After The Barnes Brothers I put together essentially two bands, both with the same musicians, one was bluesy/rock (Hogtown) and the other was a reggae style band named (Too Rude)
We switched drummers and now had Harvey Pipher along with the sax player from Audiomaster. Jim Heinman.
These two bands didn’t last that long either as Bob Haist decided to move to Vancouver Island and tune pianos.
While playing with the Barnes Brothers and then Hogtown/Too Rude I wrote a series of songs for a play called “Rumplestilzkin Busts Out”. The play itself couldn’t really work unless it was a full blown musical, which it wasn’t. I love the songs, though. This was my first real song writing gig. You can explore the songs etc by clicking the link above.
Here are a couple of photos from back then:
I also wrote a few new original songs which again can be accessed in “Songs and Videos” in “The Singles Album”. I bought an 8 track real-to-real recorder and started to record the early originals in two rooms of my house. This worked well for while but it became time to record for real.
So my friend and musician Jim Matheson spent 7 months constructing a 32 track analogue recording studio in my basement. It had a control room, a main recording room plus separate drum and vocal/sax rooms for separation.
I spent the next 17 years or so recording bands in Toronto. One of my early clients was a Toronto mainstay. We recorded three or four songs. I also joined the band as the bass player especially for a gig at the famous El Mocambo Club.
The Robbie Rox Band