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Gordie Uranus and the Universe
Fear of the Night / It's Only Urgent - 7"
Seed - 1979
Michael Panontin
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As further evidence that the dustbin of rock is indeed a bottomless pit, there is this potent little double-sider from Gordie Uranus and the Universe. The band was from Ottawa, a relatively punk-friendly city at the time that spawned the likes of the Red Squares, the Bureaucrats and, later on, Porcelain Forehead, and they issued these tracks towards the end of the seventies. Both songs pack a soul/punk wallop, especially 'It's Only Urgent' with its brawny horns and hard-hitting guitar.
Uranus and Company struggled to be anything more than a local concern during their brief existence. But they definitely proved Andy Warhol right, netting their own 15 minutes' worth on April 10, 1980 when none other than John Peel gave the disc a spin on his BBC Radio One show. To wit, "From Toronto [sic], Canada - or Can-ar-da as I expect they call it on Radio 4 - that's Gordie Uranus, a disease normally associated with baboons and rarely afflicting humans and it's called 'Fear of the Night'." Alas, the band went nowhere, though Uranus would play briefly with Paul Fenton (of the Action) in his more traditional rock outfit Number One, and eventually release his own solo 4-song 12" called South Beach in 1985. More recently Uranus has been seen plying the pub circuit around Ottawa and environs with oldies and classic rock, though whether the beer swillers remember either of these tracks is anyone's guess.
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