Dehydrated Ditties

Angry Raisins were a short-lived but distinctive Ottawa punk band formed in October 1981 in a downtown basement rehearsal space. Beginning as what the band later described as a tawdry, turgid punk act, they quickly developed a darker and more adventurous sound that one contemporary observer characterized as 'Dead Kennedys meets Killing Joke'. By the end of their brief existence, the music had moved still further toward an electronic, Euro-disco-influenced direction. Their unusual name reportedly originated from a bad Japanese translation of 'The Grapes of Wrath'.

The original lineup included Mike Graham Hillis on vocals, Brian L. Bunt on guitar, Ferenc Ryan Szabo on synthesizers, Chris McLellan and drummer Drew Headrick. By December 1981, McLellan and Headrick had departed and Peter Lascelles Scott had joined on drums. This second incarnation, referred to retrospectively as 'AR 2.0', was captured during a basement rehearsal on December 17, 1981 using a portable mono cassette recorder. The surviving recordings were restored and issued decades later as The Peterbeats Begin.

A more ambitious recording session followed in March 1982 with Mark Strużyna engineering. Eight songs from the session were later issued as Dehydrated Ditties, including 'Die Diseased', 'State Of Shock', 'Walking Wounded', 'Result of Seduction', 'You Can't Take Back A Lie', 'Glut', 'The Plague' and the comparatively new 'The Long Pause'. The band later recalled being satisfied with the first seven recordings, while regarding 'The Long Pause' as a song that still needed considerably more rehearsal.

Angry Raisins performed around Ottawa during late 1981 and 1982, including appearances at the Riverside Hotel and the Spring and May Day Beaver shows. A final lineup saw David McCaig replace Bunt before the group dissolved in July 1982 after Peter Scott relocated to Toronto.

The band's history also fed directly into the next phase of Ottawa's punk underground. Following Angry Raisins, vocalist Mike Hillis and guitarist Chris McLellan became founding members of Porcelain Forehead, carrying part of the Angry Raisins lineage into one of Ottawa's more distinctive early-1980s punk groups. Decades later, Ferenc Ryan Szabo restored and remastered the surviving Angry Raisins tapes, preserving recordings that document the rapid evolution of a band whose entire existence lasted less than a year.

-Robert Williston