FRANK'S WILD YEARS

by

EMILY SMITH

Signs of a personality crisis or the punk who won't grow up? Frankie Venom, the outrageous Teenage Head frontman, may be approaching 40 but he's still swinging from the chandeliers. Even in his own apartment.

Venom has just shown me the haunting video for the first single from the new rock-yer-socks-off album Head Disorder (Loudrock Records). But he's not "Walkin' Alone," he's pogo-ing around with his prized Schwarzenegger action doll. Yanked down from his ceiling perch, through a cloud of plaster dust, Arnie squawks, "I'll be back." And, after a nine-year recording hiatus, so are Teenage Head.

Though the band -- Venom, Gord Lewis (guitar), Steve Marshall (bass) and Mark Lockerbie (drums, who replaced Nick Stipanitz in 1986) -- have kept on gigging, Head Disorder ends their album-less recess with a whole lotta shake, rattle and roll. Its tips of the ol' geetar to "Gene And Eddie," down 'n' dirty rockers, tugs at ye olde heartstrings and essential anthems of youth ("First Time" by The Boys!) combine the right ingredients for... a teenage beer drinking party with people old enough to be your parents!

THE LAST POGO

"They're still around?" exclaimed an incredulous friend who went to Westdale High in Hamilton with the boys. "They had the coolest clothes."

Heavily influenced by the New York Dolls -- pink ostrich skin and attitude a-go-go -- by the time Teenage Head (name taken from the Flamin' Groovies song) played their first gig in 1975 (six months before the Sex Pistols!), the charismatic Venom had leapt from behind the drum kit to a more suitable place for his unpredictable behavior. Guitar god Gord Lewis, on the phone from Hamilton, recalls the band's Colonial Tavern days. "It had a tiny, rotting stage and there was a hole in the middle, so one night Frank smashed the microphone stand through it. Then he crawled underneath the stage and poked his head out through the hole. I hadn't seen anything like it before."

With stage antics a-plenty (and that includes a certain one-off performance with a Big Turk chocolate bar and another hole), Teenage Head moved rapidly from the New York-based underground scene to greater popularity. "It was impeccable timing when we came to Toronto. New wave just took off and we were right in the middle of it. And we could play," smiles Venom over a beer at a College St. dive. "The rest of the Toronto bands couldn't play a fuckin' note."

After the first massive single "Picture My Face" ('78) came the crazed Teenage Head ('79) and then the platinum punkabilly deluxe Frantic City ('80). The fun-o-rama was abruptly halted for several months when Lewis broke his back in a car accident the night before the start of the Frantic tour. Undeterred, the Head dispensed more wanton lust and partying on Some Kinda Fun ('82).

They even caused riots (well, not intentionally) -- the most famous of which came in 1980 at Ontario Place, where the popularity of the new wave music scene had been woefully underestimated by the powers that be. Apparently mayhem and destruction ensued because there weren't enough beefy lunkheads to control the unruly crowd of 20,000. Although the story was front-page news in many Ontario papers -- those pesky punk rock bands, they're nothin' but trouble -- several of my friends (one of whom probably had his head lodged in the P.A.) said they were blissfully aware of the surrounding anarchy.

TORNADO!

At the peak of their career in '83, Canada's fab four emerged worse for wear after the aptly named Tornado EP. To make the release palatable to the righteous U.S. market, a sanitizing 's' was added to the band name and the sound was overproduced for commercial viability. "It was record company manipulation and we fell for it," says Venom. "I said, 'Put a fuckin z on it, I don't care as long as it's down in the States.' And two or three weeks later we were off the label because the person who signed us got fired. That's OK. We took 'em for 80 grand...U.S."

"Canada's No. 1 party band" were now Canada's No. 1 bar band. Venom, fed up with touring, then left the Head. Dave "Rave" Desroches, already singing backup and playing rhythm guitar, ended up in the impossible position of having to replace Frank. Four years and two albums later, Rave moved to New York and Venom returned. "I realized I'd had it pretty good. I mean, I could be at Stelco like every other Joe Blow doing the night shift -- and instead I'm going to sing for 45 minutes and get paid a lot of money and potentially get laid. Which is better?"

Forget getting laid! What about the booze, the drugs, the Fast Times At Teenage Head High?!

Lewis: "Drugs have never really had anything to do with the band. If they did, we probably wouldn't still be here. Drugs, no. Beer, yes."

Rave: "No different from any other band, but we had a very good rider."

Venom: "In the early days there were bennies and Labatt's Blue and that was it. We were just wild, we didn't need the drugs that kids are doing today."

Ho, ho. We'd need Columbo to get to the bottom of this.

DAWN OF THE LIVING HEAD

There are two upcoming testaments to the band's rich history (a lot of which remains off the record) -- an independent rockumentary, Picture My Face (produced by Bob Barrett and Rick Randmaa), and a tribute album, The Last Pogo (Gritty City Records), which may signal a new awareness of Teenage Head.

The material on Head Disorder is darker and more spiteful than the fun-boy-four songs of the past because lyricist Venom has been through some grim ol' times -- the title track is a poke in his ex-wife's eye, "Glasgow Cryin' " is about the loss of his father, while Down In The Underground," "Walkin Alone" and "Seen It And Done It" are about the down-and-out years. But don't get the idea it's a saddofest -- think of it as a more experienced version of party-'til-you-drop. Ya see, Teenage Head are still four Rocking Guys. As Venom says, "It's a good rush without drugs or alcohol, but if you do drugs and alcohol on top of it, oh, it's a fucking bonus!"

Even now, Frankie the showman will not be outdone. Last month at Lee's Palace I was showing off my little leather jacket keychain (emblazoned with the logo of the Headstones, fellow lovers of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle) when Frank grabbed it and put on an unscheduled fashion show by modeling it on his, uh, accessory. "Ha!" he said. "Tell Hugh Dillon about this!"