at the LRAG! Mark Favro has a "Bands from the BOF Shelter" web page which documents some of that early history.  I have some photos of Bits of Food and others from that group of young people performing in a Wortley Village church hall (St Stephens now long gone) at around the same time. We lived nearby and attended with our teenager foster child as it and this were all-ages events.

Daniel Rudbal provided some more information on Facebook about one of the bands. He writes, "..though I never saw them play.. 2 members of OMERTÀ, John Dillabough and Steve Gardner ..were also members of the very first line-up of the BLACK DONNELLYS".

I have included some photos of a C90 released by LubaTunes and correspondence that accompanied the tape. Mark Favro (Mr. Luba) who would have written the note to us writes on the Facebook thread: "You must have owned a copy of the LubaToons magazine. We put an ad in there to buy the audio tape. Actually you probably bought the magazine at the Great Gallery Gig as we were selling them there" and he included a link to Mr. Luba and LubaTunes playing at at the event.

After posting the above, thinking that I had researched this as best I can, I went looking through my scanned band photos and found more color pictures from the event including the other bands mentioned (but not LubaTunes). I've added them to the photo album.

Many thanks to all who responded and helped me with this blog.

This blog page composed during April of 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Terminals.

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On '21/04/29 I asked on the 1980's Punk Rockers in London, Ontario Facebook group:

"Digging through old slides I have these color photos of the Terminals at Victoria Tavern (helpfully identified by Dave O'Halloran) circa 1984 which have been shared before. 

But then Google facial identification found some additional BW photos from another concert (I know not where). If you have any thoughts, memories, etc. about the Terminals or either of these events please share. 

I'm curious about the drummer in the BW photos, that can't be the same as in the color photos. One is Pete Timmins but surely they're different people. The BW drummer looks so much younger."

And, sure enough, I quickly got the answers and feedback from loyal fans of the era. Dave O'Halloran identified the Victoria Tavern in the color slides and named the players: "Terminals at Victoria Tavern and 84 sounds right for the date. Mike Timmins gtr/vocals, Dave Clark grt/vocals, Laurie Wedge bass, Pete Timmins  drums."

Dave and others quickly identified the young drummer in the black and white photos as James MacLean who drummed with them from '79-82 when Pete Timmins took over the roll. He also pointed out that all of this is well documented in What Wave #24 (which I have somewhere). In any case, that information helps to set the time frame for those photos. 

After some discussion there's agreement that those BW photos would have been for a gig at the Embassy Hotel (Mike Timmins recalls the poster created by Dave Clark as seen behind James which advertises Aug 9, 10, 11). Dave O'Hallaran recognizes the ceiling tiles, etc. as the Embassy. From What Wave #24 I see that Laurie Wedge (bass) and James MacLean (drums) were together in the band in '81 but Mike Timmins assures us that this gig would have been in '82. So I'll tag those pictures as being from Aug 9-10, 1981 at the Embassy Tavern, London. 

Michelle Lundy noticed, if you do a close up of Laurie Wedge’s pant leg in the BW photos, you'll find the slogan "So I kill children".  Quite the punk ethos!

The band had some avid fans who remember them fondly. On the Facebook thread we have:

Larry Brandt: "Love this. All these people were great. (and no doubt, they still are) (not quite sure what to say about those shorts Dave..... LOL)"

Ian Trotter: "These guys where crazy entertaining"

The thread got lots of engagement and several comments on the photos which I'm happy to share.

The Terminals are mentioned in "The Beginnings of Punk Rock in London" (What Wave Dave O'Hallaran's blog) and appear on the What Wave #24 compilation (Side B): "The Terminals – D Generation:  Hardcore punk. Think D.O.A. The kind of stuff your parents hate. 1984 studio sessions." The London Music Archives hosted by CHRW (sadly offline at this writing) had a 1984 single: The Terminals - "We Killed" b/w "Don't Yell, Buy Us Beer". There's much more to discover if you dig deeper.

Given all the above it's not exactly clear when the later gig happened. I have arbitrarily filed this in my blog with a summer of '84 date and I'm happy to share these photos.

This blog composed during April of 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Slides and negatives were scanned in 2012.

The Dicks

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Sometime during the summer of 1984 (I suspect it was in June) Kate and I were in Cincinnati for a conference of mine. As I recall this  was our first road trip together into the USA, we had rented a car for the trip, and we made it a bit of an adventure exploring the Ohio backroads on the way down and the greater Cincinnati area while at the conference.

One of our fun music adventures was to see "The Dicks" play at a seedy Newport, Kentucky bar just across the river from Cincinnati (we stayed in nearby Covington, KY). We really didn't know much about the band but figured out it was a punk night out and we were up for it. The photo album at left has some pictures of the event.

