46. until it bleeds

Teenage Head / photo by Ross Taylor

Paul Kobak: It was tough getting the first recording contract. I mean, I could see how the Diodes did it. They’re such politicians – “Oh, that guy there, he’s head of A&R.” Next thing you know, the four them just lock in on the guy and start talking. “Oh, we’re the greatest band, blah blah blah.” They were talking dollars and cents in business-like approaches that most bands are clueless about, and that’s probably why CBS took a shine to them. They were well managed from within.

And we had problems, like I’ve said before, because of John and Jack. They had their pros and their cons, but we were sort of blacklisted as a result of that from the other companies. Too many burnt bridges. You know, people talk to each other, and next thing you know everyone says, “Stay away from that guy.”

We really tried with Capitol a number of times, and MCA. No one was biting. But there was the bonus of having IGM as a distributor for CBS, so we’ll just go with the smaller label and still get the distribution.

Stephen Mahon: The chain of command was our manager Jack Morrow knew Gary Salter. He was, I guess, in charge of Inter Global Music. They were both kind of like con men–type shysters. And it just made sense that if Jack had a band, who would he go to, to try and get a record? He would go to someone he would know first, so that’s what he did.

I think Gary Salter also owned or partially owned Thunder Sound studios, which is where our first album was recorded. So that’s how our record deal happened.

As to when or how, I’m sure it probably went through Paul Kobak – “Good news, you guys have a record deal,” and there was never anything formal because those guys would never have done anything really formal. Like, legitimate, that’s what I mean by formal.

Dave Rave: At that time record company deals were so rare and so odd that I don’t know how that all happened. I know that Jack Morrow had a lot to do with the deal through IGM. That was all shady stuff, wasn’t it? It might have been.

I just thought Teenage Head were so unique and so interesting that why wouldn’t they get a deal? But I think a single like the one the Diodes had wouldn’t have hurt. I think it was very successful, too. I remember hearing it all over.

Who else had deals? How could you not sign more? Compared to Britain and America, there was no Seymour Stein, no Malcolm McLaren. So even though Hamilton was bad with its infrastructure, at least we had Paul. And in Toronto there was Ralph and a few people, but look at how much was missed. And that’s a shame.

Stephen Mahon: We were just older teenagers and, “Yahoo! We’re gonna make an album,” and we would never have questioned any kind of legalities as to how it was gonna happen and how it was gonna get paid for. We just knew that at a certain day, show up at this recording studio and start making your album.

Frankie Venom [Shades no. 4, Spring, 1979]: It’s what we wanted to do for three years and after rehearsing and playing … and after changing from record company to record company, here we are. Overall, though, we had a good time. There was this one guy who wanted to make us a new Abbey Road, you know, Bible reading and all that stuff, but we just told him off.

Things have been getting better, there’s been more girls, and they’re getting all uglier, too. But I like the ugly ones, at least they’re chicks, before we only got guys. But we’re happy with how things are going. It’s been our dream for a long time and it’s here.

Stewart Pollock: I originally met Teenage Head in a very odd sort of way. I was managing Roots Shoes in Hamilton. I was about seventeen or something at the time. At that point, I was collecting pogey and welfare and working. It was before all the systems were linked together. It was a pretty good time, actually. And selling drugs, too, probably. I had to keep the addictions going, you know?

I worked in Roots during the day from ten till six or whatever, and then I’d go across the hall, change my clothes and everything and work at Mankind Shoes, which was this kind of upscale, Florsheim, alligator shoes and shit like that. Actually, my very first shoe sale ever was to Liberace in that spot. They’d just gone from the negative heels into these Beatle boots and stuff like that; purple Joe Jackson shoes.

This guy named Dave DesRoches came in and bought a pair. I’d heard from a few people that this band Teenage Head was playing at Kilroy’s, which was a pub in the west end of Hamilton. So I was telling him about it. “You should go check the band out. I hear they’re really good. If you’re into these kind of shoes, you should be into that kind of night.”

So I go there that night, and Dave’s onstage with them! He didn’t tell me at the time. I started talking to them afterwards, and ended up working for them the next day. It just seemed to work, whatever the reason was. We got along great. And they needed people at that time, too. They were just starting to make some headway and break through a little bit, you know, playing more bars and starting to get some attention.

I worked for them for quite a few years after that, everything from lighting to road manager, merchandising, professional babysitter. And it’s great fun, no money, you stay pissed and high, it’s all good.

Dave Rave: I remember seeing Teenage Head play a bar in downtown Hamilton at the time. They had pictures of Marilyn Monroe and the American flag up in there and they were doing a matinee, and everybody hated it. But you know, I’ve always had an instinct about that: Everything that’s against something is the reason why it’s going to happen. And as long as you have the strength and the firm belief of your conviction, it’s going to happen. And I knew that. We weren’t fortune tellers, but we had trust in the future. I just remember thinking that eventually, something’s going to happen to these guys.

Stephen Mahon: That’s probably the most important thing Jack did for us, was get us into the studio.

Dave Rave: “Picture My Face,” not the album version but the single version, I remember going, “Wow, this is fabulous.” I was playing it for my friends and they’re all like, “This is so simple,” and I was like, “Don’t worry about the simplicity.” “But the chords are simple chords!” “Who cares!”

There was still that thing going on; that resistance. But forget that, listen to what’s going on underneath. And that’s how I think punk rock influenced everybody. Eventually Bruce Cockburn got a leather jacket. That’s what these renegade gods did; they opened the door for something new and concise and clean – Boom, you know?

Stewart Pollock: Shortly after I met them we all sat around and glued the picture sleeve together for the first single, which was “Picture My Face.”

Bob Bryden: We were gluing it together like an assembly line.

Gordie Lewis [“Teenage Head … and How to Get Some,” by Cameron Gordon, The Nerve Magazine, October 2006]: It was basically a vehicle to help support our gigs. It was a picture sleeve, which we ended up designing ourselves. The idea was to keep up with all the cool releases coming out of the UK at that time but in the typical Canadian way, that was deemed too expensive by the label so we had to improvise on our own.

Paul Kobak: When Teenage Head first had “Picture My Face” released as a 45, I drove to B.C. and back hitting every radio station I could to give a personal pitch.

Jack and I had ulterior motives. Back then, a Toronto radio station wouldn’t playlist you unless someone else did first. Jack was between a grey-to-a-black area around much of the music establishment for a number of reasons, but had previously worked with a guy on an outdoor concert and the guy was owed money still. Only a couple hundred bucks, but the guy was now the program director for CFOX in Vancouver. So that was my mission: Hit every station you can on the way to B.C. and bribe the guy with two-hundred dollars to playlist Teenage Head.

It worked. I got back to Ontario and found that CFOX had put “Picture My Face” on medium rotation. At that point, Jack and I were able to really make things happen in Ontario.

Gordie Lewis [Blitz Magazine, March/April 1982]: The “Picture My Face” single came out when the punk thing was going strong. The Sex Pistols were making news at the time by puking in the airports. That sort of thing had an unfortunate effect on the playlist possibilities of certain Ontario AM stations.

Since then, CKOC has come to understand how the music has evolved. They and the stations like them are much less likely going to notice the sensationalism that the newspapers blab at everyone.

Paul Kobak: The first single got picked up in Germany of all places. We kept trying to break the States so many times, but there just wasn’t enough cooperation. That’s why I kept wanting them to tour. Keep hitting New York City until it bleeds. Hit Detroit, hit Chicago, hit Boston. Get some of the rep up in the papers, and then that way the record companies will fall more into place.

But things were fairly chaotic back then.