the JARVIS STREET REVUE "Mr. Oil Man": Poised between Toronto and Winnipeg, Thunder Bay, Ontario became the unfortunate refuge for every touring band in Canada; that mandatory break while crossing the perilously vast Canadian Shield. With a nine-hour drive to anywhere else, Thunder Bays isolation goes beyond the cold, Northwestern psyche. It permeates the Canadian consciousness, leaving its mark on every musician crossing the Bays threshold. No doubt, Canadas vastness can be heard in much of the Northernly musical output. There is perhaps no better example of this than Thunder Bays Jarvis Street Revue. Their lone Columbia label LP from 1971 leaves no one untouched by the bands sheer avalanche of psychedelic heaviness, wasted acid leads and harrowing vocals. Every song is laced with a conviction born from the physical landscape they called home. Jarvis Street Revue spent (literally) a month of Sundays recording the album and bouncing tracks to create effects. "Chuck Williams was so freaked out, he used to leave the room," Jarvis leader and Neil Young running mate Tom Horricks said. "It was so anti-establishment." The Jarvis Street Revue used recordings of nature to create a nightmare atmosphere. When the bouncing of tracks led to some odd sounds in the mix, the band left them there and worked them into their sonic tapestry. Creative and far-seeing... and not without some chemical support. As Horricks admitted, "If I were to tell you we did a little drugs in those days, I wouldnt be lying!" The Jarvis Street Revue then toured, playing the songs from "Mr. Oil Man" with a "cacophony of strobes and effects." The albums's (and band's) concern with the environmental-including bold statements on the use and abuse of the oil reserves, rapacious business men, and the depletion of Earths natural resources-were truly visionary. Tucked somewhere into the bands murky history were recording sessions for a handful of singles, and a few cuts for an unreleased second album, "Strands of Time" (1971); all of these other recordings (ten in all) are included as bonus tracks. This makes the entire output of this legendary band available for the first time in this revised and expanded