By Will McGuirk
Ah, here’s one for the books - Chilliwack, who are playing at the Regent Theatre Saturday, May 27, have some of my fave songs - I mean ‘Fly At Night,’ “Four Men in a Rock ‘n’ Roll Band’ - what’s not to like! And one of my all-time fave bands is cow-punksters Jr. Gone Wild, from Edmonton. In the early 80s, I had their debut ‘Less Art More Pop’ on repeat. I only had two albums then, 5440 being the other, but really great stuff that gave me a grounding in the country roots of Canada and also here in the Region. Anyway, you’ve heard all this before, but I only found out last year that the producer of Jr Gone Wild’s ‘Too Dumb To Quit’ album, the follow-up, was Bill Henderson of the aforementioned Chilliwack. Whaaat!? On their most recent album ‘Still Got the Jacket,’ Jr. Gone Wild cover ‘Fly At Night,’ and Henderson chimes in on some guitar parts. So in all of my meanderings on Black Grass, the roots may have been in the smoky mountains of British Columbia, and that rootsy gritty country influence flew in from the West and was not blown in from the East as my research indicated. So there you go; even late in life, one can still learn a thing or two, always be open to being wrong; that's the trick.
