The Rock Files for September 30th 2009
More on the history of the Segarini Band! Rare Photos! Jolly Witticisms, Rousing Rejoinders, and High Adventure!
The Rock Files: The Segarini Band-Phase Three Part 2 – “What’s the number for 9-1-1?â€
Fortunately, I am spared further humiliation at the hands of the laughing operator by Phil shouting from the living room that Mikey was starting to go from hotel sheet white to a healthier ashen pallor. By the time I hung up the phone and walked around the corner back into the living room, Mikey’s eyes were fluttering open and the ashen pallor gave way to what we in the music business call a ‘studio tan’. He started to look like good old Mikey.
“What happened?â€, he said, reaching for a Player and his lighter.
“I don’t knowâ€, Phil and I said in unison. “When was the last time you had something to eat?†I asked.
“Eat?â€, says Mikey.
“You know…food, vittles, (victuals), munchies, snacks…food.â€, I’m wondering if he hasn’t fully regained consciousness.
“He ate a bag of chips last weekâ€, volunteers Phil.
Oh boy.
At this point, Mikey gets up off the couch and leaves the room.
“Where are you going?†I shout after him.
“To get a cup of coffee and roll a joint.â€
I would have expected no less.
More cowbell?, Nah…let’s add another guitar and a piano player.
Thanks to Mikey staying on this side of the lawn, The Segarini Band is still intact, but not complete. What, I ask myself, is missing?
I had always been in 4 or 5 piece bands until The Dudes, which was pumped up by adding a second drummer. Wayne Cullen and Ritchie Henman were awesome, and as good a combination as Ringo and Jimmy Keltner. At one point, The Dudes had also had a keyboard player, Leon Holt, who quit as we were loading our gear into Café Campus in Montreal, for our first live gig. I forget why he packed it in, but I missed his contribution, having been a big fan of the fullness and texture that keys add to a band that treads in deeper waters than the traditional 3 chord pond most rock occupies.
I had also been spoiled by The Dudes’ 3 guitar lineup and being able to double and triple guitar lines live, something most bands could only do in the studio.
My quest now, with the solid core of Bronson, Angers, and St. Denis in place, was to find another guitarist and a good keyboard player. They had to be great players of course, but I also hoped to find guys that were easy to get along with, and liked the music I wrote.
I would find one in Thunder Bay, and the other back in Montreal.
If the Shew fits…
Hopefully, Pete will clarify exactly how this came about in a comment to next week’s Monday Morning Mailbag, because I cannot remember what, or who, dragged me down to The Ports of Call, a kind of Strip Mall of clubs located on Yonge Street north of Bloor in Toronto. We were there to see a band from Thunder Bay, specifically, their guitar player, Peter Kashur.
After one set, I knew Kash was the right guy. After the set, Pete sat down with us and I asked him if he would be interested in joining The Segarini Band. He was. We talked music, guitars, you know, the usual musician talk, and I found Pete to be a bright, intelligent, and focused person. Strange, for a young guitarist back then. Great player, easy going, and a good fit for the rest of the guys. He has remained one of my closest friends for over 30 years. Thanks to the CCR List, Kashur became Cashew, became Shew…a nickname is born.
Drew Winters…from Debutante to Dwew…
After they left April Wine, David and his brother Ritchie, formed a band called Silver and later joined The Dudes. After that, Ritchie had a band called Cruiser, and David went on to form a couple of other bands, Sensible Shoes, and The Debutantes.
The Debs started out with David joining up with the Buckles Brothers, who were passionate players with an extraordinary amount of stage presence, but often crazier than a box of shit-house rats. Into this Animal House Meets David Bowie band, David inserted a young, clean cut, and very talented keyboard player named Drew Winters, whose playing and vocals added a dimension to The Debs that elevated them into the West Island’s party band, and the resident circus at a place north of Montreal called Tara Lodge, which, shortly after their residency started there one summer, became better known as Terror Lodge. I have stories…
It was because of my friendship with David that I became aware of young Mr. Winters, and when I realized The Segarini Band needed a keyboard, it was Drew that I thought of. I am glad I did. Drew, like Peter, has remained a great friend for over 30 years as well.
Meanwhile…
While all of the above is going on, I get 2 phone calls that, though completely unrelated, combine to change the course of the Segarini project, and alter the playing field on which we were happily trying to score.
Greg Shaw, the journalist and muso behind the fanzine Who Put the Bomp, and 
Bomp Records, who had been a friend ever since articles he’d written about my previous bands in Rolling Stone, Creem, and other music periodicals, as well as the over-the-top liner notes to The Dudes album, called me from L.A and asked me if I would produce a few tracks for him of a band from Detroit called The Romantics.
