Riot .303 - Al's Basement (1981)

A few weeks ago, at a certain punch-up infested Von Zippers show, the lovely and talented Al Charlton came up to us, and handed us a CD.

"Hey, I've had this for a while, and I've thought about putting this out, but... do you want to put this on your site?"

Well, it took us a bit to pick our jaws off the ground (plus we had to figure out how to hold two beers and a CD a the same time...). We managed to ask a few questions, but of course we have even more now. We'll ask Al next time we see him, but for now, here's what we know.

Riot .303 evolved from the celebrated Sturgeons, and members of this legendary skate rock band would go on to further exploits in White Noise/Beyond Possession, Colour Me Psycho, the Primrods, the Von Zippers, the Choads and, uh, the Exploding Pigs. Riot .303's Crowd Control record is one of the most sought-after Calgary 7-inchers, and they also appeared on the celebrated Thrasher Skate Rock Volume One cassette.

One of the things we've been trying to track down since we found out about it a few years ago is the 23-song tape that they reportedly put together. One of the questions we asked Al was whether this is that same tape. Al says it isn't - he says it's better than that tape.

So we don't know when this was recorded - we're using 1981 as an educated guess. This session includes two of the songs off their Crowd Control single, "Drugs" and the completely amazing "(There's) Something Living Under My Bed." The first version on here, with "multuple FU's" is pure gold. The second version is truncated, but still pretty amazing. For something almost 30 years old (!), this holds up today. In fact, we've been listening to this while putting together this post. Between this and the sunny sky outside, we're in the mood now to hit Millennium Skate Park.

You'll probably see us being carried out of there by ambulance later this afternoon.