Forbidden Dimension - Mars is Heaven (2021), Shivs & Shrouds/Our Martian Heritage (2021)

Happy Halloween! Here's something we know some of you are going to be excited about - and quite possibly already have in your tight little clutches. The good folks at Medicine Hat's Wasted Wax Records have re-issued a pair of early Forbidden Dimension tapes - including our favourite FD recording, Our Martian Heritage (which happened to be the second tape we ever posted on this here thing). This means that rather than suffering through the crappy rips we've posted, you can get freshly remastered versions of these drum machine-driven classics - and they do sound mighty, mighty fine. Oh, and Mars is Heaven even got a vinyl release from Wasted Wax.

Get these re-animated marvels via Wasted Wax.

Circa Records & Tapes: Seanna (1982), Geoff Edmunds (1982), Bruce Thompson (1982)

Today's trio of singles come to us via Circa Records & Tapes, a label that was the brainchild of Bruce Thompson and Edward L. King. The label was originally started in Vancouver in 1971, and made the move to Calgary at some point in the late 70's/early 80's. 

At some point the label made another move - we've seen a 1988 release on Circa which has an address in Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan. But these three singles were all recorded in Calgary - and, oddly, all released in the same year. We weren't able to find out anything about any of the artists - which is another thing we're pretty much getting used to.

Stratus Singers - 1875-1975 Centennial Calgary/Sleepy Wonder Book (1975)

Here's another new Westmount single in our collection, one we wish we'd had back in the summer when we were celebrating our city's centennial songs. Stratus Singers were a folk/pop trio who were active in the 1970's and into the 80's. In the mid-70's they formed an expanded performing/touring group called the Straus Faction. As in, we assume, "we can't get no Stratus Faction."

Sorry for the terrible pun above. The Stratus Singers' centennial tribute is a suitably celebratory track, while the B side  is - as the title suggests - a nice little lullaby.

Get it here!

Westmount Records: Dave Liske, Denny Eddy (1975), Bob Hoy and the Badlanders

It's taking us so long to get through these boxes of Calgary singles that we're... well, adding more singles into the collection as we go. And so have to catch up on a few new Westmount Records releases that we want to catch up on.

This is another mixed bag - there's some easy listening pop from Bob Hoy and the Badlanders (honestly, we were really hoping this one would be straight up garage rock with that name), another single from country singer Denny Eddy (trigger warning on the A side of that one - it maybe hasn't aged well), and a bit more country from Dave Liske. The Liske record is pretty decent - although the A side of our copy is a bit rough.

But you're probably getting used to that with these singles.

Peter Lougheed/Ron Ghitter - NOW! (1971)

 

Well, here's a super oddball record in observance of election day. Both sides of this record are spoken word pieces by Albertan politicians, former Premier Peter Lougheed and Calgary-Buffalo MLA Ron Ghitter. This is a pretty fascinating piece - this must have been produced to support the PC party's run in the 1971 election. A few pieces jump out as a stark contrast to our current provincial government - most notably Lougheed's interest in listening to the people of the province. But was this record effective in drumming up support for Ghitter and the conservatives? 

Maybe?

Chris Kay - Alberta (1983), Ed Preston - A Song For Alberta

We have no idea how or why we keep missing records in our collection. Somehow we missed these two Alberta-themed country records back when we were in our Alberta song phase. We can't tell you anything about either of these artists. Ed Preston apparently hails from Claresholm, and the Chris Kay record has addresses in both Calgary (on the first side) and Reno, Nevada (on, well, the other first side). 

But you can get them here. 

Triple Threat - Official Bootleg (Limited Edition) (1992)

We're still in the habit of trawling through the thrift stores, and this recent score is a good example of why. Triple Threat brought together local blues legends Johnny V and Tim Williams, along with harmonica player Bo Travis. It's a pretty great match of talents.

Get their debut (bootleg!?) tape here.

Wooden Crib - Demo

Here's a tape without a j-card that comes to us courtesy of Marc Donnelly, former drummer with Wooden Crib. Donnelly couldn't pin down the exact year of this tape, but we're putting our money on 1995, as that's the year the band played at Max Café for the annual Garage Wars.

Once we got past that line up (so many favourites!) we scratched our heads for a bit - we're not sure that we remember any of the band members playing in other projects other than Ed Tiegs, who went on to play both bass with Zuckerbaby.

Get the Wooden Crib demo here!

Manhattan Jump Blues Revue - The BBQ Sessions (1994)

We're going to take a bit of a break from the 7" singles and get back to our original raison d'être with a few tapes that have shown up here at the CCPS in recent months. First up is one that we were super excited to get - huge thanks to Mike Fischer for passing this our way.

The Mantattan Jump Blue Revue was the precursor to local fixtures The Dino Martinis (we heard Don McSwiney dishing the goods on the band on the CBC morning show just last week!). We knew the Manhattans made an appearance on the very excellent Play compilation, but we didn't know they had released a full cassette - until Mike graciously ripped his copy for us. This is pretty great stuff, and what we really remember the early days of the Dino Martinis for - high-energy, super fun, er, jump blues. We're usually a bit wary of bands who state their genre in their name, which is maybe why they changed their name very shortly after the release of this tape.

Fix yourself a good cocktail and grab the download!