PERFECT YOUTH: The Birth of Canadian Punk (5 page)

Even in a seedy neighbourhood, the Smiling Buddha had a reputation as a down-at-the-heels shithole. One infamous story, recounted in an early
Ubyssey
article about the venue’s rise to local prominence, involves cops teaching a lesson to a local bum passed out in the doorway, kicking him until he ended up inside the club during a punk show.

Bands still remember Jir and his wife fondly; they weren’t opportunistic, they were just happy to have people in their bar, enjoying themselves, and building something new in a city that had been culturally stale for too long. And because punks saw the bar as something that belonged to them, they treated it with a measure of respect that wasn’t often afforded other venues, halls, or rehearsal space doors. In a country that was largely hostile to punk, the Smiling Buddha was the Green Zone, and its bold neon sign, an iconic piece of Vancouver cultural history, now rests in the capable hands of the Vancouver Museum.

While a new crop of bands began to emerge from the belly of the Buddha, established bands hit the road for the first time, venturing out into the prairies and down the coast into the United States. “As soon as we’d get across the border, we’d get little six packs of baby Millers and all that great junk food,” laughs Bergmann. “At the time, they were really happy with Canadians because we saved some of their hostages. During the Iran Revolution, right? So people were buying us dinners and drinks and stuff. I kept saying, ‘Nothing to do with me, man.’”

“I just remember being in a van and just laughing. For hundreds and hundreds of miles, just doing nothing but laughing,” says Armstrong. “What you did on tour was completely overindulge. We read about what bands did on tour, and we didn’t need a lot of encouragement.”

Both bands returned home to find their local status bolstered by the legitimacy of Stateside acceptance — the Germs had tried to sell Quaaludes to Bergmann (who doesn’t do downers) — and it was time for both to record.

The K-Tels entered and won a local battle of the bands, the prize being recording time at a brand-new downtown studio, Little Mountain Sound. Squeezed into the off-hours, the band’s debut single became an early engineering job for a fresh-faced Bob Rock, the local musician who later gained an international reputation recording such infamous egos as Bon Jovi and Mötley Crüe at his studio in Hawaii. It’s somewhat prophetic that one of his first gigs would involve committing Bergmann’s “Hawaii” to tape, a song that has lived on as one of the most enduring songs of punk’s first wave in Canada.

“A band would cancel out or something, and Bob would get us in at two in the morning,” says Bergmann. “We never knew when that would be, so one night they came to get me from this club in the middle of the night, and I was totally high on acid. That’s the night we recorded ‘Hawaii.’”

The song landed on the 12"
Hawaii
EP, but slowly stirred up controversy when a friend of the band, Ross Carpenter, claimed that Bergmann had stolen the melody and lyrics from him. A former bandmate of John Armstrong in Active Dog, Carpenter was shocked when he picked up the record and saw Bergmann listed as the sole writer. Likely not wanting to incite a division within the small community, Carpeneter kept his complaint to himself, until, years later, it became apparent that “Hawaii” was still not just popular, but making money. He made his feelings known, though not directly to Bergmann.

“All I remember seeing is the title, ‘Let’s Go to Fucking Hawaii,’ and I thought, ‘That’s a fucking great idea for this song,’” says Bergmann, who used the phrase to anchor what he thought was an original song. “I used to pride myself on remembering stuff. But I just don’t remember that moment when I heard that song. But he says he sat me down and played it for me, showed me the lyrics. So finally I wrote him, ‘What the hell happened? Because I don’t remember.’ And he told me. And he’s not a guy to lie about it. So we just split everything 50-50.”

Songwriting credits and royalty rates weren’t the only problems facing Bergmann and the K-Tels. The band’s increasing profile meant that they had finally landed themselves on the radar of the actual K-Tel corporation from
which they took their name. Naturally, they were served with
a cease and desist notice. While Bergmann maintains they could have beaten the conglomerate in court, it would have
taken “lots of years and lots of money.” Instead, the band
opted to change their name right before the release of
Hawaii
, adopting the deceptively sweet-sounding Young Canadians
.

