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Troyka
Troyka
Cotillion - 1970
Michael Panontin
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Troyka's discography is rather slim - just one LP and a single - but the group actually trace their origins back to the mid sixties and a band called the Royal Family. The quartet issued a couple of singles on Apex before setting their sights eastward, in this case to Montreal, which was then still the biggest city in Canada.
"In Fall of 1966, we decided we would have to leave Edmonton and go back east if we were going to hit the big time," Michael Richards explained on Troyka's website. "We had our eye on getting a major US label deal. We played at Expo '67 at the Garden of Stars venue [and] we spent considerable time in New York."
Unfortunately, as is often the case, things don't always go as planned. After losing their drummer to personal family issues, the three remaining members - Richards along with guitarist Rob Edwards and bassist Ron Lukawitski - decided to regroup as a trio, with Richards eventually taking over on the drum kit. The three headed back to Alberta, and in a rather deft homage to their shared Eastern European heritage dubbed themselves Troyka.
Back home in Edmonton, the boys got down to business, writing songs and recording a demo that Richards and his father hustled off to New York in 1968. There were a few nibbles but unfortunately no bites. So the group took things into their own hands, building their own studio to up the caliber of any future demos. "My dad was the driving force behind the studio," Richards writes. "He pretty much put it together himself. He would get up early in the morning and work on wiring, etc. before he went to the office."
Troyka fired off another tape, this time to Atlantic Records in 1969. But after hearing nothing from them, Richards again set off for the Big Apple, this time with a demo consisting of the bulk of what would become their future album. "I remember at a payphone near Columbus Circle, I called Atlantic to get back to them. I talked with Shel Kagan, who was in Atlantic's A & R Department. He said, 'I loved that tape you sent, but I misplaced your contact info.'" Kagan invited Richards to his office, where he told the young Albertan that he had especially loved his vocals on their song 'Natural' and that he very much wanted to sign them. "I remember after the meeting running up Broadway to the cheapo hotel my girlfriend and I were staying at," he gushed. "My feet barely touched the ground ‒ I was ecstatic."
Troyka came out the following year on Atlantic's subsidiary Cotillion, a relatively recent venture for the company that was originally intended as a vehicle for blues and deep soul but which by 1970 would issue the Velvet Underground's Loaded and the massive-selling Woodstock soundtrack. Troyka were indeed in good company.
Troyka is unsurprisingly - it was 1970, remember, and this was indeed a trio named after a powerful triumvirate - filled with crunching guitar chords, wailing solos and crotch-heavy amplification. 'Natural', the album's only single, states the band's case rather well, with its primo guitar work, gruff vocals and ballsy lyrics. 'Rolling Down the Road', with its nearly proto-speed metal, is even better, channelling frantic hyper blues into an almost MC5-like abandon. Other tracks hint at a more delicate side, especially the wistful soft-psych instrumental 'Dear Margaret (Malgosia)', with its Spanish tinges and flecks of John Williams-ish guitar. And the record even comes speckled with Slavic elements in the two tack-on instrumentals, the lilting 'Introduction' and the closing 'Troyka Finale', that bookend the record.
Troyka were often hailed for their legendary live sets, including one particularly raucous set at New York's Fillmore East that saw them flagged back for a triple encore. "We did a major tour, mostly at colleges, with Savoy Brown and Family along the Eastern US Seaboard. We also played at The Eastown Theater in Detroit sharing the bill with Blue Cheer."
By the early summer of 1970, Troyka seemed to be really hitting their stride, scoring a coveted support slot in Toronto for the mother of all troikas, Leslie West's Mountain, as well as seats aboard the infamous bourbon-and-barbiturate-laced Festival Express cross-Canada train tour. And then it all came apart. "We ended the tour at The Electric Circus in Toronto sharing the bill with Leslie West and Mountain," Richards laments. "During our stay in Toronto, Bob announced he was quitting the band - MAJOR SHOCK!!!"
These days the guys have reconnected, after some 20 years without any contact. And with interest in Troyka growing - original copies are pushing up past the $200 USD mark these days - the album has been reissued several times, including a limited 180-gram audiophile vinyl pressing on Italy's Eroe Progressivo label.
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