It’s been quiet at Peterborough’s The Theatre on King (TTOK) this summer. With artistic director Ryan Kerr taking time off in July to travel in Europe, TTOK became the home base to Linda Kash’s summer drama camp for kids.

But with September on the horizon, and a busy upcoming theatrical season in preparation, Ryan is reopening TTOK in August for a series of weekly video screenings to entertain TTOK’s loyal audience and to entice new people to visit the space.

“August needs to have something in it,” says Ryan. “There isn’t enough time to do a full show. Half of the actors in town are at 4th Line [performing in The Bad Luck Bank Robbers], and the other half are on holidays. Plus I was away for two weeks and Linda had her drama camp. So there isn’t enough time to put on a show this month, but something has to be happening.”

Instead of putting on a show, Ryan is presenting a series of screenings of the cult TV show Mystery Science Theater 3000 over three consecutive weeks. Starting as a cable network show in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1988, Mystery Science Theater 3000 — MST3K to fans — was developed by Joel Hodgson, who presented some of the most hilariously bad B-movies that he could dig up from the vaults.

MST3K is the story of a sarcastic Earth dweller, initially played by series creator Joel Hodgson and later by head writer Mike Nelson, exiled by evil scientists to a ramshackle spaceship called the Satellite of Love, where he’s forced to watch an endless stream of terrible movies. Each week he and his robot pals — Gypsy, Crow T. Robot, and Tom Servo — gave hilarious commentary as they dissected and made fun of these cinematic stinkers.

Eventually picked up by The Comedy Channel, MST3K aired for 10 seasons and showed 197 films before it ended in 1999. [Editor’s note: series creator Hodgson launched a Kickstarter campaign to revive the series in 2015. It raised $5.7 million — the largest film and video crowdfunding campaign to date — allowing Hodgson to produce 14 new episodes, which will be broadcast on Netflix in Canada in 2016 and 2017].

Ryan hopes to introduce this unique entertainment phenomena to people who didn’t get to experience it during the height of its popularity.

“Back in the mid to the late eighties when the show was getting started, it was a low-budget cable show,” explains Ryan. “This is before the internet, so you couldn’t just click on a button and have it there. It depended on word of mouth. A friend of mine who had a friend who had a brother who would occasionally go down to the United States would video tape Mystery Science Theater and then bring it up to us. We’d end up getting copies of copies of copies that were so grainy that you could barely watch them. The sound was awful, but you watched it anyways because there was nobody else doing anything like it.”

“Almost nobody I know has seen it,” continues Ryan. “A lot of people when it was at its height of popularity in the early ’90s would have been children. A lot of the people I know who do stuff in this space would have been 10 years old. A lot of people I know who are my age still haven’t seen it, because at the time you couldn’t find it unless you had an in.”

Ryan began the series on Monday, August 8th with Franz Peter Wirth’s doomed 1960 version of Hamlet.

“It’s a black and white 1960s German made-for-TV copy of Hamlet dubbed into English,” says Ryan. “The voice of Claudius is played by Ricardo Montelbaum. It’s terrible, but you can’t stop watching. I chose Hamlet because it was theatre and everybody in theatre knows Hamlet. It’s a good place to start.”

MST3K: Mitchell – Why We Love It

On Monday, August 15th, Ryan will be presenting one of the top fan favorite episodes of MST3K featuring the forgettable 1975 cop film Mitchell starring Joe Don Baker.

“Mitchell is a cop, but he’s the worst cop ever,” Ryan laughs. “He’s like the laziest cop. He can’t run. He’s just awful. But this is one of the best episodes. When Joel and the robots are on their game, it’s ridiculously over-the-top funny. These three commentaries are fantastic. They are very clever and sharp.”

Ryan will be capping the series of screenings off with the 1960 cult classic Horrors of Spider Island on Monday, August 22nd.

“Horror of Spider Island is about a burlesque troupe that crash lands on an island,” Ryan explains. “Apparently it’s Spider Island, but there’s only one spider. But there is also a werewolf dude. There’s no horror, and no spiders until about 98% of the way through.”

If MST3K isn’t up your alley, Ryan and company will be presenting an entirely different type of classic cult television on Wednesday, August 24th when he’ll be bringing Bob Ross’s The Joy of Painting to TTOK.

