In 1965-66, the Fringe played all over SW Ontario, drawing large crowds. When the guys, aged 16-18, moved into Yorkville in the spring of 1967, they entered the heart of a vibrant underground scene, playing hip coffeehouses like the Night Owl, Boris’s, and El Patio. Here are some of their memories of life in Yorkville back then …
Interviews by Frank Manley, except where noted. Group photos by Bill Riley.
John Murkin (Fringe singer and guitarist): We played at the Ronnie Hawkins’ Hawks Nest on Yonge St. just before we made the move to Yorkville. They had go-go dancers, and the crowd was different. They weren’t your average hippies. It was more of a drinking crowd, almost a country-and-western crowd.
We started playing as a house band at the Mynah Bird on Yorkville Ave., after Jack London and the Sparrows (future Steppenwolf) left for Los Angeles. All these interesting things were going on, and we were part of that scene. We really felt that anything could happen. Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Young, Rick James, Joni Mitchell, Buffy Sainte-Marie and many others, who would later become household names, were playing at the dozens of clubs and coffeehouses. There were daily crowds and nightly traffic jams.
Sometimes I’d meet someone in the Village and they’d ask where I was from, and I’d say Streetsville man, and they’d say, “Yeah, me too, man, but where are you really from?” – Who knew it was cool to be a hick from a small town?
It was a pretty amazing music scene. Luke and the Apostles were the house band at Boris’s, where we played a lot, with Mike McKenna on lead guitar. We also played with the Paupers many times; they really influenced us musically. We were playing there when Sgt. Pepper’s came out in early June 1967. There was a lot of buzz about it. The whole front window of Boris’s was filled with copies of the LP jacket.
Our band house on Hazelton Ave got raided one day. We each had a room and sometimes practised in the dank basement next to an old oil-burning furnace. The police positioned themselves inside various rooms and hallways, and there was an amusing interlude with one of the roomers wandering throughout the building enjoying a psychedelic trip. The cops ultimately left after nabbing another hippie with an unfortunately susceptible side hustle.
At that time, everybody we were hanging around with was relatively militant because there was the burgeoning military-industrial complex and the Vietnam War was underway. Since Toronto was a safe haven and a mecca for draft dodgers and conscientious objectors, we had a deep distrust of the status quo.
Chuck Cadman (Fringe lead guitarist): When we played Boris’s, Luke and the Apostles would be playing upstairs or vice versa. We played there with the Paupers and the Influence – some French-Canadian guys from Montreal. They were a very Frank Zappa-ish sounding band that played Boris’s all the time. Another band was the Churls, who later had two LPs on A&M. Interview by Ed Nadorozny from Misty Lane magazine, issue 19, 2005.
Wayne Leslie (Fringe drummer, 1968): We played high schools and halls in places like Orillia, Peterborough, St. Catharines, Niagara Falls – towns within an hour or two of Toronto – then we’d go back to the Village and play there. It was more fun playing on our home turf, where we mainly played down in the Village. Among others, I recall playing in the basement of the Penny Farthing on Yorkville Ave. It was a short-lived club named the Silver C. We played there for a week or two.
I used to see all the local musicians at clubs, parties, everywhere. I vividly recall passing Gordon Lightfoot one evening when I was walking through the Annex and gave him a shout. I didn’t know him but he was a fellow musical traveller, if you will. “How’s it going, man?” he replied with a wave. Everyone back then seemed cool and approachable.
Terry Ellah (Fringe bass player, 1966-67): One spring evening in 1967, I was standing on a street corner in Yorkville with Chris Thomas, the drummer on the Fringe CD and LP recordings, who was just 16 at the time. He’d recently moved into the Village with the other Fringe guys. He turned to me and said, “Man, did you know that the price of a box of Kraft Dinner went up from 17 cents to 24 cents? I dunno how I’m going to be able to eat, man.”
Bill Riley (Fringe manager): In 1967, many musicians would gather outside St. Paul’s Avenue Road United Church on warm summer evenings. It was kitty-corner to a Greek restaurant that was always very good to penniless hippies, bringing us big bowls of hot french fries. On my radio show years ago, I interviewed David Clayton-Thomas and he recalled a night on those steps where he and I, plus two of the Churls (singer Bob O’Neill and lead guitarist Hal Ames), Roger Mayne from the Ugly Ducklings, Roy Kenner from R.K. and the Associates (later lead singer with the Mandala), Gordon Lightfoot, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Ian and Sylvia, Skip Prokop from the Paupers, Neil Young and a few others were all jamming and singing to a fair-sized crowd of Yorkville hippies and a bunch of curious passersby.
Now and again, the cops would show up with a paddywagon and try to arrest us thinking we had drugs! We’d all scatter like rabbits. One night, however, David was unfortunate enough to get grabbed and taken to Station 42 on College St. at University. I was restoring a 1931 Chevy Coupe then and it was parked around the corner. So off I went to try to help David with my negotiating skills. By the time I got there, they had apparently roughed him up a bit. I paid $50 (a lot back then) to get him out. So we drove back to the church with David triumphantly waving to the crowds from the rumble seat of my Chevy. He still owes me the $50.
Around 1966-67, I rented a top-floor space in a Victorian row house on Avenue Road, near the corner of Yorkville Ave. I called it the Villa. To get to it, you had to go up the fire escape, as the owner had blocked access to the third floor. We charged 25 cents admission, sold pop, and had a coin-operated jukebox. It was popular for a lot of the musicians playing in the Village. They’d drop by after their last set – a great gathering place. You could look down and see R&B bands like the Mandala, Stitch in Tyme, Grant Smith & the Power, and Jon & Lee and the Checkmates raving it up in the window of the Devil’s Den next door. I had a huge bouncer to keep the bikers out. He volunteered because he just wanted to be part of this exciting scene.
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