The World // Black Pit

Chalk Circle are a Canadian rock band from Newcastle, Ontario, later associated with the Toronto-area college rock and new wave scene of the mid-to-late 1980s. The group featured Chris Tait on lead vocals and guitar, Brad Hopkins on bass and backing vocals, Derrick Murphy on drums, and Tad Winklarz on keyboards, saxophone and vocals. Before settling on the name Chalk Circle, taken from Bertolt Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle, the band had performed under earlier names including The Casualties, The Reactors and New Addition.

Chalk Circle’s first release was an early two-song demo cassette featuring stripped-down versions of The World and Working in the Black Pit. The tape predates the 1985 Sounds From The Street Recordings cassette single The World, on which the songs were re-recorded in more developed form and the second track was shortened to Black Pit. This early material captures Chalk Circle just before the band moved from the Southern Ontario club circuit into wider college-radio attention. In 1985, they won CFNY’s CASBY Award for Most Promising Non-Recording Group, helping bring them to the attention of the Canadian music industry. The following year, the band received a Juno nomination for Most Promising Group.

The material was later issued as the independent cassette single The World by Sounds From The Street Recordings as SFTS 03, with The World on side A and Black Pit on side B. Recorded at Quest Studios in Oshawa, Ontario, the cassette moved the songs from their stripped-down demo form into the more developed recordings that brought the band to wider attention.

Chalk Circle signed with Duke Street Records and released the six-song EP The Great Lake in 1986. Produced by Chris Wardman, the EP included April Fool, Trains, Big White Clouds, Me, Myself & I, The Great Lake and Superman (Meets the Man of Steel). The release became one of Duke Street’s early success stories and helped establish the band nationally through Canadian radio and MuchMusic exposure. Separate singles from this period included April Fool and Me, Myself & I.

In 1987, Duke Street issued Mending Wall, Chalk Circle’s first full-length album. The album included This Mourning, My Artificial Sweetener, What Counts, N.I.M.B.Y., Empty Park, Hands, Park Island, Village and Who Can Say. Taking its title from the Robert Frost poem, Mending Wall deepened the band’s literate, socially aware songwriting while keeping the melodic guitar and keyboard sound that had defined their breakthrough. The album went on to achieve Gold certification in Canada. Singles from the album included This Mourning, 20th Century Boy and N.I.M.B.Y. A later CD edition of The Great Lake expanded the original EP with bonus tracks, including 20th Century Boy, Come With Me and Believe In Something.

Chalk Circle’s final studio album, As the Crow Flies, followed in 1989 on Duke Street Records. Produced by Michael Phillip Wojewoda, the album featured Cover Your Eyes, Out of Control, As the Crow Flies, Together, Blue Heaven (Antigua), The Moralist, Sons and Daughters, Purpose, Fairytales & Fiction, Lonely Street, Clothes You Wear and Can of Worms, along with the short interludes Rubber Ducky??? and Ottoman New York???. The album was supported by singles and promotional releases including Out of Control, Sons and Daughters and Together, with Out of Control also appearing through Canyon International in Japan. During this period, Chalk Circle toured nationally with Rush, Crowded House and Tears for Fears, and played festival dates in East Berlin in 1989, six months before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Chalk Circle disbanded in 1990, with Chris Tait later forming Big Faith.

-Robert Williston