Steven Davey circa 1971. Photo credit: Jan Thornhill. From Owen Burgess’ collection.
THE EVERGLADES are ambassadors of the Thornhill Sound, a sound long fermenting in the rec rooms and condo apartments just north of STEELES AVE. Among its proponents include: Martha and the Muffins, Johnny and the G-Rays, the B-Girls, and the now defunct Dishes, Cads, E-Static and the legendary Oh Those Pants! Even Canada’s songbird Anne Murray resides in Thornhill. The Biffs, however, are from Scarboro. Thornhill is Canada’s Liverpool! [Steven Davey, from his 1980 press release for his band the Everglades]
As a student of musical communities, I’m not too concerned with enforcing genre boundaries. But to put the argument I present over two blog posts in sharp relief, let me make a preposterous claim:
In Toronto, punk rock began in the tiny suburb of Thornhill.
Go ahead, let that statement sink in. It flies against the received histories of Toronto punk driven by urban rabble-rousers like the Viletones, the Ugly, and the Curse, who gave voice to the prole youth ensconced in Toronto’s east side and Scarborough. There is an authentic story of artist and audience connection expressed in those received histories, but to understand Toronto’s 1977 punk explosion — its famous “Crash ‘n’ Burn summer” on Queen Street West — we need step outside and before the musical moment took its name.
Never mind that the boundaries between “punk” and its traditional residual category “new wave” were hardly fixed in the early days of this music, or that this binary arrived imported from the UK and US. I propose this contested term “punk” as a kind of target because the wide-ranging explosion of generational revolt, identity exploration, and cultural creativity that I’ll chart over these two posts can in fact be understood by the more expansive definition of a punk ethos. That is, this was musical and related cultural expression that rejected formal training and aesthetic orthodoxy; that drew upon DIY creativity and peer affirmation; and that opened up a space for new voices and new communities, no matter how complicit and fucked up some practitioners might be in the divides of class, gender, race, sexuality and so on.
Let me make that last paragraph more concrete. In metropolitan Toronto, music and youth culture bloomed in the following ways:
- People created DIY music to refuse the boredom of their era and its everyday enforcement by schools, municipal authorities, musicians unions, and other moral and legal authorities of everyday life.
I sure didn’t have a great sense of anger. I wasn’t angry about much. I had great, working class parents. I think the more common thing for everyone who was starting to gather around this music was boredom. We were tired of what we had been given before then… [filmmaker Colin Brunton, quoted in Worth 2011: 40]
- This creativity drew upon local resources and frames of reference — social networks (before the internet!), record collecting and concert-going, the exploration and negotiation of urban lifestyle.
- The tipping point in this musical flourishing hinged in important ways on institutional shifts that widened access to and/or challenged established hierarchies in art, media, and education.
These mobilizations occurred all over the Toronto metropolitan area, but the historical record shows that specific kids in Thornhill were doing it earlier and in influential ways. Over the course of almost a decade of gestation, they opened the gates to the late 70s explosion of generational revolt that that took musical shape as “punk,” “new wave,” and other frankly unnecessary labels.
[Click here for my sources, citations, and list of updates for this blog post.]
THE THORNHILL SOUND
Here’s a table of 22 musicians who grew up in Thornhill and played in bands on Toronto’s 1970s Queen Street West music scene. A few bands will be familiar to readers, but most won’t. Of more interest at this early point is the sheer number of bands and the interconnections between them. The table also provides a handy list of informant bios for the quotations to follow. (All people quoted here were interviewed by me unless otherwise noted.)
I call this group the “Thornhill Sound,” in honor of the claim to fame that Steven Davey asserted so enthusiastically. Was there was a distinctive musical style or performance format that can be distinctively associated with the high school bands listed here? With little but informants’ memories of 40-50 years ago and an occasional photo to rely upon, we may never know for sure. Nonetheless, the individuals listed in this table went to high school in Thornhill, where most of them formed bands and played (mostly) original rock’n’roll music in the suburbs. As I’ll discuss in my next post, after high school these suburban kids went on to form better known bands in Toronto, which is how the Thornhill sound’s legacy became truly significant.