The pictures show that the "Big Dick" (real name Gary Floyd) really threw himself into the music. He's a big guy, quite intense and by the end of the evening he's soaking wet from sweating.

Wikipedia tells me this was the "San Francisco" and 2nd version of "The Dicks" with this lineup: Gary Floyd (vox), Tim Carroll (gtr), Sebastian Fuchs (bass), and Lynn Perko (drums). Lynn is notable as a female drummer. They had released the LP's Kill From The Heart (1983) and would follow that with These People (1986) which I have. If I were to put a name to their music I'd say, "hardcore".

The band was formed in Austin in 1980, then moved to San Fancisco in 1983 and folded in 1986. In 1988 we were in San Francisco and saw "Sister Double Happiness" (with the Big Dick singing) open for the "Butthole Surfers" (another Austin band). We've been travelling to Austin for many years now with our first visit in 1990. We love the music we find in Austin but no longer follow the punk scene.

There was a local opening act that night, whose name I've forgotten. There's some pictures of them in the photo album. The bass player is a striking young woman in the Joan Jett mold. The notable thing there was the dancing style. The bar had a very large dance floor and the fans were into a style of dancing that involved running around the floor swinging their arms and taking long loping steps. We'd never seen this before, I believe it's called "skanking".

Another tidbit — after the show we discovered that I had locked the keys in the car. Some of the locals at the show helped us break into the car. A police patrol drove by while we were doing that but didn't seem phased by a couple of young men breaking into a car in front of a seedy bar on what would have been "the wrong side of town".

This blog is filed on an arbitrary date in June of 1984. Slides were scanned and these recollections composed during the pandemic lock down of May, 2021.

Cincinnati Road Trip

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In June of 1984 I had a conference in Cincinnati, Ohio. Kate and I made a road trip and holiday out of it. We rented a car (at the time we biked everywhere or rode the city bus) and took the back roads down avoiding the interstate where we could. While you can easily do this in one day, we toured around and stayed overnight along the way. This would have been my first adventure across the border into the USA.

We drove the backroads of Highway 3 in Ontario to Windsor and Detroit where we crossed on the Ambassador bridge. Navigating the city of Detroit to find the I75 Southbound was a bit of an eye opener. Detroit was pretty bleak and abandoned back then (as it is now), not the kind of place you'd want to get lost. So of course we were lost. We did find our way and stayed at a Knights Inn along the way (I think it was near Findlay, Ohio). Our room was tricked out with garish purple bed spreads in a Graceland meets the Chicken Ranch motif. But it was clean and comfortable enough. We explored a neighborhood bar that night.

Neighborhood bars, and the drinking culture, were something I found fascinating. Coming from Ontario where drinking and alcohol are strictly controlled it was culturally fascinating to find all these small local bars where people just hung out chatting and drinking ... all day long. That first bar had a "Mickey Mouse" motif (not sanctioned by Disney Corp.) with all sorts of souvenirs that regulars had brought in. The lady behind the bar, the owner, told us that they were light heartedly disparaging the bar, that Mickey Mouse joint, but she went along with it.

The next day was spent on our way through the backroads of small town Ohio which, apart from the bars and many flags, looks an awful lot like the small town Ontario we explored along the first part of our trip. We toured an historic home (the Piatt Castle near West Liberty) and went underground to explore the nearby Ohio Caverns (stalactites, stalagmites). That was the first underground cavern we explored, we saw many others in the years to come.

The small town of Yellow Springs, just to the east of Dayton, was a pleasant hippy dippy kind of town with lots of interesting shops and restaurants to explore before finding our way into Cincinnati and surrounds. I recall having Skyline Chili at least once, it's a style unique to the area. Everytime we drive the I75 through the area we remark about dropping in again and having a bowl.

The conference was held in downtown Cincinnati at a huge convention centre and there would have been an expensive splashy conference hotel. We stayed instead across the Ohio River in Covington, Kentucky at the foot of the Blue Iron Bridge (John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge) in a much cheaper and quite comfortable two story motel, "The Gateway", with free parking and an outdoor pool with a view of the city. It was a reasonable walk across the river into the city to the conference.

The Kentucky side of the river was definitely an interesting area. Cincinnati has a reputation as being prissy, Kentucky is definitely down to earth. At the foot of the bridge were several bottle shops, along the street there were seedy bars (like the "Sly Fox" where a young girl, working for the bar, would get you to buy her a drink), corner shops advertised and sold all sorts of beers and liquor, definitely a run down kind of neighborhood. Liquor and drinking venues were much more strictly controlled in Ohio. In nearby Newport we went to a seedy bar one night to see a now legendary punk band — "The Dicks" (from Austin TX via San Francisco CA).

