Chapter 36: Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Labatt’s Limousine, Returning to London

11:47pm, Friday, December 21, 1979

“I can’t believe you guys were able to simply jam out that Christmas song,” Stephanie exclaimed as we enjoyed some snacks and cokes in the back of the limousine after our concert in St. Thomas.

“Oh! Gawd! I was worried about playing it when you joked that you wanted to experiment with a Santa Claus is Coming to Town to the audience,” Wayne laughed with Eda tucked under his arm. “I was amazed at how well that came off ... man that was fun!”

“It was funny how the crowd called out in unison, ‘Start it over! Start it over!’ when we, when I flubbed the opening,” Lynette laughed, and then added, “I can’t believe I hit the wrong button on my keyboards and had the dang Hell’s Bells sound instead of Santa’s sleigh bells!”

“I just about peed in my short-shorts when I heard those gongs, Cano!” Lisa chuckled as she reached over Stephanie’s lap to smack Lynette’s track pants covered thigh.

I laughed at my friends words and then started to sing, “You better watch out, you better not cry. You better not pout, I’m telling you why...”

St. Thomas Civic Center, St. Thomas, Ontario

7:10pm, Friday, December 21, 1979

“Hey, guys!” Becca Greene, Todd Daymend’s girlfriend shouted as the Parkside Stampeder gang walked up to the stage area in the Civic Center. Todd and Erv Daymend, Erv’s girlfriend, Tiffany Leyshon, Adam Peawtrowski, his girlfriend, Nicole, and Nicole’s triplet sisters, Natasha and Nancy Duckworth all yelled or waved up at us.

“Hey, Stamps!” Lynette replied with a smile.

“You guys need a hand with those lights?” Erv asked in his booming deep voice.

“We can always use a strong arm or two,” Brad replied from his perch on the step ladder as he worked to clip the lighting bars to the Civic Center’s railing system.

Both Erv and Adam immediately jumped up on the stage to give Brad, Elizabeth and Zupena a hand with setting up the multi-colored light bars. Todd wasn’t able to help as he was limping noticeably from a minor ankle sprain. I could tell that Liz really appreciated the help as holding the thirty plus pound units over her head with Zupena, as Brad tried to secure them wasn’t the most fun thing to do. With six-five Erv, and six-three Zupena working together; Brad made quick work of leveling the horizontal lights and making sure the power and control connections were all completed.

Adam went back to give Wayne and Eda a hand with positioning E’s large bass drums and floor toms. Both guys chatted about our prior basketball game and our upcoming Christmas tournament games. Parkside, if Todd’s ankle was back to normal in a week’s time, would be a favorite to win the St. Thomas Civic tournament which was being held here at the Civic Center.

I heard Adam say, “I think Chatham Tecumseh is the only team that should give us a game, and they’re on the opposite side of the draw, so...”

“I’m not sure how we’ll do at the Purple and White,” Wayne replied with a smile. “All eight teams are good with Toronto Eastern Commerce being undefeated for the last two seasons.”

“Oh, crap! Eastern Commerce is coming down to London for the Purple and White?” Adam asked with a grin and head shake.

“Yeah! They’re on the opposite side of the draw from us,” I replied with a smile as I positioned my three guitars and two ukuleles on their stands in front of E’s drum kit.

“At least you won’t have to play them ‘till the finals,” Todd called from the front of the stage.

“We’ll have to get there, first,” Wayne laughed as he tightened up some wingnuts on E’s kit.

“Who do you play in the first round?” Erv asked.

“We’ve got Sarnia Northern in the first round. Then we’ll play either Clarke Road or Windsor Assumption in the second round, win or lose,” I replied.

“Assumption will be a tough game. I think they’re undefeated this season,” Todd replied with a grin.

“There are no gimmes in the Purple and White,” I laughed as I moved over to give Lisa a hug as she was putting together the wireless mic-stands and microphones.

“You guys will do fine, I’m sure,” Lisa added with a smile and hip-check.

I loved that Tempe and Shannon were sitting on the edge of the stage, and were chatting with Becca, Tiffany and the Duckworth triplets. I could half way make out that all of them, along with Natasha’s and Nancy’s two missing boyfriends, were going to doff their clothes to get the primo tickets to our NIS concert.

