POINTED STICKS (Canada)

DEMO BOOTLEG
-1980



Re-Up



"a west coast phenomenon that burned white hot during their short career from 1978-1981. Coming out of Vancouver, Canada, the Sticks created a unique legacy with their pop/rock/punk sound." - Sudden Death Records


"Although Vancouver's scene in the late '70s and early '80s was dominated by first-wave hardcore acts like D.O.A. and the Subhumans, the West Coast city's breakout new wave act was the altogether poppier Pointed Sticks." - Stewart Mason


"Canadian bands with few exceptions have the odds of achieving success overseas stacked against them and little has changed in the almost 30 years since the Pointed Sticks were in their heyday. For them that lucky break, despite a golden opportunity, would prove even more illusive than even they could have anticipated...

Formed in the summer of 1978, when singer and principal songwriter Nick Jones returned to Vancouver from London, England that is rather than Ontario, where he’d been working in a record store, it’s clear that Jones had been paying attention to what had been going on around him.

Conjuring a winning formula of punk’s energy and no small amount of pop sensibility, the band churned out three cracking singles between 1978 and 1979. Sounding quintessentially English – the band even took their name from a Monty Python sketch! – the band should have gone down a storm in the UK. Stiff Records, one of the great record labels thought so as well, signing the band and releasing the Brinsley Schwartz-produced single ‘Out Of Luck’ backed with ‘What Do You Want Me To Do?’ and ‘Somebody’s Girl’ in 1979." - Geraint Jones




"The Pointed Sticks seemed to have a good thing going at the dawn of the ’80s. They sold out of a combined 11,000 copies of their first three seven-inch singles, they drew more than 1,000 people to the Commodore Ballroom in their hometown of Vancouver and had a solid live following across Canada and down the U.S. west coast, and they were the first Canadian band signed to England’s infamous Stiff Records label.

But things quickly unravelled for the hard-luck power-pop group. Stiff never released their album. Their Canadian label, Quintessence, didn’t pay the pressing company for the manufacturing of their re-recorded debut LP, and 5,000 of the 10,000 copies ended up being destroyed. Not surprisingly, low morale and uncertainty led to the band calling it quits in June 1981." - Steve McLean

"Several attempts to bootleg the band's material were made during the '80's..." - hushreality.com


Pointed Sticks Line-up:

Nick Jones (vocals)
Bill Napier-Hemy (guitar)
Gord Nicoll (keyboards)
Tony Bardach (bass)
Ken "Dimwit" Montgomery (drums)
Scott Watson (bass; replaced Bardach)
John Farano (sax)


Tracklist:
01 - The Real Thing
02 - Marching Song
03 - True Love
04 - All That Matters
05 - All My Clocks Stopped
06 - Nothing Else To Do
07 - Careless
08 - All I Could Take
09 - Part of the Noise
10 - How Could You
11 - Middle Aged Teenagers
12 - Worse
13 - Love or Money
14 - American Song
15 - New Ways
16 - Apologies


Download (192 kbs, 52 Mb)