Blue Peter

Although it's been well over a decade since Blue Peter released their last album, the sheer mention of their name elicits a wave of nostalgia from anyone familiar with the burgeoning Canadian music scene in the 1980's. Led by key members Paul Humphrey (lead vocals) and Chris Wardman (guitar), and augmented by Jason Sniderman (keyboards) and the rhythm section Rick Joudrey on bass and Owen Tennyson on drums, they were one of the most innovative and influential acts to emerge from the Toronto underground environment, and their brand of cutting edge pop, rhythm, and dance stands the test of time today. The new compilation release, ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT (GREATEST HITS), is a celebration of Blue Peter's career, and a tribute to one of the finest bands this country has produced. Drawing on material from their two albums (1980's Radio Silence, and 1983's Falling) as well as three EP's (1979's Test Patterns for Living, 1982's Up to You, and 1983's Version), All Through The Night (Greatest Hits) contains 13 tracks. In addition to marking the first time that any Blue Peter material has been available on CD, the album contains a previously unreleased song, "Equalizer". The decision to release All through The Night (Greatest Hits) was not a momentary whim designed to re-live the glory days of Blue Peter. It was of paramount importance to Chris and Jason that they not fall into the trap of throwing together, in slap-dash fashion, a collection of songs merely in an attempt to cash …

Although it's been well over a decade since Blue Peter released their last album, the sheer mention of their name elicits a wave of nostalgia from anyone familiar with the burgeoning Canadian music scene in the 1980's. Led by key members Paul Humphrey (lead vocals) and Chris Wardman (guitar), and augmented by Jason Sniderman (keyboards) and the rhythm section Rick Joudrey on bass and Owen Tennyson on drums, they were one of the most innovative and influential acts to emerge from the Toronto underground environment, and their brand of cutting edge pop, rhythm, and dance stands the test of time today. The new compilation release, ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT (GREATEST HITS), is a celebration of Blue Peter's career, and a tribute to one of the finest bands this country has produced. Drawing on material from their two albums (1980's Radio Silence, and 1983's Falling) as well as three EP's (1979's Test Patterns for Living, 1982's Up to You, and 1983's Version), All Through The Night (Greatest Hits) contains 13 tracks. In addition to marking the first time that any Blue Peter material has been available on CD, the album contains a previously unreleased song, "Equalizer". The decision to release All through The Night (Greatest Hits) was not a momentary whim designed to re-live the glory days of Blue Peter. It was of paramount importance to Chris and Jason that they not fall into the trap of throwing together, in slap-dash fashion, a collection of songs merely in an attempt to cash in on successes of days gone by. Painstaking care was taken to ensure that, through proper use of today's technology, the end product would meet or exceed the modern benchmark of audio purity, yet sound as natural as possible and true to the original works. It was indeed a challenge to accomplish this while at the same time retaining the vibrancy and excitement created years ago. The initial task was to prepare the original multi-track tapes. According to engineer Peter Moore "we literally 'baked' the tapes. It's a special process that rejuvenates the tapes by reactivating the binder used on the tape. The end result is that the high end frequencies, which sometimes deteriorate over the years, can be recovered. Then, in successive steps, we used tube gear [equipment using tubes as opposed to printed circuit boards] which I feel maintains the warmth of the original sound. For the transfer from the original analogue source to digital, we used 20 bit technology [CD's typically use 16 bit] which further contributed to achieving as clean and pure a sound as we could." Days, and indeed weeks, were spent listening to each track repeatedly making small adjustments here, and little tweaks there during the remixing and remastering period. The one song that required more comprehensive work was "Equalizer", which was partially recorded in 1985, but never finished. It was completed in 1996, when Paul agreed to do the vocals, and Rick Joudrey returned to cut his part. "Equalizer" and "Don't Walk Past" will be the stress tracks at radio. The latter is accompanied by a remixed version of the original video. When first released, it won two important awards in Canada in 1983: "Best Video of 1983" from the prestigious Canadian Film and Television Association; and "Most Popular Video" at Sony's Video Culture Festival. It also received airplay at various U.S. outlets including MTV. The Blue Peter story started in the mid to late 70's when Chris Wardman and Paul Humphrey, who became the nucleus of the band, began practising and writing material in the Wardman's basement in Markham, Ontario. As the band developed, and began to secure