By Steve Holy with slight additions and edits by Joe Pater. Corrects some inaccuracies from https://websites.umass.edu/pater/2016/08/18/learning-to-rock-with-gord-in-the-slinks/, which were unfortunately promulgated in a recent book on the Hip.
Summer 1979: Anthem (pre-high school!)
Steve Holy, Tim Holy, John Fay
Grand Theatre talent show, 1/2 hour Cable TV show
Spring 1980: Andrew Frontini (bass) jams with Steve Holy and Fay
Summer 1980: Slinks formed (named in the fall)
Grant Ethier (drums), Andrew Frontini (bass), Steve Holy (guitar)
Fall 1980: 3-piece Slinks play the KCVI talent show
Gord Downie (vocals) joins the Slinks
Summer 1981: First 4-piece Slinks show at the Fairbairn cottage
Fall/Winter 1981: Slinks live at the Kingston Yacht Club and New Year’s Eve at the Holiday Inn
Spring 1982: Joe Pater (guitar, keyboards, harp) joins the Slinks, who also occasionally jam sans Downie with Rob Hetherington (guitar) and Dave McQuaide (bass, vocals)
Ethier, Hetherington, McQuaide and Pater took the stage at the KCVI dance during the hired band’s break.
Summer 1982: Jim Jones band plays the Lake Ontario Park afternoon country talent show. McQuaide on vocals, Hetherington and Holy on guitars, Pater on keyboards, Frontini on bass, Ethier on drums
Downie hitchikes through Nova Scotia with Paul Langlois, returns reporting Langlois has written some original songs.
The Jim Jones Band also played an undated show at the Holiday Inn, and Ethier/McQuaide/Pater played an undated talent show at the Lakeview Manor.
Fall 1982: 5-piece Slinks play the Kingston Yacht Club, and the KCVI dance (partial song list and photos here).
February 11, 1983: Last Slinks show at the Polish Hall
Spring 1983: Frontini (guitar) and Pater (bass) play in Hugh Dillon’s class project video with Ian Goodfellow (drums). Iggy Pop’s I’m Bored was one of the songs.
Summer 1983: The Filters form, play Wildestock farm party
(Downie, Frontini, Rob Baker and Finton McConnell guitar, Mauro Sepe drums)
Summer 1984: Formation of 396, house party gigs
(Ethier, Frontini, Holy, Dave Rodenburg on sax)
Fall 1984: Downie, Fay, Baker and Gord Sinclair start playing together
Ethier and Holy tour Eastern Ontario with The Rattlers (also Hugh Dillon and Tim Given). Disband early 1985.
Summer 1985: Ethier, Holy and Pater play the Toucan as The Hallucinations
2003: Ethier plays drums on recordings made by Pater, released in 2022 as the “2003” EP by Les Dérailleurs. (Photo of teenaged Ethier and Pater at the link).