Spirit of the West at John Lawson Park in West Vancouver, Friday, Aug. 2, 7:30 p.m. to 8:45 p.m. as part of the Harmony Arts Festival. For more information visit harmonyarts.ca.
BEDECKED in custard-yellow polyester tuxedos, the trio serenaded the patrons at a Vancouver dive with a nine-minute, epically arranged version of the 1970s pop song "Paloma Blanca."
The upright bass player and the musician wielding a guitar with a peculiar resemblance to a Morris Minor economy car went on to form the Canadian alternative band Odds. The group's third member, Vince Ditrich, who served the ensemble with snare drum and brushes, went on to become the drummer for Spirit of the West.
The son of an army bandmaster, Ditrich got his start playing for his father's wedding band in Lethbridge, Alta.
"He saw when I was a tiny little boy that I had this natural inclination toward drums. He had me set up with a little drum kit by the time I was a year-and-a- half, two years old. As far as I remember, that's all Iever was going to do was drum. In Grade I knew what I was going to do in life," Ditrich says.
Aside from a brief period where he contemplated a career in aviation and space exploration ("You can't be a colour-blind astronaut/pilot") Ditrich's focus has stayed on music, a passion that was a little bigger than his hometown.
"For fun, young people fought, played hockey, got pissed up and drove around on the strip, played more hockey, and I suspect sometimes partook of farmyard bestiality," he writes in his online biography.
During the course of a brief interview Ditrich opines on his love of jazz despite its current stagnancy ("It's now a dead language, it's like Sanskrit. People go to universities to study jazz. That's ludicrous. You don't study how to be cutting edge in society."), as well as the trademarks of a Spirit of the West song ("I used to always say.. 'In a Spirit of the West song you'll never hear an 'ain't' or a 'baby.'")
On the subject of surviving life in a touring band, the drummer offers a succinct summation.
"It involves a tremendous amount of Ichiban soup," he says before delving deeper.
"Musicians are basically, and I speak from personal experience, a bunch of dummies. They fixate on the
goal, and that goal is the gig. And the gig could be the most miserable piece of crap of a performance."
Ditrich earned his road warrior status during a stint hitting drums for Sue Medley in the 1980s.
"Sometimes, especially early on, the tour routing was sheer torture, booked by an agent who surely lived at the seventh level of hell. One tour, in particular, began in the evening in Burnaby, B.C. at a political rally for Ed Broadbent, the old NDP federal candidate. We played our set, packed the van like sardines and headed non-stop for (get this) Thunder Bay, Ont.," he writes.
After opening for Dwight Yoakam in Thunder Bay, he turned around and headed for the next night's gig in Winnipeg, Man.
Today Ditrich has taken greater control over his career, working as a manager and producer with bands like House of Doc and Quinzy.
"That's what youth as a musician is, it's finding that balance point between the real idealism of your art and the pragmatic aspects of turning it into a functional, viable business."
During those early years Ditrich provided the pace for children's tunes, Ford truck ditties, heavy rock, and symphonic arrangements.
"My goal was to be every drummer for every band. I wanted to be the guy who was capable of fitting into any slot instantaneously. That was my crazy-ass goal."
In the early 1990s, he became Spirit of the West's first drummer, leaving him free from having to match the beats laid out by the last guy.
"I had complete freedom to invent what the drums might do," he says.
After working with acts like Long John Baldry and an incarnation of BTO featuring Tim Bachman ("I often wondered if there were a Zeppo and Gummo Bachman somewhere in the woodwork,") Ditrich elected to stick with his new band.
"They're really exemplary people. They're smarter than the average bear, they're more artistic than the average bear, and they're idealists."
They were also an exception to many of the groups he'd seen who were "knock-off American bands."
"I thought, 'Is it not possible to do something of value that is actually reflective of the culture that I come from so that it's honest?' I thought if I could find that, I would stick to that and try and be one of the voices of my generation if I could," he says. "This was delivered to me on a silver platter in essence, and so I said, 'I'm not letting go of this. As long as they'll have me, I'll stay.'"
