‘A beautiful Hamilton constellation’; Teenage Head’s Gord Lewis receives tributes after his shocking death

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Published August 9, 2022 at 1:50 pm

Teenage Head founder and guitarist Gord Lewis is being remembered as someone who reflected Hamilton — humble but proud, often challenged, but having an inner joy that was revealed when he found his people.

Media reports have confirmed that Lewis, 65, is the man whose decomposing body was found in an apartment at 175 Catharine St. S., in the Corktown neighbourhood, on Sunday night. Hamilton Police began investigating after being alerted by media portals who had been contacted about the death by Jonathan Lewis, the musician’s 41-year-old son. The younger Lewis is now facing a charge of second-degree murder in relation to the death.

News of Gord Lewis’s death has brought forth some well-considered words from fellow musicians and aficionados who knew him, as well as from the city’s mayor.

Terra Lightfoot, the Waterdown-raised singer-songwriter who has released four albums through Sonic Unyon Records, wrote a Twitter thread detailing how she got to play with Lewis, which was a fair leap from after seeing him perform at The Casbah on King West in Hamilton. When they did play together, the space was modest — it was in Lightfoot’s home — but a man who had known fame and adulation did not judge.

“I loved Gordie so much,” Lightfoot wrote. “I remember watching him sit in with the Sadies at the Casbah, or watching him with Teenage Head. Later I got to play with him. We rehearsed with our seven piece band in my bedroom on Walnut St and Gordie didn’t bat an eye at the rehearsal location.”

Filmmmaker Douglas Arrowsmith’s 2020 documentary “Picture My Face: The Story of Teenage Head” delved into how Lewis lived with a depression diagnosis. During filming, in fact, he ended up in a mood disorder unit for treatment.

Depression often puts a shroud over one’s authentic self. Lightfoot said she saw the latter reveal itself when Lewis played guitar.

“Gordie was a person who came alive when he was plugged into an amp,” she added in the thread. “We shared a great love of raspberries and turning up to 10. So much love to those in Hamilton who knew him and loved him better than me. A star in our beautiful Hamilton constellation has gone out.”

‘He was a pioneer’

Hamilton musician Tom Wilson commented on how there was a duality to Lewis, that came out in the characteristic showmanship of Teenage Head. Wilson also seemed to suggest that the band made great advancements for Hamilton- and Canadian-made rock music.

“Gord Lewis was a friend, a gentle man with a wild desire who burned up the air with a Les Paul Jr & a Marshall stack,” wrote Wilson, whose folk rock band, Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, will be playing with Lightfoot at Massey Hall in Toronto next month. “He was a pioneer who took us where we’d never been.”

 

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Those who have followed the career (and the Twitter account) of Dave Hodge know that the former “Hockey Night in Canada” and TSN sports host is a huge music buff. Hodge wrote that he and Lewis were friendly.

“He was a true legend, and it was my honour and pleasure to know him as a friend. This hurts.”

Hamilton Mayor Fred Eisenberger also offered a tribute on Tuesday morning.

“Gord Lewis was a part of a Hamilton institution beloved by many in our community and beyond,” the mayor wrote in a tweet. “My deepest condolences to his family, friends, and many fans.”

In the 1970s, when Lewis and frontman Frankie Venom founded Teenage Head, punk rock was part of a pushback to the comfortable conformity of the sports world. But artists are often sports appreciators, who relate to seeing driven people who are endlessly judged by a demanding public.

Local sports teams in Hamilton said that they counted Lewis as a supporter. In 2015, when the Hamilton Bulldogs became an Ontario Hockey League team, Teenage Head performed at the club’s home opener.

“He loved hockey,” wrote Peggy Chapman, the Bulldogs’ senior director of operations.

The Hamilton Cardinals of the Intercounty Baseball League also recalled that Lewis knew there was no such thing as a bad day at a ballpark. The Cardinals said Lewis often turned out at Bernie Arbour Memorial Stadium.

“Gord was a supporter of the Cardinals and had been to many games over the years,” a post from the Cardinals’ Twitter account read. “We loved seeing and chatting with him at games.”

By many media accounts, managing his depression strained Lewis’s capacity to live on his own. But he was doing so at the time of his death.

The neighbourhood pub just down the street from Lewis’s final home is honouring him on its marquee. The Corktown Irish Pub described Lewis as one of the “sweetest, nicest” patrons that a bar could ever hope to have. An unsigned Facebook post said Lewis would politely ask for a television to be tuned to a Toronto Blue Jays game.

“He would come in and ask for a pint and ‘if’ it was ok to put on the Blue Jays game….That’s it, he wanted nothing more,” the Corktown’s post said.

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