As the brother of Bobby Permanent, lead singer of Victoria’s top new wave band The Keys, Marcus was thrust into the local Punk and New Wave scene. While still in grade 9 at SMU he joined the Alternatives who then morphed into the The Clicks, their sound turning from a fun mash up of mod pop and punk into a dense pop miasma. The band broke up in ’82 leaving behind a couple of practice tapes as their legacy.
From there Pollard moved to bass and played in a series of groups - The Antichrist Newsboys, Sue Egypt and the Big Eyed Beans From Venus - and managed to get on a few recordings with Terrace Plexus (Random Thought compilation), The Electric Bananas (It Came From Canada Vol 2) and Red Tide (Where Sea Meets Sky on the French 77 KK compilation).
A part of the Random Thought ‘collective’, Marcus began writing interviews with local and touring bands, and helped to put on all-ages gigs which led to his first job in promotion - managing the legendary punk rock club La Hacienda.
After that spot ‘mysteriously’ burned down the Random Thought crew moved to doing regular shows at the Roxy Cinegog when he caught the attention of Harpo’s management. Booking legend Gary Van Buskirk tabbed Pollard to help with promo on a Romeo Void concert at the OAP Hall and then gave him a job which led to more than two decades of promoting all through BC, and a partnership and friendship that lasts to this day.
In the 90’s Marcus still dabbled in performing and recording with the Show Business Giants (the first two cassettes) and Sorry (whose 1996 demo ‘A Pocketful of Sorry’ remains unreleased) and an appearance on the Bum tribute CD ‘A Promise is a Promise’.
In addition to promoting at Harpo’s, he and Van Buskirk promoted shows at and/or managed the The Limit, Legends, Vertigo, The Town Pump, Richards on Richards etc but due to health issues had to leave the promoting business (inadvertently leading to Van Buskirk starting up Atomique with Dimitri Demers and Nick Blasko). After another 11 years in the biz spent managing and booking the Alix Goolden Hall at the Victoria Conservatory of Music, Pollard’s MS diagnosis took him out of the game forever.
Or so he thought… As a retired dude he took up thrift store shopping and record collecting, leading to the discovery of a beat up acetate in Port Alberni which, after 58 unknown years is being released by Supreme Echo as The Glass Cage’s Where Did the Sunshine Go?What a long, strange trip it has been indeed.
Below is a list of Artists and Resources in the database. We have worked hard to collect as many individuals and bands as possible, though we are certainly aware that this list is incomplete. There may be inaccuracies in the collected information. Please contact us if you find anything that needs correcting, or click the + sign at the top right of this page to add People and Resources who are missing from the listings.
