Information/Write-up
Eric’s Trip began as a rumble beneath the quiet surface of Moncton, New Brunswick—a city with no defined indie scene, no mythology to inherit, and no roadmap for making distorted, dream-poetic pop music on homemade four-track machines. What the band lacked in infrastructure, they made up for with a fierce belief in self-creation. In the summer of 1990, Rick White and Chris Thompson—who had grown up together in the Moncton punk outfit The Forrest—joined forces with drummer Ed Vaughan and seventeen-year-old bassist-vocalist Julie Doiron, a shy presence whose soft voice would eventually become the emotional centre of the band’s sound. They named themselves after “Eric’s Trip,” a track on Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation, a subtle declaration of both influence and intent: noisy, intimate, unguarded music that felt like a private world happening inside a basement.
Moncton, a town with a population smaller than most American university districts, proved to be both a limitation and a liberation. There were few clubs, fewer audiences, almost no expectations—and yet the band blossomed quickly. Before they even stepped onto a stage, they had already recorded and self-released two cassette EPs, Eric’s Trip and Catapillars, recorded on borrowed four-tracks in family basements, adorned with hand-drawn art, and accompanied by tender, cryptic liner notes. A third tape, Drowning, followed. Their earliest recordings—often slightly out of tune, distorted, fragile, achingly melodic—felt like diary entries pressed to magnetic tape. They were making lo-fi not as an aesthetic but out of necessity, and what resulted became the core of their identity: fuzzed-out pop songs whispered rather than shouted, with emotional worlds larger than the equipment that captured them.
Their first live show didn’t arrive until April 1991—astonishing considering their growing catalogue—but by then their music had already begun circulating through the Canadian underground. The Warm Girl EP, released in January 1992, marked a turning point. A copy landed on the desk of Halifax scene builder and Sloan co-manager Peter Rowan, who recognized something extraordinary. Eric’s Trip were not aspiring to ride the rising wave of Halifax’s so-called “Seattle North” explosion—they existed entirely apart from it. Rowan offered to manage them. murderecords released the Peter CD EP. And in a move that would reverberate across Canadian indie history, Sub Pop—then the most influential independent label on the continent—signed Eric’s Trip, making them the first Canadian band on the label.
Their Sub Pop debut Love Tara arrived in November 1993. It was unvarnished, painfully intimate, and unlike anything else circulating through the post-Nirvana landscape. “Sappy melodic pop music on top of thick distortion,” Rick White once said—an understatement. The album chronicled the breakup of White and Doiron with startling vulnerability, their gentle, wounded voices floating above guitars that sounded like collapsing amplifiers. Critics who prized studio precision were baffled. But for a generation of young listeners—especially in small towns across Canada—Love Tara was a revelation. It proved that beautiful music could be made cheaply, personally, imperfectly; that art did not require permission; that heartbreak could become a shared echo. Gord Downie immortalized it in “Put It Off,” singing: “I played Love Tara by Eric’s Trip on the day that you were born.”
The band recorded constantly—cassettes, singles, 7-inches for tiny labels like Cinnamon Toast and Sonic Unyon, EPs for Derivative and Summershine—each release handmade, collectible, and adored by a growing cult audience. Their second Sub Pop album Forever Again (1994) expanded their sonic world, featuring the minor college-radio hit “Viewmaster,” while their final album Purple Blue (1996) pushed deeper into psychedelic textures, damaged pop, and noise-folk spirituality. Throughout, they toured Canada, the U.S., and Europe, playing basements, tiny clubs, and eventually the Tragically Hip’s 1996 Another Roadside Attraction tour. Despite rising attention, the band dissolved that same year—exhausted, adored, and already legendary.
Their breakup only widened the doorway they had opened. All four members continued making music with breathtaking productivity. Rick White plunged into psychedelic exploration with Elevator to Hell (later Elevator Through and Elevator), issued numerous solo records, became a trusted producer and visual artist, and collaborated with The Sadies, Joel Plaskett, Orange Glass, and the super-group The Unintended. Julie Doiron emerged as one of Canada’s most admired singer-songwriters—first as Broken Girl, then under her own name—earning a Juno Award in 2000 for her collaboration with Wooden Stars and later working with Phil Elverum, Okkervil River, Shotgun & Jaybird, and her own Sappy Records community in Sackville, N.B. Chris Thompson deepened his long-running Moon Socket project while co-leading Orange Glass and The Memories Attack. Drummer Mark Gaudet returned to his punk roots in The Robins, releasing new material produced once again by White. Their histories remain intertwined, a constellation of projects forever orbiting the original band.
