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Don Pyle | |
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| Origin | Canada |
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| Occupation(s) | Record producer, musician |
Don Pyle is a Canadian record producer and musician, who has also been a member of multiple bands. Pyle is openly gay. [1]
Pyle's first group was a punk band called Crash Kills Five, which was active from 1979 to 1981. Crash Kills Five released one EP in 1980, titled What Do You Do At Night?. It was in this four piece band that Pyle first played with two members, Reid Diamond and Brian Connelly, who would later become his bandmates in Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet. Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet were together for eleven years; during this time, they recorded three LPs and thirteen EPs and became widely known when the song "Having An Average Weekend" became the theme for the Canadian sketch comedy television series The Kids in the Hall . The band also won a Juno Award for Instrumental Artist of the Year at the Juno Awards of 1992. [2] Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet also recorded with B-52s vocalist Fred Schneider for his solo album Just Fred .
Pyle also played with several other bands such as King Cobb Steelie and Fifth Column while on hiatus from Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet. During these periods he began producing recordings for other bands, including the debut single and LP by King Cobb Steelie [3] and a record by Phleg Camp. After Shadowy Men broke up in 1994, he and Reid Diamond then formed the band Phono-Comb with Dallas Good for the express purpose of playing and recording with Jad Fair. [4] After releasing one single and an LP, Fair returned to solo performing, and the trio released another single. Beverly Breckenridge of Fifth Column then joined the group to play bass and the quartet recorded the LP Fresh Gasoline for Quarterstick/Touch and Go Records, with Steve Albini producing.
After Phono-Comb broke up, Pyle began a new musical project with Andrew Zealley called Greek Buck. [5] More experimental than his previous outfits, Greek Buck was noted primarily for their soundtrack compositions, such as those composed for films directed by John Greyson including The Law of Enclosures (1999) and Proteus (2003), Sarah Polley's film I Shout Love , and most famously, the theme song of the series Queer As Folk .
In April 2007, Pyle launched his "Trouble in the Camera Club" photography show at The Beaver Cafe/bar in Toronto. [6] The extensive collection of photographs documented the birth of the punk music scene in Toronto clubs during 1976–1980. An on-line version of the show was available on his official website.
Trouble in the Camera Club was published as a photo and essay book by ECW Press in 2011 and included over 300 photographs of Toronto punk bands such as Viletones, and Teenage Head. His photos of international artists include Iggy Pop, Ramones, Dead Boys, The Heartbreakers, Vibrators and The Troggs. [7]
As a producer, music recorder, and mixer, his credits include releases by The Sadies, Iggy Pop, Peaches, John Doe, Andre Williams, and others. He composed and produced music for films by Ron Mann, Sarah Polley, and John Greyson as well as composing and/or producing music for The Inside Out Film and Video Festival, TV Ontario, Dragon's Den , and others.
In 2012 and 2013, Pyle released recordings by his two bands. The Filthy Gaze of Europe, his collaboration with Dallas Good, had a 7" released by Ugly Pop records, with vocals by Damian Abraham, and Chris Colohan, with cover art by G. B. Jones. Black Heel Marks released an album called Feel Free in June 2013 that included Pyle in collaboration with Tacoma rock band Girl Trouble, Sandro Perri, and others.
Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet are a Juno Award-winning Canadian instrumental rock band, formed in 1984. They remain best known for the track "Having an Average Weekend", of which an alternate version was used as the theme to the Canadian sketch comedy TV show The Kids in the Hall. Although commonly classified as a surf rock band they rejected the label, going so far as to release a track called "We're Not a Fucking Surf Band", although they also later released a compilation box set titled Oh, I Guess We Were a Fucking Surf Band After All.
King Cobb Steelie is a Canadian indie rock band formed in 1991 from Guelph, Ontario, and later based in Toronto. The band's most successful single was 1997's "Rational", from the album Junior Relaxer. Their music fuses elements of punk, grunge, funk, jazz and dance. The core of the band is singer/songwriter Kevan Byrne and bassist Kevin Lynn. A variety of other collaborators, including Sam Cino, Al Okada, Gary Dutch, Geoff Walton, Steve Clarkson, Mike Armstrong, Nathan Lawr, Don Pyle and Michelle McAdorey, have contributed to individual albums.
