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Taking it to the people: Guitar Doug goes global

"Play it again, Sam." Humphrey Bogart as Rick in Casablanca As romantic as the rock-and-roll lifestyle appears to outsiders, few who've ridden that roller-coaster ride would ever describe it as healthy. Or sane. It's a boom-and-bust world.

"Play it again, Sam."

Humphrey Bogart as Rick in Casablanca

 

As romantic as the rock-and-roll lifestyle appears to outsiders, few who've ridden that roller-coaster ride would ever describe it as healthy. Or sane. It's a boom-and-bust world. A place where you're only as good as your last show. And if your resistance to the sirens' song of booze, drugs and sex is low, there's a good chance you'll eventually wash up on the shoals of your own dreams.

Just ask "Guitar" Doug Craig. One of Whistler's most enduring musical acts - almost an institution now - Doug came up the hard way. You'd never know it from his attitude, though. The guy is irrepressibly buoyant. Things are always good with Doug. He has a smile on his face for everyone.

But spend some time with him and a whole other reality begins to emerge. Meaning? Doug's as conversant with the dark side of rock-and-roll as anyone I know. Just ask him.

But I'm getting ahead of myself again. Where did we leave off last week? Oh yeah - spring of 1989. Doug had just left Edmonton for greener (or should I say whiter?) pastures. Had tumbled into Whistler looking for an open mike where he could sing for a few beers and something to eat. This is how Doug describes his arrival here.

"I remember driving up Howe Sound," he recounts, "and seeing the pulp mill in the distance with all the smoke. 'That must be Whistler Village,' I thought. But something wasn't right." He laughs. "'Where are the lifts? Where are the runs?' That couldn't be the resort. So I kept ploughing on."

When he reached Creekside, he still doubted himself. "'Is this it?' I thought. 'No way!'" Another burst of laughter. "I drove right by the village and eventually had to turn around." It was dark. Doug was tired and hungry - hoping against hope that he might find a bar in town sponsoring a jam night. Instead he found Johnny Thrash.

Say what? The notorious Johnny Thrash - cosmic outlaw and social gadfly - was the first person to greet Doug in Whistler? "Yeah. He said: 'Follow me to Citta's.'" A short pause. A smile creeps across Doug's features. "So I helped him push a Marshall amp through the snow and started jamming the moment I got to the bar. And that was that." Indeed. Doug would continue playing at Citta's for the next 56 straight weeks!

Talk about finding your place. "It was kinda cosmic that way," he says. "That's where I met P-tor Sprieceniks too. We became best mates. Along with Chris Kettles. We all loved skiing and mountaineering - so we got to be a pretty tight crew."

But wait. There's more. "After jamming into the wee hours that first night," he continues, "I ended up sleeping in my car in the day lot. It was a piece of shit - a VW Rabbit that had cost me $400. And it certainly wasn't comfortable." He catches his breath. Laughs again. "But I managed to wake up and ski the next day - for sure!" And the next day after that and the next and the next...

Doug was in ski-bum heaven. "Free beer, big snowy mountain, lots of new and exciting people - what was there not to like? Besides, no one at Whistler had a big sense of self yet. We were all too young to be self-conscious."

It was a big year for Whistler too. "Rob Boyd had just bested the world's top downhillers on his own turf," remembers Craig. "So he came to Citta's on Jam Night to celebrate. He grabbed a guitar and we jammed together. It was totally euphoric. All of us were complete mountain fiends and powder nuts. It was like a big tribal reunion."

Playing for free beer is great. But it ain't gonna put groceries on the table. So Doug was reduced to looking for "straight" work. He tried being a waiter at first. He did his best, but it was hopeless. Skiing all day and playing music all night, he says, just doesn't put you in the right frame of mind to serve people. "I was a terrible waiter," he admits.

He worked as a labourer/carpenter for a time and in '91 started cooking for the breakfast crowd at the Southside Deli - which brought him enough money for a scuba diving stint in Central America. But the call of the mountains was just too strong. "By the time I flew home, I had the biggest jones for skiing," he says. "I got to Whistler just in time for opening day - and realized all over again just how magical our mountains are."

