63 Monroe - Victoria Park

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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:

  

More Reg Quinton pics. This time it's 63 Monroe playing the bandshell at Victoria Park, London ON circa 1983. It's my fave lineup of the band; Markii Burnaway, Pete Dekoker, Jeff Rooth and Steven R Stunning.

Peter Lambert comments: "Love Rooster and his Staccato drum kit!" Pete was an original drummer with NFG.

Markii liked the picture of him on his guitar (which it turns out he still has) and has used it as his Facebook profile picture.

The originals, which Dave posted, were slide scans and badly in need if work. In the album above I've cropped and adjusted exposure so these pictures are a bit better than what was shared on Facebook.

An odd coincidence that, on Victoria Day Weekend (the first summer holiday of the season), Dave posts these pictures from Victoria Park.  Many thanks to Dave for organizing the photos, figuring out the location, date and time. It's work that is very much appreciated — by those who were, and remain, fans and, of course, by Kate and me.

Zellots - Fryfogles

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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 some more Reg Quinton pics, this time it's the Zellots at Fryfogles circa 81/82. At the time, the band consisted of Catherine Destun, Jane Colligan, Chris DeVeber and Greg Moore. Lots of familiar faces in the crowd shots."

John Ondrasek commented, "I believe Shakin Jack opened that night. Jane let me use her bass. I have a picture, somewhere." No one, as yet, has been able to tell me who joined the band on harp.

These photos got a very good reaction from those in the groups (Dave also shares these posts in other Facebook Groups). In part it's because of the fond memories of dancing wildly like the young fools we were. The are quite a few audience pictures and people really like spotting their younger selves. I'm especially pleased to see that our friend Peter Tangredi has pulled out and enhanced some crowd pictures from this collection. I've added those to my album. His crib of Mark Deroux all sweaty and dancing is especially nice. Kevin Fox commented, "Great pic, and after the teeth knocked out incident in front of the Boot." There's got to be an interesting story there!

The B/W pictures are awfully grainy and filthy, terrible exposures, but they do capture the excitement of the moment. One from this session made it into Graphic Underground, a 2012 book by Brian Lambert celebrating the artists, posters and music of that period. Several of my photos appear in that book; it's no longer in print but might be found through rare book collectors. (Just checked Amazon Canada has a couple of copies but want over $1,000 each!!).

Dave posted all the photos of ours that he found, some were too awful but I'm happy to have them shared for others to enjoy. In the album above I've spent a little bit of time to clean things up, crop and enhance the exposures where I can. But I really need to go back to the slides and negatives ... they're somewhere in the basement waiting for me.

Many thanks to Dave for organizing the photos, figuring out the location, date and time. It's work that is very much appreciated — by those who were there and by Kate and me.

Zellots - Mingles

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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 The Cedar Lounge - Blue Boot group:

 

"Here's some more Zellots pics by Reg Quinton as Reg pointed out that I had already posted the Zellots pics from the Cedar. 

This time it's at Mingles, possibly opening for Simple Minds circa 1981 with Greg Moore behind the kit."

In these photos the band consisted of Christine DeVeber (guitar), Catherine Destun (voice), Jane Colligan (bass) and  Greg Moore (drums). Christine passed away recently in London during the pandemic; here's her 2022 obituary. The Zellots did reunite for a gig in London back in 2012 for the Graphic Underground, a book by Brian Lambert celebrating the artists, posters and music of that period. Several of my photos appear in that book. There are some tunes available on YouTube — see, for example, the Empty Victories playlist.

Dave had previously shared some photos of the Zellots at the Cedar Lounge which were taken earlier (different drummer, BW photos). I do recall seeing Simple Minds at Mingles and I'm pretty sure this was the opening act — the stark lighting is what sticks with me. 

Mingles was a bar at the corner of Talbot and Dundas Streets in London. The Firehall (see 63 Monroe at the Firehall in this blog) was attached on the Talbot Street side. We saw several bands at these bars back in the day. These bars and buildings are long gone, like the Cedar Lounge which was down the street one block on Talbot, and were replaced by the Budweiser Gardens (a large arena complex) which has a faux-frontage to mimic the original Talbot Inn hotel.

Many thanks to Dave for organizing the photos, figuring out the location, date and time. It's work that is very much appreciated.

NFG/63 Monroe - Record Release

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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 some Reg Quinton pics of 63 Monroe playing live at Records On Wheels circa 81/82.

Records On Wheels would have been on the north side of Dundas between Clarence and Richmond at the time. It was the first chain record store to actually have a punk/new wave section, a great import section with lots of punk/new wave records and they sold singles on the counter. And you could get your local releases here and they had some great window displays. (anyone have pictures of the window displays?)."

I'm pretty sure it was the record release of the NFG/63 Monroe EP on a Saturday morning. There was a good crowd. They played a short set from the elevated area at the back of the store. The store was very near to Nash Jewellers which is now the London Music Hall of Fame. I think the show was cut short because it was very loud and nearby merchants weren't too happy with that.

Members of the band at that time were Scott Bentley (aka Steven R. Stunning) on voice, Markii Burnaway (guitar), Pete Dekoker (bass) and Jeff Roth (aka Rooster) on the drums. Rooster isn't visible in any of these photos. Clearly they're on their transition from snotty nosed punks to the alt-punk glam of "First Date". We loved every incarnation and even had them play at our 25th Anniversary.

I'm not sure if these photos have been shared before, I suspect they have. But, in any case, many thanks to Dave for his work organizing these old photos and figuring out the location and time for many of them. I've spent a bit of time enhancing these photos — they were very dark. 

Rather than a "See also" section, I invite you to search the blog for other photos of this and other bands from that era.

Conning Tower

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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 some more Reg Quinton pics. This time it's Conning Tower at Bullwinkles circa 1984.

At this time the band consisted of Mark Goodwin, Linda Harvey and Billy Wallace. They released one 7" record with Brian Hodgson on drums in 1984.

Bullwinkles was on King St, south side between Richmond and Clarence. The building is still standing and went through a number of names; Kelly's Boogie Parlour, Bullwinkles,  Salt Lounge and for awhile it was a mall."

Mark Goodwin was an incredibly talented fellow and formed several bands over the years (Second Thoughts and The Magic Bin Men are mentioned in this blog). While I never knew him personally, we did establish a bit of back and forth on Facebook. I recall that I was after a copy of some music of his that I had lost. He was glad to share but expressed an embarrassment over some of his efforts. Everyone lands a clunker some time. If any were clunkers, they were only a few. Sadly he passed away recently at the very young age of only 64 years. See his Montreal Obituary.

Most of these photos have been shared before — see 2021 Conning Tower post in this blog. In that post I was sure the bar was Key West. Dave and Dan Rudbal have convinced me I was wrong. Dan writes "Reg, that is indeed BULLWINKLES ..the stage was eventually switched to the back wall, these photos are when it was along the East side wall."

Many thanks to Dave for his work organizing photos and figuring out the location and time for many of these.