Makeshift

Bruce PM was the early recording name of Bruce Meikle, a Canadian musician whose work runs from Toronto’s early-1980s rock, new wave, punk and cassette underground to later jazz recordings on the West Coast. His 1981 cassette Makeshift, released by Nervous Recordings as NRV-1, captures him in a loose, handmade setting within the city’s post-punk and new wave circles, working with Mike Phillip, Paul Myers and Bruce Wrighte on a difficult-to-categorize set of recordings built around voice, bass, synthesizer, percussion, drums, guitar and wind instruments.

The tape was recorded mostly at The Happy Place in late 1981 and carries the feel of a true cassette-era project. Rather than presenting a fixed band lineup, the insert breaks the music down track by track, with Bruce PM and Mike Phillip moving between vocals, bass, synthesizer, percussion and drums. Paul Myers adds guitar and vocals to “Radios and Cameras”, while Bruce Wrighte plays guitar on “Well, Yes.” The notes state that all songs were composed by the musicians involved while recording, except “Radios and Cameras,” which was written by Jeff Nelson, John Deslauriers and Dave Dysart.

Musically, Makeshift is difficult to categorize. It moves through rock, new wave, punk, experimental electronic music and ad-hoc avant-garde cassette work without settling fully into any one of them. Much of it has a loose, live-off-the-floor feel, with rough vocals, bass, synthesizer, percussion, drums, guitar and wind instruments moving through short, somewhat unstructured pieces. The tape is interrupted by social commentary, political fragments, radio and television advertising-style spots, and meandering spoken passages that are often difficult to hear clearly in the mix. At times, its clatter and free-form construction suggest the Canadian noise-art lineage of Nihilist Spasm Band, though filtered through a Toronto post-punk and cassette-underground sensibility.

Makeshift also points into a wider Toronto network. Mike Phillip, credited with engineering and the largest share of the production, was Michael Philip Wojewoda, later one of the city’s important alternative music producers. Paul Myers had already been part of Space Invaders, whose self-titled 7-inch EP was issued in 1981 by World Records. Recorded at the Music Gallery in Toronto with John Oswald engineering and Paul Hodge assisting, the EP included “Cheer Up,” “But Dot Dot Dot,” “Dead Boats Don’t Float” and “I Wake Up Being,” with songwriting credited to Paul Myers and S. Cook. The Space Invaders connection places Makeshift close to the Music Gallery and Queen Street world, where rock, new wave, punk, art-pop, cassette work and small independent records crossed paths naturally.

Bruce Wrighte, credited on Makeshift for guitar and sleeve design, was connected to Party’s Over and the Toronto cassette compilation scene. Dave Dysart and John Deslauriers also place the tape near the same loose community that fed into L’Etranger and other politically minded Toronto post-punk projects. Bruce Meikle later appears in connection with L’Etranger and Kinetic Ideals, two bands from the same alternative circuit. With L’Etranger, he moved through a punk and new wave circle that also included Andrew Cash and Charlie Angus. Kinetic Ideals placed him near one of Toronto’s darker, more atmospheric post-punk sounds.

The later trail of Bruce Meikle’s career moves in a different direction. By the 2010s he was credited as an acoustic bassist in the Victoria jazz scene, appearing on Monik Nordine Trio’s The Old-New Town, recorded at Harbourview Studio in Victoria in December 2016 and released by Magenta Music in 2017. He also played acoustic bass on The Victoria Jazz Orchestra’s The Victoria Jazz Orchestra Live!, a 2019 Magenta Music release drawn from live recordings made at Vancouver Island venues between 2014 and 2018.

-Robert Williston