#1205: Sandra by Idle Eyes
Peak Month: October 1986
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #16
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Sandra”
Lyrics: “Sandra”
Tad Campbell was born in Vancouver (BC). After high school he found himself in Australia moonlighting for a band called the Daydream Islanders between shifts while working for a luxury liner that cruised around parts of the continent. In 1980 he replied to an ad looking for a guitarist, and ended up with the band playing for months at a resort in the Whitsunday Islands. A chambermaid at a hotel Campbell knew, Donna McConville, became the bands’ lead singer. Though they had other Australian musicians in the line-up, when Campbell and McConville decided to move to Vancouver, the other bandmates chose not to follow. Back in Vancouver the pair got a new lineup and called themselves Idle Eyes. But the lineup kept changing. Tad Campbell recalls that “their first tour was cancelled when the drummer backed out the day they were supposed to leave.” Part of the problem was that Idle Eyes was made up almost entirely of bandmates from New Zealand and Australia who had visa issues. Eventually, Donna McConville returned to Australia and became a backing singer for John Farnham.
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#294: I’m Still Searching by Glass Tiger
Peak Month: May-June 1988
14 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #31
YouTube: “I’m Still Searching”
Lyrics: “I’m Still Searching”
Discovered in the summer of 1984 when a band from Newmarket, Ontario called Tokyo spent two evenings performing before capacity crowds at Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens opening for Boy George and Culture Club. Their dynamic original sound captured the moment, and the race to sign them was on. Tokyo, which had become a major force in suburban high schools and the Ontario club circuit, officially became Glass Tiger early the following year when a record deal was finally signed with Capitol Records. The band consisted of Alan Frew on vocals and guitar, Sam Reid on keyboards, Al Connelly on guitar, Wayne Parker on bass and Michael Hanson on drums.
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#301: If I Had $1000000 by the Barenaked Ladies
Peak Month: February 1993
15 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “If I Had $1000000”
Lyrics: “If I Had $10000000”
Lloyd Edward Elwyn “Ed” Robertson was born in Scarborough, Ontario, in 1970. He began to play guitar when he was in grade five. Steven Jay Page was also born in Scarborough in 1970. He took piano lessons for ten years and was a member of the Toronto Mendelssohn Youth Choir. Page and Robertson crossed paths in elementary school. But they didn’t become friends until 1988 when they found themselves co-counsellors at a summer Scarborough Schools Music Camp. Later that year there was a charity and Robertson asked Page to join him in a performance. The duo named themselves the Barenaked Ladies.
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#303: Armageddon by Prism
Peak Month: September 1979
15 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Armageddon”
Lyrics: “Armageddon”
In 1967 a new rock group appeared on the Vancouver scene called the Seeds of Time. They had several local hits including “My Home Town” and “Crying The Blues”. There were a number of lineup changes, but the bands personnel included drummer Rocket Norton, guitarist Lindsay Mitchell, and bassist Al Harlow. These three reunited after the Seeds of Time disbanded in 1974. After a brief stint as an R&B band called Sunshyne, they became Prism under Lindsay Mitchell’s initiative. In the band were new singer Ron Tabak, bassist Tom Lavin, keyboard player John Hall and drummer Rodney Higgs. Higgs was actually a pseudonym for Jim Vallance, the future songwriting partner of Bryan Adams. The band released a self-titled album in 1977 that included two local singles “Take Me To The Kaptin” and “It’s Over”. Anther single, “Spaceship Superstar”, made the Top Ten in Ottawa, Hamilton and London (ON) in the winter of 1977-78.
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#367: Hand Me Down World by the Guess Who
Peak Month: August 1970
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKVN chart
1 week Preview
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #17
YouTube: “Hand Me Down World”
Lyrics: “Hand Me Down World”
Randolph Charles Bachman was born in 1943 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. When he was just three years old he entered the King of the Saddle singing contest on CKY radio, Manitoba’s first radio station that began in 1923. Bachman won the contest. When he turned five years he began to study the violin through the Royal Toronto Conservatory. Though he couldn’t read music, he was able to play anything once he heard it. He dropped out of high school and subsequently a business administration program in college. He co-founded a Winnipeg band called Al & The Silvertones with Chad Allan in 1960.
