User:Fourkitties/sandbox

The Staccatos / Five Man Electrical Band Digital reference. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia,13 Sept. 2012 Web. 23 Sept. 2012 Digital reference. Vernon, Jaimie. Jam.canoe.ca Canadian Pop Music Encyclopedia - Five Man Electrical Band, 5 Dec.2004. Web. 23 Sep.2012 Digital reference. Vernon, Jaimie. Jam.canoe.ca Canadian Pop Music Encyclopedia - The Staccatos, 5 Dec. 2004. Web. 23 Sep.2012 Digital reference. Five Man Electrical Band. Five Man Electrical Band,2011. Web. 23 Sept. 2012 Digital reference. The Canadian Encyclopedia The Encyclopedia of Music in Canada, 2012. 30 Sept. 2012 Belanger, Rick. Personal interview, 3 Mar. 2008. Craig, Vern. Personal Interview. 24 Feb. 2008. Gerow, Ted. Personal interview. 27 July 2008. Rading, Brian. Personal interview, 14 May. 2008.

The Esquires Digital reference. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 27 Nov. 2011. Web. 22 Sep.2012. Digital reference. Vernon, Jaimie. Jam.canoe.ca Canadian Pop Music Encyclopedia - The Esquires, 1 Dec. 2004 Web. 23 Sep. 2012 Digital reference. Jansen, Rebecca. "Garage Hangover" Esquires - The Singles Plus, 8 August 2011. Web. 23 Sep. 2012 Comeau, Gary. Personal interview. 4 Apr. 2010 Lewicki, Brian. Personal interview. 18 July 2010. Norman, Donald. Personal interview. 8 Jan.2010. Orr, Douglas. Personal interview. 19 June 2010. Patterson, Richard. Personal interview. 21 Mar.2008.

The Townsmen Digital reference. Vernon, Jaimie. jam.canoe.ca Canadian Pop Music Encyclopedia - Townsmen, 11 Aug. 2005. Web. 23 Sep. 2012 Digital reference. Museum of Canadian Music We're Doing Fine - The Townsmen, 2010. Web. 23 Sep. 2012. Huot, Paul. Personal interview. 2 Mar.2005. Milliken, David. Personal interview. 6 Mar.2008. Morrison, Frank. Personal interview. 15 Dec.2007.

The Children Digital reference. Overall, Rick. jam.canoe.ca Children Come Home, 20 Aug. 1997. Web. 23 Sep. 2012 Cockburn, Bruce. Personal interview. 2 Feb.2012. Crawley, Sandy. Personal interview. 6 Nov. 2011. Hawkins, William. Personal interview. 6 Nov. 2011. Hodgson, Peter. Personal interview. 22 Jan. 2012. Wells, Neville. Personal interview. 14 Oct. 2011. Wiffen, David. Personal interview. 28 Mar. 2012.

Overview: The information in published texts on these artists are virtually non-existant. The few web articles that exist I have used. The majority of my information has come from the group members themselves through personal interviews, therefore a comparison between Wikipedia and encyclopedia articles is not applicable. I chose the only Wikipedia articles on the artists that exist. There is a new Canadian Pop Music Encyclopedia, an expansion of the Jam Canoe website,being published in October 2012. It will certainly help me in completing my task. I chose to do my main project on four Ottawa bands from the 1960s. I have been working on saving, preserving and releasing the music of these bands and others for about ten years. Before 1971,when the Canadian content regulations (CANCON)were enacted, Canadian music was the ugly step-child of radio in this country. Stations usually only played local acts grudgingly, and rarely played records from bands from other towns or provinces. Therefore, most records released in the fifties and sixties went up and down the local charts once, never to be heard of again. After CANCON, there was an explosion of hit recordings as radio was forced to play 30% Canadian material on-air. The Guess Who, the Stampeders, the Poppy Family, Lighthouse, Crowbar, Andy Kim, Mashmakhan, Motherlode and Ocean are just a sampling of the artists that benefitted from the new regulations. The artists whose careers ended before the regulations began are disappearing from Canadiam musical history as their music is rarely played on the air and rarely re-issued on cd or download. It is also difficult to find accurate data on them in books or online, as my search results above indicate. It is therefore my mission to ressurect as many of these as I can, both on compact disc but also in Wikipedia so their contributions to musical history is not forgotten.

Ian McLeish

Professor Helena Merriam

Reference 1

November 11, 2012

Assignment 2 * The Five Man Electrical Band

The Wikipedia article on the Five Man Electrical band starts with their early history as the Staccatos.

It covers band members, the first recordings of the group and their subsequent signing with Capitol

Records of Canada. The article goes on to mention the band's Canadian chart successes, their move to

California to seek a wider audience and their return to Canada. The Capitol era comes to a close and

they sign a new contract wirh MGM Records, but still experience low sales of their singles. The band is

on the verge of breaking up when several US radio stations start playing the song "Signs", which

eventually becomes their biggest hit, selling over two million copies. The article then lists the

following records and the gradual decline in sales of each; band members leaving and the eventual

breakup of the group. Finally, the article covers the occaisional band re-union and the use of "Signs"

as a cover version and as a sample.

