Customer Reviews

When We Ruled Best Of The

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I was fourteen when I first saw the video of "I'm an Adult Now" on CBC's Video Hits... Every week after that, I went looking for an album in the bins of the local record store and always came home empty handed. I even started to hate Elvis Presley, whose name was right after where TPOH would have been. I had to wait two years before finally getting my hands on a record. In those two years however, I had gotten hold of the "I'm an Adult Now/She's so Young" and "Killed by Love/Ten Fingers" 12" singles, which I still have at my parents' house, along with the 45 of "She's so Young/Let my People Go". I was fortunate enough to tape the band's performance at the CASBY awards show and watched the tape again and again.

"When We Ruled" is a must. Just for "When Doves Cry". I heard them play the song at a concert in a small Sherbrooke club back in the fall of 1993. It knocked me out... That whole concert knocked me out. Chorist Rachel sang Heart's "Barracuda" and the band played the Beasty Boys' "Fight for your Right" in a medley at the end of the concert. I had seen them twice before that. One was even accoustic, with Susan (their chorist at the time) singing Madonna's "Material Girl". But that Sherbrooke show would change my life... Already, it was Moe Berg's fault if I let my hair grow long, then I would meet the person at this concert who would introduce me a month later to the girl with whom I would spend the following five years. I even met the band after the show, discussing drums with drummer Dave Guilby. Singer and guitar player Moe Berg was sitting in a corner of the room, baseball cap backwards on his head and beer in hand, cooling off after an hour-and-a-half performance. He seemed asleep but came suddenly alive when I mentionned the Goo Goo Dolls. "We played with them once... Great band" He said. This was before the Dolls had become famous with the song "Name" (The Goo Goo Dolls' album "Superstar Carwash" had been released some months before).

This collection is great because it lets the listener hear the difference between the 1986 12" single version of "I'm an Adult Now" and the 1988 LP version. The only two songs I feel are missing are the Downward Road's "Terrified" and Love Junk's "Walking in the Woods". "Terrified" ended the album the way "When the Levee Breaks" ended Led Zeppelin's Runes album, while "Walking in the Woods" makes you wonder if song's content really happened...

One last thing... Moe Berg's songs have a way of really getting to you. I wrote that I was fourteen when I first heard "I'm an Adult Now". It took me 15 more years to completely understand the lyrics. And as for "Two Girls in One", it can only remind me of a girl named Natacha, whom I had a huge crush on, but her younger sister hated my guts and always told me Natacha was not there when I called. A few years later, that younger sister blossomed and had a crush on me (according to Natacha)...

This band does not have enough quality material to fill a single disc, let alone a supposed "Best of" CD. Also, how it took the other commentator so long to get their material back in the day is beyond me. I was of a similar age when this band first came onto the scene, and their LP's were always readily available, just as they still are in your local record store's bargain bin. Don't waste your money.