Monday, April 2, 2012

Artist: Caramel, Album: Caramel, Song: Road To Nowhere

"Take me round the block baby one last time."  Caramel were a rock band from Toronto that formed during the late nineties.  They originally included Andy Curran (see blogs 12/2/10, 6/7/11), Simon Brierley (see blog 12/2/10) and Eddie Zeeman but would later, add a fourth member by the name of, Virginia Storey.  Curran and Brierley have had long histories in Canadian music, as members of Coney Hatch and FM respectively.  They began recording together for Curran's Juno award winning debut solo album in 1990.  When Curran's band was dropped from their label, they recruited Zeeman and formed Soho 69.  When Soho 69 was dropped from their label they morphed into Caramel.  The band recorded their debut self titled album in 1997 and were immediately signed to Geffen Records.  Caramel's sound was a bit of a departure from the hard rock sounds of Soho 69 and Curran's solo material.  The band's sound was perhaps more alternative for lack of a better word.  The lead single, Lucy (http://www.youtube.com/watch), actually did better in the U.S. than in Canada but as fate would have it, they once again, ran into label issues.  Their label, Geffen, was acquired by Universal Music and as a result of the housecleaning that took place, the band felt that they were better off on their own.  Zeeman would leave the band and be replaced by Randy Cooke and a year later, they would enter the studio under the name, Drug Plan.  Caramel likely would have recorded a second album with Geffen and seemed to be making inroads within the elusive U.S. market.  The band even toured with Creed.  Nonetheless, they and their one and only album remain a long lost treasure.  Unfortunately, it is out of print but Amazon had a ton of copies trading between $5 and $60 at the time of this blog.  One phenomenal track from this album is the song, Road To Nowhere.  Definitely worth checking out if you can get your hands on a copy of the album.  Thanks for reading and enjoy!