With a wave of his hand, a Vancouver punk rock legend becomes Theremin Man [Video]

Stephen Hamm remembers watching The Song Remains the Same, a concert film featuring British rock band Led Zeppelin, as a teenager at Vancouver’s Ridge Theatre in 1979, and being captivated by guitarist Jimmy Page.

In the film, Page wields his famed double-neck guitar on stage at New York’s Madison Square Garden and plays a Gibson Les Paul guitar with a bow. But what stuck with Hamm the most was Page’s use of the theremin  — an electronic instrument that’s controlled without any physical contact by the performer —  “to make the crowd go a little bit crazy in their stoned state.” 

“It was pretty great,” Hamm told CBC’s North by Northwest. 

Hamm went on to become a key character in Vancouver’s music scene. He was a founding member of the seminal punk band Slow, played bass for the Evaporators fronted by Nardwuar the Human Serviette, and performed in his own duo, Canned Hamm. 

<p>We visit the home studio of Vancouver music legend Stephen Hamm, …