Music Before the Money

My very first novel, The Salient: A Novel of the Great War, was one I couldn’t stop writing because the story I based it on was so amazing. I originally began writing a story about my grandfather’s exploits and found myself immersed in the story of the 1st Canadian Division.Until 1914 Canada never had an army. It’s foreign policy was more or less dictated by Great Britain and Canada sent regiments to help out: The Crimean War, Boer War. In 1914, when war was declared, Canada raised an army of 15,000, around 12,000 combatants and 3,000 in other trades. Without going into great detail about the training the whole contingent was loaded onto 32 ships, the largest assembly since the Spanish Armada.

The Second Battle of Ypres - Richard Jack
The Canadian War Museum

After a cold, rainy winter on Salisbury Plain the still-green troops were shipped to France and then to Belgium by cattle car where they relieved British troops on the Ypres Salient, a peninsula of land stuck into the German line.

On April 22, 1915, the Germans unleashed the first massive gas attack in history destroying the French colonial line to the north of the Canadians. With suffering Algerians running through their ranks the Canadians didn’t know what was happening. Gassed and outnumbered the Canadians fought hand-to-hand against the massive German assault suffering sever casualties but holding out long enough for the British to finally realize was happening.

It was called the 2nd Battle of Ypres but many Canadians know it as “The Thermopylae of Canada.”  Four Victoria Crosses for valor were given out to Canadians after the battle but as Brigadier-General Arthur said , “They should have handed them out to our boys by the barrelful.”

When I was hired by the showband, Sensation, one of the criteria was that I had to play keyboard bass because they never had a full-time bass player. At the time it was common for band members to switch positions and many band leaders figured that bass was the least important of the instruments and could be given to whoever had a free hand - meaning me.

I couldn’t afford a MiniMoog - $1495 in 1979 dollars - so the music store guy talked me into a Korg MS-20. Unlike the Moog, which had three oscillators and a rich, wooden cabinet, the Korg came in black and to get the proper sounds you had to plug jacks into the phono plugs like a telephone operator.

After experimentation I got, what I thought was, a decent bass sound and froze the blueprints. I even copied the settings down in case they were knock off kilter during moves. The Korg MS-20 was a sister to the MS-10 Vocoder, which had a microphone so you could do those ’70’s electronic voices like the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica :”By your command!”

(Illustration from www.99music.se)

Our band leader had a MiniMoog and he had to tune the three oscillators at every break. Not me. The two oscillators on the Korg were tuned the first day I got it and - I checked - stayed in tune until the day it was stolen (Along with my Kustom 200 amplifier). The sounds that it generated were so good that there are digital recreations of the patches (sounds) on today’s synths. Korg has even reintroduced a modern version.

One of the memorable songs I played the bass on was Late in the Evening by Paul Simon. I have tapes of that band playing that song and the sound is amazing for “a cheap Japanese synth.”

When I was growing up one of the most vivid lines my parents used on me was “You are the company you keep.” Of course it went in one ear and out my mouth, like most things my parents said, but it must have got stuck on something because it would always come back to haunt me.In retrospect, I did a few things to countermand that saying.

First, when I was thirteen, I followed my best friend to the “dark side” to be with the ones who smoked and thought nothing of shoplifting because it wasn’t stealing it was “ripping off the man.” I have to confess that I’ve never shiplifted in my life but I saw them do it and stood by. Not that I wanted to snitch, but I shouldn’t have been there.

To explain this to my daughter I used a local example - made up - of her friends running into some people that she knew were not on the level in a convenience store. What if the owner saw one of them stealing and called the police. The cop is going to see a bunch of kids accused of shoplifting. He/she won’t try to sort things out there, it will be down at the police station and - as I explained to my daughter - “the best liar wins.”

To my knowledge I think the lecture worked. But this also happens in business and life in general. A good friend of mine was a stockbroker with a firm who made some underhanded deals. Although he never participated he took the “see no evil” approach and went about his legitimate business. One day the police came to his door and arrested him. He was fingerprinted along with everyone in his office and his workplace shut down. Not only was he charged with something he didn’t do (along with other innocent ones) he couldn’t work elsewhere in the business until his name was cleared. This took 6 months and lawyers’ fees. In the end he had to sell his house ot pay for the bill. I know because I bought his house for a fair market value and he was forevere grateful because it was in the mid ’80’s when real estate was at a standstill.

The news is filled with stories about youths charged with everything under the sun. And an underlying thread in almost every case is someone saying “but he’s really a good boy, he just got in with a bad crowd.” Yes and no. When we reach our teens we all know right from wrong. The gray areas come when we pick and choose from many shades of what we want to accept and the famous line: “It’s only wrong if we get caught.”

Fill you head with good material and choose your friends and acquaintances carefully. This is not to say that you have to jettison people you like but filter out any ideas they may have that keep you off the path chosen for you by your inner compass.