15 things about the ground-breaking, pants-dropping, object-hurtling — and now reuniting — Canadian band Slow

By Jennifer Van Evra

If you're under 40, live east of the Rockies or aren't a diehard indie music fan, there's a chance you haven't heard of the groundbreaking — and notoriously rabble-rousing — Vancouver band Slow.

But in music circles, the short-lived group, whose final performance was in October of 1986 at the Town Pump, is truly the stuff of legend.

Years before grunge swept the music scene, the band —  made up of vocalist Tom Anselmi, guitarists Christian Thorvaldson and Ziggy Sigmund, bassist Stephen Hamm and drummer Terry Russell — was mixing punk, rock and myriad other genres, and their stage show rivalled high-profile bands including the Stooges and D.O.A.

For three decades their fans have hoped for a reunion, and this weekend they're finally getting their wish: Slow is playing a string of shows in Victoria and Vancouver — their first in over 31 years — and a cross-country tour is in the works. The shows have garnered a feverish response, with tickets selling out in days, and media clambering for interviews.

So to mark the occasion, we've gathered 15 things you need to know about the ground-breaking, pants-dropping, object-hurtling, broken-down van driving, livestock corn-eating — and now-reuniting — group.

The band's entire catalogue is only half an hour long

Although they are widely considered one of the most seminal underground bands in Canada, the group's short run meant for a small catalogue — a 12" single, "I Broke the Circle," released by Zulu Records, and a six-song EP, Against the Glass — that amounts to roughly half an hour of music.

They were incredible live

The lucky few who got to see the band live speak rapturously about Slow's shows. "They were phenomenal, a killer live band with just an incredible underground buzz," Zulu Records owner Grant McDonagh, who released the band's first single way back when, told the Georgia Straight. "People knew: there was something going on." 

The members first jammed in a friend's bedroom in the Southlands

The first time the band jammed together was in a friend's bedroom in southwest Vancouver. At the time, Anselmi would have been just 16 years old, and the rest of the band was around 18. "Terry and I had never really played original music," remembers Hamm. "We had played in cover bands in high school and dabbled in writing our own tunes. Chris played us a chord progression that would become 'Against The Glass.' I thought it was cool. I felt the excitement from the outset."

The band's song "Have Not Been The Same" has won many underground honours

The band's single "Have Not Been The Same" may not have won any mainstream awards, but in the indie world, it has landed plenty of noteworthy honours. When legendary University of British Columbia radio station CITR got its signal boosted to 1800 watts in 1989, allowing it to broadcast to all of Vancouver, the first song they played was Slow's "Have Not Been The Same"; it's the title of an extensive Canadian indie music history; and the gritty video was in heavy rotation on MuchMusic. In 2017, the song also topped the Georgia Straight's list of "best-ever songs to spring from Vancouver."

The music from that song was inspired by Stevie Wonder

Although the song sits squarely in the world of rock and punk, it was partly inspired by the music of Stevie Wonder.

"That's definitely a Stevie Wonder song," says Anselmi. "And we had clavinets. Long & McQuade had thrown out a couple of clavinets because nobody wanted clavinets anymore, and we made one operational out of two broken ones.

"We were listening to a lot of Stevie Wonder at the time," adds Hamm. "And that riff came out of Chris' head. I remember turning the bassline from 'Sir Duke' around and going, 'That works with that riff that Chris is playing.' And then away we go, there's the song."

They were known for great covers

The group was far from a cover band, but at live shows, they regularly put their unique spin on a huge range of songs, long before the irony-laden grunge era rolled in. Among their favourites were "Gimme Shelter" by the Rolling Stones, "Pills" by New York Dolls, "Knock on Wood" by Wilson Pickett, "I'm Eighteen" by Alice Cooper — Anselmi was 18 at the time — "Hair Of The Dog" by Nazareth, "Fox On The Run" by Sweet, and the Sex Pistols classic "Anarchy In The UK."

Their show at Expo '86 almost got them arrested, and got a whole week of concerts shut down

When the band was asked to play Expo '86 — an event that to them represented a negative shift toward big-money development — they knew they wanted to make a statement.

But it would definitely be an alcohol-drenched one: as part of their contract, they had arranged to have 10 cases of beer delivered to their front door, which they were, and a friend also brought a bottle of Everclear (almost pure alcohol).

"Our plan originally was that we were going to get a boat and we were going to sail the boat with all of our equipment over to the Xerox theatre where we were playing, play our show, do our thing, and then do a quick escape on this boat," remembers Hamm with a laugh. "We never got the boat together but we did manage to drink the beer and the Everclear. And then we showed up at the show, and the rest is kind of history."

Once on stage, the band famously tore down large scrims that they were supposed to jump through, threw 2x4s into the audience, lead the crowd in a Sieg Heil salute in protest against the conservative premier Bill Bennett and performed in various states of undress. Eventually organizers pulled the plug on the show — as well as the entire week of indie bands they had scheduled.

When Hamm revealed himself, it was to prevent people from getting hurt

At the end of the concert, the power got cut, and — now the stuff of legend — Hamm dropped his pants. But according to the bassist, it seemed like the safer alternative to his other options.

"We couldn't believe they asked us to play. And we were advertised as 'wildly out of control,' so they knew what they were getting themselves into — or someone knew," remembers Hamm. 

"And I think we played a darn fine Slow show. We were having fun, the kids were having fun, and then literally mid-song all the power goes out. Tom often got down to his boxer shorts and I guess something was poking out, and at the end of it I was so mad, I remember there was a 2x4 from this scrim that I could throw into the audience and cause some damage, probably to people. And I thought, 'That's not a good idea. I think I'll just take my pants down instead.' And I got a rousing ovation for that. Then I left the stage." 