As is the case with social networks, interconnection doesn’t necessarily imply friendship or even regular interaction. Particularly in the eyes of an adolescent, a two-year difference can be “a pretty big gulf in high school topography,” in the words of one Thornhill native (Owen Burgess). There are at least three cohorts of Thornhill kids shown in this table, organized roughly around the classes of 1970, 1972, and 1974. Another network division is school, specifically the simultaneous opening (discussed later) of a second high school, Thornlea Secondary. Yet across this terrain, even weak ties of second degrees (friends of friends) or greater created channels for the circulation of future musicians in future Toronto bands.
ROAD MAP TO QSW:
how the Queen Street West scene began, pt. 1: the Thornhill sound
the Thornhill sound
suburban dream
precocious urbanites: the Ross sisters
the starmaker: Steven Davey
the bands of Thornhill
how the Queen Street West scene began, pt. 2: OCA bands
the Thornhill sound leaves home
how art came to QSW
Oh Those Pants! bring the Thornhill sound to OCA
the Dishes open up QSW to new music
punk and art: the Diodes
the Thornhill sound set loose on QSW
the last house band: Martha and the Muffins
6 comments
Tony Malone says:
Sep 15, 2017
Hey thanks for the review of my LP. If you want a little more accurate account of The Dishes early days, contact me sometime. The band was born out of my vision – though Scott at the time was a much more mature songwriter than I was and a great collaborator – the arrangements and overall sound were created by me.
Only one or two of the bands you credit with creating the Thornhill Sound predated us (I was actually a fan of Steven’s Waco Pudding); all the rest came after us and were directly influenced by us. Though Marzipan had a home cassette recording that I quite liked and always reminded Steven about it because he and Martha had written a really nice song on it – there was no splash, no effort at building a musical revolution … until The Dishes arrived with a fully unique sound and four sets of original music (no covers in our career). Those earlier bands were party affairs – cover songs and dancing – no attempt to forge a new creation.
btw My dad and Martha Johnson’s dad were at UofT at the same time and knew each other. I became friends w Martha’s bro Dave in Thornlea before I met Martha or knew our dads were friends. I also watched Steven on Richmondhill cable TV and contacted him – which was how we met – and to my surprise I found we lived only a few blocks from each other, with Martha and Dave Johnson halfway in between us. I spent a lot of time hanging w Steven – never met his brothers during that time; and his dad was mean.
When I entered Thornlea Steven had moved downtown and I visited regularly. I met and befriended Scott at school, because he wrote songs and I wanted to work w him. Then I found out he was Steven’s brother! It was me who brought them together. They had never been friends and never spoke much – and as I was an admirer of both and couldn’t believe they had no relationship, I set up a few visits w Steven where I brought Scott and they quickly developed a whole new friendship. I had told Steven many times I thought his brother was brilliant, so he was intrigued that Scott had impressed me so deeply.
Btw Steven was the last to join our band. I chose and enlisted each member. Scott and I played together for a year before we brought others in. I invited Michael LaCroix first because I’d known him since we were little kids, and now we were both playing in the high school band together, and he played sax. So I asked him to come jam w Scott and me. Murray was my best friend at the time, and his best buddy Ken also became my OTHER best friend.
Murray was intensely jealous when Scott started to have all my attention, and then then he went nuts when I brought Michael in, because unbeknownst to me he had met Michael recently and had a terrible crush on him. (They eventually became lovers for awhile but Michael was straight and he eventually married and had children.)
Neither Scott or I wanted Murray in the band because he couldn’t play an instrument and that meant to Scott “he’ll always be singing and we won’t get to sing”. But eventually I convinced Scott to let Murray in. So we were four. Ken was the only one of our close friends who wasn’t in the band and he was hurting because of it. One night when the four of us were practicing I called Ken and told him we need a bass – if he wants to get one and learn how to play it, he’s in the band. He got a bass the next day. For the first year or so I wrote all his parts so I wasn’t worried whether the music would work. I was the only one in the band w musical training so I devised the whole thing to work based on my arrangements rather than technical proficiency.
I phoned Steven one night from another rehearsal – after we tried unsuccessfully to find a drummer – and asked him to play drums for us. He said “I can’t play drums” but I reminded him of a Marzipan tape that he drummed on. He balked and said he’d rather manage the band. But I talked him into being the drummer. He was a good showman but he never came to rehearsals and spent all his energies on promotion (which did us a lot of good so we couldn’t complain) but we rehearsed the music without him for the most part and he’d come occasionally to learn the songs.
