Pulsar

"We spent the summer playing bars. There was this place in Cambridge Ontario - a real dive - a battle of the bands competition - you know the kind of thing - runner-up prize was a month at the place, while the lucky winners just one week. We won the thing and did our time without complaint."

They moved on to take up a two week residency at Leisure Lodge (near Kitchener). The place was huge with an fittingly vast outdoor arena. After a disappointing first week of low audience attendances, the band took out a radio ad, hoping to rectify the problem.

The only Pulsar material that remains is a Revox recording they did of a couple of songs that summer, which included 'No Return' and 'Inside Out', which appeared as 'My Joanna Needs Tuning' on the B side of the Heep single 'Think It Over'.

"We took a cable car up this mountain, and while we were waiting for the thing to come and take us down again, this guy appeared from nowhere and walked right up to me and Pino and said "Hey didn't I see you guys playing back in Kitchener, at a place called Leisure Lodge?" I suppose strippers just weren't his thing..."

Then out of the blue, John had a visit from Dixie Lee of Lone Star fame who having heard the material, and in light of the punk epidemic sweeping Britain, suggested they try it out in Canada. John asked Pino if he wanted to be involved and by June, all three were renting a house in Kitchener.

In Canada, they recruited guitarist Dave Cooper and keyboard maestro Greg Dechert, later to join Uriah Heep.

"Pino and Dixie were a force, Dave could play anything we threw at him and when Greg turned up to the audition with just a Rhodes piano, he blew us away with everything from Zep to Herbie Hancock"

The set was largely made up of material John had written since leaving Lone Star, including 'No Return' and 'Won't Have To Wait Too Long' (later to appear on the Heep album 'Conquest') , interspersed with some new things they had put together as a band, with the odd Lone Star favourite thrown in for good measure.

"I'll never forget pulling up in the car park on the first night of the second week and seeing all those cars. We really thought we'd pulled it off - just one radio commercial was all it took! But when we entered the club, the place was empty - not a bloody soul - Then someone called to us to take a look out in the outdoor arena - Jesus! - what a sight! - a naked woman drinking beer from a bottle through the wrong end of her body with close to a thousand music lovers looking on. As someone once said, 'Titties and beer...' "

It wasn't entirely lost on people though - eight years later, John was taking a few days off during a tour of Canada with Pino and Steve 'Boltz' Bolton. They were at Banff, the Canadian ski resort.

Pulsar played throughout the summer of '79. It was on returning to the UK that autumn that John learned of the interest from the Uriah Heep camp. (For the rest of that story, you should visit the Uriah Heep section of this site.)