The event ended with the crowd flowing out of the venue and toward a glass BCTV booth, where they were broadcasting live from the fair. The station reportedly cut to the movie they had scheduled for later that evening: fittingly, the classic Ramones flick Rock 'n' Roll High School.

The band nearly froze on a highway on the prairies

After the Expo gig, the band set out on an ill-fated tour across Canada in a beat-up Econoline van — lined with orange shag — in the dead of winter, to play everything from hole-in-the-wall bars to video arcades. At one point, they ended up in a snowy ditch next to a cemetery on the prairies, huddled overnight to stay warm, then "borrowed" wood from a large cemetery sign to use as traction, but to no avail. The next morning, a couple of the band members walked to a farmhouse and experienced a rare stroke of luck.

"They found this farmer – god bless the farmers of the Canadian prairies – and said 'Hi sir, we're stuck in the ditch just up the street. You wouldn't happen to be able to help us out,'" remembers Hamm. "He started beaming and he said, 'I can help you guys out.' He went to the barn in the back, and there was this huge, beautiful, gleaming new John Deere tractor that he had been aching all winter to use. And I remember waking up in the van to see this huge green John Deere tractor in this cold prairie sunlight coming toward us," he says. "We got to our show in Winnipeg with D.O.A., and we lived to tell the story."

At other stops on the ill-fated tour they were not so lucky

The band was relying on gigs to pay their way across the country, but things didn't always go according to plan — and went downhill fast. The highlight was a show with Soul Asylum at RPM in Toronto, but there were far more lowlights. The guitarist got his arm broken by a bouncer in Hamilton; the van lost its muffler, exhaust system, starter, and clutch; with no money to buy food, they ate corn out of a farmer's field marked "not fit for human consumption."

"When I got to Toronto, we were so broke that I called my mom and said, 'Mom, can you wire me some money?'" remembers Hamm. "She said, 'I'll wire you $50 if you promise to quit the band when you get home. And I said yes."

Shortly after the tour, they broke up

Many point to the Expo concert as marking the end of Slow, but the band members say their end resulted from the members wanting to go in different directions. Anselmi and Thorvaldson were more interested in going the artistic route, while Hamm wanted to veer more toward standard rock. And they did: Anselmi and Thorvaldson went on to form Copyright, while Hamm and Russell created Tankhog.   

Their musical influences ranged from punk to rock to old-school soul

It's hard to imagine in the age of Spotify, but in the mid-1980s, most music lovers — and bands — stuck squarely in specific musical camps. You were a punk, a rocker, a mod, into soul, or a top 40 type, and didn't venture far from your sonic tent. Many say that Slow was years ahead of its time, and was a precursor to grunge; Anselmi doesn't necessarily agree, but says they were mashing sounds in a way that few others were.

"We were really one of the first bands to view all of it — rock 'n' roll, pop music, punk, soul, R&B, ABBA, the Archies, whatever — as a thing to be used," says Anselmi. "And so the band had a lot of the visceral intensity of modernist rock 'n' roll but it had a very kind of postmodern view of how those influences would be assembled, in the sense that we just had an open palate. That was not common at that time. So I think in that way we probably were ahead of our time because that has become a much more usual thing.

"We were listening to Black Flag, we were listening to the Gun Club, we were having parties listening to the Jackson 5," adds Hamm. "We were listening to U2. We were listening to soul music. And you would come to a show and we would play an Alice Cooper song, and then we would play 'Knock On Wood,' and then we would play 'Ballroom Blitz' and then we would play a surf cover. And people freaked out about that."

After more than 30 years, they're finally reuniting

For decades, diehard fans, promoters and record labels have asked — and some begged — for Slow to reunite. Anselmi has always resisted the calls, until this year. Now the band is creating new songs, and putting on a string of sold-out shows in Victoria and Vancouver, with more to be announced. Their EP has been officially re-released, and a cross-Canada tour is also in the works — hopefully in a more reliable van.

"In the back of my mind, it was always 'I wonder what would happen if we got back together,'" says Hamm. "Because the band ended so abruptly. What if we were playing together again? These are some really creative people. What would we come up with? There was that curiosity in the back of my mind. And then when this happened, it was like, 'Yeah, there is some really cool stuff.' And it still sounds like Slow," he says. "There were so many ideas back in the day that we never got to explore, which we're kind of exploring now."

Their chemistry is unrivalled — and still intact

The band members say that, because they were so young, they didn't realize how rare their chemistry was. They moved on to other successful projects, but nothing quite rivalled what they had with Slow.

"I didn't really understand how rare it really is to get a certain combination of people together where you're just able to do something — spontaneously, intuitively, telepathically — and I didn't really see that subtlety in Slow. But it's there, and it's chemistry," says Anselmi.

"The window opens up only so often on these opportunities, or these special moments," adds Hamm. "But I was 21 years old and thought we can do it once, we can do it again, no problem. That's not the case.

"When we got back together, all of a sudden the window started to open up again," adds Hamm about the reunion. "I don't know how long it's going to be open for — but at this point in my life, I know that is a very, very rare gift that very, very few people ever get to experience. And I'm so grateful for that."

Their fans are very, very happy

McDonagh released the band's first single 32 years ago, and he's thrilled that the band is back together — something that he, like legions of others, thought would never happen. He saw the band perform at the opening of Vancouver's new Polygon Gallery in mid-November, and says they're in great form.

"It was just an incredible thrill to see them on stage," says McDonagh. "They were so tight, and they were so exciting. I looked around the room and everybody was glowing. We just couldn't believe we were seeing them. It was a real thrill for some people who had only heard the record," he says. "And the most important thing was, could they pull it off? And they did."