Hawaii
became the first EP released on the city’s brand-new Quintessence Records imprint. Located on 4th Avenue, Quintessence was the only local store to carry punk and new-wave records. Around the time that the newly christened band was trying to figure out how to release their material, the store was in the process of expanding; owned by Ted Thomas, Quintessence employed the kind of enthusiastic nerd-types that populate independent record stores to this day, and one, Gerry Barad, had convinced Thomas to invest some money in putting out records, which up until that time had consisted solely of single releases from Tim Ray and A.V. and the Pointed Sticks. The Young Canadians fit right into the niche that they were beginning to carve out in the new scene.

Quintessence followed up working with the Canadians in the most appropriate way possible, teaming up with Bergmann’s longtime co-conspirator, John Armstrong and the Modernettes. Driving home from a late-night session with Barad, Bergmann had put a Modernettes rehearsal tape on the car stereo; after four or five songs, Barad asked who the band was. It was the beginning of a fortuitous career; today, Barad is the Chief Operating Officer of Live Nation, a behemoth of the live entertainment industry.

“The next thing you know, I get a phone call. ‘Do you guys want to make a record?’ I’m like, ‘
Do
I?’” laughs Armstrong. With the same deal as the Young Canadians, the Modernettes recorded their first EP in fits and starts, whenever Bob Rock and Little Mountain were free from the bigger projects that paid the studio’s bills.

“We would sit around every night and see if we got the phone call,” says Armstrong. “If Aerosmith or AC/DC fucked off early, we would get the rest of the night. So we’d go in and set up real fast and start working. It was very weird. The first time I was in the live room, I looked around and went, ‘You could put four of my apartments here.’ Way off in the distance was a grand piano.” The result was the Modernettes’ first EP, the six-song
Teen City
. The lead-off single, “Barbra,” became a “Hawaii”-sized anthem when Quintessence made the 12" its second-ever EP release. Oh, and the fuck-up is intentional — Armstrong had written the song in a drunken stupor, hence the misspelling of the name Barbara, a mistake that is spelled out in harmony-laden chant in the song’s verse, no less.

Both
Teen City
and
Hawaii
sold briskly, and both bands began to tour regularly between Vancouver, Winnipeg, and San Francisco.

“Oh, they thought we were huge rock gods,” laughs Bergmann, when asked about touring in small-town Canada.

“We were welcomed like long lost relatives,” says Armstrong. “In those days, the punk rock community
in every town always seemed to be composed of the best and the brightest. The scenes were always filled with really smart and interesting people. There wasn’t a bunch of thuggishness and nihilism. It was just a bunch of really cool, young people having a good time.”

The sentiment is echoed by conversations I have with bands across the country. The importance of great Canadian bands visiting these cities on tour cannot be overstated. In less developed scenes, they meant big shows and a chance for locals to hone their chops in front of a real audience, and they proved that New York and London weren’t the only places producing great punk rock. A Modernettes show in Edmonton really was a big deal, because the Ramones certainly didn’t have Alberta on their tour itinerary. These bands, not so unlike the kids in the audience, showed burgeoning musicians in cities across the country that they didn’t have to adopt a fake English accent to play punk and escape their hometown.

“When we played in Saskatoon, we were big time to them,” says Armstrong. “We had a record out. A real record. We played in the States. They thought we were rock stars. It’s flattering for about two seconds. And then you’re like, ‘Oh, if you knew the truth . . . Let me tell you the truth. I’m just as fucked up as you are. It’s just as hopeless. We don’t have any money. We better have a drink.’” At the very least, the band’s frugality made for some unique marketing, as Armstrong started carrying a can of spray-paint on tour, and under the cover of night, would tag the succinct slogan: “Get Modern or Get Fucked.”

The band’s drummer, John McAdams, felt the same financial pinch of the band’s supposed success. A former technician with the CBC, he had left the safety of a government job to hop in the van with the Modernettes. “When I left the CBC, I was able to go on unemployment for a year,” he says. “Then unemployment ran out, and I figured I could drive a taxi. I could pick which days I wanted to work, could gig whenever I wanted, and probably make good money. It worked out fine. I remember driving around one night, and three or four punks got in the cab. They were checking me out, then one went, ‘Hey! Oh, hey! Aren’t you . . . Aren’t you Jughead? From the Modernettes?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ ‘What the hell? Aren’t you rich? I thought you were rich!’ ‘No, I’m driving taxis so I can pay my rent and eat. Where do you wanna go? Wanna give me a tip? Give me a good tip if you think I should be rich.’”