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#305: (Boogie Woogie) Dancin’ Shoes by Claudia Barry
Peak Month: December 1978
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
1 week Playlist
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #56
YouTube: “(Boogie Woogie) Dancin’ Shoes”
Lyrics: “(Boogie Woogie) Dancin’ Shoes”
Claudja Barry was born in Jamaica in 1952. At the age of six, Barry and her family emigrated from to Canada and settled in Scarborough, Ontario. From an early age she was inspired by the music of Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra and Nat “King” Cole. In her mid-teens she began to take vocal lessons and started dancing. In an interview on Extraordinary Women TV in 2013, Barry relates that after graduation from high school, she travelled to Europe to study classical voice. It was there that she got cast in the musical Hair. Subsequently, she was cast in in a production of Catch My Soul which toured Europe in 1974-75. The rock musical is an adaption of Shakespeare’s Othello. In the spring of ’75 she ended up in West Germany. That same year she signed with Hot Foot label and released a single called “Reggae Bump”. In 1976 she released her debut album Sweet Dynamite.
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#1211: Deep Kiss by Mitsou
Peak Month: October 1992
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #19
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Deep Kiss”
In 1970 Mitsou Annie Marie Gélinas was born in Loretteville, Quebec. (The city amalgamated into Quebec City in 2002). She became a child star on French-Canadian television. Canadianbands.com states that she first began acting at age five. She began appearing in the soap opera Terre humaine, which first aired in 1978. The soap opera concerned the lives of the Jacquemins, a large farming family in rural Quebec. In addition to acting, Mitsou also started to explore singing as a vocation in the early 80s. In 1988 she signed a record deal with Isba Records. Her debut single, “Bye Bye Mon Cowboy” was an unusual French-language crossover into the English Top 40 radio market across Canada. The song spent five weeks on the CKLG Top 40 in the summer of 1989, after peaking at #2 in Montreal in 1988.
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#1199: She La by 54-40
Peak Month: September 1992
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #18
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “She La”
Lyrics: “She La”
54-40 is a band from Tsawwassen, British Columbia. Bass player Brad Merritt teamed up with guitarist and vocalist Neil Osbourne had met at South Delta High School in Tsawwassen in 1978. In 1981 they decided to form a band and asked drummer, Ian Franey, to join them. Neil Osbourne’s father had a position with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Consequently, the family moved as Osbourne’s dad got new postings variously from Regina, rural Nova Scotia, Ottawa, Edmonton and finally Tsawwassen. Ian Franey’s father was the director of the Vancouver International Film Festival.
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#320: Be My Baby by Andy Kim
Peak Month: December 1970
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #2
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #17
YouTube: “Be My Baby”
Lyrics: “Be My Baby”
Andy Kim’s father came from Lebanon to Pennsylvania and finally settled in Montreal, where Kim was born in December 1946. Around the age of 15 Andrew Youakimm became fascinated with the music business in New York City. He’d travel from Montreal to the Big Apple by bus or train and try to figure out how to break into the music industry. He bought copies of Billboard Magazine, Cashbox Magazine and other trade papers to see which record companies had hits on the pop charts.
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#1150: Don’t Stop Now by Love & Sas
Peak Month: August 1992
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position ~ #15
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Don’t Stop Now”
Love & Sas was a recording duo comprised of Lovena Fox and Saskia Garel. Lovena B. Fox was born and raised in Vancouver. Her father owned a jazz club on Hastings Street called the Harlem Nocturne. Saskia Garel was born in 1969 in Kingston, Jamaica. She came to Canada in her early childhood, settling in Toronto. After graduating from York University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Honours Degree, she was awarded the Oscar Peterson Award. While at university, Saskia was part of a Latin and world beat group called Coconut Groove. She also performed at nightclubs across Toronto.
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