If you’re a fan of these grinding barsy Toronto legends from the late ‘70s, you need this package, Under My Hat consisting of a 1976 and a 1977 live set on two discs, totaling 32 tracks. Now, neither sounds all that great, these essentially being pub gigs not originally intended for release. But, there are some cool things about this package. First off, the booklet is everything you’d want, stuffed with pictures, plus a liner essay from Greg Godovitz and then track by track commentary. Which really helps, because there are a ton of non-LP rarities here (Goddo issued four studio albums and a double live spread during their initial run), including some thudly rockers like ‘Getting Down To Basics’, boogie wooger ‘Hollywood Queen’ and the full-on metal of ‘Dead Of Night’ and ‘London Town’. And great guitar sound outa Gino Scarpelli throughout, even though the totality is just a bit beyond boot. In fact, let’s break it down, almost all of the rarities are heavy rockers of a sort, written in the band’s underachieving blue collar style mind you, and yeah, about half the damn collection is rarities. Highlight: ‘Standing In The Road’ which is a (for once) over-achieving psychedelic metal thing somewherez between Trower, Derringer and Marino.
