I think this week won’t be possible to review new bands. Let’s see if next week.

The good news is that Alfie CDs have started shipping! Very good news. The CDs look and sound great. The website is updated with the info and I will add the release to Bandcamp on the weekend. I will end up adding all Cloudberry Kitchen releases to Bandcamp but they will be a couple of dollars more expensive there as Bandcamp takes a cut you know.

For those in Japan the good news is that Disques Blue-very will be carrying some copies. I hope other mailorders, from other countries, also start carrying the CDs. I know the shipping is expensive but what can I do. Wish it was under my control.

If you have never heard of Alfie. I interviewed the band some years ago here. And you can listen to their superb single “Play On” on our Soundcloud!

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Yet another post that I left as a draft a few years back. I never ended up investigating and researching the Canadian band the Plasterscene Replicas!

I start on the safest place, on Discogs. There I see two releases. The first one from 1985. A 12″ vinyl EP. Self-titled. Released by a label called Voicespondence with catalog number VSP 015. I am not very familiar with Canadian independent pop or rock. So don’t know any of the band’s in the catalog. I do notice that Clive Robertson who engineered and produced this EP released solo records in this label.

Other credits on this record include of course the band members. This is helpful for sure. Wee know that Brenden Cavin was on bass and vocals, Rob Christie on drums, Stephen Stewart on guitar and vocals, Chas Salmon on guitar, keyboards and vocals and Rod Cohen on percussion.

The EP that had a photo of the band playing in the snow on the cover, and photos of the band (well, with the band members cut out, just leaving the instruments and background) playing live on the back cover, included four songs. The A side had “Turtle Song” and “New Warm” while the B side had “Somewhere in the Middle” and “Images are Clear”.

In 1988 the band releases their debut album “Glow”. It came out on vinyl and cassette and was released by Raining Records (RA101). 12 songs on this record, “We Can Walk”, “Things You Hold”, “Doldrums”, “What Could Be Incomplete”, “Trains” and “Pull Out” on the A side and “All I See”, “Hot Sands”, “Holler”, “Town Crier”, “Falling Down the Stairs” and “You’ve Got the Way” on the B side. The album was recorded and engineered at Umbrella Sound and Triton Sound, mixed at Umbrella Sound and also at Fifth Avenue Studio. These were studios in Toronto.

The art for this record is credited to Elaine Halpert with design by Annabelle Stanley. The photography was taken by Paul Orenstein. The producer and engineer was Michael Phillip-Wojewoda who also added piano, bells, scissors and tambourine to some tracks. He was part of the bands Disband, Pig Farm, Rheostatics and The Faceless Forces of Bigness.

We also know that Brenden Cavin was part of the band The Station Twang. Don’t know if the other band members were involved in any other bands. Then the only other info Discogs provides is for compilation appearances.

Both appearances date from 1987. On the LP compilation “For No Apparent Reason” released by X REcords (XR87001) the band contributed the song “Turtle Song”. And on the US cassette comp “Lake Toronto Compilation” released by Sound of Pig (SOP 117) the band had three songs, “New Warm”, “Something in the Middle” and “Images are Clear”.

I google a little bit more and find that the blog Wilfully Obscure wrote about the band in 2017. There I find some info as always. Most importantly a link the Now Toronto website. There an article dating from November 21, 2013, tells that sadly Charlie (Chas) Salmon passed away. On this article written by Joshua Kloke we find more details of course. We know that Salmon was born in 1960 and that he also was involved in many Toronto bands including FiIfth Column. Also that the Plasterscenee Replicas stopped playing in 1989 but did a reunion show at the Cameron House in August of 2007.

And there’s more. On Youtube I find that the band made a promo video for the song “We Can Walk” from their album. It is amazing the amount of comments praising and remembering this song. Wow! It seems they were very well known in Canada and were played in TV and radio a lot. Then there’s a another promo video, this time for the song “All I See“. On the comments I read that Dough Koch was the cinematographer of the video.

This same Youtube account has even more treasures. There is a whole live gig of the band playing at The Cameron in 1987. It is audio only, no footage and has 15 songs in total including “You’ve Got the Way”, “Doldrums”, “What Could Be Incomplete”, “Pull Out”, “Photographs”, “Infant Outfant”, “Today”, “Painful Upset”, “Don’t Go Back Again”, “Trains”, “Holler”, “We Can Walk”, “Marjorie”, “How to Be” and “Falling Down the Stairs”. There is another gig, same format, from November 3, 1989, at Lee’s Palace. This time the songs are 11, “Town Crier”, “Hot Sand”, “Last Sunday Night”, “Holler”, “Magic Carpet Ride”, “Darkness”, “Distributing”, “Unwind”, “We Can Walk”, “All I See” and “Painful Upset”. Lots of new songs here. Maybe they were working on a new release?

A proper gig, with video footage is available too, from the time they played a CFNY sponsored event at El Mocambo on  November 7, 1985.

One of the songs from the gigs, “Don’t Go Back Again“, is available recorded in a studio. Maybe it is from a demo tape? We know some demo sessions happened at MCA in 1989. Some lo-fi recordings were done prior to them at Mike Duggan’s basement. On Youtube we find “Distributing” and “New Rules” as 4-track demos at the aforementioned basement.

Lastly it is worth mentioning the band has a Facebook page. Not much info there, some photos of DAT tapes, but not much more.

Anyways, this was a nice discovery for me. Hope it was for you as well. Anyone that has any more info, please share!

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Listen
Plasterscene Replicas – Trains