West Watch

An Explanation

West Watch was supposed to be the first Edmonton compilation album. Twelve groups were chosen to be on the album and each had to supply a recording of up to 3:30 in length. Many of the bands, including the Malibu Kens, recorded at Mo Marshall's 16-track studio near Devon. Several fund raising shows were organized to help pay for the pressing of the album (see gig poster at left). Unfortunately, the album was never released.

The Malibu Kens recorded Physical Poison for West Watch. At the time, the song was only 2:30 long so we padded it out to our maximum allotment of 3:30 by adding an extended ending with lots of latin percussion. It was a goofy idea, but we wanted to try something different.

Incidentally, the West Watch project was responsible for the first studio recording of SNFU. I played bass for them on Life of a Baglady/This is the End. We recorded that at CJSR studios and you can hear me laughing at the end. The recording was rejected by Steve Honeyman (the coordinator of the West Watch project) because he felt the quality was too poor compared to the recordings made at Mo Marshall's studio. He returned the tape to SNFU and many years later they released it as the B-side of a single. They gave me a copy of that single but they didn't credit me as the bass player.

The players on Physical Poison were:

• Mike McDonald: lead vocals
• Scott Juskiw: guitars, keyboards, background vocals
• Jim Algie: bass guitar
• Ed Dobek: drums, percussion

Downloads

I don't have a copy of this recording. If you have one, contact me.