The next few years were spent in a frenzy of powder and performance and partying and generally going wild. "We skied, played music and banged nails," he says. Perennially short of cash, Doug lived wherever he could. "I moved into the [infamous] Love Shack for a while," he tells me. "Outrageous parties, man. Really wild. Lots of good jamming though..." He got to know fellow musicians too - like Jordan White and the other members of She Stole My Beer . "Those guy would work on their repertoire right in our living room. It was awesome. There was always a ton of music around..."

Doug is entirely candid about how close to the edge he got in those years. "I was definitely burning the candle at both ends," he admits. "I mean, juggling these two things - mountains and music - it was really tough. I wanted to do it all: climb in Yosemite, ski at Whistler, have a relationship with a woman, make an income, pursue my music." He sighs sadly. "But I couldn't do it all."

So he fell back on a tried and true Whistler money-saver: he started squatting. "I had this cool little squatter's shack on the road up to The Ancient Cedars. I lived there for years. And with virtually no money. I'd sold my amp, was using a borrowed guitar... I was living like a total bum." He stops. And suddenly bursts into happy laughter. "But I was still skiing full time! I worked as a volunteer at the Blackcomb Race department. Steve Legge was my boss. It was great - I could still ski fast and free."

But a squatter's life isn't really sustainable. And Doug knew that. He still couldn't afford Whistler rents however, so he moved into a friend's farmhouse on Anderson Lake instead. "Where," he says, "I grew my own food, wrote songs and made music." Although he didn't know it at the time, his life was about to take a major right turn.

"I went into Merlin's one day," he recounts, "and I was blown away by the crappy ambiance there. 'This is Après-ski?' I thought to myself. 'It's awful!'" He laughs. "So I got hold of the manager and I told her: 'If I can get these guys up and moving, do you think you could give me a job?' So she let me play..."

It just so happened that Mike Varrin was also in the bar that day. "Who the hell is that playing?" asked Whistler's legendary impresario. The manager replied: "That's Guitar Doug." And the world changed.

Okay, so maybe I'm exaggerating. The world didn't change. But for Doug, this was the life turnaround he'd been waiting for. A steady-paying gig. "I played Merlin's patio in the rain, in the snow, in the clouds, in the sun. Whatever it took..." Remember when Doug convinced Varrin to let him fly down to earth in a tandem parachute while playing guitar to a Samba-dancing crowd in full spring party mode?

Yeah. Those were the years. Whatever happened to that time? Rhetorical question...

Now I'm sure you're all wondering how Doug got to team up with his Hairfarmers partner, Grateful Greg. Listen up; this too is a fun anecdote.

"We were invited to play at this hippie wedding at a farm up near D'arcy," he begins. "We were playing as a duo, me and a fellow called Mike. As we sang our set I kept hearing this guy in the crowd sing third part harmony." Another smile flits across his features. "He was a big, burly fellow with a crazy look in his eye and a two-litre bottle of wine in his arms. He was scary-looking, for sure." A pause. "But this guy could really sing!"

You guessed it. Grateful Greg. Doug continues with the story: "Greg was trying to hustle a friend of ours that day. But she'd have nothing to do with him." He stops. Chuckles. "Now Cara's his wife..."

Greg lived in the city back then. But he started coming up to Whistler more frequently to pursue his suit with Cara. "He was working in Van as a truck driver," says Doug. "And he'd come up on weekends and hang out with us. He ended up playing for the first year or so without pay. Just for fun."

Fun for sure. But the Hairfarmers bookings just kept growing. What had begun as a casual relationship was slowly turning into a lucrative gig. "Now we play around the world," says Doug. "And the future looks really bright. I mean, we've built a massive clientele. So much so, that the kids of our original fans are becoming fans themselves!"

And the future? "More wild skiing," he says. "Lots more wild skiing..."