Before his work with Look People, Rheostatics, Barenaked Ladies and The Lou Reed Band, Kevin Hearn was in a high school band called The Glacials – eclectic, whimsical, and delightfully weird. Along with classmates Anthony Brown, Richard Brown, Anthony Zarb and David Szanto, “Buying An Organ” was originally written and recorded in 1987 to four track cassette tape. Kevin and Anthony Brown re-mastered the song in 2023, and now with the help of director Phil Harder, the song has been brought to life in a way the young Glacials could have only dreamed of. Watch the “Buying An Organ” Video HERE. Catch Hearn’s live Instagram q&a on September 19 at 7pm EDT @kevinhearnmusic.
Filmed in Minneapolis where Phil resides, the new video features a real high school band playing The Glacials, alongside original members Kevin Hearn, as the undead conductor, and Anthony Brown, as the organ salesman. “Phil had a neighbour whose son Eero is currently a member of a highschool band called The C,” Hearn shared. “We approached the band and asked if they would play the part of the band in the video.”
Kevin and director Phil Harder have collaborated on numerous memorable videos over the years, both for Kevin’s solo work and with The Barenaked Ladies. Phil wanted to make a video that harkened back to the dawn of the Music Video Age in the 1980s, when videos were often story based. The members of The C are Eero Salmela, Tucker Kubasta, Calvin Hadley, Hank Kleinman, and Isaac E. Cunningham.
“Working with The C really brought back many wonderful memories of making music (including this very song), with my best friends in highschool. My Glacial bandmates and I feel like this is the video we would have loved to have made way back then, had we been able to."
Hearn continues, “Back in 1987, the band was invited to rehearse at Dave's place. Our rehearsal schedule just happened to coincide with the selling of the household organ. We ended up moving the organ that day instead of rehearsing, but we got this delightful song from the experience.”
“Buying An Organ”, features on Basement Days, the decades-in-the-making debut from The Glacials, featuring a dozen not-new-but-never-heard tracks spanning countless sounds and styles that have been lovingly restored, renewed, and remixed with friends new and old. Stream Basement Days HERE.
Basement Days features the previously shared, whimsical single “Bus Bus Or No Bus”, which arrived accompanied by a delightful music video. The eclectic visual collage sourced from the band's high school yearbooks and family photo albums serves as a fitting tribute, and nostalgic homage to the vibrant spirit of the 80s. WATCH IT HERE. The single is also available on 7” blue and white swirl vinyl HERE.
Basement Days appeared as a special 12” Limited Edition 140 gram Ice Blue Vinyl signed by Hearn for Record Store Day Canada. A limited quantity of the RSDC exclusive vinyl is still available for purchase HERE.
In 2015, Hearn unearthed a master archive (in this case, a now-vintage Mr. Sub bag) containing well over 100 tapes from a myriad of past musical projects – all in various stages of completion. There were solo recordings, material with Look People, Rheostatics, The Cousins – even with his current comrades in the iconic Barenaked Ladies. But most appealing to Hearn were the 20-some tapes cut with his first-ever band, The Glacials.
“We were really close friends, and it was our mutual interest in music that brought us together,” Hearn reminisces. Anthony Brown, Rich Brown Dave Szanto, Anthony Zarb, and Hearn were almost inseparable through their teen years in the 80s. By day, they were classmates, classically trained and identically clad in the unmistakable uniform of St. Michael’s Choir School in Toronto. But in their downtime, they were fully immersed in musical experimentation.
Listening back nearly 40 years later, Hearn couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to what he was hearing than simple nostalgia; than fledgling voices shakily finding their way into multi-part harmonies. “I think it’s a reconnection to memories of a time when I was falling in love with music, and still exploring and learning about it – before I knew anything about the music business,” he laughs. “It’s just so joyous and innocent to me in that way.”
And so, slowly but surely, Hearn began digitizing the recordings, then encouraged Anthony Brown and some of his more current musical collaborators to help flesh them out with new and recut contributions alike. Years later, the forced downtime of the global pandemic gave him ample time to turn it all into something tangible.
“I think about some other young group of kids hearing this and connecting to this music, and that they might use it to set off on their own path,” Hearn shares candidly about his hopes for the record. Again, that’s what’s so alluring about revisiting a fatefully captured spark.”
On the horizon, Hearn’s new solo music video “Wishbone” will premiere at London, Ontario’s Forest City Film Festival on October 19. The video is a creative collaboration between Hearn and JUNO award winning director/stop-motion animator Sarah Legault.
Basement Days Tracklist
01. Bus Bus Or No Bus
02. I Can Fly
03. Buying An Organ
04. Organ (Reprise)
05. Cut It Up Daze
06. Space Pirates
07. Belt Man & Bag Lady
08. Freddy The Frog
09. I Remember
10. Red Hot Dot
11. I Was Here
12. Prelude A Fugue In C
About Kevin Hearn A gifted composer, in-demand collaborator, and ever-active musical force with zero interest in creative stagnancy, Hearn cut his teeth collaborating with the likes of Look People, Corky and the Juice Pigs, and revered art-rock outfit Rheostatics before formally joining Barenaked Ladies in 1995. As the group’s profile swelled in the ensuing years, he explored new sonic ground with a series of innovative and imaginative solo albums. One of the most respected and sought-after Toronto musicians of the past 30 years, Hearn’s projects always attract brilliant collaborators including Ron Sexsmith, Dan Hill, Michael Ray of the Sun Ra Arkestra, Carole Pope, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Alan Doyle, The Persuasions, Violent Femmes, Colin Hay and drummer Rob Kloet (the Nits).
One of his most rewarding creative and personal relationships of all was with the legendary Lou Reed, for whom Hearn acted as musical director and keyboardist from 2007 until his passing in 2013. Hearn was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 2018 as part of Barenaked Ladies. He released his ninth album, the captivating and compelling Calm and Cents, which was nominated for Instrumental Album of the Year at the 2020 JUNO Awards. Hearn also re-released his entire solo catalogue, which dates back to 1997’s debut Mothball Mint, and included a first time digital release of the sold-out 2019 Record Store Day Canada project Kevin Hearn & Friends Present: The Superhero Suite, nominated by the JUNO Awards for Album Artwork of the Year. Hearn’s most recent album with Hugh Marsh titled Dreaming Of The 80s, is a collection of the decade’s classics hits and deep cuts reimagined in Marsh and Hearn’s uniquely atmospheric and ethereal sonic environment.
