If we didn't know better, and if this tape had found its way into our hands without a label, we'd swear this is another Funeral Factory recording. It has all the hallmarks of that band - but we know from other posts here that around this time, Funeral Factory were more interested in being the Cult than making etherial pop.So what is this? The label on the tape tells us it's a Mike Bezzeg-production - was he trying to create another Funeral Factory? There's a phone number of the tape, maybe we should call it and see if whoever answers can tell us more.Maybe after taking a listen, someone out there can fill in the gaps here?
The Funeral Factory is a favourite among the downloads here at the CCPS, so when Grant Hutchinson offered up a copy of this, we couldn't say no. Grant did a fair amount of photography, design and video work for bands including the Funeral Factory and Tau Ceti, so it's not surprising that he had a small, but high quality cache of tapes to offer us.We're not sure of the year of this tape - but the recordings (with the exception of "Cold War") appear to be from the same as those from their 1990 tape (which Grant has provided us with an alternate j-card for - apparently the one we had wasn't the one that went to stores?). This perhaps serves as a nice distillation of the band. We're eager to get our hands any Funeral Factory-related clippings or info. If you have anything you can lend us, drop us a line.In the meantime, grab the demo here.
We've been quite impressed by Bart Records' commitment to the cassette format, but our impressedness is doubled after seeing the amazing packaging of this new tape from former Grown-Up Darrell Hartsook. You'll forgive us for focusing on the packaging of this for a moment - because it's amazing. This thing is wrapped in a cardboard sleeve kind like the old cassette single (or "cassingle") format of the early 90's. But this takes that format to the next level by varnishing the black paper with the band name (which has confounded the CCPS office scanner). This is a sexy, sexy tape.Not to trivialize the music on here - Hartsook and his cohort (we're told this is a two-piece band, but aren't sure who #2 is - all we've been told is that we are #6) delivers the goods with pummelling drums and guitars. And the amazing "Sweater Weather," a fave here in the CCPS office.You can download this for free from Sissys bandcamp, or buy it from Bart Records.
We can't get enough of "Darby," especially since we ate that weird chocolate that one of our co-workers left in their desk drawer. So we're pleased to bring you another blast of Barflies action.
This is from the same basement show as the earlier Bob Keelaghan set. We're told, by sources who claim to have been there, that this party was a going away of sorts for Paul and Dawn, who ditched their jobs in Calgary to travel the world. The night also included set by Teens For Decency, the Parkades, Gasp and Elmo's Dream. Which makes it a night of super-obscure indie rock, even for us at the CCPS.
But we've never been ones to shy away from the trivial.
A few years back (literally - we're digging back over three years for this one! Time flies when you're farting around!) we had a request for some Barflies. The best we could do at the time was post the audio from a video recording we had somehow come in possession of. Until now!
Thanks to the tapes from Dawn and 4-track from Paul, we've managed to reassemble a collection of their recordings. It looks like "Darby," the track that got them a fair amount of airplay on CJSW, was the only recording they really worked up with the full treatment, as they say. So what we've gathered together are pile of the more reasonable sounding recordings of their basement practices, bringing you forgotten gems like "Poferia," "Supersad" and "Infomercial Queen." And, don't worry, there's some "Darby" action (perhaps an unfortunate turn of phrase) on here as well.
We've had an interesting past week of re-aquainting ourselves with 4-track recorders. A ways back, Dawn Loucks gave us a pile of tapes, and among them were a bunch that had been recorded to 4-track. Thanks now to Paul Poutannen, we have the original machine these were recorded on, and will be presenting the highlights from some of those tapes.
We're going to start - since we just had a Bob posting - with another Bob. The one who we've only recently become comfortable conversing with. Bob Keelaghan is a pretty amazing guy, and we've long been fans of his work - which is why this recording of a too-short solo performance from a show in Paul and Dawn's basement is so special. Part poetry, part guitar godliness, all "what the hell is he doing?" Sadly, there's a drop out in the middle of the sing-along "Guano."
Since this performance is so short, we're going to point you to a few more Keelaghan-related goodies. First, Bob appears to have a youtube channel for his Spam Avenger project. Here's the great track he did for the much-overlooked Stompin' Tom tribute that Saved By Radio but together about ten years ago:
In among the tapes we're sorting through, we also found a promo for... maybe a radio show that Bob used to do? We can't remember what it was from, but we swear we've heard it before (and, yes, we know the original source).