Steven had three venues in mind that we might play: a little Irish pub somewhere near Bloor/Yonge; Grossman’s; and The Beverley. The Bev was the only place we even considered. The night we first visited, Daily Planet were playing and I was intensely entertained and realized this was a bar where we could make any sound we wanted. So we planted ourselves at the Bev for series of weekends. We didn’t pack the place right away. We played an entire evening to just John Corbett once! I asked him how he liked the show – he said it was great and we sounded exactly like we sounded in the rehearsal basement. So the entire audience was pleased that night.
There should have been a mention of Neils Dahl (RIP) who was our soundman – also at my encouragement, when he had never done sound work before! He learned about PA’s and was in charge of all our mixes.
That’s all I can think of today. Not sure why you didn’t contact me. The Dishes was run by me and Scott – with writing contributions from all members. Scott didn’t actually want to be in a band because he had applied to go to university to study marketing. I desperately tried to convince him to keep playing, and I made him promise that if he didn’t get accepted, he’ll get serious about our band. His application was rejected and he became a full time Dish.
btw – the word Dish was in many sample names I had come up with – it was an expression from my dad’s generation referring to a hot babe. But nothing had worked or appealed to everyone. Steven liked the word too and made a few suggestions – and then one day he said “Tony how about just: The Dishes”. Everyone accepted it immediately.
Credit for the music belongs to Scott and me. Credit for the promo concepts and tireless promotion goes to Steven. Credit for schmoozing and bringing socialite attention to us, goes to Steven and Murray. All I was ever concerned with was the music and performance of it, and the early basement tapes attest to the discipline everyone surrendered themselves to.
Thanks for reading and congrats on a big undertaking and a very comprehensive and impressive presentation. And thank you for remembering and caring about what we all did.
tonym
Tony Malone says:
Sep 15, 2017
btw – There was never a band called Wild Boys – that was the name of Drastic Measures’ 2nd LP(unreleased).
I never graduated from Thornlea – dropped out after my 2nd year.
I loved the expression “turn-on-a-dime arrangements”. Thanks for putting it that way!
Some of our early posters (ie The 3D Show) were designed for us by Diode John Catto.
Tony Malone says:
Sep 16, 2017
addendum:
Scott & I started playing together in early ’74. He was finishing high school. All my friends there including Scott Murray & Ken were 2 yrs older than me, and when they all graduated, I had no one to talk to. So in fall ’74 I decided to quit. Simple! (until you tell your parents).
In early ’74 I was still 16. Scott & I started writing together first time we hung out. We brought Michael, Murray & Ken in, in late ’74 to early ’75. It was a typical case of turning your group of best friends into a band. I have tapes of acoustic rehearsals of a few Kinks & Beatle songs; the 5 of us practicing before we attempted to be an electric band. By spring of ’75 we had a couple sets of original music, electric instruments, & no drummer. Steven joined around that time.
The band was born and did our first year and a half of rehearsals in my parent’s basement. By mid ’76 my parents couldn’t take anymore and we moved to Ken’s house. I left the band about 6 months later. As far as I know, Ken’s place was their home til they disbanded.
The Dishes debuted just before Christmas ’75 at a loft party on Niagara St (right beside a cow slaughterhouse – foreshadowing our future experiences at A.Stork & Sons!). Steven set up the gig. I was so unfamiliar w Toronto yet, that I could never remember where that gig happened – until one day after I’d been living on Niagara in ’82 for a year. I suddenly recognized the building, right down the street from me a block away. I don’t remember people getting very excited by our music at that show. We had such bad equipment and were often out of tune. But they stood around and listened with interest. A very hazy memory. I’d love to know who was there and what they thought.
Regular residences at The Bev began in early ’76. By the end of the year we were packing the place standing-room, and had done a few other loft-type gigs. We had made a couple of recordings. The only one that went well was one where I worked w the engineer. I wanted to continue working with him and develop our recorded sound. But the next two recording excursions weren’t set up by me and I was very unhappy w each of the situations & the results. I didn’t want to be on the single they were about to make because all plans had been made without me and I knew I’d have too little influence on the outcome and I’d be unhappy again with the result. This was the territory that they should have ALWAYS left in my hands, and it was the reason I left. Although I thought they had really great songs on both their singles, I didn’t care for the recordings on either at all. They had nothing to do with The Dishes sound. I warned them, if you let Steven run this, it will look great and sound bad. I didn’t want any of them in charge of our recordings. I wanted that domain left to me. Steven’s and my friendship broke down completely and I quit. The cover designs are collectable. The recordings aren’t.
