Give It Up b/w Touch Me

The Trees were a Halifax electro-pop trio: Dave Roberts on lead vocals, keyboards and programming, Bruce Nelson on guitar and vocals, and Steve Coady on drums, vocals and programming. They set sequenced bass, synthesizers and drum machines against live guitar and drums, and built everything around three strong voices.

Roberts and Nelson went back a long way. They had played together in the Halifax rock band Titan, which released two singles and placed 'Midnight Romeo' on the 1982 compilation Eastern Alliance, and they stayed together through Bats in the Belfry and Screaming Trees, the band that became The Trees.

In 1987 the trio represented Canada at Band Explosion '87, Yamaha's international band competition, held at the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo. The contest had drawn more than 10,000 entries from around the world, and the Halifax band came home with the Best Band Award. They had shortened their name to The Trees just before the trip. One of the two songs they played at the Budokan was 'Give It Up', an original with an anti-drug message.

Back in Nova Scotia they worked a club circuit where Top 40 covers still paid the bills, and kept pushing more of their own songs into the set. On September 16, 1988, about 300 people saw them at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax. Karen Seaboyer, reviewing the show for the student paper The Picaro, praised all three players for their energy and noted that more than half the set was original, including 'Land of Mystery', 'Give It Up', 'Wherever the Wind Blows' and 'Wrong Side of Town'.

That fall the band shot its first video, for 'Give It Up', at the Palace on Brunswick Street in Halifax. The shoot ran through the night and wrapped around 5:30 on a Sunday morning. The clip follows a young woman who falls in with the wrong crowd.

The self-titled album came out on Coconut Records (CNT-8801) that fall, distributed by Electric Distribution of Scarborough, Ontario. It was recorded at Solar Studios in Halifax and Grant Avenue Studios in Hamilton and produced by the band with Jim Lamarche, Donnie Chapman and Glenn Meisner. All ten songs are credited to Nelson, Roberts and Coady. In November the band took the record to Newfoundland, with dates at Sidetrax in Gander and at Memorial University's Thomson Student Centre in St. John's.

'Give It Up', backed with 'Touch Me', was released as a single on Coconut Records (SCNT-8801) and serviced to radio early in 1989. It entered RPM's 40 Cancon Singles chart in March, peaked at No. 23 in May, holding that spot for two weeks, and stayed on the chart for about three months. RPM reviewed the album that April, singling out the freshness and confidence of the trio's vocals and naming 'Common Ground', '(Am I) Good Enough for You' and 'Wrong Side of Town' as standouts alongside the single.

At the first Maritime Music Awards, held in Halifax on April 10, 1989, 'Give It Up' was nominated for Video of the Year. The band returned to the 1990 awards with nominations for Group Recording of the Year and, again, Video of the Year for 'Give It Up'. Toronto's CFNY also put The Trees on its 1989 CASBY ballot for Best Indie Artist, with 'Give It Up' in the running for Best Indie Video.

By 1997 Steve Coady was working in promotion at A&M Records. Roberts and Nelson kept playing together in Fire Rooster and later reunited with Steve Brown in Blueberry Grunt.

-Robert Williston