But you came here to hear Bob Keelaghan play guitar, and like the bastards we are, we've made you wait all the way down to this very, very, very last word of the post.
We've been fairly unashamed of hiding how much we like the Film Extras tracks from the Oooh, I'm So Pretty compilation, which we now know was a Bobby McAlister project. Thanks to Aaron Booth and his secret stash of tapes, we're now in possession of a post-Film Extras McAlister band.
Aaron tells us that the Film Extras were shortly-lived, and went on to become the Accommodations (with Derek Hannah), who were also shortly lived. They then morphed into Bobby McAlister and the Telstars in 1997, and were, well, shortly-lived. The Telstars were Booth on bass, Aaron McCullogh on guitar and Calvin Becker on drums.
Bobby himself got in touch with us to fill in massive amounts of detail on all of the tracks here:
"Modern Man", "Sing Whatever You Know" - Artist: The Accommodations
Vocals: Derek Hannah
Bass & Guitar & Vocals: Bobby McAlister
Drums & Keyboard: Cal Becker
Guitar: Brooker Buckingham
Engineered: Bobby McAlister, Band of Gold
Recorded: 1996
"Amelia", "This Life" (actually named "Waking Up Someday") - Artist: Bobby McAlister and the Telstars
Vocals, Bass & Guitar: Bobby McAlister
Drums: Cal Becker
Guitar: Aaron McCullough
Keyboard: Dylan Haveron
Engineered: Rob Smith, Rocky Mountain
Recorded: 1997
"Brother, That's All There Is", "Rain Won't Get Near Me" - Artist: Bobby McAlister and the Telstars
Vocals & Bass & Guitar & Keyboard: Bobby McAlister
Drums & Keyboards: Cal Becker
Guitar & Vocals: Aaron McCullough
Engineered: Bobby McAlister, 4-track
Recorded: 1997
"Love Stings", "Sing Whatever You Know", "Do You Wanna Break Up?" - Artist: Bobby McAlister and the Telstars
Vocals & Guitar: Bobby McAlister
Drums: Cal Becker
Bass & Vocals: Aaron Booth
Guitar & Vocals: Aaron McCullough
Engineered: Bobby McAlister, 4-track
Recorded: 1997
"Something In Your Heart", "Sunshine In The Middle Of The Night", "Rain Won't Get Near Me" - Artist: Bobby McAlister and the Telstars
Vocals, Keyboards & Guitar : Bobby McAlister
Drums: Paul Robertson
Bass: Aaron Booth
Engineered: Bobby McAlister, Sundae Sound, 8-track
Recorded: 1998
"Unit 22" - Artist: Bobby McAlister and the Telstars
Vocals & Guitar : Bobby McAlister
Drums & Keyboard: Cal Becker
Bass: Aaron Booth
Engineered: Bobby McAlister, Sundae Sound, 8-track
Recorded: 1998
"Speed Of Light" - Artist: Bobby McAlister
All instruments: Bobby McAlister
Engineered: Bobby McAlister, Sundae Sound, 8-track
Recorded: 1998
This is pretty great, 70's influenced pop - beard rock, 90's style. Naturally, traces of Paul McCartney abound. We're told that after the recordings were mostly completed - and then shelved - the band imploded, but became the Hardtime Brothers for a short period.
There's some debate raging in the CCPS office about the right car to cruise around listening to this tape in. The usual CCPS chariot, our 80's BMW, is out of the question - right now, we're leaning towards a late 70's Lincoln Continental like this one:
The other batch of songs on the CDR from Girls from Tahiti was a set of demos from the Sturgeons. We didn't actually know this existed - and we're still somewhat questioning its authenticity. Does the Franklin Mint provide certificates of authenticity for tapes like this?
That weird French blog seemingly corroborates the existence of an early Sturgeons demo from 1979. We believe this is the same tape, but we have our doubts. While we're big fans of the Forward Disorder/Punk Rock Virgins single, this demo is a lot ballsier, brasher and... maybe even better?
