This is the history of Antimatter, as I recall it, by Geoff Marshall. 

It was 1985 when I bailed out of The Laughing Apples by mutual agreement. I was determined to finally make music the way I wanted to hear it with a band of like-minded compadres. I wanted it to be very tight, energetic, extremely poppy, extremely punk, with all kinds of elements from the things I’d recently started listening to, like Sid Barrett, The Idyl Race, all the psychedelic influences I got from the Laughing Apples and Grant Buffett. It wasn’t until Good Friday, 1986 that all the pieces came together. I had a rehearsal with Tom Hope on drums, I believe, Jeremy Burke on bass and Crocky on second guitar. We had just picked the band name that day. I sat in our backyard on the first really nice day of the year with a beer and a quarter of black. It was a really good Friday, and I wrote a song about it that I still haven’t recorded properly.

I had Crawford Teasdale on bass at first, then on second guitar as Jeremy took over bass. This was when we really became Antimatter. I remember there was brainstorming session at four Springhurst where we went over many ideas, and then we got into Star Trek-influenced ideas, obviously, as one does. In any case, I formed this band and we did a couple tapes. I was dead serious about writing the music and designing the posters and yet the rest was ad hoc, half-hazard, catch as one can.

We didn’t do anything serious until 1991, so we spent the last part of the 80’s playing in bars around Toronto and the independent scene there. We might have played in Kitchener, Hamilton, and I think that’s about it for “touring”. We played a Schnitzel House in Kitchener, opening for Change of Heart, and we also played Chuckies(?) in Hamilton, also opening for Change of Heart. They were my roommates, which made it easy. We all left from the same place and we all came home to the same place. I don’t remember much about those gigs except the guy that had a heart attack during soundcheck and kicking over a mic stand for vague effect. I was on the edge, man!

By 1991, I had written quite a number of songs and I was ready to do something on tape.

No, that’s not true. So what happened was this. I had done the “Infinity Inc.” aka “Surrealism Generator” album already using four-track technology, and I had continued to make demos on four tracks, and then I started getting bits of outboard gear, and by outboard gear I mean like guitar pedals that I could use with my four-track.

And then I reconnected with Gad Foltys, who had been in the band The Stroke on the road. The Stroke? No, he was in… oh my god, what was it called?

Gee whiz.

So there was a band called The Stroke, so they were Missing Persons and then there was already a missing persons band. So that was Robin and Pete that I met at the Tamarack in Kirkham Lake, the Irish Bar. And then…

Was it the Tamarack though? Might have been called something else to start with, a W. I got on the road with Captain, and then I met Missing Persons who had to change their name to The Stroke. Then I joined “The Plot” as the lighting guy. We called it “The Plop”. That’s where I met Gadi.

Pete Hendershot and Tom Hope had joined this band that was doing Styx covers, Journey, Foreigner, Kansas. Prog-light.

Okay, so they were not The Stroke, obviously.

I ended up doing another four track thing with Tony Springer when I was on the road with Tony Springer’s Fire. Yeah, Jimi Hendrix band.

And so Tony got a hold of a four track and I recorded something called “Violets” and Lou Reed’s “White Light White Heat.” And that was at 4 Springhurst. That was before I moved in with France and recorded “Surrealism Generator.”

Followed by “The Laughing Apples” EP cassette.

Then I started “Antimatter,” which is what this is supposed to be about. It’s not supposed to be about that Steve guy from King City that I almost froze to death with. Anyway, that ended up in the infamous Owen Sound debacle where I lost my first tapes from Bob May. Oh boy. Yeah, I don’t think I want to get too far into that story. But that was… was that one we almost froze to death? That might have been coming back from Owen Sound. Maybe that’s why he wanted to get going. He didn’t want to wait for anything because there was a storm coming in. I don’t know.

Oh my lord. Who would know? I don’t even think I know anybody who would know, still. Maybe Russ Williams.

It wasn’t John Stan because John Stan was a girlfriend with Robin who had left Pete.

Oh my god.

After I did the “Laughing Apples” tape, I reconnected with Gad Foltys – he had a project studio going in the west end of Toronto.

About four blocks from where I live now, actually. Five blocks, maybe.

Back to 1986 I recorded this tape. That’s what I did. I recorded the tape. But it wasn’t Tom Hope on drums, it was this guy, Steve Benoit, known as “Shhhhh.” And Bernard Maeizza played keyboards. Crocky played guitar. “MC Stanford III”, Chris Stanford was on bass, late of the “Ministry Of Love”, guess it didn’t work out. This is a lineup I really like. I think Gadi played guitar on it too. There might have been two tapes. So there was one with “Hairspray and Nicotine”, and then there was the one that we did videos for, which was with the drum machine. That was “post-Steve.” So we did the thing with Steve Benpit. That was “Hairspray” and “Nicotine.”

