~ FOUNDRY ~

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[Foursights Rock Group 1964] [Foundry Rock Group 1971]

Circa 1971

This is a photo of the other group I was in. It was taken in an old farm house near Priddis, Alberta, a few miles southwest of the Calgary City Limits.  I'm the one on the right (not quite so goofy by then).

Foundry Foundations

My old friend Ron (still see him from time to time) is next to me, and our lovely singer, Louise Gogal, is seated in front.  We attempted to make the scene look as old fashioned as possible.  I'm afraid I can't even remember the names of the other two members (ah-ha, just remembered, the drummer, on the left, was called Mick).  Ron by the way was as talented as Bill Coleman and in much the same way; that is, an excellent musical ear and good at both keyboards and guitar.  

I had resurrected my bass playing career in Canada, starting in 1969, in a tiny remote oilfield community in NW Alberta called Rainbow Lake. This place was 200 miles by road to the nearest town, there was no TV and the only entertainment was the occasional movie, fishing, hunting, or, in winter, curling, ski-dooing or a game on ice without skates called broom-ball.  We played this game - similar to ice hockey - using a cut-down broom and small rubber ball, and we played it in all kinds of weather, even once at a temperature of minus 25� F (that's 57� of frost) -  I'm getting off the subject.  So it was against this background that a fellow called Ron Gillespie and I, together with the local school teacher, started a three piece group and played at the company dances.

In 1970, after Ron and I had been transferred back to Calgary, we started a proper rock group and called it "Foundry." We played most evenings in local taverns and cabarets, but unfortunately this nightly routine started to interfere with my career - I had a really excellent job working for an oil company - and soon both job and group came to an end. I'll spare you the details; however, suffice it to say, and like the book "The End of Innocence" also says, the seventies culture for rock bands was way different to that in the early sixties. This poster below was produced as a promotional tool for a publicity drive. 

Poster