gigs, Humphrey remembers that the era was one in which many new bands faced certain challenges that made the going difficult. "In those early days, there were no places for a band who did original material to play. In a lot of bars, you had to play cover tunes, so we came up with our own treatments of the Stones, Iggy Pop, Led Zep, and the like, but we really wanted to have a way of exposing our songs. Besides," Paul continues, "we really couldn't play a lot of those covers 'cause we found it just didn't work that well with our energy." Punk and that whole culture was also a hot commodity at that time, and on several occasions, fans of that persuasion in attendance got carried away, and the band had to duck projectiles being thrown in their direction. Times did change, however, and the live venue scene in Toronto started to open up, providing more opportunities for young, up-and-coming bands to get a shot at playing gigs. "It was an exciting time," recalls Humphrey. "Clubs like The Edge opened up and a lot of good bands with original music got a chance. There's a certain musical historical element to those days, and we were part of it." As Blue Peter released the aforementioned albums and EP's on Ready Records, and toured Canada regularly, the bands' popularity grew dramatically. And with success, came the inevitable comparisons to other acts of the day. "Yeah, that's something that's just going to happen," says Humphrey philosophically. "I've heard them all... Bowie, Roxy Music... it's unavoidable, but with those bands, at least you can say we were in good company. I really think that the comparisons weren't based so much on a musical level, but rather a visual one... the way I dressed on stage, the somewhat flamboyant presentation... they were all contributing factors." Looking back on Blue Peter's career, Chris Wardman recalls several key shows with a great deal of fondness. "The Police Picnic in 1983 at the C.N.E. in Toronto was an experience we'll never forget. It was the largest show we'd ever done in terms of audience and venue size, and it was extremely flattering to be included on the bill. The show itself wasn't easy... we couldn't hear that well. But the thing I remember most," he continues, "was the whole backstage thing... hanging out with The Fixx, using James Brown's dressing room (and actually getting kicked out of it!), just being part of such an amazing line up... it was great." Opening two shows for the Boomtown Rats at Toronto's El Mocambo was one of the first major breakthroughs for Blue Peter. "We really liked the band," remembers Wardman, "but the thing that really sticks in my memory is that one of the songs they did at soundcheck was a new one called `I Don't Like Mondays'... this was before they had even recorded it. So considering that it turned out to be such a career song for them, in retrospect it kind of felt like we were privy to history in the making." Humphrey recalls opening for The Jam two nights in Toronto and one night in Ottawa. "Some of the guys in the audience starting spitting at me during our set. I really didn't know if this was sending a message that they liked us, or wanted us to get the hell outta there. But when the same thing happened to The Jam, I took it as more a show of approval." Two other gigs that especially stand out in their collective memories were opening for Simple Minds ("a really great bunch of guys," according to Wardman) in Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal and headlining a sold out Ontario Place Forum show in 1984. Although the band split up in 1985, Humphrey says that to this day, he gets stopped in the street by Blue Peter fans, who tell him what a great band they were. "While we were fairly successful in our day, I'm admittedly a little baffled when this happens. It strikes me that there's this kind of `mythology' about Blue Peter that still lives on. Maybe it's more like harkening back to those days, which in my mind was a time of hopefulness. So maybe it's an emotional rapport that lives on in people's imagination." Today, the members of Blue Peter are still involved in the music business in some capacity. Humphrey is currently the key singer/songwriter in a band called Broken Arrow, who have a CD out called Bend. He's exploring semi-acoustic, folk oriented music. Chris Wardman is in the A&R department at the Canadian head office of a major international record company, Rick Joudrey is involved in production of alternative music, and Owen Tennyson is the leader and drummer for a band called Owen Sound. All Through The Night Equalizer (Lyrics: Chris Wardman / Music: Jason Sniderman) Don't Walk Past (Chris Wardman) Falling (Chris Wardman) All Your Time (Chris Wardman) Unchained Heart (Jason Sniderman) Around You (Chris Wardman) Chinese Graffiti (Chris Wardman) Up To You (Chris Wardman) Video Verite (Chris Wardman) Radio Silence (Chris Wardman) Take Me To War (Chris Wardman) Same Old Place (Chris Wardman) Factory Living (Chris Wardman)Members included: Paul Humphrey - vocals Chris Wardman - Guitar/Songwriter Owen Tennyson - Drums Jason Sniderman - Keyboards Rick Joudrey - Bass Geoff McOuat - Bass Mike Bambrick - Drums Ron Tomlinson - Drums