The end of the road

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/12/2003 (8129 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ON Dec. 17, 1982, The Who played what was supposed to be its final concert at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. Six more farewell shows and 21 years later, Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend just won’t f-f-f-fade away.

On March 11, 2000, KISS used Phoenix as the launching pad for a fiery farewell tour that would last nearly four years. The final show is supposed to happen Saturday in Fresno, Calif. — but don’t rule out more pyrotechnic appearances in 2004.

On June 14, 2002, Cher began a lavish farewell tour slated to finally end this January in Las Vegas. The final tally: More than 200 concert dates in North America and Europe and gross sales in excess of $175 million.

All this makes you wonder whether it’s possible for recording artists to really, truly say goodbye. Farewell tours seems like big, insincere cash grabs — except where The Watchmen are concerned.

Tomorrow night and Saturday, the Winnipeg-born rock band will play its final hometown shows at the Pyramid Cabaret. Slated to disband after 15 years, the final Watchmen final concert is slated for Dec. 31 in Buffalo, N.Y.

Throughout December, The Watchmen are making a grand total of nine farewell appearances — in Buffalo, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton and Saskatoon, plus two shows each in Winnipeg and Toronto. Even Big Sugar, an arguably less popular Canadian rock band, mounted a more extensive slate of goodbye shows.

“The farewell thing was never going to happen. We were just going to call it a day and let it go,” says guitarist Joe Serlin, who co-founded the Watchmen with singer Danny Greaves back in 1988.

That changed after news of the band’s impending break-up filtered out over the Internet earlier this fall. At the time, it looked as if a benefit social for the Israeli bobsled team captained by Greaves’ brother David would be the band’s final performance.

That wouldn’t have been a fitting end for The Watchmen, a no-nonsense rock band better known for hard touring than soft powder. These guys lived and died as a live band — so here, to do them justice, is a farewell to the Winnipeg rock institution.

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In the late ’80s, Winnipeg venues for original rock bands were far and few between. Even the underground scene was sleepy.

The only local bands to make any commercial noise during the second half of the Me Decade included pop-metal act White Heat and early alternative rockers Monuments Galore.

The opening of the Spectrum Cabaret in the spring of ’88 was just what the city needed — a venue dedicated to live music at a time when the North American indie-rock revolution was picking up steam.

The first band to really benefit from the Spectrum was the Crash Test Dummies, some of whose members both worked and performed at the Fort Street cabaret. The early Dummies was a truly eclectic project that took inspiration from many sources — Celtic pub rock and English literature among them — and the Spectrum proved to be the perfect incubator.

The Watchmen were nowhere near as bohemian. Serlin, who grew up down the street from BTO’s Fred Turner in Tuxedo, was a hotshot guitarist who loved Stevie Ray Vaughan. Greaves, an acquaintance since elementary school, was into jangly ’80s bands like The Housemartins and R.E.M.

Neither musician had any natural connection to the nascent indie-rock movement.

But they were more talented than most players of their age, never mind dedicated and ambitious. When the ’90s rolled around and guitar-based rock ‘n’ roll came back in vogue, they were perfectly poised to take advantage of all the open ears.

The first incarnation of The Watchmen featured Greaves, Serlin, bassist Pete Loewen (son of Winnipeg businessman and philanthropist Bill) and drummer Grant Page, the latter soon replaced by Sam Kohn, Greaves’ first cousin.

Under the guidance of Winnipeg agent Ralph James, a former member of Harlequin, the quartet hit the road and tried to “make it” the old-fashioned way: By building up a live following through ceaseless touring. They also landed a manager in Toronto music impresario Jake Gold, who wanted the young Winnipeggers to follow the example set by his even bigger client, The Tragically Hip.

“I was at the University of Winnipeg, taking second-year courses in whatever, and I had this opportunity to go on the road,” recalls Greaves. “It was April, and I was going to miss all my exams. I just dropped out — I figured I could go to school any time and this was an opportunity I could grab.”

The Watchmen began racking up fans across the country one kilometre at a time.

Toughened up by the road, the band’s 1993 debut album, McLarenFurnaceRoom, sported many of the hallmarks of grunge, such as stripped-down production and distorted bass guitar. Some Canadian music observers compared the band to The Hip, but there was no mistaking The Watchmen sound, thanks to Greaves’ unusually smooth voice, Serlin’s distinct guitar sound and Kohn’s ultra-precise, Stewart Copeland-inspired kit playing.

