POST NO. 43: PROTO-PUNK, EH?

They could beat the crap outta Broken Social Scene. They're way cooler than Do Make Say Think. And their name doesn't roll off the tongue of every hipster as does The New Pornographers. They're self-billed as Canada's first proto-punk band -- obviously a distinction without much dispute. Ladies and gentleman, meet SIMPLY SAUCER!

I finally got around to ordering their posthumous album Cyborgs Revisited, reissued a couple years ago on Get Back. I was timid to say the least about ordering a record from a band from the mid-Seventies that goes by the name Simply Saucer, for obvious reasons. Plus, they had been written up on another blog whose whereabouts escape me now, and in that write up the blogger mentioned that numerous music press had deemed Cyborgs to be the best Canadian album ever recorded. Anytime I hear "best ever" I cringe, because I know that I tend to throw around those words from time to time when I don't know what in the hell I'm talking about; I'm just blindly in love with whatever I'm listening to at that moment (and probably haven't given said record much context).

But the write up on Anopheles mailorder again caught my eye, and this time I indulged myself. In addition to more praise, Anopheles described the songs on Cyborgs as "head-psych-jammers that butt forehead to forehead with Metal Machine Music." Certainly, not a description that one stumbles across every day. So I threw my $12 on the table and walked away with a Simply Saucer record.

I've listened to it the grand total of two-and-a-half times. I have yet to master it's domain, but so far I'm really digging the group's all-over-the-map tendencies. I can hear why these guys have been compared to the following bands: Pink Fairies, Stooges, VU, Hawkwind, and Can. They're spacey at times, too, employing analog electronics to fuck up the place.

What the esteemed listener gets with Simply Saucer is a mixed bag, a band that can sound sort of like Deep Purple one minute, and Pere Ubu the next. Since this album is just an unreleased recording session -- who knows if it was ever intended for release -- it's hard to say if this best represents what Simply Saucer was all about. (All these guys from Hamilton, Ontario ever officially released was a seven inch.) But I do know that it's quite easy to see why Simply Saucer is considered a band that was ahead of their time. Regardless of the fact that they fell into a crack for 15 years until this album was originally released in 1990 (and then promptly fell into another crack for more than a decade until its re-release), Simply Saucer is worth a bit of inspection.

"Nazi Apocalypse" is a really fucking cool song, even if it doesn't find the band at their strangest. You can imagine a young, impressionable Thurston Moore hearing this song in 1979 and having a light bulb click on above his head. And for contrast, I'll also run with "Bullet Proof Nothing," which lathers on the Lou Reed like cheap shaving cream. It's hard to believe that both songs come from the same album, let alone the same band.

Simply Saucer - "Nazi Apocalypse"

Simply Saucer - "Bullet Proof Nothing"

To read what others think of Simply Saucer, go here or here or here.