“We’ll have to get together at the front of the stage,” Tempe laughed as she nodded to Shannon and pointed to Zupena regarding their concert presence.

Shannon then turned towards us and asked, “We ARE going to be able to get right to the front of the stage, aren’t we?”

“I’m sure we can arrange it to make sure you guys have front center spots,” Lynette replied as she walked out from behind her keyboard system.

“You better!” Tempe laughed as she leaned back on the stage, and looked at us from an upside-down orientation. She then blew Cano an air-kiss.

Lisa saw that and immediately sank to her knees beside Tempe and planted a little kiss on the petite gymnast’s lips.

“Are you two gonna need a room?” Becca laughed as the Parkside girls watched Tempe wrap her arms around Lisa’s shoulders to prevent her escape.

“They will, we all will ... later!” Shannon laughed as she lightly smacked Tempe’s slightly exposed bare mid-riff.

After we all sound checked our instruments, we told our Parkside friends we’d catch up with them during the intermissions or after the concert. Just as we were about to close the stage’s curtains, I saw a couple of local camera crews setting up off to the side of the main dance floor. Just as Sammy pointed that out to Lisa, we saw a thirty-something lady and a forty-ish year-old guy walk to the front of the stage with microphones in their hands.

“Hey, guys! I’m Julie Whiteside from CFPL-TV here in London...”

“And I’m Jeff Moore from CKCO-TV in Kitchener,” the older gentleman said as the two reporters looked up at us from the front of the stage. “We were wondering if you had a minute to talk with us.”

I looked at Sammy and then to Lynette, who came back around from her keyboards. When Sammy gave me a touch to her watch, I said, “We’re about ready to start here, but if you’re good with waiting ‘till our first break, we’ll be glad to meet up with you.”

“That’s in about forty-five minutes to an hour, right?” Ms. Whiteside asked with a smile.

“Yeah, about fifty, fifty-five minutes,” Sammy replied.

Ms. Whiteside looked at the other reporter and said, “I’m good with that. Will you be able to get what you need and get back to Kitchener for your late news, Jeff?”

Mr. Moore looked at his watch and did a little mental calculation before he said, “That puts us around nine-ish, so ... yeah, I should be good to talk with you kids during your first break.”

“Okay, we’ll see you in an hour or so,” Sammy said with a smile.

Lynette touched my arm and whispered, “Are there any songs we don’t want shown on the news?”

I thought for a second on her question, and then said to the two reporters, “Can you please limit any video footage of our concert to songs that have been released, either on the radio or from our No Fear! album? We’d like to keep any unreleased songs semi-hidden for our upcoming concert.”

“What are you starting your concert with tonight?” Ms. Whiteside asked.

“We’re going to start with the three songs that were released to the radio, Danger Zone, I Hate Myself, and These Dreams,” I softly replied so the others near the front of the stage wouldn’t hear our show’s opening numbers.

“So, if we get some footage from any of those songs, we’ll be good?” Mr. Moore asked.

All four of us at the front of the stage nodded in reply to the CKCO reporter’s question. Only E stayed back from the stage’s front during this little conversation.

“That works for me, for us, as those are kick ass songs,” Ms. Whiteside laughed and shared a high-five with her media counterpart.

“Okay, we’ll get with you by that stage door after our first set,” Lynette said as she gave the reporters a small salute and pointed off to our right to indicate our exit point.

“Good luck with the show! I’m looking forward to hearing your first set,” Ms. Whiteside replied and then the two reporters headed back over towards their two cameramen.

As the curtains closed, the Civic Center’s booking agent, Mr. Schinkel came out to talk with us with a wired microphone in his hand. “Do you kids mind if I go on the other side of the curtains to introduce you to the crowd? I’d like to cover a few rules with them, like no cameras or recording devices, and that this is a non-alcoholic event.”

All of us gave him a positive nod and Sammy chuckled, “Just try not to get too long winded out there.”

“Oh, I’ll keep it brief as I’d much rather listen to you than talk to this rowdy crowd.”

