Sometime between the release of Prism's first album in 1977 and the recording of their second album in 1979 I decided to leave the band. There was a long list of reasons for my departure: creative differences, personal grievances, pettiness, belligerence, ego, immaturity. 

And that just explains my behavior!

The truth is, we'd reached a creative impasse. The chasm between Lindsay's near-religious love of "Blues" music and my rigid adherence to the rules of "pop radio" were irreconcilable. There was no middle ground, no compromise. Lindsay refused to play my songs the way I heard them in my head, and I refused to give in. So I took my bag of marbles and I went home.  I quit.

The good news is, with my departure, Prism finally became a "real band". Where the first album had been recorded by a rag-tag collection of Vancouver musicians, "See Forever Eyes" was a legitimate group effort. 

To replace myself and Tom Lavin, who'd also recently left the band, Lindsay Mitchell recruited two members from his 1969 group "The Seeds Of Time": drummer Rocket Norton and guitarist/bassist Al Harlow. In addition to Rocket and Al the group now consisted of John Hall on keyboards, Ron Tabak on vocals, and Lindsay on guitar. 

Prism's most successful and identifiable line-up was now in place, and would remain that way for the next two or three years ... and two or three albums.

Just prior to the release of Prism's first album in 1977, the record compnay (GRT Records, Toronto) asked me to record a "radio ad" to promote the album.  I edited together a number of 10-second song-samples from the album, and I hired the legendary radio DJ Doc Harris to do the "voice-over".  The ad ran on Canadian radio for several weeks.

A year later, for the release of Prism's second album, the company asked me to create a similar radio ad.  Once again I assembled some song-samples, and I hired Doc Harris.

In addition to having a great "radio" voice, Doc also has a wicked sense of humour.  When we finished recording the "real" ad, Doc said, "If you have an extra track, I'd like to try something".

I rolled the tape, and Doc improvised a silly version of our "See Forever Eyes" ad.

At the end of the day I put both ads (the silly one AND the real one) on a spool of tape and sent it to the record company in Toronto, confident they'd get a chuckle out of it. 

The next day I got a panic phone call from Prism producer Bruce Fairbairn.

"What the hell did you guys do??".

"What do you mean?", I replied.

"The record company just called. They said they can't use the ad. What did you send them?".

Suddenly it dawned on me.  On the tape, we'd put the silly ad first, followed by the "real" one. Apparently they had only listened to the silly version and hadn't bothered rolling the rest of the tape!  Oh dear!

The correct ad ran on the radio a few days later.