PERFECT YOUTH: The Birth of Canadian Punk (29 page)

While Morrow and Brower were initially confident that they could land the band a spot on the Capitol Records roster, their overtures were eventually turned down and the band’s first single, “Picture My Face,” was cut for Morrow’s own Inter Global Music — in retrospect, this might have been the first sign that Morrow and Brower were not capable of delivering on their lofty promises. Kobak was dispatched across Canada to drop the single off at every radio station between Hamilton and Vancouver, and when he returned home, the song was charting on the west coast’s CFOX. Soon, others across the country followed suit.

“Picture My Face” remains one of the strongest Teenage Head songs, despite popping up so early in their oeuvre. From the remarkably understated simplicity of its structure to the over-the-top braggadocio of Frankie’s delivery, the song is a perfect punk kiss-off, a three-minute time capsule of what made Teenage Head such an effective songwriting unit.

“Nick wrote the lyrics, I wrote the music,” recalls Lewis. “It was the first time we realized that we could really write songs. We could play. We had a great singer. And that was the first time we hit the money. Frank sang it perfectly. Frank was so good at taking other people’s lyrics and coming up with the melody and making it his own. I’ve heard him do it countless times. It’s a gift that people didn’t realize that he had, that he could interpret other people’s songs and make them beautiful. It’s a rare gift.”

The song’s cross-country success helped to light a collective fire under the band’s skinny jeans, and they decided to drive out to New York City, unannounced, and ask Hilly Kristal for a show at CBGB. Kristal agreed, giving the band a Friday and Saturday night slot opening up for the Cramps. The shows, which would be piled on by other Toronto area bands and become a proper Canadian takeover of the Bowery institution, weren’t scheduled to happen for a few weeks, so the band went to Max’s, watched Suicide play, and drove straight home.

For the next year, Teenage Head prowled the highways of Southern Ontario, always followed by a gang of hard-drinking Hammer locals wherever they went. The band became infamous for the tough crowd travelling behind them that looked like a cartoon barroom brawl, a mess of long hair and hockey jackets that always stood in contrast to the close-cropped all-leather look of a town like Toronto.

“Everybody from Hamilton, we would all come into Toronto, and we all thought Teenage Head was the best,” says Greg Dick. “I think we scared a lot of the Toronto people. I think they didn’t really feel that we were part of the arts thing they had going. I used to get flack from people in Hamilton for liking the Diodes. I loved the Dishes. I loved the Government. But down in Hamilton it was the MC5, Dictators, Flamin’ Groovies, Teenage Head.”

It wasn’t just Stelco employees keeping tabs on the band, as media attention swelled, drawn to the recognizable elements of classic rock and roll buried under the layers of fuzz and Venom’s spastic performance style. In one particularly brilliant of-the-time clip, future CBC bigshot Hana Gartner interviews the band for
Take 30
, taking offense to just about every aspect of the band’s sound, style, and fanbase.

“I’ve been listening to you this evening, and if I may be honest, the only thing I got out if it was a headache,” says Gartner.

“Oh yeah?” asks Venom.

“Yes.”

“That’s sad.”

“It is.”

“Tough,” says Venom, before the camera cuts away.

Back in Hamilton, it was time to capitalize on the interest in the band’s first single, and a self-titled record was produced, once again for Inter Global. While their demo and first single had been rough, live-off-the-floor recordings with few frills, the band faced their first serious studio challenge in trying to capture their well-rehearsed live energy in a 10-song package. Venom in particular had grown immensely as a performer, his frantic behaviour finding him in all corners of a venue, hanging from any available surface and, inevitably, wreaking havoc in the process.

“He was the kind of totally natural, happily unschooled performer that would’ve been — should’ve been — a much, much bigger figure out on the world stage,” says Gary Pig Gold. But with a piddly budget and no studio experience, natural havoc-wreaking in the studio can be a tough and intangible variable to nail down. Even now, the jury is still out as to whether or not the band succeeded in bottling their live energy.

“When that album came out, it broke my heart. I knew they blew it,” says Don Pyle, vocalist for Crash Kills Five and the Toronto scene’s most prodigious photographer.

