Watching 'Two Mules for Sister Sarah' at Andy's.

 

Sunday in the Park. Held in N.D.G. Park, they were afternoons and evenings of music, drugs, handicraft vendors, occultists, children and pets: the last goodbye of Sixties happenings, the ancestor of Mt. Royal's Tam Tam Sunday of the 1990's. They were organized by Head and Hands, a free clinic begun in the late 60's. Beautiful trees. (these afternoon survive larger in my memory than this small entry would indicate....I think the first time we went, as we left I was stopped by the police for going through a red light on Sherbrooke. Larry, Maggie? Sue? and others were in the car too. We said "Sorry officer, we're from the West Island", and he let us go...)

 

One night in Westminster park in Dollard the cops came and searched the park with a light as they drove by. We hid behind benches until they had gone. (this happened but I don't remember when at all).

 

Dave, Ralph, Andy and I (at least) stopped at Ralph's so Dave could use the phone. Dave was wearing glitter eye make-up, and we didn't want him around that night.

 

Larry took us to a private 'country' club in Roxboro. We dressed in our finery, how he was connected with this place I don't remember (maybe he worked there).

 

Met Don at Fairview, he stole lighter fluid from behind a counter in Simpson's. This was the last time I ever saw him. He went to Vancouver, was arrested for armed robbery (c.July).

 

Went to coffee house at Cedar Park. Larry and others. A group played music by Yes.

 

Maggie took us to this guy's house, he was 25 or so and seemed to be a hippie burn-out. His name was 'Fly'.

 

Listening to PFM's 'Celebration' on Gillian's street, on the car radio. A great song from the album 'Photos of Ghosts', by a band (Premiata Forneria Marconi) completely unknown otherwise.

 

These albums remind me of this summer: 'Lark's Tongue in Aspic' by King Crimson, 'Birds of Fire' by the Mahavishnu Orchestra (through Phyl Douse), 'Yessongs' by Yes, 'Fireball' and 'Machine Head' by Deep Purple. They bring back the feeling of pipe bowls of marijuana and...

 

Rick Wakeman's 'The Six Wives of Henry VIII', a retched collection, was out. He would do much worse...

 

Gentle Giant's best album 'In a Glass House' was out this summer. Though never released in North America (because "Capitol considered it too offbeat for U.S. release (95)), it sold 150,000 copies as an import. An earlier song by them, 'Boys in the Band', contains the spirit of Montreal at this time...(96)

 

During this summer I read a hardcover collection of science fiction stories from the 1930's and '40's. They included Issac Asimov's "Nightfall" and another about a shrinking man who fell from molecular universe to universe.

 

The earliest drawing on the drawing board I used for twenty years (1973-1993) dates from August. It was on the back and was of a man helping a woman up out of a stream, with a tree behind them (it was called "Survivors" ie: after a nuclear war). It can now barely be seen [1993, copy pictured above].

 

Andy and Larry talking in my livingroom one night about how they'd like to entertain Donna (who was living in Pierrefonds at her parent's place, but was alone this night). (c.August).

 

went to a show at the Pierrefonds Arena, the Stampeders, it was crowded and hot (Rob Viger, from 1981, was at this show).

 

Andy said we were 'Bourgeois Hippies' (we called ourselves 'Freaks').

 

Met Chris Todd while driving on the 2&20, near Lesley's. It was a sunny day, he had on a white t-shirt (and looked good in it) and told me he was moving to Hawksbury.

 

From the evidence of letters (mostly from Dave and Gillian to Ralph), there seems to have been a dead zone during the month of July, with not much happening. Probably the most important event of that summer was the discovery of the Drop-In. Many new people were introduced from meeting there.

 

 

 

95. From "Rock, The Rough Guide" 1996

 

96. Other bands and/or songs of that summer included Carly Simons' "Your're so vain", Stevie Wonder and Traffic.