TREAT ME LIKE DIRT: AN ORAL HISTORY OF PUNK IN TORONTO AND BEYOND 1977-1981

TREAT ME LIKE DIRT: AN ORAL HISTORY OF PUNK IN TORONTO AND BEYOND 1977-1981
Liz Worth
Bongo Beat 2010 http://bongobeat.com

Most of you have probably read, or at least heard of the book “Please Kill Me, The Uncensored Oral History of Punk” by Punk Magazine scribe Legs McNeil. Well now there’s a similar book just out, detailing the Toronto and area punk scene: “Treat Me Like Dirt, An Oral History Of Punk In Toronto and Beyond 1977-1981” by Toronto author Liz Worth. The title sums it up. (Incidentally the title is the chorus of a Simply Saucer song, Bullet Proof Nothing, see the interview w/ Edgar Breau of SS in MZ # 6.)

Beaming you back in time to the beginnings of the punk rock scene in Toronto, Hamilton, and London Ontario the book takes you from the very first inklings of the Toronto punk scene: the movie theatre showings that eventually became a meeting place for many of the original band members, and even the first place The Ramones played in Canada. Everything from the Toronto art scene and its early influence, to the clubs to the record stores to the punk houses to the speakeasies to anything else to do with the scene is covered in this book.

There’s a full timeline for bands The Diodes, The Viletones, Simply Saucer, The Ugly, Teenage Head, The Curse, The Forgotten Rebels, and to a lesser extent The Demics, The Poles, and The Secrets. The majority of the members still alive from the above mentioned bands are interviewed as well as some of their girl/boyfriends, fans, and some of the movers and shakers behind the scenes. All of the bands are covered in more gritty detail than you could possibly imagine and some of these details came to light for the first time (as was mentioned by both the publisher Ralph Alfonso and editor and Mongrel Zine contributor Gary Pig Gold). Author Liz Worth did an excellent job interviewing all of these people, you get the feeling that you’re listening to the people talk directly to you as you read through the almost 400 pages. Personalities come to light, some good, others not so much and you can understand why certain things happened or didn’t due to some of these traits.

To make it easy, there’s a listing of all of the people interviewed and their contributions (band member, manager, fan, etc) at the beginning of the book. You’ll find yourself referring back to this multiple times as there are so many people involved in the stories.

And not all of the stories included here have happy endings as they are true life stories. Drugs, alcohol, rivalries, violence, egos, and other factors all come in to play as we’re taken through the lives of the many band members. But the saddest to me was that of Teenage Head vocalist Frankie Venom, who is featured throughout the book and passed away before the book was finally published.

Also included in the book are lots of small black and white candid photos of not only the bands, but many of the other people that are interviewed as well as relevant places. Very few of these pictures have seen the light of day since taken many years ago.

Obviously in a book like this, not every band can get covered to their liking. Some of the bands that I noticed that were barely mentioned or overlooked completely were The Battered Wives (actually a couple of bands referred to them as older and scene jumpers), The Scenics (see interview in MZ #2), The Government, Tyranna, Slander, and The Allies to mention a few. That’s a minor point, but interestingly enough, there’s several people now working on a Toronto punk rock band tree due to them not being included in this book. And that’s great because now even more information about that era is going to surface and maybe even more unreleased recordings! We can only hope so because in my humble opinion, some of the best music to ever come out of Canada came out in this era. Paul Robinson, vocalist for The Diodes best summed it up in the book, “Thirty years later it’s still one of the most important movements in music. It’s maybe one of five seminal movements in modern music. I think it did change things. You wouldn’t see the things that you see today without the influence of punk.”

I talked to Liz at length about the book and asked her if there was any chance she would do a second book that would carry on from where this book left off. Liz answered that she spent 2 years of her life totally immersed in the creation of this book and at this point in time she didn’t think so. If someone else wanted the workload, she wouldn’t mind, but no doors are closed at this time. We can only hope that a second edition that covers the later scene will come out some day. And also a book or books on some of the other major punk scenes from Canada…we definitely need one on Vancouver!

Overall a great read that’ll give you an insight into the Toronto and area punk scene and will whet your appetite to hear some of the amazing sounds that were created in that era.

And the neat thing about this book is that you can open it just about anywhere and start reading a chapter as each is a short story in its own right. That’s the way I started to read the book as I just had to get the full story on my hometown heroes The Demics. And their whole story is here with loads of landmarks from London that are long gone but sure kindled my memory! After that I had to read the entire book, in fact I couldn’t put it down once I started. Highly recommended for anyone with any interest in the beginnings of late 70’s Canadian punk rock!!! (Dave O’Halloran)

THIS REVIEW ORIGINALLY RAN IN MONGREL ZINE #8. BUY IT HERE

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