Constantinople by French Paddleboat

Recorded August to October 1996

Originally Released as Cathedral Records 004 & Granted Passage Cassettes 004 in November 1996.


from Scott August on November 6, 2025:

Constantinople is the first French Paddleboat release, a home recorded cassette I made when I was 16-years-old. It was recorded between the months of August and October 1996 in Kelowna British Columbia.

During the summer of 1996 Kelowna was plagued by both a Cryptosporidium outbreak and an infestation of invasive Molson sponsored Hydroplanes. Fortunately I was in Montreal at that time…. my then band-mates (of 1-800-Pope and the Nova Scotias) did their best to avoid diarrhea and tried to keep safe in a downtown swarming with raging speedboat fanatics.

While in Montreal I found a Keynote Rhythm Machine, the centrepiece of this recording. While there I wanted desperately to cruise the polluted old Montreal waterfront the old fashion way, on a rented Pedalo. In the end I gave up the peddle-boat ride as I was ultimately trying to save money to buy a DAT machine rumoured to have belonged to Bryan Adams.

Upon returning home I made this recording within a very short period of time. Aside from drums and rhythm machine, many of the sounds sourced for Constantinople were found on home-dubbed second-generation cassette tapes from my family’s tape collection, a wide range of popular and un-popular music, some of the samples are too embarrassing to admit. I was very musically naive at this time and new to recording, that is the beauty of this release and why I still like most of it. A year later I would have never dreamed of making something this way, 30 years later I wish I could do it again so easily and so carefree. I had a brief obsession with William Shatner’s version of Mr. Tambourine man, you might be able to hear his influence towards the end of the tape.…. I probably won’t do spoken word again.

This is my pre Vote Robot effort, made just before we started recording the first vinyl LP (R.U.R.) for New York's Catsup Plate Records.



Here are some kind words from Brad Rose’s dialsquaretapes.wordpress.com (where a copy of the original cassette was once posted)

MARCH 16, 2009

alright, i’ve talked about Scott August & French Paddleboat previously in the covers post, but time to expand on that a bit. so when i first met Scott, he was my age (maybe a year younger?) and introduced to me by xxxxx xxxxxx.... he told me about this kid' who was doing some pretty cool stuff and who he was going to start a new project with (Vote Robot). so he put Scott & i in touch and we hit it off. Scott sent me a couple tapes of his stuff (this one and a tape by his band at the time, 1-800-Pope) and we started trading music, chatting on the phone, etc. i went on to release some of his stuff on compilations and a tape by another band of his, the Nova Scotias (who were pretty damn good... more on that later).

but this, Constantinople, was the first introduction to August's solo wars i had. French Paddleboat went on to have two particularly impressive LPs on Scratch and Catsup Plate, but even in this early guise you can hear how talented he was. weirdo electronics with catchy, droney melodies and awesome, casio-style beats (except on "is this tender legal?" which has a vague post-rock feel)... really good stuff. i even get a bugskull vibe on some of it (particularly "easy rider"). all the same, it's a really good little tape and makes me wonder, yet again, where the hell did these people go?

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