Our Story

as told by Patrick Calnan

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In The Beginning

Personally, I've always marked the birth of The Gutterboys as taking place on May 6th, 1989 although as with any musical group, the roots of the band precede this even further. That night, at a private party I was holding at my house in Nepean, Rick Bugatsch, J.P. Côté, J. Raymond Lavoie, and myself dragged everybody down into the basement and ran through a dozen tunes that we had been jamming with over the previous few weeks. Most of the crowd seemed to like the music but we were rough enough that we didn't change the mood of the evening yet not so obnoxious as to offend (or so we thought). After putting up with our antics for about an hour, the crowd clapped politely and headed back upstairs.

One person in particular took notice of what we had done. Her name was Kim McGilchrist and she told us that if we practiced and actually formed a group instead of a loose jam, we could perform at a benefit concert she was trying to organize for the fall. While we never repaid her for the impetus she gave us, Kim McGilchrist was the catalyst that got The Gutterboys together.

The four of us had been friends for years as Rick, Ray and I had gone to high school together in Richmond, Ontario. In grade twelve, the three of us (along with another friend named Terry Cross) formed a cover band called Random that hacked and coughed its way through four years of obscure existence. Even after the demise of Random, Ray and I continued writing songs together and jamming every now and then with various musician friends. Using Ray's portable multi-track recorder, we wrote and recorded songs and Ray went so far as to record a cassette by himself using the name Random as a solo act, playing the role of a mystical muse.

In 1984, Rick helped me to get a job for the summer working at a local lumberyard where we met the irrepressible Jean-Pierre Côté. As a guitarist who had been in high school cover bands, J.P. immediately made an impression and it wasn't long before we made mutual invitations to various jam sessions. Rick went off to the University of Waterloo in the fall to obtain an Urban Planning degree but J.P. and I continued getting together and the jam sessions evolved into a songwriting partnership similar to (but very different from) the relationship I had with Ray.

When Random finally kicked the bucket, the way stood clear for a new group to form but this didn't happen at first. Married and with a baby girl to look after, Ray temporarily withdrew from the scene leaving J.P. and I to continue writing and recording new songs. Using Ray's Fostex X-15 multi-tracker, we compiled several cassettes' worth of material and I made up pretentious band names like Theory and The Mænad Project.

Several years later, Rick and I both graduated from our respective universities and the four of us began jamming regularly again. In the fall of 1988, Rick, Ray and I were goofing around in my basement complaining that heavy metal songs were too simplistic and easy to write. Before we knew what was happening, we'd written eight purposefully-obnoxious tunes that we promptly recorded and released locally on cassette using the not-so-subtle nom-de-guerre Õverdõse.

Having played together for years (seven with Rick and Ray and three with J.P.), we decided it was time to do something a little more serious. We took a handful of what we considered to be our best songs along with a couple of comic relief cover versions and began serious practicing. Rick, J.P. and Ray were guitarists by inclination and so they decided to take turns playing bass for different songs. We were quite proud of our musical flexibility and imagined that the switching routine would look impressive from an audience's perspective. At first we called ourselves Four Drunk Guys but J.P. suggested we use a name he'd come up with for one of his high school bands - The Gutterboys. Shortly thereafter we played at my party and Kim's encouragement pushed us even further.

The First Live Performance

Realizing how rough we were, we spent the rest of the summer practicing and preparing for Kim's benefit concert. In mid-June, she brought over a few friends from work to audition us as an act and it was then that we met singer-songwriter Lyle Burwell. The audition went well and we became officially booked to play the First Annual Benefit Concert For Youth in October at Barrymore's. The event was sponsored by Nepean Youth Employment Services and was to be held in Ottawa's largest live-band nightclub (a venue with which we were to become extremely familiar).

Kim had big plans for us and we agreed that she would make a good booking agent. She knew a lot of people in the Ottawa entertainment scene and she really believed in our music. That was the kicker because in my personal experience, no one had ever believed strongly enough in our music before to want to work at promoting it. Kim became our agent and immediately booked us to play at Barrymore's in early August along with another local band, Visions of the Sky. We thought this would be a good opportunity to hone our act before the benefit.

