Warpig

Warpig came out of Woodstock, Ontario, at the end of the 1960s playing loud, organ-heavy rock with long arrangements, fuzz guitar and a drummer who hit like a machine. Their only album made little commercial impact when it appeared on the small Fonthill label. Thirty years later it had become one of the most sought-after Canadian heavy rock records, reissued on CD and vinyl for buyers in North America, Europe and Japan.

Rick Donmoyer was born in Woodstock and started out as a teenager on lap steel guitar, working out rock 'n' roll licks and pop hits on an instrument built for Hawaiian music. He moved through a string of rock and R&B groups, most notably The Kingbees, The Wot and Mass Destruction. Terry Brett had trained in classical guitar in England and played rhythm and lead in small English rock bands before returning to Canada. He auditioned for The Kingbees on bass, left the lead guitar behind, and stayed with Donmoyer through The Wot and Mass Destruction.

Dana Snitch came from Coniston, in northern Ontario. He took up trumpet in his high school band, borrowed other instruments on weekends to teach himself, and bought a 12-string guitar when the Beatles arrived. Within weeks he was singing with a local band called The Interns. He later went solo as a folk singer and songwriter, moved to Toronto, and met Donmoyer, who was then working in a downtown music store. Their first attempt at a group together, aimed at the R&B hits of the day, fell apart, and Snitch went back to college. He reappeared some time later as the opening act for Mass Destruction and joined the band as rhythm guitarist and singer in its last days.

Donmoyer, Brett and Snitch then set out to form a band that would play only their own songs. Three drummers auditioned. They chose Terry Hook, a self-taught player who had modelled himself on the leading British rock drummers. Rehearsals began in the Hook family basement, and Snitch moved over to keyboards as the sound took shape. Accounts place the start of Warpig in 1968 or 1969.

The band treated the southern Ontario club circuit as a testing ground for new material. Producer Robert Thomson caught them in one of those clubs. By the band's own account he did not fully understand the music, but he noticed the lineups outside every night and signed them to his Fonthill Records label. Warpig recorded the album in a Toronto studio, often in sessions booked for the early morning hours after a night's gig, and paid for much of the work themselves. Ken Fresian recorded and remixed it. All eight songs were credited jointly to the four members. The back cover told buyers the record should be played loud, and the thank-you list ran from Woodstock, Embro and Beachville to Frightenstein.

The album, Fonthill F 103, was distributed by London Records of Canada and appears to have reached stores in 1972, although the band said it had been completed in 1970. Distribution and promotion were thin, and the record made little impression outside southern Ontario.

On stage the band drew far more attention. Warpig opened for touring acts including Manfred Mann, Savoy Brown, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Joe Walsh, and later accounts add Wishbone Ash and Mahogany Rush. Steve Harris of CJOM-FM in Windsor heard them rehearse at their farm in Woodstock before a Savoy Brown date. He later described watching them play to 75 people at a converted theatre and then to an audience of 4,000 a few nights afterward, and called their music "hard heavy rock."

In 1973 London Records and a new management group took the band on. RPM announced Warpig in June as the newest addition to London's rock roster, a Beachville group together for more than three years, and passed along a description of their sound as "good hard, meat-grinding, tight crunch rock." New recordings of 'Rock Star' and 'Flaggit' were cut at Toronto Sound Studio with producers Robbie Irving and Jim Croteau and released as a London single. 'Rock Star' entered the RPM 100 that summer and reached No. 52 in the July 21 issue. London then reissued the album as NAS 13528 with a new cover, the two new recordings, new producer and publisher credits, and Harris's notes on the back.

Work began on a second album, with engineer Tom Brennand according to the band's later history. The new management's demands soon put the members at odds with it, and the sessions were shelved. Terry Hook left in the mid-1970s and Dana Snitch followed shortly after, which effectively ended the band. Donmoyer kept playing for a few more years, most notably with Ash Mountain. Over time all four moved into other careers and other places and lost touch with each other.

Meanwhile original Fonthill copies began changing hands for high prices, and bootleg CDs and LPs turned up for sale. Donmoyer had turned down reissue offers for years because he considered Warpig part of another life, but the bootlegs changed his mind. Around 2004 he and Snitch reconnected by phone, one Sunday afternoon, after roughly thirty years apart, and contact with both Terrys followed. They asked Robert Thomson, by then living in Port Dover, to handle the business, and he recommended Relapse Records. The original master tapes could not be found. Peter J. Moore took on the remastering after recognizing the band's name on the phone and naming every song on the album from memory.

Relapse issued Warpig on CD on October 3, 2006, with new artwork by Orion Landau and a history of the band. That November three of the four members gathered at a Woodstock music store for an afternoon jam of covers, since Snitch could not attend. Kreation Records returned the album to vinyl in 2009, and a 2013 Kreation and Lion Productions pressing came with an insert of photographs, lyrics and band history. The members spoke of finishing the second album and cleaning up their early unreleased recordings, but none of that material had been released as of 2013.

-Robert Williston