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The Sparrow


The Sparrow - Tomorrow's Ship / Isn't It Strange - 7

Tomorrow's Ship / Isn't It Strange - 7"
Columbia - 1966


Michael Panontin
In Canada, if you couldn't get tickets to see the Beatles, there was always Jack London and the Sparrows.

The Oshawa (ON) band was formed in 1964 with London, who was actually born in England as Dave Marden, affecting a British accent to maximum effect. Throughout 1964 and 1965, Jack London and the Sparrows enjoyed considerable chart success with a string of singles and even an entire album, all on the Canadian Capitol label. But when their bread-and-butter frontman renegotiated their contract, sweetening his own pot at the others' expense, the rest of the band decided they had had enough. Their first single on their own, the r'n'b-infused 'Hard Times with the Law', was serviceable at best; clearly, London's sizeable shoes needed filling.

Enter John Kay, a German emigre who had cut his musical teeth back home listening to the likes of Chuck Berry and Little Richard on the American Forces Network. By 1965, he and his guitar were regulars at the coffee houses that dotted the burgeoning Yorkville neighbourhood in Toronto. Kay's blues pedigree and steely charm proved to be just what the Sparrows were looking for. As a five-piece, the Sparrows - Kay along with the fraternal drum/guitar duo of Jerry and Dennis Edmonton, bassist Nick St. Nicholas and keyboardist Goldy McJohn - got to work testing their increasingly expanding sound in and around Yorkville.

And then, as luck would have it, a fortuitous meeting with a wealthy and well-connected stereo manufacturer, Stanton Freeman, landed them a coveted slot at New York's uber-trendy Arthur nightclub. The band would soon start commuting between Yorkville and Greenwich Village, changing their name in the process to the hipper-sounding Sparrow. In April '66, the guys recorded a few demo tunes which according to Kay would help them ink a deal with Columbia Records. Unfortunately, the band and the label execs saw things differently. "Our demos helped us land a deal with Columbia Records, but it never amounted to anything more than a misunderstanding," Kay would tell author Marc Myers. "We wanted to record an album and Columbia wanted us to cut radio-friendly singles."

And so in August, the Sparrow made their recording debut on both sides of the border with 'Tomorrow's Ship', a record that was both musically and qualitatively miles ahead of what was going on back in Toronto. The record kicks off with some heavily distorted guitar weaving its way in and out of the song and then eventually settles into a blithe and jangly - and decidedly psychedelic - piece of California pop. In other words, a cool tune but not the hit material Columbia was looking for. Kay later joked that "someone sarcastically referred to [it] as 'No. 49 with an anchor'". And then there was the flipside. The aptly named 'Isn't It Strange' is indeed that and more, delving deep into the crevasses of acid weirdness. Those spacey, meandering guitar noodles even give Syd Barrett's work with Pink Floyd a run for its money - and that's really saying something.

After New York's pleasures had been tapped, the Sparrow headed for sunnier climates, making their west coast debut at L.A.'s It's Boss and later dividing their time between Los Angeles and San Francisco. But just as the boys were beginning to taste the initial trickles of fame, managing to open for the likes of the Doors, the Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company, Dennis Edmonton left the band, later to re-emerge as Mars Bonfire. Kay and the others of course would be reborn (to be wild, as it were) as Steppenwolf and bikers the world over would never be the same again.
         
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