Vava Vol - My first Montreal apartment

                     Vava Vol, chanteuse, electronic music composer, experimental short wave radio operator, 80s punk diva and blogger at VàVàland, submits this entertaining tidbit as her contribution to My First Montreal Apartment.

--
   In 1979, a friend of mine had to return to Tehran and urgently needed to sublet his newly leased apartment. He convinced me to take a look. After all, $175 a month for a large furnished 4½ basement suite complete with antiques, wood paneled walls, hardwood floors and a humungous bathroom with a walk-in granite shower was too much to resist. The pièce de résistance was the 12-foot-long working oak and stone fireplace. And oh yes, to add to the charm, it was located on the lovely Dr. Penfield Avenue in the vicinity of the Swiss Embassy on Montreal’s gorgeous mountain. What more could a girl ask for? “Where do I sign?” I asked the landlord, who bore a striking resemblance to Colonel Klink of Hogan’s Heroes. This 125-year-old Victorian stone row-house had been converted into six apartments, two of which were in the basement, the front suite being the biggest and best deal of all. Gothic much, you ask? In my mind’s eye, it was my castle atop the Birgua pass!
   After settling in, I invited my then-beau over for a romantic dinner. The candelabras were lit, the Beaujolais was breathing and best of all a new black bearskin rug was placed in front of the (not yet lit) fireplace. After finishing our meal, we moved into the living room to enjoy our wine and a fire. My many years of camping experience enabled me to get a roaring, crackling, inferno blazing away in no time.

Vava and Mick gigging as The Essentials.

It was simply perfect and definitely high on the romance richter scale. As we stretched out on the rug and enjoyed the warmth of the hypnotic fire, I heard a strange low hiss like something was under pressure, but paid no attention as I thought it was just the spitting of burning logs. Little did I know what was cooking under the fire grate!
   Like out of a WWII documentary, there was a sudden terrible explosion in the fireplace and out of its mouth spewed a hail of baked beans travelling at the velocity only an aeronautics engineer would understand. In the blink of an eye, the living room and everything in it (us) was covered in slime, burning woodchips and ashes!! Needless to say we freaked as we scrambled to get the situation under control. Luckily, neither of us was struck by any flying bean can shrapnel. What an unholy mess! As we recovered from the shock, we later burst into howls of laughter! This could only happen to me!
   Turns out my Persian friend had taken “home cooking” to a whole new level by exercising his right to roast shish-kebobs indoors over an open fire (a very common practice in Middle Eastern countries) but realizing the grate was too low, decided to elevate it by placing one full bean can under each leg. After a number of dinners, it appears the labels had burned off and the cans were scorched black, something I hadn’t noticed. Due to the intensity of my fire, the beans began to simmer and boil in their cans until the pressure became too much and caused them to blow.
   On a closing note, I continued to live on Dr. Penfield for a couple of years and you can imagine my glee when the Glace club opened its doors on Stanley Street. Nicely nestled in amongst the Limelight, Bud’s, Mystique and Oxygène, Glace was the new kid on the block and a perfect fit. Being a hop, skip ‘n a jump from my front door, I would walk down Stanley in my stilettos dressed in “my club kit” and crawl back up every night. I quickly became a regular at this popular club and eventually got a gig bartending there. I hadn’t met Mick Lynes at this point but that was about to change when he approached me one night at the club and asked if I would be interested in getting a band together with him. This encounter would eventually evolve into The Essentials, our first live gig being at the Glace. We were second, after Men Without Hats, to play Glace. The rest as they say, is history and une autre histoire!

Read the entire My First Montreal Apartment series

• Snarchland: Neil Cameron's My First Montreal Apartment
• My First Montreal Apartment: John Allore
• Mike Boone: My first Montreal apartment
• My first Montreal apartment: Jack Ruttan
• Vava Vol - My first Montreal apartment
• My first Montreal apartment: Kate McDonnell
• My first Montreal apartment: John Hood
• My first Montreal apartment: Stephen Lack
• My first Montreal apartment: Taras Grescoe
• My first Montreal apartment: Dennis Trudeau
• My first Montreal apartment: Colin Robertson
• My first apartment - Daniel Richler