Can't Come Back - Double Album
Track Listing
- Get Out Of Your House
- Can't Come Back
- Don't Say It
- Out On The Frontier
- Working Girls
- Mystery To Myself
- (There's A) Formula (Demo)
- Love On Trial (Demo)
- Fickle Flame (Demo)
- Born Free (Live)
- (There's A) Formula (Live)
- Work Camps (Live)
- Working Girls (Demo)
- Mystery To Myself (Demo)
- Hacienda
- Goodnight Smilin' Buddha
Los Popularos Collection Arrives on Porterhouse
We've gone down the '80's Indie rabbit hole and returned with lost Canadian power-pop gems. Los Popularos was a short lived super group that featured a who's, who of the early 1980s Vancouver punk scene. The band recorded output on vinyl has long been out of print so we've created an sixteen song collection of their recorded works.
During the process of completely remastered and resurected the band's catalog we discovered eight unreleased songs that have never seen the light of day. We've paired that with a fifteen page E-booklet filled with never seen photos and stories from those glory days to round out the experience.
The double album release will be avilable to stream and purchase digitally world-wide through all the usual suspects. You can get the album in 256K/44.1 files here at our website.
Los Popularos no longer performs live.
Formed as Los Radicos Popularos in 1980 the "Los Pops" as they were affectionately known were a short lived and under-appreciated band. Starting from the ashes of Active Dog and led by vocalist Bill Shirt, the band was studded with punk rock all-stars from the local Vancouver scene. Keyboardist Gord Nicholl and bassist Tony Barbach hailed from Pointed Sticks (Stiff Records), while Art Bergmann and John "Buck Cherry" Armstrong had both been fronting their own three piece punk outfits the Young Canadians and Modernettes respectively. The line up was rounded out by former Dils drummer Zippy Pinhead (R.I.P.) who had previous stints in Rabid and the Stiffs.
Decidedly power-pop, and having more in common with UK bands like XTC and Squeeze, Los Popularos' sound differed from the more Byrds influenced American power pop sound of Big Star or the Nerves. For three years the band recorded and toured in an attempt to springboard to bigger opportunities, producing a 7" and a four song E.P. in the process.
With guitarist Art Bergmann leaving to form Poisoned and Buck Cherry leaving to reform the Modernettes, the band eventually evaporated and was relegated to forgotten status. But the fact is, though not commercially successful their songs were great and the 'Born Free' EP had enough whallop to land a commercial label deal at the time.
While the band is gone we felt these songs needed to be preserved and made available for music fans to appreciate. There are some truly unique and thoughtful moments in these recordings from some very talented musicians.