Beginning in 1983, The Joy of Painting featured artist Bob Ross creating a detailed landscape on a canvas before the viewer’s eyes within a half an hour. Giving full instructions to how to create their own masterpieces at home, Ross coined phrases like “happy little clouds” and “there are no mistakes, just happy accidents.” Suffering from lymphoma, Ross’ failing heath forced him to end the show in 1994 after filing 403 episodes, and he passed away a year later in 1995. However, Ross has continued to be a popular cultural figure still today.

“I grew up watching Bob Ross a lot, and so did a lot of us,” says Ryan. “As I’ve grown older I just assumed that people knew who Bob Ross was, but a lot of people have never seen him.”

Bob Ross: 1 Hour Special – The Grandeur of Summer

“So what I want to do with Bob Ross is that we’re going to have one of his shows playing live, but we’re going to have three guest painters who going to be painting along with Bob as we watch the show,” Ryan continues. “I’ve gotten a professional artist to take part, someone who has a bit of experience painting, and someone who has no experience painting at all. It’s going to be a fun night. We might even auction the paintings off at the end.”

For people who want to go to something a little more performance based — and perhaps even get into the show themselves — TTOK will also be holding two nights of Lip Synch Battles on Thursday, August 11th and Thursday, August 18th.

“If you’ve got a piece of music that you like, then come in and show us your moves,” says Ryan. “Men can be doing women songs; women can be doing men’s songs. If you’ve got choreography then great! If you’ve got costumes, even better! We’re going to have two guest judges who will give commentary all the way through. The first one on August 11th is for soloists, and the second evening in August 18th is for groups or duets. You and your buddy can come out and bust out Hall and Oates or Endless Love. It doesn’t matter.”

So while there are no theatrical shows at TTOK in August, the theatre is keeping its doors open with a very full schedule of entertaining events.

“It’s about letting your hair down,” concludes Ryan. “It’s about having fun before we get back in the middle of production season.”

All events start at 8 p.m. and are pay what you can at the door. For more information, follow TTOK on Facebook at www.facebook.com/TheTheatreOnKingTTOK.

This fall marks 20 years since members of the Peterborough community came together and opened Showplace Performance Centre in downtown Peterborough, and the 20th anniversary season is something to behold.

Back in June, Showplace announced its initial fall season with an eclectic selection of music, theatre, comedy, and children’s entertainment including:

• a tribute show to country music legend Waylon Jennings (September 17)
• a hilarious puppet show for adults by Frank Meschkuleit: “My Big Fat German Puppet Show” followed by “The Left Hand of Frank” (September 22)
• a presentation of the Tony Award winning musical “Ain’t Misbehavin'” (September 30 – October 2)
• the beginning of Peterborough Symphony Orchestra‘s 2016/17 concert season, including “The New World” (November 5) and “A Nutcracker Christmas” (December 10)
• fun for the kids with The Wiggles‘ Wiggle Town Tour! (October 6)
• comedy with Red Green‘s “I’m Not Old I’m Ripe” North American tour (October 16)
• a tribute to the music of Buddy Holly, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Everly Brothers, and more with the “Class of ’59” (October 25)
• early jazz and cabaret music from The Wintegarten Orchestra (October 27)
• Michael Gabriel‘s “Strings Attached” featuring the Peterborough Children’s Chorus (October 28)
• Classic Albums Live presentation of The Beatles’ Abbey Road (October 29)
• musical theatre with Britain’s Got Talent winners Collabro (November 8)
• the Elite Blues Series presentation of virtuouso bluesman Tas Cru (November 10)
• Canada’s alt-country singer-songwriter Fred Eaglesmith (November 12)
• “The Three Muskrateers”, a family musical theatre take on the classic Alexandre Dumas tale (December 8 and 9), and
• the Elite Blues Series presentation of Rezonator with Peterborough’s own Al Black (December 17)
• a Celtic family Christmas with wife-and-husband fiddlers Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy (December 22 and 23).

