I Want to be a Doorman

Lorne Ranger was the performing name of Montreal singer, songwriter and musician Lorne Stephen Ouellet, whose work emerged from the city's late-1970s punk scene before moving toward the synthesizer-driven new wave and electronic pop of the early 1980s.

Ouellet entered the Montreal punk circuit in 1978, playing bass with the trio The Aliens. That same year he began developing his own material under the name Lorne Ranger and recorded an early demo before briefly joining The Unknowns in December, using the group to work some of his new compositions into their repertoire.

One of Ranger's earliest surviving recordings is a privately recorded 1978 cassette preserved for almost five decades by Peter Hudson. It contains three songs, 'Let It Rot', 'Come On' and 'French Fried Freedom'; Hudson recalled that his friend Vince played drums on the session.

Ranger's sense of humour was already central to his stage persona. He occasionally dressed as a doorman and performed 'I Wanna Be a Doorman' for passers-by outside the Hôtel Nelson's l'Évêché bar. By March 3rd, 1979 he was appearing under his own name alongside The Unknowns and The Eighty's at the Nelson Grill, part of a Montreal punk and new wave circuit that also included The Normals, The Chromosomes, The 222's and Men Without Hats.

After seeing The Stranglers at El Casino, Ranger assembled another lineup during 1979–80 to record a second demo. Among the musicians were keyboardist Yves Frulla, later known for his work with Céline Dion, playing Farfisa, and Colin Doroschuk of Men Without Hats on guitar. From those sessions came the delirious 'Granola Girl', a song that remained unreleased for decades before finally appearing on the 2026 archival compilation Nome Noma 3: Québec Post-Punk et New Wave 1979–1983.

During this period Ranger's group also performed as GO!, a playful reference to his father's Gaz Ouellet business. Ranger reinforced the joke by appearing in a gas-station attendant's uniform and cap. His humour extended beyond the band: he wrote punk songs for the Crescent Street boutique A.T. & Company and became a regular presence on Montreal's Musi-Vidéo, appearing in weekly comedy sketches as well as musical performances.

By 1981, Ranger was moving decisively toward electronic new wave. Working with Ivan Doroschuk and Jérémie Arrobas of Men Without Hats, along with producer Marc Durand, he recorded and locally distributed a four-song cassette built around 'It Goes On'. The surviving cassette contains 'I Want to Be a Doorman', 'Out of My Bed', 'Blue Waves' and 'It Goes On', and another surviving copy bears the title Dead Man on Holiday.

Ranger also performed 'It Goes On' on Musi-Vidéo. The television performance featured Yves Frulla, Benoît Charest, John McColgan, Claude Charpentier, Stefan Doroschuk and Colin Doroschuk, with editing by Marc Fontaine, placing Ranger squarely within the network of musicians who were shaping Montreal's increasingly electronic new wave scene.

Although little of Ranger's music was commercially issued at the time, the surviving demos, cassettes and television material reveal a considerably broader body of work than his original discography suggests. From The Aliens and The Unknowns through GO!, 'Granola Girl' and the electronic recordings surrounding 'It Goes On', his music documents an unusually personal path through Montreal punk and new wave.

Ranger later moved into the educational field but continued composing and recording new material. The preservation of his early tapes, together with the eventual release of 'Granola Girl' on Nome Noma 3, has allowed a largely undocumented chapter of Montreal's underground music history to re-emerge decades after it was created.

-Robert Williston