The phrase, “This one’s an original,” is oft said by bands that have the audacity to sneak their own songs into their repertoire of crowd pleasing covers. Sometimes sheepishly. Sometimes defiantly. I certainly heard it said a lot and would have said it a few times myself during the punk/hardcore shows in Halifax in the mid to late 80’s.
In 1986, my band, Wite Out was covering songs like “Gas Chamber” by the Angry Samoans, “We’re Only Gonna Die” by Bad Religion, “Question Authority” and “Letterbomb” by the Circle Jerks, “Trust” by 7 Seconds, and “News or Propaganda” by No Policy from the Primitive Air Raid (Montreal ’84) compilation but we were especially proud of our half dozen or so originals: “Self Mutilation As An Attention Getter”, “War Toys”, “The Truth Hurts”, the topical, “Expo 86” and the poignant, “The Pigeon Song”.
In June 1987, my band, Aware (later Spent) opened for nomenasno and played “Salad Days” by Minor Threat, “Chutes and Ladders” by Rites of Spring and impressively, “Safe” by Dag Nasty, which we learned how to play from a cassette used to tape Dag Nasty’s show at The Rising Sun in Montreal when they opened for The Descendents 11 months earlier. Wig Out at Denko’s, the album featuring “Safe” wouldn’t be released until a month after Aware covered it. It would have seemed like an original to everyone who was at the Flamingo that night. We peppered our set with originals like “Gord’s Jazz Song”, Italian H.C. Song” and a song with a title used by many bands under pressure: “New One”. I’m even using the word originals loosely. We were extremely steeped in the Dischord label. We had a song we called “Dag Shag”.
In November, 1987, I was playing with Jay Ferguson in Kearney Lake Rd. We started out learning songs like “Choose Your Poison” by Squirrel Bait and “This Aint No Picnic” by The Minutemen. We were even covering covers. We did “Aint Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” by Van Halen (as done by The Minutemen), “Mr. Suit” by Wire (as done by Second Wind), “I Am the Walrus” by The Beatles (as done by Gray Matter).
In 1988, I rented a space that had hardcore gigs and one of the bands that played there was The Convulsions, which featured a young, Daniel Ash doppelgänger, Patrick Pentland. According to Patrick, they covered “I Just Want Some Skank” by the Circle Jerks, “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” by the Dead Kennedys, “In My Eyes”, “Straight Edge” and “Minor Threat” by Minor Threat. The Convulsions had a few originals - among them: “Anarchy for Peace”, “Don’t Wanna Be Mod”, “PMRC” and “Kill the K-Mart Clerk”, which is not to be confused with “Anarchy at Woolworths” by hometown hardcore heroes, System Overload.
Anyway, American hardcore punk spoke to Patrick and me in the mid to late 80’s. In 2013, Patrick and I convinced Jay and Andrew to record two original songs in the style of American hardcore and while we were at it record 12 more hardcore covers from the 80’s (and 1979, nerds!). The two originals originally came out as a 7” and the 12 covers were a digital add-on. This One’s An Original has all 14 songs in one collection with the covers appearing on vinyl for the first time. It was the ratio of 14 covers to 2 originals gave us the idea to call this collection, This One’s An Original.
This is a limited edition of 1200 copies, housed in a heavy-duty tip-on jacket with lyrics to both originals and an 80’s hardcore aesthetic applied to the jacket, inner sleeve and labels. The vinyl is clear like my straight and alert mind, man! I had a ball making the artwork. I solicited 80’s photos from Jay, Patrick and Andrew and frequented my local corner store to use their ancient, era-appropriate toner photocopier. I am psyched to have these songs all together on record.
Thanks to Patrick for sharing my love for this music and to Jay and Andrew for being game.
HFXNSHC,
Chris
