“In which Jello Biafra hooks up with Vancouver’s own DOA to deliver a surprisingly faithful cover of one of the essential Rock Anthems (speaking of Eric Burdon). Maybe the essential rock anthem. I think I heard Bruce Springsteen say that once. This situation’s killing me. Might be school, might be a job, might be prison, a bad relationship, your family, your own asshole. Doesn’t matter where you are, there’s only one way to go, and that’s OUT. With a vengeance.” (Philip Random)
Sweeny Todd were mostly a Vancouver thing, though they did have one big deal hit. But then singer Nick Gilder split, leaving a gap in the lineup for an androgynous glam male voice. Enter local teenager Bryan Guy Adams, but only for one album, because then he also split, cutting his hair and dropping the middle part of his name (and all of the glam), bound as he was for Bruce Springsteen lite world domination. Which is a pity, because If Wishes Were Horses (the song and the album) had some genuine pixie dust in its veins, and there’s nothing wrong with pixies.
Curious George were one of many solid (if messy) punk-hardcore-whatever bands slamming around Vancouver in those curious years of perpetual struggle (otherwise known as the 1980s), their cover of this rather tired Pink Floyd original driving home the point that it’s seldom the song that’s wrong, only the performance. There is nothing wrong with this performance.
Count the Ids among the very many solid outfits that got signed to record deals in the confusing wake of the grunge thing of the early 90s … but then not much happened. We only heard one album from them, and it was a good one, but for whatever reason, the world wasn’t up to taking notice. Maybe The Man wasn’t amused with their smartass point of view. “F*** the system, eat the machine, make them pay for my room and board.”
As the album cover put it, “Never retract, never retreat, get the thing done and let them howl.” Such is Tao. As for Sons of Freedom, we’re still waiting for their proper reckoning as one of the great ROCK bands of the 1980s, particularly on that first album.
Randophonic 
