Archive: Pure wins Best Alternative Video - CMVA 1993

Way back in 1993 Pure won the best Alternative Video award at the Canadian Music Video Awards held at the famous Much Music studios on Queen St, Toronto. We attended a couple of these and both times I recall being a huge party and a great time. The old Much Music was so important to the Canadian music scene, establishing bands like ours right across the nation. It's fun to watch this again, with VJ Erica Ehm talking with us and the Bare Naked Ladies announcing our award.

Archive: Pure - Pure (video)

This was the last video we made from our debut album Pureafunalia. This song has a long and interesting history too. The song Pure was written when we were still calling ourselves The Grin Factory. Though that name was short lived this song wasn't.  We made a demo with John Webster (the producer of Jordy, Todd and Leigh's former band After All). John had been working on sessions with the likes of Motely Crew and Bon Jovi and had built up a respectable array of sampled drum sounds over that time. When we brought him this song he has a Tascam 488 (8 track cassette multitrack) that we striped one track with sync to drive his Mac running MOTU Perfomer. John loaded up his Akai S1000 sampler with some incredible drum sounds that he told us had been made either for a Motley Crew album or maybe it was Aerosmith, they had been made at Little Mountain Studio for a record that Bob Rock had produced (John was usually brought in to play keyboards and generally make things sound even huger than normal).

Leigh Grant, the drummer in Pure, played his parts on a keyboard, triggering these fantastic drum samples and then Jordy put down the bass part. (I don't remember if David Hadley was in the band at this point). Todd laid down one rhythm guitar part and I sequenced all the strings and the clarinet sample along with the little percussion sequence that I'd done in my Ensoniq ESP-16. I vividly remember the moment when John flipped the tape and told Todd to play a solo, but in reverse. The result was mesmerizing. Jordy's vocals went down pretty quickly and we had a killer demo.

Pure, the song, was then played at a Music West listening panel (in fact the festival was called Westex that year) wherein Ron Goudy from Restless Records stood up at the end of the playback and announced to the room that "this band will be signed in 24 hours." We weren't, but it did lead to us meeting a music lawyer and later signing to Reprise Records.

Months later we found ourselves living on houseboats in Sausalito, California and recording our album Pureafunalia with former Talking Head's guitarist/keyboardist Jerry Harrison producing. We tracked an entirely different version of the song with live drums and Dave on bass but something didn't feel right. Turned out we'd recorded it a bit faster than the demo and we had lost some of its groove. That lead to us getting John Webster to transfer the music to a 2" 24 track up in Vancouver and sending it down to us in California. The real irony came later when we built the song up to so many tracks we had to transfer everything over to a Sony PCM 3348 digital multitrack. We managed to go from the day's cheapest recording medium to the most expensive in the course of recording one song!

Pureafunalia came out, we made a handful of videos, toured several times and then figured we could get one more single off the album and made a video for the song Pure. It was filmed in a rehearsal room that was decorated with the items you see in the video. Co-directed by Rob Chong and Jordy Birch, with camera and editing done by Rob. It's a great song and typically Pure looking clip (all our videos seemed to look alike) that I'm happy to share with the world 28 years later.

Thanks for reading. Stay healthy. Cheers!
Mark

Archive: Pure- Spiritual Pollution debut on Much Music

Spiritual Pollution was the third single from Pure's debut album Pureafunalia. This video was co-directed by Blair Dobson and Jordy Birch, with Dobson handling the camera and editing as well. Made in a loft in Vancouver with not much more than a concept, a couple horns and a smoke machine Spiritual Pollution was one of the more successful videos from the band.

This clip included a short interview with Much Music VJ Steve Anthony talking with Jordy Birch and Mark Henning before debuting the  clip.  I believe this was sometime in late 1992.

Archive: Pure - Blissful Kiss Live on Much Music 1992

This is the first time the band Pure appeared live on Much Music. Terry David Mulligan introduced us and afterward conducted a short interview. We played our song "Blissful Kiss" which was a less successful single from Pureafunalia. In the interview we discussed being of the "Big, Bad, and Groovy"cross Canada tour supporting Bootsauce, Sons of Freedom and Art Bergman. I believe this was filmed in Sept 1992.

Pure - Blast (Cdn Version) 1992

Here is the first version of the video for Blast, the first single from Pure's debut album Puerafunalia. Shot and directed by Dermot Shane in a warehouse in Burnaby, B,C., Canada back in early 1992. Blast came out in near the end of the summer in 1992. This video was later replaced by a second, higher production level version directed by Troy Smith (which won Best Alternative Video at the CMVA's in 1993).

Once again, this clip was transferred from vhs tape that had been taped from Much Music television. I've replaced the broadcast audio with CD audio to increase the sound quality for YouTube.

Archive: First Pure Interview on Much Music

This is a clip recorded from Much Music back in 1992. Interviewer Terry David Mulligan caught up with singer Jordy Birch on the beach at English Bay in the Wesy End of Vancouver to discuss the upcoming debut release Pureafunalia. It's fun to see Vancouver back in 1992.

Blast From the Past: Pure on Ear To The Ground

I found this interview on a seldom used old hard drive, one that contained a bunch of old footage, transferred from VHS. This is a CBC production called "Ear To The Ground" featuring my former band PURE. The interview portion was recorded in Vancouver at a now defunct poolhall (called The Automotive if memory serves) while the live footage was filmed in Toronto during a show at Lee's Palace. Following the release of Pure's debut album "Pureafunalia" this Ear to The Ground was one of several nation television moments for the band. Please enjoy this blast from the early 90's, when Much Music was still important and people loved to see bands perform live!