The Stereo Swap Shop (swap shop for short) on Osborne across the street from greatest Winnipeg ice cream, Dutch Made. The Swap Shop allowed you to trade records for other records. They evaluated the records you brought and offered choice between cash or credit. Economic anarchy, my 14 yr old head exploding. Will Woolco, Eatons and Radio Shack do this next? Certain records perpetually in the bins, New York Dolls, Pink Floyd, Marvin Gaye. Sometimes I made a major discovery, Speak To Me by Jackie Lomax (produced by George Harrison, orchestration by George Martin). Some places like that when I moved to Toronto, Round Again on Baldwin, but never a match for the vibe of the two women who owned/ ran the swap shop and the joy they gave off being their own boss.
There was a musician I met looking through bins we started a conversation about Billy Preston and his keyboard solo in Get Back by the Beatles. He thought it hard but I thought I could do it. He was tickled by my confidence, Damian Turner, he wore a cape, a beret and played classical piano. Probably a smart move to hide away in Winnipeg, he was a draft dodger from the 60s who adjusted to his new Canadian identity though he traveled lots, to Bolivia. I wonder why a young man, not from South America, would make so many trips to Bolivia in the 70s?
The house he rented was funky, shag carpet, grand piano, stained glass. One of the first times I went there he said ok play it, the Get Back solo. So I did. He freaked out, excited that I was a kid who could play the blues and other things by ear. He gave me a copy of the key to his house, nice to have a friend like that when you are a teenager. I could go play all night long in the empty house, even try on the cape and beret (not in public). His friends were into astrology, handwriting analysis, tarot cards, numerology and hookah pipes. Two journalists, one a professor at the University of Manitoba, one doctor, one middle aged woman, Sharon, who took piano lessons from Damian and they were in a relationship or used to be, she funded some of his activities, it wasn’t clear. She had a strange cackle of a laugh which was simultaneously fascinating and scary. There were two other regulars, musicians Barry and Michael, in rock bands and then there was Cheamer, his younger brother, a mechanic who frequently went to California to buy rust free old cars, drive them back to Winnipeg and sell them for more money.
Cheamer also was on fire to be an entrepreneur, wanted to discover a hit song and manage whoever wrote it. He went to open mics on the lookout for the hit songwriter he might champion and get rich quick. I believed in him and wished I could be that person but I didn’t understand yet how the song thing works, just how it worked on me. Cheamer loved the Supremes, he talked about the bass lines in their songs, this was years before people talked about James Jamerson’s impact on the hits. Mendelson Joe also went on to me about the bass as key ingredient to pop music, maybe they know something I don’t. No doubt Frank Davies knows all about this. Probably one of the first lessons when he got into Expert School, was
What is the most important instrument in pop music?
i) bass
ii) singer
iii) trombonist