I'm Damn Pretty Angry, and it's no good to shout

Nothing new in town worth blogging about. Until Barney Rubble has a challenger for Ward 3, I'm not even going to touch that dinosaur egg.

So here's the latest offering of 'Drysdale's Ditherings' from Beat magazine.

In his role as Master of Ceremonies for 'The London Songbook - Volume 2,' a concert at Museum London, January 20th, James Reaney Jr. has offered to use his influence to see that "London's coolest song" hopefully makes it onto that evening's set-list as chosen by representatives of the London-Middlesex Historical Society.

Through his blog on the London Free Press web-site, young James is requesting suggestions on the coolest tune to ever come out of the Forest City - or song related to anyone who has ever come out of this town. Any Guy at all.

There are the obvious choices. 'Africa' by Thundermug was a bona-fide chart-topper across North America in 1972. There are international successes - any 'alternative' local band played on CHRW in the past thirty years has at least one demo that was "big in Holland." There are London-area specific songs like 'I Spotted Elvis at the Western Fair,' by Jim Chapman; U.I.C's 'Crop Dustin' about the gravel runs around Exeter. Or the radio jingle for Tiger Jacks Sports Bar. And tunes which have their origins here but speak to a larger universe in scope and theme - like 'Horizontal Hold' by 63 Monroe or Condo Christ's 'Weekend Alcoholic.'

There's no shortage of songs to choose from - but I'd like to put in a plug for 'Shoot'em Up, Baby' by Canadian bubblegum icon Andy Kim. It's a little-known fact that Kim spent a month here one night while touring in the early 1970s and penned his anti-drug anthem in response to London's reputation at the time as 'Speed City.'

Unfortunately, in some social circles, if you and your parents weren't born here, your existence won't even be acknowledged until you've served at least a decade - which pretty well disqualifies Andy Kim from consideration.

With that in mind, I can only hope the selection committee makes the only other logical choice - 'New York City,' by the Demics, London's first punk band. It's a no-brainer.

At the tail end of the 1970s, London was the sleepy little village that it still is today. The radio airwaves were all classic rock - before there even was Classic Rock. After school or on Saturdays you went downtown. Flip through the records at Sams and Records on Wheels, check out the new threads at Le Chateau. Shoot some pool upstairs at Arcade Billiards. Maybe get a malt and a cheese-burger at the counter of Woolworths.

Such was the London in which the Demics came of age. Two of the blokes in the band had their origins in England. The others were Londoners from birth. And by their early twenties, they were all pretty well tired of a life where the only thing to do was catch the bus downtown and hang out.

As lead-singer/songwriter Keith Whittaker so aptly put it in 'New York City,' - "I'm damned pretty bored/And I wanna get out/I'm damn pretty angry, man/And it's no good to shout/I'm getting fuckin' pissed off, ya know/I'm tired of goin' downtown/The same trip everyday,man/It's kind of bringing me down."

That's why he concludes, "So I wanna go to New York City/I know that it's the place to be/Ya, I wanna go to New York City/I know that it's the place for me." Ohhh yaaaa.

Remember that feeling? You're in your late teens and any thoughts about your future can be summed up in one word - ESCAPE.

Of course, the same sentiment has been applied to any kid in Anytown, Anywhere. Any teen growing up in the Free World this past century can relate to that.

But as anyone who spent their adolescence in London, Ont., the Demics' 'New York City' speaks directly to *you.* It's not the most original sentiment every expressed in lyrical form but it's sung with such passion and conviction that London kids embrace it and claim it as our own.

The thing is though, by song's end, the narrator hasn't moved to New York. He's just talking about it. Sound familiar? Reportedly, years later, Keith Whittaker would point this out to people who told them how much the song meant to them.

Whittaker grew up in the industrial town of Manchester, England. If he had stayed there, he would have written about escaping to that other London. Apparently, after writing the song, he's been to New York but wasn't knocked out by it. Instead, he did what many young artists do - he and the band moved to Toronto where they broke up a couple of years later and where Whittaker died of cancer in 1996 at the age of 43.

If the Historical Society is hesitant about using 'New York City' because of a few cuss words, it should be noted that a follow-up album 'The Demics,' to the 1978 EP 'Talks Cheap, has a re-recorded sanitized version of the song - which accounts for its nationwide airplay when released in 1980. The second version was recorded in Toronto by a well-known metal producer at the time. But the original was done by a couple of Music Industry Arts students from Fanshawe - and the homegrown original is easily the superior version.

The year Whittaker died, 'New York City' was named Best Canadian Song in a poll of music critics for the trade magazine 'Chart.' A readers' poll for the Globe and Mail in 2002 placed it at number four.

It's long overdue for the Demics' hometown to bestow on them similar recognition. But I don't really expect it - because the *best* song about London, is all about getting the hell outta here.

------ POSTSCRIPT ------ according to this year's selection committee for the Historical Society, 'New York City,' will indeed be on the playlist of songs to be performed next Wednesday night at Museum London. And had been on the list right from Day 1.

Well good for them.

Still, this is the *second* time the Historical Society has staged such an event. The fact that 'New York City' is making it onto the set-list for Volume TWO of the London Songbook, pretty well says everything you need to know.