Trouble In The Camera Club: A Photographic Narrative of Toronto’s Punk History 1976 – 1980

The Ramones - New Yorker Theatre 1977

I must admit to being green with envy while pouring over Don Pyle's new book - Trouble In The Camera Club. Not just because he saw pretty much anyone who was anyone in the Toronto punk rock scene of the late 70s. Not because he documented the trip with his camera, and kept a lot of ephemera, resulting in one bad ass ride down memory lane. But because I was just a little too young to experience the scene the same way he did. Either way, I certainly identify with Pyle's life, growing up in a small suburban Toronto neighbourhood, jonesing for new music in the record shop bins, getting into clubs underage, and ultimately wanting something more out of the music I listened to. But I was just a little too late, and although the scene was still great in the early to late 80s, it wasn't the same. 

TITCC confirms and documents that Toronto was indeed a hot spot for the emergence of punk in North America. Yes there was the homegrown talent: The Viletones (Steven Leckie delivers the book's introduction), Teenage Head, The Diodes, and many others, but Pyle maintains that because of Canada's colonial umbilical cord to Britain, it was easy for the wave of "big" British punk bands to hop over to the country's biggest city - The Clash, The Stranglers, 999, The Vibrators. Yet Pyle finds it hard to ignore what was coming out of New York: The Dolls, The Stooges, Blondie, and everything of course, centres around The Ramones. It's difficult to measure the impact that The Ramones had, but it's clear it is seminal and far reaching for a lot of us, as much so as The Beatles, Stones, Dylan, or even Elvis. Pyle clearly remembers being in a record store and hearing The Ramones first album come on over the speakers, it was his epiphany, the moment when he realised the power of this new music and the scene that went along with it.

So armed with his camera he set out to document his immersion into something that would shape the rest of his life. TITCC is laid out chronologically and starts with a Patti Smith show at Seneca College  in 1976 and ends with a Ramones show at RPM in 1987, at which Pyle's band Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet opened. Each show is accompanied by photos, posters, ticket stubs and the like, as well as Pyle's own memories. It is an impressive collection: Iggy Pop, Dead Boys, Runaways, Cheap Trick, Blondie, XTC, The Heartbreakers, The Damned, The Ramones, all in their prime, and all in very small venues, usually run down clubs. The amazing thing about this collection is the photographs had never been seen before 2007. For close to 30 years Pyle sat on the negatives, eventually restoring them and featuring them in a show at the Beaver Bar in Toronto. We're lucky he did, TITCC is a literal punk rock treasure, and it makes me wish I had kept everything myself. Regrets, I've had a few....

Don Pyle is also a well known musician having been in the bands Crash Kills Five, Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet (who opened for The Ramones), King Cobb Steelie, Fifth Column, Greek Buck and Phono-Comb. He is also a composer and a producer/engineer who has worked with The Sadies, Peaches and Iggy Pop to name a few.

The book will be launched in fine fashion on May 4th, for anyone near Toronto (follow the link to buy the book as well)

http://troubleinthecameraclub.com/book-news/book-launch/

Prints are available at http://www.donpyle.com/titcc_pages/titcc2.html.

[play-button:http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16850984/Shadowy/02%20Reid%27s%20Situation.mp3] Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet - Reid's Situation Link source