The Province from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 21

THE PROVINCE, Tuesday, March 7, 1972 A Canadian sound Folk-poet Strange goes on record wasn't scholarly. I read every book I could reach. When I was 10, 1 would borrow my Mom's library card so I could get books out of the adult section of the library. "But the school system just isn't equipped to handle the individual. I don't regret having dropped out and I really don't think it's hampered my career to any extent." Back in the studio, five shaggy haired musicians were working out the finishing touches on an arrangement.

Strange excused himself and made his way into the isolation booth where he tracked on his voice. This was a working guide for the musicians. Later it was erased and Strange re-recorded his voice over the finished background. The tune was bright and rhythmical, Nashville North, sort of, with lots of Dobro guitar and harmonica. Go Find Yourself a Careful Mountain Pony is the title song from the album.

Producers Bob Brooks and Bill Phillips talked Strange into making the record. Brooks talked about how the project came into being. "Bill Phillips is really responsible. He had known Marc ever since he came here to make the Manipulators three years ago. He's been convinced that Marc's music should be on the market.

Finally Mare agreed and we went ahead. "It's turning out even better than we expected. We were lucky to find musicians with a real feel for Marc's music. "Tim Williams, who plays guitar and Dobro Steel, is very effective and John Morris' harmonica on some of the cuts is fantastic. We're adding strings later.

"We're also lucky to have Si Garber, who recorded Where You Going Billy for the Poppy Family as our engineer. "I feel there is a good place for Marc's music in the market today. There's a story in everyone of his songs and his tunes are strong as well. As an arranger, I'm enjoying making this record immensely. Strange says about his songs, "Since I'm really a playwright or if you like, a storyteller, my songs have a definite narrative quality.

In almost every case, the character or the circumstances for the setting are taken from life. "One, Evelyn, is about a girl who followed rodeo riders. 'Rodeo riders always smell of linament' is one line in it. It's about a person I knew in Toronto. "Another, Mr.

Dobbs, is a character I met once who delivered eggs, fixed shoes and sold newspapers in a small Ontario town but played the organ in the church on Sunday. "There are a lot of people like that if you look around. People who appear to be ordinary until you discover that they have another side to their lives." That's Marc Strange: actor, poet, songwriter, director, producer and entertainer a many-sided man indeed. ml vr si i MARC STRANGE series for U.S. 'kidcult' market By KEN LUNDGREN To Canadian television viewers, the name Marc Strange is not unfamiliar.

He was the star of the CBC's much pub. licized and Vancouver-produced Manipulators series. Strange is also the Canadian actor who broke a seven-year contract with Columbia pictures after one film Shadow on the Land with John Forsyth and Carole Linlcy to come back to Canada because, "I didn't like Hollywood." Prior to that he was featured In the CBC's Hatcher's Mill series and The Paper People. Currently hjs is the mind behind the CBC children's show, The Beachcombers, starring Bruno Gerussi. But there is another side to Marc Strange, a musical one, and it manifests itself in an album being recorded at Jack Hershorn's Can-Base (nee Aragon) studios here in Vancouver.

Before and during his film and television career, Marc Strange has always written songs. Once he was even a professional foiksinger. That was when, as an aspiring actor in Toronto, Strange discovered that he could earn enough to live on between meager acting jobs, singing in Yorkville coffee houses. He also married a singer, Lyn Ward of the Alan Ward Trio, who recorded for Vanguard. If his acting career hadn't suddenly bloomed, it's quite probable that the Strange family would now be taking their place with the Canadian Sweethearts, Ian and Sylvia, Light-foot and all.

I visited Strange during a recording session at Hershorn's. Between takes he spoke of his music, why he wrote it and why it's characteristically Canadian. "First, Canadian rock isn't really a distinct sound. The music is American, it had its beginnings in the U.S. all a Canadian can do in that field is emulate.

If there is going to be a truly Canadian music form, it will be fostered in the basics of Canadian rural life. Canadian music is Lightfoot and Ian Tyson, people like that who make music about the people, the places that influenced them in Canada." Does that mean that the Canadian sound is country? "Not neccessarily, but you naturally draw on your own experience when you write anything. For instance, I was brought up on country music in Kitchener, Ont. Summers, I worked in the tobacco harvest which is unique in Canada, quite different from the tobacco harvest in the Southern States. An incredible collection of people from Mississippi and all over would descend on the town Saturday nights for those six or seven weeks that the harvest was on.

