Have Not Been The Same: The CanRock Renaissance, 1985-1995. By Michael Barclay, Ian A. D. Jack and Jason Schneider. (Toronto: ECW Press, 2001. Pp. vii + 757, annotated table of contents, black/white and colour photographs, selected critical discography, interview schedule, bibliography, cast of characters, index, ISBN 1-55022-475-1, pbk.)

When the University of British Columbia’s radio station, CITR, amplified its FM broadcast to 1800 watts in February of 1989, a 1986 song release by Vancouver’s Slow, “Have Not Been The Same,” was the first one played over the broadened airwaves. Barclay, Jack and Schneider have picked this song’s title to introduce their account of the Canadian music scene during the decade 1985-1995 and its effects on contemporary Canadian singers, musicians and songwriters. The chapters read eastward through the decade from Vancouver to Halifax and document, by interviews with highlighted artists and insightful comments from Barclay, Jack and Schneider, The CanRock Renaissance. This rebirth represents “a ten-year window during which a new canon of CanRock was created” (2); a temporal period described as “a golden age, a defining moment, and indeed, since then, we have not been the same” (2). The book also discusses developments in fields related to musical creation and performance such as: political policies (Cancon and the Massey Commission); the growth in number and reach of university radio stations; televised music video rotation; independent domestic recording and distribution companies; music producers, band promoters and managers. Have Not Been The Same, in title and theme, plays on Peter C. Newman’s analysis of the Canadian political-economic climate of the same decade and entitled The Canadian Revolution 1985-1995: From Deference to Defiance. Similarly, a companion text to Have Not Been The Same is David Bidini’s On A Cold Road: Tales of Adventure in Canadian Rock, wherein the author uses personal experiences as a member of the musical troupe, Rheostatics, and extensive interview material from a myriad of Canadian musicians, producers and promoters to articulate the occupational folklife of Canadian musicians and the particularities of the domestic touring and recording industries. The authors’ devotion to their topic is immediate in the physical thickness of the book and in the breadth and depth of interview materials with which its contents approach the subject matter. Their writings blend experience in music journalism, freelance writing, musicianship and teaching and this collaborative authorship benefits the book in terms of its structure and its content. It is formatted, simultaneously, as a popular culture document, a journalistic piece, an avid fan’s production and an academic text. A poem from The Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie is the Foreword and lyrics from Stompin’ Tom Connors and the Local Rabbits are used as a poetic coda. The first chapter opens with a quotation from a Rheostatics song and one from a Margaret Atwood novel. Similarly, each chapter is introduced with quotations from lyrics, interviews and writings from such disparate sources as the Group of 7, Brian Wilson, and Albert Camus as well as other artists, authors and musicians. Of the seventeen chapters comprising Have Not Been The Same, six deal specifically with artists (Neil Young, The Tragically Hip, Sloan, Blue Rodeo), producers (Daniel Lanois), and recording companies (Nettwerk), while four look at specific localities (Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and Halifax). Other chapters visit topics of musical genres, poetry and literature, campus radio, national and industry politics, and particular record shops. The book’s non-academic jargon reads easily, while the rich and detailed interview material gives a well-researched, ethnographic appeal which itself is further substantiated by bibliographic and discographic sources. The authors write as informed fans and their analyses gel coherently with interview quotations to lend to the story a smooth and informative flow. The photographs of artists interspersing the text range between press kit photos, family-album style photos and on-stage “action” shots which bring their mediated images into a familiar and intimate relief of their private and …