Rockin’ about their generation
‘Old people in this country are just brushed to one side, like rubbish, past our sell-by date’
ALFIE CARRETTA, ZIMMERS LEAD SINGER
The Zimmers, who boast a 90-year-old singer, a 100-year-old drummer and a hit on the pop charts, want the world to know they’re not going to f-f-f-f-fade away
Jun 09, 2007 04:30 AM
Mitch Potter
EUROPEAN BUREAU
Members of band The Zimmers perform their cover of ‘ My Generation ‘ on The Graham Norton Show ,’ shown on England’s BBC2.
The Zimmers, by the numbers
90 – Age of London-born lead singer Alf Carretta, who snarls “Hope I die before I get old” in the geriatric rock group’s jaw-dropping cover of The Who’s “My Generation.” As a nonagenarian, Carretta is old enough to have fathered Elvis.
26 – Rank of the Zimmers’ fast-rising debut single on this week’s British pop charts, eclipsing new releases by Enrique Iglesias and Simply Red, among others.
2.66 – Viewings, in millions, of the Zimmers’ debut video on YouTube.com.
100 – Age of Zimmers drummer Buster Martin, who is believed to be the U.K.’s oldest employee as he continues to work three days a week with a London plumbing company.
50 – Percentage of Zimmers proceeds going to the U.K. charity Age Concern, which organizes lunch clubs, outings, learning, advocacy, and counselling services for more than 250,000 older people.
0 – Number of the 40 band members who walk with the aid of a “zimmer,” the tubular metal frame more commonly known to Canadians as a “walker.”
LONDON–They are on their way to a chart-topping seniors moment that almost no-one saw coming, least of all The Zimmers – a group of 40 rocking pensioners with a combined age of 3,000.
But such is the strength of Zimmermania that more than 2.66 million viewers worldwide have tapped the London band’s debut single since its launch on the Internet two weeks ago, lifting it into the British pop charts at No.26.
And all on the strength of a raucous rendition that turns the generational tables on “My Generation.”
The Who’s iconic youth anthem retains its snarling, angry bite in the hands of the Zimmers – but now the one doing the snarling is 90-year-old lead singer Alfie Carretta, backed by a cast of raging grannies and granddads who wish the world to know that being old is no cause for neglect. The Zimmers YouTube.com performance comes to an instrument-trashing finale with a middle-finger salute from 100-year-old drummer Buster Martin.
“Old people in this country are just brushed to one side, like rubbish, past our sell-by date,” Carretta told the Daily Mail on Sunday, as the group readied for liftoff to Los Angeles, where they appeared this week on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
“People seem to think that if you’re old then you’re silly and doddery and pointless. Walk down the street and people don’t seem to notice us – we’ve become invisible.”
It is precisely the message BBC documentary maker Tim Samuels received while doing research last year into the marginalized conditions of British seniors, 3.5 million of whom live alone, often in total isolation.
Samuels came away with more than a documentary. He also built a band, recruiting 40 spry and willing seniors from the homes he visited and putting them together with a team of music business professionals inside London’s famed Abbey Road studios.
“I wanted to give them a voice – and what better way than to get them in the pop charts?” said Samuels. “This would say: `They’re old, but they’re not past it.’” Thus was born The Zimmers, borrowing the name from the British term for a tubular metal walking aid.
Half of the profits from Zimmers sales are destined for the U.K. charity Age Concern, the country’s largest seniors support group. But already, interest in the Zimmers is transcending borders, with requests for appearances from more than 50 countries.
Neil Reed of X-Phonics Records, a small London independent label, is backing the group.
“This is the most fun any of us have ever had,” Reed told the Star from Los Angeles. “The music business can be such a nasty beast and normally it is so focused on the supposed angst, passion and drive of youth.
“But here we have a group of people who had basically given up on life and suddenly they’ve become a part of a huge thing. And they actually say, `Thank-you’ which is not something I’ve heard very often in my career.”
What will the Zimmers do for an encore? The British press has had great fun with suggestions ranging from “Stairlift to Heaven” to “When I’m 164.” Reed said the group is still tossing around the possibilities but is expected to begin full-album recording sessions in two weeks.
“Iggy Pop’s `Lust for Life,’ Simple Minds’ `Alive and Kicking’ and `Don’t You (Forget About Me)’ are possibilities for the album,” said Reed.
As for concert dates, it remains to be seen how many Zimmers will be able to mobilize for the rigours of the road. But judging by the adrenal effects of the performance on lead singer Carretta it might yet happen. Backstage at the Leno show Tuesday night, the 90-year-old frontman told fellow guest George Clooney “I feel 70 again.”
