If You Can Find it

By Liz Worth

Hamilton proto-punks Simply Saucer are often cited as southern Ontario’s answer to the Velvet Underground. Their cult following has steadily grown throughout the years, with Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and Fucked Up’s Damian Abraham included in that fan base.

Simply Saucer’s 7-inch single “She’s a Dog” continues to be an important indie release. The following excerpt from Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto and Beyond, discusses the challenges in getting that record out to the world.

Who’s Who:
Edgar Breau – Vocalist and guitarist for Simply Saucer.
Kevin Christoff – Bassist for Simply Saucer.
Gary Pig Gold – Founder of The Pig Paper and Pig Records. Member of the Loved Ones.
Chris Houston – Bassist for the Forgotten Rebels, solo artist.
John Balogh – Hamilton promoter, comedian.
Stephen “Sparky” Park – Guitarist for Teenage Head, Simply Saucer and the Loved Ones.
Tom Williams – Co-founder of Attic Records.

 

Edgar Breau: Sometimes I felt like if you were loud — if your songs were short, fast, loud, and ugly — it was a pretty good fit for what was going on. It wasn’t as wide open in terms of what genres bands could play within their own set. Now I think it’s really opened up. Back then, it was just a little bit more narrow.

Kevin Christoff: We didn’t sit down and consciously try to write punk stuff. And a lot of songs that came out of that period, if anybody heard them, probably went right through them if it wasn’t their style, or if it wasn’t the kind of thing they were wanting to hear.

Gary Pig Gold: This would have been late ’77, ’78, [and] we decided then we were gonna record Simply Saucer.

You see, I’d been carrying around for years in the back of my mind the first discussion I ever had with Steven Davey [of The Dishes]…

One momentous night he hands me an advance copy of the first Dishes EP Fashion Plates to review. I open up the sleeve, pull out the record, but for some reason I don’t see Capitol or Warner Bros. or anything at all like that on the label. Well, it turns out they’d put this record out THEMSELVES. “You mean, you can do that? In Toronto??” Steven said, “Sure! All you need is a tape, tell them what you want on the label, then you take everything out to this place called World Records in Oshawa,” I think it was, “and they’ll do the rest.”

That definitely put the bug in my ear to start Pig Records someday, someway…

We held a charity corn roast up on Hamilton Mountain to raise money to make a single. We were going to go into Grant Avenue, but we couldn’t afford it. I guess we didn’t sell enough corndogs. So the only other recording studio available in Hamilton was in this guy’s basement.

Edgar Breau: I think the guy’s name was John Boyd. It was not a great studio at all. It was a mistake to record there.

Gary Pig Gold: The second we start, John’s saying “IT’S TOO LOUD!!!” And I said, “Then you just pull the faders down. You’ve got to capture this. You don’t want to turn them down. They’re not the Eagles; they’re something else.” Long battle short, he just barged upstairs at one point and said, “You mix the damn record.”

Kevin Christoff: It was kind of funny. I guess the guy got supremely disinterested in what we were doing, because he ended up leaving us pretty well in charge. He went up to watch the hockey game or something like that, ha ha ha, which suited us fine.

Gary Pig Gold: I remember taking the tape into Toronto for mastering, and the guy had no idea. He said, “This is distorted.” I said, “I know.” And he reached for some knob — “I’ll fix that.” And I go, “Well, no, you can’t, it’s supposed to be distorted.” He goes, “But you actually have distortion on tape!” I said, “I know. And it took a long time to figure out how to get that, by the way.”

There was a day when they wouldn’t have cared so much. Those first Who and Kinks and even Stones records still sound amazing, even though to many people they’re such quote unquote terrible recordings.

Chris Houston: It was so hard then because these people would go into a studio, and they wouldn’t connect with the studio. So you’d have these horrible records of these great bands, and you wanted to love the band …

Gary Pig Gold: It was hard in those days to put out your own record. It took a lot of effort and money to press a thousand 45s. Then mailing them out to all the fanzines and record reviewers and college radio stations, and anyone else you’d tracked down who you thought might be interested.

John Balogh: A lot of those bands, at the onset, didn’t realize they were in the School of Hard on You…We all felt like we were the underdogs, and we were typically the underdogs. We were the bands and we were the people that radio didn’t play, television didn’t show, and we were the unspoken at the dinner table.

Kevin Christoff: We got some good reviews over the single. We got some positive press on that. Some people maybe didn’t like it, but you get that, right?

Stephen Park: There was something in the New Musical Express that compared us with the Kinks and we just were floored. We couldn’t believe it. But that was somewhere in England, and it just seemed so inaccessible. We didn’t seem to be able to capitalize on some of the interest that the single was generating.

