Search - Lowest of Low :: Shakespeare My Butt

Consistently Thrilling, Nearly Perfect Album

DJK23 | 11/28/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"One of the absolute best albums of the last 15 years if not of all time. Its consistent brilliance song to song is stunning. And after more than a decade, it's still in my regular rotation. Filled with just the right mix of attitude, angst, humor, intelligence, and earnestness that you can't help but sing along to each song. This album played a huge part in the golden age of Toronto "alternative" music along with The Tragically Hip and Barenaked Ladies. No jukebox in Buffalo dares to exist without it so bargoers can call up "Rosy and Grey" whenever the spirit moves them. It's so good it may have destroyed the band--fortunately it just knocked them out for 10 years (they're back now). If you like rock and roll, you'll love this album."

Toronto's Finest

Toby Ztyles | Toronto | 11/06/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"As a life-long Torontonians, I'm amazed to read the distance that their music reached. To me, listening to this albums brings me back to the early 1990s when I was 14/15 years old, walking down Queen Street in the dead of winter, Doug Gilmour was the King of Toronto, I was a hopeless sports nerd but still enjoyed listening to the Lowest of the Low on "The Hog" and later, CFNY. It was really only around 1998 when I got Rheostatics' "Whale Music" that I started going back and re-listening to all the great Toronto bands of the era including Change of Heart, Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, Bourbon Tabernacle Choir and Lowest of the Low. Why did Toronto spit out so many bands with such long names? Anyway, if you want a snapshot of what it was like being a music fan in Toronto circa 1990-1994, pick up stuff by any of these bands."

An all-time top 5 album

senatorhung | iqaluit, nunavut, canada | 04/10/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"and since i have over 2000 of them, that's pretty high praise.i actually had never heard of the band before i heard a song 'gamble' playing at the patricia hotel bar in saskatoon around 1994. i needed to ask the dj who they were - pretty embarassing seeing as i was working in a comics / record store at the time. so, i used my staff privileges to order copies of both of their albums - and was blown away. the 2d one, 'hallucigenia' had 'gamble', 'city full of cowards' and 'black monday' as instant sing-along classics. 'shakespeare my butt' sucker punched me out with the politically-minded 'hand of magdelena' (about an ill-fated love affair during the spanish civil war), 'letter to bilbao' and 'henry needs a new pair of shoes'. i was ecstatic when i heard they were coming to town on tour.but it was not to be - they broke up 2 weeks before they were scheduled to play at louis' (the campus pub). colour me devastated. but at least we had their 2 classic cd's for posterity.ron hawkins went on to produce a couple of solo discs before fronting an equally good, and equally unrecognized band 'ron hawkins and the rusty nails' before hookng up long enough with his LOTL mates to survive a single reunion tour (saw them in calgary - yay !!). the live cd released in conjunction with that tour, 'nothing short of a bullet' very much captures their live feel and adds an extra kick to some of the songs found on 'shakespeare my butt'."