 I don't know what it was. Maybe it was the heralded re-release of "This Is Spinal Tap". Maybe it was the news that Angel (logo the same right side up as upside down) were releasing a new CD. Whatever it was, I was hit by a wave of nostalgia (perhaps it could have been a wave of nausea.) I started surfing the Internet for bands that I had met on the road while zigging and zagging across Canada back in the "good ol' days" (1980's era). I stumbled into Brian Vollmer's "Helix" page and was stuck there for the better part of a year reading all of the reminiscing. Then I found pages for Kickaxe, Killer Dwarfs (remember them?) and all of Andy Curran's sundry & assorted musical incarnations! I even saw some pictures of my ol' friend Dave Ketchum, former Coney Hatch drummer. Then I started thinking; "y'know, the last thing the world needs right now is a RECKLESS website! It would be a big, regressive step backwards for all of humanity!" After that epiphany, I just knew I had to indulge myself in this futile, self-deprecating ego-exercise! Besides, I'm getting old and weary now, and if I don't write everything down, I forget.
I'm using Madoonski's head as a seperating icon. It's funnier looking than my head (well, in my opinion, anyhow, ) and besides, Madden really was the epitomy of "Reckless" in every sense of the word. (Actually, I think the REAL epitomy of "reckless" was the way in which our management went about career-decision making, but that's for another website. Perhaps "http://www.BetterBusinessBureau.com".)
Besides, Madden's head is a recognizable icon - it sort of looks like the MGM lion, only with a haystack for a mane. Subconsciously, I'm probably suppressing a gaggle of unpleasant Reckless memories. I suppose the constructing of this site is serving as some sort of penance that I must perform; a sort of cleansing of my musical soul. Bookmark this site and check back in a little while, as alot of it is under construction right now. Pretty soon there will be video clips to view, more incriminating photos than you can shake a stick of hate at, and refreshments for all of the gang!!
I remember being conned into "just jamming" with the band, in their rehearsal room in the sub-basement of an apartment building. It was there that I met old Gene Stout, who quickly got out. Hobbled about like a man with the Gout. (Not really, but it rhymes.)
I don't know why or when, but somehow a Music Express article written about this short-lived line-up survives. How the hell did I get conned into posing for a photo session? Weren't we "just jamming"??
Well, pretty soon we were "just gigging" and "just recording", too. By the time we were "just touring", I was forced to quit High School. I began to take correspondence courses while on the road. Now I'm dumber than a hollowed-out stump filled with tofu.
 They prevented me from leaving the band by telling me that my hovel back in Toronto had imploded, and that I had no place to live, and that they would protect me. Like a trained, hairless-assed howler monkey, I got up onstage every evening and pounded the plastic (they don't make drumheads out of hide anymore) and subsisted on the meager pressed-processed-protein rations that I was doled out in my cramped cardboard box after every performance.
It was during our morning mandatory affirmation sessions (see black & white security-camera photo, above) that I was programmed to call Doug "The Leader", and Steve Madden "The Leader-leader". Postcards that I scribbled to friends were carefully scrutinized and edited for content before they were approved for mailing. Somewhere along the line, Todd Pilon had come and gone on bass (I was told that he left Reckless to sell waterbeds in Ottawa). He possessed the moral fibre of two men, so two men were necessary to replace him. Brian Beggs and Nick Brewerton were brainwashed and recruited from a penal colony located in Scarborough.
I look back on the three years that I spent interned in Reckless, and through my steam-filled, leaking compression-chamber of a mind, I can identify a few positive learning experiences.
Certain activities indulged in by the band provided me with practical skills that I find I am applying to my everyday civilian life. For instance, the ritual of drywalling folks into their hotel rooms(color photo above.) This experience stands me in good stead now,as I stumble from Mission to Mission and hostel to hostel, offering to patch up wall holes in exchange for a place to sleep for the night. But, I digress. Forgive me. Er...what was the question again?
"Aw sick, Doug's the leader, but I'm the Leader-leader !"
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