Doug was no oridnary Slug!

Canadian pop music lost one of it’s more irreverent and talented personages on Monday morning with the news of the passing of Doug Bennett. Best known as the front man for the 80’s band Doug and the Slugs, Bennett caught that wave of Canadian music that found its voice in the early and mid 1980’s.

He and his Slugs put together catchy pop hooks with some interesting material to provide Canadians with an infectious chuckle to go with their AM and FM programming. The band was at the leading edge of that bubbling Vancouver band scene through the eighties, a period of raucous rock and roll, fascinating blues, eclectic mixes and just plain good times. Like some kind of travelling battle of the bands, the musical class would set forth and travel to the hinterlands bringing the gospel of a newly empowered Canadian rock scene.

Chilliwack, Trooper, Streetheart, The Powder Blues Band, Red Rider, Loverboy, The Paylola$, and Bryan Adams all got started around the same time, the mid to late seventies and found some of their best success in the mid eighties. Heading out from their Vancouver base and travelling through Western Canada and beyond, they all put a show to the sound on the radio. For many smaller communities the appearance of Chilliwack, Trooper, Streetheart or Doug and the Slugs would be the closest they would ever get to the rock and roll circuses of the day. Most were serious and a tad self indulgent, Bennett on the other hand would be one part travelling rock and roll evangelist and one part total buffoon.

His shows were legendary for not only the musical chops but the kind of humour that made an audience take note, that there was more than four chord rock and roll out there. Whether in the local watering hole or up on a stage in a concert setting the Slugs put on a show, though truth be told somehow Slug music always went well with a couple of ales.

From the debut album Cognac and Bologna, you got the feeling these guys weren’t particularly taking the rock and roll business quite as seriously as their contemporaries. Their first hit Too Bad, summed up the ups and downs of life and perhaps gave us an inner look at the business of music. “Too bad you’re not as smart, as you thought you were in the first place” Everyone could relate to that lyric, who hasn’t thought they had things figured out only to have the plan blow up in your face. The Slugs could understand your day as if it were their own, if the boss dumped on you during the morning, give a listen while Doug commiserated over a beer by night.

Probably not many folks could put out a song called Making it work and well, make it work! If it came out today it would most likely be subjected to a bidding war between Viagra and Cialis, such was the power of a turn of a phrase as exemplified in Slug music. With Bennett you needed to listen to the lyrics like some kind of cipher rock code breaker, each song could have many interpretations, subtle nuances that if you missed could send the song in a totally different direction. One person’s feel good song, would be another’s signal that the end of the world surely could not be that far away, considering what was just heard on the radio.

Canadian music in the early seventies consisted of a lot of what was called “legislated hits” songs that were played over and over on Canadian radio to fill CanCon requirements; overexposure would ruin many a Canadian music star in the early days. But by the early eighties the mandated play of Canadian music no longer meant yet another listen for Anne Murray’s snowbird, or the umpteenth time for Seasons in the Sun. With many of the bands from BC making some noise by that time, a rather healthy and prosperous Canadian industry found its feet. Coming along for the ride would be Doug and his fellow Slugs, determined to remind most of the travelling minstrels that it’s supposed to be fun above all else.

There may not be another ten year spread in Canadian music like there was between about 1978-1988, the music generated across the country in that period of time built the blocks for an industry today that still sees some fairly talented artists making waves not only across Canada but around the world.

For all of the new wave of Canadian musicians currently finding the flame glowing bright for their music and careers, perhaps a moment of reflection for the halcyon days of Slug music, it never reached the lofty heights of Shania, Celine, Bryan or Rush to name but a few. But for a few years there, bopping along to Making it Work provided just as much enjoyment as the offerings of the giants of the times.

We’re missing a little bit of our musical history today, filed away under Good Times had by one and all. Bennett’s musical soul can be found doing a Tom Cat prowl along the backstreets of Vancouver’s Chinatown doing some calculations. He took his success Day by Day, we’ll remember Slug music song by song and laugh by laugh!