The Young Canadians sometimes fared a little better; they spent one tour opening for the Boomtown Rats across the west coast, and another playing with XTC. While the sobriety of XTC didn’t mesh perfectly with Bergmann’s lust for liquor and drugs, the immense respect he has for the band is apparent. The Boomtown Rats, less so. He dismisses them as “sucking fucking ass” and says everyone but Bob Geldof was a “plain idiot.” And then he tells me the story about pissing on them in Edmonton. Still, things were going well enough that, when they returned from tour, Quintessence put the band in the studio again with Bob Rock to record a follow-up EP.
This Is Your Life
contained some great songs, but none with the hit power of “Hawaii.” It was the beginning of the end of the band, and of Quintessence.

“We didn’t know the guy in charge was a raging coke addict and he blew about 10 grand worth of income,” says Bergmann. “So the record tanked, or they just blew all the money. Same old story.”

The Modernettes weren’t even able to get a second record out of the label before it folded. Returning to Vancouver with an exciting batch of new songs, the band demoed their new material, eager to show Quintessence owner Ted Thomas and get back in the studio. When Armstrong finally played the new demos for their label, he was dejected when Thomas turned him down, telling the band he didn’t hear a hit.

“I found out later that it had nothing to do with hearing a hit,” says Armstrong. “He didn’t have any money. And he had no more credit.” Despite selling over 5,000 copies of
Teen City
, the band returned from another tour to find the label folded and no royalties headed their way. With no money and an endless pit of van repairs, gas, rehearsal space rent, and real-life expenses piling up, both bands began a slow dissolution. At the same time, Bergmann and Armstrong had been hanging out with another group of musicians and jamming as Los Radicos Popularos, a fuck band consisting of some of the biggest names in the scene, the least serious super-group ever conceived. Hanging out in the apartment of one of their old White Rock buddies, the new band coalesced around vocalist Bill Scherk.

“For me and Art, it was such a relief to not be
the guy
,” says Armstrong. “Art was in a three-piece, I was in a three-piece. I was just tired of being the singer, songwriter, and guitar player. I think Art felt the same way. Plus, the band didn’t owe any money, so every time we played, we just split the money up amongst ourselves. And all of a sudden, I was actually making money playing music.”

In what Bergmann describes as “probably not the smartest
move on my part,” he broke up the Young Canadians. The
other members of Los Popularos, as they were now known, quit
their bands, and Armstrong made his break with the Modern
ettes official by pushing his drummer down a flight of stairs.

“It was an accident,” says Armstrong. “But of course no one believed me.” McAdams had shown up at Armstrong’s door in the middle of the night, one of the only times anyone ever saw him drunk and out of control. An (equally rare) sober Armstrong, yelling at McAdams to go away, finally went to the door and shook his friend violently: “When I let go, he was just kind of boneless.” McAdams fell down the flight of stairs in front of Armstrong’s door. An ambulance was called. The Modernettes were finished.

Los Popularos were not long for this world. Too fucked up on booze and drugs to function (what Bergmann calls “aggressive socializing”), the band’s material lacked the ferocity and energy of their past work. “Together, the sum of our parts didn’t add up to the passion and fury of Young Canadians,” says Bergmann. Press agreed; the group was called “cluttered and flat,” and unlike the rest of the the Vancouver scene, which has seen a swell of modern interest and reissues in the last decade, no one seems eager to revive Los Popularos.

“We overindulged in everything we could get our hands on,” says Armstrong. “And in that band, there was no one telling you that you were fucking up, because they were fucking up, too. So there wasn’t a voice of reason anywhere.” After a succesful tour down the west coast to play with the Dead Kennedys, the band started to plot a full cross-Canada tour. Realizing that their fun project had careened wildly out of control, Armstrong quit abruptly. The band left on tour anyway, and broke up in Toronto when their ’66 Oldsmobile died. It took months for Bergmann to get back to Vancouver, paying his way home by working on a low-wage seismic crew in a Northern Ontario oil patch.