A Teenage Rock Photographer Between the Covers

Longtime readers may remember me writing here of teenage adventures smuggling cameras into concerts. Sadly, in middle age, those acts still rank amongst my most daring. What I  failed to mention is that the resulting photos ended up in the pages of Bandersnsnatch, the student newspaper of John Abbott College, for which I served as entertainment editor. We were offered press screenings to Hollywood films and had tickets waiting at the Centaur Theatre box office, but music dominated our coverage. Anyone distributed by Polygram had a

A Durutti Column column

leg up because the company sent us records. The Durutti Column received more notice in Bandersnatch than all the Southam and Thompson papers combined.

Lest anyone think we teens could be bought with freebees, two non-Polygram acts, David Bowie and Gang of Four, received by far the most column inches. I penned the paper's reviews of Scary Monsters, "Up the Hill Backwards," Baal, "Under Pressure," and "Cat People," as well as reissues of his own teenage work with the Mannish Boys, the King Bees, and the Lower Third.

Gang of Four didn't have nearly so long a history. Bandersnatch was there from the beginning, praising Entertainment! and the Gang of Four EP. I wrote those reviews, and saw the band's 4 July 1981 concert at Montreal's Beer Gardens. The photos I took at that show – with smuggled camera – decorated further reviews of Solid Gold, Another Day/Another Dollar, and everything else I wrote about Gang of Four.

Going over old issues of Bandersnatch – even then, I knew to save them – I see those same photos have taken on a sepia tone. They're cleaner in Red Set: A History of Gang of Four, a new book by my friend Jim Dooley.

I first met Jim the year after those heady days at Bandersnatch came to an end. Back then, I doubt either of us would've dreamt – or even dared dream – that he'd one day write the authoritative history of this band we both loved so much. I can say with certainty that I never thought the photos I took all those years ago at the Beer Garden would feature in that same book.

I'm honoured. Jim is one of the most astute critics and music historians I've ever read.

Today marks the UK release of Red Set, published by London's Repeater Books. On June 19, the book will be available in Canada and the United States. Well worth the wait.

Again, I'm honoured.

Congratulations, Jim!

Congratulations all around!

Related post:

My Career as a Teenage Rock Photogapher

Les Plouffe: An Amazon Customer is Disappointed

Related posts:

Homophobes and Book Burners Weigh In

The Return of the Amazon Customer Review

Much Ado About Anne

Sick-Minded Margaret Atwood

 is Supposed to Be a Writer of Women's Books

An Invalid Amazon Customer Review (and others)

An Amazon Customer on Michel Tremblay's Possible Potential

Verse for Mother's Day by Dorothy Livesay's Mum

Florence Randal Livesay
1874 - 1953
RIP

Florence Randal Livesay was a remarkable woman. Born, raised and educated in the small Quebec town of Compton, during the very same years as fellow Comptonian Louis St-Laurent, as a young woman Livesay taught in Montreal, New York, and overseas in Boer War concentration camps. She later worked at the Winnipeg Telegram and Winnipeg Free Press. Her lone book of verse, Shepherd's Purse (Toronto: Macmillan, 1923), was followed by a novel, Savour of Salt (Toronto: Dent, 1927), that was praised by William Arthur Deacon. I came to Florence Randal Livesay through my interest in her daughter, Dorothy Livesay, whose career was propagated in the pages of the Free Press.

Florence Randal Livesay was a good mother.

This verse is one of four Florence Randal Livesay poems included in editor John W. Garvin's Canadian Poems of the Great War (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1918):

Being the the hundredth since the end of the Great War, I couldn't let this Mother's Day pass without acknowledging the fact and adding this verse by Isabel Ecclestone Mackay, which is also taken from Canadian Poems of the Great War:

Happy Mother's Day!

War is over if you want it.

Related posts:

A Novel My Mother Read

A Poem for Mother's Day from the Great War

The Dustiest Bookcase: A is for Adams

The Dustiest Bookcase:

Short pieces on books I've always meant to review (but haven't).

They're in storage as we build our new home.

Patience, please.

