Beyond Possession: Tell Tale Heart (1985)

There have been two pressings of this classic skate rock single. The first was released on 7" vinyl by Rooter Records (MR-01), and then later reissued, again on 7" vinyl, by Fango Records (FR-001), minus "Dying Fast." We Will Bury You has a great comparison of the sleeves and vinyl of both pressings. Sadly, Golden Rock only had the re-issue, so we're missing "Dying Fast" in this download.

Side OneTell Tale Heart (words: Kenney)
What's the Matter? (words: Hadley)
Skater's Life (words: Hadley)

Side TwoNo Religion (words: Hiebert, Kenney)
Vengeance (words: Wall, Kenney, Beatty)
Dying Fast (words: Kenney) 

Beyond Possession is Beyond Possession
Engineered by: Shane
Produced by: Beyond Possession
Photos by: Ian Groll
Film Processing: Darren Robertson
Cover Art: Bill Baker
Manager: Dave Westlake
Road Crew: Mike Binder 

Special Thanks to: Hutch, Gubby, the Stretch Marks and Matt, Paul and Bill of Smilin' Buddha Tattoos for the ratty tat tats and killer art work, Jerry for the word "scud", Narly and Tylenol for watchen' em, and to the bad guys who make wrestling what it is
Thanks to: Mr. and Mrs. Wall, and Dave Rockdonald for the practice spots, Plaza Grocercy for the Cokes and Twix, John Hiebert, Brent Beatty, Bryan Wall, and Sheila Cameron, Sean for the T-shirts, Ryan for having fun, Craig Marshall, Mark "Iggy", and the Pac Mans Vintage Musical, Mainly Music, and to all the people who support their local bands.

We're always a bit fuzzy on this band's membership at any given time, despite the liner notes of the Repossessed compilation. But still, we skate on...

Eye On You - Eye On You

Following up on the two 7" records we've posted, here's another tape from Eye On You. We don't have a year on this, so we can't tell if it's from before, after or in between the singles. If anyone can tell us anything about these guys, we'd appreciate it.

In the absence of any real information about the band, we're going to mock the band photo on the j-card of this tape. We're trying to tell what type of car that is the band is leaning against - we're hoping it's a Trans Am and the band was trying to recreate this classic photo.

But we suspect that's not the case.

Eye On You - Who's Been Sleeping In My Head? (1985)

We've got a second Eye On You 7", via Golden Rock again. This one suffers from some questionable cover art. We're not sure who is responsible, but clearly this was one of the problems local musicians faced before Tom Bagley was around to illustrate these things.

Dis Side
Mom, Dad and the Kids
Lost in Space

Dat Side

Children (Shouldn't Play With Dead Things)

Riley Manor Boogie

Eye On You is:

Gary Lamb--bass, vocals

Darcy Scott--guitar, vocals

Murdoch MacLeod--guitar, vocals

Joney Hornblend--drums, vocals, cymbals

Produced by Shane C (can you spare a couple hands) at In House Audio. Cowtown, Alboita.In Dec/84Special Ranx: Mae Westerly, Gaz Thompson, Reno & Rob for Trucks, Terry for Posters, Min Manor Folks, and all Gig Goers. And very special tanxs to beermiesters and brewmasters thru out the worldWE LOVE YOU!!!

All songs CAPAC (c) 1985

Cover by: Images in Darkness.

Thanks to Golden Rock reader Eric Dawson for sending this one in!

Get this art out of our heads!.

Eye On You - Illusions of Freedom (1985)

Here's some more mid-80's vinyl for you. Looking over the Golden Rock transcription of the liner notes below, we note that the cover was drawn by Jon Sawyer... and John Gilchrist was the guitar crew. We're wondering if that's the same John Gilchrist we're thinking of. We kind of hope so. 

Side 3Money in Exchange

Side 4So Ya Think You're Clever 

Engineered by Shane (Got a spare Woodbine) Connelly
Produced by Eye On You and Shane
Recorded at In Ear Audio, Calgary, Alberta / May '85
Cover Art—Jon Sawyer
All songs by Eye On You
(c) 1985 ION inc./In Ear/MIN Productions
CAPAC 1985 

Eye On You is—
Gaz—vocals/bass
Murdoch MacLeod—guitar/vocals
Paul Max—drums 

Special thanx to:
John Gilchrist (guitar crew)
Brian & Mama Max Charlton
George Charlton (who made this disc possible)
Folks at the Manor
Todd
Whale
All our friends

Freedom!!!