And then… yeah, yeah. And then after that I did one with Gav Fulties and me and I think it might have been John Stokes on bass.

Yeah, that’s right. And the Linn Drum Machine.

Okay, so… I reconnected with Gadi Foltys and we did that first tape.

At that time I played a show with Crocky on bass and singing, my self on guitar and singing, and Tom Hope on drums, and I think I wanted to name it “The OD3”. That was it. It was going to be the “The OD3”. That was a terrible name which Tom pointed out. 

And so instead of being the OD3 we became Antimatter. But were we Antimatter for that gig? We might have been the OD3 for that gig. That was in Hamilton. I definitely played Hairspray and Nicotine. I definitely knocked over a mic stand because that’s what you do when you’re a rebel, destroy some poor club owners mic stand that’s not yours. So irresponsible.

And so…

We did the tape. And then Steve Benoit and I went to Nova Scotia and back, hawking “Hairspray and Nicotine” as a single. I was sure that was going to be the turning point. Because we got on the radio. We did like one college radio thing. And we spent… I think the bill for the car rental was like 800 bucks, which we did not have.

But I paid it off. I paid it off with the money from somewhere, maybe from France.

Had I been fired from colorization by that point? Then I did that weird gig painting, breaking out screen prints. That was a weird gig. And then I started working at… Yeah I was probably on EI. 

Doesn’t seem like I made enough money somehow. So 85 to 86 was colorization. I think it was Halloween ‘85 that I was booted out of there.

And so I ended up being at Gad Foltys’ studio. Working in the studio. We got an Amiga 1000.

And by that time I was working with Wayne Laurence. But we didn’t record that. We had some rehearsal tapes with Wayne Laurence. John McClean. I think it’s John McClean, who I connected recently with on LinkedIn or Facebook. I’m not sure. One of those.

Robin briefly on guitar and then Gadi came in. And James Gray on keyboards.

So that was… Yes and we’ve done the “Conform” tape. But I think it’s John Stokes playing bass on that or Gadi. I don’t think it’s… I really don’t think it’s Wayne. Wayne and I talked about recording but we didn’t actually record. Which is a shame because…  

You know. He’s one of the best engineers in the world now. So there you go. So there’s that.

And I didn’t do anything until… Oh yeah. Michael Wojewoda and the Amorphia tape. Somebody told me there was another Centrifuge. A version of centrifuge from around that time. But anyways, there’s the Amorphia tape. Michael Philip Wojewoda And that was four songs. With Tom and Manuel D’Albuquerque.

I stripped Danny Matter back to its core again. To a three piece.

I wanted keys. It was just… Yeah, I was just having too much fun man. Too much fun.

And… So we did that tape. Then Manuel moved to Montreal and Tom was out. Because… Oh yes. Then I did Jesus Christ Superstar. And that changed everything. Tom was out.

I was working with Ron Anacich and Tom, then Jim Field and Tom. I had a series of three pieces. And then I got rid of Tom.

Phew, finally Tom left and Rosie Rosenthal took over. Rosie was a step up. And so it was Rosie and Jim and me for a while. And that was fucking awesome. And then Edgar. And then just Blitz and Rosie, because Edgar got tendonitis in both arms.

That’s how we recorded Afterthought. At Rob Sanzo’s place.

By ‘96 I got absorbed into Rave. I was Raving heavily and I wasn’t really interested in the Antimatter’s Rock and Roll Legacy. So that happened. And then I did the drum and bass thing with Final Program. And then I got Antimatter back together about 2004.

Did some gigs and started recording an album that I finished in 2005 called Beachhead, a bunch of songs that I started writing that I had kicked around since 1995 when I went to Costa Rica.

So in 1996 even though I was heavily into drum and bass I was also doing Antimatter stuff above the Hacienda. And I was trying to bring in lots of singers and things.

Yeah, I better write all this out man. Nobody will believe it otherwise.

Ok, but there’s one more thing. By the time Afterthought was done I had already recorded the bedtracks for the opera Deus Ex Machina, which I had started writing immediately after Jesus Christ Superstar. This was going to be the Antimatter science fiction space opera. And I wrote the whole thing. I think it took 3 months to write.

So that should be here too.

And that’s it. That’s the Antimatter story that I have for July 9, 2024. Bye!