Drastic Measures debuted around Xmas ’77 at the closing party of Round Records, the coolest record shop in town at the time. Geddy Lee was present. We moved quickly to The Bev and also always packed it to capacity. And we were one of the first alt bands to LEAVE The Bev.
How’rd (Pope) insisted at one point that it was actually dragging us backward – that The Bev had become the place where anyone could get a gig & it was no longer cool or important to play there. The owner begged me by phone several times to come back, but I said sorry man, can’t. My band won’t do it.
Said owner paid 250 bucks TOTAL for 3 nights of music (a whopping raise from 200 when The Dishes played there), and you had to rent and transport your own PA system, and lug it up and down their stairs. For Drastic Measures, Nash brought his PA and mixed our sound. It was a LOT of work for 250 bucks. He offered us a small raise to come back but …
We moved into the Garys world and never went back. We were part of the very first wave of alt bands playing The Horseshoe during its great year of punk and boundary-pushing. Then Drastic Measures found their new residence – at The Edge. More Toronto history. We opened for The Knack there!!(??)
I’d like to mention that Drastic Measures dwarfed The Dishes in audience size AND influence. Though The Dishes are remembered (incorrectly) as Toronto’s first punk band, the reason for the connection was our total DIY ethic, our disregard for commercial rules, and our noisy cheap equipment and low down urban context. We had the spirit of punk thumbing its nose at slick corporate music. And contrasted with everything else that was playing, The Dishes were absolutely weird. We influenced the media aspects of the future local punks, much more than musically – though the one statement we made for everyone was: make whatever sound you want – stop following the rules.
Steven Leckie was always at our shows. Truth be told Steven loves gay people and appreciates a surprisingly wide variety of performers. But he correctly sized up the coming punk movement and saw what was necessary to command attention. It was definitely a masculine movement.
He was on top of it. But I swear to you, if it had been a feminine movement requiring gay behaviour, he would have made a splash too. Steve just knew what was coming.
Musically, Drastic Measures reached a lot more people than The Dishes, and directly inspired many young Toronto musicians who went on to do great musical things themselves. I’m extremely proud of what we achieved in our few years – and who was in our audience. We made a lot of recordings, most never released, documenting the various lineups and musical evolution. And we hung with all the local alternative bands and went to each other’s shows. btw – Michael LaCroix played sax w us at The Last Pogo.
I read w interest the controversy about whether The Dishes opened for Talking Heads. Here’s a link showing The Diodes opening for them at OCA, Jan ’77.
http://www.thelastpogo.net/the-new-yorker-theatre-toronto-19761977/
As far as I remember, A Space was one of our early gigs – and when I was in the band we never opened for anyone anywhere. I don’t know why the band seems to remember playing w Talking Heads! Did we play a set earlier in the same evening? No idea. No mention of The Dishes here:
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/2007/12/13/groups_early_days_got_heads_talking.html
In case anyone is interested, I’m about to release my first album of original music this century, in limited edition CDs. Following it up will be a remaster of Drastic Measures’ two LPs, also in limited edition CDs. Following that will be a double CD of Captain Beefheart covers by Beefheart Project Toronto (we’re halfway through our project at this writing), again in limited edition CD. Thanks for allowing me a plug.
And thanks again for reading!
EOTechqsu says:
Feb 23, 2021
from lat. manus – “hand” and scribo – “I write”) ]
Universalmue says:
Mar 7, 2021
Western Europe also formed
Michael LaCroix,, the dishes says:
Feb 1, 2024
Tony says it all! The dishes were first and foremost, before the Doncaster, and all the other bands that actually accomplished themselves and garner more fame than the dishes. As big as Steven‘s contribution was, and his subsequent bands, following the dishes like oh, those pants and the Everglades, it was Tony Malone. He started the dishes who really is the godfather of the Thornhill sound and subsequent new wave of music in Toronto in the 70s. RIP, Tony!