“You’d have to be deaf to be pleased with the album,” said Venom to the
Hamilton Spectator
in 1979. But
Teenage Head
was far from the grand sonic failure it’s been painted as over time. It’s imperfect, but it’s still full of the band’s charming songwriting and speed. And its influence was measurable, especially in Hamilton, where new groups were taking their cues from a band of comparative veterans.

“I would listen to songs like ‘Picture My Face’ over and over and over,” says Forgotten Rebels founder Mickey DeSadist. “I would try to redo those songs and make them better. I wrote ‘I Think of Her’ trying to rewrite that song, just backwards.” Despite the inclusion of guaranteed hits like “Picture” and “Kissin’ the Carpet,” the band acknowledges disappointment in the finished product, although Lewis claims that today he wouldn’t change a thing on it. At the very least, the record gave the band more reasons to play, and play, and play.

If the secrets of the studio eluded them, the road and the stage did not. The band dominated the new Toronto venue Larry’s Hideaway, located on Carlton Street between Jarvis and Sherbourne. Sometimes referred to as “Head Space,” the room was run from 1979 to 1980 by Kobak, who started his new booking enterprise, Teen Agency, at the dive at 121 Carleton. As the city’s other punk-friendly clubs shut down or changed their programming, Larry’s Hideaway became one of most interesting rooms in Southern Ontario. Along with the Edge, the post-Horseshoe venue of the Garys, it became a destination for touring acts, hosting everyone from Slayer to R.E.M. in their earliest incarnations. It was bought by the City of Toronto in the ’90s, levelled, and converted it into a delightful public park that anyone not looking for a prostitute or crack cocaine avoids after dusk.

As Teenage Head rose to greater popularity in Southern Ontario and beyond, rivalries naturally began to develop. Despite having been a band since ’75, it had taken them four years to release an album to little media fanfare, while peers like the Diodes had managed to sign a deal with CBS, the same label as the Clash, in the comparative blink of an eye.

“We couldn’t believe the Diodes got in there first,” says Kobak. “They weren’t that great. But they were great in an office. The Diodes talked like politicians. Teenage Head . . . talked like teenagers.” Others recognized the problem as being a little bigger and a little tougher to work around.

“Toronto has always lacked managerial expertise,” says Peter Goddard, the former entertainment writer for the
Toronto Star
and the man who helped bring mainstream legitimacy to the early punk movement through his writing. “We’ve had some good managers, but no one with vision. And that’s what happened to Teenage Head.” Those managerial decisions would not involve Paul Kobak much longer. Soon after the release of
Teenage Head
, he found that his contract with the band’s management had expired, and Morrow and Brower had no intention of keeping him on.

“I never really got any money from them at all,” says Kobak. “By the end of ’79 I had lost my record store because I spent all my money on Teenage Head.” His last contribution to the world of the Head was booking a show at Ontario Place in 1980. The band had just finished their second full-length, managing to overcome all the shortcomings that plagued their debut.
Frantic City
, released in early 1980 on Attic Records, benefitted not only from vastly improved production, but the promotional budget of a label that would release albums by artists ranging from Triumph to Anvil, Maestro Fresh Wes to Creed, before folding in 2001. Finally, the band had caught the break they were looking for. In many ways, they didn’t even know how far they had come.

On July 2, 1980, Teenage Head was scheduled to headline a free show at Ontario Place’s amphitheatre, part of a provincially owned waterfront amusement park and the setting for the most notorious episode in the band’s history. By the time opener Bob Segarini had hit the stage, police had already closed off the venue. It’s estimated that over 13,000 people showed up, storming the park, swimming across the body of water that separated the venue from Lake Shore Boulevard, and attacking the cops that were attempting to quell what very quickly turned into a full-blown riot. Neighbouring suburbs were called on for police back-up; a cruiser was destroyed; Lake Shore, an arterial roadway, was closed for three hours in both directions; and over 58 arrests were made. Ten cops were injured. And anything even resembling a rock concert at Ontario Place, including upcoming summer shows by Devo and Blondie, was immediately cancelled. Teenage Head had arrived.

