Cognac and Bologna/Wrap It!

Artist: Doug & the Slugs
Label: One Way Records Inc
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 046633443029
EAN: 0046633443029
ASIN: B000002R8R

Release Date: 1997-03-18

Cognac and Bologna/Wrap It!

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Canada

| North America | International | Styles | Music

General

| Pop | Styles | Music

Pop Rock

| Pop | Styles | Music

General

| Rock | Styles | Music

CDs $7 - $10

All Bargain Titles

All Bargain Titles

Tracks:

'Cognac and Bologna': To Be Laughing
'Cognac and Bologna': Just Another Case
'Cognac and Bologna': Soldier Of Fortune
'Cognac and Bologna': Too Bad
'Cognac and Bologna': Advice To A Friend
'Cognac and Bologna': Stay With Me
'Cognac and Bologna': Chinatown Calculation
'Cognac and Bologna': Thunder Makes The Noise
'Cognac and Bologna': Drifting Away
'Cognac and Bologna': If I Fall
'Cognac and Bologna': Tropical Rainstorm
'Wrap It!': Dangerous?
'Wrap It!': Real Enough
'Wrap It!': Not On The Corner
'Wrap It!': Wrong Kind Of Right
'Wrap It!': Partly From Pressure
'Wrap It!': Alibi
'Wrap It!': Infrared
'Wrap It!': Forget About Me
'Wrap It!': Frankie
'Wrap It!': (Just A Little Bit) Embarrassed
'Wrap It!': River

Customer Reviews:

Fond memories of a great band.......2006-05-06

I had several of the Slugs' albums on vinyl back in a previous century, but I lost track of them for many years and only rediscovered them on CD a year or so before Doug Bennett's untimely death. I was delighted with how well this music had aged, if anything I appreciated the mix between energetic pop songs and more thoughtful numbers with insightful and often bittersweet lyrics more than ever. And it's hard not to like a band that sounds as if the members are having fun, it's a refreshing contrast with the brooding self-pity that so many rock musicians indulge in. Like some other Canadian Bands (Rough Trade or The Tragically Hip come to mind) the Slugs deserved more commercial success than they achieved, the name of the band probably didn't help much there, and maybe they were laughing too much for the music industry to take them seriously. But if you haven't heard this music then this collection is the best place to start, some of their later recordings maybe are not up to this standard, but Cognac and Bologna in particular is outstanding with razor-sharp songwriting that will have you hitting "repeat" to savor to savor the lyrics over and over again.

Doug would want it that way.......2005-09-12

Doug Bennett was one of Canada's best talents. One of the first bands to successfully use video media, they were early pioneers on MTV. Tight vocals, excellent musicianship, multiple Juno award winners. What can I say? They rock.

This is an early compilation comprising their first album Cognac and Bologna and their second, Wrap It. Cognac and Bologna has the clever lyrics of "Too Bad", "Chinatown Calculation". But "Wrap It" rocks. By this time, they had exposure and had matured into a finally honed group. Best tracks? "Real Enough", "Not on the Corner." They rock.

I had a chance to see this band several times in the 80's in clubs in Seattle. They never failed to entertain.

Doug Bennett passed away in October, 2004. The Slugs persist, yeah sadly, under a different name. Listen to one of Canada's best exports and you will not be sorry.

Great little band-that-mighta-been (and sometimes still is).......2003-03-20

A great album, and a sort of sad story behind it... Last weekend (March 2003) I watched Doug and his current Slugs play a tiny little club, packed, for this evening, with balding men in baseball caps ("whenever you see a guy in a bar with a baseball cap on, he's probably bald" -- D. Bennett) and trashily "dressed-up" suburbanized women with big hair, threatening cleavage and tight jeans. It was a fun, tuneful evening, but I gotta admit -- Doug seemed tired. His voice is still passionate, unique, and a delight to listen to; he still put a lot of energy into his performance; and he knew how to get the crowd laughing, dancing, and enjoying themselves. He emceed an impromptu twist contest, told abundant jokes (mingling with the audience as he always does in such venues), even did a singalong encore of the Stones' "Satisfaction" -- a tune well-suited to his voice. There was, tho', a cynical edge to a lot of his patter, and some of his jokes were flat out hostile; it was softened by the fact that he often poked humour at himself (at one point he told a member of the audience to stop complaining about his monologues, because "half our routine is me talking about how fat I am..."). But sometimes it stopped being funny. He did a routine about how at various points in his career he thought he'd be able to "stop playing in p---holes like these," called himself a "fat a--hole" at various points in the night, bitched about his divorce a few more times than one would've expected, said a few things about audience members that could have gotten him decked, and, when he wasn't singing, generally just wandered off into the corner to wait things out, expressionless. He's a really GOOD showman, and so these things were really no problem -- and none of the bald guys or trashy gals he poked fun at started a fight with him, much to my relief -- but it seems like the years without success have worn him down a bit; while he made sure the audience had fun, I'm not sure that he did. It's too bad -- no pun intended -- because he OUGHT to be one of Canada's patron saints of music, OUGHT to be appreciated more. If Stompin' Tom is our Woody Guthrie, then Doug Bennett is our Frank Sinatra (or Tony Bennett or -- fill in your own blank). This album OUGHT to be in every self-respecting Canadian music fan's collection, just out of sheer loyalty to real Canuck art -- and out of respect to the band for surviving so long, when really they only ever put out one GREAT recording (COGNAC AND BOLOGNA). The reality, though, is that this album -- like the rest of the Slugs' backcatalogue -- isn't even for SALE in Canada; if you want to get it -- and if you like tuneful, smart, cynical pop stuff, like the idea of Raymond Chandler doing standup while a 50's jukebox plays in the background, then you SHOULD get it, by all means -- the only option that I know of is this very site, Amazon.com. The only bit of good news from the March show: it sounds like the Slugs have a current recording contract. Maybe there'll be another disc coming sometime. Who knows; there's life in the man yet, battered about tho' it may be. Like Buk says, "One learns survival by surviving..."

Great little band-that-mighta-been (and sometimes still is).......2003-03-20

... OUGHT to be one of Canada's patron saints of music, OUGHT to be appreciated more. If Stompin' Tom is our Woody Guthrie, then Doug Bennett is our Frank Sinatra (or Tony Bennett or -- fill in your own blank). This album OUGHT to be in every self-respecting Canadian music fan's collection, just out of sheer loyalty to real Canuck art -- and out of respect to the band for surviving so long, when really they only ever put out one GREAT recording (COGNAC AND BOLOGNA). The reality, though, is that this album -- like the rest of the Slugs' backcatalogue --... if you like tuneful, smart, cynical pop stuff, like the idea of Raymond Chandler doing standup while a 50's jukebox plays in the background, then you SHOULD get it, by all means --...it sounds like the Slugs have a current recording contract. Maybe there'll be another disc coming sometime. Who knows; there's life in the man yet, battered about tho' it may be. Like Buk says, "One learns survival by surviving..."

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