Radio - Sunday, March 23rd, 2014

This show features a session recorded with Screamin' Sam and the Problems earlier this week and you can find a post that has the songs and interviews in downloadable formats. Here is the pieced together version with bits of an audio collage from various other sources like the articles scanned from Steve Koch's archive

- "Horseshoe closes with riot", Toronto Sun, Sunday, June 14th, 1981
- "Beyond Primal: The Ultimate Scream", Shades Magazine #19/20, Oct. - Nov. 1981
- "..but Kennedys crowd dances on", Toronto Star

or this first hand account of the Professionals show

Some stories require visual aids like the video recorded at Roger's found below.



You can hear the whole show on the player above or you can download an MP3 here.

SCREAMIN' SAM - Live for Today (CIUT)
SCREAMIN' SAM - Interview (CIUT)
SCREAMIN' SAM - Do you Like It (Unreleased)
SCREAMIN' SAM - Interview (CIUT)
SCREAMIN' SAM - Another World (CIUT)
SCREAMIN' SAM - Interview (CIUT)
SCREAMIN' SAM - Big Smoke (Pelican)
SCREAMIN' SAM - Interview (CIUT)
SCREAMIN' SAM - Hot Dog City (Pelican)
SCREAMIN' SAM - Interview (CIUT)
SCREAMIN' SAM - Oh Oh Oh (CIUT)
SCREAMIN' SAM - Interview (CIUT)
SCREAMIN' SAM - Been so Long (CIUT)
SCREAMIN' SAM - Interview (CIUT)
THE VILETONES - Sam (Fleurs de Mal)

TBC - Musik I Plast (Mjalthugg / Re-Ken)
ASTA KASK - Fredagsmys (Prank)
KNUCKLEHEAD - Bigger Bombs for a Better Tomorrow (Stumble)
SNFU - Crude Crude City (Cruzar)

FISSURE - Junkie's Day Off
LACK OF INTEREST - Head Trip (Deep Six)
NO COMMENT - Dead Stare for Life (Deep Six)
TO THE POINT - First world problems for a middle class white guy (Deep Six)
COLD WAR - No Regrets - (Deep Six / Regurgitated Semen)
PICK YOUR SIDE - Weakling (Deep Six)

SICKFIT - Guilt Trip (Bong)
MILKMAN - Gurkenzeit (Bong)
NUEVA AUTORIDAD DEOCRATICA - Genta mierda (Solo para punks)
TENSE REACTION - De wilders sharia / Angstendictatuur (Bong)
UNAMED TERRORIST GROUP - You are involved in the war

Tonight's demo feature is a new band from Calgary. You can download this demo on their bandcamp page.

EXOTIC FUNCTIONS - Feeling Good (Self-Released)
EXOTIC FUNCTIONS - Cobaxa (Self-Released)
EXOTIC FUNCTIONS - Vegetate (Self-Released)
EXOTIC FUNCTIONS - Petty Pursuits (Self-Released)
EXOTIC FUNCTIONS - Blessing in Disguise (Self-Released)

Screamin’ Sam and the Problems studio 3 session

This guy is a legend in this city. And I am not even sure what to call him. In Treat Me Like Dirt he is listed as Sam Ferrera, Sam Sinatra, and Sam Vincent. What do I call this guy? The answer is he answers to Sam. He is such a down to earth guy. I run into him putting change in the meter on the way to the studio. He is on a first name basis with everyone he comes into contact with. This is the guy who made up half the rhythm section for the most notorious punk band in Toronto the Ugly. This is the guy who became the only other credible line up for the Viletones. This is the guy Steve Leckie wrote a song about in 1999 in an attempt to woo him back. This is the guy that Mickey Skin and Nora Currie and Zero send shout outs to when they are on the show. People love him because he is a great bass player.

But people also love him because he is a humble guy. He understates his accomplishments when asked about them directly. So much so that people like Steve Koch and Cleave Anderson feel the need to speak up for him as by way of context to help understand why he is so important in the scene. His band played the next closing of the Horseshoe Tavern in 1980 for which a riot broke out when they played “Wild and Free”. His band opened for the Dead Kennedys back in 1981. They also played with the Professionals and it is rumoured that Paul Cook attempted to help himself to Tony’s drum kit and almost got away with it. But these historic incidents don’t seem to be of concern to Sam. Making good music does. In 1988, the band released a single titled “Not too safe for Love”. You can read and listen to the single at http://www.mocm.ca/Music/Title.aspx?TitleId=318290. In 1996, the band released a CD called “Dust”. Many of Toronto’s first wave of punk musicians have been in this band and we try and get to the nitty gritty of who played when. You can listen to the interview here. There is a second part to the interview as well.

Sam put together a band based on one of the later line ups which featured Steve Koch on guitar, his Rattlesnake Choir partner John Borra, and Cleave Anderson on drums. Sam still plays his hollow body Hofner bass which has a violin quality to it. It is a difficult bass to play but that doesn’t hold Sam back. I was pretty amazed by some of the things he was playing. We were treated to four songs from the band’s back catalogue.

