Growing Up In Aurora: A Band Called Southdown The transition from innocent childish pranks to nasty teenage tricks happened without our knowledge. Each dare, whether silently acknowledged or boldly announced propelled us further down the road to maturity. Although there were many paths to choose from each path would ultimately lead us in only one direction and the first step put us entirely beyond the point of no return. By the age of thirteen we could freely roam the town, pushing well past the curfew set by those parents who dared to go there. We were fascinated by wheels. Our old bikes were no longer cool. For one thing, one of the older kids, out with mother’s car might happen by and offer a joy ride around town. It would never happen if we were seen with an un-cool bicycle. Shopping buggy races down the hill at the local mall might last for hours and usually attracted the attention of some girls. Sometimes the nicer looking ones would sit in tight groups on the nearby grassy knoll and watch from a respectable distance, at least until that older kid with mommy’s car would happen by and take them away. Some girls were tomboys; they were lots of fun and would join in the races, street hockey or whatever else we were doing, but they weren’t the kind who would want to kiss you. At fourteen we became bored with most things, especially any of those activities our parents would suggest weekend after weekend. By fifteen we were pulling the sleepover trick and could stay out all night if we wanted to. There was the occasional party at somebody’s house whose parents would be out of town for the weekend and if you played your cards right you could end up on a nice soft couch with a nice soft girl to cuddle with. There might even be some snuggling and a bit of face sucking. If you were lucky someone might offer you a beer or a blanket. Music was our constant. Whether on the road, at a party or just hanging in a basement the omnipresence of rock and roll, rhythm and blues, acid rock and those mystical arrangements from the west coast and the deep south became our drug of choice. My first experience with the killer weed, a disaster to be sure, happened one school night when I was home alone. One of the cool kids; he was a year or two older and had really long hair, sold me a $5 lid at school. I had guarded it all day through class and finally when I got it home, managed to get some of it rolled into a poorly fashioned joint. I stepped outside the house, flashed it up and prepared myself for entry into nirvana. Nothing happened at first. Puzzled, I smoked another and one after that. Still nothing happened, although I did feel a tingly sensation in my throat. I settled into a nearby lawn chair to see what else might happen. About then my older brother came home and found the remnants of my burnt offerings. I still remember his smirk as he asked me what I was doing with all the oregano. It was the late sixties, when Clapton, the Yardbirds, Jimi, Janis, Morrison, Garcia, the Stones, Led Zeppelin and John Lennon were leading America’s children away from the stilted confines of early rock and roll and out of the Age of Deception. Sock hops in the high school gyms were replaced by all night adventures in the dark mysterious depths of night clubs like Toronto’s Rock Pile and the Fillmore’s, East and West in the USA. Desert boots and turtle necks were dumped in favor of psychedelic t-shirts, fringe coats, bell bottoms and sandals. Soda pop gave way to Southern Comfort and the drug of choice was black hash from Afghanistan or Lebanon by way of Montreal. Minds were expanded. Of course, none of us ever actually inhaled the stuff. That would have been against the law. Somehow during the social event known to many as high school, our group of wannabe rock stars had come together and formed a loose knit band called Southdown. Rather than worry about us roaming the streets looking for trouble, our parents had thought it better to allow us our Saturday evenings collected in one place where, unknown to them, trouble often found us. Trouble would appear as 24 beers, or maybe a 26er of whiskey, or if there were girls hanging around there might be a Mickey of lemon gin. And as I recall, there were always girls hanging around and they always caused trouble of one kind or another. So the boys would get together to play in the old church hall. We usually had to beg and cajole our dads to help rent us the equipment and then one of them would reluctantly offer up his afternoon to drive us around, gathering up all the bits and pieces, wires and amps, microphones, guitars, drums and keyboards. Finally by 4 or 5 in the afternoon we would make some sense of it all, plugging all the wires into the right places, and we would set off on a magical adventure into the realm of volumes and rhythms. Usually after some initial unorganized jamming, we would get down to the more serious business of copying whichever songs were on the charts and were easy enough for us to copy. I don’t recall there having been any formal musical training evident in any of us but we found that if we cranked our amps into the distortion range we could sound almost good enough to play in public. Vocalists were always difficult to find. There were just so many words to remember and the front man of the band needed to project an element of professionalism, not to mention some degree of talent and coolness. We were lucky enough to have two fine singers who vied with each other for the top spot. We flip-flopped back and forth for over a year, each practice coming closer to the point where we would actually be ready to meet the masses. We couldn’t decide. They were both good friends and for a while we just accepted that we would have two great singers. The decision was eventually made for us when one of the singers arrived one day with a van into which we could stuff all our equipment, ourselves and our little group of hangers on. Ah, sweet freedom. No longer reliant, we released our parents from the silliness of it all and in turn were released from the over zealous watchful eye. We could come and go as we pleased. We could arrive at parties en masse and bring noise, friends and beer. We could cruise around town in search of pizza and groupies and bring them back to the practice. And we now had the means to get to gigs. We played at a few high school functions and some private parties, none of which paid all that much. Throughout the summer of 1970, our grad year, we played a few gigs around southern Ontario. Along with the little bit of fame from our hometown fans and a smaller bit of fortune from our paying gigs came a sizable boost to our young egos. And that was our ruin. By the end of that summer we had pretty much had it with the perilous life of musicians on the road. I was the first to leave town to seek my fortune elsewhere. I never returned to live there. Over time we gradually drifted apart although some of us do communicate through social media from time to time.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 17:57:18 +0000
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