Initially, McLaren sold 20,000 copies and showed enough promise to get the band signed directly to Universal Music. Sophomore album In The Trees proved to be the height of the band’s commercial success, selling more than 150,000 copies and pushing McLarenFurnaceRoom over the 50,000 mark by the end of 1994.

“Up until then, we used to walk on stage, start playing and wouldn’t win people over until the end of the set,” recalls Greaves. “Then we realized people were coming to see us. It was so gradual, we couldn’t believe it — people would start making noise when we were walking on stage instead of when we were walking off.”

In The Trees also featured a new bassist, Newfoundlander Ken Tizzard, who replaced Loewen after the Winnipegger opted to get off the road in favour of raising a family. Increasingly confident as a group, the quartet recorded Brand New Day, a more studio-centred album featuring ambitious flourishes such as samba rhythms and trumpet lines.

Looking back, the 1996 album was the major turning point in The Watchmen’s career. Brand New Day sold another 50,000 copies, but the fair-weather fans who bought In The Trees solely because of the video for Boneyard Tree didn’t buy into the new sound.

The fallout led to a record-label switch from Universal to EMI Music Canada. The Watchmen’s next album, Silent Radar, produced by Adam Kasper of Soundgarden fame, marked a return to more of an organic guitar-rock sound. Once again, the band’s core audience responded, buying another 50,000 albums.

Serlin considers Silent Radar the finest album of the band’s career. “We peaked at that point, in my opinion,” he recalls. “I remember those sessions as a magical time.”

But as the ’90s came to a close, Serlin tired of guitar rock and began to experiment with electronic sounds. At the same time, Kohn grew tired of touring. The resulting tensions led to the drummer’s departure from the band early in 2001 and the release late that year of The Watchmen’s fifth and final album, Slomotion.

The double album featured one side of previous hits and a second disc of new, electronic-influenced material. For the first time in the band’s career, critics were uniformly unkind, accusing the band of going soft or jumping on the electronica bandwagon.

Subsequent live shows were performed with Winnipegger Ryan Ahoff on drums. For the next two years, Serlin, Greaves and Tizzard continued to soldier on.

But with all three full-time members raising young families and pursuing side projects in Toronto, The Watchmen lost their focus.

“None of us put in what I felt the band deserved in terms of its history, its body of work and the fans we had. I felt we weren’t (going) to do justice to a new record,” Serlin explains.

“We were starting to go through the motions and I always told myself I never wanted to that to happen. In the end, (we) were more excited about things we were working on outside the band, so it made sense to call it a day and move on.”

Serlin’s outside projects include producing The Populars, a group of Edmonton musicians who used to back up roots rocker Mike Plume. These guys are opening for The Watchmen during its five Western Canadian farewell shows, including this weekend’s pair in Winnipeg.

Serlin also plans to record with a new band of his own called Redline, featuring Ahoff on drums and former Headstones bassist Tim White.

Greaves is working on a record deal for a new collaboration for Rob Higgins, a former member of Change of Heart. Tizzard, meanwhile, has been playing with former Big Wreck singer Ian Thornley and has a solo project called Shadrak (www.shadrak.ca).

This weekend is bound to be emotional, as The Watchmen return to the building that helped launch their career. Serlin and Greaves intend to unearth a few older, more obscure songs at the pair of shows at the Pyramid, which ceased being the Spectrum in 1994.

In retrospect, The Watchmen had a successful career — and not just because every disc went gold or platinum.

“I’m proud we lasted 15 years and recorded five albums,” Serlin says. “As a Canadian band that didn’t cross over to the U.S., that can be a difficult thing … I don’t know if you see this any more.

“Back in the early ’90s, bands like us and the Barenaked Ladies dictated our own careers by touring constantly. I wonder how many bands can do that right now. Today, labels want to see instant success, and if that doesn’t happen, you’re done.”

Although both Serlin and Greaves live in Toronto now, they still call themselves Winnipeggers.

“We always prided ourselves on where we were from. We always loved (Winnipeg) and the music scene there,” adds Serlin.

“I liked to think we played by our own rules, played music that we loved and put everything into every show.”

Tickets for this weekend’s farewell shows are sold out at Ticketmaster. A few are available at Zesto’s, 570 Portage Ave., or at the door.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca