Shakespeare My Butt by The Lowest of the Low

Shakespeare My Butt, the 1991 album that made Toronto's the Lowest of the Low, was never meant to be the finished article. Singer Ron Hawkins, guitarist Stephen Stanley and drummer David Alexander, all veterans of Popular Front, cut it with no money as demos to shop around, much of it in the Foley booths of a film post-production house called Sound By Deluxe. Nobody bit, so they sold copies at gigs, and after 4000 had gone they landed a distribution deal with Victor Page, father of Barenaked Ladies' Steven Page. Once CFNY got behind it, the demos simply became the record.

Hawkins wrote all but one of the songs, trading big global issues for what was right in front of him: his neighbourhood, his local bars, the characters he kept bumping into. Set to jangly, melodic folk-punk, the songs connected fast: for a while no indie release in Canadian history had sold more, until Barenaked Ladies' The Yellow Tape overtook it.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.