Well that day I think I specifically came to that Woolco to pick up the newly released Shock Treatment motion picture soundtrack that was written by Richard O’Brien who of course wrote Rocky Horror Picture Show which at that time as a young teenager I was just obsessed with. Turns out this Woolco had it and maybe for cheaper then somewhere else in the mall. Anyways, I pick that up and then see a bin of assorted deleted records advertised for $1.99 and go hunting. I found 2 albums that stood out for me that I needed to also buy. The first was Roger Taylor of Queen’s (first?) solo album called Lost In Space (which turned out to be a decent and interesting record to my ears) and the other was this mysterious record with a “so tacky it’s awesome” cover by John Otway and Wild Willy Barrett called I Did It Otway. What the heck it was just $2 I thought and this bizarre cover of these two misfits posing on the cover pretending to play a vacuum cleaner like a saxophone was just enough to hook and reel in this curious kid! Well, it quickly turned out to be probably one of the best $2 I ever spent as it is also one of the most important records in my collection to me.
The record, which I later discovered is actually a compilation, starts out with a decent song called “Makes Good Music” which right away told me this fellow is a hardcore Englishman not afraid to hide his thick accent at all. Perhaps because I loved and appreciated British humour, being exposed to a lot of it in Canada, I embraced the singer’s vibe and let the album play. I’m a sucker for melancholy so I was immediately transfixed with the second track “Josephine” a beautiful and wistful 7 minute ballad (a song John dedicated to me that night in North Van after I had mentioned the day before that this was my favourite songs of his). “If I Did” was an upbeat but sincere love song while “Running From The Law” steals the riff from “Ghost Riders In The Sky” which was a song I always enjoyed for its galloping and charging beat. By this point I was thinking, “well so far it’s not awful!” and then side 1 ends with one of my favourite instrumentals “I Did It Otway”[not on Youtube!] which actually is solely credited to John’s partner in crime Wild Willy Barrett who, up to this point in the record, seemed a bit mute and MIA. Well this glorious 5 minute piece of nirvana starts out with hobo-like finger picking guitar that seems innocent and buoyant until the player takes quick breaks to hammer and saw away at his cheap acoustic guitar until it descends into a cacophony of molested and murdered wood and wires. To these once young ears it was as punk as fuck as anything the Sex Pistols or The Clash ever did and I became an instant ally of the record!
Otway occasionally takes the background!
Flipping over to side 2 and hearing a lo-fi-electric guitar squeal away with this mad Englishman giving “Headbutts” [trivia: the lead vocal is actually Barrett; the "ows" and such are Otway getting his head smashed into the mic by Barrett; see it in Otway: The Movie] while also subliminally teaching me English slang and common sayings like “stitch that” and what a queue was! I had a friend that had recently moved to England and he was really learning the language so to speak there and I remember very clearly making a mixtape for him with “Headbutts” on it and over 40 years later we still sing the song when we are around each other. This past February John and I did our own impromptu “Headbutts” song when we rode the Skytrain! I’m still cracking up anytime I think or watch the video! The next track “Turning Point” brings us back to a more tempered and relaxed John. Another surprise for me was his cover of “Green Green Grass Of Home.”
I was very familiar with this song as it was a popular country song that my Mom used to sing a lot when I was a little kid, so there’s some emotional connection to it even it John punks it up in the end! “Misty Mountain” was another sweet and innocent ditty but the album, er compilation, ends on a very sinister note with “The Highwayman” which is sung and narrated with fierce emotion overtop of a menacing organ riff for this 6 minute mini-epic finale. I was floored that I had discovered something that was so life changing to me yet it was kind of relegated as trash in a Woolco department store! Mind you, I don’t know if I had even ever seen this in record racks when it was first released. I kind of doubt it so for that I’ll always have fond memories of that day. Discovering something incredible that seemingly no one else wanted. Anyways, this began my search for anything John Otway!
Top, L to R: Ed Hurrell, John Otway, Ian McClelland; bottom, Allan MacInnis
When I was back living in Burnaby by fall 1982 I would frequent the fantastic record stores that used to inhabit downtown Vancouver. It would be at various used shops I would finally find Deep Thought, his previous Stiff Canada release, which again was a compilation. I don’t think I found much of his music at all until I made my first trip to Europe in 1990 where I made London my home base while I was there. On my vinyl search in Soho and other cool places in London (that are now gone) I found Where Did I Go Right? and a couple 45 rpms of his. I had been in Europe for 6 months and 2 weeks after I was supposed to leave I discovered John Otway was playing a show but I would be gone! Enter waterfall of tears here!
As the late 1990’s entered the internet I was completely unaware that John has also embraced it to reach out to his audience but I was unaware. I did however use this new eBay thing to acquire more of his undiscovered music to me. I was happy to see that he was still recording and putting out music. I grabbed quite a few of his CDs and have filled some of the gaps in my John Otway collection. Still a few oddities out there!
2017 saw me return to London for the first time in 27 years and what do I discover on my first day there? That John Otway had played in London 2 weeks before I arrived! Argh! Not again! Why?!!! I felt the music gods were being mean to me and I guess this is how the meeting with John began. I started to follow John on Facebook but was unaware of his own website which is silly of me. Anyways, fast forward to early January of 2023, (41 years since I bought “I Did It Otway”) and I see that John is planning a tour to New Zealand and Australia. Just by chance I asked on one of his posts if he might be travelling through Vancouver en route to New Zealand. Well before I knew it, I was getting a private message from John himself letting me know he would be in Vancouver a few days early to catch his flight to New Zealand. I briefly told him my story of loving his music for so many years and my unfortunate luck at missing him play a show twice! Well he then offers to meet for a beer which is just unreal and then I mention that it’s too bad he wasn’t playing a show here. Within minutes he replies back and mentions if I know of any “open mic” pubs. I really didn’t but he did some quick Googling and found Toby’s in North Vancouver. He asked if I could contact the place and get some details and perhaps an email of the host of the open mic. I got all that for him right away and before I knew it that arrangements were made for him to play a few songs in North Vancouver! OMFG!!! I was in a whirl and that’s when I started to post about it on Facebook and I think that’s maybe how the Otway fire spread to you Allan and the many others at the show. Mostly thanks to your blog there was a decent amount of people that showed up that night in early February! It was probably the best birthday gift ever!
The night before Toby’s I met with John and his lady friend Lorna downtown for a few beers and then later met up with Lorna’s cousin that lives here in Vancouver too and we all went out for a lovely dinner. Earlier John had signed many of the records and CDs that I had collected. He was very humble and gracious and didn’t mind me fanboy-ing out at all!
Of course the next night was the miracle of seeing John perform a mini-set which was just all too short but I was grateful nonetheless. Later after the open mic when I was dropping John and his entourage at the Sea Bus he looked at me with this humble amazement and said how shocked he was that people were listening to him while he played. I mean he was really surprised that people wanted to hear what he was playing! I told him Vancouver loves you John! He then says “Maybe I should come back!” and I’m like hell yes you do!!! We kept in touch a bit while he made his way to New Zealand and that’s when I found out the cyclone was causing him to cancel many of his dates there which he sincerely felt bad about. This new fall tour is to make up for that and to also now do his first “proper” gig in Vancouver in over 44 years! Wow! The power of the internet can sure perform some amazing miracles sometimes and this is a major one in my books! I can’t wait until this Saturday night! And now to see John twice in one year in Vancouver is a crazy miracle indeed!
Ian McClelland
November 1, 2023
Note: There are still tickets for Saturday's show available!
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