As if that weren’t enough, Showplace has now added even more shows to its fall line-up, including:

• mystical entertainment for the entire family with Cyrus the Hypnotist (September 23)
• a tribute to Creedence Clearwater Revival with Mike Macdonald and the Bayou Boys (September 23)
• Canadian rock legend Burton Cummings (October 11)
• kids’ entertainment with Treehouse TV’s Splash’N Boots (October 19)
• stand-up comedy with Derek Edwards “Alls I’m Saying Tour” (October 21)
• a concert by predominant 1970s’ Canadian rock band The Stampeders (November 24)
• even more family entertainment with Toopy and Binoo‘s Fun and Games (December 1)
• the 12th annual Cozy Christmas featuring the Foley family (December 11)

Although the physical box office at Showplace Performance Centre is closed until after Labour Day, you can still order tickets online for all the upcoming shows through www.showplace.org.

For your convenience, we’ve provided the complete current schedule for Showplace’s 20th anniversary fall season below, including performance dates and tickets prices. For more information about a show and to buy tickets, click the linked title.

Contrary to popular belief, lightning can strike the same location twice. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

A few summers back, Peterborough Musicfest scored nothing short of a major coup, bringing Carly Rae Jepsen to Del Crary Park just as her monster single “Call Me Maybe” was gaining serious traction. The timing was perfect for Musicfest. Shortly after, Jepsen, in great demand as a result her hit song’s huge popularity, was asking for (and receiving) equally huge money for concert appearances.

Fast forward to Wednesday, August 10th and the 8 p.m. double bill of Jocelyn Alice and Ria Mae. With their respective stars rising quickly, the timing is again perfect for Musicfest organizers. A year from now, probably even sooner, bringing either of the multi award-nominated recording artists to the Fred Anderson Stage may very well be out of the question.

Born in Calgary, Alice first appeared on the radar at age 16, emerging from a field of more than 7,000 entries as a runner-up on Popstars, the precursor to the Idol series. That opened the door to her working on original material with Los Angeles-based producer Stacy Jones.

Come early 2012, Alice hooked up with Lisa Jacobs, the pair performing as Jocelyn & Lisa. Their EP Weary Warrior produced the single “Preach” and saw the duo perform regularly to great reviews.

“Jackpot”, co-written with Hello Moth in 2014, upped things dramatically for Alice.

Released via YouTube on Christmas Day that year, “Jackpot” hit #38 on the Billboard Canadian Hot 100 listing and attained #9 status on the list of Spotify’s 10 most viral tracks in the U.S. The music industry took serious notice. In 2016, SOCAN (Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada) awarded Alice a Pop/Rock Music Award for “Jackpot”. As well, the song earned Alice numerous Canadian Radio Music Award and Canadian Music Week Indie Award nominations.

“My career, my entire life really, has utterly changed in the last year thanks to this song,” said Alice in a March 2016 interview with Jason Scott posted at www.popdust.com

“I didn’t think it was quite ready yet. I didn’t know if I was ready yet. It blew up after six months of being out. It’s amazing to see how people react to something and how sometimes it doesn’t really matter what you think about the timing. I feel very excited. To have it now rolling out in America after it did so well in my home country of Canada, I feel very ready.”

“Jackpot” – Jocelyn Alice

“People are always saying this song reminds them of Lorde. I think that makes perfect sense because I was listening to her nonstop when I made that song. Of course, I’m not trying to copy anyone but her sounds were super cool and fresh. We definitely experimented with stuff she was doing. I’m sure she was influenced by someone too. That’s the circle of creativity.”

Although now a solo artist, Jacobs remains in the mix as part of her band.

“When I first went solo, it was difficult to get used to,” noted Alice.

“We (her and Jacobs) always did interviews together and everything, and I had to then carry that myself. I better say something interesting. Now it feels like something I’ve been doing for a long time.”

Now on the horizon for Alice is the release of a debut EP of new material.

“The EP is going to be darker than Jackpot, more soulful, but I hope people can still feel good and feel real,” said Alice.

“I’m still writing up a storm. I have enough songs for two full-length albums at this point. It’s great to have too many. I still feel like I have a few more songs to do before it’s going to be done. I did have this moment of realizing what song was going to be behind another song and seeing the order. It felt like a thing. It’s becoming something.”

For Ria Mae, 2015 was the prototypical breakout year.

