Idiot Savant

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Our friend Dave O'Hallaran (aka What Wave Dave on CHRW) has been sharing on Facebook, with our grateful permission, photos that we had taken of various bands back in the 1980's. Today Dave writes in 1980's Punk Rockers in London, Ontario:

 

"Here's another blast from the past from the lens of top notch photog Reg Quinton. This time we go to the London Regional Art Gallery (Museum London) to catch a high energy set by Idiot Savant circa 1984.

Some of you might remember them as Suffer Machine, a name they later adopted, released 2 excellent full length albums and appeared on several compilations.

Idiot Savant's sound was an amalgam of post punk, jazz, funk, freeform and just about anything else that caught their attention spans. Live shows were always high energy grooves, everyone on the dance floor and an all for one mentality with everyone having a great time!

This is another timely post as singer Peter Tangredi will be onstage this Saturday night at Palasad with the Wabi Sabis."

I recall this event — see my recollections on Suffer Machine at LRAG (2021) in this blog. It was unusual to have an event in the LRAG, I suspect it was to nurture young artists of all sorts. We were living in Wortley Village at the time and had a foster child/teenager. He took some pictures as well with a camera loaded with B/W. There are other photos from this event in my collection. I would date this as either 1984 or possibly 1985 (I recall buying a 1984 Hyundai to shuttle our forster kid around to court dates).

One of these photos, a tight head shot of Peter in full throat, appears in the Graphic Underground, a 2012 book by Brian Lambert celebrating the artists, posters and music of that period.

Many thanks to Dave for his work organizing photos and figuring out the location and time for many of them. As the years pass memories fade.

See also Idiot Savant on Discogs where I see they've cribbed a photo from this collection.