Young Canadians (originally The K-Tels) were a Canadian punk rock band formed in Vancouver in 1979 and active for just under two years. The YC's were influenced not only by the other punk bands in town at that time such as D.O.A. and the Pointed Sticks, but also by the Dolls, the Stooges, and 1960s garage rock. Although the band only recorded two EPs and a single before breaking up, their single "Hawaii" is one of the classic Canadian punk anthems.
Historically significant (at least to the Vancouver scene) The K-Tels were the first punk band to play the Smilin' Buddha. They also supported the Boomtown Rats on a tour across Canada.
Just before the release of Hawaii, they were forced to changed their name when threatened with legal action by the K-Tel corporation.
The band's leader and songwriter was Art Bergmann, who went on to become one of the key figures in Canadian alternative rock in the 1980s and 1990s. Founding member and bassist Jim Bescott died in an accident in Vancouver on August 31, 2005 at the age of 52.
Their two EPs and single, plus unreleased live tracks, were re-released in 1995 on the album No Escape, with liner notes written by Buck Cherry. Joyride on the Western Front, a live album documenting a 1980 concert at Mabuhay Gardens, was released in 2001.
Read more about Young Canadians: Discography
Famous quotes containing the words young and/or canadians:
“Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay,
Gone are my friends from the cotton fields away,
Gone from the earth to a better land I know,
I hear their gentle voices calling “Old Black Joe.””
—Stephen Collins Foster (1826–1864)
“The Canadians of those days, at least, possessed a roving spirit of adventure which carried them further, in exposure to hardship and danger, than ever the New England colonist went, and led them, though not to clear and colonize the wilderness, yet to range over it as coureurs de bois, or runners of the woods, or, as Hontan prefers to call them, coureurs de risques, runners of risks; to say nothing of their enterprising priesthood.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)