The Halifax-born singer/songwriter’s single “Clothes Off”, from her self-titled second album (her debut album Under Your Skin was released in 2011 and won her an East Coast Music Award in 2012) was nominated for a 2016 Juno Award in the Single of the Year category.

Produced by Juno Award-winning hip-hop artist Classified, the gold-certified single also earned Mae a Songwriter of the Year nomination at the 2015 East Coast Music Awards and CBC Radio’s 2016 “Next Big Thing” proclamation.

“When I was younger, some of his (Classified’s) people were passing out a four-song EP of his, and I grabbed it and took it home to listen to,” said Mae in a noisey.vice.com interview with Hilary Windsor.

“Nobody wanted to work with me in Halifax, so then [in 2014], I took a year off and just worked with him. We work really well together, so it just made sense.”

“When he and David Myles starting putting songs out, that’s when I really wanted to work with him. Clothes Off was one of many demos I made in Montreal in 2013, and one of the first that Classified gravitated to and the one that felt right.”

A second single from the album, “Gold”, has since been released.

“I’d just like to contribute to the pop (music) conversation,” says Mae.

“I really like where radio is going right now — Sam Smith, Adele, Ed Sheeran coming out with these new arrangements that couldn’t have existed on radio a few years ago. I just want to keep it going. I want to keep adding to that.”

“Clothes Off” – Ria Mae

“Gold” – Ria Mae

Peterborough Musicfest is presenting 19 free-admission concerts during its milestone 30th anniversary season, each staged Wednesday and Saturday nights.

Overseen by general manager Tracey Randall and staff, a board of directors, and numerous volunteers, Peterborough Musicfest’s stated mission is to “provide diverse, affordable live music to enrich cultural and economic prosperity in our community.”

For more information on this concert and/or the 2016 season, visit www.ptbomusicfest.ca or phone the Peterborough Musicfest office at 705-755-1111.

If you aren’t one of the lucky fans (like our music columnist Josh Fewings) who managed to secure tickets to see The Tragically Hip on their farewell tour, here’s the next best thing: get together for a live viewing party of The Hip’s final concert.

CBC has acquired the rights to broadcast The Hip’s final concert, from the band’s hometown of Kingston, on Saturday, August 20th.

Tickets for the Hip’s Man Machine Poem tour, announced after frontman Gord Downie revealed he has incurable brain cancer, sold out in less than a minute this past spring. Fans unable to get tickets — or who refused to pay inflated prices to scalpers — approached the CBC to broadcast one of the shows live.

CBC will be broadcasting The Hip’s last concert live and commercial free on CBC-TV, Radio One, Radio 2, cbcmusic.ca and on YouTube. The concert begins at around 8:30 p.m.

Many communities across Canada and in Ontario are hosting public viewing parties of the CBC broadcast, including a few in The Kawarthas.

Legally, if you wish to host a public screening of the broadcast, you need to get CBC approval — which includes certain conditions like not charging any kind of fee for the viewing (even for fundraising), not using the viewing for third-party advertising or marketing, and providing proof of liability insurance if more than 40 people will be attending the screening.

Of course, you don’t need to seek CBC approval if you’re just having a private screening with friends and family.

Here’s our list of public viewing parties so far for The Hip’s final concert in The Kawarthas. Public screenings marked with an asterisk * have been officially approved by the CBC. If you know of a screening that’s missing from our list, please email editor@kawarthanow.com with the details and we’ll add it.

Bancroft

• Bancroft Eatery and Brew Pub (4 Bridge St., 613-332-3450)

Bobcaygeon

• * “Last Concert Under The Constellations”. Bolton Street will be closed beginning at 7 p.m. for a Jumbotron screening of the concert. Donations will be accepted for The Cancer Society.
• 72 Bolton Sports Cafe (72 Bolton St., 705-738-2900)

Buckhorn

• Marley’s Bar & Grill (17 Fire Route 82 Catalina Bay, 705-868-2545)

Campbellford

• Church-key Pub & Grindhouse (26 Bridge St. W., 705-653-0001)

Cannington

• The Locker Sports Bar & Grill (14 Cameron St. W., 705-432-3200)

Coboconk

• * The Pattie House Smokin’ Barbecue Restaurant (6673 Hwy 35, 705-454-8100)