"For me it was unforgettable and memories of those times have provided material for songs and even plays. Later on I listened a lot to folk singers like Pete Seeger and the Weavers and then in Yorkville others influenced me. I think we are, in many ways, reflections of our experiences. Canada is a young, basically rural country and so her music at this point, I think, is going to be country or folk." Strange quit school at the age of 16, traveled with a theatrical troupe, did summer stock in Charlotte town, worked in factories and on farms. Each inci-.

dent, every character he met was fodder for his writing. "I dropped out of school because, for me, it had missed the point. School A Canadian look Strange By KEN LUNDGREN On April 10th, production begins here on a new television series created and produced by former Manipulators star, Marc Strange. Set in the Gulf Islands and the Lower Mainland it will employ local actors and production people. The difference, however, between Orphan's Island, (as the series is called) and similar projects done in the past is that this time the results are aimed directly at the American network market.

The series is Canadian financed. "We approached people like the William Morris Agency who handle a lot of series for the networks and some of the network heads themselves," explains Strange who, together with his wife, wrote the pilot and who will produce and Rock classic thentic relics like steam locomotives that operate, buildings and street settings that have remained unchanged since that time. "We even found a 1925 aircraft that still flies," says Strange, "and all kinds of signs, posters with prices from that era, automobiles and machinery." Each program will even contain a piece of music taken from the period. One program, for example, features an old recording of Ain't We Got Fun. Strange and his independent backers are confident that they can compete against American shows despite the conspicuous failure of a lavish Canadian production like Jalna in the same market.

"The difference," explains Strange, "is that the CBC and, for that matter, the National Film Board, don't have to make a profit. Even the Manipulators which was two years in production completed only 12 segments. In the States they'd have to complete one every two weeks. "It's not the people, it's the atmosphere in which they work. It's true that you actually produce what you have to and in the time alloted.

"In Canada, filmmakers have been in a position to create for themselves, not for the people out in the audience. We've mm creates TV direct month. it when production starts next "They offered to buy the idea and the scripts outright which convinced us to keep the work in Canada." The plot for Orphan's Island is comparatively simple. A young brother and sister, orphaned in the hungry 30s, run away from a home they have been sent to. After a series of escapades, they are befriended by a sea captain who has been shipwrecked on one of the Gulf Islands.

From then on, the plot takes care of itself. The battle is one of survival, finding enough to eat, avoiding detection by social workers from the orphanage, coping with three nasty tempered old beachcombers from an neighboring next to meaningless. It was undoubtedly the forerunner of music by present day groups like T. Rex. Wed to the milder, more melodic forms of pre-Beatles rock, it was one of the founding fathers of bubblegum music.

Rough, impenetrable and indestructible, Louie Louie was truly great to dance, get very drunk and raise hell to. Fans of the Louie Louie sound will love the Kingsmen, at Gassy Jack's until Saturday. Most of them are from the original group, the one that broke up in 1968. But they re-formed a month Tuesday 7 8 Louie Louie sound is back in town By JEANI READ Louie Louie is probably one of the greatest rock classics of all time. It was a song that had virtually nothing going for it musically.

It was also a song that attracted an enormous following. First loosed upon the masses by the Kingsmen in 1964, it became an instant smash and an almost insufferable request at dances from then on. Any band that couldn't or, worse, wouldn't play Louie Louie was in serious trouble. Its beat was neolithic and the words island and so on. In fact, it's a natural.

Says Strange, whose development of the story is based on his own experience in American television: "There are no villans as such, no violence or criminal activities. It's a simple struggle to stay alive in the 30s and there's a lot of people who can still relate to that. "It's program is what the American's term 'Kidcult' although the name puts me off completely. It simply means that, although the action is geared to children's viewing, the grownups will watch it too." The show achieves that by adding one ingredient: nostalgia. Orphan's Island is right out of the 30s and authentically so.

Strange, his wife and others have combed Vancouver Island digging up au- ago, answering the profitable call of awakening Rock Nostalgia. They are pretty tight for musicians who have been on the wagon for close to four years, and you have to dig deeply to hear all those old numbers again no matter who is playing them. The Kingsmen are very, very loud but they are truly good to dance to. In general, they are exactly what one might expect from a group that was capable of Louie Louie in the first place. Soviets ready to negotiate chess match site United Press International MOSCOW The Soviet Chess Federation has said it is ready to start final negotiations for terms of the World Chess Championship match between Boris Spassky and American challenger Bobby Fischer.

