ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON AUG. 26, 1983
By Steve Newton
“That’s part of the reason I went for the Strat,” says 44 guitarist Dave Filchak, “just to have the different sound. It blends well with Tom’s Les Paul, but they stick out too.”
“He’s using an American amp and I’m using an English one,” injects Tom Lang, the other half of 44’s two-toned guitar army, “and the sounds are just radically different. I get that big fat British sound and Dave’s got that funky kind of Strat lead sound.”
All this talk of guitars and amps may seem like a funny way to start off a local band story, but in the case of Vancouver rockers 44 it’s not so strange. With the possible exception of heavy-metallites Kick Axe, there are currently very few dual-lead hard-rock acts playing the city that command as much attention from guitar enthusiasts as 44.
Air guitarists would have a field day imitating the frenzied riffs of Filchak and Lang, and when you add to their dynamic fretwork the powerhouse drumming of George Klimow and the steady bass of Dan Zimmerman, you come up with possibly the hottest–and definitely the most overlooked–bar band in the city.
44 first came together in 1980 when Filchak moved out from Lethbridge, Alberta and joined ex-Fosterchild members Vern Wills and Gerry Wand in a blues and R&B band named Island. Bassist Zimmerman was already in the group, and when Wills and Wand left to pursue other musical adventures, Lang–formerly with the Alberta bands the Rockies and Falcon Chase–and drummer Klimow joined up.
Keyboardist John Webster, now with Red Rider, was the fifth member of 44 till he left them in February of this year.
“John always wanted to have a record deal happen real quick,” says Filchak, “and always wanted it before it could happen. So he was just getting itchy feet.”
But Webster’s absence hasn’t hurt the band. According to Filchak, if anything it’s made them stronger.
“John’s a good keyboard player,” he admits, “but I enjoy the band more now. There’s a lot more room, and it rocks harder.”
“With the other band,” adds Lang, “we’d play live and either lose one guitar or another–we couldn’t get all three of them blasting away at the same time. Now we can do that and get away with it.”
Their former keyboardist’s departure certainly hasn’t injured 44 in the eyes of record companies either. The group is currently signed with Montreal’s Aquarius Records, and have already recorded a mini-album that is scheduled for a September release. Negotiations for an American record deal are also in the works, with Warner Bros., EMI, and Epic Records in the running.
“Those American companies are interested,” says Lang, “it’s not like we’re trying to woo them. Now we just have to come to terms.”
But even though record companies may be impressed with 44’s original tunes, Vancouver club owners have shown they feel quite the opposite. The group’s creativity and urge to experiment have been a mark against it in a business that favours the familiar.
“We’re actually a lot more commercial than we’ve ever been,” says Filchak, “and yet we’ve still had trouble with club owners–and henceforth the agency–because we never seemed to do things the way you’re supposed to. We didn’t want to do all the straight Top 40 stuff, but the club owners feel that’s what you have to have to get the kids in and sell the booze. And basically if you’re in a club, that is your job–to sell the booze. And really there’s not a lot else to it.”
“If we were playing Dillingers or something like that,” adds Lang, “and doing our own original rockabilly, then people would flock to see us and we’d be the next big thing. But right now we’re struggling in that area. We’ve got to make the payments on our gear, and we’ve got to survive until the American deal comes through.
“And the only way to survive is to play their game–but still keep our own little sort of identity. Like with ‘I’m Going Home’ and the other little things we do.”
Lang’s sparkling renditon of that classic Ten Years After tune is a real highlight of 44’s set, as patrons of Frams Cabaret discovered when the band played there recently. Filchak leaves the stage, allowing his bandmate a solo workout with Zimmerman and Klimow’s rhythm section, and Lang pulls out all the stops. But, surprisingly, the six-stringed showcase was not something Lang first wanted to perform.
“I had to be goaded into doing that,” he says with a laugh. “I’d say, ‘Naw, let’s put it off till tomorrow, I don’t know all the licks yet.’ There’s a lot of them in that tune, and a lot of them are my own, but most of them I can make sound like Alvin Lee‘s style and then just blast off into my own area.”
But even a mixture of original songs and golden oldies like “I’m Going Home” hasn’t been enough to totally win over the bar crowds in Vancouver. It’s always the big hits of today that do it, and 44 realizes that’s taking the easy way out.
“For a cover tune like [John Cougar‘s] ‘Hurts So Good’,” says Lang, “they’ll pack the dance floor and just love you to death. And it shows in some of the sales figures.
“We get people in the clubs that say, ‘Aw, you guys are great, love your tunes, your diversity’–things like that. But then the club owner would look at his figures for the week. And because we’re doing a lot of originals, people think, ’44? Naa, naa, let’s go see another band that does all cover tunes.’ And they’ll definitely win out for the average bar-going crowd.”
“Until you’re known,” pipes in Filchak. “See, our problem is we’ve been in this town for three yeas, and I’d say eight out of ten people have never even heard us.”
“More like nine,” corrects Lang.
“I think the people accept us,” muses Filchak, “but, you know, when that recession hit, the club owners just freaked. They just wanted to go with what they knew was going to sell the beer. You can’t really blame them in a lot of ways, but it hurt bands like us.
“In Alberta, they never thought the recession would hit because there was so much money. But it’s there now, definitely, and the people are still going out. They don’t care; they just want to have fun.”
44 have a good following and do very well in Alberta, which is part of the reason they head there two or three times a year.
Says Filchak: “It’s good for the ego to go out there and have a packed house every night and people yelling and screaming, whereas here it’s not the same for us.
“Our main push right now is just to get people to realize that we’re here, we’re from Vancouver, and we’re a good band. We’re really going to spend a lot of time trying to make people aware of this.”
44 will be playing various Fraser Valley nightclubs in the weeks to come.
(Note: shortly after this article was published, 44 changed its name to Sharp Edges and released a six-track mini-album titled Slice of Life.)
To read over 100 of my other interviews with local Vancouver musicians since 1983, go here.
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