1. Been So Long
2. Oh Oh Oh
3. Live for Today
4. Another World

Sam also did some IDs for us:

1. Been so long CIUT ID
2. Live for Today EXD ID

The session was recorded by Ian Wilkinson and video taped by Aldo Erdic of Punks and Rockers.

Radio - Sunday, August 10, 2008

click here for an mp3 download

The Screwed are a punk band puled together featuring legends in the early Toronto punk scene. The original idea was to be a jam band that would play songs from 1977 and that lead to a CD release of covers of songs that came out in the year. Cleave Anderson, the drummer from Tyranna, the Way Outs, Battered Wives and so many other great bands came up with the idea. he convinced John Borra of Neon Rome fame and Steve Koch of the Viletones and Demics fame to play bass and guitar in this band. They recruited Steve Saint from the Sinisters to sing.

The band has started doing originals and songs from the early local scene. This session was recorded and played live on the show and what you are hearing in this session is pumped up from the downstairs studio into a channel on our braodcast board. The live session is followed up with an interview with the band trying to capture some of the significance that these folks played on the scene, but also the things that they are doing now like the various themed nights at clubs in Toronto with singers from the first wave of the Toronto scene. Here is the set list based around our discussion.

THE SCREWED - Pretty Vacant (Self-Released) cover of the Sex Pistols

Studio 3 Session
THE SCREWED - Suzie Peroxide (CIUT) cover of the Secrets
THE SCREWED - New Rose (CIUT)
THE SCREWED - Green Haired Girl (CIUT)
THE SCREWED - The Shaggs (CIUT)
THE SCREWED - Barbra (CIUT) cover of the Modernettes
THE SCREWED - New York City (CIUT) cover of the Demics
THE SCREWED - Your Generation (CIUT) cover of Generation X
THE SCREWED - Somebody's gonna get their head kicked in tonight (CIUT) cover of the Rezillos
THE SCREWED - Screamin' Fist (CIUT) cover of the Viletones
THE SCREWED - Disgusteen (CIUT) cover of Teenage Head

Show listings by Gena Maldezy

THE SCREWED - Career Opportunities (Self-Released)
THE SCREWED - Interview with Steve Saint (CIUT)
COSMIC SAINTS - Lemonade (Unreleased)
SINISTERS - Private World (Unreleased)

NEON ROME - Magical Summer of ’85 (New Rose)
THE SCREWED - Interview with John Borra (CIUT)
NEON ROME - Windowsill (New Rose)

THE SCREWED - Interview with Steve Koch (CIUT)
VILETONES - Don’t You Lie (Live at the Edge, 1979 with Sam Ferera (bass) and Tony Torcher (drums). Recorded for Q107)
THE SCREWED - Interview with Steve Koch (CIUT)
VILETONES - We Say Yeah (Live at the Edge, 1979 with Sam Ferera (bass) and Tony Torcher (drums). Recorded for Q107) This is where Screamin' sam gets his name Screamin' from.

THE SCREWED - Interview with Cleave Anderson (CIUT)
BATTERED WIVES - Giddy (Live at the El Mocambo, 1978)
THE SCREWED - Interview with the entire band (CIUT)
THE SCREWED WITH CHEETAH CHROME - Sonic Reducer (CIUT)
THE SCREWED - Interview with the entire band (CIUT). There was a scatch on the CD that this interview was transfered from so this part of the interview skips a little.

Some originals recorded at a different session not used in the broadcast:

THE SCREWED - Clarence Jonkers (CIUT)
THE SCREWED - Gettin' Beat Up (CIUT)
THE SCREWED - Red Line Man (CIUT)
THE SCREWED - Green Haired Girl (CIUT)
THE SCREWED - The Shaggs (CIUT)
THE SCREWED - Vivienne and Malcolm (CIUT) 

Screamin' Sam's rock, art collide

Screaming Sam on 'cusp' of 'newer' country

Here Here is an article on Screamin' Sam from Steve Koch's archives.

Toronto Star listing on Screamin's Sam

 

Thanks to Steve Koch's personal archive.

...but Kennedys crowd dances on

 

Elliot Lefko writes a story for the Toronto Star about he Dead Kennedys playing at the Concert hall in Toronto. This would be te second time they played here and L'Etranger and Screamin' Sam and the Problems opened up.

Beyond Primal: The Ultimate Scream

 

This feature on Screamin' Sam and the Problems appeared in Shades #19/20.

Horseshoe closes with riot

 

This article in the Sunday Sun reports that this event which has been referred to as the second Last Pogo under different promoters who were also being kicked out. The show was brokebn up during Screamin' Sam and the Problems set during "Wild and Free" ironically. Thanks to Steve Koch for sharing this with us.