Asked how he intended to celebrate his band’s arrival on the charts, Carretta spoke of popping champagne. “I don’t know about going on a bender though,” he added. “I can’t walk that far.”
Revisiting the Summer of Love
Yorkville flashes back to the hippie days of 1967 as part of Luminato festival
Jun 03, 2007 04:30 AM
Chris Sorensen
Staff Reporter
David DePoe’s Yorkville was a place that blared Janis Joplin, smelled of marijuana smoke and buzzed with talk of political and social change – basically the exact opposite of what the upscale neighbourhood is today.
Dressed in a blue T-shirt emblazoned with the word “peace” and a wide-brimmed hat, the 63-year-old elementary school teacher walked down Yorkville Ave. yesterday and pointed at high-end boutiques, pricey restaurants and luxury condominiums that now sit where there used to be all-night cafes, boisterous bars and rooms to rent for as little as $40 a month.
That was back in the summer of 1967, when Yorkville, now a playground for the city’s well-heeled, was the epicentre of the country’s hippie movement, and DePoe was one of its leaders.
“Yorkville today is the antithesis of what we wanted,” said DePoe, who compared 1960s Yorkville to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury or New York’s Greenwich Village. “It’s consumerism and rich people whereas we were trying to live the simple and cheap life.”
Indeed, Yorkville is now a metaphor for the hippie movement, which was characterized by a potent mix of music, drugs and talk of political and social change. It began as a rebellion against society and its values ended up becoming swallowed whole by popular culture.
Nevertheless, DePoe was one of several current and former hippies who returned yesterday for a Summer of Love event, part of this weekend’s Luminato festival.
The sight was slightly surreal as local 1960s- and 1970s-era bands rocked out on a stage in front of a towering Williams-Sonoma sign. Meanwhile, a handful of hippies in their 50s smoked pot next to curious passersby who clutched cellphones, Holt Renfrew shopping bags and specialty coffees.
“It’s a bit of a flashback,” said Jannine Kelly, 53, who recalled running away from the suburbs at 13 into the open arms of Yorkville and its culture of community. Others, like Sebastian Agnello, 54, remember the neighbourhood as a giant, drug-fuelled party. “Lots of us didn’t take the political stuff too seriously. It was just a lot of fun.”
While yesterday was clearly about the music and the fashion (dozens of onlookers stood in line at kiosks to have flowers painted on their faces or placed in their hair), some, like DePoe, are convinced the Toronto hippie movement, short-lived as it was, did bring about social change.
“It was peace and love and all of that, but what we were actually trying to do was establish a community where people treated each other differently and everyone was accepted,” he said.
“I don’t think we would have a Charter of Rights if it wasn’t for the social movements of the 1960s.”
But rebellion also brought resistance from the establishment. DePoe’s summer of love included a clash with police over traffic in Yorkville. On Aug. 20, hundreds of hippies sat on the road and chanted “no more cars, no more cars.” Police then dragged kids, some by the hair, into paddy wagons while others were clubbed and kicked.
DePoe ended up in a jail cell and later recalled being shocked at the use of force. “What woke me up was realizing that these were the people that have all the power.”
The 60s, visiting for a day in Yorkville
June 3rd, 2007 · 1 Comment
When he was young in the 60s, Jerry Miskolczi used to listen to the artists whose album covers he still collects avidly. It wasn’t until the 80s that he started collecting as a hobby.
It was at the Lake Shore Inn in Toronto, a place that no longer exists. Saturday, in the Gallery of Memories section of the Summer of Love attraction in Yorkville, he displayed a full rack of records that might seem obscure to foreign eyes. But bands like Jack London and the Sparrows eventually became Steppenwolf and Buffalo Springfield, and The Staccatos became the Five Man Electrical Band.
“I have slowed down in my collecting,” Miskolczi said with a smile. “I’m not obsessive.”
In the stall next to him, Nicholas Jennings offers his book, “Before the Gold Rush,” on the history of Yorkville in the 1960s.
“It’s every bit the equivalent of the history of Greenich Village or Haight-Ashbury in those days,” he said. “It’s a history that needs to be celebrated.” Indeed: Where there are now sushi restaurants and a Williams-Sonoma, in the 60s there were houses full of hippies and musicians, including Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. A nearby parking lot is the one Mitchell famously refers to in her song “Big Yellow Taxi.”
That Saturday, Yorkville was half thoroughfare, half amphitheater. People got their faces painted as Sylvia Tyson sang about The Night The Chinese Restaurant Burned Down. For one day, it all came back to us.
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