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The Paper Dream
My Mind's Eye / She's No Good - 7"
Sir John A - 1969
Michael Panontin
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Tiny Smiths Falls, Ontario (pop. 8,780) may not mean much to most of us, but to those music insiders of a certain vintage, it was home to the massive RCA record pressing plant. From 1953 until its closure in 1978, it employed as many as 400 townsfolk - three-quarters of them women - pumping out upwards of eight million units a year, including the very first North American pressing of the Beatles' 'Love Me Do'.
So it may not come as a complete surprise that the town also boasted a fairly robust rock 'n' roll scene towards the end of the sixties. A group called the Purple Haze formed there in 1967, and quickly rose to local fame as the house band at The Rideau Ferry Inn, a popular teen hangout at the time. Details of the band are somewhat sketchy out there in cyberland, but what is fairly certain is that its front line included singer/guitarist Hal Frizzell, lead guitarist Dennis Staples and organist Greg Brooke, with bassist Jim Knapp (later replaced by Claire Porter) and a couple of different drummers (Gary Edwards and then Rick Frizzell) in the back. We also know that on February 16, 1968, they scored a coveted slot backing up the Paupers at the Kingston Collegiate and Vocational Institute.
With all that vinyl coming out of the town, the lads of course set their sights on a disc of their own. The obvious choice in the area would have been John Pozer, whose Ottawa-based Sir John A label was responsible for interesting records by Don Norman and the Other Four, Thee Deuces and the Eyes of Dawn, amongst others. Pozer informed them that the name Purple Haze was already being used by at least two other acts at the time, one out west in Edmonton and another closer to home in Montreal, and suggested they change theirs to the Paper Dream.
The Paper Dream's rendition of the Small Faces' 'My Mind's Eye' was the last record ever issued on Sir John A and one of just a few to come with a full-colour picture sleeve. Their version of that 1966 classic could best be described as serviceable, if not even a tad lethargic. But that hardly matters, as the flip side more than makes up for it. Penned by Hal Frizzell and allegedly recorded in one of the band members' basements, 'She's No Good' is a late-psychedelic gem that features the new bassist Porter, as well as backing vocals by Don Norman and the Other Four singer Rick Paradis.
The Paper Dream never toured outside Ontario, nor was their single played much on local radio. Oddly though, 'My Mind's Eye' allegedly got some airplay in faraway Benson, NC, where it was selected as the 'Pick of the Week'...with the deejay allegedly calling to let them know. And if we are to believe unsubstantiated internet lore, the guys even watched their own single being manufactured at RCA.
Discogs informs us that 'My Mind's Eye' was allegedly pressed up in a miniscule run of just 100 copies. Clean ones will set you back in excess of four hundred USDs these days, so God only knows what one with the picture sleeve would fetch.
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