Saturday Night with the Alpha Jerks

Montreal's beloved Alpha Jerks – Dan Babineau, Thomas Bachelder, James Malloch and novelist manqué Daniel Richler –  caught on film as "The Eatables", from the 1980 Alison Burns' film of the same name.

Related post:

One Band Wonder?

One Band Wonder?

The Gazette, 28 November 1980

I remember Daniel Richler as lead singer of the Alpha Jerks. Did I see them at Cinema V? Was his nom de punk Kenny Lingus? Was Richler in other bands? It all seems a fog. Digging through old Montreal newspapers brings no clarity. Thomas Schnurmacher's little write-up on the Alpha Jerks is unique, an oddity that exists only because the lead singer's dad wrote Joshua Then and Now.

In those days, children – when there wasn't so much as a Montreal Mirror – we old timers relied on our student newspapers for coverage of the alternative scene. But, every once in a while, someone took a stab at starting a local music magazine. I checked these, too. Still no Alpha Jerks!

The first and only issue of Going Underground. No publication date is listed, but reviews of Soft Cell's Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret and Architecture & Morality by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark suggest the dying days of 1981.

The first issue of Clea Notar's Red She Said, published – photocopied, actually – in August 1982.

The Summer 1983 issue. I'm pretty certain that this was the end.

From 1984, "JUST ABOUT FIVE GOD DAMN YEARS IN THE MAKING", the first issue of Sugar Diet. Belated congratulations to Rick Trembles.

Q: What is Mark Hamill's photo doing in a piece on Fonda Peters (Lindalee Tracey) and the Alpha Jerks?

A: Later in Schnurmacher's column we're told that "the star of Star Wars is filming a comedy with George Burns in the wilds of Vermont, but he occasionally finds the time to party in Montreal." Apparently Hamill had drinks at Disco Charly with owner Johnny Battista, and even asked some girls to dance. How'd he do? "Most of them accepted even though they did not recognize him."

I can find no record of a Hamill/Burns collaboration.
Pity.

Related post:

One Book Wonder?

One Book Wonder?

I've been reading Kicking Tomorrow, Daniel Richler's literary debut, published nearly two decades ago by McClelland and Stewart. Like many a first novel, it's a coming of age story... and, the author being several years older than myself, provides glimpses of a heady, trippy Anglo-Montreal scene that I just missed. I like Kicking Tomorrow, find much to admire in Richler's writing, and I want more. So, a question nags: Where is Richer's second novel? Don't get me wrong, hardly anyone has one novel in them, never mind two, it's just that the author's bio tells us to expect another.

The last I saw of "Daniel Richler, novelist" was in a 1996 episode of The Newsroom. Five years after Kicking Tomorrow was published, and it seems Richler is still obliged to do publicity. Here he has to put up with a brain-numbing interview with anchor Jim Walcott (Peter Keleghan), which in turn leads to this rant leveled at executive producer George Findlay (Ken Finkleman):

RICHLER: First, I said I would come on this show on the condition that my father is not mentioned. Not only does he mention my father, but he obsesses over this Morde-kai, Morde-hai shit. I mean, he's a fucking idiot.

FINDLAY: I know he's an idiot, but you were great. You were great.

RICHLER: The only thing he knows about my novel are the number of pages that are in it. Did he count that himself, or did somebody do that for him? Then he goes on about I took a shot at fiction. I did not take a fucking shot at fiction. I wrote a fucking novel for which I received a substantial fucking advance.

Will someone not give this man another substantial fucking advance?

Trivia: During the interview, Walcott holds up the shorter American edition, but gives the Canadian page count: "... and has taken a shot at fiction himself with a new book, which I haven't read yet, but I hear is terrific. Uh, what is it? 370... 376 pages. Almost 400 pages."

Related post:

One Band Wonder?