A Minute Late ... A Dollar Short (EP)

The Trapt came out of Nepean, on Ottawa's western edge, in the mid-1980s and spent the rest of the decade as a fixture of the capital's punk scene. They played punk in the British mould, with shout-along choruses and a political edge, and listeners often heard Stiff Little Fingers in songs like 'Car Bomb'.

The first lineup had Aidan Girt on vocals, Max Ferguson on guitar, Les Maiczan on bass and James Deziel on drums. By November 1985 they were sharing a bill at Café Alternatif with Honest Injun and Flag of Truce, two bands that would stay tied to them for decades. Girt left that year. He later sang with Anal Chinook and went on to play drums in Godspeed You! Black Emperor and record electronic music as 1-Speed Bike.

Through 1986 to 1988 The Trapt worked the circuit of community halls, campus rooms and the all-ages club One Step Beyond, playing with Grave Concern, God's Gift, The Dumbs, Problem Children, Neanderthal Sponge and Pankreasse. In 1988 they turned up on Ontario: Yours To Discover!, a province-wide punk cassette that Stephen Perry of One Blood spent two and a half years assembling and sold in a run of about 150 copies. Porcelain Forehead had recommended them, and the band contributed 'Fool On The Hill' and 'Someday's Punk Rock Sucks'. The tape credited the original Nepean lineup, though the band had changed by the time it appeared.

In 1989 Trashtone Sound Products issued A Minute Late... A Dollar Short, a four-song 7-inch played at 33 1/3 RPM: 'Yes Sir, No Sir', 'Couldn't Care Less', 'Cheated' and 'Car Bomb'. The lineup was Malcolm F. on lead vocals and guitar, Colin on guitar and vocals, Les The Bear on bass and James "Thumper" on drums, with Pat Gilbert sitting in on piano for 'Couldn't Care Less'. They cut it at Ambience Studios in Ottawa with Marty Jones, the former Honest Injun guitarist, who engineered the session and co-produced with the band. Jones later ran Sound of One Hand Studios and played with Furnaceface. The cover wrapped the title around a pile of empty beer bottles and live shots, and the insert was a cut-and-paste jumble of flyers, hand lettering and zine graphics, finished with a long thank-you list of Ottawa scene people.

The record arrived in the band's busiest stretch. On September 8 they opened for The Dead Milkmen at Porter Hall, and on September 29 they shared the Glebe Community Centre with straight-edge locals Harsh Reality on Fugazi's first visit to Ottawa. About 350 people paid six dollars to get in. Promoter Shawn Scallen later remembered more than 300 kids crammed into the hot, humid basement and counted The Trapt among the best local bands of the late 1980s. Over the next three months they played GiGi's and Zaphod Beeblebrox, opened for D.O.A. at Barrymore's on December 8, and supported NoMeansNo at the same club around the turn of the year.

In 1990 they went on the road with the Ripcordz, Random Killing and The Stand GT from Glengarry County. The Stand GT carried a bootleg soundboard tape of a Trapt show at Station 10 in Montreal and played it in their van for years. From it they learned 'Keep Your Engine Clean', a Trapt song with lyrics by Mac Ferguson that the band never released, and recorded it on their album Apocalypse Cow. The Trapt kept playing Ottawa through 1990, including a night at Zaphod Beeblebrox with Gaye Bykers On Acid, and then faded out, leaving the 7-inch as their only record.

On November 30, 2007 they reunited at Babylon alongside Fluid Waffle and Flag of Truce, all three back for the night, with half of Honest Injun on the bill as well. The crowd slammed, someone pleaded with the pit not to push the people in walkers, and there were running jokes about a defibrillator stage left. Fans kept climbing up to sing along, and the band opened and closed with 'Yes Sir, No Sir'.

House of TARG brought them back in December 2017 for its Seasons Beatings series, billed as Ottawa punk legends alongside World War 4, Police N' Thieves and Uncooperatives. On September 22, 2018 they played the punk stage at Beau's Oktoberfest in Vankleek Hill on the same day as The Stand GT, the band that had kept 'Keep Your Engine Clean' alive.

Former Trapt members later joined ex-members of Furnaceface, Flag of Truce and God's Gift, plus a current member of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, in The ReTreads, who debuted at Seasons Beatings in December 2025 and released their first album at House of TARG in May 2026.

-Robert Williston