Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet

Oh I Guess We Were A Fucking Surf Band After All...

YepRoc Records LP YEP 2466 2016 4X12" 33rpm (USA)

Out of print forever, Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet’s three albums have been meticulously remastered for circulation in a beautifully designed new box set (out on Record Store Day via Yep Roc) called Oh, I Guess We Were A Fucking Surf Band After All...

This means that the beloved instrumental band’s monumental display of punk-infused musical proficiency, hilarity, irreverence and sheer joy can finally be experienced by fans who might not have any idea how impactful they truly were.

Packaged with a bonus slab of rarities, b-sides and treats, the box also contains liner notes that contextualize their history and influence. A particular section about 1991’s Dim The Lights, Chill The Ham caught my attention. While their 1988 debut, Savvy Show Stoppers, was a compilation of singles, Dim The Lights was their first proper album, capturing a concentrated blast of unreleased material.

The widely acclaimed and relatively popular Toronto trio of guitarist Brian Connelly, drummer Don Pyle and bassist Reid Diamond could be heard during every episode of The Kids In The Hall sketch comedy show. The two camps were close and relied on one another’s creative spark. “Sometimes their music was better than our comedy,” Kevin McDonald says in the updated liners for 1993’s Sport Fishin’: The Lure Of The Bait, The Luck Of The Hook.

For those in the know, Shadowy Men occupied an important place in pop culture and had weird brushes with greatness. KITH producer and Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels was wary of having them score the KITH show, once describing their sound as “cheap porno music.”

But not everyone felt this way. Take Rush, who crossed paths with Shadowy Men at Toronto’s Reaction Studios, where the latter were working on Dim The Lights.

“Not long after, Rush released the song Chain Lightning, bearing an uncanny resemblance to some S Men ‘licks,’” Ted Bogues writes in the album’s fresh liner notes. “Borrowers borrowing from borrowers. S Men refused to wear the kimonos Rush offered in trade. All that dough and they still buy polyester. Ugh.”

It’s true: Rush’s Chain Lighting and the Shadowy Men songs Our Weapons Are Useless and Zombie Compromise have staggering similarities. It’s weirdly heartening that a band as big and idiosyncratic as Rush might feel compelled to pay homage to (or rip off, sure) Shadowy Men.

That’s how great they were during their original 1984-1994 run and how wonderful they’ve been since reconstituting in 2013 with the Sadies’ Dallas Good on bass in place of Diamond, who passed away in 2001.

In another liner-note testimonial, Constantines’ Bry Webb writes that hearing the band, as a teenager, was “the first time I understood coolness to be connected with uniqueness, cleverness and independence. It’s music that is as disarmingly fun to listen to as it is deliberate and artful.”

