Saturday, May 26, 2001

Bachman in London to write with Rastin

By JAMES REANEY -- London Free Press

Canadian rock legend Randy Bachman is plugging into the career of Strathroy-area singer Shelly Rastin.

The Guess Who guitarist and founding member will arrive in London tomorrow and spend several days next week writing with Rastin.

The singer and her manager contacted Bachman after a newspaper reported he was looking for new artists to perform his backlog of about 250 songs and record on his B.C.-based Ranbach Music label.

"It looks like we're going to be joining the Bachman team and kick some booty," said Rastin, who has been working in a country vein.

If a deal with Bachman's label is signed, it will confirm Rastin's move to adult contemporary music in a more rock vein. Where Shania Twain has been her career model, it's more likely to be Sheryl Crow these days.

"We're going to spend four days solidly songwriting," says Rastin, a longtime Guess Who fan, who hopes there will be an opportunity to co-write with Bachman.

The guitarist then expects to return to British Columbia and record backing tracks. If all goes well, Rastin will fly out to B.C. to add the vocals.

Any such deal is still in the early stages. "Randy is going to be in London next week for a few days to do some co-writing with a local artist," a Ranbach Music publicist responded via e-mail yesterday. "We haven't publicized this yet, as Randy likes to meet the artists he works with before endorsing them."

Rastin studied business at Fanshawe College and has balanced a tech job at London Life with her music. About three years ago, with cash raised by London region supporters, Rastin travelled to Nashville to record. More performing and recording followed, leading to a one-year deal with Toronto's August Moon Artists, a music development label. It ended in January and Rastin didn't re-sign.

Early last year, Rastin estimated she needed four "kick-ass hits" and a professional act to sway investors -- but now she hopes Bachman's working visit will help bring the investment to her.

Bachman was in London in September when the Guess Who reunion tour rocked the Western Fair. Work on a new Guess Who album has been delayed, but Bachman has re-released the first three Guess Who albums from their pre-These Eyes days on his Ranbach Music label. He's putting out a collection from Brave Belt (his band, pre-Bachman Turner Overdrive) and has been steadily re-releasing the oeuvre of the late jazz guitarist Lenny Breau.

The Guess Who is being saluted with doctorates from the University of Brandon and induction at Toronto into Canada's Walk of Fame. Then comes a new Guess Who summer tour, a shared bill with Joe Cocker, that will hit 41 U.S. cities.

Friday, May 25, 2001

Q&A with Randy Bachman

By JIM SLOTEK

Toronto Sun

With the Guess Who back in vogue, it's guitarist Randy Bachman who's become the keeper of the tapes. He has the rights to all the band's early pre-These Eyes albums (back when they had a question mark at the end of their name) and has released the first three for sale.

THE SUN: How was it that you, and not another member of the band, ended up with the rights to the music?

BACHMAN: "It happened by happenstance. Nobody decided it. We weren't even speaking at the time, 15 years ago; we were in the five corners of the world. Quality Records in Toronto had the stuff from the old Sceptre label, and they were going bankrupt. I didn't know it, but Quality Records was owned by Selkirk Communications.

"Anyway, you being from Winnipeg know what Selkirk means to a Winnipegger." (It refers to a mental hospital in Selkirk, Man., for violent offenders, as in "Dude, you're crazy, you belong in Selkirk.")

"So I get this call and this woman says we've got The Guess Who's Selkirk tapes for sale. And I thought, y'know, we used to go to Selkirk every Christmas and record a show in the asylum there. They were mentally disturbed people, but the acoustics were good and the audience was quiet."

THE SUN: Because they were medicated?

BACHMAN: "Exactly. And I figure those are the tapes they're offering me. I'm lowballing them and saying they can't be worth much money, and they're going, 'Yeah, they are.' So I settled on a price and was totally shocked when I got the box.

"I opened it and it was all the Guess Who tapes from Sceptre Records with the original artwork, and I phoned the lady back and said, 'What's this?' And she said, 'You mean you didn't know what you bought?'

"And she told me I was the last person she contacted. She had called the other band members' reps and they all turned down the Selkirk tapes. Something inside of me said, 'Don't blow her off.' "

Wednesday, May 16, 2001

We ain't seen nothin' yet

Guess Who's Randy Bachman produces stunning retrospective

By JIM SLOTEK

Toronto Sun

We all know packrats. But you probably haven't encountered one like Randy Bachman.

The legendary lead guitarist of the Guess Who made headlines a decade ago when he donated truckloads of band memorabilia to the National Library Archives in Ottawa.

It didn't take him long, however, to amass another truckload.

"I just hired two college kids and they're going through two bedrooms and a garage," says Bachman from his West Coast home/studio on Salt Spring Island. "It's filled floor to ceiling with a walkway in between as wide as a human body."

"I've saved every test pressing, every acetate, every program, every writeup, every review, every T-shirt, poster, button, everything from every gig. I have been a packrat since the Guess Who. I was a booker most of the time, so I had most of the contracts from gigs and record deals.

"Before my first donation, I was renting four double garages in White Rock where I used to live, which cost me $6,000 a year. It was great to have Ottawa say, 'We have room for this, we want it on display. We want to legitimize pop music.'"

This hoarder's instinct, and his inability to say no to any collectible that comes his way, was key to The Guess Who? This Time Long Ago -- a stunningly preserved and enhanced record of the band's early days as a garage combo, touring band and a veritable CBC house band for shows like Let's Go/Music Hop and Where It's At. Included are lost Guess Who tunes Croyez-Moi and Miss Felicity Grey from the band's British recording sessions, plus TV covers like Light My Fire (two versions), White Room and Summertime Blues -- "We covered Blue Cheer's version, you know, where there's no answer in the lyrics, like 'I called my Congressman and he said quote ...' and then there's feedback 'Woo-oo-woo-oo!'"

Every cut has a story. The Light My Fire covers came from a veteran CBC soundman, part of the crew interviewing Bachman for a documentary on his late mentor, Lenny Breau.

"They're interviewing me on the banks of the river, and the soundman says, 'Remember me?' And I said, 'Did we go to school together?' And he said, 'Yeah, I was in your room in Garden City (Collegiate).' I said 'Marvin, right?' And he says 'Yeah. I was also the soundman at CBC when Harry retired.'"

Seems the kid's first gig was the Guess Who on CBC. "He says 'I was so proud to get this job, I saved the tapes.'

"And I said, 'What?' He says, 'Yeah, CBC had us erase them. But I'd make my own copies and take them home.'"

A techno-addict, Bachman worked on the various cuts for 10 years, breathing audio life into source tapes so old "you'd get one play out of it and the oxide would come off.

"I would get that album about done and some new noise suppressor would come out to expand your old mono tracks." Eventually, he spent $40,000 on enhancement gizmos.

He's re-released the first three Guess Who albums from their pre-These Eyes days on his Ranbach Music label. He's putting out a collection from Brave Belt (his band, pre-Bachman Turner Overdrive) and has been steadily re-releasing the oeuvre of the late jazz-guitar wizard Breau.

Soon, however, it will be time to poke his nose out of the studio, like the world's largest groundhog.

In two weeks, the band gets doctorates from the University of Brandon. They then come here for induction into Canada's Walk Of Fame. Then comes a new Guess Who summer tour, a shared bill with Joe Cocker, that'll hit 41 U.S. cities.

Once again, they'll play all the hits. "We've added You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet, Stand Tall, and to the delight of us and everyone out there, we've added Shakin' All Over."

But no covers. "We don't have time. This album (This Time Long Ago) will be the last time you hear us doing covers."

Much-anticipated plans for a new studio album from Canadian rock legends The Guess Who have run afoul of record company politics and a stand-off over royalties, according to guitarist Randy Bachman.

Since the group's triumphant reunion tour last summer, the band members have spoken frequently about their desire to record a new Guess Who studio album, but Bachman said those plans are on hold pending discussions of a new record deal.

"Basically, we are waiting for somebody to dangle a carrot," Bachman told JAM! Music in a phone interview from his recording studio in B.C. to talk up the brand new two-CD Guess Who rarities collection "This Time Long Ago" (more on that below).

