We decide to see the whole evening and find ourselves in what can only be described as a 'lesbian bar', let's just say the demographics are becoming more obvious as time rolls on, or I'm becoming more staid. Both Carole and Kevan have had some interesting projects through the years I lost track.Ĭame upon this brief two-set appearance quite by happy accident, which is how most good things occur. Now go back up a line and take a look at that page I linked to. Mine is number 9494.įor much more on the history of Rough Trade take a look at this page: Once the disc started recording it took everything, even the between record breaks are actually live dead air.one mistake, the side was fucked. In search of a sound as vital and raw as Caroles weapons they recorded a 'direct-to-disc' record of their material, ostensibly a live performance as they cut the two sides 15 times each and selected the best two recordings. What he didn't do is show up the next night to finish the stand.īesides being on the cutting edge of the performance art that is live rock n roll, Kevin and Carole also delved into the outer reaches of available recording technology. Martin stood onstage, soaked and pointed out to the audience to ask: "How many people think that guy is sitting beside someone who is saying 'Man, you're an idiot!" (loud cheers) "How many people think that guy's girlfriend is thinking twice about putting out later?" (loud cheers) "How many people think that guy has a dick 'this' big?" (holding fingers one inch apart to loud cheers). One gentleman in particular figured he'd voice his opinion using a mug of beer. Most of the audience was not in the mood for a stand up act. It's more a Venn Diagram with two circles that never meet.
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It's not like the fan bases will have a lot of overlap. What else they used their nooks and crannies for I can't relate here.Īn interesting side-bar to this show, local comic Martin Short, a regular at the Toronto chapter of the Second City Review and a high-school friend of Carole's, was opening the show. This was a little more apparent in the packed confines of The Edge where sapphic love dolls performed tongue dances in every nook and cranny of the place. Over the intervening years Rough Trade developed a hard-core following among the sisterhood. So, naturally, I thought she was talking to me from that stage.
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There were no girls in the audience then, it's a tap house. Now Carole's 'alt-lifestyle' was not so apparent to me back at the dark, empty Colonial. The Edge had been home to two other shows of an overtly sexual nature, at least an alternative style, as I saw both Wayne County and the Electric Chairs as well as post-op, Jayne County perform live sets. We had live music clubs up the wazoo, from Larry's Hideaway to Lee's Palace to that club on St Joseph's St where I saw John Cooper Clarke. The New Wave scene was percolating in Toronto. I was a fan.Ī couple of years later I saw her do two sets at a punk-club called The Edge, in Toronto. Not even on film as this was pre-cable, pre-VHS and pre-porn explosion. In tight leather, front zipper opened to the mid-rif, hand jammed deep into her crotch as she screamed her way through the hormonally fueled paeon to lesbian lust unrequited, High School Confidential, she was like nothing I'd ever seen before. This was very early in their public career, before they had a recording contract. I would have said 'motions' but once you've seen Carole you know they're gyrations. There were about 5 people in the place as Carole and Kevan Staples, her partner in Rough Trade, went through the gyrations. Security wasn't what it used to be, if it was ever anything. I was still too young to drink at this time, my older cousin happened upon her set the day before and was so blown away he convinced me to make my way over and try to get in. No more Meet Market, no more Nickelodeon. It's days as a 'happening' place were numbered. This venue was a 'home away from home' for blues greats like John Lee Hooker, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. I first saw Carole Pope in 1974 doing a Saturday matinee show at the Colonial Tavern on Yonge St. So it's fitting I come to close out the year with a trip back down memory lane to see Carole Pope. If it wasn't them it was bands that owed their existence to music created in those years between 1979-1982.the Arctic Monkeys who cop a few licks from the Jam and the Raconteurs who are reviving the Detroit Garage scene. If it wasn't the Buzzcocks or Charlatans UK, it was Robert Gordon and Billy Bragg.
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It's like I woke up in the hey-day of the New Wave era. When 2006 rolled around I didn't know it was going to be a retro year.