Our first formal performance as a group was on a Monday night, August 7th to be precise, and we had a fourteen song set list we'd been rehearsing solidly for weeks. Visions of the Sky went on first and performed a number of cover versions, reminding me of my old days with Random. J.P. was feeling nervous and jogged over to The Lockmaster Pub to have a few beers to calm his nerves. By the time he got back, he was far beyond the definition of calming his nerves and was well into the realm of incomprehensibility. The performance of the songs themselves went fairly well but the scene on stage was pretty tense. J.P. would incoherently ramble into the mike and hack at his guitar while Ray would glare at him and pout. Between the two of them, the band didn't come across as very polished or rehearsed and Rick was especially pissed off.

Fortunately, Barrymore's management, in the form of Gord Kent, didn't seem to notice and asked both bands to come back the next night as he had to fill a gap made by a cancellation by Red Syren (who we would run into later). Serious chats with both Ray and J.P. seemed to resolve the stage problems and the next night's performance was much smoother. Kim was pleased momentarily as she'd been worried our first gig was a forerunner of disappointments to come.

Bye-Bye Rick, Hello Todd

Life for the band changed dramatically in early September as Rick announced that he didn't want to continue as a member. It wasn't that he was all that dissatisfied with the group but instead wanted to join the Air Force and wasn't sure if he would be around to play at the benefit. Trying to give us as much warning as possible, he gave us the bad news sending us scurrying for a replacement. What we discovered exceeded our original expectations.

Looking for bass players was a frustrating task. We even went so far as to audition our old bass player from Random, Terry Cross. One prospect appeared interesting at first but complained that we played too fast and he couldn't keep up with the rest of the group. Then we met Todd.

"C.C." Snelgrove hailed from Moncton, New Brunswick and was in Ottawa to attend the Music program at Carleton University. The first time he came to audition he impressed us as the best bass player we'd seen but he was personally skeptical about our repertoire of original songs. He'd only been in cover bands thus far and couldn't see how an original act could get anywhere at the local stage. Luckily, he decided to take a chance and The Gutterboys had their very own dedicated bass player.

Our next "gig" was the benefit itself where The Gutterboys opened for local R&B regulars, Incity Dreams. With only two weeks in which to learn a host of unfamiliar original songs, C.C. managed to pull it off and the performance went well. Minor technical difficulties plagued the overall sound but the songs were tight and the crowd receptive. Immortalized on video, it looked like we'd made the right choice.

One week later on November 2nd, we played our very first solo performance at what was to become one of our favorite Ottawa venues, The Downstair's Club. With half the audience composed of C.C.'s residence compatriots and the other half personal friends of the remainder of the band, we packed the place for what became a raucous party. The only drawback to what was a highly enjoyable show were the number of technical difficulties we suffered. I broke a number of sticks, two drum skins, my snare drum and my foot pedal while J.P. and Ray broke two guitar strings apiece. As a result, we dubbed that night "The Gig That Ate Guitars". All in all, it wasn't a bad way to precede Ray's 24th birthday which was on the following Saturday (the 4th).

Kim continued to demonstrate a lot of energy in promoting the band as we were booked to play Barrymore's three weeks later on November 22nd. It was a Wednesday night local band double-bill and we were sharing the stage with Amsterdam but despite not being paid for the gig, we wanted to play as the opportunities to do so weren't regular yet. Unknowingly, we allowed this precedent to set ourselves up for being Gord Kent's last-minute-filler band. The performance itself went well although we only managed to attract about thirty people between the two groups. We realized that as much as we enjoyed playing there, we weren't ready to fill a club the size of Barrymore's.

More Personnel Changes

What immediately followed was a long dry spell as C.C. started his exams and the remainder of the group spent time with their families for the holiday season. Problems between the group and Kim began to crop up as we no longer shared a common vision. C.C. suffered a minor calamity when he sprained his knee wrestling with one of his rez-fellows and was further removed from the scene when he went home to Moncton for Christmas. Kim became frustrated with her job at Nepean Youth Employment Services and wasn't helped by the band's growing discomfort with her representation.

1990 began with several changes.

Kim got a new job that cut back on the amount of time she could devote to the band. She also thought we were heading in the wrong direction. Sitting down with us, she explained how she felt and we decided that the business relationship wouldn't work any longer. The result was that The Gutterboys were to continue without an agent.

Kim's last involvement with the band was a return performance at The Downstairs Club on January 25th, another Thursday night. This time, we seemed to have the technical problems licked and we debuted a stage gag we called "The Rhythmatron". With a pair of electronic drumsticks beeping away, I was blindfolded and led through the audience by J.P. on a quest for people with a natural sense of rhythm. "The Rhythmatron" picked out a few victims who we dragged onstage to play various percussion instruments during a rendition of J.P.'s party tune, "Ice Cold". The gimmick was a hit and we had another capacity crowd of Carleton residence students and personal friends yelling and screaming and writhing on the dance floor. This was the biggest kick for us (and a rare one, unfortunately), watching people go absolutely nuts to our music.

