Sticking with it Versatile drummer has no regrets he’s always marched to his own beat By: David Sanderson Posted: 3:07 PM CDT Friday, Apr. 24, 2026

Greg Gardner would like to begin by apologizing to one-time Fort Garry resident Lynne Miller in the event her ears were burning earlier this week.

Gardner, a veteran drummer who has solidly kept the beat for everything from punk-rock groups to ’60s tribute acts to chamber orchestras, is seated in a Provencher Avenue café, where he is discussing his first band. The Rellims, which he helped form in 1965 at age 13, consisted of friends from what is now École Viscount Alexander. As for the origin of the Rellims’ odd-sounding moniker, well, that’s always been a bit of a secret, Gardner says with a wink.

“At the time, there was a gal, Lynne Miller, who we were all madly in love with,” he divulges, noting the Rellims were heavily influenced by British Invasion bands like the Rolling Stones and the Kinks. “In honour of Lynne, we called ourselves the Rellims — Miller spelled backwards. I don’t believe she ever knew the truth, but if she reads this, she’ll probably have a good chuckle.”

Gardner, 74, grew up on Bathgate Bay, not far from his present home on North Drive, which he shares with his partner Margaret. His late father was Manitoba Broadcasters Hall of Fame inductee Cliff Gardner. Through his dad — a familiar voice on radio stations such as 680 CJOB and 630 CKRC — he was exposed to music at an early age.

His father had an impressive record collection, except for the fact most of what his dad went for — Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra, Julie London — didn’t appeal to him, says Gardner, the eldest of two siblings. “Elvis (Presley) never really grabbed me, either. The first thing that really fuelled my interest was Feb. 9, 1964 — the night the Beatles made their debut appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.”

“I taught myself how to play by putting on Manfred Mann records and pretending I was Mike Hugg.”

The next morning, Gardner began dogging his parents for a set of drums similar to those of Ringo Starr, already his favourite Beatle. His dad nixed the idea — he was probably afraid of the ensuing racket, Gardner guesses — but offered to buy him a guitar as a compromise.

“I accepted their gift, but meanwhile, I was slipping over to a buddy’s place whose brother had a set of drums. There, I taught myself how to play by putting on Manfred Mann records and pretending I was Mike Hugg.”

By December 1964, Gardner’s parents had come around to their son’s wishes. They presented him with a five-piece kit for Christmas and a few months later, he was one-fifth of the Rellims.

Gardner was still with the Rellims in 1967 when he started hanging out with a fellow whose older brother belonged to a band called the Safe & Sound. The Safe & Sound was a well-established outfit, and Gardner spent hours in his friend’s backyard with his back against a fence, listening to them rehearse in an adjacent garage. That August, the Safe & Sound’s drummer quit to attend university. Gardner’s pals urged him to audition but, given he was three years younger than the existing members, he told them he wouldn’t stand a chance.

“I decided to give it a shot anyways and on the day of my tryout, there was another guy there who’d flown in from Vancouver — with his drums, no less. I thought I was sunk but after tearing through Born to Be Wild by Steppenwolf, they turned to me and said, ‘Good job. You’re in.’”

Gardner recalls the excuse he came up with a month later when the Safe & Sound — now rebranded as the Love Cyrcle — hit the road for a set of gigs in British Columbia.

“I told my parents I was sleeping over at a buddy’s for a couple of weeks. They never bothered to check whether I was there or not, so I got away with it.”

“Greg was funny as hell. He was our Ringo who could keep things centred when egos began running amuck.”

Dan Donahue, a decorated producer who has worked with a who’s who of Canadian artists including Fred Penner, Connie Kaldor and Valdy, was a guitarist with the Safe & Sound and the Love Cyrcle. He remembers when Gardner joined the group, just under 60 years ago.

“Greg was forever an original and being that his dad was the well-known Cliff Gardner from CJOB radio acclaim, he came with a certain cachet. Albeit, he was continually doing imitations of his father, as if to downplay the entire thing,” Donahue says.

“Greg was funny as hell. He was our Ringo who could keep things centred when egos began running amuck. Musically speaking, he was a Beatles freak like the rest of us, so he fit like a shoe. While most (bands) in the city were still preoccupied with doing cover material, we were writing our own stuff, and because Greg could play almost any style, his versatility proved invaluable.”

