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Spinal Chord - Variety Telethon 1991
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A legend is gone
Spinal Chord was a truly integrated band – keyboardist/vocalist Sam Sullivan and drummer Dave Symington are both C4-5 quadriplegics who perform with the aid of customized midi mapping software. What you hear is all live, not a sequence, and there are no backtracks.
On guitar and bass are two able-bodied members, jokingly referred to by Sam and Dave as “Tabs”, or temporarily able bodied. They are Don Alder, long time session guitarist and member of Rick Hansen’s Man in Motion Tour, and bassist John Shepp, well known around Vancouver as a Producer/Engineer.
This footage is from the 1991 Variety Telethon, on the stage of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in downtown Vancouver and took place somewhere between 2 and 3 a.m. Minutes before, technicians dropped the computer which ran Sam’s keyboard mapping software and it broke into several pieces. A replacement computer was found up the block at CBC, but until the rig was pulled on stage, it was unclear whether John, who served also as band’s technical coordinator, would be able to get it running. It was a giant relief for all when Sam hit his first chord and Dave’s drums came in.
The two songs performed are from a CD Spinal Chord released around this time called “Why Be Normal?”- “We Only Kiss” and “Lady in White”, which Sam wrote about a nurse he encountered while in rehabilitation after the skiing accident that injured him.
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