Chīwit thī̀ dī: The Sloths

I did it! It took 53 years, but I finally did it! I played in a band! For me, this is BIG...like one humongous step towards self-actualization in this otherwise modest and humble life of mine. Me getting on that stage a few weeks ago and succeeding in mixing it up with four other guys and actually making music that sounded decent represented one of the most important check-marks on my bucket list.

I’ve always loved watching individual musicians doing their thing, coming up with "parts" and then, when they eventually get together with other musicians, the thrill of hearing that magic that can occur when those parts converge into the "whole". You don’t need to be a musician to realize that music is the sum of many parts. As a youngster, the idea of sitting in a room or even better on a stage with others and doing my bit towards the common goal of playing music got me hooked, and the enjoyment I would get from that aspect has never left me. I have always wanted to play in a band.

Come to think of it, I have always wanted to make music. This I believe comes from my mother. She was a lot into music. She sang opera, and had been groomed all her life by her mother to become a professional opera singer. She almost made it when one day, following a singing contest on CBC radio, she was offered an internship with the New York Opera Society. But then disaster struck and her promising singing career was derailed. She fell head over heels in love with my father (the Lemoine charm rearing its wonderful head again), a farmer from nowhere Manitoba, and ended up giving up her opportunity for fame and fortune with the New York Opera. She moved to a farm in southern Manitoba, had babies, and the rest is history. My grandmother was not happy.

Actually, I really really started wanting to be in a band around 8 o'clock on the evening of February 9th, 1964. I’m sure this date resonates with all my fellow baby-boomers. This was when The Beatles performed for the first time on national TV on the Ed Sullivan stage. To this day, I remember it well; their performance was unforgettable. The show concluded with these four guys with guitars and funny long hair, dressed in these swanky collarless black jackets, belting away I Want To Hold Your Hand. It was absolute pandemonium. The music was good and the sound raw, but even more impressive, the girls were fainting and screaming. I loved it! I was totally mesmerized. The whole audience appeared to go into some kind of state, almost like collective hypnotism. Beatlemania had arrived to my small world. The next day at school, girls and guys, heck even the nuns! could only talk about what they had seen on TV the night before. And of course, it was common knowledge from where I came from that when even the nuns took notice of something, we knew we were unto something great.

In any case, from that day on, I wanted to be like the Beatles. Was the joy of playing music my number one motivation, or was it the adulation of the hordes of screaming-screeching-wetting-their-pants girls that chased anything and everything resembling a Beatle? The jury is still out on that one. I'll leave that call to the mob of phychoanalyzers hired by whoever eventually writes my biography, once I move on to kingdom come.

Now, fast forward, 53 years later. How did I end up on a stage, playing bass guitar in a band called The Sloths? Let's just say that I just happened to be at the right place at the right time. A few teachers decided to put together a band for the annual Music Festival at our school, and they needed a bass player. When the recruiting call went out, I inquired whether one needed a) musical talent or b) musical experience to qualify to play in this teacher band. I had limited qualifications for this call to make musical magic, other than me being the son of a woman who had almost nearly sang for the New York Opera, hence the inherent musical talent, and as far as musical experience, this was limited to me executing a pretty good rendition of Tina Turner’s River Deep, Mountain High at a Karaoke bar in Zibo, China (mind you, at that time my inherent musical talent had been enhanced by a few glasses of Baijiu). With such a strong and impressive musical resumé, I was drafted for the job, and get this, not only as the band’s bass player, but as partial back-up vocals as well (thank you mother). So, after a few months of rehearsing under the most capable tutelage of our in house music teacher, an amazing man that can literally play all musical instruments known to man, a new rock star was born. I could almost hear the girls screaming.