Gardner left the Love Cyrcle in 1970 to study graphic arts at the University of Manitoba. A gifted artist, he jokes that he would have been the “next Andy Warhol” if it hadn’t been for the migraine headaches he developed whenever he worked with silkscreen solvents.

After graduating, Gardner balanced his time between commissioned art projects, part-time jobs at downtown record stores and playing drums for a succession of bands. Those included Noddy Head, Doris Daze and the Bankrobbers and — to close out the ’70s — Popular Mechanix, a punk-influenced unit that received heavy airplay on CBC radio program Brave New Waves, and toured Canada with New Zealand’s Split Enz and Scotland’s Simple Minds. (Gardner also designed the iconic cover art for Popular Mechanix’s self-titled debut album — an image of a nude Veronica from Archie-comics fame, grooving to a portable radio.)

In 1982, around the time Popular Mechanix split up, Gardner’s father expressed doubt his son would ever be able to afford a home or support a family if he stuck with music. By then, the elder Gardner had transitioned to acting, and was heavily involved in Rainbow Stage productions. He put in a good word for his son at the outdoor theatre venue where Gardner caught on as a set designer, a job he embraced for the next decade.

He never ceased playing, however. He recorded an album in 1983 with new wave band Class Info. Only 500 copies of the record were issued, and mint-condition specimens now fetch close to $1,000 on online-music marketplaces. Following that, he formed Amakudari, an all-instrumental group whose avant garde style was described by one reviewer as “the sort of sounds you listen to while getting a deep tissue massage.”

The closest Gardner came to potential fame and fortune occurred in the late ’80s when he joined Straw Dog, a hard-rocking band co-fronted by Alex Chauqui, ex- of Queen City Kids, and Lou Petrovich, ex- of the Pumps. Straw Dog was being touted as Winnipeg’s “next big thing,” and was working with producer Bruce Fairbairn (INXS, Bon Jovi, Loverboy) on a debut album being recorded in Vancouver.

“We were halfway through, everything was going good as far as Bruce was concerned, when this feeling came over me that I couldn’t shake,” Gardner says, cradling his cup of coffee. “The Aerosmith-y sound we were doing just wasn’t my thing and I let the guys know I needed to leave.”

Despite being told that he was crazy to quit — his bandmates even accused him of being afraid of success — he stuck to his guns, telling them they’d have no trouble replacing him, which they promptly did with the drummer from Aldo Nova.

“Unfortunately, things didn’t work out for Straw Dog but even if they had, there would have been no regrets on my end. I’ve been playing for almost 60 years and I can honestly say there hasn’t been one time when it’s been about a dollar amount.”

Guitarist Laurie Mackenzie has teamed up with Gardner on numerous projects. In 2014, Mackenzie, Gardner and four others from the rock realm performed alongside the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra for a set of well-received Beatles and Strings concerts.

“I’m not sure where to begin when it comes to Greg. He’s a lovely human being, a joy to be friends with and to play music with,” says Mackenzie, whose most recent CD, titled The Chisholm Trio, features Gardner’s artwork on the cover.

“He has a wide variety of influences — from the Beatles to Miles Davis to David Bowie to Antônio Carlos Jobim — and it all informs his creativity and playing.

“I’ve been fortunate to play with him in several rock ’n’ roll bands, a jazzy group called Standard Transmission and a Mamas and Papas tribute act,” Mackenzie says. “If he’s in a situation with musicians who’ve never played with him — including from the jazz and symphonic worlds — he’s always noticed and appreciated. They talk about him in glowing terms and/or ask him to work with them.”

“I’ve been playing for almost 60 years and I can honestly say there hasn’t been one time when it’s been about a dollar amount.”

These days, Gardner — who followed in his father’s footsteps by hosting a radio show on 93.7 CJNU from 2012 to 2020 — keeps busy with various recording projects and his graphic-arts business. (Since 1998 he has done design work for almost 80 locally-shot movies, including Guy Maddin’s The Saddest Music in the World and Capote, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman.)

He notoriously abhors frigid weather, so he is still waiting until the daily high temperatures hit “at least 13 consistently” before he ventures out of his abode to play live.

He runs a hand through his hair when asked what path he might have taken, if it hadn’t been for that episode of The Ed Sullivan Show, 62 years ago.

“Who can say? As a kid, I had little interest in traditional roles like doctor, banker or firefighter. Back then, if somebody asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, the only thing I might have come up with was to write Hardy Boys books. Which, I suppose, there’s still time to do.”

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