"(The new studio album) is nowhere because we have to deal with what is on the table now and what looks like is falling onto the table, every time we go to get started."

Bachman said he and singer-keyboardist Burton Cummings have been sending each other song ideas, and what they've come up with so far has been encouraging, but the project hasn't proceeded beyond that.

"We're just waiting for an offer. It would be an exercise in futility (to record before a record deal). There's no end-use for it."

Bachman said the obvious home for a new Guess Who record would be with BMG, the company which controls the group's catalogue of albums released during their heyday with RCA Records.

But any deal with BMG would have to include a new deal to cover the royalty rate the members of The Guess Who receive for the catalogue of older Guess Who albums BMG still controls, he said, adding the band members are paid "literally nothing" for the older material.

"We are looking at doing a studio album, and it makes sense that (BMG) offer us a deal. Because (the label) have got all the history. And while you are offering us a new deal, please include the old stuff," Bachman said.

"Let's walk into the room, say we've had some great history, say what is done is done from this point forward, and let's go forward as a new band, with a new royalty. And we'll give you a new studio album, and we'll give you access... to some other (archive) tracks that I was holding back."

Since The Guess Who's reunion, BMG's reissue label Buddha Records has re-released "Canned Wheat," "American Woman," "Share The Land" and "Live At The Paramount" -- each with remastered sound and bonus tracks. Bachman estimates the group gets between two and three percent on catalogue releases, to be divided amongst all the members. The industry standard is "in the teens," he said.

"Our royalties from RCA are from 1969. What we are getting paid is an absolute crime. It is criminal, and we are selling millions of records, and we're getting paid that same rate," he said.

BMG had been interested in continuing the series of reissues, with "Wheatfield Soul" the next likely release, but Bachman said he is holding back some still-unissued tracks from his vast archive of material.

"We're saying if you want to use these tracks for a reissue of 'Wheatfield Soul' or some other reissues, we need you to look at our royalty rate ... and give us a new contract. We just cannot give this to you and get paid, literally, nothing."

The Canadian division of BMG has been open to the idea, but the catalogue issue must be settled with the American branch of the company, he added.

If a new Guess Who studio album is on hold, Bachman's desire to mine the group's past is speeding ahead. The latest addition to the catalogue is the new double-disc set "This Time Long Ago," available through Bachman's website (www.randybachman.com).

The new set includes songs recorded after Burton Cummings took over from Chad Allen as Guess Who frontman in 1966. The tracks include Cummings' earliest singles with the band, tunes recorded during their ill-fated 1967 trip to England, covers and originals recorded during their stint as house band on CBC's "Let's Go" and early psychedelic experiments leading up to their most successful years in the early 1970s.

If no deal can be arranged to make material available with a major label, Bachman said he's prepared to release additional Guess Who archive recordings through his website, including songs recorded for the 1968 "A Wild Pair" album (a split record with Ottawa's Staccatos), sessions recorded for Sceptre Records in New York, further studio outtakes and commercials the band recorded for Honda and Fresca.

He also confirmed that November has been pencilled in for a reissue of the two albums he recorded with his post-Guess Who, pre-Bachman Turner Overdrive outfit Brave Belt, a country-rock outfit that enjoyed its biggest hit with "Dunrobin's Gone." The albums, "Brave Belt" and "Brave Belt II," will be issued as a double-disc set with four bonus tracks: a re-recording of The Guess Who's early hit "Shakin' All Over," "West Coast Girl," "Hands And Faces", and a version of the gospel standard "The Sweet By-and-By." The latter track was recorded with members of the house band from the local Winnipeg TV show "My Kind Of Country."

"This is really hokey, like BTO doing the 'Beverly Hillbillies'," but not doing it for a joke; really going for it ... pedal steel, accordion, fiddle, and me playing acoustic and being Neil Young, singing in a high, falsetto voice. It is hilarious."

For the more immediate future, Bachman and The Guess Who will spend the summer touring with Joe Cocker.

Jim Kale, a founding member of The Guess Who, will be awarded an honorary Doctor of Music degree at Brandon University's spring convocation.