Update! We've had this tape authenticated by Someone Who Was There, as well the tape and song titles confirmed:
01 Attack of the Fetus People/It's A Jock's World
02 Noise For Youth
03 Support First Strike
04 I Was A Teenage Housewife
05 Danger Zone
06 Girls on the Bus
07 Belt Up
08 A.B.U.S.I.V.E. Attitudes
10 Here Come The Injuries
09 Suburban Evacuation
11 I Wanna Die
12 Cash Factor
13 I Know, I Know
14 U of C Gestapo
15 Punk Rock Virgins
16 Forward Disorder
We're pleased that a few of our titles were reasonable close. Okay, maybe only one. Thanks to the same unnamed individual (who may or may not have saved a certain radio station we love) for passing us the cover of the original tape!
This is a tape we put a call out for a while ago, and we received it last month from an unexpected source - fellow blogmeisters Girls From Tahiti. The proprietor of said blog had received a CDR with these tracks along with another Calgary band (whose tracks we'll post shortly) - and got in touch with us for more info.
Well, we don't know too much about Suburban Slag other than they included Jeff Burns on guitar, Doug Bolland on bass and future DOA/Subhumans/Personality Crisis/SNFU/who knows who else drummer Jon Card. Who's on vocals? We don't know. This demo is from either 1980 or 1981, and is a great slice of early 80's punk. There's a bit more info this weird French blog, but most of it is actually mis-information.
We're a bit embarrassed to have been sitting on this track for a few months. It seems that our summer intern, who was supposed to be in charge of the seemingly always-overflowing CCPS email inbox (write to us at hamfisted@gmail.com! We're standing by! Because, in reality, we don't get that much email, except for notifications of lottery winnings and offers for penis enlargements) turned out to be actually preparing a painstakingly detailed catalogue of craft beers of the Pacific Northwest. For the record, the preparation of said catalogue wasn't the reason for his being fired, it was the lack of sharing of samples of said beers.
So, getting things back on track, we're pleased to now present a lost track from one of our surprise favourites from the past couple of years, the quite fantastic Fricks. "Hundred Jeers" pulls all the elements that caught our attention in the first place. Doug Bolland's melodic bass lines, guitars that remind us just enough of NiCon and some meaty hooks. Andy McLachlan tells us that this track was submitted for consideration on the Play compilation, but the "producers" went with the other submitted track instead, leaving this track to languish, unreleased.
Back in September, we were thrilled to reconnect with one of our favourite guys from the 90's, Mr. joe McCaffery. Playing for a one-off Now Feeling reunion, we were reminded how amazing of a guitarist he is - while Lorrie Matheson reminded us about how crappy our mp3s of the Quitters' Fuzzball EP is.
Well, Joe tells us that a remastered version of that tape might be in the works, which should keep Lorrie slightly less grumpy than usual (certainly not happy, though). But more importantly, Joe unearthed a track that was recorded during the Fuzzball session but - for reasons that escape us, hearing it almost 20 years later - left off the tape. "Do You Know" fits perfectly with tracks like "Good Thing". Which is in itself a, er, good thing.
Carefully stashed in a plastic bag in the box of tapes that Ian Doig leant us was a bunch of tapes that Ian had gathered in about 1996/97, in the hopes of putting together a compilation tape. For whatever reasons, that never happened, but now, thanks to the marvels of the interweb, we're giving this project a new life.Ian managed to put together a pretty swell lineup with this tape. There are plenty of our favourites on here: the Von Zippers, Jackson Phibes, Massive Ferguson, Shoutin' Abner Pim and the Puritans and solo outings by Garrett McClure (as Futures: Bionik) and Scott Bennie. But the gem on here for us is Donker, a super-smart, super-funny, super-hooky supergroup made up of Bob Keelaghan, Mark Igglesden and Pat Andrews. Bob tells us this is the only track the band ever recorded, which is a sad thing - but it makes this compilation a highly-recommended download. Get your loaf here.
If we didn't know better, and if this tape had found its way into our hands without a label, we'd swear this is another Funeral Factory recording. It has all the hallmarks of that band - but we know from other posts here that around this time, Funeral Factory were more interested in being the Cult than making etherial pop.So what is this? The label on the tape tells us it's a Mike Bezzeg-production - was he trying to create another Funeral Factory? There's a phone number of the tape, maybe we should call it and see if whoever answers can tell us more.Maybe after taking a listen, someone out there can fill in the gaps here?
