‘Pritty’ surprising comeback

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This article was published 14/07/2023 (841 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Time capsules emerge in the strangest places.

The latest is a musical blast from the past from Winnipeg’s mid-’80s rough-and-rowdy bar scene, when heavy metal was the rage, and one band was in the midst of the mayhem.

Nuthin’ Pritty — Joey Saltel (vocals), Rod Machovec (guitar), Terry Smith (bass) and Keith Dzedzora (drums) — hit its peak in 1986 when it released a five-song self-titled EP. Then it faded into history, the hot-pink-and-black record taking space on Winnipeg music collectors’ shelves as a reminder of a time when long hair and spandex were the late-night fashion at gritty hotel nightclubs like the Zoo, the Canadiana and the Curtis.

“It was a madhouse,” Smith remembers of gigs at the Zoo, which was located in the recently razed Osborne Motor Inn. “They’d book us for the whole week. We’d play three sets a night, Monday to Saturday, and things would get progressively crazier as we got toward the weekend.”

Dzedzora remembers the way Saltel, who died in November 2021, pushed the crowd and his fellow bandmates to dig deep for the last ounce of energy during gigs.

“The house was always packed wherever we played, and when Rod would be doing a guitar solo, (Saltel) would jump on my drum riser and look at me and go, ‘Harder! Harder! Hit ’em harder!’ ” Dzedzora remembers.

The energy fizzled when the group broke up shortly after the EP was released, the album just a fond memory of what could have been until a fateful phone call last November brought the band that played the song Pompeii out of dormancy.

“I thought it was a prank. Who’s pranking me now? Especially about a Nuthin’ Pritty record,” says Dzedzora, who hadn’t seen Machovec for 35 years until a group interview with the Free Press Wednesday evening. “It was a big, big time in my life, man.”

That call came from Jeremy Golden of Heaven and Hell Records in Lancaster, Pa., a small label that specializes in heavy metal, and reissues recordings from groups long forgotten.

Bands like Nuthin’ Pritty.

“A lot of these heavy metal bands, the melodic hair-band types, they all got swept away. If they came out in the end of the ’80s, labels would dismiss them and they’d missed the boat,” says Golden, who started Heaven and Hell 17 years ago. “That stuff would end up shelved, the bands would split up and they would go on about life.

“Then they would get shocked when someone like me approaches them. ‘How they hell did you get this?’ Well, I did.”

That’s what happened with Nuthin’ Pritty. Golden’s partner sent him eight boxes of CD-Rs, recordable compact discs that music lovers once used to create mixtapes of their favourite songs.

He found something pretty when he gave Nuthin’ Pritty a listen.

“The stuff is like dusting off relics,” he says. “There were 800 discs and on these were demos, self-releases, what have you, and we found a few things that appealed to us and Nuthin’ Pritty happened to be one of them. There’s a hardcore, cult circuit for that kind of stuff.”

Golden phoned Dzedzora first, and got permission from the rest of Nuthin’ Pritty to reissue the record. A digital transfer from the vinyl EP was the source for the CD. The master tapes — they recorded Nuthin’ Pritty in the long-gone Century 21 Studios on Leila Avenue — couldn’t be found.

Golden knew nothing about Nuthin’ Pritty or where they were from. He discovered the moniker, which Saltel came up with for a laugh during a brainstorm session when he joined the band, was a curveball when he slipped the disc in his player.

“The name Nuthin’ Pritty sounds like it’s a glam, sleazy, L.A. Strip, Mötley Crüe-type band,” Golden says. “When I put it on, it was not this at all. It’s a balls-out, Judas Priest-flavoured heavy metal band. I do think there’s a distinction.”

Heaven and Hell made 500 copies, with Smith’s liner notes about Nuthin’ Pritty’s history, photos and song lyrics included. The company will start selling the discs online in late August at heavenandhellrecords.com. The band has sent some of its copies to local stores such as Into the Music and Entertainment Exchange in Grant Park mall as well.

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Nuthin’ Pritty used the EP in 1986 as a demo to try land a record deal, but found no success. Dzedzora said the music scene in the mid-’80s had become over-saturated with metal bands, all keen to follow Metallica and Judas Priest’s trail to stardom.

“All we needed was a chance. It would have been the next step and that’s what we were looking toward,” Smith says. “We were always just bubbling low because they were focusing on the MOR (middle-of-the-road) bands, but there was always a following. The clubs were packed.”

They were unable to tour beyond Winnipeg because Machovec was 16 and still in high school, and keen to study classical guitar.

“I was a kid. I had to discreetly sneak on the stage, play and then leave,” Machovec, 54, says.

“I had this amazing privilege to work with these seasoned musicians. They always say if you want to become better, surround yourself with greatness. I had that privilege as a 16-year-old.”

He eventually left Nuthin’ Pritty to continue studying classical guitar, which led him to the Manitoba Conservatory of Music and Arts. He went on to teach at the University of Manitoba and judge at the Winnipeg Music Festival; he owns his own studio in River Heights, where he mostly teaches classical and jazz — though he still has the chops to help young rockers.

Saltel was an electrician while with Nuthin’ Pritty, but later would become a physiotherapist.

Smith, 62, also teaches guitar and Dzedzora, 60, is a welder but also gives lessons on percussion, adding he helped a fellow teacher work with a drummer in Japan over FaceTime during the pandemic.

So those who once were long-haired tormentors have become the mentors to the next generation of musicians, teaching everything from Andrés Segovia’s Spanish guitar to Slash’s solos.

“I have people that want to learn shredding. I teach that stuff, I know how hard it is,” Machovec says.

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Saltel was the source of ideas for Nuthin’ Pritty, including its name and its hot-pink colour scheme.

He was even a guardian angel once. The band used flashpots — ’80s era concert pyrotechnics — to amp up the crowd and Smith remembers one scary encounter.

”Joe saved my life,” Smith says. “I was standing over a flashpot at the Zoo. We’re in the song already, and I hear, ‘Terry!’ and then he said ‘Hey!’ and he grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and pulled me back just before the flashpot went off.”

Dzedzora played in other bands with Saltel after Nuthin’ Pritty’s breakup, and they got together with Smith for a Nuthin’ Pritty reunion gig in 2015. Machovec sat out; guitarist Shane Barron filled in.

Smith said Saltel had hopes for more reunion gigs in 2020 but the pandemic derailed any plans.

That dream is back, thanks to the CD, which is dedicated to Saltel’s memory, though Smith recognizes it won’t be easy without the late singer’s vocals and stage presence.

“He would be just over the moon about it,” Smith says, imagining Saltel’s reaction to the disc. “He was looking forward to doing reunion shows, and he just wanted to keep it going. Unfortunately, we won’t have that opportunity, but we’ll try to do the best we can.”

alan.small@winnipegfreepress.com

Twitter: @AlanDSmall