A regular section that will be updated once a week in which we invite a selection of bright young things (read: grumpy old sods - ed) to get things off their chest. Some names you’ll maybe recognise straight away and others will have plotted a less high profile existance but that doesn’t mean to say they haven’t got a point to make or an axe to grind…

We asked renowned Canadian rawk expert (specialist subject: Lee Aaron) and wearer of the Helix tour jacket Paul Suter to write something for us to get us underway.

In Suterman’s case, we figured we’d at least have the chance to dig out lots of pictures of hot female rockers (the lovely aforementioned Lee Aaron, in particular), but the dopey sod went off on a whole Canadian trip instead, waffling on about Knobs, Niagaras, radio quotients, Bach & Dalbello, rioting Puerto Ricans… and, of course, a naked Lee Aaron!

If you’ve ever had even the slightest desire to drizzle the aforementioned artist’s breasts with maple syrup whilst simultaneously hacking down a tree and shouting “Tim-bah!”, we suggest you read on…

OF MOOSE AND MEN… 

CANADA HAS always been a major contributor to the entertainment arts, but an often overlooked one, for the simple reason that so many of its major stars have had to relocate south of the US border in order to get noticed on a global scale. As a result, their heritage becomes a little-publicised aside, and the world at large is hardly aware that they’re Canadian at all.

OK, we all know about Celine Dion (Unfortunately! – Ed), but how many realise that American icons The Band, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young are in fact Canadians too? Or more relevantly, as far as our musical tastes are concerned, how about Sebastian Bach? Or Dream Theater big cheese, James LaBrie?

In fact, Canada has consistently bred a line of highly talented musicians, and in our favoured realm of hard rock some of the very best music you will ever hear has originated from the land of the maple leaf. Indeed, in the late ’70s/early ’80s there was such a vast selection of quality Canadian music that a worldwide breakout seemed only a matter of time. It would have been a vast over-simplification to lump all these Canadian bands together, sure to lead to misapprehensions and disappointments (bands from Canada didn’t sound  alike, just as you wouldn’t expect every band from Bradford to have a unifying, distinguishing approach), but the boost to the whole Canadian music scene would have been enormous.

Ultimately, though, it never happened, and sadly Canada remains a backwater training ground for international stardom rather than an acknowledged source of (sometime) genius. Sigh.

I GOT irrevocably tied up in it all in the very early days of Kerrang! (my first piece for the mag was a Loverboy story in issue #2), and I subsequently developed enough contacts to be able to take an annual trip (Pilgrimage? – Ed) to Toronto to dig deep into a scene that was simply crawling with talent. And that city wasn’t the only centre of excellence by any means, with Vancouver laying claim to much that was great about Canadian rock (think Loverboy, Chilliwack and The Headpins, to name just a few), and The Western States chiming in with even more i.e. Kickaxe, Streetheart and Harlequin.

But there was much more going on in Toronto for the simple reason that this was where all the major record companies had their offices. Just as the music scene in London is generally more active –  being right under the noses of the big labels – than the scene in, say, Bognor Regis, so Toronto was the place where bands were formed (or relocated to) in order to get noticed. And just as London had the legendary Marquee Club, so Toronto had the El Mocambo, plus that glorious dive The Gasworks, as well as a slew of other venues of which I have such fond memories. There was the stylish, upmarket Rock And Roll Heaven, for example, but on the other hand you don’t easily forget dodgier venues such as the gloriously named Knob Hill Tavern!

The most shocking aspect was just how tight and professional all the local acts were. London was hardly a haven of incompetence, but to see a baby band with little or no heritage perform like seasoned pros on their umpteenth arena tour came as some-thing of a surprise, to say the very least! The explanation turned out to be the very nature of Canada’s version of the ‘pub circuit’. Instead of a few weeks in a van driving back and forth between Torquay and Edinburgh, a Canadian bar tour would put bands on the road for months at a time, hauling ass across a huge country and playing an average of three sets a night, usually staying at the same venue for three consecutive days. The amount of playing time alone meant that groups either got super-tight or simply fell apart.

On top of that, not many acts had a sufficiently large back catalogue of material to fill out the multiple sets, thus forcing them to learn a whole bunch of covers, in the process sussing out how the big boys put their most successful songs together. It was a pressure cooker environment for sure, but the result was that Canadian bands were, on average, the best in the world. Bar none. And joyously for me, every group I came across would probably be up there onstage for at least a couple of hours – not the brief 30-minute support set I might expect to see if they ever got to play in London.

Some of the most memorable live performancesI have ever witnessed took place in Toronto or thereabouts; Surrender at both The Gasworks and Stage West, Ian Thomas at The El Mocambo (and also an open-air show on the shores of  Lake Ontario), Goddo in Niagara Falls… the list goes on, and the regrets that I was never a bootlegger linger to this day…
AT THE time, the CanCon (Canadian Content) rules were relatively new. In order to nurture Canadian artistic output, The Broadcasting Act stipulated that Canadian radio and television had to broadcast a minimum percentage (30% in those days I think, 35% today) of homegrown content instead of simply cloning the US airwaves, and anyone who owns an import Canadian pressing will be aware of the little ‘MAPL’ logo which effectively highlighted the Canadian elements of a recording. The shaded quadrants indicated which conditions had been fulfilled, and if you’ve ever wondered what they meant…

M: Meant that the music was composed entirely by
     Canadians.
A: Meant that the artist or artists were Canadian.
P: Meant that the record was produced in Canada
    (this clause actually gave rise to some US artists
    recording in Canada, thus qualifying for a 25%
    CanCon rating).
L: Meant that the lyrics were written by a Canadian.

Prior to the CanCon rules, Canadian music radio had largely cloned the American radio scene, playing the same records and ignoring all but a few Canadian acts, usually the local heroes. The introduction of the CC rules, however, meant that the Canadian music industry now had more financial motivation to sign up domestic artists, and the labels were duly transformed from outposts handling no more than the local marketing of American acts into genuine record companies actively looking for talent.

The leading A&R men of the time, Deanne Cameron at Capitol and Bob Roper at Warners, recognised that, not only did they now have a fair chance of picking up Canadian airplay, but there was also the possibility of getting their acts released internationally and thus making a whole lot more money. Ultimately, they were largely thwarted by label politics, but at least we Europeans got to benefit from the likes of Helix and Honeymoon Suite enjoying substantial label support and gracing our shores on a number of occasions.

Of course, there were other acts thoroughly deserving of exposure who never got the breaks – notably, anyone who heard her knows that Dalbello is one of the most talented artists to ever draw breath, but even after being taken on by Tina Turner’s manager, she just never got a US or British release. Another huge injustice was wrought on Platinum Blonde, who began their career as a Police tribute outfit before transforming themselves into a powerful hard rock trio with genuine pop sensibilities and three quite magnificent albums to their name. But then they were a Columbia signing, and that label suffered more than most from the intransigence of their US headquarters; with the right support, there can surely be no doubt that the likes of Harlequin, Orphan, Kickaxe, Urgent and Zon could have gone on to greater things, but instead they were forced to resign themselves to touring across Canada until they simply couldn’t stand it any more…

And look how much I’ve written without even mentioning Lee Aaron!

She was one of the numerous Canadian artists who benefitted from a healthy indie label scene, spearheaded by Attic, Anthem and Solid Gold, and character-ised by names such as Aaron, Anvil, Coney Hatch, The Headpins and Toronto. In the very beginning, young Lee (nee Karen) wasn’t the most credible of artists, announcing her arrival with a nude shoot for Oui magazine, thanks to her then-manager’s notion of the best way to grab some attention. But she managed to overcome it all, and – if things had worked out a little differently – could have been a major international star.

This isn’t really the place for a post-mortem, but it’s certainly true that she (and many others) ultimately suffered from the limited resources available to the indies, coupled with the latter’s unwillingness to loosen the reins and hand control to a major in exchange for collecting a smaller percentage of a bigger pot. Of course, this wasn’t a uniquely Canadian problem, but it does seem to have had a disproportionate effect on the Canadian talent pool.

IN RETROSPECT, one of the biggest shortcomings of the Canadian music scene was at the business level, away from purely creative issues. Label personnel were still regarded as little more than country hicks by the powers-that-be at the US parent labels, which meant that those Canadian acts and their managers who concentrated all of their efforts on securing a US release usually ended up getting ‘dick’ for their efforts. Others were more astute, however, and opted to try and build a European power base first; the European labels were certainly more ready to listen than their US counterparts, and the result was that acts like Honeymoon Suite, Saga and Helix DID subsequently go on to secure US releases, with all three of them getting a pretty fair shot at the top. None of them quite cracked the big time, but they all came close.

Of course, the receptive nature of the Europeans – effectively of the labels with pan-European marketing offices in London – had a lot to do with the perceived power of the press, and the support it was giving to Canadian talent. Canada may have been my pet project in my days at Kerrang!, and at Sounds before that, but many of us got our biggest thrills from discovering and promoting new talent rather than simply sucking up to the established stars, and there was definitely a whole host of Canadian talent new to European ears.

In North America – both Canada and the US – there was a healthy radio scene, with huge numbers of  stations playing real rock bands, while we had to deal with state-controlled national stations who just didn’t want to know about the kind of music we were addicted to. Well, we had Tommy Vance of course, but two hours a week was nowhere near sufficient to expose all of the good stuff out there. So while North American labels concentrated their promotional efforts on getting radio stations to play their bands, European rock fans were confined to making their judgements via the press.

Before I became a writer, I would read Sounds magazine assiduously, comparing what I read with what I’d managed to hear, and in the process realising that Geoff Barton had the closest musical tastes to my own. So, if he praised an album, I’d take the risk and buy it, and if he slammed it, I’d walk away. Later, I realised there were two different reasons why he’d like a band; either they were musically great, or gloriously ridiculous. Once I’d learnt to distinguish one type of Barton rave from the other, I rarely made a buying mistake.

Once I’d started penning reviews and features myself, I figured that readers would come to understand what I liked and what I didn’t, and would buy/not buy accordingly. And similarly with the more focussed of my Kerrang! colleagues. We effectively became miniature promotional machines, and the record companies realised it. A good review from the appropriate writer could give an almighty boost to a new act, and when they saw all the exposure we were giving to Canadian outfits, they were happy to invest their money in releasing the records and paying up on tour support (where prospective supports for major outfits pay to subsidise the headliners’ touring expenses; these days, it’s called ‘a contribution to marketing costs’). So, say thank you to Kerrang! for bringing you all that juicy Canadian rock. And maybe the Canadians should say thank you too.

THE FACT was that the Canadian music scene had developed a tremendous insecurity complex, sitting there in the looming shadow of Uncle Sam. So to have the European press shouting its praises from the rooftops was quite a boost to fragile egos, and the reaction was marked. At one point, I even had my own column in Music Express, Canada’s only national music mag, and apparently my words were taken quite seriously there… although I must confess to failing
to persuade Deanne Cameron at Capitol to sign a young band called Kid Wikkid, who featured a singer by the name of Sebastian Bach… which meant that SB was available for other more high-profile work when the call came…

The European Welcome even led to one fatal miscue, when Reckless – or at least the group’s management – opted to skip the Canadian step and try to sign directly to a European label. Management had experienced the lure of Europe first-hand with the burgeoning success of Saga, but in much the same way that Dennis Stratton’s Lionheart would sign with Epic in America and end up getting the worst of both worlds, shunned by the domestic label for going over their heads and neglected by the overseas company because they weren’t constantly in their faces vying for attention, so Reckless made a ridiculously good record but ended up doing ridiculously badly – playing few dates back home in Canada and just one TV show in Germany.

Of course, the volatile internal politics of the band didn’t help, and all will finally be revealed via Rock Candy’s upcoming re-release of the self-titled album, but it was the politics of the deal itself which ultimately delivered the fatal blow.

Alongside Saga, the likes of Honeymoon Suite and Brighton Rock (both of them managed by the astute Stephen Prendergast), as well as April Wine, Max Webster, Helix and even indie artist Lee Aaron did a much better job of securing label support in Europe, and all of them benefitted accordingly. Polydor were so far behind Saga that, even before they released the band’s first European album (their third record overall), they flew one lucky journalist (oh alright, it was me!) out to Puerto Rico for a week in the sun just to see them play a single show in a place that was, quite literally, gaga for Saga, with rioting fans trying to break down the gates of the stadium just to join the 15,000 fortunate souls already inside.

Similarly, Warner Brothers were totally behind Prendergast’s acts, not least because he was one of the sharper tools in the box and knew how to play the game, and of course Capitol’s European office was highly supportive of all manner of great rock acts, not just the Canadian ones, thanks to the efforts of a German duo memorably named Heinz Henn and Lothar Meinerzhagen, who clearly knew which way was up when it came to hard rock.

BUT IN the end, sad to say, they would all fade away without making the transition to that level of stardom which surpasses trend and fashion. Only Rush would ultimately manage that. Many of these old favourites have subsequently reformed to take advantage of the burgeoning nostalgia for all things ’80s, and a few have even managed to (kind of) stay together through thick an’ thin – though you’d be hard-pressed to recognise most of the current line-ups! So more than anything else, the story of Maple Leaf Mayhem is one of nostalgia rather than Bands That Changed The World.

But damn, they were good. 

Anyone with a penchant for classic Canadian rock should do themselves a favour and check out canadianbands.com. Full of bios and discographies of every Canadian band you ever loved, guaranteed to bring a nostalgic smile to your face. And if you never loved a Canadian band, well, you surely didn’t read this far, so sod you!

If you’d like to find out more about the domestic Canadian scene, then you won’t go wrong by hunting down a copy of Gimme An R!, an extremely entertaining book by Helix frontman Brian Vollmer, available at planethelix.com, if you can’t find it anywhere else. Check out the foreword by some old loser called… oh wait, that’s me too!