Sunday Morning! Gord Lewis and “Teenage Head”
A musician friend once pointed out a nice parallel about small towns: people will get as fired up with pride about the local band that got played on the radio as they do about the football player who went pro. He recalled watching Hamilton, Ontario’s legendary band Teenage Head playing one sweaty night in the local music club “This Ain’t Hollywood” and middle-aged guys who went to High School with them cheering “Go get ’em, Gord!” at the front of the stage. “It was the cutest damn thing,” he said. “I hope I have fans like that when I’m that age!”
“Gord” was Gordie Lewis, the guitarist who founded the band back in 1975 at Westdale High School in Hamilton. Teenage Head was one of those bands that really really should’ve “made it” around the world, but never quite broke out of the Canadian content circuit. Like the Tragically Hip, it’s very easy to imagine Teenage Head on a tour today with, say, Blondie and the B52s; they were in that vein of good time throwback rock’n’roll, and they sure had the chops. They’ve been called the “Canadian Ramones,” but it’s a little inaccurate- Teenage Head sounds more like the soundtrack for a backyard high school party than a breaking and entering at a Queens pawn shop at 3 a.m.
But there’s probably a nice parallel there too: if you’re a rock’n’roll obsessive, you’ll recognize that “Teenage Head” was a killer blues rock song by the San Francisco band The Flamin’ Groovies. Hence, the “Canadian Ramones” were named after a song by the “American Rolling Stones.” At the time, Gordie had only seen an ad for the single in a rock magazine. Like I said, these were high school kids. For life, really.
They were in the right time and place for the beginning of punk, but unlike the Toronto bands with whom they were most often associated, Teenage Head seemed more like they worshipped the New York Dolls and glam rock than the Sex Pistols and punk. There’s also a bit of Gene Vincent and Elvis in there. Their music smells like beer and bubblegum and summer days in a convertible with the top down. It’s the musical equivalent of making out with a high school girlfriend and feeling her tit. Dumb fun.
I’ve found that “rock’n’roll” is about as difficult to explain in words to a non-devotee as the joy of a rollercoaster. It’s just fast and loud and catchy and it takes you out of your brain and puts you into your body. Wheeeeee! Teenage Head stood out from a million other bands because they worked really hard to look like they were goofing off. They played all the time. Frankie Venom had enough stage presence for twelve frontmen and an instantly-recognizable voice. And Gord Lewis was a phenomenal guitar player who worked harder to master his craft than many of the musicians who get dissertations written about them. He was a true rock star. When I moved to Hamilton, they were the one band I had to see live. There was a certain cache about being an American who knew Teenage Head. I’d seen them in Class of 1984 on VHS:
They should’ve been huge and probably would have been with a little more luck. There was talk early on about moving to New York, but it didn’t happen. After their second album “Frantic City” went gold in Canada, they booked a series of showcase gigs in NYC that was cancelled when Gordie was in a car accident that broke his back. The American label MCA finally picked them up, but insisted they change their name to “Teenage Heads” to placate American sensibilities and alienated some of their Canadian fans. They broke up and reunited, and then, quite suddenly, Frankie Venom (Frank Kerr) died of throat cancer in 2008, which I can attest broke a LOT of hearts in Hamilton. It sent Gordie into a deep bout of depression that almost derailed the band, which was chronicled in a documentary about their triumphant return (that is unavailable outside of Canada):
You can sense the kind of person we’re talking about here in that trailer. Like everyone who knew Gord Lewis even a little bit is saying right now, he was the kindest most gentle rock star you could ever imagine. Like a big sweet kid with a radiant smile. I was in a much worse garage rock band for a time and Gordie had only kind things to say to me, talking to me as shy and smiling as if I was the rock star. We all knew about his troubles, the car accident that broke his back, the bouts of depression, the son who was deeply troubled, the recent surgery- but he always seemed like he felt very lucky to be around the hometown music fans who loved him. And there were a great many. To them, he played on the soundtrack of their youth. To me, he was the quiet, ursine man who I saw in the bar with my friends. I wish I knew him better; I’m shy too and I wish I knew a lot of people better. I knew he loved music and he loved his guitar, and just about everyone in Hamilton loved him.
So, I know well how gutted and heartbroken those hometown friends and fans are feeling right now at the news that Gord Lewis was found murdered this week in his Catherine Street apartment. The most chilling part of it is a lot of us were not surprised to hear who did it. The number of people in the music scene who had warned the police about the delusional and threatening behavior of his son, over a number of years, is staggering. Nothing was done. The police told a great many people not to worry. And now, they’ve arrested his son. I have no answer for the problem of untreated psychosis, but goddamn there must be something in between sending people to the horrific Bedlams we did away with and leaving people who are in obvious psychological turmoil to their own madness until they commit murder. This never had to happen. It shouldn’t have happened.
But at a certain age, as many people leave your life as enter it. And really, none of us are teenagers for very long. I’ve said it’s like a railway journey, in which people and places fly by and fellow passengers come and go. Some of them you wish could have rode a little longer with you. But, a few of them made the whole ride more enjoyable. All praise to the ones who showed us some kinda fun.
And so, what are you pondering, playing, watching, reading, creating, or rocking out to this weekend?
