20: You Can Be from Here and You Can Leave

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Battle Scar

Go For Soda

Hero?

Max Webster hold a much larger place in my imagination than their music does in my heart. I like them alright, and really like their final record - but they were much more than music for me. Once I learned about them, I gathered anecdotes from everywhere and anyone I could.

Ernie on the school bus told me they used to practice in his basement. Someone else knew that Kim Mitchell had gone to St. Clair High School. A street on the way to Murphy Beach was called Webster - I assumed I had found a clue as to their name’s meaning! (I was totally wrong. Real fantasies resist verification.)

One rumour I heard - from another 14 year old - was that Max Webster had been booed off the stage the last time they’d played Sarnia because they were in drag! Sarnia in my youth was super homophobic (kind of like the whole world), so it was easy to believe. In response to the booing, the story continued, the band had vowed to never again play Sarnia. NONE of this is at all verifiable, and I do not believe it now. But I DID.

When Akimbo Alogo came out and “Go For Soda” was a pretty big Canadian hit, Kim Mitchell announced a show at Sarnia Arena, and I bought my first concert tickets. Lisle and I went to Second Spin (if I’m right with that name - it was the used record store next to Sentry and a Bingo hall) and lined up to get his autograph, and while I desperately wanted to tell Kim I understood how much the show meant to him and not to worry about the haters, I didn’t. Thank god. He laughed easily as he and Peter Fredette signed our records, and we took that to mean we were desperately funny. I still have those records - and the shirt I bought, my first concert shirt.

It was a fun show, and felt to me like the triumphant return I imagined. A good first concert.

A few years later, Mitchell released the (great title) Shakin’ Like a Human Being - the record with “Patio Lanterns” - and I dutifully bought tickets to see that show. The week before, however, I went to pick up the tickets at Sam the Record Man’s and learned that the show was cancelled. The clerk intimated that my two tickets were half of all the tickets purchased.

I was outraged. Sarnia was done with him, I intuited - proving itself a hateful, spiteful little town that didn’t deserve a hero. Over a few years I drafted many unsent letters to him, apologizing for the whole place. Again, I have NO idea what circumstances prompted the cancellation: I just superimposed my own feelings onto the situation. I made a figure UP, basically, and then over-identified with him. I don’t think I did that again after Mr. Mitchell, but I hope not. I wonder if this is what’s happening when people think about the Kardashians and Burt Reynolds and whatever? In any case, it’s a stuffed shirt.

Next week: Information about actual Max/Mitchell music that wasn’t in my imagination. You know, more videos and stuff.

Onward and upward. If you like this please share it with somebody.

- jep