The Final Chapter - perhaps!

The Final Chapter

Well here it is folks... the happy ending you were all waiting for!!

It's been many years (20 exactly) since all of these events took place, and that is long enough that I've forgotten a good chunk of them. I can recall the albums and some of the concert stories and such, but small details of what caused the band to implode are somewhat hard to recall. So this chapter of the blog will be somewhat surface level. Really, even if I remembered all the gory details, I'm not sure that it would be appropriate to air the dirty laundry publicly.

When we arrived back home from our US tour in mid-March 1989, we were pretty beaten up. Our tour grossed around $7000, but that would never have covered the many expenses incurred from being out on the road for a solid month. Before the tour had started, we assumed we'd be spending the rest of 1989 in the studio doing a new album. Coming home broke and without a record label was pretty devastating.

We still had upcoming concerts though, so as much as we wanted to hang our heads in shame and walk away, we still had commitments and a reason to continue. As with most terrible situations like this, it's human nature to try to see the crisis as an opportunity for better things. Homer Simpson called it "Crisitunity!"

For awhile, the band considered going "secular" since it was clear our direction musically and lyrically was never going to be a hit in the US Gospel market. But the reality was (and probably still is), the US Gospel market is pretty small when compared to the flood gates of the mainstream. Getting signed by some major label was not going to be as easy as getting signed by a relatively-speaking, tiny Gospel label.

March and April of 1989 were probably spent thinking about how to proceed. Andy was always the task-master, and I don't mean that in a negative sense, but he was pressing on with new songs, insisting on regular rehearsals, and ideas on how to get out of the Gospel scene and into the mainstream. Ideas like playing in music clubs and bars entered the equation. Standing on stage at a local church and preaching between songs is a far cry from playing for drunk people who don't care what you think but just want to hear Brown Eyed Girl!

I recall this time period being one of great frustration on a personal, musical level. As I had stated earlier, while we were writing songs for what we called our Lost Album, I acted a bit more like a secretary than a co-writer. It seemed easier to hear the other guys' ideas and offer my input rather than bring my own songs in to teach them. I was increasingly getting into more advanced song structures, and in reality, I was starting to lose the plot somewhat. I began writing and recording my own stuff at home to compensate for my inability to bring my songs to the band, or my unwillingness to deal with the arguments and opposing viewpoints.

It was an era where I think my ego started to get a little out of whack. I can see it in some of the YouTube videos I've posted from this era. There is an over-confidence that was partly due to my youth, but also some pretty obvious showing off. This may have been the apex of this negative quality in myself.

I remember writing this long, rambling thing called "The Epic." Andy liked it and encouraged me to bring it to rehearsal, but I was against the idea. The whole song was full of odd time signatures and very specific parts. I was sure that none of the band would be able to play it properly, so I really resisted the idea. Sure enough, I brought it into rehearsal and immediately saw how wrong it was for the band. Mike and Al were not the rhythm section for early 70's Yes band, and trying to make them play like that was a really stupid idea.

In truth, had I not been such a dick, this song might have worked in The Awakening style, but I would have none of that. I wanted it the way it was, and thus, it never got off the ground.

When I hear my demo now, I hear how there are core elements that are really good about it, but with a whole lot of unnecessary filler.

I have a number of these badly recorded home demos from this era, and everything was this out of control and unfocused. In a sense, I felt like I'd outgrown the band and seriously began to ponder life without them.

Tensions were pretty raw in the group at this time too, as our live shows were dwindling, new songs were slow to come, and expenses and debt continued to be an ongoing problem.

I remember we had a rehearsal scheduled for our usual time, (which I recall was every Monday night), and on this occasion, we showed up for practice, but Mike never came. It turned out he went to see a Prince concert. I don't know if he thought he told us or whether he just didn't care. But I remember it being pretty dark.

This was a time when my relationship with Mike started to suffer, and that was really odd because I always seemed to get along with everybody. It was more often Andy and Mike who would clash on issues, because they were both pretty dominant creatures. But at this time, while The Awakening was starting to disintegrate, Mike was having success of his own with a new band he formed, where he played a stand-up kit and sang. It was Punk music mostly, but they were actually really good. Mike wrote most of the songs and was clearly the leader of that band. Getting a taste of control and leadership filled Mike with a different kind of confidence back with The Awakening. In a similar way, I was now having more fun doing my home recordings than being in the band. Probably due to these many changes, I started to have real conflicts with Mike.

This was, of course, awkward because I lived in a house with Mike and Al! When things started to get really uncomfortable, I would stay working all night long at Cedartree Recording studio and come home just as they were getting up for work. There were weeks where I never saw Mike or Al at the house, because I was on a completely different clock to them. This was often when I would write and record my own stuff. Going to bed at 7am and waking up at 5pm became a really unhealthy routine for me!

I wish I could remember where I was when I decided I wanted to leave the band. I know I was with Andy and we were talking about all the problems going on at that time. We weren't conspiring to dump the Powell brothers, but Andy and I shared a bit more of an intimate friendship than I had with the other guys, so I would tell him more personal stuff. At some point, and I assume it was in early May, I told Andy that I was seriously considering quitting the band. To me, it just seemed like there was no future in this, and I didn't want to waste valuable years of my life trying to revive a corpse. When Andy revealed to me that he was also ready to call it quits, it gave me the courage to seriously consider this option.