He will appear alongside his original bandmates Bill Wallace and Don McDougall, who joined the band in the 1970s and still tour with the reunited group.

It was announced two weeks ago that The Guess Who would receive degrees May 26 in Brandon, but Kale's participation could not be confirmed until this week, Dr. Glen Carruthers, dean of the school of music at B.U. said yesterday.

"The last piece of the puzzle has fallen into place. The picture wouldn't be complete without him and we couldn't be more pleased that he'll join us at the convocation," Carruthers said.

Kale last performed with The Guess Who last May during a warmup gig for the band's Canadian tour at Crescentwood Community Centre.

He played with the original group from its inception until 1972.

-- Sun Staff

Yes, you will soon be able to address the members of The Guess Who as Doctor.

The band is slated to receive honorary Doctor of Music degrees at Brandon University's spring convocation ceremony on May 26.

"(They) are great musical ambassadors for our province and country," Dr. Glen Carruthers, dean of music at BU, said yesterday.

"Given the group's Manitoba origins, its international stature and the reputation of our own school of music, it is such a natural fit for Brandon University to bestow this honour on The Guess Who."

Band manager Lorne Saifer confirmed that the band would be in Brandon for the ceremony. "The group is enthusiastic about receiving these honorary degrees. The Guess Who's roots are in Manitoba and it is wonderful the group is being honoured in this way." (More on Guess Who)

WINNIPEG (CP) -- The Guess Who will likely play a show in Winnipeg toward the end of this summer, following a 50 to 60-date U.S. tour, says frontman Burton Cummings.

"Let's face it. We were pretty big," Cummings says. "A lot of people want to see us again."

The Guess Who reunited for the first time in years at the 1999 Pan Am Games closing ceremonies in Winnipeg. Last summer's Running Back Through Canada tour saw the aging rockers play a rain-soaked show at Winnipeg's CanWest Global Park. They began the come-back tour with a show at the city's Crescentwood Community Centre.

The e-mail response from the shows was phenomenal, Cummings said.

A popular band from the Guess Who-era may reunite to accompany the band on the U.S. tour, Cummings said. He declined to say what band it is, but said it "would be huge."

A tour of Australia may follow, he said.

Also in the works for the Guess Who is an album of new material -- the first since the 1970s. Cummings said he's been writing tunes with guitar-playing bandmate Randy Bachman.

"We'll have something out this year," Cummings said. The Guess Who released an album of live material before Christmas, featuring some material from the CanWest Global Park gig.

The Guess Who are getting a star this summer, along with a dozen other inductees, including writer Margaret Atwood, hockey great Jean Beliveau and actor Leslie Nielsen.

Quite an honour, eh?

"I didn't even know there was one, to tell you the truth," Guess Who bassist Bill Wallace said yesterday. "I'm surprised, I never even heard of it."

That's OK. The four-year-old Walk of Fame includes a star for Royal Winnipeg Ballet's Evelyn Hart, but many people outside of Toronto are not aware of it.

A Walk spokeswoman says she believes someone from the band will attend the official ceremony June 1, when 13 new inductees will bring to 51 the number of granite stars on King Street in Toronto's downtown entertainment district.

She said the star is simply for The Guess Who, which presumably includes singer Burton Cummings, song-writer and guitar player Randy Bachman, drummer Garry Peterson and guitarists Jim Kale, Wallace and Donnie McDougall.

Wallace, 52, played with the band from 1972 to 1975 after Kale's departure. He also joined the Runnin' Back Thru Canada tour in 2000. The band is to perform at the Juno Awards in Hamilton, Ont., next month but since they're staying in Toronto, Wallace says he may check out the Walk of Fame, now that he knows what it is.

Besides Atwood, Nielsen and The Guess Who, the 2001 inductees include figure skater Kurt Browning, Inuit artist Ashevak, baseball player Ferguson Jenkins, sprinter Harry Jerome, actor/writer Robert Lepage, film director Ivan Reitman, polka king Walter Ostanek, ballet dancer Veronica Tennant and opera singer Teresa Stratas.