Salmon Breath - A Fish Cant Swim Outa Water (1986)

We were somewhat excited to find this tape in Mark Igglesden's basement. Although a recent visitor to the CCPS offices wasn't overly excited to hear this - we had the tape playing in the background, and it caused said visitor to completely lose their train of thought and capacity for speech.

If you took the time to grab their It Came From Canada compilation track, you have a sense as to what to expect from this. This duo clearly didn't take themselves too seriously - or take the time to tune their guitar. It's fun, primitive and... uh... so... ah... yeah... poo... pee...

Dammit, we should have known better than to play the tape while writing this post.

Color Me Psycho - "Sinister Urge" and "Nocturnal Technology" (1986)

We're falling back down the Color Me Psycho rabbit hole again, thanks to a pile of tapes rescued from behind a huge stack of boxes of WWII German tank models in the basement of Mark Igglesden. 

We're going to refrain from our usual tendency to post everything on this tape and instead just pass along two songs - an early version of Pretend I'm Your Father's "Sinister Urge" and a track that's new to us, "Nocturnal Technology." These two songs were recorded as part of the same session that yielded tracks for the Writing on Stone and It Came From Canada Vol. 4 compilations. And don't worry - the songs on side one are just the same recordings that yielded the band's Kiss Me Then... cassette (Tom Bagley tells us that the date on the cover for side one is wrong - the session was actually February of 1986).

Grab these unreleased tracks here.

Nex’d - "Surreal" b/w "Flexible" (1985)

We're pleased to bring this 12" single over from Golden Rock (heck, we're pleased to bring everything over from Golden Rock), since we at the CCPS are - really and truly - children of the new wave. We've posted a few things front the Nex'd before, but these two tracks are a real treat - the b-side especially.

So pop your collar and grab this single here.

Unusuals - 44U EP (1980) + bonus live track

There's a lot to like about this 45, including the cover art (hello, 80's!) and the first track on here, "You Only Make it With Rich Guys," which is power pop gold. To add to the package, we've included, courtesy of Ian Grant, who drummed in a later incarnation of The Unusuals, a recording of the band tackling "Shakin' All Over" (Johnny Kidd & the Pirates) at Dinnie's Den in the University of Calgary, sometime in the early '80s--thanks heaps, Ian!

Plus, via the youtubes, we have some great video of the band (with Grant also on the drums):



Grab this great 45 and bonus track here, and then click through to this youtube user's stream for more Unusuals video goodness.

Presence - "Blown Away" b/w "Mechanoid" (1982)

Here's a second 7" from the Presence. Same dudes as before, but this one feels a little more schizophrenic than our last post. The A-side is straight-forward rock, but the B-side kind of sounds like they guys had been listening to a lot of Devo and the Normal. And maybe watching old episodes of Doctor Who? Which isn't a bad thing, we gotta tell you.

Get blown away here.

Presence - Meeting the Demands of Society is No Excuse (1981)

Continuing on our quest for early 80's vinyl, we've got this 7" that was packaged in a 7.5" x 10.5" envelope. We don't know much about this band, but we're going to go out on a limb and suggest that this was the next step for a bunch of folks from Random Scrapings, and it looks like they co-existed with another band a few of these guys were in at the time, the R & B Keepers. If anyone out there can fill in the blanks for us, we'd appreciate it.

White Side
Concrete/Metal
Struck by a Disquieting Muse
Disease

Black Side
Seduced by the System
Getting Twisted

Make your own excuses here.

Hot Nasties - The Invasion of the Tribbles EP (1980)

By this point, you may be tired of our references to last year's FFWD article on the formation of the city's punk scene. We know you probably read the article when it came out, and you probably came away thinking, "wow! Warren Kinsella started the punk scene in Calgary!" We recommend you read the many comments at the bottom of the link above, in which several Persons Who Were There set the record straight. 

We're also going to point you towards the biography at the Museum of Canadian Music, which tells the story from the start - but, we note, this is likely the story as told by Kinsella, so please read it with that in mind. Prior to the Hot Nasties, Kinsella and Pierre Schenk played with future Sturgeon Alan MacDonald as Social Blemishes. At some point, MacDonald left the band (we at the CCPS have our likely suspicions as to why this may have happened) and the Social Blemishes became the Nasties.

This 45 isn't the first punk record to come out of this city. It's also (clearly) not the best. That said, the b-side on this is the main reason to hear this record. "The Secret of Immortality" is a great tune - but you can always skip the Nasties' version and skip to the quite excellent cover by one of our favourites, the Ex-Boyfriends (Djewel's voice makes this song work, way better than Warren's). It's also the one tune on here that 

We were told a story about the recording of this, but we forget important parts of it, which only ends up reflecting poorly on us, so we're not going to recount it. The story itself reflected poorly upon Warren Kinsella, 'natch. 