From there, our momentum as a band continued to build. Todd got us a pair of fun gigs as we played a couple of residence parties at Carleton U. for 2nd Renfrew and 3rd Renfrew respectively. These were a lot of fun and again we tried to maintain the practice of using audience participation to get the crowd into the show. We also played in front of one of the largest audiences we ever performed in front of when our relationship with Gord Kent at Barrymore's finally paid off. Our willingness to play shows for him at the drop of a hat made an impression as he booked us to open for Marillion. It was a great learning experience to watch a world-renowned touring act set up and do sound checks. When it finally came our turn to play, the place was jam-packed and easily one of the largest audiences we ever played for.

This high point was followed by a couple of frustrating lows. I managed to book us into The Crossroads Tavern near Manotick where I spent my teen years but the show ended up being a disaster as a heavy snow storm hit that night and we ended up playing in front of an audience of six. A month later, a supposed "audition" at Cracker's Two ended up turning into an all-night performance as the manager tricked us into performing for free ostensibly in the hope of getting future dates. That lesson was a bitter one and we boycotted that venue from that point onward.

Things started looking up in the spring of 1990 as a fun show at The Bree's Inn at Carleton went quite well. This was followed by Gord Kent rewarding us once more by booking us to open for Toronto's reunion tour. This wasn't quite as big as the Marillion show but it was still a much larger audience than we could attract on our own so we welcomed the opportunity.

Immortalized On Vinyl

It was at this point that we started talking seriously about recording some of our original material. And while we had a number of songs from which to choose, our biggest obstacle was being able to afford to produce a quality recording. Money was tight for all of us and while we were performing live on a fairly regular basis, the band wasn't making any of us rich by any stretch of the imagination. In the end, we decided to cut our costs and record only two songs that would be pressed onto a double "A"-sided, 7-inch 45rpm vinyl record. Vinyl was quickly going out of style at that point in time as CDs were taking over as the dominant music format. But pressing a record was a cheap alternative and so we decided to record "Just Wait" and "Not Yet (But Soon)" at Ambience Studios located downtown. We booked two eight-hour blocks of time under their "Midnight Special" offer with the original plan being to go into the studio from midnight to eight in the morning on the nights of May 12th and 13th.

To help us pay for this effort, I managed to get a repeat booking at The Kemptville Hotel in what came to be dubbed the "Wednesday Wing Night" series. This was a series of eleven different performances played every Wednesday night at the bar of the hotel lasting throughout the summer from May to August. These were gruelling shows to play as most of us had "day jobs" at the time and so right after work, we would pack all our gear into Todd's van and my car, drive out to the hotel, set up, perform, pack up at the end of the night and then drive home to get to bed around 2:00am or 3:00am. Most of these shows were played to half-interested audiences that barely listened to us but while they weren't a lot of fun at the time, the performances accomplished two important things: first, we ended up becoming extremely tight with our musicianship and performances; and second, they helped us to pay for the recording sessions.

The recording sessions were fun, educational, but also a little gruelling in and of themselves. The first began late on Friday night (the 11th) when we loaded up our gear and drove over to the studio which was located on Rideau Street. We were very conscious of time and so we tried to bring our instruments and equipment inside as fast as we could so that we could set up without using up too much of our precious studio time. And yet, while we were rushed, we were also a little awe-struck as Ambience Studios was a world-class recording facility at the time and this was our first exposure to a professional studio. The sound engineer assigned to record us that night was Marc Porter who was both friendly and professional. He ended up being nicknamed "Gotta 'moke?" as he was constantly begging cigarettes off of Todd throughout the night.

My drums was one of the first instruments that was recorded and this was the very first time I ever found myself in an isolation booth. It took Marc some time to set up the microphones properly as he wasn't helped by the size of my hodge-podge ten-piece drum kit. Once I was ready to go, we ran through the songs a couple of times and then the recordings began in earnest. For myself, the work was over disappointingly early as we managed to record the drum tracks in about three or four takes each and... that was it for me! The guitars and bass tracks took a little more time and then we recorded vocals and percussion. One of the more innovative aspects of this was Ray's homemade set of chimes that he made from a large collection of lost car keys he'd found and suspended from a wooden frame. He used his sense of perfect pitch to align the keys in order of descending notes and you can hear this "instrument" played at the very beginning of "Not Yet (But Soon)".

