Gary Pig Gold (and, yes, "Pig" is an official part of the package) is something of a Renaissance man and lightning rod for the last quarter of 20th-century indie and underground pop. As a band member and songwriter, producer, sideman, arranger, record label owner, distributor, publisher, editor, and writer, he has emerged as an all-around patron, promoter, and champion not only for artists that have flown beneath the radar but also for the grand history of pop music, in its broader connotation. It is conceivable that, all apologies to James Brown, he is rock music's all-time hardest-working man. If his name recognition isn't quite at the level of his credibility and influence, Gold is still, hands down, one of the most fascinating characters to wander out of rock roll's back alleys since punk reared its mohawked head.

Gary Pig Gold was born with neither a silver guitar in his hands nor a "Pig" in his name, but he certainly had music in his blood from the get-go. His father was a big band drummer and owner of a prodigious collection of swing 78s, and his mother still sings with the Mississauga Choral Society. Canadian-born and -bred, he grew up listening incessantly to Toronto's 1050 CHUM-AM Radio, earning an appreciation for everything from early rock 'n' roll to bluegrass and bubblegum. He first picked up a guitar as an adolescent in the mid-'60s, and by the time he hit his teenage years, he had formed his first combo, Pornographic Cornflake, named after the lyric in I Am the Walrus. Through high school Gold played in various combos of disparate merit before being transformed by the scruffy tidal wave called punk in the mid-'70s.

The "Pig" nom de plume originated by chance. A PBS television channel in Buffalo, New York, selected for broadcast an impudent mockumentary that the aspiring filmmaker had made. To avoid any ugly litigious hang-ups, it was suggested that the high school student credit it to an alter ego. The next morning at breakfast, a small plastic pig stamper fell out of his Wheaties box, and Pig Productions, as well as Gary Pig, was born. The name stuck for good when, a couple years later in an act of rebellion against escalated ticket prices, Gold and a friend created "anti-handbills" for a Who concert, which earned the wrath of some MCA record reps (but the delight of Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey). That act of rebellion could also be considered the seed of the Pig Paper. In 1975 Gold began to publish Canada's very first music fanzine out of Ontario, eventually covering the punk explosion there, with the inception of Canadian bands like the Viletones, the Dishes, and Simply Saucer (who recorded a 1978 45 on his Pig record label). By 1978 the worldwide circulation had surged to 5,000 copies, and the Pig Paper had become near legendary in punk circles for its playful, sardonic lampooning of pop culture and serious music coverage, as well as a rallying point for his record label and distribution company, all operated out of his parents' basement.

It was on a trip to London during the summer of '75 (to see the Troggs) that Gold first began brushing up against history. He witnessed a little combo, the 101'ers, which played nearly the exact repertoire as his own band at the time, Martin the E-Chords. When he went up to meet the band's guitarist, he came face to face with none other than Joe Strummer. Strummer not only suggested that Gold check out a new clothes-and-records shop in Chelsea called Let It Rock and ask for Malcolm McLaren, but his enthusiasm for pub -- as opposed to punk -- rock and the underground press provided the burgeoning publisher with the encouragement he needed upon his return to Canada. During the same trip he also managed to sneak into a Wings concert with the help of Paul McCartney's manager, an event immortalized in Jorie B. Gracen's -I Saw Him Standing There.

By 1980, his pop compulsion had compelled him toward California immediately after seeing Jan Dean play at Ontario Place in Toronto. Three weeks later, by some twist of fate, he was asked to tour Australia as bassist with the duo. (Alas, lack of a bass guitar precluded the trip.) Instead, he decided to put a pop/rock band together, settling in Orange Country and spending three years with the Loved Ones. By 1985 Gold had returned to Toronto and was putting out single-sheet editions of the Pig Paper in between relentless touring gigs with his Beach Boys-clone surf combo, Endless Summer, in which his role was as rhythm guitarist "Gary Jardine." Endless Summer was extremely popular throughout Canada, even earning the opportunity to open for and back up Del Shannon at a festival appearance. Gold met fellow Canadian and ex-Teenage Head front man Dave Des Roches -- their respective bands were on the same touring circuit -- in 1988. The following year, he produced Des Roches' solo debut, Valentino's Pirates, and the duo found themselves moving to New York City, illegally subletting on the Upper East Side and playing coffeehouse gigs around Greenwich Village as Valentino's Pirates. They managed to get a record deal with the Russian label Melodiya and were forced to put together a touring band. With the addition of guitarist Coyote Shivers (who had already been crashing at their place), drummer Billy Ficca, and former Washington Squares bassist Lauren Agnelli, the resulting unit became the power pop combo exemplar Dave Rave Conspiracy and spent the first half of the 1990s gigging and developing a following along the East Coast and throughout Canada. They released several albums both domestically and abroad through 1995. By that time, Gold had already cast his lot with another motley assemblage of musicians.

After meeting guitarist Buddy Woodward in 1990, the two started trading tapes and working on each other's songs-in-progress, many of which showed a considerable country bent. By 1992, with Gold now settled in Hoboken, the duo convened the maximum rhythm 'n' bluegrass unit the Ghost Rockets. They developed, over the next half decade, a rabid local following, leading not only to busy fan bootlegging but also a pair of 1998 releases. He then co-founded the To M'Lou Music label with friend and power pop stalwart Shane Faubert, whose solo recordings Gold was producing at the time, to release the acclaimed Unsound demo compilation series and even more lauded debut disc from the Masticators. Dave Rave Conspiracy also made plans to reconvene, with rhythm-section help from Masticators' Lisa Mychols and Robbie Rist, to play the 2001 International Pop Overthrow festival in Los Angeles as a celebration for the tenth-anniversary expanded re-release of Valentino's Pirates.

And, of course, Gary Pig Gold continues, through the countless articles and insights that he contributes to print and online publications, to record the unwritten history of pop music both high- and lowbrow, and every brow in between. ~ Stanton Swihart, Rovi