D-VICES, THE - Adequate / Modern Boy 7"

Great guitar sound. My guitar playing is passable but I was so insecure back then. I couldn't tune a guitar no matter play one. When I played bass with Keith Strange, Pierre Perron, our drummer, called me a 'poseur.' And there was certainly some truth to that. At the same time, I had chutzpah. I was also acutely aware of how limited I was. I was also interested in learning. So it wasn't all attitude. In the end I had more in common with Keith than with the Devices. Both Keith and I work in an idiom. Keith has enormous respect for rock'n roll, country and blues. To a large degree, what we hear is arbitrary. So much great music goes unheard for reasons that have nothing to do with talent. Chicago blues owes so much to Leonard Chess. Elvis owed so much to television. Like Luther owed to the Gutenberg press or the New Testament owed to the spread of literacy and Hellenization. Without radio Al Jolson would have been just another hammy act at the local theatre .

-Phil Nolin

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One afternoon in 1979, as I was dejectedly noodling alone on guitar at the rehearsal space my band The Electric Vomit rented in Old Montreal, Phil walked in curious to know what I was playing. He practiced down the hall with Kieth & could've walked thru the hole that had just been chainsawed into our door. That robbery was the final nail in the coffin for The Vomit so I was wondering who I could play with next. His interest in my riffs answered that question. The D-Vices were born & Phil taught me how to play bass for what I imagine were some of the tunes he'd already been doing with Keith, but we also recycled a few of my Vomit riffs for new songs he could put lyrics to. At first, those numbers contrasted his older tunes, probably not unlike the back & forth concept he'd already been doing with Keith, but in no time our styles began to merge & the band became one. Both songs here are a good example of the beginning of this metamorphosis before additional members got added to the mix & Phil's brilliance continued to blossom. But we never got to properly record the full transformation with him before he left the band & so The D-Vices metamorphosed even further, turning into The American Devices. 43 years later & we're still at it. Pupa's gonna burst outta this cocoon any day now, just you wait!

-Rick Trembles

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A lot of folks who know The American Devices do not know that they started out as the D-Vices, with Phil Nolin as their front man and guitarist extraordinaire.

I met Phil in 1979 or 80 at the Hotel Nelson. I used to go there by myself every Friday night to hang out, meet people, and see bands, as my own group The Ulterior Motive had just broken up. At the Nelson, I saw the Normals and talked to Robert Labelle between sets. I also saw The Electric Vomit, Teenage Head, and The Brains there too. One night, Teenage Head, during their set, threw their album into the audience so that whoever caught it would keep it. That person was me. Phil was there that night and we met. I was looking to reform The Ulterior Motive, so we decided to join forces. What we did was, when I was playing my songs, Phil would play the bass, and when Phil did his songs, I played the bass. Our drummer was Pierre Perron. This worked for a while, but then Phil decided to go out on his own. Hence was formed the amazing D-Vices.

These two re-discovered tracks are an incredible find! I am so glad they are finally being released. More than ever, in this age of washed-out, gutless music, these songs, Phil’s vocals, and amazing guitar work need to at last be heard again!

-Keith Strange