For two years Brian, Bruce and
Rennie were The Saints, an instrumental
group in Shilo, while they were in high
school. Jerry lived in Ottawa and
would join them for summer breaks.
At the end of high school they decided to
get serious, began adding vocals, and
original songs to the mix. They
recorded two singles in Minneapolis (no
studios in Winnipeg at that time) then
moved to Winnipeg as a new band The
Action. Armed with two recorded
singles in the bank, they contacted Frank
Wiener to check them out. He came
over to their house with Mike Hanford of
the Shondels to listen. At the end
of the evening, he said they wouldn’t go
over in Winnipeg with the instrumental
ratio in their mix, but liked their
singles, and asked if he could have one
for the Shondels … slow burn
With no representation, they decided to go
on their own, and to war with
Wiener! They released the singles to
CKY and CKRC, got a ton of airplay over a
3 to 4 month period as a new band in
Winnipeg who nobody ever saw. During
that period they added vocals, fine tuned
their show, and hit the ground
running. This is the article (below)
that introduced them to Winnipeg.
Note: The Action were not popular with
other musicians in Winnipeg, partly
because no one knew them personally (they
developed their music background
elsewhere) and their war with Frank Wiener
meant undercutting his prices. Frank
was the Bruce Allen of Winnipeg at the
time, it was their only avenue of battle.
Note 2: As a close friend of The Action, I
developed an attitude about Frank Wiener,
as many musicians of the time did.
However, in my year with Blakewood Castle,
I attended every Monday morning meeting
with Lonnie in Frank’s office, and came
away with a high regard for him as a
professional in his role.
As posted on the Manitoba Music
Museum Facebook page, January 27, 2012
by Ken Jenkins.
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