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The Mood
Train's Late / Who Do You Love - 7"
Cove - 1967
Michael Panontin
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The Mood were a short-lived quartet from the Welland (ON) region that issued this lone forty-five in 1967. The nucleus of the band got their start in 1965 as the Sinners, who spent the better part of two years practising and gigging, locally mostly at various high schools, the Knights of Columbus Hall and even at the Welland Arena, where they shared opposing stages with another hometown group called the Spartons.
The Sinners consisted of lead guitarist Andre Germain, singer/guitarist Ritchie Gauthier, bassist Al Bartok (who was later replaced by Glen Boscei), drummer Mike Weaver and briefly Jack Schaefer on keyboards. Though only Gauthier, Boscei and Weaver would move on to the Mood, Germain recalled on the Garage Hangover site the likely bitter moment that he was secretly ousted from the gang.
"I was really getting into the acoustic guitar and folk music, spending all my time trying to learn Tom Rush and Gord Lightfoot tunes," he wrote. "This pissed off my fellow bandmates who were getting ready to go back to Mike [Addario]'s studio to record another song for the b-side of our record."
Someone had tipped him off to a band practice taking place at Boscei's house, and Germain, obviously suspicious at not having been invited, went over to investigate. "I could hear the band. I knocked at the door but nobody answered, so finally I just walked in." And there to his surprise were Gauthier, Boscei and Weaver looking as he describes it "mighty sheepish when I appeared". And more to the point, in his stead was another lad with a guitar strapped around his shoulder, who introduced himself as Dave Pine. "So that was that! I'd heard of him and knew he was good on his instrument as well as being a fine vocalist, so I wished the guys well and walked out of there."
The four then headed over to Canland Studio, a rudimentary configuration set up in budding recording engineer Addario's parents' basement, actually the same place that the Sinners had earlier recorded a couple of tracks that never made it to vinyl. The Mood released this seven-inch, a pining, country-tinged track called 'Train's Late' b/w a scorching rendition of Bo Diddley's 'Who Do You Love', sometime in the middle part of 1967. And though the record was pressed up on the totally obscure Cove imprint, it actually managed a mention in the Aug. 19th edition of Billboard, with the influential mag gushing, "They're about to happen - the Mood, from Port Colborne, Ontario experienced reasonable success with their first disc 'Train's Late on Cove. They are currently building their image throughout Ontario preparatory to another release."
That second release would never come to be. Pine left the group soon after to seek his fortunes in Toronto, while Gauthier and Weaver went on to form a trio called the Factree (and later just Tree), issung a couple of singles in the late sixties. Unfortunately, a newly-wed Weaver collapsed on stage in 1971 while drumming and died leaving behind a wife and a baby. Pine's future was equally tragic. After establishing himself as an in-demand jazz-r'n'b musician, he was involved in a horrendous car accident after a gig one night, spending some time in a coma, and ultimately, as Germain recalls, "spent the remainder of his life in a wheelchair and died a broken man a few years back".
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