
We like this tape, but we really have no idea who's behind it. The surnames in the credits don't match up with anyone what we've seen so far here.
So we'll just sit back and enjoy it for what it is.
Update: We've got a fix on the band's membership, thanks to a helpful commenter and this site. We're excited to see a Summerlad connection here. Plus: theremin!
4 comments:
Featuring Arran Fisher of The Summerlad
I'm pretty sure I saw this band at one of the CJSW events in and around 95, 96. If I'm not mistaken, there was a theremin involved.
Here's the scoop on this tape: Singer Kelly Colborne and guitarist Jeff Watson were high school chums in a band called Nimrod's Son, at Strathcona Tweedsmuir. In 1990, Kelly changed schools to Western Canada High, and started writing songs with drummer Arran Fisher. We had a band at the school's battle of the bands called Bonemachine (with Sean Grier of The Summerlad, and now Ship Shape). Bonemachine fell apart soon after that, but then Jeff joined Kelly and me and we started making some crazy noise inspired by the Pixies, REM, The Beatles etc. We were discovering LSD at the same time. This tape was recorded on a rented Fostex R8 8-track, a Mackie mixer and used one Peavey microphone (which I still have), in the basement of my family home in Altadore. We had no idea how to record anything, but there's something really cool about how this tape sounds - totally psychedelic and strangely soupy. We mixed it lying on the floor at Jeff's parents' place, running the vocals through guitar pedals and messing it up as much as we could.
We manufactured the cassettes at Canada Tape and made it in four colours: purple, red, green and blue. We made 100 total and sold them for $5 at the occasional show (we never had a full line-up until later on and Jeff had left for university). I brought the tape around to the Republik and the Night Gallery, but I got the feeling that we weren't "punk" enough to get a show back in those days. We did have a handful of shows (yes, there was theremin!) I've still got a few unopened copies of each colour.
Kelly's now a lawyer in Calgary. Jeff writes movie scripts in LA. Arran went on to form The Summerlad (1999 - 2010) and now plays in Ship Shape, Clinton St. John (former Trikl Act, Cape May) and with Lucky Sonne (with Kelly's brother, Luke Colborne (!)). I also handle the Acoustikitty recording situation.
This tape, along with the second Marsha release ("R-Tape", without Jeff, but with yet another Colborne brother, Matt), have since been mastered (they weren't before), so get in touch if you'd like to hear it.
Arran Fisher
A long long time ago, we wrote that
JW
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