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Authors: Neil Young
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Away,” and it sounded great. But no one hired us. There was zero success, and we got no jobs. Bob eventually left the band and went back to Winnipeg. Ken and I tried a few different players, got a new drummer named Geordie McDonald, and did maybe one gig at a ski resort in Vermont. It was an audition gig, and they didn’t take us.
We didn’t succeed in taking Toronto by storm. It was a tough time. We were small fish in a big pond, had no reputation, and really there was nothing special about us in the big city. We were out of our league. We tried, auditioned, practiced, but nothing panned out. Ken and I were living in a rooming house on Huron Street near Yorkville Village, eating macaroni with wieners and beans that we cooked up in the communal kitchen in the house. There were maybe six or seven other rooms with tenants. It was bleak. I met a girl named Sandy Glick, and that was the high point. I had a friend. I skirted around drugs and parties. I escaped.
Perhaps Jack Harper and Ken Koblun are the Squires I remember the most, Jack because he is still in contact with updates on Winnipeg and is still in the Squires in spirit, and Ken because he was so much of a friend and always gave everything he had. Ken was really the heart of the Squires. He lived it with me and went through all the same changes I did.
The breakup with Ken and the Squires was one of the hardest things I can remember. I probably handled it very poorly and that’s why it is hard for me to remember. Ken did well for a while, actually better than I did, playing with the Dirty Shames and a few others in the Toronto area. I tried playing some solo gigs and did one in North Bay and another in the city, and a guest shot at the New Gate of Cleve on Avenue Road when the headliner was sick.
I went down to New York for an audition at Elektra Records that Marty had set up, went to Greenwich Village, and met Richie Furay, who had been in a group with Stephen Stills before the Company and was living for a short time at the address Steve had given me on Thompson Street. Richie said Steve had gone to LA to start a band! I taught Richie “Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing,” and then I did that demo session at Elektra Records that went badly. They had me set up in a tape storage room. I had my electric Gretsch to play and I ended up not using my amp because I had a bad guitar cord. (I had dragged my amp all the way to New York; I still remember lugging it through Port Authority Bus Terminal. I asked someone for a hand with it, and he replied, “You’re in the Big Apple now, kid—carry it yourself!”) Anyway, I ended up doing the demo without it. I sucked. I flunked the audition. They didn’t take me.
I told Richie to say hello to Stephen if he heard from him and headed back to Toronto. Richie then heard from Steve and went to LA to join in a band with him. Back in Toronto, eventually I sold my Gretsch and got an acoustic twelve-string. The Gretsch had a white case that had been signed by everyone I had met to that time, including Stephen, and I am sorry I sold it. I was out of money and I didn’t know what else I could do. I wanted to give the acoustic solo thing a try in the Village (Yorkville). That Gretsch guitar and signed case is probably around somewhere. I sold it at a music store on Yonge Street, and of all the things that are out there of mine, that is the one I wish I still had. That was my first Gretsch, just like Randy Bachman’s, but it was gone and I took my acoustic twelve-string to a few gigs and got some bad reviews. My first review dismissed my songs as full of clichés. They probably were! What’s wrong with clichés? I thought I was pretty good, myself. I had an arrangement of “Oh Lonesome Me” that I really liked, and people laughed at it, thinking it was a parody or something. I used it on
After the Gold Rush
, and that worked.
Once I went down to Detroit to the Chessmate Club and tried to get a job, but that didn’t happen. I
We didn’t succeed in taking Toronto by storm. It was a tough time. We were small fish in a big pond, had no reputation, and really there was nothing special about us in the big city. We were out of our league. We tried, auditioned, practiced, but nothing panned out. Ken and I were living in a rooming house on Huron Street near Yorkville Village, eating macaroni with wieners and beans that we cooked up in the communal kitchen in the house. There were maybe six or seven other rooms with tenants. It was bleak. I met a girl named Sandy Glick, and that was the high point. I had a friend. I skirted around drugs and parties. I escaped.
Perhaps Jack Harper and Ken Koblun are the Squires I remember the most, Jack because he is still in contact with updates on Winnipeg and is still in the Squires in spirit, and Ken because he was so much of a friend and always gave everything he had. Ken was really the heart of the Squires. He lived it with me and went through all the same changes I did.
The breakup with Ken and the Squires was one of the hardest things I can remember. I probably handled it very poorly and that’s why it is hard for me to remember. Ken did well for a while, actually better than I did, playing with the Dirty Shames and a few others in the Toronto area. I tried playing some solo gigs and did one in North Bay and another in the city, and a guest shot at the New Gate of Cleve on Avenue Road when the headliner was sick.
I went down to New York for an audition at Elektra Records that Marty had set up, went to Greenwich Village, and met Richie Furay, who had been in a group with Stephen Stills before the Company and was living for a short time at the address Steve had given me on Thompson Street. Richie said Steve had gone to LA to start a band! I taught Richie “Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing,” and then I did that demo session at Elektra Records that went badly. They had me set up in a tape storage room. I had my electric Gretsch to play and I ended up not using my amp because I had a bad guitar cord. (I had dragged my amp all the way to New York; I still remember lugging it through Port Authority Bus Terminal. I asked someone for a hand with it, and he replied, “You’re in the Big Apple now, kid—carry it yourself!”) Anyway, I ended up doing the demo without it. I sucked. I flunked the audition. They didn’t take me.
I told Richie to say hello to Stephen if he heard from him and headed back to Toronto. Richie then heard from Steve and went to LA to join in a band with him. Back in Toronto, eventually I sold my Gretsch and got an acoustic twelve-string. The Gretsch had a white case that had been signed by everyone I had met to that time, including Stephen, and I am sorry I sold it. I was out of money and I didn’t know what else I could do. I wanted to give the acoustic solo thing a try in the Village (Yorkville). That Gretsch guitar and signed case is probably around somewhere. I sold it at a music store on Yonge Street, and of all the things that are out there of mine, that is the one I wish I still had. That was my first Gretsch, just like Randy Bachman’s, but it was gone and I took my acoustic twelve-string to a few gigs and got some bad reviews. My first review dismissed my songs as full of clichés. They probably were! What’s wrong with clichés? I thought I was pretty good, myself. I had an arrangement of “Oh Lonesome Me” that I really liked, and people laughed at it, thinking it was a parody or something. I used it on
After the Gold Rush
, and that worked.
Once I went down to Detroit to the Chessmate Club and tried to get a job, but that didn’t happen. I
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