When Mr. Schinkel slipped through the curtains, the auditorium’s lights went out and a couple of spotlights shone on the ‘M-C’, creating a shadowed outline on the curtain for us. As he was talking to the crowd about the Civic Center’s and concert’s rules, I turned to my bandmates and said, “You wanna mess with him?”

Lisa rubbed her hands together with glee and said, “Oh, don’t you know it.”

“Let me try something first to see how he responds, ‘kay?” I said. I then plucked out a few non-sense sounding notes on Silverburst, which Lynette halfway matched on her Yamaha keyboards.

Mr. Schinkel than said, “Well, it sounds like the band is almost set to begin.” After a pause he added, “Well, maybe not just yet, so again, no flash cameras and...”

Just as he was repeating his no camera rule, I nodded to Lisa, who immediately torn into the opening deep bass rift of Danger Zone. The crowd went ballistic at those opening notes, with the spotlights now dancing over the curtain as Mr. Schinkel laughed and hopped down from the stage. A loud popping sound came through the speakers as he turned off his microphone. The curtains slowly opened with the spotlights flashing across the fairly large Civic Center stage before they settled on me as I began to sing our first ‘number one hit radio song.’

After we played Life is a Lemon, which the crowd loved to sing along with ‘my answers’ to the Bandettes’ playful questions, especially the, ‘You can shove it up your ASS!’ line, I called Wayne up on the stage to play saxophone with us. He originally hemmed and hawed about doing it but once the crowd started to chant his name, Eda’s boyfriend hopped up onto the stage. Wayne killed the sax solo on our cover of Old Time Rock & Roll, and his low tenor vocals created a sweet harmony with my lead vocals. As a matter of fact, during our first break after we met with the TV reporters, Cano said we sounded great together, similar to having Paul’s deeper backing voice.

As Wayne was taking a well-earned bow for his saxophone playing and vocals on Old Time, I surprised everyone in the building, even my bandmates, by saying, “If we can get a Santa hat for each of us in the band, I think we might be able to come up with a little Christmas music for you.”

The look on Lisa’s face was priceless as she turned and exclaimed, “What are you doing, Mike?”

Sammy and Lynette started to laugh as about ten red and white Santa stocking caps and one Santa themed cowboy hat came flying up on the stage. As I bent over to pick up a few of the hats, I said, “Well, I hope my words don’t come back to bite me on the ass, but I think we should try to play something like this.” After I tossed a hat back to Eda and Lynette, I put on the red with white fur trimmed cowboy hat and played the intro music to my favorite Christmas song, Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

(Note: Santa Claus is Coming to Town was written by John Coots and Haven Gillespie in 1934. It was an instant hit, selling over 500,000 copies of sheet music within 24 hours. I’m basing my Time Bandettes’ version of SC-C-T after Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s cover of this Christmas classic.)

I wasn’t the least bit surprised when Sammy laughed out to the audience and said, “And you know we’ve never practiced or played this song before, right, Cuda?”

“You’re killing us, Mike!” Lisa chuckled as she came over to give me a kiss.

I turned back to Lynette and said, “Think you can generate some sleigh bells with your wonderful toy?”

“I’m sure I can, Santa Mike,” Cano laughed, pulled her Santa hat over her mane of blonde hair. She then flashed her fingers over the control panel on her Yamaha system.

I then winked at Wayne and said, “Have you been a good boy, Wayne, and practiced your saxophone real hard this year? You know Santa might get you a new one, if you were good?”

Wayne laughed at my words and played an awful sounding sax riff as his response.

“Oh, Baby! That doesn’t sound like you’ve been practicing at all!” Eda cried out and punctuated her statement with a drum roll and cymbal crash. That in turn inspired Wayne to tear into a killer ten second sax riff.

“Okay! Okay! Okay! Enough!” Sammy cried out, which set the audience to laughing at us.

I turned back to Lynette and asked, “Got them bells ready, Cano?”

She nodded at me and then hit a key, which generated the Hell’s Bells gong instead of Santa’s sleigh bells. The whole place erupted in laughter when Lynette cried out, “Oh! Crap! Wrong button!”

“Start it over! Start it over! Start it over!“ the packed out crowd yelled as Lynette turned bright red at her innocent mess up.

