Sleepy London Ontario is going to awaken on Friday Oct 26th with the opening night festivities of the Underground Graphics London opening.

At Forest City Gallery here in London, will be a visual display of the posters, zines, epherma, etc created in London Ontario during the years 1977 to 1990. Posters for bands shows (everything from punk to electronic to rock'n'roll), the zines of the time period and many other artifacts of the era will be on display. Many many artists will be represented by their works at this show, including at least a couple of garagepunk hideout members. The display at the gallery will be on for several weeks so everyone will get a chance to check it out.

Here's a link to the beginnings of the web site for the event. There are MANY garagepunk combos represented in the posters, so check out the later years for them.

http://graphicundergroundlondon.ca/

And since this is an art show, there's got to be an opening night party. And that will be on Friday Oct 26th on the 3rd floor of local club APK. We've got 4 bands re-uniting from the early years, The Zellots, NFG, The Enemas and Uranus, all from London Ontario.

The Zellots have been a fave of mine since first seeing them (1979?) and they played a tough mixture of girl group sounds meets mid 60's garage meets late 70's punk. You can read their full story in the latest edition of Mongrel Zine.

NFG were exactly what you think the initials stand for. No Fucking Good and they proved it time and time again! 60's punk meets 70's punk done at a wreckless breakneck speed! They used to play tunes by everyone from The Troggs to The Animals to the Green Acres theme song and they mixed a bunch of tasty original tunes in between. They reformed as 63 Monroe and there's an LP on Rave Up Records from Italy that has some of their originals on it.

The Enemas were more of an art/punk band who unfortunately didn't leave much of a recorded legacy. Saw them many times and had a ball everytime!!

Uranus were possibly the only London Ontario band who had a top 10 hit on AM radio and they did it with a cover of a Buddy Holly song, 'You're So Square' in 1980. This is the band that opened a lot of doors for me...first band i ever heard cover Johnny Burnette and the Rock'n'Roll Trio and i couldn't believe it at the time! This was 1978, before The Stray Cats and the rockabilly revival and here was this local band doing Carl Perkins, Warren Smith, Gene Vincent,  Fats Domino, Elvis, Bobby Troup and a TON of other cool tunes that blew me away!

And also on Oct 26th, opening night will be the release of What Wave zine #24, a history of the London Ontario bands between 1976 and the early 90's. And included with the issue will be a cassette of all London combos within this time period, AND all unreleased songs!! We've got a TON of cool stuff lined up for the cassette, some of which might just blow your mind!

AND, since this is an art exhibit, there will be a book released documenting the artwork on display. This event is being curated by Brian Lambert of McIntosh Gallery at Western University in London Ontario.

Here's a facebook event page for the show:

https://www.facebook.com/events/187502921353967/

And here's a poster to get you excited about the show....

You can get all of the details about the show by listening to Radio What Wave, Thursdays 6PM EST on CHRW 94.9 FM as we are one of the sponsors/partners for this show.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/21164844915/

The show was a TOTAL success!!!  Over 300 people came to the art opening on a cold and rainy night and many of the artists were in attendance. The art display is on until Dec 14th and the gallery is only open Wed to Sat 12 to 5PM, 258 Richmond St, London Ontario.

And the party at Call the Office was a SMASHING success!!! Venue was packed, all the bands were just amazing and it was great seeing people we haven't seen in years! Sold tons of the new issue of What Wave as well as tons of band merch! And the venue sold out of Labatt's 50 so you know we all had fun!!

Here's the wall of posters (all between 77 and 1990) as a small part of the art exhibit...and some jerk in the way of the picture.

Opening night is tonite at Forest City Gallery in London Ontario...above is a partial setup of the wall. There's lots more to see at the show as well.

Then Saturday night at Call The Office, Graphic Underground:London 1977-1990 opening party with; Uranus, The Zellots, NFG and The Enemas.

And available at both shows will be What Wave #24, 104 pages of London Ontario band trees and info. Plus a 90m cassette of almost all unreleased material from the era. This is the first WW in 16 years!

Yet another change to the above....APK venue has closed.

We've moved the opening night party to Call The Office in downtown London on Saturday Oct 27th...

Here's the new facebook event for the opening night party:

https://www.facebook.com/events/251050401684917/

Slight change in the Graphics Underground London 1977 1990 Event.

Opening night for the art show (zines,posters etc) is still on Friday Oct 26th. The exhibit will be open until mid December.

Opening night party has been moved to Saturday Oct 27th, still at the APK and still with the same 4 bands playing...ie Uranus, The Zellots, NFG and The Enemas.

AND...there's a record show on Sunday Oct 28th at Centennial Hall here in London. It starts at 11 AM, so you can fight me the next morn for all the cool records at the show!!

Here's a link to the Graphics Underground Show:

http://graphicundergroundlondon.ca/

And here's a link to the record show:

https://www.facebook.com/events/360784837340973/?ref=ts&fref=ts

A tiny snippet of what you might see at the Graphic Underground show...these are the display cases outside CHRW, where Radio What Wave blasts out from.

Here's a poor reproduction of the poster for the opening night's festivities.

There will be a museum style book with many of the posters from that era reproduced and it will be available at the show.

What Wave zine #24 will be released that night and it will be an all London issue with the family trees of bands from about 1977 to the early 90's. That era includes many of the garagepunk combos that we all love. With WW 24 will be a 90m cassette compilation of all London Ontario bands recorded between 1978 and 1990. Some of the highlights that you guys may dig; Legend Killers, Boy From Nowhere, UIC, Zellots, Uranus, 63 Monroe, Terminals and tons more!

And we'll have What Wave tees for sale at the show as well....large and XL only.

Here's the poster for the graphic (posters, zines, epherma) show that will be at Forest City Gallery in London Ontario starting Oct 26th.

Here's a link to the website which is still under construction:

http://graphicundergroundlondon.ca/

Hotdog! A record show too, yowza! Can't wait.

It's gonna be a blast Matt!!! People are coming in from all over for this show as it ties so many things together in one shot!!

Go Trains don't go to London....regular VIA does....and we get buses, airplanes and stagecoach!!

There's a coupla record stores you gotta check out to...Grooves, Speed City, Village Idiot and a new one called Hot Dog....also record show in London the next day!! How's that for a weekend in sleepy London Ontario??

Matt said:

Wow, this looks great, can't wait! Have to find somebody with a car or maybe the GO train runs to London. Really looking forward to the WW 24 zine and the cassette. Plus the book documenting the art work. Absolutely fabulous!

Wow, this looks great, can't wait! Have to find somebody with a car or maybe the GO train runs to London. Really looking forward to the WW 24 zine and the cassette. Plus the book documenting the art work. Absolutely fabulous!