To the north of the city center on higher ground we visited Calhoun Street at the one end of the University of Cincinnati. Another "high ground" neighborhood we visited was Mt Adams, to the NE of the city centre. We caught a couple of shows. There was an interesting Doo-Wop band, "Smokin' the Students", playing at a place called Chapter 13. Reg made friends with a cute dog that had recently been clipped/sheared rather raggedly. The owner explained to us that the dog had long hair and would be miserable in the summer heat so he did this himself every year.

One evening Kate and I took a paddle boat tour of the Ohio River on the Mark Twain departing at the KY side of the Blue Iron Bridge. It was a pleasant warm evening and we enjoyed the views of the city and the many bridges we pass under. It's a small tour boat, not the grand paddle wheelers you might expect. There are several tours you might take with BB Riverboats. I understand you can take a very long cruise from here and down the Mississippi to New Orleans. There are very modest boats on the river — an an outing one day we crossed the river downstream from Cincinnati on the small Anderson Ferry. The Ohio is quite a big river and, while there are many bridges within the city, sometimes a small ferry is all you have.

Another interesting place we visited was the historic Art Deco Cincinnati Union Terminal. Kate loves the style and this old train station is a fine example. It's a round 1/4 dome shaped building. It's located to the west of the city centre and, at the time, didn't seem active as a train station. Instead it was full of shops. I understand there's now a museum there.

We kept seeing signs for Hudepohl Beers, especially Christian Moerlein (Cincinnati Select Beer), and did a tour of the local brewery which was to the west of the downtown in an older industrial area. There were just a few of us on the tour. The guide told us, since we weren't locals, that they'd put the same beer into two different cans — a cheaper drug store brand and one with their own name. I used to search out Christian Moerlein on subsequent trips to the US and we still have a metal beer tray with the Art Noveau lady sipping a beer.

We also did a couple of high views. There's a tall viewing platform downtown on top of a building near the convention where the city is quite tall. The other, perhaps more interesting, was the revolving restaurant in Covington near the I75 bridge. From both you have good views of the city.

Final pictures in the album are a return to the farming country of Michigan and Ontario.

We've been through Cincinnati on the I75 many times over the years — on our way south to Florida, or Texas, or Nashville, etc. We've not been back to the city for a visit but we ought to. It was an adventure when we did.

These photos where scanned and these notes were composed during the pandemic lockdown of May 2021.

The Clash

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Kate and I saw the Clash (the only band that really matters) on Friday May 4, 1984 at the University of Waterloo. We were punk fans and really liked the band. We drove over from London after work and returned that night. 

The sold out concert was held in the school gymnasium and we had seats high up and far from the stage. I took a few photos but they're pretty crappy -- too far away, too over exposed. But they're a record of where we were. You can, if you squint hard, make out Joe and Paul playing.

This tour was sort of the last hurrah of a great band that was disintegrating. Topper Headon (drums) was replaced years earlier and Mick Jones (guitar) had just left the band to form Big Audio Dynamite. Joe Strummer (guitar) and Paul Simonon (bass) remained. Mick was replaced with a couple of young punks on guitars -- Nick Sheppard and Vince White. The show was pretty frantic with lots of running around the stage. At one point, one of the new guys (I can't recall which), was running around stage right and ran right off the stage into the crowd. I'm pretty sure he didn't mean to do that. He couldn't have been hurt too badly as the show continued without any break or let up.

There's a web site which gives a set list for the concert. I can't speak to the accuracy.

This version of the Clash went on to record the often overlooked album "Cut the Crap". I have the LP and had ripped a version into my digital collection. For the longest time that album wasn't available and often denied in the Clash history (but see YouTube Playlist for the album). There are several tunes from that session that I really like -- "We Are The Clash" and "This is England" really stand out while "Three Card Trick" has a nice bass line and a great reggae beat. It's an album with some definite high spots.

I was sad when the Clash broke up shortly after. There's never been a band quite like them.

Ps. Photos in the album are scans of push processed B&W negatives taken at the time. I had never printed them. This note and the scans were prepared during the COVID-19 lockdown of February 2021.

Conning Tower

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I shared this photo album recently on Facebook ('21/04/10) and got a great reaction from Mark Goodwin who now lives in Montreal:

"Again....thanks to the amazing Reg Quinton for archiving London, Ontario's music scene (back when I was a part of it, at least 😉 ) This is Conning Tower:  Linda Harvey (bass), Billy Wallace (drums) and me (geetar/vox). We went to London,UK shortly after this, imploded, and came back with our tails between our legs (or I did, in any case) I played an SG through a twin reverb (with one speaker) connected to a small Leslie cabinet. The amp and cab turned into a one-way plane ticket home......c'est la vie...

Spirit of 84...."

