111793 Dr. Hook, Ottawa, ON

When I was really little my aunt lived in a little house on Winnipeg Street in Moncton*, and next door to that little house on Winnipeg Street lived Carla.  Carla and I were the best of friends…heck, for all I know we were dating.  Suffice to say we hung out together all the time doing a million things and together we discovered the world.

(I’ll jump right in here and insist that there was never, ever any hanky-panky going on, not once.  In all the time we knew each other we never so much as held hands.)

Somehow Carla was way, way ahead of her time.  I don’t know how she did it, living in a little house in isolated Moncton much as I and everyone else was, but she was somehow hip enough to be ordering the brand new Sex Pistols record when we were just nine years old.  She and I were listening to bands like The Clash days after their albums dropped, and this in a town with nothing but top-40 AM radio for hundreds of miles.

By the time we were ten years old Carla had taught me how to play pinball and how to shoot pool, both of which I’m still pretty good at thanks to her early mentorship, and she introduced me to a whole lot of music.

Most of which (I’ll admit) didn’t stick.  But one thing that stuck hard was Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show.  Their best-of compilation Revisited stands as my first-ever favourite album.  By the time I was eight years old I knew every word on the cassette.  I still do.  I’m not talking about the disco stuff here, just the ones written by the brilliant Shel Silverstein; Sylvia’s Mother, Acapulco Goldie, Freakers Ball, Makin’ It Natural, Cover Of The Rolling Stone, Carry Me, Carrie, Roland The Roadie…

But just because I could sing along to every track didn’t mean I had any idea whatsoever what I was singing about.  I didn’t know that Penicillin Penny and Queen Of The Silver Dollar were about prostitutes.  One of my favourites to sing was Get My Rocks Off.  It’s fun to imagine in retrospect the look on my teachers and friend’s parents faces when I would start singing:

Some men need some killer weed, some men need cocaine

Some men need some cactus juice to purify their brain

Some men need two women, some need alcohol

Everybody needs a little something but Lord I need it all

To get my rocks off.

Sure I knew what alcohol was, but beyond that I was basically clueless.

So, Dr. Hook is my favourite band right?  And it’s like 1976 or something and whattya know, Dr. Hook is COMING TO MONCTON!  Playing at the Coliseum!!!!  Omigod, I was beyond excited.

And of course there was no way my mother would let me go; no friggin’ way, don’t even think about it.  I’m guessing she knew what the lyrics meant and she felt it best that her young son not see what goes down in such an environment.  And even though I completely agree that she made the right choice, part of me will never be able to forgive her for depriving me of having Dr. Hook (in their prime) as my first-ever live concert experience.  Instead I am forever stuck with Loverboy and The Headpins holding that dubious honour.

No, it was not until November 17th, 1993 that I finally did get to see Dr. Hook, or more accurately lead singer Ray Sawyer (yeah, the patch guy) touring under the Dr. Hook moniker for obvious reasons.  The show was at The Penguin in Ottawa and a whole gaggle of my friends (long converted by yours truly) were there too.  Of course it was just a shell of the band that once was, but it was great to hear songs I knew so very well sung by the guy who actually sang them in the first place.  

Of course this show did not at all make up for that tasty opportunity that was clutched from my grasp all those years before, but Sawyer’s voice sounded so perfectly like the music of my childhood that it was at least a cooling salve on the wound inflicted upon me by my mother’s responsible parenting.

In any case, my enduring thanks goes out to Carla for instilling the love of the band in me in the first place.  And for the pinball.  And for the billiards.  And for so much more.  

(Now, now; get your mind out of the gutter.)

*I just checked and yes, there is a Moncton Avenue in Winnipeg.