Recording for a full eight hours through the wee hours of the morning proved to be physically taxing for all of us and by the time the session ended at 8:00am, we were all more than ready for bed. Home we went to crash and recover only to repeat the process the next night. Fortunately the equipment loading wasn't nearly so strenuous as my drum parts were finished and so we were able to leave my kit at home. Almost all of the instrumental tracks had been completed and so the second night was devoted mostly to overdubs and mixing.

This was where Ray's perfect pitch and keen hearing proved to be both a blessing and a curse. His excellent ears combined with the studio recording training he'd received at The Trebas Institute allowed him to catch mistakes and flaws that the rest of us completely missed. But while Ray was able to help our recordings be as perfect as we could make them, he also found it very difficult to be completely satisfied with the final mixes. As these were going to likely be the only recordings we would be able to make for some time, he wanted to make sure that they represented us well. And in the end, he wasn't happy with the mixes by the time our second recording session was completed.

If it had been left to the rest of us, we likely would have settled for a less-than-stellar recording and been done with it. But Ray's standards were a little higher than that and so he used his own money to book a third session with Ambience for the night of June 1st. This was solely a mixing session although if memory serves me correctly, there may have been a few overdubs recorded as well. And even after another eight hours of overnight mixing, Ray still wasn't completely satisfied as I know that to this day, he still regrets some of the arrangement choices and mixing levels that ended up in the final product.

Imperfect as it was, we had ourselves a record. And the summer of 1990 was proving to be an enjoyable time as well when we played a private house party in Kingston to mark the reunion of the 2nd Renfrew residence crew. We also opened for another world-famous act at Barrymore's when we were given the opportunity to warm up the crowd for Jason Bonham. This was a personal highlight for me as I got to sit behind the infamous "Swan Song" Ludwig drum kit that Jason was playing at the time. I wasn't allowed to touch it or play it but I did sit behind it and that fleeting brush with rock history sticks in my mind to this day.

It was at this point in time that we decided that we needed to go on tour to promote our "record". While our recording efforts were by no means sophisticated or earth-shattering, we were still very proud of them and determined to get them onto as many record players as possible (while those particular pieces of audio equipment were still around). I was working as a junior administrator for the government at the time and was able to sneak in telephone calls and mailings of photocopied press kits to small clubs and venues across the eastern half of the country. A large part of these efforts were in vain but enough of them paid off that by the end of July, we were ready to hit the road.

But we couldn't do it completely alone and so much to his chagrin, we recruited our friend Paul Fruitman (who also happened to be Todd's and my roommate as well) to tag along with us and act as our road manager/sound technician/roadie. Paul was a very welcome addition to our little troupe as he had a great sense of humor which he needed to endure our antics (including giving him the nickname Paoule Fondulïlo DuBois for some bizarre reason). Without him, the tour would not nearly have been as much fun or successful.

The Crawling In The Culvert Tour 1990

Taking time off from our respective jobs and packing all of our gear and clothes into Todd's van and Ray's car, we headed off in convoy on a road trip that zig-zagged back and forth across Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The tour lasted a month and began at a small club in Montreal called Station 10 where my rudimentary French had the locals confused as they thought I was asking directions to a TV station. From there... we immediately took a break! Driving out to Moncton, we met with Todd's parents and were treated to an idyllic stay at their cottage on Cannon Ball Island in the aptly-named Lake Utopia. This was a tremendous bonding exercise as we got to enjoy some water skiing and lounging about in a gorgeous setting.

The lounging about couldn't last forever, however, as we then drove back to Moncton where we played three nights at a club called The Warehouse. We then journeyed many hundreds of miles to London, Ontario where we played two dates, one at Call The Office and the next night at The Brunswick House. We didn't have any place to stay in London and so we slept in the van (with the exception of Ray who wisely chose to sleep in his car). This led to my right nostril becoming intimately familiar with Todd's big toe which was far from being a pleasant experience. Paul demonstrated his worth as he was the one who had the bright idea of going to the local university swimming pool the next morning where we could shower and shave.