“I got it, now! And let me start this song off, Cuda,” Lynette said with a smile on her reddened face. She then had the sleigh bells going as she played a sweet piano introduction to this Christmas song on her keyboards.

As Lynette played her intro, I had a little fun with my bandmates and the crowd by asking them if they were on Santa’s naughty or nice list. We all laughed when we heard Erv’s deep voice shout from the front of the stage, “We know for a fact that you’re on his naughty list, Mike!”

“Yeah, but Cuda being naughty means that we have a lot of fun, too!” Lisa replied with a major grin on her face.

“Testify! Bricky! Testify!” Tempe yelled from her front of the stage position.

I simply shook my head and laughed before I regrouped to Lynette’s music to softly sing:

During the first verse, only Lynette’s piano and sleigh bells were playing in the background. I loved how Eda added a few well-placed snare drum strikes in the second verse, after my ‘list, twice, out and nice‘ words, to slightly up this song’s intensity. I looked between Sammy, Lisa and Wayne at the front of the stage before I started in with the next verse. With a nod, they all smiled and I knew they’d be joining in with their instruments at an appropriate moment in this song. I quickly pointed at Sammy’s microphone, to let Wayne know I wanted him to add his vocals to mine.

I then sang:

You better be good for goodness sake!” (Wayne echoed my previous line in a deeper than normal tone.)

With a nod of my head, Sammy, Lisa and Wayne all joined in with Lynette and E’s playing as I sang:

Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho!” (Sammy, Lisa and Lynette all sang these words in their best deep feminine voices.)

With perfect timing, Wayne put his sax to his lips and tore into a major fifteen second alto sax solo. I laughed as Sammy and Lisa slide on their knees to play-worship at Wayne’s side as he went to town in his best Clarence Clemons imitation.

As my friend was killing it at the front of the stage, I turned to Lynette and mouthed, ‘This is freakin’ wild.’

‘This is awesome, Cuda,’ my soul mate keyboardist mouthed back with a monster smile on her face.

Eda brought that solo to a close with a nifty drum riff, which led into my singing:

You better be good for goodness sake!” (Wayne again sang this in a deeper than normal tone.)

“Oh! You better watch out, you better not cry!

You better not pout! I’m telling you why!

Santa Claus! Is coming to town. (All of us sang the ‘Is coming to town’ lines in this section.)

Yeah! Santa Claus! Is coming to town.

Santa Claus is coming ... to town.“

We slowed the song down some with Wayne providing his deep, ‘Ho! Ho! Ho!’ voice to our ‘Santa Claus is coming to town,’ repeated lyrics. Only Eda played along with the sleigh bells for the first three repeats. Lisa timed her bass notes to her sister’s drums for the next three repeats, with Lynette and Sammy joining back in after that to up the volume and pace of the grand finale. For the first time in this song, I powered up my Silverburst to go with my powerful repeated title lines.

To end this rocking Christmas song, Lynette simply played a one finger ‘kids’ version of the melody on her piano with the sleigh bells. The crowd went wild as all six of us, Eda included moved out front and bowed in response to their loud ovation.

I took a quick glance at my watch and saw that it was eight-fifty-two, so I tapped it for the others to see. Sammy picked up on my meaning and said to the crowd, “We’re gonna take about a fifteen minute break to get a drink. You’ve been great and we’ll be back, shortly!”

As the curtain closed, we all laughed and hugged for a moment before the girls all ganged up on me, and playfully pounded my shoulders and back for doing that crazy stunt. “I can’t believe you did that to us, Mike!” Lisa cried as we walked to the stage’s exit.

“Hey, I just said, ‘What the hell!’ and figured we’d have fun pulling it off or muddlin’ our way through a fun piece of music. I liked our odds of pulling it off, though!”

“That was super fun, Cuda! Scary but fun!” Wayne said as he and E walked down the stairs to the main auditorium floor.

Both the CFPL and CKCO reporters and cameramen were waiting for us as we walked out from the stage stairs. Without any lead-up, Mr. Moore excitedly asked, “Please tell us we can use that Christmas song footage on our news shows tonight and tomorrow morning?”

