Above and below: Bad Connection, January 1986
Agent X / Bad Connection
It all started off in Montreal with Agent X, a ska band of course, in the fall of 1985. We renamed ourselves Bad Connection in early 1986 and ended up playing two shows during our short stint: one at some McGill University function in a loft up three flights of very steep and very rickety stairs with no elevator; how we got all those heavy amps and equipment up there I don't even want to remember! And one at a real night club (Station 10, now defunct).
Agent X / Bad Connection included Neil Atkinson on lead guitar and vocals (he went off to British Colombia in mid-1985 and was never heard from again); Natasha Clayton on bass (she later played in a band called Two Men Laughing, but after that I lost track); Jimmy Spencer on drums (he was in several bands, before, during and after Bad Connection: Two Men Laughing (but interestingly enough, not at the same time as Natasha) and Sons of the Desert, whom you might have heard of as they toured extensively throughout Canada and the States); and me on rhythm guitar, keyboards and vocals.
The first four shots below were all taken during Bad Connection's live gig in February 1986 - the one in the loft with the rickety stairs. I'm the one with the weird-looking headband. I thought it looked cool. I was wrong.
Above and below: Bad Connection, January 1986
Bob's Your Uncle
During the summer and early fall of 1985, I picked up the bass and played for a while with a pop/punk/ska outfit calling themselves Bob's Your Uncle (and, yes, I've seen more than one other band since then going by that very same name...)
It was fun, but no live shows resulted; too bad, 'cuz those were great guys to play music with! Let's see if I can remember the names: Patrick Hutchinson on guitar and vocals; Neil something or other on lead guitar; but my failing memory cannot come up with the names of the drummer and organist...the pains of growing old and forgetful...
I sure can remember the rehearsal place, however: a condemned, near-demolished, falling-apart building with partially boarded-up doors and a blitzkreiged bathroom with only one intact piece of porcelain - the sink - which meant that only the guys could use it! None of the rehearsal places I'd ever had the misfortune to frequent would ever win any awards for cleanliness or architectural excellence, believe me, but this particular one was damn near putrid, even by the low standards of typical local bands with no cash...smelly, filthy, vermin-infested. Nuf said.
Bad Connection / The MOB Then, during the fall of 1986, during my first year at Concordia University, I joined up with a few friends and we decided to resurrect Bad Connection after we recorded Misfit at Concordia's recording studios. This new lineup included Jonh Acensio on bass and vocals (he played in tons of bands, including The Syndicate, Diatribe and The Doughboys as Jonh Bond Head ... yes, those Doughboys! Yes, I do know some very famous people...); Keir Keightly on keyboards (he played briefly in another band called Vlad and the Impalers; he went on to finish a PhD in Communication Studies and I believe that he now teaches at University of Western Ontario); Nigel Goddard on sax and vocals (he used to play in both the Swinging Relatives and Top Ranking, both well-known ska band in Montreal); PJ Kennedy on drums; and yours truly on rhythm guitar and vocals.
This was my favorite band! We renamed ourselves The MOB before our first show, as it really wasn't Bad Connection anymore. (At first, our name as MOSB, which was supposed to be an acronym for "Montreal's Other Ska Band" - the Swinging Relatives being the first and foremost - but it wasn't long before "MOSB" morphed into "The MOB" ... which really was a much better name...) These guys were a ton of fun, and we ended up playing several shows to a packed house at Station 10 as well as our swan song concert at the Montreal New Music Festival in the spring of 1987.
Keir was one of the main reasons we did so well for such a little local ska band; he was a real tyrant when it came to practicing. He made us all get up early on Saturday mornings and take the bus way out to his parents' place in the Waste Island (Pointe Claire) to practice for hours in the basement. It was almost like work. He told us that if we were going to play live we weren't going to embarrass ourselves (or him) - so we'd better keep practicing! At first, drummer Peter John and I kept losing the beat, so Keir came up the brilliant idea of us following Jonh, the bassist, who was so good he was like a metronome.
After our three live shows, Jonh got seriously involved with the Doughboys and Keir with his studies, and we just never played anymore...except once in early 1991, when four of us tried getting together for a rehearsal -- and it was fun, but it just wasn't the same anymore.
The poster for the Station 10 show (an original creation à la Jonh)...
And two shots taken during the New Music Festival (April 1987, McGill University Ballroom)
The Vee Gates
And lastly came the Vee Gates. François ("Instruments are meant to be killed not caressed") Dubeau on gee-tar, Dan Schwartz on drums, Peter Forrest on vocals, and me - Rockin Rina - on bass. I remember great, rockin' tunes with nifty bass-lines and a live performance at Marianopolis College (Montreal) in April of 1988. And that concludes my career as a musician!
Now you find out lots more about the Vee Gates at the Vee Gates Archive!
Last updated October 29, 2004