Cobourg

• The Cat & The Fiddle (38 Covert St., 905-377-9029)
• * Northumberland Ribfest and Music Festival (Victoria Park)

Minden

• Dominion Hotel (113 Bobcaygeon Rd., 705-286-6954)

Peterborough

• Brickhouse Craft Burger Grill (123 Simcoe St., 705-874-7474)
• Historic Red Dog Tavern (189 Hunter St. W., Peterborough, 705-750-1710). Following the screening, at around 11 p.m., Peterborough Folk Festival is hosting a musical tribute to The Hip hosted by Meilissa Payne, Matt Greco, and Anna Ruddic, and featuring Express and Co., The Kents, and more. Admission to the tribute show is by donation, with 100% of the donations will go to the Gord Downie Fund for Brain Cancer Research.
• * Millennium Park, Downtown Peterborough (behind Silver Bean Cafe)
• * Riverside Grill & Gazebo, Holiday Inn Peterborough Waterfront (150 George St., Peterborough, 705-743-1144)
• Spanky’s Downtown Pub & Patio (201 Hunter St. W., 705-874-5078)
• The Tankhouse Pub (295 George St. N., 705-743-2717)
• * The Venue (286 George St. N., 705-876-0008)

Canadian landscape artist Tim Packer used to be dismissive of social media, believing the only thing it was good for was cat videos and giggling babies — until a photo of his painting went viral.

And on LinkedIn, no less — a social network not usually associated with the term.

But that’s what happened when, on July 19th — after encouragement from his son — the Toronto-based painter reluctantly posted a photo of himself with his 4′ by 7′ painting “Shall We Dance” on LinkedIn.

To Tim’s surprise, the post became extremely popular. As of the date of this story, it has over 74,000 likes and over 6,700 comments on LinkedIn.

It became so popular in fact, that LinkedIn temporarily suspended Tim’s account and has threatened to disable it.

That’s because, when the post went viral, Tim began to thank and respond to each comment from LinkedIn users. Because of the unusually high level of engagement, LinkedIn suspended Tim’s account for an hour, suspecting him of using tactics to increase its popularity.

Despite several assurances from Tim that he’s only responding to comments appearing on his post, LinkedIn has continued to threaten to permanently disable his account.

“I’ve been getting up at 4 a.m. every morning to spend four hours responding to comments before I work on my paintings,” Tim says. “Because I believe that I should treat people online the same way as I would in person.”

However, since LinkedIn’s warning, Tim has only been responding to specific questions — leaving thousands of comments unanswered.

“While I appreciate the exposure and business LinkedIn has given me, it is killing me to read all of these wonderful comments and not being able to say thank you”, he says.

Since the post went viral, Tim’s business has boomed. At his opening the following week, “Shall We Dance” — his most expensive painting to date — sold in the first hour, with a second offer for the piece leading to a commissioned painting for a new fan in England who saw the piece on LinkedIn.

Tim has also received hundreds of requests for prints of “Shall We Dance” and has had inquiries from distributors in China, the UK, and Europe since the post went viral. You can meet the artist in person at the Gallery on the Lake on August 13, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. as part of their “Meet the Artist” weekend.

Residents of The Kawarthas have a chance to see the painting that started it all in real life. Although “Shall We Dance” has been sold, it will be on display until Friday, August 26, at The Gallery on the Lake (65 Gallery on the Lake Rd, Buckhorn, 705-657-1078).

For more information about Tim Packer, visit www.timpacker.com.

Like a sick joke being played on mutliplex audiences everywhere in the summer of 2016, we must endure another badly lit two hours of franchise crossover exposition. David Ayer’s absurdly hyped Suicide Squad is not a disappointment per se, as it looked like a editing room mess from the get-go, but it is severely uneven and the titular ensemble inevitably ensures that it never hits any recognizable tone.

It is difficult to escape the film’s current promotional stranglehold on social media. And indeed, there is a lot to bank on when you’re sitting on a picture that is comprised of essentially nothing but “trailer moments.” As of writing this, I advise you all to buy shares in Hot Topic because the impending merchandising onslaught will surely surpass even The Nightmare Before Christmas as the ultimate badge of teenage “non-conformity.”

