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The Sedum Shadows
Thinking Away / Anatomy of a Shadow - 7"
Trend - 1969
Michael Panontin
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'Thinking Away' was the third release on Merv Buchanan's tiny Trend label, mostly known to the outside world for having issued Bent Wind's mega-rare Sussex LP. The group were fronted by a very young Ray Parker, whose organ grooves dominate both sides of the single. Rounding out the quartet were guitarist Ken Lavallete, bassist Bill Briggs and drummer Ian Waddell, all from the eastern fringes of Toronto's Scarborough area.
"I was pretty young when all this was going down," Parker told the Museum of Canadian Music's Robert Williston. "Ian and Ken were high school buddies living up the street from me, [and I] was friends with Merv Buchanan. Quality Records at the time was looking for a Canadian answer to Booker T, who had some major hits around that time."
In fact, Booker T and the MG's 'Time is Tight' was issued up here in Canada in April 1969, and it didn't take long for it to sear its way into the ears of Torontonians. The single spent a good ten weeks on CHUM-AM's top thirty charts, peaking at #6 for a couple of weeks in May, just about a month before the Sedum Shadows released their record.
Trend was a pretty bare-bones outfit, starting out with some used equipment from Eastern Sound and Hallmark Studios that, according to Buchanan, they were "only too happy to unload". But things changed considerably when Buchanan's friend, tech whiz Pete Traynor, helped stock the Trend studio with a cache of hand-built equipment. By the time the Sedum Shadows showed up to record, Trend boasted a Traynor stereo console originally built for the Toronto '67 festival as well as custom Traynor studio monitors and a stereo reverb system built, often after hours, at the Yorkville Sound factory.
Buchanan's original intention - ambitious in retrospect - was based on Barry Gordy's model, to work with artists throughout the entire process, from recording and production to manufacturing and distribution. And this single was no exception. "The Sedum Shadows record was recorded in my 'farmhouse studio' on Sheppard Ave, in West Hill," he recently told CM. "I shopped it around and finally made an agreement with Quality Records to manufacture and distribute it. I think around 2,000 copies were sold."
The Sedum Shadows were not long for this world. The group was hardly more than a stepping stone for Parker. He would join Trend labelmates Cargo soon after, lending his licks to their second, more rock-oriented LP, Simple Things, before leaving to study at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Calling Sedum Shadows a mere footnote would be putting it mildly.
"I think we ended up playing a total of three gigs," Parker said, "a wedding, a church function and a dance in Burnt River at the town hall."
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