Middle Aged Rock & Rollers

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Saturday was a rather rainy day which meant that a lot of the St Marys Heritage Festival events were cancelled or postponed; e.g., the Friends of the Library were supposed to be downtown for the street fair which was rained out. One event that was rescheduled into the Town Hall was a planned live music event which was to happen outdoors at Cadzow Park.

Kate and I went to the show which started late in the afternoon. Unfortunately, the show was rather poorly attended with mostly family and friends in the audience. I helped a bit with taping up some of the cables and they asked "Which family are you from?". Kate was only able to stay for the first act; I stayed for all three performances which wound up just before the fireworks event. Fortunately Kate came to get me after the show as it was raining by then. Photos in the album capture some of the event.

The opening act was the "York Street Thought Process". They're a  young local duo described on their Facebook page as "an Indie-folk duo project created by Rachael Frankruyter and Jaron Camp". Jaron we know a bit — we had arranged a 40th anniversary party back in 2020 which, unfortunately, was cancelled with the pandemic. He was to provide the sound equipment and perform at our party. He organized the equipment for this show; there was a lot of gear and it had to be set up on fairly short notice (the library was in the hall most of the day). 

Jaron's dad is Sean Camp who took our anniversary photos. His grandad is Bev Camp — known around London as the "Dancing Cowboy". I talked with Jaron, mentioned that Bev was probably in the city dancing to the Rizdales that afternoon  at the Richmond Hotel. 

Jaron and Rachael are just back from a trip to Newfoundland and mentioned some recordings that they had made there. They performed all original tunes — some individual works, others as the duo. Jaron has graduated from a jazz program at Humber and the influences are apparent. Rachael has a sweet voice and plays with an emphasis on simple melodies.

"The Bone Radlers", the second act, are another local duo (Chet and Aimee) who sang together and played with guitar, ukelele, harmonica and "ugly stick". They opened with a version of Steve Earle's "Galway Girl" and closed with a version of the Great Big Sea's "The Night Paddy Murphy Died" accompanied by the rhythms of the ugly stick. This was a fun band playing cover tunes that I really enjoyed. They have a good following and for good reason — they're far more than competent! They're quite professional. I recognize Chet as having been a member of another local band, the Corduroy Gordons, who have disbanded with some members moving away from the area.

"Roy's Garage", which closed the evening, is a Southern Ontario bar room staple who have been playing together for many, many years. I did not know them or their music. They played loud competent covers of rock and roll staples. They had definitely put in their 10,000 hours.  They're all mature guys — the youngest might have been 40, the oldest looked to be well over 70. To call them middle aged would be generous. 

The show was pretty exciting as rock and roll can be. I took a lot of pictures and even went up on the stage to get some pictures from behind the band. I enjoyed their set which went smoothly; it was a shame there weren't more there to appreciate the music. I spoke briefly to one of the singers (there were two, one seemed to specialize in AC/DC tunes and even had the T-shirt to match) to say how much I enjoyed the show.

I can't find out much about this band on line but bumped into a couple of old references (from the Zurich Beanfest (2018) and a Christmas gig at the Hub (2022), Stratford) that are similar:

“They don’t fix cars and they don’t ride bikes…but they are the soundtrack for those that do”.

With over 20 years in, Roy’s Garage (created by Darryl Romphf) is still running on a full tank, entertaining and energetic as ever.

A Southwestern Ontario bar room staple, the Roy’s always serve up a refreshingly strong cocktail of good time Country & Rock n Roll, full throttle with the tires smokin'.

I see that they will be playing at the Windmill Campground (just north of St Marys) on September 3.  

A final comment/observation: it's odd how folkies switch and tune instruments before each tune. Middle Aged Rock & Rollers (who are so damn cute) come with a stack of guitars but never switch instruments or spend much time tuning. They just get up there and play! Those 10,000 hours have polished their performance.

See also

• "For Romphf, it's the circle of music" (2107) from the Waterloo Record.