We're spending a lot of time talking about this 45, mostly to demystify it. We're not posting a link to this, as (a) Kinsella has repackaged the single for mass consumption via his website and (b) Kinsella is Kinsella. And (c), it looks like there's a re-issue of this forthcoming from Ugly Pop Records.

Silicone Injection - Sic Nos Non Nobis (1981)

We've never actually laid eyes on this vinyl; these tracks were ripped from the second volume of the Smash the State compilation, which we found at Model Citizen...Zero Discipline. The compilations are based on Frank Manley's great Canadian punk discography of the same name, which has proved an indispensable Golden Rock resource (and one that we at the CCPS still need to pick up, apparently).

The Museum of Canadian Music has only slightly more info on this than we do, and tells us that the band's membership was:

G. Lamb: bass, vocals
F. Monaghan: drums
G. Thompson: guitar, vocals

Get yr daily injection here.

Sacred Heart of Elvis: live + studio (circa 1985-87)

When it rains Sacred Heart of Elvis, it pours! Rodney (Bartok Guitarsplat) Brent sent in a bunch of recordings from various incarnations of his old band:

“Elvis on Velvet” (studio recording, September 1985)

“Black Snake Moan” (studio recording, November 1986)

“Ed Anger” (studio recording, January 1987)

“Walkin’ the Neurotic” (studio demo of “Walkin’ the Floor” and “Every Neurotic Citizen”)
Ali Riley: vocals
Tim Campbell: guitar
Bartok Guitarsplat: guitar
Rob and Dwight from The Mules (“although they called themselves different names”): bass and drums

“Misery/Ed Anger” & “Wheezing Dog on Leash/Ring of Fire” (recorded live at the National Hotel circa January 1987)
Ali Riley: vocals
Tim Campbell: guitar
Bartok Guitarsplat: guitar
Joni Brent: bass
Michael Nathenson: drums

“Black Snake Moan” (alternate studio recording)
Ali Riley: vocals
Tim Campbell: guitar
Bartok Guitarsplat: harmonica, acoustic guitar
Grant Sim: bass
Ted Clark: drums.

Rodney also sent two songs from Rooth the Fruitbats (or is it Rooth and the Fruitbats?), a proto version of Sacred Heart of Elvis, recorded at the National Hotel:

“Don’t Ya Wish Ya Stayed Home Now”

“A Most Odious Person”

Thanks tons, Rodney!

Holy!

Sacred Heart of Elvis: Live

Andrew Pearce (of The Now Feeling fame) found an old cassette recording of a Sacred Heart of Elvis gig. "I am pretty sure I wasn't playing drums on this recording," says Andrew. "I believe Ali gave it to me so that I could learn the songs for a few gigs I played with them in Toronto. I think this was a recording in Toronto and maybe Rodney Brent played on it, but I'm at a loss for who ever else."

Thanks a million for sending this in, Andrew!

We'll see if Rodney or someone can't shed some light on this mystery.

Songs:
Misery
Batman
Wheezing Dog on Leash
Into the Frey
City of God
Wrong Cocktail
Black Snake Moan
Elvis on Velvet
Every Neurotic Citizen
Lolita's Revenge
Walking the Floor
Alligator Death Wine

This recording is a bit rough, but absolutely worth the listen.

R+B Keepers: Live at the National Hotel

We've been digging into the live tracks the past few days, so why stop now?

The R+B Keepers were a Nash fixture from 1981 until ’84 (with a six-month hiatus in there). Ex-Bee Ronnie Champagne sent in a whack of live recordings, which may have been released on cassette back in the day (history is a bit hazy on the point, it seems.)

The Band:

G.W. Montana (a.k.a. Grant Sim): vox & tele
Uncle Nicki Montana (a.k.a. Peter Clark): vox & bass
Ronnie Montana (a.k.a. Ronnie Champagne): vox & guitar
Luke Paulman (a.k.a. Paul Lukeman ): vox & sax
Rob Hate (a.k.a. Rob Hayter): skins & tubs
Buzzy Montana (a.k.a. Brad Spaz): live sound
Mr. Miles Arthur Jones: cassette recorder

Track listing:

All My Love is Lovin'
Got to Be Mine
Statesboro Blues (McTell)
Money (That's What I Want) (Strong)
Tobacco Road (Loudermilk)
You Got to Live
On Any Sunday
New Day Yesterday
Bee Who You Want to Bee
Evolution
Can't Judge a Book (Diddley)
Who Do You Love? (Diddley)

Thanks a metric tonne for sharing these songs, Ronnie!

It's the bees' knees!