Terry and the Dreambeats - Clown Song b/w Ovid

Tracks

Side 1

		Track Name	Length
	1	Clown Song	03:01

Side 2

		Track Name	Length
	1	Ovid	04:29

Photos

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Information/Write-up

Terry and the Dreambeats were a short-lived but formative punk/new wave band from Wolfville, Nova Scotia, active roughly between early 1979 and late 1980. Emerging from the Annapolis Valley at a time when original bands were virtually nonexistent outside Halifax, the group embodied the early stirrings of what would soon become the Nova Scotia punk scene.

The band formed when Kevin Jollimore and bassist Marty Lake impulsively took the stage together at a high school dance, frustrated by the endless run of cover bands playing standard rock fare. That moment sparked the decision to form a band of their own. The early months were marked by constant name changes and lineup experimentation, until the group settled into its core configuration with Carter Lake on lead guitar and Jim Moore on drums. It was at this point that the deliberately absurd name Terry and the Dreambeats was adopted—a joke concept dreamed up by Moore, complete with a fictional “Terry” as the imagined financier and brains behind the band. Despite there being no actual Terry, Jollimore was often mistaken for him due to his role as singer.

Musically, the band was shaped less by local influences—there were few to speak of—and more by what filtered into rural Nova Scotia through television. Saturday Night Live was essential viewing, offering rare exposure to contemporary music in the pre-MTV era. Performances by Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, and The Clash had a direct and immediate impact on the band’s sound and songwriting. The day after seeing Talking Heads on SNL, the band wrote what would become their B-side, ‘Ovid’.

Terry and the Dreambeats played sparingly, limited by the lack of venues receptive to original music. Their hometown bar, The Anvil, famously refused to book them for being “too rough.” Early traction came instead from Halifax’s Grafton Street Café, run by Marion Priestly, who gave the band their first out-of-town show. The response was strong, placing them among the earliest wave of bands contributing to Halifax’s nascent punk underground alongside groups like The Vacant Lot and The Defects. They also found an audience at Acadia University, where their outsider energy resonated with students alienated by the disco-dominated club scene.

In 1980, the band self-released their only record, ‘Clown Song’ b/w ‘Ovid’, on their own Snarf Records imprint. Recording took place at Atlantic Audio in Halifax during a single eight-hour session, with the master sent to Toronto for pressing. The run consisted of 1,000 copies, financed equally by the band members. The stark ransom-note style sleeve was assembled by hand, with Jollimore personally pasting, folding, and gluing each one. Though rudimentary, the release was a local novelty—an original punk single produced entirely within the Maritimes—and sold out through gigs, word of mouth, and a handful of local record shops.

‘Clown Song’, written just weeks before recording, was built around a hypnotic minor-key progression and delivered with an intentionally raw vocal, shaped in part by Jollimore being ill on the day of recording. The lyrics avoided punk caricature and instead leaned toward blunt emotional reduction. ‘Ovid’, originally titled Oved (Devo spelled backwards), grew out of an abandoned attempt to play Talking Heads’ Take Me to the River and became a live favorite, often accompanied by theatrical stage antics.

The band dissolved within a year or so of the single’s release. Jollimore moved to Halifax and later Toronto, continuing to play in original bands and eventually joining the Canadian alt-country group The Sin City Boys, with whom he released multiple albums and secured a long-running publishing deal. Jim Moore went on to form Rusty, one of Canada’s most successful alternative rock bands of the 1990s. Marty Lake played with various Toronto groups, including The Boneheads, while Carter Lake remained in Wolfville, continuing to perform locally.

Though their lifespan was brief, Terry and the Dreambeats captured a precise moment: teenagers in a rural university town discovering punk in real time, translating distant influences into something urgent and local. Their lone single remains a rare and telling document of early Maritime punk, predating the scene’s wider recognition and preserving the raw enthusiasm of a band that existed simply because it had to.
-Robert Williston

Musicians
Kevin Jollimore: guitar, vocals
Carter Lake: lead guitar
Marty Lake: bass
Jim Moore: drums

Songwriting
‘Clown Song’: written by Kevin Jollimore
‘Ovid’: written by Kevin Jollimore and Marty Lake

Production
Produced by Terry and the Dreambeats
Engineered by Pat Martin
Recorded at Audio Atlantic, Halifax, Nova Scotia on July 12, 1980

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