Wheeeee! Demo

Jolly Tambourine Man emerged from Toronto’s early-1980s punk underground as an irreverent continuation of Blibber and the Rat Crushers. After Blibber had exhausted its welcome at several Toronto venues and temporarily ground to a halt, Stewart Black, Evan Taylor and Paul Petersen regrouped in early 1983 for a Battle of the Bands at a Scarborough high school. Taylor brought in his friend Steve Rhodes as vocalist and tambourine player, and the musicians adopted the name Jolly Tambourine Man.

The group initially included Stewart Black on guitar, drums and vocals, Evan Taylor on bass and vocals, Paul Petersen on guitar, Steve Rhodes on vocals and tambourine, Richard Cubbins on keyboards and Dave Howard on drums. Rhodes became the visual centre of the act, singing, waving a tambourine and throwing himself around the stage while the band delivered short, deliberately absurd punk songs. Cubbins soon departed, and Howard’s tenure was also brief. A planned opening appearance with G.B.H. at the Beverly Tavern was disrupted after Howard became involved in a fight outside and police broke up the show.

Jolly Tambourine Man spent much of the summer of 1983 playing the Queen Street circuit, at times with Black handling the drums himself. On June 26, the group recorded an eight-song cassette at Track 1 Audio in Scarborough. It was mastered the following day and issued with a long, handmade foldout insert filled with handwritten credits, jokes, cartoons and sarcastic commentary.

The cassette featured ‘Nazi Punks Go Bowling’, ‘Lisa Burger’, ‘Gropnick’, ‘I Am Albella’, ‘The Apple Strudel Man’, ‘Mold in My Ears’, ‘Scary Bowl’ and ‘Movin On Up’. Its credited lineup was Stewart Black, Paul Petersen, Steve Rhodes and Evan Taylor. Black and Taylor shared several of the songwriting credits, while Petersen was included as a co-writer of ‘The Apple Strudel Man’. ‘Movin On Up’ was a brief version of the television theme, jokingly credited on the insert to “various Negroes.”

The tape’s handmade presentation was inseparable from the music. Its insert announced “all material is ours,” identified Blibber Electronics as the publisher and included a mock dedication to Terry Fox that immediately undercut itself with a joke about the Canadian Cancer Society. Copies were assembled by hand, with some carrying the title Wheeeee. The cassette reportedly sold about 350 copies, a significant result for a self-produced Toronto underground tape.

The group also performed ‘Dash for Cash’, a song about Terry Fox that appeared in the 1983 Canadian punk film Not Dead Yet.

Personnel changed after the cassette. Petersen and Taylor left Jolly Tambourine Man and resumed working as Blibber and the Rat Crushers, creating a rivalry between the two related groups. Black and Rhodes continued Jolly Tambourine Man with musicians drawn from Toronto’s expanding independent scene, including Ian Blurton and Mike Armstrong of Change of Heart and Caroline Savage, who was associated with Fifth Column and Katwimmen.

The band also established a regular Wednesday-night event called the Strudel Pit at the Upper Lip on Yonge Street. The series featured Jolly Tambourine Man alongside groups such as the Dave Howard Singers, the Viletones and Change of Heart.

In January 1984, the expanded group rerecorded its best-known song for a seven-inch single on Assembly Language. Issued as a Double B-Side, the record paired ‘Apple Strudle Man’ with ‘Sweater in Sri Lanka’.

The single featured Steve Rhodes on vocals, Stew Black on guitar and vocals, Ian Blurton on drums and incidental guitar, Caroline Savage on accordion and Mike Armstrong on percussion. Howierd Zephyr contributed saxophone, while producer Michael Sarazen supplied scratches and additional percussion. It was recorded and mixed at Wellesley Sound Studios in January 1984, engineered by Jeff McCulloch and distributed through the Record Peddler. Alex Drillis and David Reville designed the sleeve.

‘Apple Strudle Man’ was substantially reworked for the single, with new personnel, a fuller arrangement and revised songwriting credits to Steve Rhodes and Stew Black. The song turned a mundane Toronto encounter into exaggerated rock theatre, recounting an unsettling stranger at a bus stop through a deliberately ridiculous punk narrative. Its faux-metal treatment also reflected the band’s willingness to parody hard rock and new wave conventions.

Independent filmmaker Bill Davis produced a low-budget video for the song, reportedly for approximately $2,000. Completed as MuchMusic prepared to launch nationally in August 1984, the video entered rotation during the channel’s earliest period and became one of the first independently produced Canadian videos to receive regular MuchMusic airplay.

The video left a lasting impression on viewers. Toronto musician and promoter Jonny Dovercourt later recalled discovering unusual independent music through MuchMusic’s regular programming and specifically named ‘Apple Strudle Man’ as one of the local videos he encountered there. The single also received airplay on CFNY-FM, helping it become a cult Toronto release despite limited wider distribution.

Jolly Tambourine Man did not issue another record. Black subsequently became involved with the short-lived Gospel Shoppe, while Taylor and Petersen continued Blibber and the Rat Crushers. Black and Taylor later reunited under the Blibber name for the cassette Pope Music, recorded around 1990 and issued in 1991.

Their recordings preserve a distinctive corner of Toronto music history, where punk, performance art, satire, handmade cassette culture and the earliest years of Canadian music television briefly intersected.

-Robert Williston