-- Winnipeg Sun/CP

The recently reunited Guess Who lead the list of confirmed performers so far at the 2001 Juno Awards, which are being held March 4 at Copps Coliseum in Hamilton.

Buzzed-about newcomer Nelly Furtado, boy band The Moffatts and R&B-pop act soulDecision are also on board to perform, and a special tribue to urban music is in the works.

The Junos are celebrating their 30th anniversary next year and Bruce Cockburn is the 2001 inductee into the Canadian Music Hall Of Fame.

Public tickets for the event, priced at $35 and $45, go on sale tomorrow at TicketMaster, the Copps Coliseum box office or can be charged by phone to 870-8000 or 905-546-4040.

Further to our speculation over a rumoured special appearance by The Guess Who at the El Mocambo next week, the group have confirmed a gig at the club for Monday, Dec. 4.

The Canadian rock icons' label, BMG/ViK, yesterday announced that the band will play a two-hour show upstairs at the El Mo, in support of their new double-live CD, Running Back Thru Canada, which hits stores Tuesday.

The show will also gather food donations for the Daily Bread Food Bank through an inventive ticket give-away scheme:

To get a chance to enter the show, fans are asked to bring a non-perishable food donation to the El Mo (464 Spadina Ave.) between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m.

According to BMG's press release yesterday, "With each donation (regardless of size or number of the donation), Daily Bread Food Bank volunteers will give the donor one numbered lottery ticket. Donors will also receive a $5-off coupon for a Running Back Thru Canada CD, redeemable at Tower Records."

Organizers will hold a random draw at the club at 6 p.m., giving away wristbands to 150 fans that will get them into the show. You must be present for the draw in order to win.

Doors open at 6:30 p.m., and no wristband holders will be admitted after 8 p.m. Show time is 9 p.m.

Running Back Thru Canada was recorded during The Guess Who's cross-Canada reunion tour last summer.

It's official: The Guess Who will perform at Toronto's El Mocambo nightclub on Monday (Dec. 4) to celebrate the release of their new live album.

The Canadian rock legends will perform a two-hour set at the club's upstairs lounge, starting at 9 p.m. Tickets will be awarded on a lottery system in conjunction with the Daily Bread Food Bank, the group announced in a press release Wednesday.

Lottery tickets for access to the show can be obtained by bringing a donation of non-perishable food to the El Mocambo (464 Spadina Ave.) between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. on the day of the show. For each item donated, fans will receive one lottery ticket. At 6 p.m., a random draw will be held and 150 fans will receive a wristband for the show.

Entrants must be present at the draw in order to win. The doors will open at 6:30 p.m. No wristband holders will be admitted after 8 p.m.

Every donor will also receive a $5 coupon for the group's double-live CD, "Running Back Thru Canada," redeemable at Tower Records.

As rumours of a secret club show swirl around Canadian rock legends The Guess Who, momentum is building to have the group inducted into the Cleveland-based Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.

This year's list of nominees for induction are to be announced some time within the next two weeks, but it's clear that The Guess Who are beginning to gain support -- if not from the institution, then at least from fans -- for induction into the Hall, which honours rock's greatest and most influential artists. Last month, the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper conducted an online poll asking readers to select from a list of likely candidates for consideration as inductees into the Rock Hall.

In early October, JAM! Music reported that an online petition, started by Ontario fan Fred Hinnegan, was calling on the Hall Of Fame to recognize The Guess Who; Cleveland-based fan Mark Chadbourne mobilized the group's fan-base to bombard the Plain Dealer's poll with write-in votes for The Guess Who.

Although Queen topped the Plain Dealer list, followed by Aerosmith, AC/DC, Bob Seger, Paul Simon, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Black Sabbath, The Guess Who won the write-in category by "a landslide margin," the paper reported last week.

What effect all this will have on the Hall Of Fame's selection process is open to question. The Plain Dealer's poll was unrelated to the actual voting. Artists are eligible for entry 25 years after the release of their first record, and nominees are selected by a panel "of rock and roll historians," based on "the influence and significance of the artist's contributions to the development and perpetuation of rock and roll."

