Slow

Websites: https://slow.bandcamp.com/album/against-the-glass
Origin: Vancouver, British Columbia, 🇨🇦
Biography:

Slow exploded out of Vancouver’s early-to-mid 1980s underground with a reputation that quickly outgrew their tiny discography. Anchored by vocalist Tom Anselmi and guitarist Christian Thor Valdson (also seen as Thorvaldson), the band’s best-known lineup was completed by Ziggy Sigmund (second guitar), Stephen Hamm (bass), and Terry Russell (drums/percussion). They were routinely described from the outside as punk, garage punk, or proto-grunge, but the band’s own preferred tag was simpler and more accurate: “Demolition Rock.”

That description fit both the sound and the pace. Within roughly a year, Slow went from playing to small circles of friends to headlining larger Vancouver rooms, propelled almost entirely by word of mouth about their live shows—loud, physical, and unpredictable, the kind of band people argued about the next day.

In 1985, Slow documented that intensity at Aragon Sound with producer/engineer Howard Fitzgerald, issuing the 7-inch ‘I Broke The Circle’ b/w ‘Black Is Black’ on Zulu Records (ULUZ 2). The single—pressed by MPO and lacquer cut by Porky—became the calling card they took on the road, especially into the Pacific Northwest, where their mix of punk velocity and heavy, 1970s-informed hard rock landed hard in Seattle rooms well before “grunge” was a marketing category. The band’s name continues to surface in any serious conversation about the Vancouver–Seattle feedback loop of the era.

That same year, Zulu also released Slow’s defining longer statement: the six-song 12-inch EP Against The Glass (ZULEP 4). With Grant McDonagh involved in production/executive production and Fitzgerald again behind the board, the EP captured the band’s full range—straight-ahead demolition rock, serrated punk, and a sense of tension that never lets up. The opening track ‘Have Not Been The Same’ became especially iconic, its title later echoed in Canadian rock historiography, and for many listeners it remains the single best entry point into what Slow were: confrontational, hooky, and utterly unpolished in the best way.

Slow’s story can’t be told without Expo ’86. On the opening night of the Festival of Independent Recording Artists—intended as a showcase for Vancouver’s thriving independent scene—Slow’s set ended with the power being cut, police involvement, and the festival collapsing into a public fiasco. Accounts differ on details, but the broad outline is consistent: complaints from startled onlookers, Expo officials intervening mid-set, and the band responding with onstage indecent exposure that brought authorities to the venue. Fans who had come specifically for the festival reportedly erupted in protest, and the event was ultimately cancelled “for safety and security.” It became the moment when Slow’s notoriety turned from scene legend into civic scandal.

Not long after, the band split cleanly in two. Anselmi and Valdson moved on with Eric Marxson and Pete Bourne, forming © (Circle C) and later working under the Copyright name. Hamm and Russell formed Tankhog, with Hamm also later collaborating with Robert Dayton as Big Hamm and Little Hamm under the name Canned Hamm. Slow’s original run was essentially over almost as soon as it had peaked, but their impact didn’t fade—if anything, the scarcity of the catalogue amplified it. With only a 7-inch and a six-song EP as core primary documents, Slow became one of those rare Canadian bands whose influence is discussed in multiples of what they actually had time to record.
-Robert Williston

Lineup
Tom Anselmi: vocals
Christian Thor Valdson: guitar
Ziggy Sigmund: guitar
Stephen Hamm: bass
Terry Russell: drums

Related / subsequent groups

Tankhog
Stephen Hamm: bass
Terry Russell: drums