Sunday, July 4, 2010

Ron Leary- Lapse (2002)


















Hands down, Ron Leary is in my top three for local favorites. Though he moved on to Toronto last year, his songs are simply saturated in thoughts and images of Windsor in the greatest possible way. To celebrate the release of his brand new album ‘Dependent Arising’, we dug up this EP from 2002. Much like the new album, ‘Lapse’ saw Ron accompanied by longtime producer/collaborator Dean Drouillard (another fantastic Windsor export). Take a listen to a younger/greener version of our most consistent and hard working musician.

Download.

Friday, July 2, 2010

Prehistoric Cavestrokers- Let's Id! (1985)


















I’m familiar with Windsor’s punk timeline to extent, but there’s a big gap for me between the first wave stuff (the Spys, the Dry Heaves, etc) and the mid 1990’s when I dove in. That’s a solid 15 years give or take. Thus began my research, and I know that one key piece to the puzzle was this little gem. Here’s some real info straight from the horses mouth. Ladies and gentleman, PHCS vocalist Marc Fedak:

“The Prehistoric Cavestrokers formed in Windsor in March 1985. The original lineup was Dan Moriarty on lead vocals, Jono Fiddler on drum (yes, at that time he only had a snare drum) and cymbals and backing vocals, Lyndon Way on bass and backing vocals and occasional lead vocals, and myself on rhythm guitar and backing vocals and occasional lead vocals. Later members included James Nemeth on bass and backing and occasional lead vocals, and Jerry Rozon on drums (a full kit!).

I was the only one who was previously in a band, so needless to say, we were pretty naive and low-tech, low-fi when we first started -- in fact, when we played our first show at a gong show at the U of Windsor pub three days after forming, we got gonged twice. Fortunately, that did not dissuade us from performing again, and as time went on, we became better performers, but we always retained the garage rock element ‘til our dissolution in 1991. We usually played in the few bars that tolerated (some only barely) original music back in the day like Stanley's, Changez, Faces on College, the Whispers, U of Windsor, and the Coach n Horses, and occasionally played in Detroit as well and even played twice at the Freedom Festival.

We had one of our songs "Urine You're Out" appear on a 1986 Detroit compilation album called "It Came From the Garage vol 1", and also had a few songs appear on two issues of a late 80s garage rock magazine/cassette based in Kingston called "What Wave". The CD (pictured above) actually was a series of four track cassette recordings that we did in the mid 80s, but we didn't actually publicly release it, except for a few copies that I gave to friends during the past year or two after I had it converted to CD format. You are correct though that the original title was "Don't Forget About Us When You're Famous".

The last time we played as a regular band was in August 1991, but we did a well attended 15th anniversary reunion show at the Coach in Dec. 1999, and I am trying to organize a 25th anniversary show that hopefully will be at the Coach sometime after Christmas (when us out of towners are most likely to be in Windsor)".

Related: 100 Year Champions, Spacecraft 7, Yolassi, the Wanted, etc.

Download.