JOEY IN THE MARKET
FROM APRIL/MAY 2021 ISSUE OF WEST END PHOENIX
For every post-punk/new wave suburban kid, all roads led to Kensington Market. Some arrived there before us. The mythic punk band Bunchofuckingoofs lived together in a house, where, I’d heard, one of them slept in a cage. Although I never got close enough to confirm this, one night, my friend Tim (or maybe it was Joe; I can’t remember) called out “Hey, moron!” (or something to that effect) to one of their gang, then sped away in the Volvo. The BFG chased us almost all the way down to Dundas, where Tim (or maybe Joe) said that he was sorry. The Bunchofuckingoof looked less hurtful than simply hurt. We were standing in the friendly, mellowing glow of Tiger’s Coconut Grove, whose proprietor, the retired pro wrestler E.V. Armstrong (always “Tiger,” never “E.V.”), laid claim as our downtown pops. I doubt that if the confrontation had happened elsewhere – maybe Yonge or Queen West – we would have escaped with all of our blood.
We loved the Market so much that Tim and Joe got jobs there, sorting through old clothing in one of the vintage places not named Courage My Love (we adored Courage, but neither of them was responsible or trustworthy enough to work in the shop). I spent most Saturdays stoned and lying on great piles of dead persons’ clothes listening to Joe’s mixed tapes while, occasionally, someone wandered in to buy from a spinning rack of old ladies’ glasses or take a boot from a bucket of unsorted knee-highs. Everyone in the Rheostatics worked there except me (those joints weren’t going to roll themselves), and when a subsequent wave of suburban Market wannabes followed, those new owners exploited them terribly, inventing stories about Frankie Venom’s leather jacket (“he dropped it getting into a cab”) or Belinda Carlisle’s turtleneck (“she left it backstage”) so they could charge more and pocket the difference. Years later, in the ’90s, the exploitation continued: We ordered American A&R reps to the Kensington Kitchen, where they courted our interest by expensing lavish meals. On the back patio in the summer of 1991, one of them cited a lyric and asked, “Hey, what’s a kiosk? Is that a Canadian word?” while another laid on the honey thick, telling us “You’re like Lennon and McCartney but with an extra McCartney,” which caused the four of us to look at each other wondering who was who, if inevitably leaving our drummer feeling left out (and probably a little like Ringo). I wondered what it would be like to sign with one of these labels, tour the world, then return here, to a comforting place. But the promises of those labels never materialized. In the end, I’m not sure who was exploiting whom.
One day, Joe told us that he’d rented a grey flat in the Market – very nearly across from Tiger’s – which found us celebrating most nights from May until the late fall, at which point the apartment grew cold and there was no water, owing to frozen pipes. Up the street, another friend, Bruce Eaton, had it considerably better. Because Bruce worked at Upper Canada Brewing – so did two-thirds of the West End Phoenix’s founders, not including me (again: rolling) – his apartment had cases of empties stacked to the ceiling. Once, we found ourselves partying all night with the Australian band Weddings Parties Anything, which ended with them staggering in the light to the MuchMusic building for a morning interview with Erica Ehm that has since been bulk-erased for reasons obvious to anyone who has spent all night partying with five musicians from Australia. WPA’s guitar player was a guy named Richard Burgman, who favoured own-rolleds, the blue smoke haloing about a mug with fierce cheekbones and 20-to-life eyes. Richard possessed a veneer of murder without being, exactly, murderous. He carried with him a calculus of violence that could stop a barroom brawl by merely walking inside, a superpower that proved useful after he became the Rheostatics’ tour manager, which we required after the only label not to lavishly court us offered a contract. The label was Sire Records. I insisted we sign with them because they’d signed the Ramones.
One afternoon, I met Joey Ramone at the Delta Chelsea Hotel, after I talked a magazine into sending me to interview him. After our chat, he asked if I wanted to hang out, which is the kind of thing you dream your hero will ask you. I wasn’t really sure what hanging out with Joey Ramone was supposed to look like, but he was such a sweet and easygoing guy that he loaded into the back seat of the Oldsmobile and we went around Toronto doing whatever small tasks needed doing, including getting his glasses fixed, which tells you something about what legends do when they aren’t being legends.
We ended up in Kensington Market. I remember Joey – six-foot-six, long-haired, long-limbed and anemic, gentle, towering, in jeans and white Converse, bending down to pat a sidewalk cat as if he were a tree in a storybook leaning over to rescue a child. The Market’s sound systems were throbbingly loud – an elder Rasta expelled an enormous cloud of ganja that sailed up into Joey’s orbit, which he batted away, laughing, with both hands – and everywhere the streets filled with people hurrying home with their fish, cheese and meat. I knew there was something beautiful about the scene that I didn’t understand, and knowing what I know now about touring, musicians feel lucky when they encounter a strange, new place at its best. That’s what Kensington was on that day.
We ended up at Tiger’s. We drank glasses of ginger beer, then dropped Joey off at his Masonic Temple soundcheck. Later, he asked if we wanted to go to Ottawa to see them play, and so the next day, me, Joe, Mark Sanders (a.k.a. Malibu, of the Wasagas) and Gordie drove to their show at Barrymore’s. We were late getting back on Monday, and Gordie missed two exams. He failed Grade 13 as a result.
I saw Joey a bunch of times after that. The last occasion was at Lollapalooza. I found him after their midday show – they were in the middle of a bill featuring Rancid and Soundgarden – and said hello. He was about 20 years older (so was I), but he looked exactly the same (I did not), though he would die from cancer not long after the tour. As we chatted, I knew he was having trouble placing me, but he didn’t give up. Then, in the middle of another thought, he broke through and his eyes brightened.
He remembered the Market.