Eric’s Trip reunited several times—first for a 2001 Canadian tour (immortalized on the live album Eric’s Trip: Live in Concert, Nov. 4, 2001 via White’s Great Beyond label), and later at SappyFest and the Halifax Pop Explosion. Each reunion confirmed what had been evident all along: their music was not a relic of the ’90s, but a living language that continued to resonate with new generations of artists discovering that intimacy and distortion could coexist.
More than three decades after their first basement recordings, Eric’s Trip remains one of Canada’s most influential indie groups—not for commercial achievements, but for the world of art they made possible. Their legacy is measured in the thousands of musicians who first picked up a four-track because Love Tara showed them they could; in the countless bands inspired by their blend of noise and vulnerability; in the Maritime artists who built entire scenes from the template they defined. Eric’s Trip never tried to lead anyone. They simply recorded their lives with honesty, distortion, and a sense of wonder—and in doing so, they quietly became one of the most important bands Canada has ever produced.
-Robert Williston
Here is a brand new 2019 remastered digital copy of the first Eric's Trip album. Originally recorded in December 1990 on a 4track cassette recorder, and independently released on cassette in our hometown of Moncton New Brunswick.
Eric's Trip formed in early summer 1990, Chris and Rick played together in a band called THE FOREST through 1989 and early 1990 with Chris on drums and Rick playing guitar and singing. As the FOREST fell apart, Chris wanted to move away from drumming and play bass. We looked for a new drummer for a while until Chris started to teach his best friend Ed Vaughan how to play. Ed was always around and we started jamming tunes with him sitting in.
Before we new it we had a bunch of new songs sounding pretty cool with Ed and decided to stick to this lineup. We were after a thick loud noisey sound mixed with dreamy mellow vocals and the sloppy drumming seemed to blend into the racket quite nicely. We were gathering up cheap big old used Traynor amps and practicing lots down in Chris's folks non-soundproofed basement. Eric's Trip was loud, thanks so much to his folks and all the neighbours, not sure how you could stand it, ha.
By December 1990 we had ten songs together and wanted to record a tape. Our friend Chris Donnahee was able to borrow a cassette 4track from his highschool and he came over to our space on December 2nd to help engineer the session. We had a couple sm57 mics, four borrowed cheap Realistic (Radioshack) mics and a little Realistic 6 channel mixer. The guitars, bass and drums were recorded live into the 4track with 3 mics on drums going through the mixer into one track. We got the 10 songs recorded that day, then in the next week we worked on adding the vocals.
At this primitive stage in our recording career, here is how we did this. Set up at Julie's folks house, we played the recorded 4tracks back through the six channel Realistic mixer. Monitoring through her folks stereo speakers, we got a mix we liked then sung live along with the playback into a 5th channel on the mixer. Recording the result on the 2track cassette deck.
This worked pretty good once we got the levels okay but there is an audible low end bleed throughout from using the speakers instead of headphones to monitor while we sang. When i first digitized this cassette in 2001 for a CDR release i didn't EQ this low-end muck out much at all. I just dubbed it pretty straight from the master cassette. I also didn't realize that the tape was playing slow a bit either. So the CDR and until now, this Bandcamp release was both muddy and a bit slow. I've finally corrected those things and have it sounding better than it ever has in my opinion. Still quite "lo-fi" of course but as good as i can get it.
I hope you like the result, it's a neat version of Eric's Trip here, quite different than how we sounded by the time we recorded the album people usually think of as our first in 1993, Love Tara. Sure i cringe a bit hearing my young singing skills now but i'm so glad i have this document of my past. Great times and the start of quite a magical trip.
All songs and lyrics by Rick except tracks 3 and 6 by Julie.
Original mix and 2019 remaster by Rick.
Cover drawing by Jon Claytor.
Rick White: guitar, vocals
Julie Doiron: guitar, vocals
Chris Thompson: bass
Ed Vaughhan: drums
released October 27, 2019
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