Change of Heart was a Canadian alternative rock band, active from 1982 to 1997. They had one Top 40 hit, "There You Go" in 1992, as well as several hits on Canada's modern rock charts, including "Trigger" and "Little Kingdoms".
Michelle McAdorey is a Canadian singer-songwriter based in Toronto, Ontario. She was a member of the 1990s band Crash Vegas, and now performs and records as a solo artist.
Fifth Column was a Canadian all-female post-punk band from Toronto, formed in 1980 and breaking up in 1995.
Caroline Azar is a director and playwright. She was the lead singer, keyboardist and co-lyricist/composer of the band Fifth Column.
Jadwin B. Fair is an American singer, guitarist, graphic artist, and founding member of lo-fi alternative rock group Half Japanese.
Phono-Comb was a Canadian instrumental/modern surf rock group that formed in 1993 in Toronto.
Just Fred is the second solo album by the American musician Fred Schneider, released in 1996. Its first single was "Bulldozer". Schneider promoted the album by playing shows with his band, the Slobs.
Greek Buck were a Canadian musical duo, consisting of Don Pyle and Andrew Zealley. They are best known for "Spunk", the theme song to the American television series Queer as Folk.
"I Wanna Be Your Dog" is a song by American rock band the Stooges, released as the group's debut single from the band's 1969 self-titled debut album. The riff is composed of only three chords, is played continuously throughout the song. The 3-minute-and-9-second-long song, with its distortion-heavy guitar intro, single-note piano riff played by producer John Cale of the Velvet Underground, and steady, driving beat, gave the cutting edge of the early heavy metal and punk sound.
Outside Music is a Canadian record label and distributor founded by Lloyd Nishimura in 2001. In 2007, it expanded to include an artist management division which includes Jill Barber, Matthew Barber, Aidan Knight, Justin Rutledge as management clients.
Raw Energy Records was a Canadian independent record label, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The music label was established in the late 1980s by founder entrepreneur and music journalist Graeme Boyce, initially to distribute the debut EP by King Apparatus, Loud Party. Prior to launching Raw Energy, Boyce was a staff writer for RPM.
Junior Relaxer is the third album by Canadian alternative rock band King Cobb Steelie, released in 1997. The album's main single "Rational", a tribute to Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, was the band's biggest hit.
International Pop Underground Convention is a live compilation LP/CD/cassette which documents the 1991 music festival of the same name. Various recordings from the festival were compiled by K Records and released as a double album and CD, featuring music by twenty-one different bands.
Sport Fishin': The Lure of the Bait, The Luck of the Hook is the second album by Canadian surf rock group Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, released in 1993 through Cargo Records. It was recorded by Steve Albini.
Handsome Ned was the stage name of Robin David Masyk, a Canadian country singer and songwriter. Although he only released a small number of singles and was never widely known outside of Toronto during his lifetime, he has been credited as the catalyst for an early-1980s country music and roots rock revival in Toronto which paved the way for acts such as Blue Rodeo, Prairie Oyster, Skydiggers and Cowboy Junkies to break through to greater fame, and as one of the key figures in the transformation of the city's Queen Street West district into a cultural hotspot.
Project Twinkle is the second album by Canadian alternative rock band King Cobb Steelie, released in 1994. Produced by Bill Laswell, the album moved away from the funk-rock of their 1993 album King Cobb Steelie toward a more groove-oriented sound.
Derivative Records was a Canadian independent record label, founded in 1992, in Montréal, Québec by Patti Schmidt and Kevin Komoda. The label was originally founded as "a cassette & 7-inch only-label." As demand and production ramped up to include other areas such as the United States and Europe, the label brought in Pat Hamou and Genevieve Heistek to help out. Artists in which the label had releases by were both international-based artists, such as Chicago's Number One Cup, London's Spool, and Switzerland's Sportsguitar, as well as Canadian-based, such as Eric's Trip, jale, Pest 5000, and Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet.
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