I just finished reading this book, written by Sam Sutherland. I resisted the urge to go straight to the Victoria chapter, and enjoyed the entire thing. Sutherland writes in a descriptive, easy, engaging style, and brings this history to life. It was obviously a labour of love, and I would imagine that trying to track many of these people down for interviews would have been one of the most frustrating things ever. He spans the country "from Victoria to St.John's", and has everyone from the manic early 80s thrash pioneers The Neos, to the melodic stylings of The Pointed Sticks, whose song "Perfect Youth" became the title of the book. This is all about the early years, in many places that you would have thought were so isolated that it's hard to imagine any culture outside of a redneck hillbilly one existing there. He captures the pathos and madness of the early scene, and you get a real feeling of the danger and excitement of trying to be "punk" back then.
My one complaint is that the Victoria chapter has no mention of Scott Henderson, Victoria recording god. Without him, many many local bands might never have recorded. In fact, Sutherland makes the statement that Victoria is an anomaly, in the fact that in most of the country, early bands either managed to record one single, or didn't even record at all, while Victoria is different. There is a lot of recorded material from back in the day. And I think much of that is owed to Mr.Henderson. At the end of September, we had the 30 years of recording in Victoria party for Scott, at Logan's, and The Neo's were recorded by him in 1982! It's more than a small oversight. But all in all, it's still a great book, capturing the era nicely. Give 'er a shot, eh.
