Reminiscing (Canadian Music of 90’s-2000’s)

[TeenageShutdown!]

Growing up in Canada there seemed liked there was such a ton of great Canadian bands (perhaps I’m romancing it?) that didn’t break the American market, just the terrible ones did. Canada really did have their own music
scene which extended to festivals, like Edgefest & waterfront festivals for example.

Now that I’ve been living in the USA the last 10 years I on rare occasion listen to a few tracks of the bands of my youth of that era. This is quite a different musical venture to the garage/ lofi/ noise/surf/ primitive r&r that I typically listen to.

I was revisiting Big Sugars Dead M.F. EP in my car today. I forgot how great Gordie Johnson is! He had/ has such a huge sound from his Gibsons, & very melodic too. He’s also one hell of a player that never got any notoriety outside of Canada, perhaps maybe a hint with his Grady outfit.

I got to meet him at a Gibson “tour”, which was Gibson guitars being on display at a mom & pop guitar shop. He played some tunes, did autographs, & had an interesting story about when they would play Quebec the French would sing along in English. So he came up the idea of learning French & releasing an album in both French & English. I forget the album now, maybe it’s Heated? He’s not also a great guy, but he is also very appreciative of his fans. How many bands would go to that extent?

I got to see them 4 or 5 times & never payed more than $10 & they would typically play a 3 hour set. Al Cross is also another fav of mine. Such a great drummer & doing so much with a minimal drum kit.

Looking back there were quite a few crappy bands of the era. Wide Mouth Mason stands out to me (Shaun is another underrated guitarist) as a pretty decent band, as well as Blue Rodeo, even 54:40 & Tea Party had their moments, to name a few.

The garage guy in me can’t help but think about Mark Sultan/ BBQ, King Khan, Bloodshot Bill, Deadly Snakes, etc. & the zero attention they got or get just in Canada. Any thoughts Canadian Gen. X’ers?

[lunaticjaguar]

your definitely romanticizing it

http://aforeverquest.com/2016/01/09/def ... adian-alt/

unless you are talking about Erics Trip/East Coast Indie
https://indie88.com/best-canadian-indie ... m-the-90s/

[TeenageShutdown!]

your definitely romanticizing it

http://aforeverquest.com/2016/01/09/def ... adian-alt/

unless you are talking about Erics Trip/East Coast Indie
https://indie88.com/best-canadian-indie ... m-the-90s/

Ha. I wasn’t expecting any sympathies. I guess that first link opinion piece could be said about any inserted band & given a vague novelty sarcastic one-liner. Seems like another narcissistic blog of no redeeming value.

I completely forgot about Eric’s Trip! I’ll have to re-check them out! Great tune btw.

I guess the underlying point of the original post is that there’s some gifted musicians, no matter country of origin, who affect peoples lives (even very briefly) that just... disappear. Doesn’t matter what their popularity, talent, or skill level. Anyways, I kind of regret starting this post.

[BlixaFan]

Big Sugar is excellent, and Gordie is a killer player, with some killer feel and tone. and he plays really, really fucking loud too i've also briefly met him.

Another canadian band i enjoyed was Matthew Good Band. I think Beautiful Midnight has some excellent riffs and cool interesting songwriting. Matt Good is good, and i enjoyed a few of his post-MGB era releases, but i think BM is the top. he's always had a melancholy thing that works for me.

The Tea Party always made me think of Zeppelin fronted by Jim Morrison, and there are a few songs that I quite enjoyed back in the day.

Big Wreck's first and second albums are riff powerhouses. Ian Thornley is an amazing guitarist, extremely skilled, and has the talent of writing good catchy heavy riffs. The second album is almost all in like, C# or something lower than drop D (it has been a while since i actually tried to play along to it). either way, i'm a big fan of the first two albums, which are at this point basically 20 years old.

Cheers from Calgary!

[lunaticjaguar]

Don't feel bad for starting the thread, i'm just razzing ya man. I didn't even read the first link, just using it as a list

Vive le fromage'
https://www.cbcmusic.ca/posts/12304/the ... ny-tunes-a

[TeenageShutdown!]

I forgot about the Big Shiny Tunes series, but never got into them either. I remember Canadian cd sample discs that came in cases of Molson Canadian. I vaguely remember sample discs several years before that with another beer company, Blue perhaps? I think I Tea Party & Headstones was part of that.

