With sixteen Top 40 entries to date, including four number ones, The Guess Who have been credited with ushering in a golden age of Canadian pop and rock, one that would last through much of the seventies. This blog will be looking at Gordon Lightfoot, The Bells, The Stampeders, Anne Murray, Neil Young and Edward Bear before long but not everyone can be fondly remembered or, in some cases, ridiculed for being shite. Some ended up slipping through the cracks even if their biggest hit is something of a minor masterpiece.
Quebec's Mashmakhan. They named themselves after a locally acquired brand of hash and got away with it. Though obviously big enough to have had a number one smash (which also charted internationally), they would become overshadowed by the group that was formed out of their ashes, hard rockers April Wine. They must've seemed like part of Can Rock royalty until they proved unable to follow their one big hit. Not quite one-hit wonders though they might as well have been.
The problem with progressive rock groups during this time was that their ambitions stretched far beyond what the pop singles charts had to offer. Many only bothered putting out 45s because that was what was expected of them. Singles were a mass-produced water colour on a Hallmark greeting card; albums were the canvas for all their grand plans of conquest. And when they weren't cutting LPs they were doing the next best thing: extended jams on stage to small but very appreciative audiences. (Ironically, a number of British prog rockers would go on to do very well on the RPM charts as they began to scale back in the wake of punk's rise in the second half of the decade)
It's a shame so many of them were attracted to the concept album madness of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and In the Court of the Crimson King since packing all their dynamic skills into a 7" pop song would've been good discipline. Plus, with singles going well beyond the three minute mark by this point, it wasn't as if they would've had to sacrifice a whole lot of soloing anyway. Singles were also a good and cheap starting off point: the place where bands with aspirations that far exceeded their budgets and even skills could cram some promising ideas together and see what came out it.
Considering how long it took for a domestic act to master Britain's other major subgenre of the early seventies (glam rock), it is surprising how quickly at least four Canadians managed to master progressive rock. Groups like Yes and Genesis were only getting started while Pink Floyd were still working out the kinks of shifting over from acid rock. Yet Mashmakhan took to it right away. That said, "As the Years Go By" is merely a glimpse of what they had in mind. Perhaps they were already outgrowing the pop charts.
Aided along by stellar performances in Toronto, Winnipeg and Calgary as part of that summer's notorious Transcontinental Pop Festival (which would eventually be immortalized in the wonderful documentary Festival Express), "As the Years Go By" would be a bittersweet hit just as August was wrapping up. That sort of 'goodbye summer love' smash that ought to be part of every teenager's vacation. It's that type of song that feels like it has something for everyone. You could just as easily get stoned to it as have your first kiss as it was playing. Kids might have even danced to it had the desire struck them. Whether you were hearing on the CHUM radio station or at McMahon Stadium, its status as a prog rock classic wouldn't have even entered into it. "As the Years Go By" was merely a great pop song that loads of Canadians embraced. Sometimes that's the best that can be hoped for even if you're the type of band who has far bigger fish to fry.
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