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"When I was a young child I had a transistor radio and would get up on the picnic table in my parent’s yard and mime to Elvis’ "Hound Dog," Little Richard’s "Tutti Frutti" and Eddie Cochran’s "Summertime Blues." Those were my favourite songs and I caught on to a certain sense of humour that is in that type of Rock ‘n’ Roll. I’d pretend that my school ruler was a guitar as my friends sat on the ground and laughed at my performances. In retrospect, I realize that those songs had a big impact on me. "I lost interest a while after that and as it turned out, there wasn’t much happening in Rock ‘n’ Roll in the very early sixties. It had all watered down.
The next thing that came to my attention were the groups of the first British Invasion. I became a big fan of the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Dave Clark Five, The Animals and Gerry & The Pacemakers, and the New Jersey-born singer Lesley Gore.
I had some tiny drumsticks that came with a toy, tin drum and began beating on a schoolbook to records my family bought me for cutting their lawn. My Dad bought me some proper sticks and by Grade 7 a snare drum with a splash cymbal attachment. Dad hooked a headphone jack into a portable record player and I began trying to figure out what was going on inside of my favourite records. I started drum lessons at Sykes Music in Brantford, Ontario under a teacher named Carl Lemke. Carl was the leader of a soul band called the Delegate Review, that had two black female singers, the Jones sisters. Carl got me into Martha & The Vandellas and The Young Rascals. The Rascals’ drummer Dino Danelli, just knocked me over and I spent most of my time practising to Dino’s records and the Stones, "Between the Buttons." "Pretty soon my Scalectric race car set was sold in exchange for a full set of drums.
At Sykes Music , I met a kid from Burford named, Stan Baka. A great person and as a guitarist he was quick to figure out any song. We formed a band with a bassist from St. George, Kevin Cosman, whom I went to North Park Collegiate (Brantford) with. That group became John Mars and the Martians. Stan died tragically at age 24 - hit on his motorcycle by a drunk driver. The Martians played Stones, Kinks and Spencer Davis Group type Rock ‘n’ Roll and we also played some blues by John Lee Hooker and even a Thelonious Monk tune. Next we got into Lightning Hopkins and Captain Beefheart and then my cousin Chris Robinson came into the picture." "Chris and I started to collect 50’s and 60’s small group jazz records. My Dad had taken me to see the Thelonious Monk Quartet in Toronto for my 16th birthday. Chris started to fart around with his Dad’s saxophone at this time and we would hitch up to Chris’ place in Toronto and go to Sam the Record Man. We spent all our money on records and concerts. The Martians were a real fun outfit because we drew on influences from all over hell’s half acre. Even Albert Ayler! At the same time we were listening to jazz, I was really turned on by soul and rock; especially Sam & Dave, When the Martians disbanded, Mars moved to Toronto where in ‘73 he met jazz pianist Stuart Broomer at the Jazz & Blues Centre. They discovered a mutual interest in Ayler, Monk, Ornette Coleman among others. They began performing in groups with some of the best of Toronto’s "new thing" jazz players, including Michael Snow and the late Graham Coughtry. By 1979, Broomer & Mars formed their own piano/drums duo which lasted right up to 1987. At their peak they toured theatres, universities and the art circuit relentlessly throughout Ontario, New York, Michigan and Quebec. Their LP "Annihilated Surprise", was especially successful on public and college radio. "Stu Broomer and I would be driving to a concert gig in the early seventies and we’d be listening to Ornette or somebody. As soon as a song got going Stu would be able to tell you who each member of the group was. Mingus, Dolphy, Ornette, Monk - whoever’s group was playing, Stu would always be able to identify all the sidemen. I’d recognize some right away, but from playing with someone as good as Stuart is, I started to learn all the subtleties of timbre, intonation and so on. Concurrently, Mars continued his Rock’n'Roll activities, deciding to step out from behind the drums and concentrate on singing and song writing. In ‘79 he formed Brian’s Children with guitarist /songwriter Dave Templeton (Temps) and drummer Teddy Fury. They released one single which was produced by Daniel Lanois. Daniel has since gone on to produce Bob Dylan, U2, Emmy Lou Harris, Peter Gabriel as well as his own fine solo discs. "A lot of great front men are ex-drummers," says Mars. "James Brown, Iggy Pop, Frankie Venom, Teenage Head and Stevie Wonder are all guys who have inspired me in that respect. At some point, I just figured it was time to get out from behind all those things." Teddy Fury hammered the drums for Brian’s Children and then moved on to found the neo-rockabilly outfit, the Bop Cats (and more recently the Royal Crowns.) In ‘82 Teddy introduced Mars to Bop Cats guitar wizard, Jack de Keyzer at a Hamilton, Ontario concert. "Ever since then we’ve always gotten along