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Our Generation
Out to Get Light / Cool Summer - 7" Trans-World - 1967
Michael Panontin
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Right about the time that Montreal's Our Generation were enjoying their first quarter hour of fame, courtesy of their version of Muddy Waters' 'I'm a Man' on Barry, the recently arrived Louis McKelvey (from South Africa) was busy jamming with Les Sinners and co-producing the Haunted. But with Our Generation's roster becoming a bit of a revolving door, McKelvey and the Haunted's Bob Burgess decided to join the band, with McKelvey coming in late 1966 and Burgess early the next year. The pair grabbed the wheel it seems on the follow-up single, with bass player Burgess contributing the a-side 'Out to Get Light', and McKelvey penning 'Cool Summer' over on the flip side.
The Irish-born McKelvey brought with him a wealth of experience to the otherwise neophyte band, having spent much of the early sixties in British bands Jeff Curtis and the Flames and the Persuaders. But his schizophrenic 'Cool Summer' seems to have had one eye on the charts and the other on the clubs as it flits back and forth from flamed-out psychedelia to schmaltzy blue-eyed soul, all to little effect.
And at that point there wasn't much left in the band either, with McKelvey forming the soul-psych outfit the Influence (whose ABC LP was issued in January 1968), Burgess briefly rejoining the Haunted before taking flight across the pond to Britain, and original founder Tim Forsythe hooking up with Peter and the Pipers.
(Anoraks may want to take note that the lads scored part of the soundtrack to an NFB film, It's Not Jacques Cartier's Fault, which was to be screened at Expo 67 later that year. What's more, the National Film Board had the band in for a four-hour session, so it's probably time for the Feds to pony up the funding for some archival excavation, if you ask me.)
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