The 1981 Listening Post - Doug and the Slugs - Wrap It!

 Doug and the Slugs - Wrap It!

#589

1981 Housekeeping

Doug and the Slugs

Wrap It!

Genre: Canada’s second best national treasure

4.25 out of 5

Highlights:

Dangerous

Real Enough

Not on the Corner

Wrong Kind of Right

I’ve told the story before.

Me. Walking around the streets of NYC. 

Wander into a thrift store.

They have records. 

I buy Red Snerts and a record by a band called Doug and the Slugs.

This is that one. I haven’t heard it in 30 years so Imma take it for myself.

That opener…what a beast. Slow it down and it’s maybe not as great, but John Watsons incessant bass drum is killer. It announces they are a party band that is here to rock your socks off. How was this not a hit? 

They follow it up with a 50s Doo-Wop fake out. It’s a trash can hit that immediately flips into ska. “Real Enough” is one of the best tracks of the year. 

And that was it. For some idiotic reason I listened to those two tracks and probably had to run to dinner and never got back to it. I mean, I put those two on every mix tape for a couple years and bopped to it in my family’s van driving around New Jersey but the rest of it? Somehow I didn’t get to it. 

How’s the rest?

“Not on the Corner” is a blazing pub rocker. 

“Wrong Kind of Right”…is it a Christmas tune? A novelty track? A great track? Definitely the last part. It just sounds like a Christmas song cuz of the bells and that Jew’s Harp gives it that novelty feels bit…it’s just a good song. It’s the forebear of a Barenaked Ladies kinda tune.

All of Side One is worth your time all the way to the rocking’ spy tune “Freshman Alibi”.

Let’s flip this bitch over for the first time.

This is a party record. “Forget About Me”, “Embarrassed”, these are basement party tunes. It’s ends with “River”, the make-out song. This record is supposed to be a party. A kegger. For that, it’s a keeper. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rkVfSi2QPY

The 1980 Listening Post - Doug and the Slugs - Cognac and Bologna

Doug and the Slugs - Cognac and Bologna

#69

1980 Housekeeping

Doug and the Slugs

Cognac and Bologna

Genre: New Wave & B

4.75 out of 5

Highlights:

To Be Laughing

Just Another Case

Too Bad

Stay With Me

Thunder Makes the Noise

My connection:

I had no idea that the theme song to The Norm Show was “Too Bad” from this record.

It was on my way to an audition FOR the Norm Show that I was pulling in to the Warner Bros gate when the pickup track in front of me backed up into my Miata. 

I leaped out of the car and started yelling at the drive. 

“Throttle Back, Sparky. It’s all good.”

There was no damage.

The audition was cancelled. As was the show. 

Driving home I ran the event over in my head.

“Throttle Back, Sparky”. 

Holy shit. THAT’S a great band name!!!

I told the band at that night’s rehearsal in Silver Lake.

They agreed. And that’s just one connection to Doug and the Slugs.

I’m about 16 years old and my parents are doing business in mid-town. Maybe they were selling stuff at a street fair, as that was a large source of our income. I strolled across town and came upon a strange brick a brick store. It was sparsely stocked and it was mostly vintage clothes. And, along the wall of windows was a record bin. 

Digging through I picked up two records that would feature on many many cassettes.

The first was a compilation of midwest music from Gulcher Records called Red Snerts. I loved this lo-fi sampling of a rag tag collection of wannabe rockers. It’s been written about all over the wayback machine. Maybe one day we’ll cover it. 

The other was by Doug and the Slugs. 

I bought it for the name. 

A couple tracks on that album, Wrap It…perfection.

I thought it was their debut. 

Wrong. 

This was. 

A Canadian band with a wicked tight rhythm section and and equally spectacular sense of humor. 

I didn’t know they were from Canada. 

Until I was up there for a job and thumbing through a copy of the Georgia Straight on my day off, looking for something to do and, what? Doug & the Slugs are playing?!?!

I couldn’t get to the show. Doug Bennett died two years later. 

I missed my chance.

This is stellar New Wave that strides the razor of R&B and Rock. With a ton of space between all the notes, they really show us what it’s like to be a party band in the New Wave era, complete with Friendly humor and musical chops. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/cognac-and-bologna/445665737