Monday, September 03, 2012

Blood Alley Quartet & Goldie Monroe From left, Randy Bowman (drums) Dave Olajide (bass), Gus Vassos (vocals, guitar) Anthony Walker (vocals, guitar) Goldie Monroe (vocals,burlesque dancer)

I have a friend Yuliya Kate who is now a professional dominatrix.  She is pleasant and smiles but if anybody in her presence just happens to ask, “Are you from the Ukraine?” She loses her temper and blasts back, “Ukraine not the Ukraine.”

Yuliya Kate

Ukraine brings to me the image of an old b+w war movie I saw when I was around 20 which featured a German Panzer army racing through Ukraine with tanks and half-tracks. Ukraine is a vastness of flat and its history (the little I know of it) is the history of invaders passing through who might stop for a bite to eat or a woman to forcibly bed. Ukrainians have seen armies come and go. They have seen history in the making much like Aristotle’s “unmoved mover”.

Goldie Monroe, iPhone portrait

When early last week I noticed in facebook that a rock band called The Blood Alley Quartet was sponsoring a burlesque show (I hate burlesque) I noticed four salient facts. The band had Gus Vassos, Anthony Walker (better known as Tony Baloney by those who know), Randy Bowman and a striking blonde singer Goldie Monroe whom I knew as a model called Abby.

I hate burlesque because in early middle age I was exposed to exotic dancing/stripping in Vancouver. My involvement in that scene took me to become a judge at the first ever  Golden G-String Convention in Las Vegas in the mid 80s. One of my fellow judges was Tempest Storm. The competition, was unknowingly rigged against the Vancouver contingent. The performers were not allowed to remove their G-String. Older women or would-be burlesque dancers could shine while our superstars like Lusty Leanne (whose act began, an only began upon the romoval of the G-String) could not. And yet without the help of this Canadian judge (even though I did vote for her) T Rae, a proud Vancouverite won out with panache, poise, eroticism (not of the blatant kind). But being allowed to take photographs in the dressing rooms (wow!) I was attracted to the look and poise of American burlesque dancers who hailed from such places as Peoria, Illinois or Dubuque, Iowa.

T Rae

Tempest Storm, second from left, in Las Vegas

If you consider that the above people (in the first picture of the Blood Alley Quartet) played in punk bands in the early 80s called Actionauts, Corsage and The Enigmas. Then you add to that, one of them, Gus Vassos, took my picture at the Marble Arch as I sat with Paul Wilson Brown (a brilliant keyboard player from a Vancouver pop band called Maurice and the Clichés) and that the woman with the beautiful bum in that picture I photographed in my Mexican pin striped suit while smoking an H. Upmann cigar, you might suspect that the ramifications of my facebook (note it cannot be in caps) sighting the Blood Alley Quartet and its Neverland Burlesque show on September 15 as most psychedelic. You would be doubly correct as The Enigmas was defined as just that a psychedelic band. I must add here that the crazy leader of the Enigmas, a man full of energy (and not enough methylphenidate) had been in a two man band called The Wankers that I saw at the Smilin’ Buddha many times (and never did like them). The only band that was worse in my unprofessional estimation was one called 50% Off that had photographer Lincoln Clarkes on guitar and vocals.

Laura Faye from Peoria, Illinois

The old photograph that I have of The Enigmas features a painting by Jim Cummins (aka Braineater). I contacted him recently for info on the gal in the picture:

Lincoln Clarkes

"That is Emmy. She was my girlfriend. She was in my movie Beauty is the Beast. She made braineater rings for me. The rings were from a design of mine of skull and bones. I think she lives in Texas now. She also played Barbra in the Modernettes video."

Now in the picture of the Actionauts, on the extreme left is Ian Noble who happened to be the second drummer of the Modernettes.

In the years that transpired I photographed Anthony Parker’s father teaching ballet to children and Gus Vassos’s father as a highfalutin, heavy duty commercial real-estate honcho. Paul Wilson Brown, the brilliant keyboard player works for my neighbour across the street who is a highfalutin real estate agent.

Jim Cummins

My daughter Hilary & her Jim Cummins

Enigmas from left to right Paul McKenzie, Brian Olineck, Mike Davis & Randy Bowman Cummins's Emmy behind in painting

What is the common thread here? The common thread is twofold – two men. One was and is Mac (aka Malcolm) Parry the former editor of Vancouver Magazine and the other is former Vancouver Magazine rock columnist “In One Ear” and Associate Editor Les Wiseman.

Lenny Kaye & Les Wiseman

Actionauts from left to right Ian Noble, Gus Vassos, Steve Robertson, Sam Salmon (aka Fish in centre) Anthony Walker (aka Tony Baloney)

Art Bergmann left and Tony Baloney, far right

Corsage, 1983 From left to right Rodney Graham, Chris Grove (with laurel), Phill Smith , centre front, Scout Fairlane (actress,poet) Bill Napier-Hemy, Napoleon, Jade Blade, first nurse, Dale Powers, second nurse, & Tony Baloney far right.

Mac Parry’s Vancouver Magazine was much like the Ukrainian steppes. Doors were left open and all of Vancouver (the political, the artistic, the innovative, the interesting, etc) seemed to pass by after lingering for a bit in Mac’s office. Rock musicians (many in tattered clothing before tattered clothing had any message) checked in at reception where a string of liberal minded receptionists simply pointed in the direction of Wiseman’s office.

From left, Alex W-H, Les Wiseman, Danielle & Mac Parry Vancouver Magazine on Davie and Richards

Modernettes Above Mary Jo Kopechne Left Buch Cherry, Ian Noble, Randy Carpenter

Maurice & the Cliches Maurice Depas left & Paul Wilson Brown far right

I was one of the persons who while strictly speaking was a freelancer, I had a “hovering-shingle-on-the-door” relationship with Vancouver Magazine and I noted and noticed the richness of the invasion.

Under his wing, before anybody else knew of his talents, Mac had a young man with terrible case of dandruff. He was a hanger on at the office and nobody seemed to pin down exactly what he was, did. Few if any were able to discern exactly what Mac saw in the young man who was called Douglas Coupland.

Don Vassos, Gus's dad.

Paul Wilson Brown, Alex W-H & Salem behind Photo by Gus Vassos

Salem and her H-Upmann

Douglas Coupland

And so it was that this photographer was there to record those back and forth fluctuations of Vancouverites and out of towners of fame and the pictures you see here could be connected with many more. Suffice to say I did not know that the tall 6ft two blonde who posed for my class at Focal Point, whose name was Abby would, a couple of years later be posing with burlesque tassels in my garden with three men that had faced my camera at least once or twice or many times, in times past.

Just as Ukraine is just simply Ukraine, I can state also that Vancouver Magazine (Parry’s, Wiseman’s and others like art directors Rick Staehling and Chris Dahl) did not need that demonstrative adjective that is “the” to make it more distinct and special than it was.

Blood Alley Quartet & Goldie Monroe

The Blood Alley Quartet and Goldie Monroe will appear, September 15, in what is now becoming a monthly tradition of burlesque called Neverland Burlesque. The quartet play with other dancers, too. The show is every third Saturday at the Russian Hall, 2012 West 4th Ave in Kits. Doors open at 8:30.

I may be warming up to the concept of burlesque via the Blood Alley Quartet & Goldie Monroe. I enjoyed this video with no fanny wagging and other affected cutesy moves. It puts an elegant and contemporary spin on burlesque.