News Segment
HELIX UNLEASHES NEW ALBUM:
May 16, 2004
ROCKING IN MY OUTER SPACE NOW IN STOCK!
This Thursday, May 13th, the first pressing of Helix’s new CD “Rocking In My Outer Space” arrived from the pressing plant. Here in London, Ontario, the new single “Six Feet Underground” is getting considerable airplay on The Hawk, already garnering more than 60 spins. Thanks to Lee Roberts and the rest of the gang down at the station for all their support.
I’ve also been doing as many interviews as I can. In the last week I’ve managed to do interviews with The K-W Record, Thiago Sarkis from Brazil, and several with Mitch Lafon of BW&BK (one for radio, the other for the mag).
E.M.I. HELIX ANNIVERSARY CD
Thanks to Warren Stewart, E.M.I. will be releasing a Helix anniversary CD this summer. Warren works for the company and was also responsible for seeing Wild in the Streets re-released on the “Signature Series”. This is great news for us and for Helix fans in general. The disc will contain all the hits from the Capitol years plus several unreleased or re-recorded tracks, ie. Wrecking Ball, S.E.X.-rated, I’m Alive Frankenstein, Delilah, and I Wanna Be Stoned. It’s gonna be a cool disc and could lead to more beautiful things happening between us and our old record company. Stay tuned!
CHICK AND STICKS & TRAILER PARK BOYS
Two weeks ago the song “Jaws of the Tiger” was approved for the movie soundtrack of “Chicks and Sticks”, a new Canadian movie starring Jason Priestley. Also: The Season Three Trailer Park Boys DVD also went gold a couple of weeks ago. It contains a scene I acted in with the show’s 3 main characters plus my meeting Mike Clattenburg, the show’s director. Hope everyone picks it up and checks out this great Canadian comedy-especially all our American fans out there.
D.V.D.
Last Thursday Adam Hislop of Northpost Media and myself put in another half-day of dropping pictures into the history vid. We’ve worked out a routine where I’ll take home the tape at the end of our sessions, take it home and watch it over the weekend, and then figure out what shots to fit in where. Once I do that then I become “photograph detective”. For instance, in Brian Doerner’s one interview he talks about our first tour of Texas-going to Joe Anthony’s restaurant, drinking too much, and then returning to our motel where we got even drunker and then trying to pull off our manager’s bathing suit as we all rolled around in the motel’s parking lot, which just happened to be right beside a busy interstate highway! Believe it or not, Bert (Keith Zurbrigg) had pictures of being at the restaurant and the little incident in the parking lot. Hilarious! In one of my interviews I talk about how Bill Seip (our manager) had been in two bands-a showband and a rock band-and how Helix became a “hybrid” of the two. Bill lent me pics of the bands he had been in-Poverty Train & Rufus. Rufus, the showband, had clothes that looked like they were designed by a schizophrenic October-fester! They’re wearing suspenders that are 2″ wide with buttons the size of a wagon wheel cookie…When I watch what we’ve got so far what strikes me is that even if you don’t know the band you’re watching you get sucked into the story…and the story of Helix is indeed one that needed to be told.
We’ve also started adding the sound track for the DVD. Several years ago long-time roadie/soundman/road-manager/diaper-changer Ken Heague (who now works with another former Helix roadie Brian Knight hanging the sound and light system for Fleetwood Mac) gave me a case of “all-night Helix board tapes” and other Helix audio rareities when I was visiting at his home in Indianapolis. (At that time Ken was the assistant to the owner of the Indianapolis Colts.) These are some of the tapes that he gave me:
– First gig at Listowel High School
– Labatt’s Blue Commercial (done to the tune of “Rock You” *Capitol nearly took Labatt’s to court over this commercial. They released it ahead of the single…They compromised and we ended up doing another commercial for them using the bed tracks for Heavy Metal Love.)
– Radio commercial for Breaking Loose.
– Interview with Conestoga College (1979)
I’m adding as much of this stuff to the DVD as I can. It’s really been a trip down memory lane for me and some of the stuff that people are supplying me with is incredible.
Brian Vollmer courtesy of planethelix.com