Thursday, December 8, 1994

Various Artists "Smash the State, Volume 1" LP



This was the first volume of what would become a series of comps that would pay tribute to out of press Canadian punk singles. It was a companion piece to the book by the same name and was compiled by Frank Manley and released under the label No Exit Records. Frank was living in Montreal at the time. I know because I distributed these in the city for him. Unlike the Killed by Death series, Frank received permission from the bands to press the eps on this LP format. As a result he was able to include a number art collages related to the band. below are scans of these pages. Click on them to open up larger versions of the pages.


Thursday, December 1, 1994

Armed and Hammered "More Punk Rock Than You" ep

This was recorded in the Fall of 1994 and was released by Subvert and Deny Records out of Chicago. The line up at the time included Mopa on vocals, Big John on guitar, Keiran on bass, and Kyle on drums. The songs on here are:

1. Hate
2. Pills
3. Victims
4. Punk Rock

Tuesday, November 8, 1994

Drift ep

Drift were a band from St-Romuald, quebec. The band members were Phil, Ron, Vince, Alex, and Dom. Yannick released this on Great American Steak Religion. The songs on here are:
1. Fade
2. #8
3. Swindle

Saturday, October 29, 1994

Chokehold "Instilled" ep

This Hamilton band got this ep released on Bloodlink Records out of Philadelphia. My favourite song live was "Anchor" which is found on here. The songs are:
1. Burning Bridges
2. Mindset
3. Instilled
4. Anchor
5. Culture Cease

Friday, October 7, 1994

Hockey Teeth "Jesus Saves" ep







“Jesus Saves” was HOCKEY TEETH’s first official release. Cassettes suffered from their association to demoes, but vinyl was considered authentic. As well, this recording represents the line up that would be known as Hockey Teeth, that is Mark was on vocals and Rob was on drums. The four songs were recorded in October and November of 1993 by Mike Pedro at his studio called Rumenal. Mike Pedro had played an earlier role in the scene by running a club at Queen and Bathurst originally known as the Soup Club and later as the Slither Club. Ike would be responsible for recording loads of bands in the Toronto scene at this time. The ep opens up with a song about racism called “Not so long ago” and was a tribute to ARA. This is probably my favourite song by Hockey teeth and is memorable because of the 7 Seconds like chorus. “The final shock” is a critique of the military-industrial complex along the same lines of MDC. “Don’t belong” is about alienation and “War” is a song that Dan wrote about a co-worker he knew from a job who went nuts and killed a bunch of people, so the song has a war in the head kind of Black Flag approach thematically. The recording originally was overproduced, but some of the members didn’t like it and it was re-mixed and then re-recorded some parts. In addition there is more song time on here forcing it to be compressed which effected the sound.


The artwork was a collaboration of talents. The front cover was a photo Mark found from the Globe and Mail. The players had the same letters in their name and Rob was able to change them around to read “Christ” and “Satan”. This worked perfectly with irreverent reinterpretation of the Christian recruitment line. Pat Laso, of the Blundermen, drew the back cover

The record came out on Homewreckords, which was the drummer Rob Neilson and Jon Harvie from the BLUNDERMEN. I believe this was the only release this label came out with. The record was originally pressed at 1,000 copies and they did a second pressing for 200 copies. Rob still some copies of this available through Rob.

1. Not so Long Ago
2. The Final Shock
3. Don't Belong
4. War

Saturday, August 27, 1994

Dirty Bird "Burn" cassette

This is Dirty Bird's first release called "Burn". The release was a cassette and it came out on Fans of Bad Productions. Josh from Mud sang in the band, Adam and James from One Blood played guitars and bass respectively, and Dave Gonzales from Godcorp. played drums.

A few of these tracks made up their first seven inch and  "Swingback" ended up on the "Fuck The Commonwealth" comp. Many of these songs were never heard beyond the 200 copies of this tape circulated around Toronto. DB is still going strong after almost 20 years!!!

