#843: Flippin’ To The A Side by Cats Can Fly
Peak Month: April 1986
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #9
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Flippin’ To The A Side”
Lyrics: “Flippin’ To The A Side”
The bandmates for Cats Can Fly were a Elia Junior high school band from North York, Ontario. When they formed in 1971, initially they went by the name of Ethos. Alan Frizell and Jim Longmuir both played guitar, Frank Miller played drums and the bass player was Peter Steele. Peter Alexander, of Canadianbands.com, writes that Ethos was “formed under the supervision of the School Board” under Laura Lapedus. Upon graduation, Ethos played in local bars as a house band. When they discovered an American band also went by the name of Ethos, they changed their name to Scamp. They went on tour as an opening act for Burton Cummings in the latter part of the 70’s. At the end of the decade they won the CFTR Talent Search. A record project with Nimbus 9 Records faltered in the early 80’s. They had a number of lineup changes by the time they renamed themselves Cats Can Fly. At this point the only original member of the band was Peter Steele, whose stage name was now Peter Alexander. The other band members were drummer Eddie Zeeman, bass player David Ashley and guitar player James Mitchell. Peter Alexander, who had originally been the bass player for Ethos, was now playing keyboards.