Filed a couple of discs down from the Shadows and a little closer to
the Residents than might be safe for small children, Toronto's
Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet do the instrumental guitar combo
thing in a somewhat different kitchen from Britain's
four-decades-young Fender twangers. The trio of Brian Connelly
(guitar), Don Pyle (drums) and Reid Diamond (bass) has been cranking
out cagey and catchy pieces of twisted reverb-splat invention with
delightfully lurid pop culture titles since 1985, although most of
the group's fame owes to its day job, making the soundtrack noises
for TV's Kids in the Hall. That zesty little mock-western piece that
runs under the show's credits is "Having An Average Weekend," a track
from the Shadowy Men's first single, compiled along with the contents
of four other self-released 7-inches on the chewy and delicious
Savvy Show Stoppers. The long-playing debut also contains a
brief and charming radio play (with music) by cartoonist Charles
Burns ("Big Baby"), a rare organ interlude (the apparently live but
you can never tell "You Spin Me Round '86") and "Run Chicken Run,"
hysterical scratchings in Link Wray's barnyard. The more organized
and slightly less daft Dim The Lights, Chill The Ham contains
"Exit From Vince Lombardi High School," "Ben Hur Picked Off In A
Gazebo" and "Who Painted Whistler's Mother." Incrementally more
diverse in its creative ambitions, the Steve Albini-engineered
Sport Fishin' boasts such catches as the pluckin'/chanted
"Fortune Tellin' Chicken," the economical "They Don't Call Them
Chihuahuas Anymore," the properly noirish "Spy School" and the
scrabbly funk of "We're Not A Fucking Surf Band."
Occasionally prone to interjecting exclamatory voices to chant a title like the second album's "5 American 6 Canadian" and not above whistling or putting silliness from bargain bin vinyl finds at the beginnings of numbers, Shadowy Men mix their music (mostly original, but with a cover here and there) around enough to defy easy pigeonholing: just when the salt air threatens to become a scenery fixture, they trot out something from an inland clime, or step on the gas for a decidedly non-retro spot of acceleration. Unfailingly enjoyable, gummily consistent and as atmospheric as two weeks in a submarine, Shadowy Men are truly the instrumental kings of the Great White North.
Or were. Don Pyle and Reid Diamond, joined by guitarist Dallas Good and Fifth Column bassist Beverly Breckenridge, subsequently formed Phono-Comb in collaboration with Jad Fair and released a debut album, Fresh Gasoline (Touch And Go), on its own in '96.
(entry written by Ira Robbins)
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