famously," says Mars. "Each of us is an ‘only child’ and, we share the same sense of humour. We both spent a lot of time in the basement as kids, practising and listening to records and reading. Anyway Ted introduced us and the Bop Cats do their gig and I’m just flipping at hearing Jack play for the first time. Through the Bop Cats, I started to remember my roots in Rock’n’ Roll. The Bop Cats preceded even the Stray Cats in reviving ’50’s rockabilly. Because of Teddie, Jack and Gordie Lewis (Teenage Head, guitarist) I started putting Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran and Jerry Lee Lewis on my shopping list again. Even when I was playing jazz I was listening to Rock’n'Roll. Like when you make dinner, you don’t eat one thing. You put the meat, potatoes and vegetables all together. All things different can fit together. After Broomer and Mars split, John hooked up with masterful guitarist David Essig. Realizing that David and John were both living near Paris, Ontario at the time (1988) their mutual friend Scott Merritt introduced the pair. A couple of Ontario tours followed for essig & Mars and the music reminded John that there is always more than one style to draw from. "David plays folk and blues in the style of Leadbelly and Bukka White," says Mars. "When he does a jazz trip he’s influenced by Anthony Braxton. I had met Anthony in the seventies and was flaberghasted by him and his drummer, Barry Altschul, who I once beat in a game of Tiddley Winks! Barry used a painting of mine on the cover of his "Brahma" LP. Essig appreciated my drumming and we had similar sensiblities when it came to impovising. He was seriously into Oriental classical and folk music and was travelling to Korea to learn to play the Kayakum. Broomer and I had been doing our folk/jazz fusion stuff like "Several Persian Miniatures" and "China" so I was already into combining ethnic folk and improvising. There was always a certain spirituality in all of this that Chris Robinson, Broomer and myself got from Albert Ayler’s work and I think Essig got from American spirituals. Rock’n'Roll was at the time issuing a beckoning call to Mars. In 1986 he shortened the Brian’s Children moniker to The Children and formed a new band with guitarist/songwriter Aurelio Lanzalone and bassist Mark Sinkowski. For a time John’s old drum teacher Carl Lemke lent them his beat for rehearsals until they were able to enlist ex-Martian Richard Tremblay an old pal from North Park Collegiate days. The Children played basic, original Rock’nRoll with rockabilly roots and Tremblay making sure the group had a sledgehammer pulse that never belied his Keith Moon influence. The Children went through 15 membership changes in their 5 years together. They were often lauded, while a warm up act for major concert acts, but behind the scenes their interpersonal discontinuity defeated them. In the mid-90’s Mars met the talented young guitaist Mike Ardelli and the two soon started an ad hoc group called the Natural Born Lovers, playing rockabilly/roots. With their mutual pal Glenn Kimberley (The Tin Eddies) sitting in on drums, they played a series of University concerts when Mike’s promising young life was cut short by a brain tumor at age 24. John’s old buddy de Keyzer encouraged him to soldier on. "Jack is such a great friend and of course his music has always been a big inspiration to me," recounts Mars. "He started getting on my case, he didn’t just put a match under my chair - he put a blow torch under it! Jack and I started writing songs and he expressed his ideas in terms of how a record should be produced for me. Between the two of us we came up with a song list and assembled a team of players. The result was the "Whasup?" album which reflected the styles of many of the orignators of the Rock ‘n’ Roll form that influenced Mars, including Eddie Cochran, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and the Rolling Stones. In 2000, John met Lucas Stagg a then, 19 year old singer/songwriter from Cambridge, Ontario who was leading an original Rock ‘n’ Roll outfit called ROOM 101. Lucas’ group quickly learned much of John Mars’ "Whasup?" album and, invited him to perform with them on many of their shows. A close friendship developed between Lucas and John and, many a-time, late at night after doing a show, the two new pals would listen to John’s considerable record collection. Previously, Lucas had spent many a-night listening to records with his dad, the late Doug Stagg (1952-1999) who was a recording artist in his own right with a Rock group called AMISH in the 1970’s. Somehow, Lucas and John each become tired of the responsibility of running a Rock ‘n’ Roll band. One night, John played the Byrds "Sweetheart Of The Rodeo" lp for Luke and, a lot of things changed. John and Lucas began to talk about lowering the volume and, simplifying the line-up of musicians involved in doing a show. They began to think more about the actual singing of the songs and, the telling of the stories. Next, Lucas introduced John to another young songwriter from the Kitchener-Waterloo area named CRAIG McNAIR and, the three began to work on the arrangements that became John Mars’ "Detroit Or Buffalo" album.