For a short time, I did a lot of soul searching and a lot of hiding from Mike and Al. It was clear to me that it was over, but it was going to be very unpleasant letting them know that fact.

Ironically, we had one of our biggest concert dates coming up in June. We were booked to play Creation Festival, which was and probably still is, one of the biggest drawing Christian festival concert events in the US. We were booked to play the main stage during an afternoon spot. It was Thursday, June 22/1989.

What is sad about this event, was that Andy and I had decided secretly that this would be our final show with The Awakening. If there was only a way we could have let Mike and Al know that before the show, it would have been so much more fair to them. I don't know if they suspected that Andy and I had been talking mutiny behind their backs, but it really wasn't fair that they did this gig under entirely different circumstances than Andy and I did. What's worse is, I remember telling our sound man Mike Holst not long before showtime, that Andy and I were calling it quits and that this would be our last show together. It really was horrible that we let that information get out to anybody before the two most important people found out. But that's the way it goes when human emotions are a part of the equation. What if Mike would have said "screw you" and refused to do the gig? What if Al might have done the same thing?

We couldn't take that risk, so we kept our mouths shut (mostly) and did the gig just like it was any other gig.

But it certainly wasn't any other gig.

I've said it before, that I have very few tangible memories of doing any Awakening concerts. I remember seeing videos of the shows, but I barely remember actually being there. But THIS show was different. I remember being there. I remember how emotional I got, especially during the guitar solo for Into Thy Hands. I remember thinking to myself, "I'll probably never play this song again, and it certainly won't be like this ever again" and at times I was almost moved to tears.

We had a huge reaction and response from the crowd, and I remember one other significant memory from playing Creation 89'. It was a backstage memory. In the schedule, we were tucked in between a few larger American rock bands, and I remember the crew guys and roadies at the festival being blown away by the fact that we were helping load and unload our equipment. I don't think we even realized that it was not common for touring musicians to do the "shit" work. We always loaded our own stuff, so this gig was no different. I remember the crew guys thinking we were saints for not being the usual, "Hey moron... get my guitars in tune while I do this interview" kind of swagger that most musicians seem to have!! We of course said that this behaviour on our part was due to the fact that we were Canadians, and as you know, Canadians are so damn nice!!

The show ended. We packed up and came home. And then reality really had to set in.

I'm pretty sure that it was less than a week later when we called a band meeting at our manager's house in Galt. This was D-Day.

Fortunately, the events of that night were so traumatic and emotional, many of the details have been locked away somewhere in my sub-conscious. I don't think I want to remember.

I seem to recall that we started the meeting by asking everybody where they thought things were heading. Perhaps this was an easy way out, in the hopes that Mike or Al might say that they were getting pretty depressed about the band. That didn't happen. Al talked about us trying harder to get into clubs and going secular, and I think Mike agreed with that concept.

I'm pretty sure that I was the one to deal the big blow of the night. I'm not saying that so that I can take credit for ruining the band, but it was just not my style. I was quite happy to let Andy be the bad guy, because he often took that roll whether he liked it or not. But for whatever reasons, I decided to be the guy to speak up. I don't remember what words I used, but I basically would have said that I thought there was no future for the band anymore, and that I was particularly disillusioned with the whole thing. I said I wanted to leave the band, and right away Andy backed me up. It must have seemed like a well planned out event when Andy and I spoke almost as one person. To Mike and Al, it seemed like Andy and I were going to continue on without them, so in a sense, we were kicking them out of The Awakening. This was NEVER the plan or intention, but it's hard to deny that it sure looked that way to them.

I remember Al being very quiet and was probably trying to suppress the emotion. Mike was more noticeably angry and felt betrayed by us. I think the question of whether Andy and I were going to continue working together came up, and we were unable to wiggle our way out of it. We had already discussed starting a new band and going a whole new direction, but we didn't want Mike and Al to know that. In total honesty, at that time, although we had talked about future plans, there was so much emotion and confusion going on, that Andy and I really had no idea how it would all go down. We knew that at some point we would do work together again, but we didn't know when.

So that was it. Obviously bad things were said to each other at this meeting and we didn't part as friends. It goes without saying. How could Mike and Al have felt anything other than betrayal? In reality, the decision to quit had less to do with them than the whole organization. I wanted more creative control and I wanted to make music that The Awakening wasn't able to make. We had no record deal. We had no believable opportunities to make it in the mainstream. It was time to get out before the ship sank.

The sad postmortem of all of this is, we as an organization still owed a great chunk of money to our bank loan, as we were STILL paying back the recording costs of our indie album "Two Worlds." We parted somewhat as enemies, but we still had to make our monthly payments to the bank, and this would continue for another year or so after the band was broken up. It was like child-support! The Awakening really was a divorced couple.

We had one other major concert booked, that being Kingdom Bound festival in New York in August, but we were able to get out of it. Doing that show with us not talking to each other would have been impossible.

So that was it. The Awakening was put to sleep.

God, I hate ending this thing on such a downer!!

I'll continue the postmortem in the next blog entry!

Ian - July 11/09