Tass, the official news agency, said the federation sent a letter to the International Chess Federation president Max Euwe saying it wants to meet with all parties concerned to "thrash out all questions and to sign a final agreement." The letter said the Soviets were 'ready, in principle, to study the question of holding the first half of the match in Belgrade and the second in Reykjavik before July 1." Glenn Toppings, artist, cancer victim at 41 Mr. Versatility-plus. never had the pressure of the nightly Neilson rating forcing us to come up with something bloody entertaining or we're looking for other work." Another thing which makes Orphan's Island an attractive buy for the Americans is production cost. "In the States, they figure on about $80 thousand for an episode on the average. We can do it here for $40 thousand and still pay everyone union scale and all that." Strange says that he will not act in the series.

"The two years I spent in the Manipulators gave me the directing credits I needed to accomplish what I really want and that is to write and produce. Acting is a 14 hour a day grind when you're working, it's not the fun people think it is. "Now I have the freedom to write the story, to conceive the way in which it can be shown, to involve much more of myself in the work." Whether Strange wants to continue acting or not, Universal Pictures has been making him offers of a starring role in a series in Hollywood. He has no plans to accept. "Not the way things are now," comments Strange, "I like it in Canada." He was totally committed in the sense that art formed the core of his life and he never compromised.

As a painter, teacher and designer he was actively associated with Simon Fraser University, UBC, the Vancouver Art Gallery and the New Design Gallery. He was thus able to cut across institutional lines and influence the total community. Being an ex-logger gave Toppings a tremendous advantage over many of his contemporaries. He was hard without being aggressive, yet highly adaptable and able to find alternatives which is the basis of wisdom. For the last three years Toppings was closely associated with the new generation of artists who have become associated with new organizations like Metromedia and Intermedia.

Branching out on to the national scene, he participated recently in the Canadian Artists Representation and co-ordinated Art Probe for the gallery. He was a catalyst, a modest, unmoved mover. Perhaps more than any other B.C. artist of his era, he was aware of the growing political power of the creative individual. Survival was an aesthetic trip as much as a biological one.

theatre goal "The calibre of production varies but my concern isn't so much that everything be honed to perfection, because people aware and concerned about new works are generally inexperienced." Audiences for Canadian plays are slowly but steadily growing too, she said. Miss Paris, who operates Canada's only agency for playwrights, advised would-be writers to mail copies of their plays to every theatre in the country and to try getting them published. The most important thing was to get a production of a new work, an area in which "universities can be of tremendous Universities and colleges have been doing better by Canadian playwrights than have the regional theatres, she said. "And when they do put on a Canadian play you know it's not a freak-out response to the possibility that a 50-percent Canadian-content ruling will be imposed." But she said playwrights should not remain at university too long. "I get frightened for people who do that.

It's a protected environment, very necessary for the artist as a short term thing, but dangerous if they stay around too long." 13 aiiuuiu, uuiia, iuanc jruu want iu iaui things. Nothing in the curriculum was what I was interested in. Not that I Today's highlights Ever since Jack Webb spread his first Dragnet, the c.i... Los Angeles Police Depart ment, has been one of TV's favorite law enforcement agencies. Latest paean to the LAPD airs at 8:30 on Chan.

4. Called The Rookies, it is a TV-movie pilot for a proposed series designed to glamorize police careers and prove that there are still young Americans who want to protect and serve. As if to assuage the headaches that Canada's recent economic health has caused U.S. Commerce Secretary John a 1 1 Tuesday Night has prepared a report on the current score in The Takeover Game. The bizarre case of our country's piece-.

meal sale to foreign interests is examined at 10 p.m. on Chans. 2 and 6. KCTS-(CHAN. 9) Sounds Around; 9:15, Is for Music; 9:30, Se Habla Mas Espanol; 9:45, People At Work; 10, The Electric Company; 10:30, Listen and Say; 10:45, Music Time; 11, Music All Around; 11:15, Is For Music; 11:30, Sesame Street; 12:30 "p.m., Living With Design; 1, Music All Around; 1:15, Is For Music; 1:30, Music Time; 1:45, Se Habla Mas Espanol; 2, Worlds in Balance; 2:15, Images and 2:35, Cover to Cover; 3, Book Talk; 3:30, Zoom; 4, Sesame Street.