Mercifully, this is a DC comics film that finally wants its viewers to have some fun. And hey — I actually laughed a couple of times! This was genuine laughter derived from intentional jokes, not sniggering at latex-bound muscle boys having a measuring contest to see who has the hardest childhood.

Still, the shadow of Zach Snyder looms like a stench (he has a producing credit) over the proceedings. Particularly in the first half, which is little more than introducing a likely already familiar crowd to the latest incarnations of some very famous characters.

And there are a lot of characters. Take a drink every time someone says: “This is _____, but they’re known on the street as _____.”

This tedious sequence feels like a commercial that you can’t skip and batters you with a veritable who’s who of classic rock from a staggeringly on-the-nose soundtrack. I’m sure that half the budget went to securing the licensing rights, but does anyone really need to hear 30 seconds of “House of the Rising Sun” that badly?

A secret government division — headed by the reliably classy Viola Davis — recruits an elite team of imprisoned supervillians to stage unusual and dangerous black ops in exchange for reductions on their collective life sentences. That’s about it for plot other than some muddled nonsense involving ancient Mayan magic that’s completely at odds with the street justice skull-crushing that finally goes down.

We all came to see Margot Robbie fight the hot and flash her perfect teeth while she bludgeons thugs with a custom baseball bat. We didn’t come to see Cara Delevingne and her notorious eyebrow situation covered in CGI mud and speaking through a voodoo vocoder.

It is strange that a movie about the ultimate rogues gallery of villains refuses to refer to them as such. Instead, the eye-rolling term “Meta Humans” is repeatedly over-enunciated. No one is coming to a story like this expecting any semblance of reality. Just call them what they are.

Critically for the brand, this amounts to more than a starry posse in heavy makeup fighting each other for screen time. There is some genuine chemistry between some players.

The ageless and effortlessly likeable Will Smith is smartly cast in a uncharacteristically sadistic role. His portrayal of Deadshot — the assassin who never misses — gets most of the backstory along with Robbie’s coquettish psychopath, Harley Quinn.

Robbie wrings every ounce of neon sass out of the long-standing fan favourite that she can. It’s a career-changing performance that she clearly had great fun with. Her scenes with Smith are natural and engaging, but obviously the scenes everyone was waiting for are those she shares with Jared Leto’s mysterious take on the Joker.

If Heath Ledger’s almost mythic performance was the hangover, then Leto’s creation is the champagne from the night before. Early publicity stills depicted him as some low rent looking Faces of Meth Party City cosplay, but his Joker in motion is sinister and scary.

Much has been made of his method acting and sending his costars a variety of gifts, including live rats and used condoms, but clearly it paid off. It’s refreshing to see the iconic character survive in his own element rather than relentlessly squaring off against Batman. Though, sad Ben Affleck does show his sullen face a couple of times.

It takes over a hour to get there, but the action is fast and surprisingly not flashy compared to its peers. Mostly well-choreographed hand-to-hand combat on what is unmistakably Yonge St. before the de rigueur smackdown with a villian that will be utterly incomprehensible to the uninitiated.

Though tongue-in-cheek at times, the film is not as self-aware as it thinks it is. It’s hugely enjoyable watching colourful nihilists indulge in their most primal desires purely for the pain-inflicting enjoyment of it, but you know some soggy requisite redemption is ticking away.

That’s what you get when you’re a studio whose last two brand films failed and you’ve got to ensure a PG-13 for a story about the most dangerous psychopaths in the world. Don’t get me wrong, there’s clearly plenty of violence, but it’s borderline slapstick and never taps into the psychological potential that glides beneath the surface.

There are some moments of self-reflection. Harley plays bartender when the squad is at its lowest and they contemplate the nature of evil and honour among thieves. It’s shockingly astute for what boils down to little more than a vehicle for commercial tie-ins.

If it doesn’t all quite add up in the end, there are still enough hits to compensate for the misses and, as usual, it makes big promises of what is to come. Beyond the impending Justice League films, Robbie has signed on for her own Harley Quinn film.

Now we’ll just have to wait another two or three years to get what we all really came here for … and that is the cruelest joke of all.

All photos courtesy of Warner Bros.