S: Portrait of a Spy

Ian Adams

Toronto: Virgo, 1981

196 pages

I wrote a great deal about S: Portrait of a Spy in my first book Character Parts, which is pretty much the reason I haven't covered it here. An intriguing novel of political intrigue concerning a member of the RCMP who is suspected of being both a KGB and CIA mole, S generated headlines through my college years. Most came courtesy of Toronto Sun publisher Peter Worthington, who pushed the idea that Leslie James Bennett, former head to the RCMP's Russian Intelligence Service Desk, was the model for the title character. Worthington encouraged Bennett to sue, which is exactly what he did, going after Adams and original publisher Gage for $2.2 million.

S: Portrait of  Spy
Ian Adams
Toronto: Gage, 1979

In December 1980, Bennett agreed to a modest out-of-court settlement, barely enough to cover his legal fees, and made the mistake of insisting upon this notice, which appears in the Virgo edition:

"A curious resolution, as the disclaimer republished the alleged libel even as it discredited it," noted lawyer Douglas J. Johnson.

Agreed.

The Virgo edition also includes a good deal of information on Bennett, much of it gleaned through court testimony. Transcripts are provided.

Bennett described Adams' novel as "a typical KGB-type operation" and went so far as to claim that his life was under threat from an RCMP "death squad."

He died in Melbourne of kidney failure on 18 October 2003,  four days after the publication of Character Parts. I deny any responsibility.

Related post:

The Trudeau Papers: Bang!

Packing Up the Dusty Bookcase(s)

Not the end of this blog, but the end of our time in St Marys. After a decade in this small Ontario town, we've sold our beloved Victorian villa and are preparing to head east to the even smaller Ontario town of Merrickville, southwest of Ottawa. As with the previous move, we're telling ourselves that this will be the last. It may be. At the very least, it will be different in that we plan to build our new home.

Never done that before.

Packing up my collection of obscure, not-so-obscure, and quite common Canadian literature – all 3895 books – has become a depressing chore. So many I've been meaning to read remain unopened; so many I'd planned on reviewing here  remain untouched. Leading this sad parade is Turf Smoke, John Coulter's lone novel, published in 1945 by Ryerson.

Who remembers that John Coulter wrote a novel?

Who remembers John Coulter?

Once our foremost playwright, I first encountered his name in a university course titled Introduction to Canadian Drama. Coulter's big play, Riel, was assigned but couldn't be read because it wasn't in print. Instead, we studied an excerpt that had been included in The Penguin Book of Modern Canadian Drama, Volume One (Toronto: Penguin, 1984).

There has never been a Volume Two.

I've always been drawn to novels more than drama, which explains how it was that in 1985 I spent four dollars, over half my hourly wage at Sam the Record Man, on this first and only edition of Coulter's first and only novel. I suppose it says something about my reaction to Riel that I've still not read Turf Smoke.

I'm being horribly ungrateful because it was in packing and unpacking Turf Smoke that the idea of a series focussed on forgotten Canadian writing by forgotten Canadian writers first took hold. If my count is correct, my copy has survived fourteen moves, and has twice made it to Vancouver and back. This move, nearly all of my books will be packed away until our new home is built. There'll be no more scanning the shelves in the wee hours, standing in semi-darkness, wondering what next to read.

Decisions must be made now!

And so I find myself putting aside books I hope to reading over the next eighteen months, while boxing up others.

Coulter's novel didn't make the cut. Yesterday, it joined my Ronald Cocking collection, my H.A. Cody collection, my Ralph Connor collection, and a pristine copy of Prelude to a Marriage: Letters & Diaries of John Coulter & Olive Clare Primrose (Ottawa: Oberon, 1979) in a box destined for storage.

Packing it away for the fifteenth time, Turf Smoke inspired a sub-series, The Dustiest Bookcase, which will focus on forgotten books I've long meant to read and review (but haven't).

The Dustiest Bookcase appear from time to time until we've built our new home and I unpack Turf Smoke.

I vow to read it when I do.

John Coulter
1888 - 1980
RIP