Video of “Out of the Blue” The Way,live on TV 1989
The Way was formed at Churchill Highschool in 1986, initially called “Sonic Aphid”. Mike Afonso and Brad Tidswell began at Mike’s house after school, banging on pots and pans and playing one string on a guitar to The Who’s “My Generation”- possibly the easiest rock-riff one can learn. Smoke-pit friend, Gary Bulloch from the next year down was recruited to play bass. Then Mathias Wolfsohn was convinced by Brad during Math class to take up keyboards as he had musical training, long hair and also liked Heavy Metal. They were encouraged by some Headbangers, Wallace Leung and Lyle Londridge from the grade ahead of them that had the only Highschool band at the time called Rampage.
Their first gig during lunch time in the School Auditorium was advertised during the previous week with comedic sound clips before the school announcements and with rock posters plastered throughout the school. There were complaints that the imagery of the Sonic Aphid; a giant diabolical-looking six-armed insect, was too evil looking. During spring break the boys built giant props in the backyard of Brad’s house: a giant paper-mache egg-pod and two humungous mushrooms. One mushroom was Mathias’ keyboard stand, the other, a platform for Brad to climb onto and rock-out on. There were also plenty of paper-mache stalactites dispersed around the stage amidst the dry-ice clouds.
Their first show began with Brad bursting out of the egg-pod during Mathias’ Phantom of the Opera keyboard solo. After emerging from the egg guitar-first, Brad sauntered up to the mic and bellowed ” I AM THE SONIC APHID….YEILD TO MY POWERS OF SOUND!!!” He then began to play the opening chords to the self titled song only to find that his amp was not turned on. It was a moment that Spinal Tap would have been proud of.
The following year they again used their time-off to build more stage props for their lunch time show, this time a giant speedometer made from a store awning and a huge oyster that opened up to reveal an Earth Globe inside. This was to promote their newly completed tape “Oyster Earth” which was Engineered by mentor Jimmy Walker. This time the band enlisted the help of three backup singers Maria,Beryth and Caroline from Brad’s choir class. Fellow psychedelic pioneers handled a liquid lightshow and laser projections while rose petals were dropped from the the wings above the stage as the Oyster Earth opened up by hidden fishing wire. The speedometer revved to overload by someone hidden inside during a song about fast cars called ‘Flatstick”. They kept playing the rebel song “Spark that Reef” after the period bell rang and had to pull the plug when Principal Pearmain came running in and gave them the cutthroat signal. Later the boys were summoned from their various classes to the Principals office. They sat outside expecting to be chastised for their inappropriate lyrical content but instead the Principal congratulated them for inspiring the school.
The Way went on to play many shows in Vancouver venues like:
The Commodore Ballroom- 04/23/1990 LKabong, Water,The Way
– 02/09/1991 Catherine Wheel, The Way, Spin Doctors, Love Handles,messiah
– 05/23/1991 Spin Doctors, The Way, Oh Yeah
– 10/25/1991 Grames Bros., The Way, The New Warlocks
The Town Pump with Crazy Fingers, She Stole My Beer,
The Lux Theatre with Crazy Fingers, Water
86St Music Hall
The Arlington
Cinderella Ballroom
Hornby Island Hall, Denman Hall, Lasquiti Pub all with Pan
Sandy Cove Pub
The Boot Pub, Whistler with The Grames Brothers
Live TV appearance on U Tonight CKVU
