Frankie Kerr; Lead singer of Teenage Head fronted Canada's hit punk band
Hyfler/Rosner
Lead singer of Teenage Head fronted Canada's hit punk band
Known as Canada's Iggy Pop, Frankie Venom both performed and
lived the punk lifestyle for more than 30 years. 'He was the
most perfect front man ... He controlled the show'
GAY ABBATE
Globe and Mail
October 29, 2008
Frankie Kerr was the iconic singer whose unpredictable
onstage antics turned his band, Teenage Head, into one of
the most successful punk rock groups in Canadian history. As
his stage persona, Frankie Venom, he has been called
Canada's Elvis for his rockabilly sound, although his music
was much faster and more hard-edged and aggressive than that
of the king of rock 'n' roll. Mr. Kerr has also been dubbed
Canada's Iggy Pop, a comparison to the legendary American
rocker known as "the Godfather of Punk" who was infamous for
his bizarre stage performances.
For more than three decades, Mr. Kerr survived in a business
where most musicians have a relatively short career. A
charismatic front man, he held the centre stage and was the
focus of the audience's attention. Frankie Kerr was Frankie
Venom, the name he adopted when the mother of one of the
band members, hearing him practise in her basement,
remarked: "That Frankie is full of venom."
The band's guitarist said the two were one and the same:
"Frankie wasn't kidding. He really was a punk," said Gord
Lewis, a friend since their early teens. "What he brought to
the stage, that's the same way he led his life. He was as
much of an entertainer on a personal level."
Entertaining his loyal fans is what he did best. They loved
his colourful clothes and his unforgettable gyrations on
stage, all of which were part of the late seventies and
eighties punk scene. Once, during a musical break, he
started climbing to the stage ceiling. Another time, he
rolled on broken glass. During one performance he hung by
his knees from piping and sang half a song before dropping
to the stage, landing on his head because he had not put out
his arms to soften the impact. He once crawled underneath a
stage, punched a large hole into the wood and stuck his head
through, yelling "Teenage Head."
Mr. Kerr was a born entertainer, Mr. Lewis said. "As for
getting up on stage and performing, there was nobody like
him in Canada and there never will be. He was the most
perfect front man this country has ever seen. He controlled
the show."
The past few years have been some of the band's most
successful, with two cross-country tours and two of their
albums - Teenage Head, their 1979 debut album, and Frantic
City (1980) - voted among the top 100 Canadian albums of all
time. The rerelease of three of their top albums has brought
them to the attention of a new generation as they continue
to influence mainstream music.
Frankie Kerr was only 4 when his family left Scotland for
Canada. Settling in Hamilton, Ont., his father, Frank,
became head of custodial services at the city's Barton
Street Jail; his mother, Grace, was a custodian for the
Hamilton board of education. The eldest of three children,
Frankie inherited his love of music and his showmanship from
his parents: Frank Sr. was a vaudevillian song-and-dance
man, his wife a Highland dancer, and both were singers.
Young Frankie's first love was the drums. By his first year
at Westdale Secondary School in Hamilton, he was jamming
with friends. That year, in a wrestling class, he was
partnered with Gord Lewis who, a year later, formed a band
with two school friends and invited Frankie to become their
drummer. It wasn't long before Frankie quit the drums to
focus on singing, becoming the band's lead singer.
Teenage Head was officially launched in August, 1975, when
it played its first professional gig in Hamilton. In
addition to Mr. Kerr and Mr. Lewis, the band included Nick
Stipanitz and Steve Marshall. The group took its name from
the 1971 song title by the San Francisco rock group, the
Flamin' Groovies. The four were attracted to the punk rock
music of Iggy Pop and his band, the Stooges, and the New
York Dolls, although Mr. Kerr was also highly influenced by
Elvis Presley.