Final voting is conducted by "an international voting body of about 1,000 rock experts," according to the Hall Of Fame. The organization's New York office said this year's nominees will be announced within the next two-and-a-half weeks.

But it's clear that without a groundswell of support from fans, induction for the group is even less likely, whether for 2001 or in the near future.

For their part, The Guess Who's Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings have indicated they would be honoured to be inducted.

"I'd love to be in there," Cummings told JAM! Music during The Guess Who's recent online chat.

"Of course we would be more than honoured. I hope to the rock and roll gods that someday we can get in there. I talked to one of the curators there, he asked us how many singles we had that charted on Billboard. I said 22, he said that was more than some of the inductees. So there's a chance."

"Runnin' Back Thru Canada," the live album drawn from the group's summer reunion tour, arrives in stores Dec. 5.

Rumblings about a December club date by The Guess Who are getting louder.

Two months after Burton Cummings told The Toronto Sun's Jane Stevenson that his band of Winnipeg Hall Of Famers wanted to "come back to Toronto and do something like the El Mocambo, the way it was in its heyday," word is on the street that they've booked a show there next week.

Tuesday marks the release of The Guess Who's new live album, Running Back Through Canada.

Neither the club, nor the band's label, BMG, would confirm the show.

The Guess Who's recent two-hour reunion concert special was just a taste of what fans can expect when the Canadian rock legends release a DVD early in the new year, Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings revealed in an exclusive online chat with JAM! Music.

Speaking to fans from around the world during Wednesday night's chat, The Guess Who's Bachman and Cummings revealed that the live concert broadcast by CBC last weekend will be enhanced with an array of extras when the DVD hits stores.

Responding to a question from fans, Cummings said the two-hour broadcast running time included commercial breaks, so several songs had to be cut from the group's set list. Those will likely be restored to the DVD, as well as extensive interview footage that was filmed but left unused, and some home videos the band shot during rehearsals and backstage.

"We're going to add some more cuts -- "Guns Guns Guns" -- some fabulous personal footage from the rehearsals. Scenes of Randy doing flamenco guitar," Cummings said.

"I also heard RCA (the group's original U.S. label) will go back to their archives, 'cause they shot some videos way back in 1969 and '70 in Winnipeg. The DVD is going to be way more than just the show," said Bachman.

"They've (RCA) also got some outtakes (from the videos), they've got all this stuff they're going back (into the archives) to get. There's even some CBC footage with us on snowmobiles."

"There's also a video of us doing "No Time" in a wheat field -- pretty cool," Cummings said.

Although the group filmed 70 episodes of the CBC music variety show "Let's Go" in the 1960s, most of those shows have been erased, so it's unlikely that anything more than the couple of surviving episodes could be included, Bachman said.

The chat ran for almost an hour and drew questions from across Canada, through the U.S. and from as far away as Bucharest and China. Cummings and Bachman were in good humor and spoke at length about everything from Cummings walk-out during tour rehearsals to the controversy surrounding original bassist Jim Kale's departure from the band prior to the reunion tour.

After a long absence from the concert stage, there's a flood of Guess Who releases expected in the coming months. Aside from the live album drawn from their summer reunion tour -- "Running Back Thru Canada," which arrives in stores Dec. 5 -- Buddha Records in the U.S. is reissuing some of The Guess Who's albums from the 1970s. Bachman also has a retrospective package pending that collects the group's pre-RCA material.

Cummings also revealed that plans are proceeding for a giant box set covering the group's entire career, to be released in the coming year.

"Hopefully we will have a huge deluxe box set," he said.

"The box would probably be four discs with a nice booklet. We've never really had that. There would be 100 cuts. I think, Randy would agree, it's about time ... The real fans, now that there's more focus on it, it's time to have all this on a huge package. There's such momentum around the band ... I'd look for the set in 2001."

And that might not be the only surprise the group has in store for fans.

When a fan wrote in to inquire about rumours of a small-club date to celebrate the live album's release next month, Cummings was coy.

"We can't really respond to that yet, 'cause it's not official," Cummings said with a laugh.

"There is some validity to the rumour, but location and time have not been chosen yet."