I’ve played in bands for almost 20 years now. I was in a band before I even knew how to play an instrument. I’m sure learning an instrument first could have made the process easier only I would have missed out on a whole bunch of pathetic, pre-pubescent , rock & roll stories.

For years, I had known about my friend Steve Larocque being a guitar player. I was never that interested until the day that Steve went to his parents’ room and pulled his dad’s electric guitar and amplifier out of the closet. It was the first time, in my twelve years, that I had actually seen an electric guitar in person. A Sears Silvertone would have impressed me back then, but this was a 1965 Guild Starfire. It took me years to realize what a valuable, high quality instrument this was! Steve plugged it in, and I was blown away by the sound. Not only was it loud, but the amplifier had two really amazing knobs: reverb and tremolo. They made the guitar sound as if it was being played by a master, which I was sure it was. I was overwhelmed with a feeling that can only be compared to the first time I’d ever looked at a Playboy magazine: I felt like a naughty boy who desperately wanted something, even though I had no idea what I would do with it once I got it.

Steve tried to find some way for me to participate in his music thing. Once in a while he would play and I would join in, banging on the clear plastic top of his stereo. Steve would set up one microphone for him to sing into, and the other one would go under my makeshift drum. Hearing the resulting recording had me hooked! Steve and I were determined to form a band. We already had a name: The L.T. Connection; “L” for Larocque and “T” for Tanguay of course!

I had always wanted to be a drummer. When I was 10, I had asked my folks for some drums for Christmas. Imagine my dismay when I rushed to the tree only to find one of those crappy tin drum sets, complete with paper drum skins. Just to add to the disappointment, there was a picture of some cartoon drummer on the bass drum (I think it was Jughead from the Archies).

Steve’s dad was always showing us cool stuff on the guitar. He once even promised Steve a beer if he could learn this really complicated song. It was an Eddie Cramer song that was supposed to be played on the piano. You basically had to play two parts at once, but Steve figured it out after a couple months! Mr. Larocque showed us pictures of his old band, and played some pretty wild stuff on guitar (complete with Chuck Berry chicken walks.) I remember being so impressed by Mr.Larocque’s playing, that I told my dad that he played even better than Glen Campbell, though, probably not quite as well as Roy Clark.

The L.T. Connection wasn’t doing any real rehearsing at this time, because we had more important things to do. Steve’s older brother Phil had turned us onto the group Kiss. Steve and I thought our time would be much better spent if , instead of practicing, we came up with a really cool original look. We spent a good 2 hours after school each day, applying and re-applying make-up. We were so anxious to show off our “new” look that we went back to school once, just after a dance was getting out: Steve was playing guitar, and I was clapping and singing. People just looked at our makeup and said,” Hey, are you guys trying to be like Kiss or what?” I said: “No way man, we’re not like Kiss, we’re totally original. We’re the L.T. Connection. See Steve has a big L on his face, and I have a big T.”

Another Christmas came, and my parents got me a guitar, an acoustic guitar. They said that if I learned to play it, they would get me an electric one. Another guy in my class, Steve Benoit, got a real drum set that Christmas, and I was immediately ditched out of the L.T. Connection. [click here to see a really cool picture of Steve Benoit and his drums and one of me and Steve Larocque in all our 70s glory] I tried to figure out a way to get back into the group so I wrote 2 original songs: “Hey Black Lady” (a song about a white girl in my class who was dressed in black), and “The Streets of Toronto” (a song about wandering about Toronto, with “something in the air”). I told Steve Larocque that doing originals was the way to go for us to make it big. I also came up with a new name, and better yet, a bitchin’ logo for the group! We would be called Thunderbolt. The two Steves loved the idea and I was back in the band!

Mr. Laroque was always joking around; He said that the name Thunderbolt stunk. He suggested the name La Rock Group , but we just sluffed him off. Still, he persisted. The Punk Rock thing was just starting to happen at this time, so Steve’s dad also had a gag name for us. He even drew up a little poster.

Around this time, some other guys at school also planned to start a band. They were going to be called Red Lucifer. They also had a really cool logo. None of these guys actually played any thing, but that hardly mattered, ‘cause these were the cool guys. In spite of these guys not even owning musical equipment, they quickly became the favourite group at Hawthorne Public. After about a month, Red Lucifer decided to change their name to Blue Sazzik. We also changed our name. We were now called XYLO, (and had another cool logo), but I hated the name. In true Spinal Tap fashion, I thought we should just take the name Red Lucifer, since it was no longer being used, but Steve Benoit said no! If we were changing our name again, we were changing it back to Thunderbolt. So that’s what we did.