Josh did the artwork for the cover. The songs on the release are:

1. Ideaology
2. Word
3. Swingback
4. Alien
5. Big idea
6. We U Me

7. Death of Ma Bell
8. Fuck the law
9. Broken Eyes
10. Pissin' on the Hudson
11. Eight
12. Gone off to War
13. Dirty Bird Blues


Thursday, August 18, 1994

The Glorystompers "Tory Crimes" ep

The Glorystompers were from Edmonton. They were playing a traditional early UK brand of hardcore punk when it many of the scenes in North America had forgotten about this scene. In a lot of ways the band was a reannaissance band and can be credited with bringing back that sound. They recorded this EP on August 18, 1994 in Staten Island, New York. The songs found on here are :
1. Tory Crimes
2. Cornerstone Bombshell Blues
3. Games

Friday, August 5, 1994

Viletones " A Taste of Honey" CD







As the liner notes suggest, this Cd was recorded back in 1977 with the definitive line up of the Viletones. Tibor Talaks engineered the recording and Chris Spedding and Peter Moore did the production to get this converted into a digital format. It's got all the material from the first two singles and then some. The songs are: 

1. Never Feel Sad
2. I Hate You / Without You
3. Just For You
4. Dog Style
5. Screamin' Fist
6. I Don't Care
7. Little Girl
8. Possibilities
9. Danger Boy
10. Rebel
11. C.O.N.T.R.O.L.
12. Richard Speck
13. Swastika Girl
14. Rather Be With Me - it's Me
15. Does She Jump
16. KGB
17. Won't you Let Me

"A Taste of Honey" was released in 1994 by Other People's Music.

Tuesday, July 26, 1994

Sparkmarker "Atomos" ep

This record was the third in a series exposing Canadian artists. This record was dedicated to the art of Mark "Atomos" Pilon who did some layout for Discorder magazine and coincidentally did the layout on a piece on Saprkmarker that the band didn't find out about until after the fact. The recordings for all three records were done at the same time in new York with Don Fury from July 5th through 7th in 1993. This record came out on No idea and contained the songs:
1. So Long
2. The Way She Moved
3. Kansas

Saturday, June 18, 1994

Strain "Cataract" ep


This is Strain's second ep. I heard that Undertow were a huge influence on the band and they were scene mates with BNU and Sparkmarker at the time. This also came out on Heart First records. The songs on here are:
1. Cataract
2. Turn the Tide

Friday, May 27, 1994

Mr. Nobody "My Town Sucks" ep

Mr. Nobody were a hardcore band from Coburg. They had a great demo that came out and were on MuchMusic a couple fo times for a self-shot video that they did. They appeared on Bill and Ted's Great Cross Canada Adventure, which was a segment that Much Music came up with to try and capture Canadian music. I remember seeing a clip in Bubby's bedroom which is where Mr. Nobody used to jam. An interesting note about the release is that a local record store named Zap Records released this single. The songs on here are:
1. Second Coming
2. Hey Baby
3. Cockwhorin'
4. Relative Song
5. Susie the Slouch
6. Plastic Land
7. Grumble and Sulk

Thursday, March 17, 1994

The Moaning Lisas / The Chitz split ep




The Chitz were from Halifax, Nova Scotia. The band featured Cara on vocals, Richard on guitar, Ian on bass, and Derrick on drums. Their recording took place at Deep 9 Studios from November 27, 1994 and December 28, 1994 by Steve Outhit and mixed on January 17th, 1995 by Doug Barron. The songs on their side are:

1. Teenage Punk
2. Two-Way Dead End
3. The Ballad of Louie
4. Just for a Laugh
5. Phobic

The Moaning Lisas were a punk band from Fredericton, New Brunswick. The band featured Char on vocals, Angie on guitar, Jen on bass, and Janita on drums. Their recording took place at Tsunami Studios in December 1994. The songs on their side are:

1. Candlelight Parade
2. Slag Campaign
3. Lurking in the Dark
4. Kill the Hosers (by the Dayglo Abortions)

This record was put out by En Guard Records which had an affiliation with an alternative entertainment newspaper in Montreal at the time.