SINGLE OF THE WEEK [Record Mirror, London, UK, July 8, 1978]: We’ve Saved It To The End … The Single Of The Week. Simply Saucer: “She’s A Dog” (Pig 1). Canadian band sounding a bit “Oooo very approximately the best single this week, reminiscent of the fab four (harmony wise), constructive guitar work, although the lyrics …err … woof? If you can find it, buy it …”

Gary Pig Gold: Cub Koda — remember “Smokin’ In The Boy’s Room” by Brownsville Station? — he loved Saucer. He gave “She’s a Dog” an amazing review in Goldmine, about how all the “dog, dog, dog”s in the chorus were driving his wife crazy. But how to make best of all this press that was coming in from literally all over the world? I was just one guy, with a bunch of Sharpie pens and cardboard mailers, working out of the basement.

Tom Williams: But most people were like one- and two men operations. They didn’t have the distribution, they didn’t have the know-how, there was no support system in terms of national radio, national television; newspapers tended to ignore the local acts, there were no consumer music magazines that meant anything — a couple of trades that didn’t mean a lot. It was kind of a baby industry, really.

I mean, it really was a bunch of people playing Let’s Make Records, including ourselves, I think. I think we were pretty naïve and we said, “We can do this,” and if we’d actually known what the stumbling blocks were we probably wouldn’t have. But we did, and I think that’s always the way. Because when you’re young you can do anything, in theory.

Liz Worth is the author of Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto and Beyond. She is also the author of something strange called Eleven: Eleven. Her influences include Greyhound bus rides, girls with smeared makeup and industrial neighbourhoods.

Excerpted from Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto and Beyond, 1977-1981, Bongo Beat Books, lizworth.com

 

27 thoughts on “If You Can Find it

  1. Thanks for taking the time to discuss this, I really feel strongly about it and love studying extra on this topic. If potential, as you gain experience, would you mind updating your blog with further information? This can be very useful for me.

  2. Very fine write-up. I actually really came across your current weblog along with needed for you to declare that will I’ve seriously loved browsing your current web log along with discussions. Anyhow I’ll always be checking your current supply along with My spouse and i desire for you to examine your current web log yet again.

  3. Sorry for the huge review, but I’m really loving the new Zune, and hope this, as well as the excellent reviews some other people have written, will help you decide if it’s the right choice for you.

  4. It is the best time to make some plans for the future and it is time to be happy. I have read this post and if I could I wish to suggest you few interesting things or suggestions. Perhaps you can write next articles referring to this article. I desire to read more things about it!

  5. Normally I wouldn’t comment on posts but I felt that I had to as your writing style is actually great. You have broken down a hard area so that it easy to understand. I think that you would enjoy reading what another good blogger has to say on the subject.

  6. Getting examine this I believed it had been really beneficial. I recognize you taking enough time and energy to place this short article collectively. I the moment yet again discover myself paying method to significantly time each reading through and commenting. But so what, it absolutely was nonetheless worthwhile!

  7. How could i extend kids on the Wireless N router? I’ve got an Xtreme N handheld router (Dlink). I should extend the reach from the wireless signal. I realize how to take action to get a new G signal. I need to discover how to do them a great N sign. How is it possible employ regular N routers when repeaters. If that is so, just how do i configure them. Thanks for the tips.

  8. Hey, great blog you’ve got here, think I came across it on Yahoo but im not sure nowanyway, Ill check back again! Are guests allowed to post here?

  9. Attractive part of content material. I just stumbled upon your web site and in accession capital to claim that I acquire in fact enjoyed account your weblog posts. Any way I’ll be subscribing to your feeds and even I achievement you get entry to constantly speedily.

  10. Have you ever thought about writing an ebook or guest authoring on other websites? I have a blog based upon on the same ideas you discuss and would love to have you share some stories/information. I know my audience would enjoy your work. If you are even remotely interested, feel free to send me an email.

  11. It’s actually a nice and useful piece of information. I’m glad that you shared this helpful information with us. Please keep us up to date like this. Thanks for sharing.

  12. This is very interesting, You’re a very skilled blogger. I have joined your rss feed and look forward to seeking more of your magnificent post. Also, I’ve shared your website in my social networks!

  13. You really make it seem so easy with your presentation but I find this matter to be really something that I think I would never understand. It seems too complicated and extremely broad for me. I am looking forward for your next post, I will try to get the hang of it!

  14. Very well written post. It will be helpful to anybody who employess it, as well as me. Keep doing what you are doing – can’r wait to read more posts.

  15. Hiya, I’m really glad I have found this information. Nowadays bloggers publish only about gossips and web and this is actually annoying. A good site with interesting content, that is what I need. Thanks for keeping this site, I’ll be visiting it. Do you do newsletters? Can’t find it.

  16. Hello there, I discovered your blog by the use of Google even as searching for a related matter, your website came up, it seems great. I have bookmarked it in my google bookmarks.

  17. I just bookmarked brokenpencil » Blog Archive » If You Can Find it on Digg, hope this helps get you more traffic. I’m all over this with this particular write-up, I really think this website requires a lot more due consideration. I’ll probably be returning again to study considerably more, thank you for the blog post it is awesome

Comments are closed.