We were always trying to find a place in our band for some of our other friends. Benoit and I convinced a friend of ours, Thomas, to play bass. We told him to take Strings in grade 9 (the next year) so that he could have access to a stand up bass. We even told him that we would get him an electric bass, so we went about building one. Benoit had an old acoustic guitar that we figured could easily be turned into a bass. We looked at an album cover and saw that basses only had 4 strings. No problem! We sawed off 2 tuning pegs. We also noticed that basses were only about 1 and a half inches thick. No problem! We sawed the body of the guitar in half depthwise. Now the guitar had no back; We’d take care of that later. We then set about making it electric by taping a Mic. to the body of the guitar. We knew that bass strings were fat, so we filed the holes of the tuning pegs to make them bigger. We also filed the slots of the nut and the bridge. It was time to put bass strings on it. Needless to say, the cut-up guitar folded-up like a lawn chair the second we tightened up the strings. Sorry Thomas. Don’t worry, we’ll Mic. the stand-up bass.

About 3 months into our first year of high school, it became obvious that Thomas had no affinity for the bass, or music in general. He wasn’t allowed to take the bass home on weekends, because he was failing music. Oh well, too bad: “Yer out of the band!”.

I was now playing an electric guitar. It was my sister’s boyfriend, Doug’s; he’d bought it but, after a few days of not being able to figure it out, loaned it to me (forever). We also quickly found a replacement for Thomas: Benoit met a guy in his class named Corey Bretz who played guitar and invited him to come jam with us. Larocque immediately despised Corey, so we figured that that was the end of that. It was obvious that we couldn’t be in a band with the two of them. Larocque left that jam early, and it was then that Corey pulled out something that neither Benoit nor I had ever seen before. Corey called it a fuzz box. Immediately, he was transformed into some guitar god, the likes of which we had never heard before. Larocque hadn’t a chance; reverb and tremolo couldn’t compete. While Steve did have loads of talent, and seniority, and the respect due to him as leader of our band, he didn’t have what Corey had. The Electro Harmonix Little Big Muff Distortion pedal. So long Larocque! At this time it was felt that Thunderbolt should change its name. My sisters boyfriend, Doug, was really into Black Sabbath so I suggested the name Paranoid from one of their albums. So it was. We were now Paranoid. I told this to my Gramma’s friend Margaret, and she said that she thought Paranoid was a horrible name. “Why don’t you guys call yourselves the Maple Leafs?” she asked. I told her that we couldn’t call ourselves that, because it was already taken by the hockey team. Copyright stuff y’know.

Paranoid, with Corey, was my first true band. We spent our practice time actually learning songs. Since neither Benoit nor I were friends with Corey, we didn’t just fool around when we got together, we played. Corey wrote a few songs, like the “Paranoid theme” and some lame ass ballads that he wanted a girl in our class to sing. Just awful. He also taught us a couple of covers; “Rhinestone Cowboy” (for his folks), and the Doobie Brothers’ “China Grove”. It was during this time that I, and Benoit, figured out that while we had an instinctual feel for songs, Corey did not. He was hopelessly off-time, all of the time. He blamed our inability to follow him on “China Grove” on the so-called “very tricky Doobie Brothers timing” that he was doing. We didn’t buy it and he knew it. He tried to impress us by installing his fuzz box into his guitar. Big whoop!! The fuzz box was now old hat; Corey was a lame one- trick guitarist and would have to go. Just when Benoit and I were about to give him the boot, he let us off the hook by telling us that his family was moving. We didn’t have to kick him out of the band, he was leaving voluntarily!

Larocque was now back in the band. With a couple months of intense jamming under my belt, I became good enough to consider myself the lead guitarist . Larocque didn’t mind because he never “riffed out” when he was in Thunderbolt with us anyway. Corey had yet to move away, and once dropped by my garage to watch us jam. “Not bad!”, he said, “For a band without a fuzz box!”. Larocque still hated the guy, and said something like, “Piss off, ya Hyme!” Hyme was our word for nerd, after Hymie from Get Smart. It wasn’t meant as a racial slur, though it could have been taken that way, Corey being Jewish and all.

During the time Corey was in the band, Larocque and I still hung out and tried to learn some of the Kiss tricks, like spitting blood and fire. Steve was fooling around in his bathroom, one day, when he put mineral oil and rubbing alcohol on his hands. He lit it on fire, and found out that the combination of the two liquids let him ignite his hands, without feeling any pain. I desperately wanted to get Steve back in the band, so that this flaming hands bit could become a major part of our stage show. I succeeded and, once he was back in the band, we did a show in my garage; about 10 kids from the neighborhood came to watch... Steve did the burning hands trick during one of the songs. Unfortunately, he thought he could pre-mix the two liquids and still not feel any heat. No dice! It was quite funny though, Steve lighting up his hands, feeling intense pain, then frantically smacking them against the cement floor to put out the fire. All the while, the kids yelled, ”Fake...Fake!!!” Only it wasn’t, Steve actually got a couple of blisters on his hands. We had to cut our five-song-set short, and went straight to the encore. Benoit played a beat, while Steve and I rested our guitars against our amps, letting them do something called feedback. It was our latest discovery!

Our big gig in my garage was the last time we played that summer. I went off to England with my folks, Larocque went to his cottage (he was bringing his guitar, amp, and brand new fuzz box with him), and Benoit was staying in town to plan our next big move!

March 1997

J. Tanguay