Krays - The Victor Lee EP (1996)

We really have no idea about this. The Squid Mail label seems vaguely familiar - and we know Brennan Hart played on one of the Jeff Kushner solo tapes. But beyond that, we got naught.

And we're too lazy to make stuff up tonight.

Staasi Quartet - Untitled

So, while yesterday's Staasi Quartet cassette was probably a somewhat official release, we're not sure about this one. It comes to us on an unlabelled C-60 tape, so we're guessing as to its origins, date and song titles.

But what we're not guessing about is this: while the tape we posted yesterday gives us a link to the Primrods, this one gives us a link to McClure's post-Primrods exploits with the Summerlad. This rolls back some of the 90's indie rock touches and is fairly heavy on the krautrock and shoegazer influences, which is a-okay by us, believe you me. The vocals via chorus pedal/flanger/whatever help to seal the connection to the Summerlad.

Speaking of the Summerlad, we have to put a plug in for their CD release show, in about a week at Broken City. We'll be there, hosting a drunken Primrods sing-along somewhere in the back (or in the alley, if/when we get kicked out).

Staasi Quartet - Staasi Quartet

Last week, our pal Chris Zimmel (of Airship One and Massive Ferguson) mailed us a few tapes he had stashed away in his Edmontonian fortress. This is the first, and it's something we've been chasing after for a while. Staasi Quartet was note really a quartet - we have conflicting reports as to the membership, ranging from two people to more than forty. We know for sure that two of the folks were Ron Choe and Garrett McClure.

Of course, we're pretty transparent about things we like. You already know we like the Primrods (just a bit past the point of obsession), so pre-P7 Garrett McClure has been a strong point of interest for us. This tape hasn't disappointed us; it hasn't left the tape deck much over the past week.

We'd only previously managed to get hold of Staasi Quartet via the Hellride to a Bloodbath compilation, and this tape is quite different than the noisy guitar rock attack of Hellride's tracks. While much of this is richly steeped in early-90's indie rock (traces of Stereolab, Yo La Tengo and Sebadoh pervade), it's the first track that repeatedly blows our minds. "Available at Christmas in Hardcover Only" is basically a prototype of "Plans For Palmyra," from the Primrods' split 7" with Tristan Psionic and their tragically, criminally unreleased (*cough*) Geffen CD.

We still have no idea what the lyrics are, but we don't care.

THEexceptionsCDN - THEexceptionsCDN (1997)

We think we're getting towards the bottom of the pile of tapes we borrowed from CJSW. At least, we're getting towards the end of the list of ones that (a) have a j-card and/or (b) we know anything about. We suspect today's tape is somewhat related to this post, and out ears certainly think there's probably more than a slight chance to this.

But, as always, we're not certain.

New Internationalists - CJSW Demos 1992-97

We've pulled together three demo tapes from the New Internationalists into one collection here, partly to show how much a band can change over time (especially with changes in membership) and partly because we're quite lazy.

The first few songs on here fit the same style as the tape we featured yesterday; our Musical Analogue Expert wants to compare these guys to Hunters and Collectors without the horn section. We're still trying to figure out how we ended up with a position called a Musical Analogue Expert. We think he's referring to the anthemic, big music sound they put out. Anyhow, we found a bio of frontman Bruce Callow that indicates he split town and headed to Costa Rica, where he's been since. After the first tape, the style of this changes radically - ending in pretty uninteresting blues rock (to us - but then, we've never like the blues). We were overly-quick in returning the tapes we borrowed from CJSW back to Myke Atkinson; we neglected to make any notes of who the members were for the final two tapes.

The same bio of Bruce Callow indicates that the New Internationalists reunited sometime after 2003, and put out a CD.

But, again, we don't really care about CDs here.

21 Hundredz - Demo

We're heading back into some of our great finds from the CJSW archive with today's post (and, if we can stay focused, for the next short while). We've heard from the 21 Hundredz thanks to our pals over at Golden Rock and their posts of the Tones and Calgary Compelation LPs. Two of the tracks on this 3-song demo are from those records, leading us to guess the year on this is between 1986 and 1988.

We're having a hard time tracking down details about this band, including membership. A bit of sleuthing tells us that Bruce Callow and a guy named V. Jed Deluca were part of this band, and we have reason to believe that Lori Kennedy played drums for these guys prior to being in Same Difference. A guy named David London may have been the front man. There's a lot we're guessing at, based on some heavy Googling/drinking tonight. The magic of a Google cache yields this:

This band released two singles and produced 4 videos one of which was in Much Music's rotation in 1984.They performed at the Montreal New Music Festival in 1987. The band also won Calgary radio station KIK FM's band contest in 1989 with the winning single being written and produced by Jed.

Wow. KIK FM. How many of you remember Humble Howard... and were at a taping of Switchback in the early-80s?

We were!