Cheap Trick

I just accepted an invitation to join the Cheap Trick group. I'll never forget the first time I ever heard Cheap Trick. I went home that night feeling like I was a member of a secret society.

In the summer of 1976 I answered an ad in the Toronto Star in which a exotic Japanese electric guitar was up for sale. It turned out that the seller lived a few blocks from our apartment so I went over to take a look. After ringing the bell, the door opened to the world of Jim Parrott and Dee Dack. Jim and Dee were a husband and wife who's lives were dedicated to rock 'n' roll. For years they had published an underground fanzine called Denim Delinquent and had first hand stories of Iggy Pop and Ray Davies.

The guitar was red, ugly and a horror to play but I quickly became friends with Jim and Dee who used their extensive record collection to give me my earliest music education. They introduced me to the Stooges, MC5, Amboy Dukes, Dictators, Blue Oyster Cult and a million other garage bands from the late sixties. In addition to Denim Delinquent they also wrote for Backstage Pass, a magazine published by CPI for its preferred Cheap Thrills ticket holders and handed out at concerts.

On a particular evening that summer they asked me to babysit their son Eric while they went to an album launch. It was an uneventful night with Eric who watched TV with me until he fell asleep. Jim and Dee came home around 11 o'clock and he had a white 12" album cover under his arm. I had never seen an album advance before and I was curious as to what this new band sounded like.

I remember that the advance folded open and the four band members popped up from the gatefold. From the moment the needle hit the record and the first chords of "ELO Kiddies" came out of the speaker I was hooked. At school the next day I told anyone who's listen about this band Cheap Trick. Once pictures started to show up in magazines I put together homemade buttons that marked me as Toronto's first Cheap Trick uber-fan.

A couple of months later, Cheap Trick was on tour with KISS and playing in Southern Ontario. I went to the concert in Kitchener with Jim and Dee who were scheduled to interview Cheap Trick (they already knew Gene Simmons who was a fan of Denim Delinquent). It was the first interview I ever saw with a band. At the end I asked Rick Neilsen if he had any tips for a new guitarist. His suggestion was that I pay attention to how sloppy he was - and play very loud. When I watched him that night, I saw exactly what he meant.

Right before In Color came out, Cheap Trick played two nights at the El Mocambo. CHUM FM broadcast one of their six sets. I went to both nights and I don't think they repeated more than two or three songs at those shows. Rick Neilsen ended the first night by jamming his Explorer shaped Hamer guitar in to the ceiling.

When their Budokon album became a huge hit I was, of course, repulsed by the screaming little girls. For my money, Cheap Trick was a hard rock band with witty songs and great melodies - not a pop band! But I am nothing if not loyal and I kept going to see Cheap Trick concerts and buying their albums (even though I realized that Dream police was only half good). I didn't really turn my back on them until "The Flame" but then I turned my back on Aerosmith too when they started playing girl ballads.

Years later, Cheap Trick put out the album Monsters Under the Bed on Warner and I got to work with the band and I related the above story to them. Rick claims to remember Jim and Dee though he didn't remember my question about playing guitar.

Anyway, that's why I joined the Cheap Trick group on Facebook.