WIN A FREE CD!American Band Rock: 54*40 - Part 1

Look at your music collection. How many multi-album artists do you have which you first heard as an opening act? How many concerts have you gone to where you walked in thinking, “I wonder who the opener is,” and then left that night going straight to the record store to pick up the album by the opener? My guess is not many.

Blind Melon and Live were relatively unknown when they blew me away as the early acts on MTV’s 180 Minutes tour in 1992. On Canada’s Prince Edward Island, we went to see the regional hero John Allen Cameron, but we came away with a CD by the supporting act, Wally McAulay, an incredible folk singer from Cape Breton. We didn’t know anything about Karen Savoca and Pete Heitzman when we saw them open for Greg Brown in Berkeley, but now she’s dear to our listening ears.

So there’s a few, but what about the hundred other opening bands that I don’t remember, don’t want to remember. Unless it is a double-bill, an opener signed on to play a significant set as part of the tour, then most of the time, you’ll get a chance to see a newer artist trying out their music and style. Yet, you’ll be lucky if you find something compelling that makes you glad to be standing in the crowd before the headliner is even in the building.

With 11 albums now in my collection, I think the opening band for the BoDeans in 1989 qualifies as one of those special finds. 54*40 has become one of my favorite bands ever. I thank the BoDeans and their management for asking 54*40 to support them on their tour that year.

My friend, Andy, and I loved the BoDeans and walked into the Orpheum in Minneapolis expecting to suffer through the opener in order to get to the main course. Yet, when 54*40 launched into their take on a rock ‘n’ roll, which at that time to us sounded like a blend of R.E.M. and U2, when we heard this little band huddled in the center of the stage in between the more elaborate staging of the BoDeans, Andy and I looked at each other and realized we had just discovered something incredible.

Of course, others had heard the band and made the discovery before us, but for Andy and I in the audience that night, this was when the chords awoke hope in us of having a new band to follow, a new sound.


We both went out and bought the new album, Fight for Love, and fell in love. The album came with such gems: jaunty little songs like the title track, the opening rocker “Here in My House,” Andy’s favorite “Baby Have Some Faith,” and the epic closer, “Journey.”

But then there was a problem. Fight for Love was the only album on the shelves. There was nothing else to be found. In the era before the Internet, we weren’t sure about where to find more albums. If only I had written to the fan club/management, I would’ve learned that 54*40 had quite a following in their home country of Canada. Fight for Love wasn’t their first album, but indeed, they would struggle to get U.S. distribution. So even though the band continued, I never heard much more about them for years.

Two years later, I found 1987’s Show Me in a used CD store and rejoiced (my companions not understanding why). Somewhere around 1998, I found 1994’s Smilin’ Buddha Cabaret in the discount rack. These were great finds, and Smilin’ especially has some classic tracks like “radio luv song” and “ocean pearl.” Yet, now I really knew: the band was continuing, and I wanted to know more.

Then in the summer of 1998, my wife and I decided to spend 5 weeks driving across Canada from Ontario to Nova Scotia. We were going to camp, backpack, and explore Canada as the inviting ad in The Atlantic had encouraged us to do. I also planned on finding 54*40.


It didn’t take long. 1998 saw the release of Since When, and so as we drove across the country, when we weren’t listening to the CBC, we were hearing 54*40 on the radio. On the radio! One of my favorite bands, which no one ever knew anything about in the States, were cult heroes in the great country of the North.

I bought Since When on the trip, but our Ford Explorer didn’t have a CD player, so I had to wait until the trip was over to hear the incredible new direction on that album. In its overall sound, it is more acoustic, more laid back, and it is an incredible look into the heart.


After that, with the aid of the Internet, I was able to fill in the holes in my collection, getting many of the important albums in the 54*40 discography. As I heard the early albums Selection EP (1982) and Set the Fire (1984) (re-released on CD together as Sound of Truth), I realized the band I placed in the American Band Rock section near R.E.M. and U2 had a much more punk and garage sound in the beginning. The self-titled album from 1985, later released by Warner, contained their Canada sweeping single “Baby Ran” and a song I already knew, “I Go Blind.”

“I Go Blind” had just been covered by Hootie & the Blowfish, and so I was surprised to hear that this was actually an old 54*40 tune. I hated it in the hands of Hootie, but when I heard the original, I realized all of the irony that came with it in the hands of 54*40. Hootie sang it with such earnestness that it sounded crazy; Neil Osbourne could sing it with a wink and a nod as a comment on love songs and love itself.

With that, I quickly made room for more. However, there really isn’t room for more in this posting. Part 2 of my comments about 54*40 will appear shortly. Subscribe to Music Spectrum News! to make sure you don’t miss it.


Michelle of Saskatchewan wins a free copy of 54*40’s Since When. She explained the meaning of the band’s name this way: "Brad Merritt of 54-40 took the band's name from US President James Polks' campaign cry "54.50 Or Fight" (which Polk had hoped would stir the American people into pushing the border of the union up to the 54th parallel (40th minute) to the southern tip of Alaska)." And 54*40's hometown of Vancouver would've been a U.S. city had this really gone through. Another 54*40 CD will be given away in Part 2.

Thanks to 54*40 and to Allen Moy from Divine Industries for their help in providing review copies and albums to giveaway.