Radio What Wave Playlist November 17/2016 Canadian PowerPop Part 2
1. The Chickens....Summer Of Love....from the Prepare To Plug In CD from 2000. 80% (4 out of 5 members of UIC) with the addition of another guitarist form The Chickens. Not the full throttle hypermetalpunk sound of UIC, but more hook laden pop tunes still with loads of energy to spare. Live, these guys were a total blast and would sometimes whip out a few UIC numbers to keep the dancing masses happy. Obviously from Toronto as are the rest of the pop bands featured on this episode.
2. Holy Microphone....Beatle Bob....from the Goodbye Television Girl CD and features Fred from UIC on guitar. This song is for an actual person called Beatle Bob who has been dancing for decades at shows in the St Louis area and has a Beatle style bowl cut.
3. The Bon....Hey Suzette....from the Static Electricity CD from 2011. There was a Leather Upper involved in this short lived project that mines early 70's pop and does it really well! This one was a fave when first released.
4. The Machines....What Have I Done...from the After My Misspent Youth CD from 2006. Dunno much about this combo, but they have definitely played at CTO here in London Ontario.
5. Cheap Speakers....She Has A System....from the Switches and Levers CD from 2013 and sadly defunct before I had a chance to catch them live.
6. Zantees...Tic Tac Toe....from the 4 song EP on Midnight Records from 1983. These next few songs go out to the late great Billy Miller, who along with his wife Miriam LInna do a bit of a duet on this one. Billy and Miriam founded Kicks fanzine, a HUGE inspiration for What Wave zine and easily one of the best, if not the best fanzine ever!!! From there, they founded the Norton Records dynasty of a record label, book publishing and now a store in Brooklyn. And Billy and Miriam were also in The Zantees and The A Bones, both amazingly cool combos!!! Over the years we only got to meet Billy and Miriam three times....1986 in Hamilton when they were touring with Hasil Adkins, 1991 when they brought The A Bones to Call The Office here in London and 2009 at the Wooly Weekend in Montreal. All great and fun times!!!
7. Zantees....Please Give Me Something....from the 1980 LP Out For Kicks on Bomp Records. A classic and essential LP for any rockabilly fan. I sold my duplicate copy of this record to a young couple at the last record show and told them this will be the best record you get at this show....dunno if they thought I was full of shit or not, but hopefully they've spun it by now and realized I coulda been right!
8. The A Bones....Betty Lou Got A New Tattoo....from the I Was A Teenage Mummy CD from 2005 on Norton Records (Norton is the secret code for quality when you see it on any CD or record). Played a commercial for the Teenage Mummy around this time too.
9. Miriam....I'm Nobody's Baby Now....from the Nobody's Baby LP on Norton Records and from 2014. Our condolences go out to Miriam!
10. Klaatu.....Sub Rosa Subway....from their self titled debut LP from 1976. When this was released, there were rumours galore about how this is the Beatles reunited as there was little fanfare when this was released and no info about the band in the packaging. The rumours were all wrong and this was a pop band from Toronto with a release on a major label. They released several other LP's, but their first is the best by far in my humble opinion.
11. Clockwise....All Over Your Face.....from the Accidentally On Purpose CD from 1999. These guys seem to always play the Toronto International Pop Overthrow each year and one listen to this tune and you'll know why.
12. Protozoans....$....from a 2009 7" and saw these guys open for someone at Call The Office a few years back. Some fine pop.
13. 10 Commandments....Suddenly....from a 7" and they release a couple of LP's and a few 7" in the late 80's to early 90's. They started as a straight 60's garage punk style combo and evolved into powerpop.
14. Blue Peter....Same Old Place....from the Test Patterns For Living 12" on Ready Records from 1979. Saw these guys many times in the late 70's/early 80's and always put on a good, fun, energetic show. After a few releases, they became less interesting, but this first record is a fave and had me singing along in the onair studio!
15. Steve Blimkie and The Reason.....Break My Heart....from the self titled debut LP from 1979 and also on Ready Records. Steve went to Fanshawe College here in London, and would play at The Cedar Lounge and was NOT liked by the punks due to his uppity attitude. Personally, I really dug his early shows as they were high energy guitar powerpop!
16. True Confessions....Mating Games....from their self titled debut LP from 1980 on Bomb Records. Some of the members of the first girl punk band in Toronto, The Curse went on to form this pop oriented combo. Got to see them live once at The Cedar Lounge and they put on a pretty good new wave/pop show.
17. Popular Spies....Chinatown....from a 1980 7". Think this was their only release and remember seeing them once or twice at Larry's in Toronto in the very early 80's. This particular song was stuck in my noggin all week heading into this show.....
18. The Numbers....Sunday Afternoon....from the Add Up Lp from 1979 on Basement Records.
19. Hot Tip.....Teach Me Something....from the Stop All Motion LP from 1981 on Attic Records. These last 2 bands differed in only one member, yet totally different names and on different labels, but both are definitely powerpop combos! Tried to figure this one out.....maybe they changed names from The Numbers as there were way too many combos with this name or....??? Can anyone out there enlighten me please? And both of these records are fairly common at record shows and are usually quite inexpensive, and well worth it.
20. The Kingbees....My Mistake....from their debut LP from 1980. This particular song was a bit of a hit and this band even played on Dick Clark's American Bandstand. Guitarist/singer Jamie James even lived here in London for a couple of years prior to this....at least according to local legend.
21. The Dundrells....Nothing On TV....from a 7" from the late 80's. These guys played The Key West Cafe here in London a couple of times and re-united for a one shot earlier this year.
22. Crash Kills 5.....What Do You Do?.....from a 7" from 1980 and this has been re-ished on Ugly Pop Records. This band evolved into Shadowy Men and I remember catching them a couple of times at the Cedar Lounge.
23. The Black Rainbows.....2 Day Rule....from the I Met This Chick CD from a couple years back.
And that's a wrap for our Toronto Powerpop show. We'll continue the powerpop special in 2 weeks as next week we'll be helping to promote the Toys For Tots show happening at The Dawghouse on November 26th.
Huge thanx for all the phone calls, emails, facebook messages and Heys!!!
Here's a link to the archived show:
https://chrwradio.ca/program/radio-what-wave