Polestar - Demo (1997)

Happy Birthday to us! The CCPS miraculously survived another Sled Island and are marking our fifth anniversary today! That's five years, over 500 posts and an amazing amount of made-up junk about bands we only barely remember seeing/hearing about.

Well, our commitment to high-quality posts continues with this demo from what we think might be a band involving Big Bang Theory's Case Caulfield. Actually, we know absolutely nothing about these guys. Craig Evans gave us this tape and no context. We'd like to thank Craig, regardless of the lack of info.

So, we're going to use this as an opportunity to put a call out to anyone out there with tapes they want to lend us. We're still looking for stuff from Dixie's Death Pool, Fire Engine Red, the Li-150s, and... well, anything else interesting. Get in touch with us!

But for now, grab this and let us know if you know what we don't know.

Knucklehead - Live 98 (1998)

So, one more piece of vinyl for you, and then we're lapsing into a post-Sled Island coma. A sly Melodiya employee suggested we buy this a few years ago - we're not sure what this is or where it came from. There's no mention of this on the band's website or their wikipedia entry. We assume this is really Knucklehead from Calgary, and not another of the bajillion other bands out there with the same name.



Apologies for the rip on this - the vinyl on this thing wasn't in great shape. But maybe you don't really care because you've got Sled head.

Field Day - Enough For Two (1994)

Chances are that if you, like us, have a couple of key Calgary compilations from the mid-90's, you have "Enough for Two" in your collection already. At least a few times.

So maybe you want to see the video for it?



And then maybe you want to indulge your OCD and download this single?

Joker - Not Playing With a Full Deck 7" (1990)

Here's another single that's been sitting in the CCPS archives since ubiquitous bass master Steve Elaschuk donated it to us. Folks really like Joker (especially folks in Europe?), so here's another pack of songs from these guys.

What's news to us is that, according to the Encyclopedia Metallum (which we wish had been on the shelves of our jr. high school library), guitarist Ken Wall also spent time in White Noise/Beyond Possession.

Which certainly would explain these guys' sound.

S.P. Cerra - Sit Tease/Essence 7"

We're rousing ourselves out of our mandatory pre-Sled Island nap to get back to some posts. It's been quiet here at the CCPS - we've managed to return most of the tapes that we've recently borrowed, so we're going to turn to our vinyl collection for a few oddities.

And what better place than this? There's no year on this record, and we're not 100% sure, but we've mostly convinced ourselves that this is a pre-Funeral Factory project - not just because of Mary-Lynn White's presence, but also because of the vocals. Greg Kushner sent us this record a couple of years ago without any explanation.

So, of course, we make up our own.

Lab Coast - Editioned Houses (2012)

Phew! Back to Calgary, just in time for POST #500!!! WOOHOO!!! In your face, other blogs!

Okay, now that we have that out of our system, we want to celebrate one of our current local faces, the low-fi pop masters that are Lab Coast. We truly appreciate Chris Dadge's commitment to the cassette format, one that he's continued with the help of Iowa's Night-People Records. This pinkalicious tape is what Dadge and Laing excel at - understated pop masterpieces in the vein of Sebadoh. Hmm. We're now picturing Laing as Lou Barlow. And somehow it's working.

Anyways, side two of this tape is a bit of a surprise - an experimental, 12-minute track that's more in keeping with Dadge's Bug Incision projects. And, yes, we know we have failed to catalog Dadge's prolific cassette output on here - but that's a rabbit hole that we know we'll never get out of if we start down it. We'll be at post #600 and just have scratched the surface of his recorded output.

You can get this tape at Hot Wax or (presumably) Night-People.

CCPS Miscellany: Pal Joey - Last Chance for Food and Drink (1994)

Okay, one last Edmonton tape, and then back to Calgary. We're going to go with something we actually can pretend we know something about. Kind of.

Pal Joey were a super-talented bunch of folks; their CD, Tennessee Angels, is one of the few Edmonton CDs in the CCPS archives (along with the Slow Fresh Oil and Twin Fangs discs). And we're always happy to have another tape in the collection - so thanks to Natalie from Depeche Ode for passing us this tape. More of the great roots rock we expect from the band on here.

Actually, this post officially makes Pal Joey the Edmonton band with the most coverage on the CCPS. Go figure.