Toronto was one of the major centres of punk rock, along
with New York and London. The movement took hold because
young people felt detached from mainstream music, said Liz
Worth, the author of Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of
Punk Rock in Toronto and Beyond. Punk rock is more uniform
today, said Ms. Worth, whose book is to be published later
this year by Bongo Beat Records of Montreal, but when
Frankie Kerr started out the music was all about rebellion
and being and doing what you wanted to.
When punk rock exploded in Toronto in 1977, Teenage Head
already had two years of experience. "We already had
original compositions, so when it came time for punk to take
off, we fit like a glove," Mr. Lewis said.
In early 1978, the band released its first single, Picture
My Face. That same year, Mr. Kerr married Cheryl Gordon,
whom he first met in 1970 when both attended Dalewood Middle
School in Hamilton. They had one son, Frankie Jr., and
divorced in 1995.
The band was the headline act for the famous Last Pogo
concert at Toronto's Horseshoe Tavern on Dec. 1, 1978. The
event was to mark the end of a long run of punk acts at the
Horseshoe. About 800 people packed into the
500-person-capacity club. Just as Teenage Head was about to
take the stage, an undercover cop ordered the concert shut
down because of overcrowding. He let Teenage Head sing one
song but when they left the stage without explanation the
audience went crazy. When told to leave, fans started
smashing tables and chairs and throwing bottles, said Colin
Brunton, who attended that night and caught some of it on
tape for a short documentary, The Last Pogo. He released a
longer version of the documentary on DVD earlier this month.
It would not be the band's only experience with rioting
fans.
The band's legendary self-titled album, released in 1979,
showcased their talent as writers as well as musicians. It
perfectly captured the spirit of the times and made them a
popular draw on live concerts. They followed the next year
with Frantic City, which spawned hit singles Let's Shake and
Somethin' on my Mind and went platinum.
The band's rising popularity was grossly underestimated by
organizers of a June 2, 1980, concert at Ontario Place
Forum, an open-air amphitheatre on the edge of Lake Ontario.
No more than 2,000 people were expected and, instead, about
13,000 showed up. A riot broke out when about 1,000 fans
were turned away.
Police on horseback moved in to control the crowd but were
met by a hail of beer bottles, stones and firecrackers. Some
fans inside the Forum climbed onto the roof, others rushed
onto the stage to hug Frankie, and bonfires were set on the
sloping sides of the amphitheatre. Four hours later, the
riot ended with several dozen people arrested and some
injured.
In its wake, Ontario Place banned rock shows at the venue.
The incident made headlines across the country, increasing
the band's popularity. Mr. Lewis said the band was not aware
of the riot, only that the audience kept growing. The
publicity "helped establish us and make our mark as a band
in this country."
In 1985, Mr. Kerr decided to quit the band for new ventures.
Mr. Lewis said his departure was amicable and the two
remained close friends. Mr. Kerr went on to form two
short-lived bands: Frankie Venom and the Vipers and Frankie
Venom and the Blue Angels. Two years later, he rejoined
Teenage Head.
The band recorded 10 albums. Earlier this year, they
released their latest CD, Teenage Head with Marky Ramone.
Mr. Ramone was a drummer with the Ramones, the famous New
York punk group. "It was punk icons of Canada meet punk
icons of U.S.A.," Mr. Lewis said. The CD met with critical
acclaim and realized the band's long-held dream to record
with the Ramones.
Mr. Kerr, who lived the punk lifestyle all his life, was not
without his demons. He was a heavy cigarette smoker and
liked his booze, although he never allowed it to affect his
performance, Mr. Lewis said. Despite his problems "he never
once let me down."
On Oct. 15, the band learned that they were to receive a
lifetime achievement award at the Hamilton Music Awards in
November.
FRANKIE (VENOM) KERR
Francis Hannah Kerr was born June 2, 1956, in Glasgow,
Scotland. He died Oct. 15, 2008, at St. Joseph's Hospital in
Hamilton, Ont., of throat cancer. He was 52. He leaves his
sons Frankie and Callum, sisters Christine and Dorothy and
his extended family.