| Having read in to-nite that Gus Papas was playing with the Bottle Devils, I just had to go and check them out at their weekly Thursday night gig at Chicago's (near Muchmusic on Queen Street West). I first heard Gus play at the Gasworks in the mid-80s in his own band, Gus & The New Breed. I was so impressed with these lads that I bought their LP, On The Verge, right on the spot, firmly believing they were going to be Canada's answer to Led Zeppelin. Shortly thereafter I purchased Gus's debut album, Convicted. The first album and part of the second were produced at Master's Workshop in Toronto and the remainder of On the Verge was produced and mixed by Tony Bongiovi at the Power Station in New York. Both these albums of music, composed entirely by Gus, remain treasured possessions of mine. Unfortunately, at present, they can only be obtained on vinyl format. A note of warning - at Tower Records I discovered a CD by another artist who records under the name of "Gus". This is not the same person I'm writing about. Along with Gus, the Bottle Devils' present line-up includes Henry Diclemente (drums/vocals) and Leo Valvassori (bass/vocals). Henry, along with Kenny MacLean (who would eventually join Platinum Blonde), was formerly with The Suspects, a 70s punk outfit who released a single, "Raining Over France". They subsequently recorded under the name, The Deserters, and released two albums, "The Deserters" and "Siberian Nights". Due to time constraints, I wasn't able to obtain any information about Leo's background [he formerly played with Alannah Myles]. However, apart from his excellent bass playing, I did notice, in between sets, that Leo was not "above" assisting friendly Ingrid off and on with her bartending duties - now that's what I call "working the room"! All three guys complemented each other perfectly, probably because they're all TOTAL MANIACS with their music! They absolutely breezed through James Brown's "I Feel Good", Eric Burdon's "We Gotta Get Outta This Place", "The Swinging Blues Jeans' "Shaking All Over" (popularized by the Guess Who and The Who), Jerry Lee Lewis's "Great Balls of Fire", a true-to-form rendition of "Wipeout", a song with Leo on vocals called "Show Me" (an original?) and capped off the set with the Rolling Stones' "Bitch". While I was absolutely delighted to be treated to yet another evening of wild rock 'n' roll in Toronto (and in the same week!), maybe Chicago's ought to change their sign out front, which reads "Live Blues Upstairs", to "Live Rock 'n' Roll Upstairs". But then again, the tiny room was packed as it was, so maybe we should just keep it a secret (shhh)! By D.D. Rocker [Article published in to-nite - Issue #184, November/00] N.B. Leo Valvassori has recently been replaced by Joe MacLeod ("The Friendly Scot") on bass guitar (January 2001). |
| THE BOTTLE DEVILS WERE "SHAKIN' ALL OVER" CHICAGO'S! |
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