Side Projects #2 – Why Pay More?

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In April 1986 PnrH and dWM wrapped up their weekly Building Balanced Children radio show on the Toronto community radio station CKLN-FM. dWM promptly started a new weekly radio show; the groundbreaking culture-jamming Why Pay More? The premise of Why Pay More? was to create a meta-radio show by sampling bits of all the previous weeks’ shows broadcast on CKLN, and then slicing, dicing, processing and regurgitating the content into a weekly 30 minutes of radiophonic mayhem. The show lasted until September of 1986. Check out the Best of Why Pay More? compilation:

Best of Why Pay More? Side A

Best of Why Pay More? Side B

Side Projects #1 – Building Balanced Children

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In January 1986 PhrH and dWM began a weekly radio show on CKLN-FM, a Toronto community station. The show was called Building Balanced Children and the premise of the show was to perform a live improvised mixdown using 100% sampled material. They used turntables, tape loops, digital delays and the first affordable digital sampler – the Ensoniq Mirage.

They performed the  Building Balanced Children show under the name Security Operations Consultants, which they would also use for a live performance in the fall of 1986.

The  Building Balanced Children show lasted until April 1986, and during its run  produced some of the most extreme music being broadcast on the Toronto air waves at the time. Hear for yourself – here’s both sides of the BBC compilation tape that was released.

 Best of BBC Side A

Best of BBC Side B

The orginal artwork for the Best of BBC cassette tape

Cassette Culture #3 – A Collection

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After the move to Toronto, in 1985 SCW released the compilation cassette tape “A Collection”. This consisted of greatest hits from the first two tapes and selected recordings from their live shows. We won’t post any audio here because it’s  documented in previous posts.

“A Collection” cassette tape cover – folded out

The Move to Toronto

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Between 1985-1986 the members of SCW finished their studies at the University of Waterloo and headed to the big city. PnrH and dWM were the first to leave, followed later by Roba and Jeff-o. PhrH and dWM embarked on a series of side projects, and SCW played a few one-off gigs, but no new SCW material was recorded during this time. Jeff-o, PnrH and dWM ended up living in a house together in a seedy part of downtown Toronto, but practice/recording space was limited to a tiny section of the slug-infested basement. By this time SCW had sold off all their analog synths and drum machines and were starting to use ‘real’ instruments (drums, guitar, bass, sax etc.) and were also experimenting with some of the new digital technology that was becoming affordable.

Cassette Culture #2 – Model 152 Blow Gun

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SCW’s second release on cassette came out in mid-1985 and was a mixture of new material and live recordings from the Sweet Children of the West show in April that year. The new material continued in the same disco-funk-industrial post-punk style of the first cassette, with added horns in some tunes. This release marked the end of SCW’s use of analogue synths, drum machines and tapes – all future work was done using either ‘real’ instruments played live or digital samplers and effects.

“Model 152 Blow Gun” cassette tape cover – folded out

In the First Days…

Bass, tapes and drum machine…

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