Posted by Just days after I moved to Ottawa to begin university in September of 1989 I struck up a conversation with a girl while we were sharing an elevator down from the music department on the ninth floor of the Loeb Building. Edwina was also a first-year music student – a piano player I believe – and she was living “OC” (off-campus), whereas I had just moved into a dorm room on the 2nd floor of Renfrew Building. When I mentioned that I played bass she said that her roommate was in a band and they were looking for a bass player. I just happened to be looking for a band (ostensibly to earn some extra cash* in lieu of getting a legit part-time job**), and that’s how I came to be in The Gutterboys.
The Gutterboys was my first taste of professional music. We had a manager (though she didn’t last very long), there were professional posters and even t-shirts at our very first gig (which was at Barrymore’s, the most prestigious venue in Ottawa at the time), we wrote all our own music (well, the other guys did), we toured, we went into a real-live total-pro recording studio a few times, and we played lots of gigs with lots of bands.
Sure, I had been in a few gigging cover bands throughout high school that were pretty good, but it wasn’t until I was in The Gutterboys that I really started to feel like a real musician. It was encompassing, it was enthralling, it was hard work, and most of all it was exciting.
For example, I can’t really express how excited I was when I found out that we would be opening for Toronto at Barrymore’s on March 31st, 1990. Remember Toronto? Girls Night Out, Get it on Credit, Your Daddy Don’t Know, What About Love, Start Telling the Truth…back in the early-to-mid ’80’s these guys were on every radio station in the country. We’re not talking Loverboy-big, but back in the day Toronto was a bona fide arena rock band. I had twice paid money to see them headlining at the Moncton Coliseum.
Man, when I put down the phone I went running up and down the hallways of my residence building telling anyone who would listen, “I’m going to be opening for Toronto! I’m going to be opening for Toronto!!!!” “Excited” doesn’t even touch it. It was Birthday+Christmas+Canaday excitement blended with an I-won-the-lottery sort of thrill and a dash of she-likes-me! on top.
When the night finally came we loaded our gear out of my 1984 Toyota minivan (the Big Red Tomato) and up the metal staircase behind the storied storeyed venue and waited in the wings while big-famous Toronto finished their soundcheck. This was the second gig of what was being billed as Toronto’s (apparently unsuccessful) “comeback” tour, and I think that they were a bit excited too. I will say that I was very chuffed when the band stuck around and complimented us on our soundcheck.
Funny that I don’t really remember how our set went over with the packed house, but I assume we did pretty well. The Gutterboys had some pretty catchy material and we practised and gigged so much that we were unquestionably tight, and when we were all in high spirits we were a fun band. And this was only our second biggish name opening slot (we also opened Marillion and Bonham, and Sarah Harmer opened for us when she was in a band called The Saddletramps) so we definitely would have been in high spirits.
I do, however, remember snippets of Toronto’s set quite well, pumped as I was to have a free ticket to a show that history proves I would otherwise have paid good money to see.
They were okay. I mean, c’mon, it’s not like it was U2 or Stevie Ray Vaughan or anything.
*If I’m not mistaken, over the next two years of playing, recording, and touring with The Gutterboys I believe I personally took home exactly $0. I could be misremembering this statistic, but I don’t think so. Now, when we breifly got back together twenty years later and started playing pub gigs (mostly cover songs, but we still played a bunch of originals) at the end of the night we would split the cash four ways and put it straight into our pockets. At that juncture there was little point in folding the gig money back into promotion, recording, photos, posters, and that sort of thing.
**I successfully adapted this strategy into a lifelong pursuit.
Todd Man Out 