Information/Write-up
Dave Filchak and Robert Williston present Moses - End of the Line - an outstanding album and one of the best rock albums from Alberta in the 1970's. I originally uploaded a few tracks on itcamefromcanada.com way back on December 20, 2009. This updated version contains 11 of the 13 tracks remastered from Dave - and two from my most recent vinyl transfer ('Ballerina Dance' and 'Feel Like a Fool' as they have better sound than the original master tapes.
Robert: Hi Dave - the extensive jacket liner notes seem to cover it - is there anything that you'd like to add?
Dave: It’s pretty accurate, written by a guy who know us well and also a musician. He may be a bit light on how much we toured and we were really only home for maybe a month a year. And we did that for about seven years. But other than that, it is pretty accurate.
I owned Southern Sound Studios at the time, I was back in my home town, and had all of these tapes from recordings we did while touring. These were demo masters, or release masters et cetera. So, I re-mastered them in the studio and compiled a compilation album of some of our more popular songs. Really a release for the fans.
The A side opens with Ballerina Dance - a song written by the bass player, Jim Williams, for his daughter. I believe it was written in 1975 but hey, it was a long time ago. Sung by Dave Filchak with backups by Jim Williams and Lynn Johnson.
'Saturday Night Girl' was written by Dave Filchak It is a basic love/lust song about an encounter with a particularly free spirited girl I met somewhere on the west coast. I am thinking Washington state. She was great, the night was great so a song just had to be written about it.
'Whatcha Gonna Do Know' was written by Dave Filchak. This was the first single released by Moses back in 1975. It was recorded at Pumpkin Studios in Chicago, owned by Gary Louizzo (American Breed - Bend Me Shape Me). The B side was Heebner’s Blues (53 Chevy), which opens the B side. It is a song about dealing with hard or difficult situations. How you deal with it can affect so many things.
'Between the Places' was written by Dave Filchak. It's a road song for sure. Missing my girl back home. Too many tours, much too long.
'Nobody' is a song about pushing back against people trying to push you into doing things you do not believe in or want to do. I was feeling a bit rebellious when I wrote this. But sometimes to move forward you have to push back.
'I’m On to You' is a song written by Lynn Johnson. I believe it was a song about his marriage which was going through some difficult times. Again, to long away, to many opportunities. It was Rock and Roll and it was the 70’s.
'Feel Like a Fool' is a song describing how you might feel when in love or lust. Slightly akin to a piñata
The B side opens with ’53 Chevy’, aka ‘Heebner’s Blues’, written by Lynn Johnson about an old 53 Chevy red truck we used to haul around back in the early seventies. We partied pretty hard in that truck and it had a personality all of its own. So, ‘Heebner’s Blues’ was also ‘AKA 53 Chevy’. I wrote ‘Whatcha Gonna Do Now’ somewhere around 1974/75, I think. Kind of vague on that one.
‘Promenade’ is a song I wrote about my first wife when we were trying to maintain a very long-distance relationship and all the various things we had to do to keep that together. What happens on the road and all of that. That was not always easy.
‘Sit Down’ is a song about some of the people you meet when in a touring band who always seem to know a better way you should be doing things, saying things etc. It can sometimes get very tiring.
‘Waistin’ My Time’ was a song I wrote with our bass player Jim Williams (RIP). His lyrics, my music. The song, as far as I know it, was about his marriage. I believe they were having some issues at that time. Hard to maintain relationships under the conditions we were living under.
‘Comin’ On Strong’ was a dance song. We played quite a lot of rock and sometimes odd figures so, I wanted to write a dance song to help get people out of their seats. Lyrically it was a pep talk to us as a group to keep focused and to keep pushing for our common goal. This was also the first time we started to use Congas in our music.
Finally, ‘I Need You’. The title sort of explains the song pretty well. A song of mine written for my wife. My life was quite hard on her (as well as the other women in our lives) so it was a love song to my wife and probably for all the women that mattered to us.
Liner notes:
To millions around the world, Moses was just another prophet, but to rock connoisseurs in Canada and the United States, Moses was a hard hitting, high energy rock and roll band. Few Southern Alberta groups have managed to sustain the same amount of commitment, and none have come as close to success.
There were four of them to begin with, Dave Filchak, lead guitar and vocals; Eric Geisreiter, drums and percussion; Lynn Johnson, guitars and vocals; and Jimmy Williams, bass. They came together in the spring of 1973, frustrated by what was happening musically in Southern Alberta. 1973 was a time when most local musicians were playing top 40 and commercial music, which was leading nowhere. There was plenty of work around, but no one would ever make it playing bars and cabarets in Lethbridge. Dave, Lynn and Jimmy had long been writing excellent original material and performing it for Southern Alberta audiences, who had been notoriously slow in accepting anything but the familiar AM rehash from local bands. But Moses knew only their hope of success lay in playing their own music.
So the break from Lethbridge traditional came about, and suddenly there was a slick new band in town. The boys were back, but this time with something completely different. They were flashy; they were powerful; but most important of all, they were original. That was there Ticket.
Moses began as an idea, a concept, but it seemed to become a vision. It became a tight professional act. It became banks of light, walls of speakers, glitter, finesse. Word travelled fast. In a few weeks the group played to packed houses every night, while audiences reacted enthusiastically, and the general exuberance that was Moses caught on.
So there they were - on top in Southern Alberta. It had been easy, perhaps too easy. It might have been easier to stay and enjoy it all. But bands die here. They needed bigger cities and more exposure. The only hope for making it for Moses lay on the outside - in the U.S. and the rest of Canada.
And so began an extensive and gruelling series of tours, more than a dozen of them. The band played countless engagements, mainly in the U.S. getting the promotion and exposure necessary to interest a record company in their product. The pressures of the road were telling, however, which resulted in a personnel change for the group. Eric left the band to pursue other interests, and was replaced by drummer Randy McCann, whose hard rock influence changed slightly the band's direction. Many Moses followers missed the subtle funkiness of Eric's drumming, but others were equally satisfied with the band's new heavier feel.
The touring continued until the spring of 1977, with a great deal of commitment from band members who lived on $40 a week or less and sank the rest back into the group. So Moses continued to grow - new equipment, more lights. But the big time was always elusive. Maybe life on the road got the better of them. Maybe the countless string of one-nighters and hamburger joints were too much. But more likely it was the frustration of spending long hours in the studio and on tour only to have record companies expressed a reserved interest as the band searched for that obscure hit single. But the pressure of touring left no time for writing, and if they were to continue to write, there could be little time for live performances. This was the dilemma that the group could never quite resolve, a dilemma which led to the final disbanding in the summer of 1977.
And For all this, Moses still remains something of an enigma. Perhaps this album will answer some of the questions many of us were left with. After all, what was Moses really all about? If the answer is anywhere, it is here in the music.
-Jeremy Etherington
This album was a compilation album that was released after Moses broke up. This contains various studio cuts of songs recorded mostly in studios around the United States.
Dave Filchak: guitars, vocals
Lynn Johnson: guitars, vocals
Jim Williams: bass, acoustic guitar
Eric Geisreiter: drums
Randy “Skid” McCann: drums
Edited and mixed at Southern Sound Studios, Lethbridge, Alberta, 1978
Mastered at the Lacquer Channel, Toronto, Ontario
Cover photo by Ed Klima
Album concept by Dave Filchak
Script by B. Edmundson
Management by Douglas H. Brown
2,000 copies pressed
No Comments