At Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2005 14:48:49 Gary wrote:

>Correct me if I misremember Jaimie,
>but wasn't Space Phlegm the nom-du-group
>of those two guys (whose names escape me)
>who started and ran the great Record Peddler store
>(on Queen St. E., then across from the Gardens) ??

That would be Andy McKay and Ben Hoffman of Record Peddler (and owners of 
Ready Records and Fringe Records labels respectively) fame. However, I ran 
into some guys who laid claim to that handle in the mid '80s. They told me 
that they were in Grade 11 and wanted to be in a band so badly, but could 
not afford instruments and were too lazy to learn how to play them anyway so 
they created their dream band -- Space Phlegm -- by which they'd play the 
most sought-after gigs on bills with the biggest names.

For at least two years I remember seeing posters for these guys playing 
venues like Larry's Hideaway, The Turning Point, Club David's, The Masonic 
Temple, The Edge, etc. They'd be doing double bills with guys like Teenage 
Head, Forgotten Rebels, Battered Wives, et al. Little did anyone know that 
there was no band. But, the name lived on.....quite the marketing coupe if 
you ask me.

Maybe the Peddler guys were financing the posters and street time! :-)

When I met these guys they were called Rathaus and actually learned how to 
play instruments by that point...opening for my band Moving Targetz at the 
Bunchofuckingoofs' club called THE DMZ on Spadina in 1985.

Other funny names of real bands I just remembered:

Joe College & The Rulers
The Tequila Mockingbirds
Men Without Hits
Epileptic Brain Surgeons
Bill Bixby & The Levitating Hulks
Sex Toys 'R' Us
Runs 'n' Hoses
Rudolph & His F*cking Reindeer (a pseudonym for Bruce Cockburn and members 
of Chalk Circle)
Vomit & The Zits
Me, Mom & Morgentaller (named after an infamous Montreal abortion clinic 
doctor)
Bourban Tabernacle Choir
Condo Christ
Corky & The Juice Pigs (featuring comedian Shawn Cullen)
Radio Free Vestibule (a comedy troupe who had a hit video/song called "The 
Grunge Song")
The Burundi Plumbers (featuring members of Vital Sines & The Jitters)
Dick Duck & The Dorks (containing 13 former staff members of The Edge 
nightclub)
Woods Are Full Of Cuckoos (later to become The Lawn)
Crash Kills 5
The Randypeters
Cadillac Bill & The Creeping Bent (from Hamilton)
The Gruesomes (Montreal band named after the ghoulish Flinstones characters)
Deja Voodoo
Assmachine (formed by former political spin doctors for the Canadian 
Conservative Party)

Jaimie Vernon,
President, Bullseye Records
"Not Suing Our Customers Since 1985!!"
http://www.bullseyecanada.com
Author, Canadian Pop Music Encyclopedia
http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/Pop_Encyclopedia/