Frantic City
went gold in Canada. The band continued to tour aggressively, becoming the first Canadian punk band to make serious inroads in the States while expanding its reach across Canada. Like occasional tourmates the Mods, Teenage Head knew that success wouldn’t find them waiting in a basement in Hamilton, and they spent an entire year pounding the pavement between both coasts, playing every small town in between. Generating stateside buzz and hoping to finally land an American record deal, the band geared up to travel to New York City for a set of showcases in September. Expectations were high, but with the way things had been going in Canada, why shouldn’t they have been?

Mahon and Lewis were driving just outside Kitchener when the vehicle they were in spun out of control. The car wreck should have killed one or both of them, but it mercifully only broke Lewis’ spine. The accident completely derailed the band — the showcases were cancelled, and Lewis was trapped, laid up in traction for the entire winter.

Jack Morrow brought in David Bendeth as a temporary replacement. The future producer of pop rock groups like Platinum Blonde and All Time Low, Bendeth did his best to fill Lewis’ shoes, continuing his relationship with the band as a producer through the ’80s. Lewis himself would return in early ’81, but his unending back problems made him a vastly different performer, altering the DNA of a band that had been firing on all cylinders since they met in the halls of their Hamilton high school.

The band soldiered on, but the dream of breaking out in the U.S. was quickly lost as they worked to regain lost ground in Canada. Teenage Head remained an unparalleled punk success story, but the potential to become something so much greater was lost somewhere along the way. The somewhat lacklustre
Some Kinda Fun
, released in 1982, still contains a few snarky gems, most notably the amorally anthemic “Teenage Beer Drinkin’ Party.” But by ’83, the band was attempting to acquiesce to major label interests, changing their name to Teenage Heads for the MCA released
Tornado
EP. At some point, Stipanitz was fired, and at some point, Venom quit. Venom, at least, came back.

While it’s easy to look at the tumultuous period of the early ’80s as the band’s swan song, their influence, stamped throughout the country, has far outlasted Lewis’ stint in the hospital (or the guy who produced the soundtrack to
Halo 2
guitar slinging in his place). Teenage Head were the first touring punk band to be seen by countless keeners across Canada, pounding it out night after unforgiving night in bars and detention centres before D.O.A. helped to build the country’s first real DIY touring circuit.

“I remember going to see Teenage Head, playing at this place called the Riverview Arms, which was this outrageous tavern underneath Princess Margaret in Fredericton,” recalls Peter Rowan, former manager for Sloan and an east coast indie institution. “We were working at Sam the Record Man in the fucking K-Mart plaza in Fredericton, and we were the punk rockers. When Teenage Head played, it was Monday through Saturday, two shows on Saturday, including a Saturday matinee. We went there every night. Every night there was a group of, like, 15 or 20 of us sitting right up front, getting our faces blown off, and a hundred people behind us booing, and going, ‘Fuck off, you suck.’ But there was little pockets of us all over the place.”

A few weeks later, I hear the same story recounted in an entirely different context, one that, I think, illustrates the importance of Teenage Head’s ethic and dedication to playing in every corner of this country, whether the locals were going to have it or not.

“I lived in a little village called Lincoln,” says Grant Forsythe, who would form the influential east coast hardcore outfit Neighbourhood Watch in the mid-’80s. “It was between Fredericton and a little military town. Teenage Head played a club called the Riverview Arms, and I was far too young to get in. So I had to stand off in the distance, in behind, in the bushes, to listen. If I got too close, they’d chase me away. I then knew that I wanted to do that.”

A final note here: In the midst of wrapping up this chapter, I ended up in Austin, Texas, interviewing former Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagen. The subject of this book came up, and my only transcription of our exchange reads, “Canadian punk — Teenage Head were fucking genius.”

On October 16, 2008, Frankie Venom slipped into a coma and passed away, a complication from the throat cancer he had been battling for years. He was 51. In May, Teenage Head had released an album of their classic songs re-recorded with drummer Marky Ramone. When I spoke to Gord Lewis a few weeks before its release, we talked about whether the band, which hadn’t released any new material since 1996’s
Head Disorder
, was planning to start writing again, now that everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves and getting along. He called the idea “very likely.”