Long Board Blues
In the summer of 1998, I was in the process of recording my first record album.
I was signed to ‘Amato Disco’ and had to travel down to London for recording sessions. Meanwhile, my partner was becoming frustrated with living in rural Herefordhsire, so I suggested she take ‘time out’ and join a friend who was about to explore Canada after finishing University.
Contact was extremely difficult due to the vast distance between us, there were no mobile phones and no permanent address. After a couple of weeks I really missed her company and asked if I could join them, I’d probably not been the best boyfriend leading up to that time and was completely engrossed in my music so I considered myself lucky when the answer eventually came back “Yes”.
I managed to quickly scrape together the cash, and within a week, the tickets were bought, passport renewed and backpack borrowed from my brother.
Hawkwind & The Wrong Backpack
Silver Machine
On the flight across, members of legendary space-rock band ‘Hawkwind’ were on the flight, and their groupies were getting drunk. We chatted about how I’d seen their tape reels when working at Rockfield Studios, and I handed them a demo tape of a friend’s band.
We touched down in Toronto and I helped an elderly lady with her luggage off the carousel, spotting my bag I heaved it onto my back and set off. The coach soon departed for the city centre, I was greeted with cross town traffic, bumper to bumper.
The wide busy lanes reached out to the impressive hazy skyscraper horizon. I alighted at the busy downtown district and, racing through busy streets of suited office workers, with my heavy backpack on, beads of sweat dripped from my forehead. Would I make the last train to Montreal to meet my partner? She was keen to move on and I had no ‘plan B’ if we didn’t meet.
I missed the last train.. and the last bus. I resigned myself to catching the midnight coach and left a message with my partner’s youth hostel to inform her of the delay.
At the ticket office, I reached into the backpack to retrieve my wallet, but in its place there was a beige bikini top? It was an identical bag but with a Maple Leaf sewn on to the front – the thing had been on my back since the Airport..
Old Montreal
I had collected someone else’s backpack!
Luckily, I had several hours before my new departure time, enough time to travel back to the terminal and swap it for the right one. As I approached lost property, I was unnerved to see Hawkwind waiting there, thankfully not for the bag I had picked up. The band’s guitars had gone missing.
Montreal
I finally caught my midnight bus, and I awoke to a huge and intense sunrise as we cruised into the Montreal suburbs. I flicked through the radio stations on my Walkman for company, and as daylight broke, the neon signs blurred through the misty windows of the coach.
I’d finally made it, but my thoughts were now focused on whether my partner would be waiting at the station.
Montreal Sunset
To my great relief, my partner arrived at the bus station with a large smile, it was such a relief to see her standing there. We then began the short walk back to the youth hostel.
The hostel was a basement of a hotel, and as I descended into the darkness of the male dorm, a smell of sweaty feet and ‘other odours’ overwhelmed me. Bodies lay beneath a stillness of bed sheets in the crisp Canadian heat. My first job was to open a tiny window hidden behind security bars; the morning sunlight, and warm summer air, christened the stale fausty room!
The streets were full of French influenced architecture, it really did feel quite European in the suburb we stayed in. The French speaking people were warm and friendly, they seemed interested in the English music scene.
Heatwave
We toured bars and clubs at night, from dingy rock venues to dodgy hip hop joints, where the local rude-boys carried walking sticks and danced around them.
Jello Jazz Bar
We visited some funky bars, playing cutting edge house music and drum & bass! Montreal is a diverse musical city. Rockefeller Skank by ‘Fatboy Slim’ had just been released and it could be heard everywhere.
We toured the city by day, sampling crepes and sipping coffee at the foot of skyscrapers, we walked parks and viewed the city from up high. But time was passing, and we decided to head back to Toronto.