“And you guys really had never practiced or played that song before? Unbelievable!” Ms. Whiteside quickly interjected as their cameramen filmed the beginning of this interview session.

Sammy and Lisa looked at me regarding Mr. Moore’s initial question. When I nodded to them, Sammy said, “You can definitely use any footage you’ve got from that song. I doubt we’ll be playing it at our upcoming NIS concert.”

“So, did you really, really never practice that song before?” Mr. Moore reiterated his colleague’s question.

“If we did, do you think I would have had that major screw up?” Lynette laughed in reply.

“That was hilarious, Cano!” Wayne chuckled with Eda wrapped up in his arms.

“Honest to God, I didn’t even have any idea about doing that song until I saw a few folks tossing their Santa hats around with one landing on the stage,” I said as an additional piece of information for the TV reporters. “Now, I love that song, so...”

“You just decided to run with it? Amazing!” Ms. Whiteside said with a negative head shake.

“Well, I think we treated that experience like we normally do at our rehearsals. We just play what we think will work and then tinker with it. Fortunately, we got all the tinkering down after my major league boo-boo to start the song,” Lynette chuckled.

“That was the first time I’ve done something like that with these guys, so it scared the crap out of me but it was super fun, as well,” Wayne added.

“Are you joining the Time Bandettes, Wayne?” Mr. Moore asked.

“No. I’m going to be playing with them at their concert but as part of our school’s seven-member Jazz Band.”

“Wayne, my boyfriend, will have a few sax solos, along with our former saxophonist, Jennifer Rathje,” E proudly said as she turned in his arms to give him a kiss.

We spent the rest of our fifteen minute break answering the two TV reporters’ questions. We appreciated that Shannon, Zupena and Tempe had brought over some waters for us to drink during our interview break. The two reporters and their cameramen thanked us for our time and said they would have their station managers send us a copy of their news segment on our band’s performance.

As they started to leave, Lynette begged them to not include that screw up in their segment. We all knew from the reporters laughing head shake that her request wasn’t going to be honored. “Gawd! I’m gonna die if they show that Hell’s Bells fuck up on TV,” our keyboardist laughingly whined as we made our way back up onto the Civic Center’s stage.

“That’s what makes these concerts super fun, Cano,” Lisa replied as she pulled Cano in for a hug.

“Yes, but you weren’t the one who screwed up, Bricky,” Lynette chuckled.

“But the crowd loved it and responded like champs, with their ‘Start it over,’ chant,” Eda added with a smile.

With our instruments ready to go, I simply asked, “Are we ready for some southern rock and blues?”

All the Time Bandettes gave me a nod. I then motioned to Brad at the stage’s curtain switch, and when he flipped the toggle, we broke out with our second set opener, Iron Man. We decided earlier to play our second set list from our Medway Halloween Dance performance. We made two changes to that list of songs, as we subbed Lynette’s humorous Quit Breaking Up With Me for her Halloween oriented song, Clap For the Wolfman. While she liked the long piano solo in Clap, Cano told us she’d rather do something she wrote in this concert. All of us felt it was good to get a feel for this new song prior to playing it during our NIS concert.

The other change we decided as we got ready to play this second set was to include our first ‘official’ single, All Summer Long in the slot prior to playing Sweet Home Alabama. Near the end of our combined CFPL and CKCO TV interview in that first intermission, Mr. Moore informed us that All Summer Long had entered the Canadian RPM music charts as the number eleven song earlier in the day. This was the highest entry in that music list since The Guess Who’s These Eyes, which entered that music chart at the number nine spot in 1969. That bit of news caused an excited Lisa to do her ‘running girl’ routine for a second time in St. Thomas.

We concluded our second set by spotlighting E’s incredible drumming and sweet vocals with YYZ and Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me. This was our first show with Eda’s extended YYZ drum solo where she was able to show off her new additions. The crowd loved her unique forty-five second cowbell, triangles, and glockenspiel work, which she wonderfully paired with her double-tap bass drum kicks.

