30/01/2020
The continuing story of The Tapes and Equipment of Kurtis Vanel !
( Read about this incredibly historic collection in this link from The Vancouver Sun https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/a-hidden-treasure-of-1960s-vancouver-recordings-resurfaces
This personal story comes from King Anderson, a lifelong friend of Kurtis.
My name is King Anderson and I read with interest the Van Sun article about Doug Gyseman/Kurtis Vanel and his monster reel to reel tape archive. I'm glad the tapes have ended up in your hands and will be looked after. .
I first met Doug Gyseman in 1964. I was studying at the Vancouver School of Art (now Emily Carr) in 1964 when American folk singer friend John Braheny came to Vancouver, stayed at my house and played a gig at the Bunkhouse Coffee House on Davie St. Doug came to the club and said he could record John and his songs to make him a demo tape. John and I and girl friends went to Doug's small apartment out on the UBC campus where we sat on the floor listening as John recorded 9 songs. John of course got a reel to reel dub. I asked for a copy too so Doug made me one as well. In the late 1980s I made a cassette copy of the dub. By 2008 that reel to reel tape had disintigrated, but I did manage to make a digital copy from the cassette and burn it to a CD ... despite the transition from copy to copy John's folk songs still sound pretty good.
Doug's place was where we first heard incredibly big sound come out of very small cube stereo speakers. Doug had built them probably from plans out of Popular Science or some magazine like that. Two little speakers, they were amazing!
In the 1960s many musicians went out to record at Doug's place at UBC. Doug also lugged his equipment around to the various music venues of the day to record the gigs live. The main clubs I remember going to were, The Bunkhouse on Davie St. btwn Granville and Seymour; Howie Bateman's Inquisition Coffee House on Seymour St. btwn Georgia and Robson; the Question Mark on West Broadway west of MacDonald, The Ark Coffee House on West Broadway near Alma. The Ark later became the Bill Lewis Music store for many years. Doug was good at writing the details on his recordings so I know you'll find those names and the dates.
By 1967 the folk rock & rock 'n roll scene were really getting going in Vancouver. There were a number of venues arising but I don't know if Doug was recording anything live in those places; The Retinal Circus on Davie St. near Burrard; The Russian Community Center on 4th Ave. up the hill west of Burrard. Think it was also called The Kits Theatre ... anyway it's where I first heard the Jefferson Airplane live with their original singer, Signe Anderson. It was the frickin' loudest rock band I'd ever heard in my life! There was also a hard core rock 'n roll hippy bar, Rohan's Rock Pile on 4th Ave. near MacDonald.
In '67 Doug recorded 11 songs with John Braheny, lead vocals & guitar, and The Fantastic Sensations, and Doug gave me a cassette dub of that session. The Fantastic Sensations were a hippy blues/rock garage band in Kitsilano who were also known as, Black Snake Blues Band, Hydro Electric Streetcar, Uncle Al's Fantastic Sensations and Fireweed. The main guys in the band were Danny Tapanila lead/rhythm guitar, Danny Mac vocals & guitar, Lee Stephens bass, and Stan Tait drums.
Neptoon Records on Main St. (as I'm sure you know) has lots of posters from that era, where it's easy to verify names of bands, players and venues. Terry Kruz's book, The Afterthought, has lots of posters and recollections about venues from the '60s as well. In Kruz's book you'll even find some of my poster designs, look for The Hydrogen People.
In Jan. 1971, John Braheny on fiddle, me on 12 string guitar and Jesse Clark on guitar went to Doug's studio. Doug/Kurtis had invited us to play some soundtrack instrumentals for a film he was working on.
John Braheny went on to found The Los Angeles Song Writers Showcase with Len Chandler, and they ran that for many years. John also wrote the book, The Craft And Business Of Song Writing, which is now a text book in many collage music courses in the States.
