The chronicle of 54·40
begins in 1978, when a teen-aged Neil Osborne
walked into a Grade 11 Social Studies class at
South Delta High in Tsawassen, British Colurnbia
and caught the attention of student Brad
Merritt.
Music meant everything to both of them, and
bound together by this force, they began a
lasting creative partnership.
At
the time, neither could have predicted that
their basement sessions would lead to the
forming of one of Canada's most popular and
well-respected rock groups.
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Once he finished high school,
Neil was accepted by the
prestigious Berklee School of
Music in Boston, while Brad,
influenced by The Sex Pistols,
the Clash and Vancouver's
many great punk rock groups,
decided to go the D.I.Y. route
and get a band together. He soon
convinced Neil to leave college
and return to the West Coast,
where Neil quickly got the bug
and checked himself into the
city's underground music scene.
While Brad continued learning
the bass at Punk Rock U., Neil
was actually first to start a
band. He gathered some local
musicians together, including
his brother David, calling
themselves The Loud Rangers.
Nothing happened. There was no
gig to play (except an impromptu
outdoors show at Brad's family
business, an aluminum recycling
plant. 12 people showed up,
all friends or family of the
band.)
There didn't seem to be any way
for these suburban outsiders to
break into the ranks of real,
scene-making, big city punk
bands. Discouraged, but not
ready to give up, Neil joined
Brad on a trip to England to see
their idols in action, checking
out the powerful, rhythmic music
that evolved from the roots of
punk and was being played by
bands like Gang of Four
and Joy Division. |
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Above: Photos of Neil (right) and
Brad (left) from "Since When" tour
When they returned to
Vancouver, one of Neil's
Loud Rangers
collaborators introduced
them to drummer lan
Franey, and after a
few jam sessions, they
decided they were a
band.
They named themselves
54•40
Brad, a history buff,
cribbed the bands name
from US president, James
Polk's campaign slogan,
"54•40 or Fight!".
This was the rallying
cry of
Manifest Destiny,
a U.S. movement
dedicated to moving the
Canadian-American border
up to the 54th parallel,
40th minute, then the
southernmost tip of
Russia (Alaska).
Right from the start,
the young members of
54•40 were aggressively
idealistic, driving
their musical and
political points home
with internal debate and
discussion, planning
heavily for the bands
future.
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They made their debut performance on
New Year's Eve 1981 at the Smilin'
Buddha Cabaret, the birthplace of
Vancouver punk rock.
They got the gig by default, as no other
band wanted to go head-to-head against a
big show by legendary local punks
D.O.A. on the same night.
(Read a review about D.O.A.
HERE).
Admission to the Buddha was $5
(which included a roast beef
dinner!), and a hundred people
showed up. 54•40 was thrilled to
make $100 for the night! It didn't
take long for the band to come to
the attention of other musicians,
who were checking out Neil's
idiosyncratic guitar playing, and
his reputation grew as an angry and
sometimes confrontational front-man.
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Later in 1981, at Gary Taylor's Rock Room
in Vancouver, they caught the eye of local
musician/idealist Allen Moy. At that
time. Allen was singing in a band called
Popular Front and had formed a nonprofit
society/record label called Mo=Da=Mu, a
collective of local musicians that produced and
distributed its own members' recordings. He
introduced 54•40 to the rest of the collective,
and soon the band were getting their material
recorded and pressed.
In September of 1981, four songs were
completed and included on a Mo=Da=Mu compilation
album, "Things Are Still Coming Ashore".
54•40 had gone public, and Neil and Brad knew
that they wanted more opportunities to have
their music heard.
The 54•40 manifesto of the time read:
"....this group is totally concerned with making
music of integrity and spirit."
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In 1983, 54·40 decided to record a
full-length release and asked Allen
Moy to be the producer.
By this time,
Phil CompareIli (pictured
above) had joined the band as a
second guitarist, trumpet player,
and keyboardist and Darryl
Neudorf had replaced Franey on
drums.
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The new band entered Mushroom
Studios in April to record
the album,
Set The Fire, which was
to be their final release on the
Mo=Da=Mu label. The label
quickly found that there was a
far greater demand for 54·40
product than anything else they
were releasing, so Moy and
partner Keith Porteous
became 54•40's managers, driving
the new record with their
promotional abilities.
Soon after its January 1984
release, the record did
indeed start fires burning,
especially in San Francisco
and L.A., where it was
topping college radio charts
and creating a serious stir
in the local press. On an
ensuing tour, the band was
halfway to a gig in Los
Angeles, when manager
Porteous called and said
that CBS Records had heard a
song on a Seattle commercial
alternative radio station's
compilation cassette and was
interested in meeting with
them. This was the bands
first exposure to a major
American record label, but
it would be only the first
of many.
At some point in 1984, 54•40
arrived at the realization
that they could not continue
to make their own music and
be their own record label
while maintaining a high
standard of quality at both
tasks. The band wasn't
necessarily chasing a major
record label deal, but they
weren't about to reject one
out of hand. The much more
conservative Canadian music
establishment was still
apathetic towards the
group's forward-looking
musical approach, but the
buzz on the band was
increasing exponentially in
the US, to the point where
two A&R reps from Warner
Brothers, Kevin Laffey and
Felix Chamberlain, were
turned away from a
completely soldout 54•40
show at Club Lingerie in
L.A.
This was a turning point;
the two reps were determined
to sign this Canadian band
that was so popular they
couldn't even get into the
club!
On subsequent trips to
Vancouver, Laffey and
Chamberlain became more and
more convinced of 54•40's
potential. The live show was
mesmerizing; tight,
polished, but with plenty of
surprises provided by Nell
Osborne's mercurial stage
persona.
During this tumultuous time
the band's lineup changed
and Vancouverite Matt
Johnson replaced Darryl
Neudorf on drums.
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Sometimes songs would get dragged
out to 10 minutes or more while
Compareilli and Osborne traded
improvised parts on trumpet and
guitar over the rhythm sections
huge, economical grooves. Sometimes
Nell would simply walk away, or lie
down on the stage, letting his
bandmates take the music wherever
they felt like, for as long as they
wanted to. Many of these spontaneous
jams gave birth to new songs, and
the band had been using every penny
they could scrape together to go
into
Mushroom Studios
in Vancouver
with long time
live sound engineer Dave Ogilvie to
record an album's worth of this new
material.
The results were amazing, but the
album needed a home. The tape of
this new material sealed the deal
with Warner Brothers, and after
several months, and a new mix of the
album by noted L.A. engineer Dave
Jerden,
The Green Album
was
released early 1986.
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