We're backing up the 7" truck for a moment to pick up this little gem that we would have posted along with the pack of Gainsborough Gallery, Happy Feeling, and 49th Parallel - if we'd had it at the time. We had to make some amends and source of copy of this for ourselves, which took, well, cash. Which is just the way of the CCPS sometimes.
We're fairly indebted to the great work of Roy Wilcox and his Garage Band Rockers ebook, as we've raved on about a fair amount. The book opens with an overview of rock in the 50's before diving into a chapter on the band that Roy founded, The Esquires. The band started as a five-piece instrumental outfit, playing hall shows in Calgary. Wilcox left the band in 1961, a few years before this single was recorded and released under their original name. Wilcox tells a great story about the recording session in his book:
In 1964 the Barry label of Quality Records released “Melody of the Woods”, backed with “Electrocution”. It was recorded at one of the CFCN TV studios. Don Wood worked the soundboard for the session. These recording sessions had to be scheduled at 2:00 in the morning when studios were vacant. There were several recording sessions. At one session, Mark was injured in a freak accident. CFCN hosted a local wrestling TV show and the ring was set up on one Friday night. Naturally, the young guys had to get into the ring and display their non-existent wrestling skills. Everyone started hamming it up by scuffling under the pretense of being wrestlers. Inadvertently Mark got swung backwards into the ropes. Because no one knew what they were doing, Mark fell butt first between the ropes and landed on his back on the concrete studio floor striking his head. Of course, he could not record any music that night!
After the release of this single, the band changed their name to the S'Quires due to, well, a bazillion other bands having that name. They then added lead singer Pete Fargey and went on to release two more singles. Which we don't have yet. But this double instrumental single will serve us well for now - as with so many garage rock classics, it's the b-side, "Electrocution," that gets us moving.
Our copy of this isn't quite as nice as the one that youtube video is sourced from, but you can get it here.
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