UIC's long-awaited new studio album FM Hill captures the group at their raw rockin' best. |
Growing up during the 70s in the rural South Western Ontario town of Exeter, there wasn't much in the way of legal entertainment. Bored teens had to get their kicks where they could find them. For Fred Robinson and fellow UIC founding member Murray Heywood, that meant piling into Fred's '68 Chevelle Malibu 6-banger – outfitted with a tree-shaking Craig Powerplay stereo 8-track – and heading west on Highway 83 and then north on the Babylon Line to a place they called "FM hill."
Underneath the stars on FM hill, just about a mile from the Hay Swamp home of the mysterious Green Lady, the higher elevation meant that on a clear night they could pick up near by Detroit radio stations blasting The Stooges, The MC5 and Alice Cooper. The rush that Fred and his younger brother Dave Robinson had hearing that explosive Motor City music for the first time is what they were after on their long overdue new album, FM Hill.
Of course, with anytime a band returns to the studio after a lengthy hiatus, there are naturally going to be questions, number one being, "have they still got it?" Anyone who saw UIC's opening spots for L.A. punk legends X in 2017, and that amped-up show with a horn section celebrating the 50th anniversary of Kick Out The Jams with The MC5's Wayne Kramer at the Danforth Music Hall in 2018, should have reason to be optimistic. See for yourself – here's a clip from UIC's performance of the title track from FM Hill below.With rhythm guitarist Ted Triebnor living in Saskatchewan and unable to rehearse, Dave Dysart from their old Og Music labelmates Supreme Bagg Team was deputized and proved to be a worthy replacement. Dysart also lent his production skills to the task of remixing the cassette-quality tape that UIC recorded in 1988 with former Blue Rodeo keyboardist Bob Wiseman into what became the unanticipated 2016 delight of The Wiseman Sessions album.
Even though Oshawa had been a UIC stronghold, headlining the Mike Star Tribute at the jam-packed Royal Canadian Legion on April 2, 2016 wouldn't be a cakewalk. UIC would have to follow a rousing set from Peter Zaremba's Rock Delegation featuring The Fleshtones' Keith Streng and the Purple Toads' Rob Sweeney and member of his band Crummy Stuff. But any lingering doubts about the current state of UIC were quickly quashed when the group's rubber-legged frontman Dave Robinson came strutting onto stage and hyperactively bounced his way through songs from their 1986 debut album Our Garage (Fringe Product) much like he did 30 years earlier. A few more gems from their whumpin' 1988 classic Live / Like Ninety (Og Music) left the well-lubed crowd hollering for more which they kindly obliged by roaring through The Stooges' "No Fun" and The Ramones' "Rockaway Beach."The "Mystery Train" story for UIC began sometime in 1988 when Fred Robinson was approached by Richard Carstens, then singer/guitarist of Toronto rock 'n' roll trio The Wammee, with a tape of a song he'd written and demoed acoustically which he thought was right for UIC. Sadly, Carstens passed away in 2014 at the age of 53 but Robinson well remembers the day Richard dropped by with a cassette in hand.
"Back in 1987/88 we had a band house in Toronto at 13 Grenadier," remembers Robinson. "Lonnie James was living there and was playing with The Wammie. Richard (Carstens) was also with Wammie and would stop over on occasion. He presented a cassette with an acoustic version of this song and asked if we would take a crack at learning it. We loved the song and rocked it up with a key change and restructuring. Richard wrote many great songs." Watch a clip of The Wammee playing "Mystery Train" right here.
The new studio version of "Mystery Train" sounds like nothing other than primo UIC with a sound and structure more in line with The Haunted's Montreal garage classic "1-2-5" than anything to come out of Seattle. Loyal UIC supporters will be relieved to know that the group have remained true to their rock 'n' roll roots on FM Hill.Like UIC at their top-dollar best on stage, the fat-free 10 track album is a straight up ripper from start to finish. In fact, FM Hill is probably the closest they've ever come to capturing that sweaty UIC small club experience in a studio setting. You'll hear it when FM Hill is released digitally on UIC's own Like Ninety Records via Warner Music Canada on Friday (October 23) followed by a vinyl release Friday, October 30 wherever rock 'n' roll records are still sold.
UIC hosts a release partty for FM Hill at Toronto's venerable Horseshoe Tavern on Saturday, November 21 at 8:30 pm – get tickets right here. In the meantime, watch UIC perform "Mystery Train" at The Horseshoe back in 2017 followed by "Superstar" off the new album below.
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