Frank Soda

Like when I found this in a Kalamazoo record store, I thought, “This looks crazy and fabulous!” Little did I know that Frank Soda was one-degree-of-Kevin-Bacon between two of my all-time favorite Canadian artists.

First off, Frank isn’t technically Canadian. Francisco Soda was born in Calabria, Italy and moved to British Columbia when he was five. That was 1957. This record came out in 1981 so we are going to skip the years of the British Invasion influences, and the various popular high school bands Frank was in, and get to the part where Frank leaves his long time touring partners John Le-che-sseur (drum pic) and Charles Towers (bass pic) of the Imps to put out his solo record, “Saturday Night Getaway.”

But we may have to redefine the word “solo” because more than half of the songs on this record Frank performed with his old band, The Imps. “Saturday Night Getaway” was really about trying to capture his live energy on a studio record. Not easy, because when it came to live shows, Frank Soda was ahead of his time.****

Frank had been going to stage extremes since his early Imps days, around 1973. ***Glam make-up, theatrical outfits of sequins and mirror beads, jumping around, synchronized moves, explosives. He really liked explosives. And I’m going to call it explosives because while it was impressive, it wasn’t pyrotechnics. It was too early for that, but it was still a little nuts.

Stage explosives had been used since the late 19th century, usually in magic and burlesque shows. Flash Paper, produce a card in mid air! **** Flash Pot, drop your dress to reveal the unrevealable! ***It distracted the audience by diverting their eyes from the coin in your pocket, or unhooking that corset.

In rock, fire-ish stuff probably started with Screaming Jay Hawkins. His live performances of the 1956 song, “I Put a Spell on You” ****would find him emerging from a coffin (something he absolutely hated) and incorporating white-music-guy ideas of voodoo symbolism, like a smoking skull on a stick. In the late 50s, early 60s, Jerry Lee Lewis used flash paper at the end of his song, “Great Balls of Fire,” ****but contrary to music lore, he never set his piano on fire. And if you’d like to know more about that, go to bandsofthelost.com where I have a well researched link.

Pink Floyd would time the use of colored smoke*** for live “Careful With That Axe, Eugene,” Black Sabbath used flash pots in the ***Pre-Dio-Ozzy days, and of course Keith Moon famously got cymbal shrapnel embedded in his arm at the end of The Who’s ***1967 appearance on The Smothers Brothers.

Colorful, elaborately synchronised pyrotechnics were first used by KISS,*** and Neil Bogart wouldn’t have had that any other way. The president of Casablanca would walk around with flash paper in his pockets and then go, “KISS Magic!” (flash paper) whenever the cocaine fairy told him to.

But some of the craziest stuff I saw while researching this, was from Rammstein. ***Surprisingly, no one has ever died at any of their shows. But in 1996 there was an accident that caused 5 people to go to the hospital. It was only AFTER THAT that Rammstein hired professional pyrotechnicians and singer Till Lindmann became a certified pyrotechnics expert, just in case.

Frank Soda shows didn’t have professional fire experts. He had ideas, and songs, and headgear!

Frank would wear a TV on his head*** during the song “TV People,” then blow it up. While still wearing it.

He wore a smoking pig hat*** during the song, “High Time”,

he wore a large, working camera, ***with flashbub, during the song, “Take My Picture, Please,”

And he wore a flame-shooting amplifier***, for something else.

It was at the Gasworks, in Toronto, that Frank wore a big Moon Man head, for the song, “Moon Man,” with glowing red eyeballs. ***It was shaped like a Christmas tree ornament, and was supposed to shoot fire up-and-out the top. ****But as Frank was performing, some of the powder spilled inside the head. So when the explosion went off, it went off inside the Moon Man too! He ripped the head off! But Frank’s hair had burned in splotches and his eyebrows never grew back. It could have been so much worse. He wound up shaving his head, ***and his bandmates shaved theirs in solidarity.

The event inspired the song, “Skin Graph,” on side one. It has a sort-of “David Bowie-Fame” opening riff to it, and the great line, “When you’re kissing my face, you’re kissing my ass.”

The song that caused this ruckus, “Moon Man,” is one of the four songs on this record that Frank played with The Imps. And his exceptional guitarwork is on full display, as it is in all of these songs. His playing has a precision that makes everything sound clean but doesn’t take any fun out of it. He made me a fan. Anyway, when I listen to this with headphones, I can just imagine how great it was live. Not Frank’s head bursting into flames,*** but all the good parts of supporting live music.

“Break the Ice,” one of my favorites, “Saturday Night Getaway,” as the opening track is one of the best of the era, Fight Me. And “Drunk & Disorderly;” all high energy songs that show off Frank’s talents. Side One doesn’t really come down.

Side Two has a couple of covers, “Come On Up, “ is a 1967*** song by the Rascals. Felix Cavalier, the Rascal that wrote it, is playing keyboards on Frank’s version. It is slowed it down to almost an Allman Bros feel. It is a good version, very different from the fuzz-guitar-original.

“Born to be Wild,” is the other riskier choice. I don’t know, he musically nails it, but I think if you’re going to cover an Evergreen you have to kill it in a memorable way. ***Anything else is just us listening to you play your favorite song.

“Shoot to Kill,” the last song on the record is his brush with a rock ballad, So, OK. Its a good one.

The record really has good songs. This was an excellent find. Are some songs silly? Abso-fucking-lutely! But he’s writing the jokes, its up to you if you want to dig it.

The record was produced by Michael Tilka. ***He played bass for Max Webster! ***But not on “Universal Juveniles,” or “A Million Vacations,” but he was on the first 3 ***Max-freakin-Webster records! Which to me, is very Canadian-amazing.

The other artist Frank is connected to? The third member of this great Canadian rock trinity was the man, the artist, the Rock Warrior himself, THOR!***

Which is my next video because…..now we get to talk about Thor!

“Saturday Night Getaway” is probably an easier find in the wild, the more north you are. It is on Discogs, I have a link to the record along with some other weirdness on my website.

If you’d like to hear about other records you may or may not have had back in the day, you can subscribe to Bands of the Lost YouTube channel, or check us out at BandsoftheLost.com.

Happy Digging

Bands of the Lost

Lynn@bandsofthelost.com