#teaze

Trooper: Trooper (1975)

Calm down Iron Maiden fans: this ain't your kind of "Trooper," but rather a Canadian hard rock outfit that arrived on the scene 50 years ago armed with this self-titled debut produced by Bachman-Turner Overdrive's own Randy Bachman.

Here's the backstory ...

Ra McGuire (vocals, harmonica) and Brian Smith (guitar) first worked together in a late '60s psych-rock duo called Winter's Green, but by the start of the new decade, they'd added bassist Harry Kalensky and drummer Tommy Stewart, and rebranded themselves Applejack.

The quartet eventually built a dedicated following in their native Vancouver and caught the attention of Bachman, who signed them to his newly launched Legend Records imprint, suggested the name change to Trooper, and produced this LP.

And a fine job he did, too, because the grinding "I'm in Trouble Again" was just about as heavy as rock got in the mid '70s and it made a strong first impression along with the seven-minute "All of the Time," which I'm sure went over like dynamite on stage.

Bachman's fingerprints are also felt on the comparatively bouncy, acoustic guitar-backed grooves of first single "General Hand Grenade": a nonsensical power pop confection that went Top 30 on the Canadian charts.

The similarly upbeat "Baby Woncha Please Come Home" gave the band a second hit, but the sleeper here, in my opinion, is one of the most '70s song there ever was in "Roller Rink," whose lyrics declare:

"I'm gonna go on down to the roller rink ... And roll my blues away. Gonna strap on a pair of roller skates; And roll …"

Rounding out the set, "Eddy Takes it Easy" showcased Smith's slide guitar chops, "Love of My Life" boogied on down with drummer Stewart on lead vocals and more six-string fireworks, and a cowbell takes us home (and, presumably, the cows) on "Don't Stop Now."

And there was sure no stopping Trooper, who graduated from Bachman's Legend to MCA Records on the strength of this LP's twin hits, and proceeded to enjoy an impressive run of success through to the end of the decade.

Their sophomore album, 1976's Two for the Show, apparently went gold, '77's Knock 'em Dead Kid went platinum, '78's Thick as Thieves double-platinum, and '79, Hot Shots quadruple-platinum!

Of course, this was in Canada and classic rock fans south of the border were none the wiser about Trooper's homeland success, or even their very existence, which I suppose makes the pre-MTV, pre-Internet era look like the fucking Dark Ages.

It wasn't, but for some mysterious reason, with the exception of Rush and, to a lesser degree, Triumph, most Canadian hard rock bands of the late '70s (Moxy, Teaze, Max Webster, etc.) simply couldn't get arrested in the U.S., and Trooper endured the same fate.

More Obscure Mid ‘70s Hard Rock: Agnes Strange's Strange Flavour, Armageddon’s Armageddon, Back Street Crawler's The Band Plays On, Baker Gurvitz Army’s Elysian Encounter, Bedlam’s Bedlam, Black Sheep’s Black Sheep, Black Spirit’s Black Spirit, Blackfoot’s No Reservations, Blackfoot Sue’s Nothing to Hide, Bloontz’s Bloontz,  Blue Goose’s Blue Goose, Bux’s We Come to Play, Brownsville Station’s Motor City Connection, Cain’s A Pound of Flesh, Diamond Reo’s Diamond Reo, Dirty Tricks’ Dirty Tricks, Earth Quake’s Rocking the World, Elf’s Trying to Burn the Sun, Epitaph’s Outside the Law, Gedō’s Gedō, Goliath’s Hot Rock & Thunder, ...

Jerrie: That’d suck because you can’t microwave metal.

I first heard about Teaze in 2013. I found out about them from seeing them in vintage Japanese music magazines like Music Life and Ongaku Senka!

My dad has a large collection, and when we flip through them, we always put music on and it's so crazy to see how many awesome bands were featured in those magazines.

For some reason, Teaze was a band that I have a similar story of getting into them the same way I got into Strapps.

I saw them in a number of issues, and I figured, if this band is being featured this often they must be great.

And so, I set some time aside and I checked them out and they are excellent!!

I've always listened to "On The Loose", specifically "Ready To Move" and in the past year I've finally dove into listening to the other albums too.

I felt motivated to finally make this playlist because yesterday I saw that Spotify finally had all the albums!! For the longest time, they've only had "On The Loose" and "A Taste Of Teaze", and it's awesome to finally see the complete catalog on here!

Teaze is one of the many, awesome underrated rock bands that were around when punk and new wave were taking over.

They're an awesome group because I've only ever thought of Teaze as great, and I always feel inclined to listen to them and whenever I relisten to their albums, I realize how effortlessly awesome they are.

So, with that, I've made a special playlist with my favorite Teaze tunes so you can hear the music and read my showcase.