“And we’re good old boys, we come from the North Shore,
Drinkers and carousers the likes you’ve never seen;
And this night, by God! We drank till there was no more,
From the Troller to the Raven with all stops in between!”
– Spirit of the West, “The Crawl”
First comes the jig.
The sound seems misplaced – an ocean away from Ireland and a continent from a Cape Breton kitchen party.
But then there’s the reel. And when The Old Dun Cow pub is burning and Captain Farrell is standing and delivering before the devil may take him, the Black Bear Pub in Lynn Valley has turned into a saints-preserve-us, pass the naggins party.
Leading that party from the corner of the pub are the Black Bear Rebels, an “extremely informal” band formed in Allan McMordie’s basement.
McMordie, who learned to play the bagpipes for his Boy Scout pipe band in Calgary began trotting out the pipes for parades during Lynn Valley Days.
The music eventually reached fellow Lynn Valley resident Jay MacDonald.
“Everybody knows Allan,” MacDonald says.
McMordie had his pipes, his late wife Trish had a guitar and MacDonald picked up his violin and turned it into a fiddle.
They added members and jammed in basement sessions before eventually forming the Black Bear Rebels, the fiddle-guitar-mandolin counterpart to the Docs & Socs pipe band.
“We sucked but we were having fun,” MacDonald says.
Sometimes they would march into a pub, strike up a tune, and march around the tables.
“Nobody has the heart to throw us out,” MacDonald says.
They played at the Robbie Burns/Chinese New Year celebration Gung Haggis Fat Choy as well as touring Lower Lonsdale pubs and craft breweries on Canada Day.
Their music – unless there’s a Canucks game on TV – is generally appreciated.
“We could drown ‘em out with the big pipes but nobody wants that,” McMordie says.
Besides the Black Bear Pub, the group drops in at the Red Lion Bar & Grill and Meat at O’Neill’s.
The room sometimes seems indifferent to the musicians, MacDonald says.
“There’s definitely a lot of people who really don’t care. They want to hear Led Zeppelin on the radio they don’t want to hear a bunch of amateur musicians playing acoustic instruments in the corner.”
But other times the pub patrons embrace the group.
The bar thumping, sing-along melodies is one of the reasons the songs have endured, McMordie says.
“A lot of them are easy tunes to sing, they have a nice chorus that people can join in on. They tell a story,” he says. “I think that’s what really makes them last.”
“It speaks to our souls because a lot of us come from that cultural background,” MacDonald agrees. “It may be a generation removed or so.”
The group has a part-time member they call Uncle Les. Uncle Les was visiting from Scotland when he heard the Rebels, ran home, got his bouzouki and joined. Despite heading back to Scotland, Uncle Les is still in the band.
“We’ve collected these friends that are now scattered around the world and whenever they’re in Vancouver they come and play,” McMordie says.
The group is always accepting new members, provided they can meet
the criteria.
They need to be friendly, keep the beat and sing on key, McMordie says.
“Nobody’s the star,” he says. “We just play a bunch of tunes.”
“We don’t typically get paid for what we do,” MacDonald points out. “If anyone wants to give us a bottle of whiskey that’s great but it’s more about just showing up and showing people how much fun this music can be.”