Tracklist 
 Disc 1: Savvy Show Stoppers 
A1 Good Cop Bad Cop  
A2 Musical Interlude  
A3 Theme From T.V.  
A4 Zombie Compromise  
A5 Malfunction Written-By – Joe Dundrell  
A6 Shake Some Evil  
A7 You Spin Me Round '86 [Live]  
A8 Run Chicken RunWritten-By – Wray, Cooper  
A9 Weird Beards  
B1 Bennett Cerf  
B2 Egypt Texas  
B3 Customized  
B4 Our Weapons Are Useless  
B5 Shadowy Countdown  
B6 Harlem By The SeaWritten-By – Hagan 
B7 Having An Average Weekend  
B8 Boogie In GWritten-By – Bruce Shavers, Reid Diamond   
 Disc 2: Dim The Lights, Chill The Ham 
C1 Dim The Lights, Chill The Ham  
C2 Reid's Situation  
C3 I Know A Guy Named LarryWritten-By – Brian Connelly, Dallas Good, Don Pyle, Louis Prima  
C4 Exit From Vince Lombardi High School  
C5 Aunt's Invasion  
C6 Running Meredith  
C7 Bang Bang [Live]Written-By – Sonny Bono  
C8 Hot Box Car  
C9 In My Room  
C10 Dewy Drops Of Spring  
C11 5 American 6 Canadian  
C12 Who Painted Whistler's Mother  
C13 Case Of The Missing Lady Fingers  
C14 Jackpot  
D1 D. Tour  
D2 Hunter S. Thompson's Younger Brother  
D3 Misogomy & The Object  
D4 Ben Hur Picked Off In A Gazebo  
D5 Who's Afraid Of Alison Hymer / Wow Flutter Hiss  
D6 You Spin Me Round '86  
D7 Babakganoosh  
D8 Siesta Cinema  
D9 Dim The Lights, Chill The Ham (Reprise)  
D10 Vinyl  
D11 Shakin' All Over  
 Disc 3: Sport Fishin' - The Lure Of The Bait, The Luck Of The Hook  E1 Unwatchable
E2 Spend A Night, Not A Fortune  
E3 Three Piece Suit  
E4 Fortune Tellin' Chicken  
E5 (Relax) You Will Think You're A Chicken  
E6 Plastics For 500, Bob  
E7 That Wuz Ear Me Callin' A Horse  
E8 The Singing Cowboy  
E9 Farbs  
E10 Spy School Graduation Theme  
E11 Cheese In The Fridge  
E12 Autumn Leaves  
F1 Unwatchable  
F2 Haig, Earl  
F3 Algoma Reflections  
F4 We're Not A Fucking Surf Band  
F5 Peas Porridge Rock  
F6 Honey, You're Wasting Ammo  
F7 They Don't Call Them Chihuahuas Anymore  
F8 Off Our Back Conrad Black  
F9 We'll Be Right Back!  
F10 What I Like About Grease  
F11 Memories Of Gay Paree  
F12 Babywetsitself ™  
F13 Shakin' All Over [2nd Version - Live]Written-By – Johnny Kidd 
F14 Sport Fishin'  
 Disc 4: Soft Polished Separates 
G1 Big Saxophone Lie  
G2 The Alouette (She Was Canada's First Satellite, Way Before The Americans Even)  
G3 Summer WindWritten-By – Heinz Meier, Johnny Mercer  
G4 Tired Of Waking Up TiredWritten-By – John Catto  
G5 LickWritten-By – Brian Connelly, Dallas Good, Don PyleWritten-By, Performer – Fred Schneider  
G6 Winterfresh  
G7 Rover & Rusty  
G8 Big Baby Written-By – Brian Connelly, Dallas Good, Don Pyle Written-By, Performer – Charles Burns 
G9 Santa's Compromise  
G10 Deck The Halls  
G11 Having An Average Weekend '78  
H1 The Last Of My Hiccups  
H2 Sugar In My HogWritten-By – Brian Connelly, Dallas Good, Don PyleWritten-By, Performer – Fred Schneider  
H3 Customized (Sax Tape)  
H4 PopcornWritten-By – Gershon Kingsley  
H5 MistyWritten-By – Erroll Garner, Johnny Burke  
H6 The Jehrney [Bass Taste]  
H7 Song Of The Lobster  
H8 Foreign / Aft  
H9 Underground Sounds  
H10 16 Encores [Medley]  
H11 Tape  

Phonographic Copyright (p) – Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet
Copyright (c) – Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet
Licensed To – Yep Roc Records
Manufactured By – Redeye
Distributed By – Redeye
Published By – Riff City Sounds
Published By – Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet

Graphics [Graphic Production] – Derek von Essen
Written-By – Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet (tracks: Except where noted)

4 LP box set released for Record Store Day 2016, 750 copies.
Containing the 3 original albums in luxurious gatefold sleeves with expanded artwork and liner notes.
Remastered from Original tapes.
Plus a new bonus LP compiling rarities, throwaways and unreleased tracks.
(Disc 4, Soft Polished Separates.)

Tracks A9, B8, D10, D11, E12, F13, F14 & H11 are unlisted, titles taken from band website except for H11.

Condition:  4 LPs in a box is new and sealed

A Note About Shipping To The U.S.
We are located in Canada, but have registered ourselves on eBay.com instead of eBay.ca because it gives us significantly better global exposure.  The problem with this is that eBay wants us to charge shipping appropriate to US, where media mail and other options make for fairly reasonable delivery costs. We tried it for a while but ended up losing money on shipping or having to cancel the orders because we couldn't afford to ship for those rates. To manage this we have set the US shipping to run a calculator based on an American location (we chose Plattsburgh as fairly close) and charging according to UPS pricing.  This avoids the cancellation issue, but appears to the buyer to be a prohibitive shipping cost and misrepresents the shipping as being only expedited. If you give us your postal code we will see if we can offer a more reasonable option, but generally we can get a single LP by air to most places in the continental US for $11, a few bucks less for ground.
Thanks for shopping Sir Helmitt,
Jeff Green, e-sales

Powered by
The free listing tool. List your items fast and easy and manage your active items.