Seeing as how Bob Mackowycz and I were already nuts for the band after seeing them at The Colonial, in Toronto, I couldn’t say yes fast enough. How this figures into the history of The Segarini Band, will be explained shortly.
The other phone call was from A&M Records. They had decided to pull the plug on my deal with them.
I was crushed.
A class act all the way, A&M gave me all the tapes and rights to the tracks I had already recorded towards Gotta Have Pop, and cut me loose, not because they didn’t like the music, but because they, “don’t know what to do with thisâ€.
We didn’t fit the current crop of popular music being played on the radio, and we didn’t have any proven ability live. Once again, I was either ahead of, or behind the times.
Unable to continue recording, I took the opportunity to go to Detroit and produce The Romantics. I took the train to Windsor, and their managers picked me up and drove me directly to the studio. We parked in a laneway behind the studio and entered through the back door. 10 seconds down the hall, I realized I’d left my smokes in my suitcase, and we went back out to the car to retrieve them. The trunk had been popped open and everything was gone. My suitcase, boombox, phone book…everything. In less than 20 seconds.
Welcome to Detroit, 1978.
Gotta Have Pop finds a home…
I get another phone call from Greg Shaw in Los Angeles. He asks me if I can ‘shop’ the Romantics tapes to some Canadian labels, or find him distribution in Canada. A couple of days later, the phone rings again, and it is Phase One Studio informing me that A&M have released the Segarini tapes to me, and would I like to come and pick them up. I would, indeed. I tell them I’ll pick them up when I go out to shop the Romantics tapes in a couple of days.
The major labels I had called hadn’t shown much interest in hearing a band from Detroit called The Romantics, but some of the new, independent labels had shown some interest. There was one I thought would be perfect for the Detroit band. They weren’t even launched yet, but had released some leased recordings from England. And the owners were our age, and had the hippest record import business in Toronto. I didn’t know what the label was going to be called, but the import/distribution/one-stop was called PJ Imports, and they supplied all the imported albums from Europe, Asia, and England to the coolest record stores in Canada.
I was upset that I had to put my album on hold, but thankful for having the Romantics project to keep me busy, and, with the addition of Pete and Drew, I finally had a real live band. A really good band. It was just a cryin’ shame we no longer had a label…
Continued next Wednesday in The Rock Files…
That’s enough for now. Email me at segarini@fyimusic.ca with your comments, complaints, and thoughts…and remember…don’t believe a word I say.
Bob “The Iceman†Segarini was in the bands The Family Tree, Roxy, The Wackers, The Dudes, The Segarini Band, and Cats and Dogs, and nominated for a Juno for production in 1978. He also hosted “Late Great Movies†on CITY TV, was a producer of Much Music, and an on-air personality on CHUM FM, Q107, SIRIUS Sat/Rad’s Iceberg 95, (now 85), and now provides content for radiothatdoesntsuck.com with RadioZombie, The Iceage, and PsychShack. Along with the love of his life, Jade (Pie) Dunlop, (who hosts and writes “I’ve Heard That Song Before†on RTDS), continues to write, make music, and record.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Do you think Bowie had his smokes lifted as well…inspiring him to write “Panic In Detroit”?
Bob,
Really enjoying the ongoing Tales of the Segarini Band. I spent a considerable amount of time with you guys but there’s still so much of the story I didn’t know. Of course, leave it to you to spin the damn thing out for weeks and weeks on end, doling out the details with all the pace of a 15 episode Republic serial. You might as well go all the way and end each entry with a suitably nail-biting cliffhanger. I suggest you recount the time you and Shew were hand-cuffed together and forced to leap from that exploding biplane and …… ah, but that would be telling.
Thanks Bob, Another interesting read!
Greg Shaw’s involvement just goes to show you that the music business was not always business. Shaw was about the money to a degree (hell, we all had to eat), but the music was always more important to him than anything. He always had an ear for good pop, which I hear some people gotta have.
before meeting bob for the first, i had already escaped thunder bay during the second wave of the great thunder bay musician scare of 1975-77 (i was smuggled out in a sack of gouda; the first scare yielded pau……well, you know!) just in time to work with bob on the genesis of what would become steady eddie at a small 4 track studio in don mills (we worked on another song during that meeting…..dressed in the dark perhaps). after that session, mark drove bob out to lindsey to audition me….i was working with a lounge act. as i remember it, my guitar playing was all right but what impressed bob was my mccartneyesque harmonies….that got me the second guitar chair…..bob’s appreciation for my vocal abilities passed as quickly as a tainted pink’s chili dog however,….but i kept the second guitar chair…..(btw, i still have that chair for when guests come over)
drew was offered a job with michele pagliaro but joined the segarini’s instead…..that should qualify him as the canadian roy young…..