Toronto's Ugly Pop label digs the 60s

Lately it seems Simon Harvey has been on a time traveling adventure with his vinyl-only Ugly Pop label. What began with a strictly punk and/or hardcore mandate, befitting an operation that takes it's name from a Lip Cream tune, eventually moved from releasing singles by Rajoitus, Legion and Marilyn's Vitamins into putting out late 70s archival recordings by The Dream Dates. Then, earlier this year, Ugly Pop suddenly started pumping out look-alike repros of  overlooked Canuck seven-inch classics from Crash Kills Five (pre-Shadowy Men), Arson, Hot Nasties, The Spys and The Rock 'n' Roll Bitches – all welcome reissues but a surprising change in direction for a label that was launched with a contemporary hardcore tribute to Negative Approach. More intriguing still is the latest batch of Ugly Pop releases.

While continuing on a proudly Canadian theme, the three seven-inches by Vancouver's Northwest Company and Toronto's A Passing Fancy and Bent Wind step back a further generation into the 60s garage/psych era. Unlike all of Ugly Pop's previous reissues, the sleeves aren't exact reproductions and not strictly period perfect but the recordings are true to the original single couplings legitimately transferred from the original masters.

That means Vidar Skofteby's Hard To Cry crunches just like it does on Northwest Company's obscure Grenadier label double-sider and Jay Telfer's I'm Losing Tonight has that thrilling fuzz-guitar sting of A Passing Fancy's original Columbia debut seven which charted across the country in 1967 and actually reached Number 22 on the CHUM chart.

Although I would've preferred having Bent Wind's hard-pounding Touch Of Red on a seven-inch properly EQ'ed for dancefloor destruction, Ugly Pop's straight reissue of the group's insanely rare first Trend single Sacred Cows b/w Castles Made Of Man is a more desirable product in the collectors' market since it's even harder to find than Bent Wind's much sought-after Sussex album which Ugly Pop has slated for reissue later this year. Of course every knows that persnickety collector types don't take kindly to track substitutions of any sort – better tunes or not. 

And the 60s garage/psych hits keep on comin' from Ugly Pop. The next batch includes two Aussie scorchers, one from the legendary Masters Apprentices – the monstrous Undecided b/w Wars Or Hands Of Time –  and the other from their crosstown Adelaide rivals The In-Sect pairing I Can See My Love with a cover of the Yardbirds' Over Under Sideways Down.

Not every Toronto vinyl retailer has the good sense to stock Ugly Pop's limited-run 45s but you can momentarily find them at Vortex (2309 Yonge), Hits and Misses (799 Queen West) and Volume (588 Markham) in the heart of Mirvish Village. Mailorder enquiries can be sent via email to 45adapter@gmail.com

Hard To Cry by The Northwest Company



I'm Losing Tonight by A Passing Fancy



Sacred Cows by Bent Wind



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