by Dave Mahalik
In April 1995, I jumped in a van with popular local band Sunfish (Tommy Fidgen, Scott Brown, Mike Morrison) and Matthew Foulds for a two-week tour of the Atlantic provinces in support of Toronto band Change of Heart. It was during this trip that I got the idea to start a magazine to cover local arts and entertainment events, and the people behind these events.
After the first show in Saint John, New Brunswick, while waiting for the guys to drop off their CD at a local independent record store, it occurred to me that while I had never heard of a single band from New Brunswick, there was at least a record store that would sell local independent music. The boys returned to the van with a copy of an independently published magazine covering the local music scene that they picked up at the record shop. Although there were plenty of young local bands playing around Cape Breton, filling up bars and gathering up fans of their original music at the time, as well as more established groups like the Barra MacNeils, Mary Jane Lamond, Ashley MacIsaac, and the Rankin Family getting national and international attention, nothing like that existed at home.
While we were driving from Saint John to Fredericton, looking through this little publication, I turned to Mike Morrison, drummer for Sunfish, and asked if he’d be interested in working on a little magazine with me when we got home. I told him we would cover music and the arts, do reviews of local recordings and profile local artists and that sort of stuff. He said he was into it. The tour went on from Saint John and Fredericton to Halifax, Charlottetown, Antigonish and Sydney. Then on to St. John’s, Newfoundland. And the story of that tour became the centerpiece of the first issue of What’s Goin On magazine, published 25 years ago this month, in June 1995.
With this anniversary in mind, WGO is opening its archives with a look back at the magazine over the years, starting with Issue # 1.
The first issue opened with an editorial introducing the magazine and questioning why we were doing it. It was followed by a quick rundown of people in the arts who were doing things: Cape Breton bands on tour, new cds released, award nominations and touring bands coming through Cape Breton. It was like a news ticker, comprised of to-the-point sentences, rather than fully constructed paragraphs, separated by ellipses. In the first issue, we reported on the Barra MacNeils, Valdy, Great Big Sea, Ronnie Hawkins, Brakin’ Tradition, Wally MacAulay, trad sessions at Daniels, Eric’s Trip, Eagle Feather, Mary Jane Lamond, Ashley MacIsaac, the old Rock Factory and an award won by CAPR for Gobblefest ’94. The Sunfish/Change of Heart tour story covered 4 pages. There was a story about putting together a compilation of local independent music, reviews of CDs by White Zombie and local bands the Smiling Uniks, The Lizband (from St. John’s, a place we always considered local) and a Halifax-based record label’s compilation called This Side Up. Ron Keough wrote a review of Dangerous Dreamers production of Bryden MacDonald’s play “Whale Riding Weather”. There were articles about the pop culture of hemp and tattoo artistry and the first regular Scenery column, written by local skateboarding pioneer Jan MacLean. The issue wrapped up with charts from local radio shows “Wake Up To Cape Breton” and “Now That’s Alternative”.
The 20 page magazine, including front and back cover, was distributed free of charge to local bars, restaurants, etc. We printed and distributed 3000 copies. I drove around what was then known as Industrial Cape Breton and put them in places I thought they’d get picked up and looked at, starting with the businesses who advertised with us. We didn’t get any funding to put it out. I couldn’t wait for funding to come through and was more concerned with getting the thing put together and out there than filling out applications. Ads for the first issue included Railroad Recordings, Alternative Sports, Wild Willy’s Pizza, Natural Solutions Hair Design, Sit & Gid’s Lebanese Restaurant, the Rolling Phones, The Subway Deli, the Pizza Den, North River Kayaks, UCCB Boardmore Playhouse’s Summertime Shakespeare, and McKnight’s Music. We basically went to people we knew and talked them into it. And that’s pretty much how we got the “contributers” [ sic ] for our first issue. They included A.J. Hurley, a Grade 12 English student of my girlfriend at the time; my brother Peter and his friend Jan MacLean; Mike Morrison from Sunfish; Rick Matheson, a DJ at CHER radio who was supplying charts did record reviews; and Ron Keough, an active member of the local arts community.
We went on to publish 32 issues of the monthly magazine from 1995 to 1999. In 1997, we added a weekly publication that ran until 2003-2004. The entire collection of WGO publications has been digitized and now resides at Cape Breton University’s Beaton Institute and we’ll be sharing those periodically through the next year.