We enjoyed getting together with the Parkside gang in our second fifteen minute intermission. All five of the girls, Becca, Tiffany, Nicole, Natasha and Nancy were super excited about being naked in the audience at our NIS concert. Todd, Erv and especially Adam were a little less thrilled with that prospect but the triplets let Adam know that their firm ‘Cs’ would be more on display than his lower ‘package’ in the crowded ‘naked stage area’.

“But with all that wonderful boobage and bare butts going on, that tightly packed stage area might lead to some unintended reactions, and consequently to some unexpected actions,” Adam said as meekly as a six-two, two-hundred and ten pound athlete possibly could.

“You just let me know, Baby, and I’ll take care of those unexpected actions for you,” Nicole said, at least I assumed it was Adam’s girlfriend, with a devilish grin on her face.

“What if you’re up on his shoulders, Nicky?” one of her identical sisters laughingly asked.

“Well, you know...” Nicole responded with a double eyebrow raise at her sisters.

“Ohhh, Natash, that sounds like as much of an invitation as we’ll ever get from Nicky,” Nancy squealed as she gripped her sister’s arm.

“Do you think they’ll allow us girls to get up on our guy’s shoulders at this concert?” Tiffany asked with a smile.

“If you’re on Erv’s shoulders, Tiff, you guys would block the view of half the crowd at the JLC,” Lynette said which caused all of us to bust out in laughter. Tiffany, Lynette and Sammy all shared high-fives after that clever, yet appropriate reply.

“I’m guessing if you guys are right up at the stage with my girls and our friends from Medway, that you won’t really need to get up on these guys’ shoulders,” I replied when things settled down some.

“Yeah, if we were a ways from the stage, I could see you girls getting on our shoulders, but not if we’re right up front,” Todd said with Becca’s back pulled tightly into his chest.

“You just wanna show off your Brick like boobs, Tiff,” Becca chuckled as she lightly popped her friend’s shoulder.

“My boobs are NOT in Brick’s league ... size wise!” Tiffany laughed as she reached over to lightly touch Lisa on her arm.

“Oh! Yes they are!” Erv chided his girlfriend, and used his forearm, which he had wrapped around Tiffany’s stomach to lightly lift her ‘D’ to ‘DD’ size breasts.

“They look like they’re as big as mine, but that might be because of your smaller body size,” Lisa laughed as she barely twisted her upper torso to set her full double-Ds in motion.

“How in the world did this little chat get together turn into a ‘boob referendum’?” I chuckled as I gave Todd, Erv, Adam, Wayne and Brad a small negative head shake.

“You guys like everything about our boobs, and don’t you dare deny it!” Elizabeth fired back in reply, which set our whole bunch back to laughing.

“Yes, Mikhail even likes my small krūtis,” Zupena deadpanned in her thick Latvian accent.

“Yeah! Zupi has perfectly formed boobs ... according to Mike!” Shannon laughed as she pretended to reach for Zupena’s left breast.

“Can we all just agree that boobs are the greatest thing since sliced bread, and then move on to some other topic,” Brad laughed.

“Well, I think what you are packing would rival sliced bread, but...” Natasha replied with a straight face.

“Oh! Please! Don’t go down that path, guys!” Todd cried and pressed his face into the top of Becca’s poofy hair.

“Yeah, let’s not venture down that road,” Elizabeth mercifully replied as she gave Brad a peck on his cheek.

“Well, you guys can keep on with whatever topic you wanna talk about, but we’ve got a third set to play,” Sammy laughed as she pulled Eda from out of Wayne’s arms.

“Thanks, Sammy,” I softly said and gave our redheaded bandmate a small wink.

The only new song we played in our third set was another Christmas song, which Sammy wrote at school after finishing our math exam. Sammy sang lead with the girls harmonizing on, (It Must Have Been ‘Ol) Santa Claus, with just E’s snare drum, my acoustic guitar and Wayne’s saxophone as backing music for this jazzy oriented Christmas tune. The crowd in St. Thomas loved this song as Sammy and the Bandettes sang:

“I think I saw ol’ Santa through my window Christmas eve.

My eyes were really droopy but I really do believe.
It must`ve been ol’ Santa, `cause I saw his big red hat.
And I know my mom and dad can’t fly like that, Oh no!”