Catapillars (EP)

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 new 2019 remastered copy of the 2nd release by Eric's Trip. Recorded live on a borrowed cassette 4track in Chris's folks basement on April 7th 1991. Finished and released on cassette later that month.

We received a good local response for our first cassette through the winter. Selling 100+ copies at the local indie record store (Room 201) really pumped us up. We were rehearsing lots and writing new songs but still hadn't played a live show. That changed just after releasing this 2nd tape, when we played our first show on April 21st.

Still loud, messy and "lo-fi", we were getting our feel together more. Ed was getting better on the drums and the songs were getting catchier. The song BEATINGS was an evolution, quite peppy and went over well at shows during the summer. I'd like to mention the yelling at the start of the song was Julie and i acting. The song is about an abusive relationship so we acted that for drama. In reality our relationship was pretty light and fun, especially at this time.

I was doing other weird acoustic recordings on the side, and decided to incorporate that into Eric's Trip a bit. The song CATAPILLARS was the first of that side of the Eric's Trip sound which intermingled with our noisy tunes for the rest of the bands life. BRAVE AND BLAND is another one, and was also the start of Chris writing tunes for the band as well.

This tape and the next one "DROWNING" were released as 7 song "EP's" because we were really into those two My Bloody Valentine ep's from 1988 and wanted to do a similar thing. I kinda think of them together as our 2nd album.

Remastered from the original stereo master cassette by Rick 2019.
All songs and lyrics by Rick except #7 which was written by Chris.

Rick White: guitars, voice, melodica, tapes, noise
Julie Doiron: guitars, voice, mandolin on ‘7’
Chris Thompson: bass, noise, guitar, voice on ‘7’
Ed Vaughan: drums, percussion

With Natasha Hebert: percussion on ‘4’

released October 30, 2019