Primrods - Demos Feb '97 (1997)

We are very, very pleased today to be celebrating our 7th Anniversary. Yes, seven long years ago, Gene Poole got drunk and went onto the interwebs and posted two great tapes. In honour of that accursed day, we're posting a really weird tape that Chris Faulkner passed our way. So weird, in fact that we had to get a special tape player for it.

This is the DAT master of a bunch of Primrods (Primrods! On our anniversary! Who would have thunk it!) songs that were recorded at Sundae Sound in advance of the ill-fated sessions that led to their never-released CD. Chris says this was a live-off-the-floor demo recorded for the big wigs at Geffen, to convince the label that the Primrods were a Certified Hit Machine. To our ear, this sounds like these are the same recordings as on their Eurovision 97 single.

We really like these tracks - they're very, very different from the final product of the GGGGGGGGarth-produced CD. Mostly because they're, uh, not produced. This is more what we remember the final days of the Primrods like - the rawness is still there, even though the elements of shoegaze are slipping into the songwriting.

This is a pretty swell little thing to listen to on our anniversary. We hope you like it as much as Gene does.

Neutral States - Temporary Foreign Workers (2014)

Another tape that we picked up on our Sled Island journey this year is this one. Rather, it was passed to us in the dark at the Republik just before the legendary Bob Mould took the stage (speaking of which: no one in the crowd claimed to also have seen him last time he was in town).

The Neutral States is former Fire Engine Red bassist/songwriter Lee Shedden's newest venture, which he's managed to put together a pretty fine group of folks for. Andrew Wedderburn is filling in on second/lead-ish guitar and Lorrie Matheson's wrecking crew (okay, an approximation thereof) fills out the band. It looks like the band has morphed slightly from this recording - the rhythm section last time we heard from them was made up of Matt Doherty and Elescia Eisler. But that may have changed again.

Anyways, Shedden's playing a pretty great bunch of noisy pop on here - in places it sounds like Thrush Hermit, which is a-okay in our books. Wait, Gene says we're not allowed to compare them to a non-Calgary band. So let's say they sound like, uh, Geek Beet. We're feeling pretty lazy, post-Sled.

Also, this tape is apparently a pre-release or something like that. You can listen to the songs on the Neutral States bandcamp, where you can also pre-order the tape, CD or LP. Now that's a range of choices we haven't seen in about 25 years!

Shaani Cage - Demos (2014)

We are BARELY recovered from this year's Sled Island (it seems like it's taking Gene longer and longer to recover each year), and starting to remember things that we picked up along the five-day journey. We snagged a couple of tapes, so we may as well share them with you.

The first is this one from Shaani Cage, who were on this year's Sled Island mixtape. We caught their set at Central United Church, and were pretty impressed - they brothers Aleem and Kaleen Khan nicely blend Smiths-y guitar pop and R'n'B (or whatever the kids call it today - it's a genre we have to admit little to no understanding of). This tape is just three songs, but they're pretty solid - this is a great way to wind down after the festival.

You can download the tracks from the Shaani Cage bandcamp.

Meeting Marisa - Meeting Marisa (1994)

It's the end of an era at Recordland, as we discovered a few weeks ago. As Eraz Cohen tidies things up, the old is making way for the new. More specifically, most of the tapes are gone as he makes room for (!gasp!) new records (!gasp!).

It kind of sucks for folks like us at the CCPS, but we'd mostly picked through the tapes over the past few years. There wasn't much left. Or so we thought. Last time we were in, Eraz gave us this tape, which features another telling band photo. Look at the boots-work socks-cut off shorts combination! Seattle, here we come! Yep, here's another slice of early-90's alt.rock. We're not saying that this genre is bad, it's just that it was so ubiquitous in the early 90's, it's kind of left us meh about the whole thing.

But maybe we're just jealous because we never grew our hair out.

Reduced 2 Clear - Reduced 2 Clear (1993)

Charles Cornell got in touch with us a while back (again, we're ashamed to say how long ago...) and sent us a copy of this tape of his band (who wisely replaced the "2" in their name with "to" for their CD).

You know the old saying a picture is worth a thousand words? Well, the band photo on the inside of this tape tells the story - you can pretty much hear the alt.rock when you look at this. Look at that hair! You know there's going to be a deep-voiced lead singer. Look at those shirts! You know there's going to be some serious guitar-based rock on the menu.

The dream of the 90's is alive at the CCPS!

Chump Nation - Chump Nation (1995)

Here's another all ages tape from Leasa Podloski which we honestly know little to nothing about. Actually, scratch that. We know absolutely nothing about this.

Other than that you can grab the download here.

Dillinger/Joule - Dillinger vs. Joule

We're going to get to some tapes that we've been sitting on for an embarrassingly long time, including a couple from local record collector/seller/spinner Leasa Podloski. Leasa was at ground zero of the all ages scene in the late 90's/early 00's, so we're pleased that she shared a couple of tapes with us.

This first one is a split from Dillinger and Joule, which comes in an envelope with a neatly-folded lyric sheet. As folks who weren't around for the all ages scene, we're completely at the mercy of our readers in terms of nailing down either band's membership. A bunch of similarly-named bands make Dillinger pretty much google-proof.

So, grab this to listen and maybe help us out.