[cestlamort]

I worked at Sub Pop in the mid-90s and we were putting out a ton of Canadian stuff at the time (when Moncton was the next Seattle, so to speak), most of which was pretty darn great: Jale, Eric's Trip (!) and various related bands (the first Elevator to Hell album is worth checking out, Purple Knight not so much, Julie Doiron, etc).

Very polite mail order customers, too.

And: Sloan.

[parry]

Lots of great bands - nice to see Sloan mentioned. They're great. My son is really in to them, so the new record is always playing somewhere in our house. It's really solid. Seems like they've got their second or third or fouth (fifth?) wind, hahaha

For anyone so inclined... I'd also suggest checking out The Stills record, Logic Will Break Your Heart. THAT record has held up REEEALLY well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVGjHwg9QsI
It's still a favourite, to this day

[lunaticjaguar]

a couple months back I saw Mudhoney open for Sloan, just to bring it back again. Working on SubPop in the 90s would have been ridiculous! ha.

I loved Jale, forgot about them, "Not Happy" is a great teenage jam

[s_mcsleazy]

one of my favorite albums of all time was made by a Canadian band. who will cut our hair when we're gone? - the unicorns.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjnFyk4Rmus

always reminds me of lan parties playing world of warcraft.

[sammynb]

your definitely romanticizing it

http://aforeverquest.com/2016/01/09/def ... adian-alt/

What a list.
The Dears description is spot on, although there really should have been a Smiths reference for their sound.
I remember going to see them here in Sydney, 2003 or 04.
To put it into perspective at the same venue The Dears played on the Saturday night, the following evening, Sunday, Elbow played. They were both touring their first album, the Dears got a couple of hundred to their show and were terrible, Elbow probably were lucky to have 100 in the crowd and were amazing.
And The Dears second album, from the guide description, it sounds like the next 8 releases didn't get any better.

I always liked Sianspheric.

[MKR]

I'll give the dears some love. Enjoy most their albums although i don't know the last one very well. they always put on a great show. the ones i have seen at least.

Some other of my canadian favorites include:
Sloan
The sadies
Shadowy men on a shadowy planet
King khan (i think he identifies himself as german now)
broken social scene
The organ (such a great band who disbanded after one album i think).
hiphop wise, the rascalz put out some great stuff too early on.

i'm pretty out of touch with current music, but i also really like Alvvways.

[thedude99]

So many great bands in the 90’s and early 2000’s

The Stars
(Early) Sloan
Thrush Hermit
Eric’s Trip
Elevator
Tristan Psionic
North of America
Sianspheric
Super Friendz
Local Rabbits
Hayden
The Inbreds
Treble Charger’s first indie album was fantastic
King Cobb Steelie
Destroyer
Constantines
New Pornographers
The Sadies
Mecca Normal
Godspeed You Black Emporer
Do Make Say Think
A Silver Mt Zion
Fly Pan Am

The Toronto scene was pretty exciting when Feist, Broken Social Scene, Metric and the gang were first making waves. Don’t like were most of those folks went beyond their roots - but some of their early stuff was fantastic (Metric in particular - whom I can’t stand were a fantastic band in their very early days)

[panoramic]

north of america
superfriends
24 gone
mystery machine
erics trip
harship post
the inbreds
sloan
jale
wooden stars
Julie Doiron
Shadowy Men

I could list off a hundred Canadian bands I love but that's because i grew up super close to Windsor over in michigan and we listened to tons of canadian music there. Mystery Machine is probably the 4th or 5th biggest guitar playing influence on me

[Arthon]

I got to meet him at a Gibson “tour”, which was Gibson guitars being on display at a mom & pop guitar shop. He played some tunes, did autographs, & had an interesting story about when they would play Quebec the French would sing along in English. So he came up the idea of learning French & releasing an album in both French & English. I forget the album now, maybe it’s Heated? He’s not also a great guy, but he is also very appreciative of his fans. How many bands would go to that extent?

That was a really cool thing to do. I much english canadian band can sing both in french and in english? They won a lot of respect from me and my fellow french canadians by doing this French album.

I listen to alot of Canadian artist from this period; but most of it is in French. The two solitudes also stand in music, sadly.