We then drove from London to the tiny village of Morin Heights in Quebec, renowned as the home of the now-defunct Le Studio. We were playing a two-night performance at the local hotel/tavern called The Commons and while we were setting up, the members of a Toronto-based hair metal band (whose name I've long since forgotten) dropped by and asked if we would share the stage so that they could play a set. They were recording up at Le Studio and in exchange for a promise to let us visit the place, we agreed to share the stage with them. They were actually a very tight band and played at typically deafening volume levels but it was the post-performance visit to the studio that was the highlight of our stay there. While sitting on a leather couch in the historic building, J.P. quipped: "I'm likely sitting on the very spot where Sting once passed wind!"

From Morin Heights, we then journeyed southward to Toronto where we played at the well-known club, Clinton's. This would have been a fun show except that a re-broadcast of The Wall concert from Berlin was aired on the giant-screen TV set up beside the stage. It was rather disconcerting because while the crowd was fairly large and energetic, their eyes were glued to the right of us and they would cheer the TV broadcast instead of our songs. As a result, we could be in the middle of a song when a loud roar would rise from the crowd but when we ended the song, it was met with dead silence. A little strange, to say the least.

From Toronto we then embarked on the longest (and geographically least sensible) leg of the tour as we drove all the way to the east coast to a club in North Sydney, Nova Scotia called Rollie's Wharf. While the drive was very long and tiring, the countryside was beautiful and we were looking forward to a double-night show. This was not to be, however, for halfway through our first set, the power inexplicably went out. It turned out that the club owner literally pulled the plug on us as he felt that our original material and mainstream rock covers wasn't what he wanted. Taking us outside onto the patio to explain his decision, he used a particularly distasteful racist epiphet to illustrate his belief that our music wasn't going to appeal to the kind of audience he wanted.

We were taken aback by this, to say the least (especially since it was clear that he hadn't bothered to listen to the demo tape that we had sent him). But to ease any hurt feelings, the club owner offered to put us up for the night for free and feed us breakfast the next morning. Offended but with little or no options, we agreed and left the next morning after the most expensive breakfast we could order, the final show of our "tour" having ended in our being fired.

Tired and still a little angry over our experience in North Sydney, we headed home but not before stopping off and taking in some of the gorgeous vistas found along the Cabot Trail.

Back in Ottawa, we resumed our regular routine of live performances as we tried to recover from our tour. With the summer ending and cooler fall weather setting in, J.P. booked a series of gigs for us that were particularly memorable and more than a little dangerous. He booked us to play a total of nine shows over three weekends at The Stirling Tavern in the infamous Mechanicsville neighborhood of Ottawa. This was just down the road from the heavily-fortified clubhouse of the local chapter of The Outlaws motorcycle gang. After being shown holes in the ceiling of the club that had been made by a shotgun blast, we dubbed the Stirling "The Bar From Hell" and it certainly lived up to that nickname.

One of the nights that we were performing, a table of rough-looking characters were minding their own business when some burly bikers complete with "colors" and full regalia marched in. One walked right up to one of the group sitting down and punched him in the side of the head as hard as he could. During the ensuing brawl, the bartender frantically signaled for us to keep playing which we did even though we were watching the nearest exit very closely. The fight didn't last very long and it turned out that it was part of the initiation process for a guy trying to get into The Outlaws. He had to endure random brutal attacks from time to time and we just happened to witness one of them. Needless to say, we were quite happy to see the last of those shows once they were all completed.

As the year drew to a close, Ray began expressing some frustrations with the band and the way things were turning out. The Stirling Tavern shows had reduced us to little more than a cover band as the original material was forced onto a backburner. While we were still playing local gigs on a regular basis, we never seemed to manage to capture the public eye the way that other local acts were. He was also feeling some pressure to provide for his family and be a good father leading to some natural conflict with the traditional rock 'n' roll lifestyle. After a series of lengthy heart-to-heart discussions, Ray decided to leave the band and for a time, we were reduced to a trio.

The loss of Ray not only removed a talented guitarist and vocalist from the band but it also took a major chunk of our original repertoire with him as well since Ray was a major contributor in the songwriting department. J.P., Todd and I played a couple of more desultory gigs after he left but it just wasn't the same and so in February of 1991, The Gutterboys officially came to an end.

We got together one more time in April of 1994 to play a party I'd organized for a class that I was teaching. But after that, we all drifted our separate ways and for fifteen long years, The Gutterboys were no more. In 2009, however, the urge to play together once more reared its ugly head from the muck and mire...

...does the story continue? We'll just have to see.