Conning Tower, and other projects by Mark Goodwin at the time (I recall Second Thoughts before this incarnation and the Magic Binmen somewhat later), was post-punk or alternative in some sense. Definitely edgy, but smart with a pop feel-good vibe. Music which was quirky, rythmic and intelligent -- sort of XTC meets REM without all the initials. Mark Goodwin and the band were very talented artists who ought to have gone far.

Conning Tower released a 7" single "Indian Dancing" in 1984 (two tunes credited to Linda Harvey and Mark Goodwin). I have that single somewhere in my collection but can't lay my hands on it.

See also my blog and photo album of the "Magic Binmen" which was a later incarnation by Mark.

This photo album is from a concert/show in a small bar, Key West, on Talbot Street in London. There were a lot of interesting shows in that club. Next door was the infamous Brunswick Hotel, the other way was the Cedar Lounge and across the street was the convenient LCBO.

Poscript: A posting on FaceBook by Mark Goodwin (20/03/20) had some discussion of the location for the pictures. I believe it was at Key West but others are sure the location was Bullwinkles (or Kelly's before it became Bullwinkles) on King Street in London. Mark says, "Makes sense. Particularly because I have no actual memory of playing Key West. I think that club became a thing when were in England." For my part, it doesn't matter very much, it was a long time ago and all those clubs are long gone.

Kate and I lived in an old house we had bought in Wortley Village which is within walking distance of the down town core. We would occasionally haunt shows like this one. At the time I had abandoned my Ph.D. and was getting back into working with information technology. 

I don't know the date for this show but I believe it was sometime in 1984. I have filed it in my blog on an arbitrary date.

This note/blog composed during April 2021; photos were scanned back in 2012.

St Valentines Massacre

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I posted a call for comments to the Facebook group 1980's Punk Rockers in London, Ontario in April of '21:

"I have a few photos of 10,000 Screaming Apaches and Bits of Food from, I believe, a Valentine's Day event (1984) at St Stephens Hall in Wortley Village. Jeff Patterson, who was the voice of 10,000 Screaming Apaches has been helpful with his recollections of the band. Anyone else have recollections of either band or the event?

We used to live in Wortley Village and it would have been an all ages event."

I understand that this event had quite a few bands with the Terminals headlining and I believe The Dormant Checker Effect played as well. Although I haven't bumped into any photos of these other bands. ... as yet. I believe this event happened on the Saturday following Valentine's Day and have filed this in my blog for that date. I may be wrong, it might have been the Saturday before. See the poster in What Wave #24 p. 50 for a listing of bands.

10,000 Screaming Apaches had Jeff Patterson (voice). He recalls that, "we used to jam at The Practice Place at 9 High street where I lived with the drummer, Jamie MacLean (October Crisis, Magic Bin Men). The guitarist is Tony Stafford and the bass player is Pete Kenney. Tony went on to form The Finks." I understand that Pete Feend, who joined in the discussion thread, was in the Finks as well. He provided some links to YouTube videos the Finks had made.

Bits of Food had Charles Vincent on vocals/bass (extreme mohawk fame), Warren Pratten on guitar, Galen Curnoe on drums/guitar, Owen Curnoe synth/drums.  I believe that later that year Frank Shaw assumed the vocals role. See Mark Favro's BOF Brief History (and see Mark's comment below).

St Stephens (of Hungary) was a Catholic church at the corner of Bruce Street and Wortley Road right across the road from the Landon Public Library. We lived a couple of blocks to the west, this was our neighborhood. The church is long gone, a coffee shop and condominium building are in it's place. It was an odd place for a concert of this sort but I suppose they were trying to keep the younger ones in the church. I wonder how that plan worked?

Some of the comments and reactions from those who remember the event:

Keith Ruck recalls that "[it was in the] basement of St. Steven's church if I remember correctly. Fuck was everyone young! ... those were some damn good times. The all ages shows were the only ones I could get in to in those days."

Ruby Canterbury recalls, "I remember going to the gig, it was in such a weird venue"

Pete Feend wrote,  "I was there for 1st time seeing the Apaches. My old band Redline had done a few shows with Pack O' 3s and I was checking out the new band."

Mark Favro spotted himself dancing madly in one of the photos. In the photo above that's him in the green shirt. He looks like he's having some fun!

Ian Trotter says, "I was a fan, these guys had a couple catchy tunes. 10k Screaming Apaches up over the wall, some reggae based tune about a New War, cover version of My Old Man's a Fatso...yeah they were cool"

James MacLean (who drummed for 10,000 Screaming Apaches says, "Great pics never knew any existed of this show Charles Vincent [of Bits of Food] always had great hair then!" 

Dave O'Hallaran's gospel of that period, What Wave #24, tells me these bands were short lived.  However, they had fun and made music. That's something to remember.

These photos are from scanned slides taken at the time. The slides were scanned back in 2012. The pandemic of 2020-21 has given me the time to sort through them and document the event. This note prepared April 30, 2021.