User:Idicus/sandbox

Steve Wildesmith' aka Steve Bent, singer songwriter from Ottawa Canada. The early years: Emerged in the late 70's playing unlikely obscure punk covers from the Detroit and New York scene in a party band they named "Crackerband" after his room mate "Cracker" who was also his music store contact (Paul Proulx). Crakerband consisted of Steve as "Steve Bent" on vocals, Rockin Ronnie Gendron on Bass Charles Arsenault (the flame) on lead guitar and Jon Finnigan on drums. Steve wrote all the originals they played and picked the covered songs from material he liked to listen to so The Stooges early works and some later Iggy stuff like Raw Power, Search and Destroy, I need Somebody, Loose, Down on the Street, Dirt (played fast) Nightclubbing, to name a few were always in the mix as well as Marque Moon and Friction by Television, some early Stranglers, Eddie and the hot rods, Roxy music, and even the The Modern lovers, they played a rendition of Pablo Picasso (by the Modern Lovers) which can still be found here and there on the web.

In late 79 Steve founded "SECTION 8" (mental men of music) initially with Rockin Ronnie Gendron on Bass Charles Arsenault (the flame) on lead guitar and Jon Finnigan on drums. Charles was a shy lead player but a true master and would often play with his back to the audience. In 1980 Steve met Karl Reznick at a hallowe'en party and they hit it off so Karl came on as second guitar and quickly eclipsed Charles as he was the classic charismatic lead player, with all the chops, resulting in Charles leaving the band. In early 1980 Steve met up with Scotty Howarth and Marty Timusk from the hard core punk band TARGET 21 and they created a new line-up with Karl, Scotty and Marty. Jon Finn (Finnigan) stayed on as drummer. Section 8 saw Marty and Scotty write some material for a change but Steve was the principle songwriter. Steve pressed to be all original and at some gigs the band played 3 sets of all original songs (later when interviewed he said that was likely a mistake)

Steve kept Section 8 small in the beginning due to his fear of touring and not having adequate supply of his favourite mood altering substance so they never toured as much as they could have. In 1983 they did do a tour of St Lucia because Steve wanted a holiday so he set up a few gigs culminating with a stadium show in Castries on St Lucia Day (Dec 13 1983) and played to a full stadium with a stand in drummer (friend of the band Mike Cousineau) because Jon Finn backed out at the last minute. When they returned the band found a new drummer Steve Graham and he stayed with the band for the rest of it's time. Section 8 momentarily collapsed in 1986, Steve had quit using mood altering substances in 1985 and the band was not the same without his crazynes. Marty went on to play in a very successful cover band named "the New Capitols" and Scotty played in several hard rock bands. Karl eventually also played for the New Capitals. In late 87 Steve had written several new songs and so had Scotty and they reunited and played sporadically until 1989. Section 8 ran from 1981 through 1989 with the last gig they played as opener for BTO at Barrymores. They recorded an album, "unstable world" in 1982 but it was never released as they lost the 2" master tapes. They did release one single with the songs "Can't let go" and "Hollywood Hallowe'en" from that session in 1982 which did chart on university radio across Canada.

In-between time From 1989 to 2003 Steve put his guitar under his bed and did not touch it for 14 years. He married in 1988 and raised a family until some musicians asked him to play a benefit.

In 2005 Steve changed his name to Steve Wildesmith and put together several line-ups and bands ranging from 4 piece to 5 piece under names such as "mostly harmless", "Oh My My". Steve was on the look out for up and coming talent and found Blair Hogan for guitar, Mike St Jean for drums and initially Dave Wong on bass, and formed "bRoKN sLeEP" to record and play his unfinished songs that Section 8 never wanted to play. In the end he never did recorded the unfinished songs as the new energy made him write all new material. bRoKN sLeEP workshopped about 20 songs over a six month weekly residency at Avante Garde Bar in Ottawa before settling on 14 songs to record. Dave Wong was replaced by Alex Masternardi for the final rehearsals before recording the album "bRoKN sLeEP" which was released as a CD in 2007-2008. bRoKN sLeEP was recorded in Almonte Ontario with the capable and careful hands of Ken Friesen and can still be found online. Stand out tracks from that album are "Unsaid" "Spaceship" Catacomb gangster" and "something/beautiful" bRoKN sLeEP disbanded after the recording was completed. The songs were never played live again after the session. In 2011 Steve connected with a kindred spirit named Jeff Steel and decided to finally try another recording session and do the unheard Section 8 era material. "Unstable World" was recorded with Steve Foley in Ottawa in 2012 after Steve and Jeff connected with Dan Hay on guitar and Jamie Kronick on drums. They work shopped several songs, played a few gigs to get them sorted and then went into record them at Audio Valley. It finally saw two of the songs Section 8 never played get recorded, "that's right" and "eyes" Steve continued to record but the "wildesmith" band disolved in April 2013. In 2014 Steve and Dan and Jeff did some bits at Audio Valley with Steve Foley (the engineer) playing drums and recordings from those session can be found on Steve's site "idicusmax" on BANDCAMP. Steve went quiet again from 2014.

Present: In 2021 Steve emerged playing acoustic in Almonte Ontario with the Almonte Song Circle collective. Currently Steve is working on several new releases with over 35 new songs to get through.