Wednesday 20 February 2013

LI 150's - The LI 150's



Do you know how long we've been trying to get our hands on this tape? So long, that in the past month we had TWO people pass us copies. So big thanks to Daaren Boreham and Jameel from the Russian Fingers for their impeccable timing.

So, the question you're all wondering: was it worth the wait? Hell, yeah. Seriously, this has been near the top of our list for the past four years, and it does not disappoint. The LI 150s are semi-legendary in the CCPS offices, mostly because we'd only ever heard the one song of theirs from the Narwaur compilation. And because both Golden Rock and Boreham held them in very high esteem. Listening to this tape, we can see why - this is pretty amazing, raw Mod rock.

Daaren notes:
The Li's starting out borrowing and practicing on our gear in our jam space. they later became their own band with several very talented members (Ben and Chris Reid went on to form some great Canadian bands... ). Ben was also latterly the 5th(?) and final bass player in the Vindicators.
We think Daaren might have miscounted, based on our previous post. But, you know what? We don't care. We got LI-150s!

Friday 15 February 2013

Vindicators - Psychotic Freakbeat (1988)


We managed to squeeze a second Vindicators tape out of Daaren, and we have to say - we're super happy we did.

"With the departure of Jason and the addition of myself and Colin Forsyth you have the band that recorded all of the records and compilation tracks," notes Daaren. "We stole Colin from the ashes of the Coughin' Nails. one of the greatest ever Calgary bands!"

We were a bit confused by the band's membership, since one of their compilation tracks included Ben Sherazi on bass. Daaren was good enough to itemize the succession of other bass players the band went through:
  1. Jason Moriarty
  2. Tia Travis (latter of Curse of Horseflesh)
  3. Dave Mariacci (played bass on the OG record but never played live with the Vindicators)
  4. Glenn Yewen (also of Hard Rain)
  5. Ben Sherazi

We don't think we've ever seen such a high turn-over of bass players in a band. The only person they appear to have missed was Steve Elaschuk.

BUT Jason Moriarty says that he also played on this tape, and that Colin came in only for the band's OG record.

Tuesday 12 February 2013

Vindicators - Honerable Champions of Justice (1987)


So, at some point Komodo Discretion lost their original bass player and Jason Moriarty moved to that spot. They picked up Daaren Boreham and... voila! Garage rock gold!

This is the band's original line-up. The recording is maybe a bit rough, but we note a few things: the covers are choice, Bryce Dunn's drumming is solid, and... we really like this. But then, we're big, big fans of garage rock.

Especially when it's this good!

Sunday 10 February 2013

Komodo Discretion - Komodo Discretion


Alright, now we're into the good stuff in the Daaren Boreham collection. And we do mean good stuff - nothing second-rate here. Maybe.

This tape is ground zero for a whole bunch of good stuff; Daaren tells us that Komodo Discretion was Jason Moriaty, Chris Carlson (Big Gulp/Sara and Tegan) and Bryce Dunn's (Smugglers/New Town Animals/Tranzmitors) high school band, pre-Vindicators. This is a pretty cool piece of garage rock - even early on, these guys were mining the good stuff, including the  Motown classic "Leaving Here" and "Louie Louie."


Amazing!

Update: Jason Moriarty got in touch with us, and tells us that the band's played was Kelly Koonce, who went on to play in a band so big, they opened for the Spin Doctors! However, Jason notes that Komodo Discretion played at the Westward Club in their early days, and were told they would "never play there EVER again."

Friday 8 February 2013

Pleasant Pack - Don't Say a Thing/Hold On


Just when we were about to give up on this tape, which came to us sans j-card via Daaren Boreham, we discovered a posthumous myspace that spills the beans:
The Pleasant Pack was formed on a lark in the spring/summer of 1988 to have some fun, play one show, and try not to take themselves too seriously. Three of the original members had played together in The Upstrokes, a Calgary-based reggae-punk band from the early 80s. The original members played their "one show" opening for The Vindicators at the National Hotel in August of 1988. One show turned into many as the band continued to play at various venues in Calgary through the summer of 1990.
So, that's pretty good, eh? Well, it turns out the band included one-time CJSW music director and future SNFU manager Dave Fortune on guitar. And, even better - this tape is quite good. "Don't Say a Thing" is a pretty excellent power pop tune and their cover of  Sam and Dave's "Hold On, I'm Comin'" is solid.

Wednesday 6 February 2013

Hard Rain - Hard Rain (1988)


Man, Daaren Boreham has some weird stuff in his tape collection (and a few gems, too - we'll get to those soon enough!). From the funky metal we heard the other day, we jump to this roots rock-ish band who is cursed with a Google-proof name. We can't find out anything about these guys, but here's their tape anyways.

Tuesday 5 February 2013

Cactus Juice - Cactus Juice (1991)


Here's another tape from the Daaren Boreham collection. Daaren tells us that he was given this at a show he played somewhere along the way. We don't remember Cactus Juice or their fonky, fonky metal soundz. Maybe you do?

Sunday 3 February 2013

Threshold of Pain - Threshold of Pain (1989)


This is another tape that Daaren Boreham lent us. We're not sure why Daaren had this in his collection (and neither is he)... this isn't the Mod rock that we're used to finding on his shelves. Instead, this is Metanoia-esque thrash METAL. Weird, huh? Even weirder, someone has taken the effort to mirror the band's old Geocities page.

We sometimes give bands a hard time for being METAL. But the truth is, without METAL, most of the bands in this city wouldn't exist. So get your daily METAL fix here.