Young Fresh Fellows – Topsy Turvy

I had an interesting find today. A copy of the Young Fresh Fellows second LP, Topsy Turvy, released in 1985 on PopLlama, for $3.99.

As you can see from the writing on the front and back, this was formerly the property of now defunct CKLN, a radio station at Ryerson University in Toronto.

The jacket is a bit beat up and the record itself isn’t in the greatest of shape but, what the hell, right? Rare is the occasion when you find a Young Fresh Fellows LP, let alone for under $4!

I first heard about the Young Fresh Fellows via one of my favourite bands, the Replacements. The band was often name-dropped by Paul Westerberg as one of his favourites in the mid-80s.

In addition, they played a small part in Mats lore. As the story goes, the Mats had an (in)famous show in Portland in 1987 and the Young Fresh Fellows were the opening act. During their set, the Mats were goofing around and pelted the band with assorted crap. By the time the Mats took the stage they were pissed drunk and proceeded to mess around rather than play. After being panned by critics for the “performance” the band apologized and Paul even wrote the song “Portland” from Don’t Tell A Soul about it.

At any rate, the first time I heard about this I was inspired to check out the Young Fresh Fellows. The only album I could easily find until now was The Men Who Loved Music, a record that had some notoriety due to the song “Amy Grant“, a send up of the American christian/country star.

Much to my good fortune, I found this copy of Topsy Turvy today in the used bins at Sonic Boom in Kensington Market.

It’s a great record and I’d encourage you to pick it up but it might be a challenge. I don’t think it was ever released on any format but vinyl and, if my searches are anything to go by, you’ll be hard pressed to find a rip illegally or legally on the interweb.

In case you can’t find it, here is a live performance of the first track off the record (one of my favourites), “Searchin’ U.S.A.”, for you to enjoy.