Canadian psych/garage

[becca]

I've spent the last couple of years investigating often obscure second half of the '60s Canadian rock recordings. There sure was a lot happening back then! I have really enjoyed some and been disappointed by others, and some groups still remain elusive to even find a sample to listen to. The book Before The Gold Rush was my main guide along with different record collector pals.

Love:
Mashamakan
The Collectors (later Chilliwack)
The Northwest Company
The Hawks (with Ronnie or Levi)
The Expressions/Guess Who
(The) Sparrow (later Steppenwolf)

Disappointed by:
The Paupers
Seeds Of Time (later Prism)
The Haunted

Haven't found yet:
Mandala
49th Parallel
Winter('s) Green
The Shays

Honorable mentions:
The Peace Folk Singers (odd)
Bobby Taylor And The Vancouvers (great vocals, r&b)
Lighthouse
Blood, Sweat & Tears (love that David Clayton-Thomas)

Where to next?

[BklynBlue]

very cool line of inquiry -
I think it is great looking over our shoulders, so to speak, to see where we have come from -
I thought I would do a little research, see if there were any recordings I could recommend and I came up blank -
I found compilations of (usually of bands from the sixties)of Swedish Beat, groups from the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand but I did not see anything for Canadian bands - maybe you and your friends should look into liscening some of this stuff and putting out your own Canadian version of "Nuggets". Seriously.

P.S. - you were joking about claiming "Blood, Sweat and Tears" for Canada, right? The two founding members were from Brooklyn, two others were from New York City, one was from Troy, New York (upstate - as close to Canada as any of them got), one from Philadelphia and the drummer was from Texas.
It was Al Kooper's baby (so what if they kicked him out after one album? ) so they were a Brooklyn band.

[becca]

David Clayton-Thomas joined B,S&T, after their first album I think, and was with The Shays before. I could be wrong about him being Canadian but he certainly was a big name for awhile in Canada as part of The Shays. His big B,S&Ts number was Spinning Wheel.

Did you know that funk singer Rick James was in a group with Neil Young in Toronto in the late '60s (before Buffalo Springfield). The group was called The Myna Birds and was signed to and recorded an album for motown. But... James had to turn himself in as a U.S. citizen for draft evasion and so the album was never released, and Motown has since said they don't know what happened to the recordings!

Ther're lots of other Canadian groups I should have at least mentioned in the honourable mention list, like Five Man Electrical band (formerly The Staccatos), The Ugly Ducklings (like The Stooges and Rolling Stones combined sort of), Crowbar, Mainline and Motherload.

I'm sure Australia/NZ as well as Sweden must've had a really interesting scene in the '60s. The Canadian groups had the benefit of opening for better known U.S. acts in starting out.