022484 Coney Hatch, Richmond Hill

I did not attend this concert, and I sure was angry about it too.  In fact, I have never seen Coney Hatch – not a huge regret; I only know one of their songs – though I did meet a couple of the band members at a charity baseball game once.

I was back in Richmond Hill, living on my own (sort of) and working in an arcade.  I was extremely new to the live rock and roll game and I loved it, so when I found out that Coney Hatch was playing at my old high school I jumped on a ticket.  I never dreamed that my boss wouldn’t give me the night off.

Richmond Hill was where my family had temporarily settled to earn money after our house in Moncton had burned down.  I didn’t want to live there and missed Moncton terribly; so bad that when I was fourteen-and-a-half years old I ran away and hitch-hiked my way back to Moncton.  Well, a couple of years later I had changed my mind about Richmond Hill so when the family could finally afford to move back to Moncton I wanted no part of it.  But of course I had little say in the matter so back we went.  And what did I do?  I stuck out my thumb and left home again, hitching back to Richmond Hill through a brutal January cold snap*.  This time I was sixteen years old.

When I arrived I had less than $2 in my pocket** so I was pretty excited when the owner of the arcade offered me a job.  Not only that, he let me sleep on a cot in the back room.  Oh, I was on Cloud Nine!  I was the dude in charge at the place where my friends hung out, I was the guy who unlocked the door for all the Catholic School kids who would inevitably be waiting outside at lunchtime, when it wasn’t too busy I had unfettered access to all the pinball and video games, and I lived there.  ‘Twas truly awesome.

Then I heard about this Coney Hatch concert happening in the gym at Bayview Secondary.  Cool!  Teenage Head had played when I was a student but I didn’t really know the band so I didn’t go.  I regretted it the moment I saw a classmate wearing one of the band’s tourshirts the next day***.  But I was amazed that Coney Hatch – a band with a song on the radio (Monkey Bars) – would be playing at my old school so I dropped most of my worldy fortunes on a ticket.

Then my boss told me I had to work.  Wha?!?!  How could this be?!?!  I begged and pleaded, just like I would’ve done had my parents told me that I couldn’t go to something, but unlike my parents my boss had some serious leverage on his side: if I didn’t come to work that night I was fired.  Simple as that.  So I pasted the biggest frown I could muster firmly upon my face and I worked my shift.  I was furious, but at least I kept my job (and my place to live).  For a few more weeks anyway, after which I got a job doing factory work, first stuffing lawn chair cushions at Industrial Foam & Plastics in Richmond Hill followed by several months of sticking stickers on boxes at Thrush Mufflers in Etobicoke.

(Both jobs were major steps towards an eventual return to school.)

So like I said, I never got to see Coney Hatch live**** and while I don’t really care so much I must say I have pretty major respect for them for their jazz leanings.  “Their what?!?” you might be asking…

Yes, their jazz leanings.  First: My friend Ryan used to rent a room in the same rehearsal space as Coney Hatch, and he told me they were all jazz heads and that he would often hear them through the wall jamming over jazz changes.  Second: The proof lies in the guitar solo from that hit song of theirs, Monkey Bars.  The solo is actually the melody from a bebop jazz tune called Donna Lee by saxophone great Charlie Parker.  And it’s in the original key of Ab too, even though the rest of Monkey Bars is in the standard 80’s rock/metal key of E.  

Of course, such uber-hip jazziness would’ve been totally lost on my sixteen-year-old ears.  Still, I bet I would’ve had a blast.  Ah well, at least I learned to not have jobs.

*I was much to cool (read: insecure) to wear things like sweaters, mitts, or toques so I was making my way in a t-shirt, a light jacket, jeans and sneakers.  In January.  It was probably about thirty below when I got stuck on the side of the road in northern New Brunswick just outside of Edmunston in the middle of the night.  I was on the side of the road for so long that the traffic had dwindeld to be basically nonexistent, and I eventually convinced myself that I had to do something or else I was going to literally actually freeze to death.  Going against every instinct, I walked until I found a house and I rang the bell.  When I heard movement inside I asked through the locked door to please call the police.  To their credit they let me wait inside while the police came.  The cops told me there was no hostel in Edmunston but that I could spend the night in a cell.  

When we got to the station they took down my name and date of birth and bid me bon soir.  It was a quiet night and I was pleased to be in a cell alone.  The cops had even left the door open.  However, when I woke up the door was closed and locked up tight.  Huh?!?  Well, turns out they had run my info and discovered that there was a guy with the same first and last name as me who was wanted for auto theft.  Oh, and get this: he also had the same birth date; day, month, and year.  And he had the same physical description too: 6′ tall, 180lbs, blue eyes, brown hair.

Wow.

The coincidence was so great that the cops wanted to keep me.  In fact, the only differences we could discover between me and the perp was that he had a middle name (I don’t) and that he was from Newfoundland, where I had not yet visited.  The cops hummed and hawed about that for a while until I pointed out that if I was a wanted criminal then I wouldn’t have given them my real name (like most runaways, I had no identification on me whatsoever).  Finally convinced, the cops drove me back to the Trans-Canada and dropped me off on the side of the highway so I could continue my journey.

Those were different times.

**Hard to believe but true:  When I got to Richmond Hill I went straight to the arcade where me and my friends hung out.  It was early in the day and the arcade wasn’t open yet so I huddled in the doorway trying to stay warm.  As I stood there shifting my weight from one foot to another I looked down and saw the most incredible thing.  There, sticking out of the snow just inches from my left foot was a ten dollar bill.  I couldn’t believe it!  I went straight to a diner across the street and blew half the money on a sorely needed breakfast.  I probably pumped the rest into pinball once the arcade opened.  Pretty weird for a guy who didn’t know where his next meal was coming from.

***The back of the shirt was emblazoned with the phrase “F*ck the rest – Head’s the best” (asterisk is mine), and I thought selling such a shirt at a high school gig was totally punk rock, though I didn’t put those words to the shirt as I had yet to hear the phrase “punk rock” applied to an action.

****I did, however, barely see Coney Hatch’s lead vocalist/bass player (Andy Curran) opening for Rush one time.