There are two entries in the Canadian Encyclopedia of Pop Music, one as the Staccatos and one as the

Five Man Electrical Band. Taken together, they cover the same story as the Wikipedia article in

slightly greater depth. The story of the band's early years and successes, their trip to the US and

return to Canada before "Signs" takes them to the top of the charts. It also covers the eventual

decline and end of the group, detailing later re-unions and activity.

The Wikipedia article on the Five Man Electrical Band is of a decent size. However, it makes errors in

the band's early line-ups and recorded material. Many early Staccatos accomplishments are left out and

some are incorrect. The article does much better with the later years although it is still far from

being authoritative. Overall, it does give a fairly accurate picture of the band. The two articles in

the Canadian Encyclopedia of Pop Music, one for the Staccatos and one for the Five Man Electrical Band,

offer a slightly better picture of the band's history than the Wikipedia article. Again, there are

inaccuracies, similar to the ones in the Wikipedia article mean that both probably used similar, older

articles as a basis.

Both articles cover the same basic ground, but neither is completely accurate. Both make different

mistakes, yet both also contain similar errors. For example, both state that disc jockey Dean Hagopian

was an early member and both fail to mention original founder-guitarist Peter Fallis at all. While

Hagopian did record a single with the band as his back-up musicians, he was never an official member.

When Fallis decided to leave the band was when Les Emmerson was brought in as a replacement. Both

articles also downplay the contributions of founding member Vern Craig, who taught Emmerson to write

songs and co-wrote the early hits with him.

There are no lists of contributors to the Wikipedia site and the only references are to 1)the Canadian

Encyclopedia, which has a similar short article on the band, and 2) to a out-of-print British book

called the "The Book of Golden Discs" from 1978. The Canadian Encyclopedia of Pop Music articles list

eight contributors, including myself, but most of the names are unfamiliar to me and their knowledge of

the band unknown to me as well. The names I do recognize have some integrity, one being the band's

first manager and the other being member Vern Craig. However, the inaccuracies in the story mean that

fact-checking was apparently not a top priority. This makes me question the accuracy of other entries

in the encyclopedia.

The information online regarding early Canadian musicians is spotty at best, so further reading on the

topic is difficult. I found the band's website to be the worst of all, having a cursory few paragraphs

on the bands' early days and no details at all of the accomplishments and awards before 1970. The

website appears to re-write history, concentrating on the later more successful days of the group. The

other sites I looked at all had variations on the same information cited in the two accounts above,

again leading me to believe that most had cannibalized data from some earlier source. It appears that

the foremost expert on the band is myself, having interviewed all the members in 2007 and 2008 in order

to write the band's story for my compact disc release "The Staccatos / Five Man Electrical Band - First

Sparks: The Anthology" which was released in 2009.

The only new and relevent information I found on-line was a mention of "Signs" being re-recorded for

the Friends of the Earth charity. The song, with some new lyrics, was released in October 2011 to help

publicize the climate change conference in Durban, South Africa last year. Overall, I found both articles to be decent, if flawed, overviews of the Five Man Electrical Band.

While both followed the band's basic story, neither were comprehensive or totally accurate. The

Wikipedia clearly states that additional citations are needed for verification, and my mention of the

inaccuracies in the Pop Encyclopedia show it needs revision as well. One example is the fact that the

band won three Juno Awards, two in 1966 for "Let's Run Away" as best produced single and vocal /

instrumental group of the year; one in 1967 for "Half Past Midnight" as best produced single. These

awards directly contributed to the band going to work in Los Angeles for their second album. Another

example of important facts missing from the story is the album the Staccatos recorded with the Guess

Who, "A Wild Pair", sold over 85,000 copies when released in 1967. No Canadian rock record had ever

sold this many copies before. It's success led to record companies to realize Canadian acts might just

be possible money-makers, and also increased the profiles of both bands immensely.

Additional Resources Brisebois,Dan "Five Man Electrical Band" Canadian Bands.com n.p. 2012. Web. 31 Oct. 2012. Canada Helps.org n.p. 2011. Web. 31 Oct. 2012.

"Five Man Electrical Band" The Canadian Encyplodedia. n.p. n.d. Web. 4 Nov.2012.

"Five Man Electrical Band" Classic Bands.com n.p. n.d. Web. 4 Nov. 2012.

"History..." Five Man Electrical Band. ca n.p. 2011. Web. 4 Nov. 2012.

Panontin Michael. "Five Man Electrical Band" Canuckistan Music. n.p. n.d. Web. 1 Nov. 2012. Phares, Heather. "Five Man Electrical Band Biography" Yahoo! Music. n.p. 2012. Web. 31 Oct. 2012.

Vernon, Jaimie. "Five Man Electrical Band" Canoe - JAM! Music. n.p. n.d. Web. 4 Nov. 2012.

Vernon. Jaimie. "The Staccatos" Canoe - JAM! Music n.p. n.d. Web. 4 Nov. 2012.