With LITTLE STICK nearing it’s demise and only a single much anticipated “reunion” style final show scheduled for the following year marking the closure of THE EDGEWATER HOTEL I went back to solo work and duet stuff with John McGale as well as driving that truck for my girlfriend’s dad. Some months later my friend Dan Brasloff called and said he was joining a band being put together by a singer he knew named Mark McKee. This was not going to be the typical 4 piece bass, drums and two guitars rock band…this was going to be a show band with a horn section and wanted to know if I’d be interested in playing in the band. This time not as the lead singer but just the guitar player and backup vocalist. I accepted the offer and went down to meet the band. We met in a dingy basement rehearsal space in NDG. It was a bigger band than I was used to. Pierre Daigle and Richard Parent on sax/flute/vocals with Roger Leclerc on trumpet/vocals made up our horn section. Gino Cosentino played keyboards, Dan Brasloff on bass with Yves Frederick on drums. Our singer was Mark McKee and I played guitar and vocals.
So while we were getting to know each other and putting our repertoire together we had to name the band. Oh boy…eight opinions…it took forever. I had also been discussing with Dan how we were going to work the finances for such a big band. Salaries, hotels…everything would be double the cost of a regular 4 piece band. This kind of discussion was beyond my pay grade in the band but I had known Dan for quite some time now and we got along very well..besides I wanted to make sure I wasn’t jumping onto a ship that was never going to leave the dock! So we got a booking agent and decided we’ll just charge a ton of money…more than the other bands. It was the truth and it worked.
Driven by Mark McKee we put together a strong repertoire of tunes from Lionel Richie and Kool and the Gang to Phil Collins and Motown medleys. The band was a hit. We travelled a lot…that too required a bigger vehicle to fit everybody in…as well as a truck to haul gear. Half the band didn’t have driver’s licenses and a couple who did you wouldn’t want driving anyway. I ended up driving one of the vehicles always. Drive we did…long distances and sometimes having to cross the U.S. border to take shortcuts to Nova Scotia etc.
Our singer was outstanding and the horn section were all music students with the rest of us being experienced touring musicians so the band was tight to start with and got tighter all the time. The band was full of practical jokers and hard partiers. Despite a slew of personnel changes (mostly in the trumpet player’s chair and adding new technicians along the way) we made a big sound with those horns and those horns separated us from the other bands and people liked it. The last trumpet player added to the lineup was Earl “the Pearl” Bernard. He had penned a song called TONIGHT IS THE NIGHT which the band recorded in HALIFAX while touring, eventually gaining some airplay. We played some impressive halls including SMOOTH HERMAN’S in SYDNEY N.S., THE THEATRE in SUMMERSIDE, P.E.I. and THE PALACE and THE MISTY MOON in HALIFAX.
A chance encounter…
Skip back several years prior…one of the places my former band THE PRIVATE EYES had rented sound systems from was called PRO SHOW. They were located in Montreal East. It is there that I would meet a guy named Rick Stadnyk. Rick was the guy who built a lot of their equipment and maintained it all as well. He was kind and always ready to help out the band with any technical needs we had. He also became a personal friend who would change my life for the better and has remained a very close friend since that time in 1982. When THE PRIVATE EYES would go to PRO SHOW to load or return equipment we would hear a band rehearsing. they were friends of the owners and Rick was also their head technician. The band was LUBA. They were a really good sounding band and it appeared that some record companies had shown an interest in them. I would often chat with the musicians in the band when they would break. I knew the guitar player Mark Lyman as he was a salesman at STEVE’S MUSIC STORE. I also came to know Pete Marunczak who was the drummer and we would always greet each other amicably and chat.
skip ahead…
Skip ahead to 1986 and THE MAJESTICS are in Montreal on a break from touring and I run into that very same Pete Marunczak in front of STEVE’S MUSIC STORE. We had not seen each other in years and we struck up a conversation. I was keenly aware and very happy for him that his band LUBA had been signed to a recording contract and had several hits and gold records already. He then asked me what I was up to these days and I told him of THE MAJESTICS. He then asked if I could sing…and play the acoustic guitar…and how about saxophone to which I said “yes” to all (remember all that doubling from high school?). I got the strange feeling that this was becoming an impromptu job application/interview. He then dropped a bomb and asked if I would like to join LUBA for their upcoming tour. Just like that I went from playing with THE MAJESTICS to playing in a signed, successful recording act. We were playing up in Ste Adele with THE MAJESTICS and I broke the news to them that I would be leaving in two weeks to tour with LUBA. They were ecstatic and shocked all at once. they were losing one of their most important players but for a really good reason! In two weeks I would be playing at EXPO 86 with LUBA. I was 26 years old.