Suicide Squad – Official Trailer

Of the thousands who will flock to Del Crary Park August 6 for Spoons’ inaugural Peterborough Musicfest appearance, one among them will take considerable pride in having played a key role in the New Wave pop band’s rise to fame in the 1980s.

When Burlington-born Spoons recorded its second album Arias & Symphonies in 1982 at Toronto’s Sounds Interchange, John Punter sat front and centre as the album’s producer.

The album’s first single, “Nova Heart”, set the stage for what followed as Spoons charted a course through the decade as one of Canada’s top-selling and most popular music acts.

Punter left the music recording business for good in 1997 and, in 2000, assumed co-ownership of Peterborough’s historic Pig’s Ear Tavern with his wife, Lylie Ryder. As the 67-year-old affable Englishman describes it, for all his success as a recording engineer and producer — The Hollies, Nazareth, Slade, Roxy Music and John Mellencamp were among his clients — owning and managing a pub was always a dream.

By contrast, Gordon Deppe and Sandy Horne never left the business and, more than 35 years after they founded Spoons in Burlington, Ontario, the pair today form the band’s only original members.

Stick Figure Neighbourhood, the band’s debut album produced by Daniel Lanois, was released in 1981 but it was the follow-up, Arias & Symphonies, that provided the proverbial breakthrough with its Top 40 singles “Nova Heart”, “Smiling In Winter” and the title track.

“Every song I’ve ever put out, I’ve always said, ‘Oh, what are we doing? This is not going to do anything,'” noted Deppe in a 2015 interview with Sue Sadzak posted at www.musiclifemagazine.net.

“Nova Heart” – Spoons

“Nova Heart came out when Queen, Led Zeppelin and The Who were on the charts. I would never in a million years think it would do anything. I was as surprised as everyone else.”

“Nova Heart” did indeed do something, with the band’s higher profile leading to its opening shows for huge international acts such as Culture Club, Simple Minds, and The Police, and the release of Talkback, its third album in three years, which saw “Old Emotions” chart well. Come 1984, the release of the singles “Tell No Lies” and “Romantic Traffic”— both songs were included on the movie soundtrack for Listen To The City — solidified the band’s place commercially.

“In Romantic Traffic, there was something about the simplicity of that little hook,” said Deppe.

“I kind of knew it was catchy but never thought it would do as well as it did. I’m glad to see how every generation seems to catch that and embrace that simple one syllable thing.”

“Tell No Lies” – Spoons

When 1986 album release Bridges Over Borders failed to chart or produce a single, Spoons reunited with Punter two years later, the result being Vertigo Tango and two hit singles in “Waterline” and “When Time Turns Around”.

Vertigo Tango would be the band’s last studio album of original material for 23 years, with 2011 bring the release of Static In Transmission. During the time between albums, Spoons took a break from recording, although the 1994 release of compilation album Collectible Spoons led to a major tour.

In 2007, Unexpected Guest At A Cancelled Party, a recording of previously unreleased material, again kept Spoons on people’s radar years after the band’s heyday,

“Most of the ’80s were cringe worthy … it was like 10 years of Halloween,” assesses Deppe.

“You know we did some silly things. We can laugh about some of the hair and clothes that were part of the times.

“Musically, I’m pretty happy with what we did. It’s standing the test of time. I’ll never cringe about anything we did musically.”

“Old Emotions” – Spoons

Peterborough Musicfest is presenting 19 free-admission concerts during its milestone 30th anniversary season, each staged Wednesday and Saturday nights.

Overseen by general manager Tracey Randall and staff, a board of directors, and numerous volunteers, Peterborough Musicfest’s stated mission is to “provide diverse, affordable live music to enrich cultural and economic prosperity in our community.”

For more information on this concert and/or the 2016 season, visit www.ptbomusicfest.ca or phone the Peterborough Musicfest office at 705-755-1111.

Every Thursday, we publish live music and performance events at pubs and clubs in Peterborough and The Kawarthas based on information that venues provide to us directly or post on their website or social media channels. Here are the listings for the week of Thursday, August 4 to Wednesday, August 10.

If you’re a pub or club owner and want to be included in our weekly listings, please email our Nightlife Editor at nightlife@kawarthanow.com.