Love So Easy Now

I have about three posts rattling around in my brain right now, and I think the key to keeping my sanity is to just work through them all systematically.

Idea numero uno: the epic coolness that is my father.

I’ve always known that I have wicked parents. My mother (as seen in Goodbye Ottawa, Hello Vancouver) is literally the best mom in the whole world (sorry world, it’s just a fact) and I think, to add to my ridiculous list of blog posts, I will just have to dedicate an entire one to HER epicness.

But this post, this one is about Pops. And my reasoning for wanting to write about him all springs from something he sent me via email a few months ago. It’s just too damn good not to share!

My whole life, Dad has been a musician, not a full time rock star, but a weekend warrior of epic proportions. As far back as I can remember, random people would show up at our house carrying boxes full of drums, cases housing guitars of the electric and bass variety, and old-time suitcases with brightly coloured silk lining containing microphones and patch cords. They came to jam, they came to rehearse, they came to fight the weekend war with the other dads and forget about their day jobs, if even for just a few hours.

That was my impression of the whole situation. Living in the Kootenays, there is always music going on somewhere, but it’s never mainstream, and it’s certainly never more than a bunch of local guys ripping it up on stage. Dad was always just another member of just another local band. They were awesome, to the tenth degree, but I went to school with half the other members’ kids and while I’d see my Uncle Dennis kill a guitar solo on the weekend, I’d see him Monday with my dad, covered in paint and beautifying the town one brush stroke at a time.

I remember after the horrible year I spent in Art School, I was back in the Kootenay’s, I had just turned 19, which meant I could finally go to Jam Night at the Powder Keg Pub and see my dad and uncle show all the amateurs how it’s done. My friend Tim was also back in town at this point, and while he’d always known my dad was a musician, he’d never seen them play.

The first time we went, I remember the look on Tim’s face as he saw my Uncle do a wicked guitar solo (being a guitar player himself) and after my dad slapped out a Bass solo, he turned to me and said “your family is so cool it hurts, man.” 

I always knew he was cool, but I didn’t know how close my dad actually came to fame until I was in my early twenties. He’d always talked about the bands he’d been in and how some of them went pretty far, but the scope of “pretty far” in my head did not reach beyond the boundaries of our little Alpine region.

It wasn’t until The Trail Times interviewed my dad and wrote an article about his musical influence in the Kootenay’s that I fully understood just how big a deal his past musical accomplishments were.

My pops is the one that looks like David St. Hubbins...

I always knew that Pops was in a band called Pembroke Ltd and that somewhere in his vast record collection was a copy of the song they wrote “Love So Easy Now”. What I didn’t know is that this single of theirs was No. 1 in Washington State, and that they were the opening band for a lot of the music acts that came through Spokane, including The Byrds, The Animals, and Jefferson Airplane.

The part of the Trail Times article that really stood out for me was where they quoted my dad saying: “I cruised the Spokane Coliseum with David Crosby looking for chicks.”

Excuse me? Did you say David Crosby?! I mean I was impressed with Jefferson Airplane, I was agog that they had single, let alone a hit, but David Crosby??? Of Crosby Stills Nash and Young…as in Neil Young?!!!! I’m sorry, my head just exploded!

Needless to say dad’s coolness factor has reached a much higher plane than just being awesome at Jam Night.

Anyway, long story short, my dad is freaking sweet. And after 10 years of knowing about his epic sweetness, I find in my email a digital copy of “Love So Easy Now” by Pembroke Ltd..

Had. To . Be. Shared.

Update: How about a YouTube video of "Sleepy John" instead?

Pembroke Ltd. - Sleepy John