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.