5 p.m., The Electric Com pany; 5:30, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood; 6, Speak Out; 6:30, Zoom; 7, Prism; 7:30, University Conversation; 8, The French Chef; 8:30, The Advocates; 9:30, Black Jour nal; 10, Washington-Alaska Regional Medical Program. CABLE 10 7 p.m., A Show of Hands; 7:30, Guten Tag; 8, Consumer Forum; 9, Income Tax; 9:30, United Way; 10, Plan Van. 03 :00 1 :15 :30F.Giant :451C.Helene 1. 760Sesame :15 1 :30 :45 ml :00 1 "Bob HilSI :30 :00 :15 :45 1 :00 :15 1 :30 1 :45 1 :151 :45 15 1 IX 1 :45 15 :45 :00 :15 :45 :00 :15 :30 :45 :15 1 :45 1 :15 1 :30 :45 :00 1 111:30 I 1. :00 15 45 I :30 Glenn Toppings, 41 year-old Vancouver artist is dead.

He died from lung cancer in his studio, the Granville Grange. That he should be at the workshop space used on and off by some of his closest friends was good. Artists such as Dallas Selman, Roy Kiyooka, Gary Lee-Nova and Sherry Grauer had had studios in the grange under Granville Bridge. But it was Toppings who was identified with it and made it a creative environment for numerous artists and architects. It was here that he worked as one of the first Fibreglas designers in Vancouver, where he collaborated with Brian Fisher and Selman on major projects.

As a consultant and master craftsman Toppings pioneered in the true cooperative movement which now exists in the form of collaborative projects. Toppings felt the whole commercial and establishment gallery scene was basically phoney. It divided artists instead of making them aware of common goals which could be solved by concerted action. Early in his career he suffered critical neglect, which made him an opponent of the "pony" classification that made artists a commercial commodity like rare thoroughbreds. little thought to artistic growth." Canadian playwrights are gradually getting accepted, she said, with six Canadian plays currently being performed in Toronto, mostly by small companies.

Festival Canada plans announced Canadian Press OTTAWA Festival Canada, a month-long celebration ranging from wood-chopping to opera, will be staged here again this July, the state secretary's department has announced. The festival will begin June 30, the eve of Canada's national holiday, with a variety show and fireworks display on Parliament Hill. Activities will extend through the month in Ottawa and neighboring countryside. Roland Michener will present new colors to the Governor-General's Foot Guards on Parliament Hill July 1 as part of the ceremonies marking the 105th anniversary of the British North America Act. Comfort, not innovation, School Movie: "Sale of School I "family Peyton "Family Telecast "Whistling Century Telecast Affair Place Affair InThe "Hollywood "F.Giant Love AllAbout Love Dark" Squares C.Helene Of Life I Faces I Of Life "Galloping "Jeopardy "Peyton "Where the Ijean "Where the.

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Cont I Telescope I Five-0 Tyson Five-0 "Tuesday "Marcus "Nichols "Tuesday "Cannon "Per- "On The Night Welby Nichols Night Cannon suaders Buses Tuesday Marcus Nichols Tuesday Cannon Per- "Election Night Welby I Nichols I Night Cannon suaders I Election "News "News "New- "News "News "News Have Gun "Viewpoint News service "News News "News Will Travel "Election "Tonight Hour "Movie Hour "Movie: Movie: Election Show Final I "The Final i "The "Rasho- Tonight Movie: Cist Movie: Last Cavett Show "Roman Chal- "Roman Chal- Machito Dick Tonight Holiday" lenge" Holiday" lenge" Kyo I Cavett 1 Show Cont. Cont. Cont. I Cont. Canadian Press CALGARY The production of a Canadian play by a regional theatre is usually just a token gesture, says Renee Paris of Vancouver.

Miss Paris, an agent for Canadian playwrights, said regional theatres are mostly interested in -safety and success with the bulk of their money going to administrative expenses. "The tendency is to get more comfortable at the executive level, not to use their money for commissioning new plays." The Canada Council should reduce subsidies to cautious and commercial theatres, she told students and fac-. ulty at the University of Calgary Drama Department, and find some way of getting the money to directors and producers who want to present Canadian plays. Few experienced directors are working with new plays, she said, which is "a totally different experience from doing established plays and they do not understand a new play needs five or six weeks of rehearsal. They say they've not budgeted for that long a rehearsal period.

Regional theatres constantly refer to their budgets and their schedules with .4.