True Story:
I’d never heard of Teenage Head, and why would a kid in WV ever have heard of them, except my freshman year my suitemate was a feller named Anders from Hamilton. Even at that I wouldn’t have known about it other than when the big German-Canadian went on a rant – fueled by inebriation I must admit – about America in general and Teenage Head of all things in particular, which was met with a “What the hell is he talking about” from the rest of us. Having read this from Rufus, that seems to be a rather appropriate way to learn about them for someone who otherwise wouldn’t have. Such an excellent peace Rufus, and what a tragedy for that family on multiple levels.Report
Thanks! That also sounds like an entertaining way to learn about them, tbh.Report
I finished watching the Sandman. The first half was much better than the second half. There were three key actors in the second half that I did not find convincing or even very good. Those were the actors playing Rose, Unity, and Lyta. Though it always raises a question in my head when I see artists that I do not think are very good. Is my judgement right or is there something I am missing because the actors clear got cast in major roles.Report
Is it worth watching for someone with no interest in graphic novels or works derived therefrom? I’m always wary of that kind of thing but from the reviews I have been tempted to give Sandman a try.Report
This is kind of related to rock n’roll but I have been thinking about the recent Alex Jones documentary and a lot of the criticism on how the director, Alex Lee Moyer, states she is being neutral but is clearly sympathetic to Jones. At the very least, she is anti-anti Alex Jones. The issue with her and many other people seems to be a side effect of rock n’roll and the counterculture. That is, a lot of people seem to be anti-establishment for the sake of being anti-establishment and this creates a kind of inchoate view as well as a moral/ethical hazard. There are good reasons to be anti-establishment* and then there is a lot of reasoning which seems pulled out of thin air and the main reason is to prove you are not a normie-bougie but a permanent rebel/downtown/alt person.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/07/alex-jones-documentary-alex-lee-moyer.html
“Moyer, 38, is a little cagey about her personal life, though she discloses that her parents were journalists and that she moved around a lot as a kid, attending high school in Fresno and college at Portland State. She watched The X-Files, researched serial killers and conspiracies, and generally respected misfits. Disdain for authority “was normalized back then,” she says, whereas now, people “worship power and believe in toeing the line for the state.” Liberal outlets, she thinks, have unwittingly lent credibility to figures like Jones thanks to their credulousness about official narratives. “The things they’re calling conspiracy theories are just going to be news items six months from now,” she says. “ ‘There were WMDs.’ ‘COVID came from a bat.’ ”
Backlash against new liberal pieties has created an opening for what has been called both the “new right” and the “post-left,” among other attempts to describe a rising strain of subversive populism. Moyer is excited about this vanguard but wary of being lumped in with a tribe. “I don’t view myself as part of any of this — not Dimes Square, not the new right, not the crypto people,” she says. ‘These are just the people who have expressed interest in what I’m doing, and so, by default, that’s who ends up in my gravitational pull.'”
Maybe this is a sign of me getting old or just being a normie-bougie liberal but this kind of disdain for authority for the sake of disdaining authority makes no sense. It seems to be about always wanting to be too cool for school and the sneering rebel in the back of the class. Alex Jones should be no one’s hero and slandering/harassing/attacking the parents of murdered children is not showing disdain for authority, bourgeois values, or anything else of merit. It is being a callous and horrible human being and he profited from it.
*Of course, there is a whole can of worms on who is and who is not establishment these days. It seems everyone is and is not establishment at the same time.Report
Caring about stuff can come across as square and naggy.Report
Its weird for me as a 61 year old to watch movies like Animal House now.
At the time, the anarchic hijinks seemed wickedly subversive of a corrupt establishment.
But now when I watch, I see that beneath the veneer of egalitarianism was essentially just adolescent self centeredness, a callow disregard for other people and their pain.
There are a lot of stories like that, former hippies and radicals noting how that just being against a corrupt establishment wasn’t enough, that very often the revolutionaries themselves were actually reactionaries.Report
Animal House is the mid to late boomer backlash against their early and more hippie counterpartsReport
Revolutionaries can often have a very austere morality and this comes across as reactionary and can even be it.Report
Ah, I’m skeptical about those people. I’ve seen a handful of these guys who are old punk rockers that now claim their disdain for conformity has made them go MAGA- and 99% of the time everyone else around remembers them being right-wingers back then too.Report
There are a lot of people like that and it may apply to Alex Lee Moyer but I am not completely sure. A lot of it does seem to be about “winemoms are so cringe….” and wanting to keep that too cool for school attitude going forever.Report
Love that Westrock concert video, it’s got the cheesy production values that bring to mind JBTV, which has aired here in Chicago for years. The host had a respect for the musicians, and showed it, and was able to up and comers who later made it big.
I’ve never heard of Teenage Head before but I’m definitely going to pick up some of their stuff. Hearing them play, I was reminded of a comment my (unfortunately too soon departed) friend Jamie made about The Stranglers, “They were punks who could play their instruments.”
Currently reading: Sedaris’ Happy-Go-Lucky. No one sees off beat America better than him. Also reading Roddy Doyle’s Life Without Children. No one writes better dialogue than Doyle.
Listening to, at the moment, Ellington At Newport. Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue is one of the best big band tracks ever recorded. Hearing the crowd at Newport go absolutely nuts tells you what a great performance this was.Report
The first three albums are great, in my opinion. It gets dicier after that, but their last studio album was a rerecording of many of their classic songs with Marky Ramone on drums, which is also a nice place to start.Report
I’m reading a sprawling Japanese crime novel called Lady Joker by Kaoru Takamura. It is a very heavy on the details novel that was inspired by a real life Japanese kidnapping.Report
Is my judgement right or is there something I am missing because the actors clear got cast in major roles. They were punks who could play their instrumentsReport