The Sceptres - Something's Coming Along/ What's The Matter With Juliet

Strident beat pop from the Montreal wonders

Label: Spark

Year of Release: 1968

While there were certainly exceptions to the general rule (particularly in the folk scene) Canadian musicians often got overshadowed by the work of their American cousins in the sixties. A quick scout around any Canadian record shop or eBay sales listing will reveal an assortment of surprising garage groups and pop outfits who never seemed to get far south of Niagara Falls, from Eastern groups who struck a careful compromise between French pop and American rock to Western bands making a fierce homespun racket. 

The Sceptres were a predominantly English language group from Montreal who released a brace of singles from 1965-1969, from the debut "Boy Like Me" on the Fi-Sound label through to their final release on Polydor "Good Morning New Day". The group made a huge name for themselves on the Canadian gig circuit due to their professional vocal harmony sounds, sufficiently getting enough acclaim to enable them to also tour the Eastern strip of the USA as well. Sadly though, no US record labels appear to have ever approached them with contracts, so no Billboard chart appearances resulted.

"Something's Coming Along", however, did sneak out on to Spark Records in the UK despite the group's largely unknown status in this country. There are two possible reasons for this outcome - firstly, the band had recently experienced a huge French language hit in Quebec with a cover of "I Never Had A Love Like That", and secondly both sides were co-written by John Carter, an individual who had a close working relationship with both the Spark label and particularly their parent company Southern Music. While the tracks were recorded in Canada by legendary producer Martin Martin rather than at Spark's studios in London, this association combined with the exotic North American connection must have made licensing the UK release too tempting to resist.

These are two solid sides as well. "Something's Coming Along" tip-toes between commercial beat pop and swinging mod rock successfully and could have been a potential UK hit. The flip side "What's The Matter With Juliet" is also a bold, brassy arrangement which highlights the group's vocal strengths. Some might call this popsike, but I'd draw short of describing it as that.

At this point in their career the group consisted of Bill Ott on bass guitar, Tim Hewlings on guitar, Bill Tyler on drums and Marty Butler on keyboards. The group have an absurdly detailed website which is a joy to plough through, and I'll resist the temptation to summarise their careers here - instead, I recommend you just head over and educate yourselves. The site also contains several other mp3s available for free download, all of which have the same punchy, swinging sound.

If the previews below aren't working properly, please just go the group's website - cleaner versions are also freely on offer in full there.