John came up to Vancouver in the late 1980s to do seminars at the Music West convention. At that time I was exhibiting my paintings at MacEwen Arts on Pender Street. Doug/Kurtis came to one of my shows and invited John and I to his big house in Burnaby. By that time he had totally changed his name to Kurtis Vanel. We couldn't believe how much stuff he had squirreled away. Kurtis kept everything and was pleased to give us the guided tour! In the kitchen a large cardboard box with all of the cardboard tubes from toilet paper rolls next to another large box with all of the one liter orange juice cartons he ever drank ... and more! In the master bedroom upstairs display cabinets with drawers filled, display cases with glass doors ... piles of boxes ... in the in-suite bathroom Doug said was his art collection ... framed drawings and paintings stacked up in the bathtub and all around the toilet and sink, you could hardly open the door!! A crazy chaotic museum if ever there was one and he loved showing it off.
The BIG feature was the double car garage, the recording studio and archive on the main floor. The garage doors opening to the street had been walled off and insulated and all the walls had shelving systems floor to ceiling holding all those hundreds of boxes of reel to reel tape! Kurtis gave me a number of cassette dubs, all neatly labelled with titles and times, from his reel to reel tapes.
3 cassettes of John Braheny and his folk songs.
John Braheny and The Fantastic Sensations in 1967.
3 cassettes of 3's A Crowd live in 1965 at the Ark Coffeehouse on West Broadway.
English folk singer Peter Elbling live at the Ark in 1964.
Billy Roberts (from Seattle) live at The Ark and in Doug's apt. March 1965 incl. his song, Hey Joe.
Folk singer Barrie Freedman live at The Question Mark, Nov. 1960 and in Doug's apt. June 1967
Folk singer Davy Coffin (from Seattle ?) at Doug's apt. March 1965
P.H. Factor Jug Band (from Seattle) at Doug's apt. March 1965. I bought a 12 string guitar off of P.H. Factor so they could buy a new clutch for their truck.
John Dee Hendricks (aka Barefoot John, also in P.H. Factor) at Doug's apt. April 1965.
Peter Elbling and Donna Warner (of 3's A Crowd fame) live at The Ark, Dec. 1964
Solid Comfort Band live at the Simon Fraser Univ. Pub, Nov. 1971
Bob Hadley instrumental finger style guitar tunes, recorded at Kurtis Vanel's - fall 1979
In the 1990s my wife Cindy and I went to visit Doug/Kurtis. That's when he started to digitize his collection and burn the songs on to CDs. I remember him lamenting about how long it took to transfer from analogue to digital (in real time of course) and how you had to listen to the songs each step of the way to make sure they still sounded good.
Kurtis gave me a 4 CD set of Don Crawford with Kay Dunham on stand up bass live at The Inquisition Coffee House in 1962. And one CD of Don Crawford live at The Ark in 1965. Don Crawford made a self titled album on the Verve label in the late '60s or early '70s and he passed away about 10 years or so ago. Kay Dunham is still in L.A. and I emailed him the link to the Van Sun article.
John Brahney passed away in 2013. He was a great friend, I enjoy remembering our times together and of course, his music lives on.
With such a volume of music to go through it's hard to know where to start, but I suppose musicians with a certain amount of fame is a place to start. Of the musicians and groups that I have, I would suggest that an edited version of 3's A Crowd live at the Ark would sound good and be of interest today. I have easy contact with long time friend and founder of 3's A Crowd, Brent Titcomb if you decide to go there. Don Crawford with Kaye Dunham live at The Inquisition with the best takes, would also make a nice piece of musical history. Don was a strong performer with a great voice and a 12 string guitar. And there are some tracks with John Braheny and The Fantastic Sensations that are pretty cool.
So I'm glad you guys at Regenerator have ended up with this amazing reel to reel collection of music from out of our deep dark past. I hope all Kurtis's tapes are of good quality and still sound clear and natural. I can easily imagine how long it will take to catalogue, inventory and listen to the sound quality and then decide what you will bring forward into the digital age. The Van Sun article of course mentions all the popular artists back in the day, but there are many many hidden gems in Kurtis Vanel's musical universe waiting to be discovered. That should be interesting fun, for sure. Best of luck with the project in this new year 2020, the year of perfect vision.
Cheers ... King
King Anderson is an artist, musician, videographer & DJ on Hornby radio CHFR 96.5FM
Kurtis Vanel’s collection counted over 1,000 reel-to-reel tapes
