Information/Write-up
In collaboration with Guerssen Records, we present the 2025 Guerssen remaster, bundled with the 1969–71 demos and non-LP sides first collected on CD, now included via download card (and on Guerssen’s companion CD edition
It’s All Meat took shape in Toronto in 1969 around the writing partnership of drummer Rick McKim and keyboardist-singer Jed MacKay, whose musical relationship dated back to their mid-60s group The Easy Riders and to their work producing the 1968 Underworld sessions for Regency. They weren’t members of the notorious Toronto garage outfit the Underworld, but they produced that band’s blistering “Bound” / “Go Away” sessions, picking up hard-won studio instincts and a taste for volume and distortion that would carry into their own project. The name “It’s All Meat” wasn’t a blues wink or Animals nod—it came from a dog-food slogan bragging “100% meat, no filler,” a suitably cheeky calling card for a group intent on cutting straight to the bone.
With Jack London (ex-Jack London & the Sparrows) handling management, the band—MacKay, McKim, bassist-singer Rick Aston, and twin guitarists Wayne Roworth and Norm White—landed a Columbia Canada deal. The first proof of life was the 1969 single “Feel It” b/w “(I Need Some Kind of) Definite Commitment (Baby),” a proto-punk, organ-stabbed raver that now reads like a Canadian cousin to Detroit’s MC5/early Stooges impulse. A year later they paired the album cut “You Don’t Notice the Time You Waste” with “If Only” for a second 45, showing a tighter, more song-forward stance while keeping the grit intact.
The self-titled LP followed in 1970, recorded at RCA Toronto largely live-off-the-floor and issued domestically as Columbia ELS-374 in a handsome gatefold—unusual luxury for a Canadian release and one reason originals became collector catnip. The record maps the band’s fault line between late-60s psychedelia and oncoming hard rock: eerie, organ-heavy epics like “Crying Into the Deep Lake” sit alongside ragged Stones-leaning crushers such as “Make Some Use of Your Friends,” with “Roll My Own” splitting the difference in a Hammond-and-guitar churn. All tracks were written by MacKay/McKim, whose partnership anchored both the moodier organ canvases and the greasier riff tunes.
They played around Toronto with a home base at the Cosmic Home and were known for extremely loud, high-energy sets that helped define their reputation. The unit fractured soon after the LP—by MacKay’s own telling, there was plenty of material left and momentum to spare, but not the cohesion to carry on. In the decades since, the album’s Canada-only status and hybrid garage/psych/early-hard-rock character pushed it into grail territory; high-grade copies have fetched four figures, while the legend grew through comps and whisper networks.
Reissues finally opened the vault: Void re-pressed the LP (adding a bonus 7"), and a sanctioned CD added unreleased demos—most famously “Astrology,” revealing a taut, funky underside that never made the album cut. Guerssen’s recent 24-bit remasters restore the gatefold aesthetics, add previously unavailable session material from 1969–71, and (on Bandcamp/vinyl) bundle downloads of the non-LP sides; Milkcow even reissued “Feel It” as a stand-alone 7" in 2024, the single that still feels like the band’s mission statement.
For a band that lasted barely two years, It’s All Meat left behind a remarkably cohesive and potent body of work—two singles, one blistering LP, and a set of demos that reveal just how much more they had in reserve before calling it a day.
-Robert Williston
Jed MacKay: organ, piano, lead vocals
Rick McKim: drums
Rick Aston: bass, vocals
Wayne Roworth: guitar
Norm White: guitar
This was a treasure to find! I bought it on CD, and man, it's awesome! This is like New York Dolls as a 1969 garage rock/heavy psyche band who put an album out in 1970. The vocals are like Mick Jagger with more punkish sneer. This is the kind of thing I search for: crunchy guitars, intriguing lyrics, attitude in the vocal delivery, and some decent variety. I love the hard rockers the best, but "Crying Into the Deep Lake" is wonderfully eerie, sounding like The Doors meet 1969 Pink Floyd, and "Sunday Love" is bi-polar with a light, dreamy, trippy side and a harder, crunchy side. "Make Some Use of Your Friends" and "Roll My Own" are my two favourite tracks. The CD comes with some great bonus tracks. Check out this album on YouTube! That's where I heard it and decided I had to have it!