Serial Heroes - Hi-O! We're Serial Heroes! (1995)

A while back, we posted a Serial Heroes tape that Dan Izzo found for us. Casey Lewis unearthed another for us! It's much as you'd expect. Raw and gritty.

Kind of like the bacon and pancakes we had at the mall's Stampede breakfast this morning.

Zuckerbaby - Zuckerbaby (1997)

Since Zoo Story took us down to the bottom of the alphabet, and since we just made reference to them, here's another thing we'd forgotten existed in tape format. Zuckerbaby bested the Primrods by not just getting signed and recording a record for a major label, but also getting it released. You have heard that unreleased Primrods record, haven't you? Wait, we've managed to get distracted by our love for the Primrods again. Primrods, Primrods, Primrods.

Sigh.

There, that's a bit better. Where were we?

Oh, right. Zuckerbaby. This quartet played radio-friendly, alt-power pop. And they had good haircuts. This is the first of two major label releases they put out. Apparently, once you get on a major label, it gives you the power to make insanely long and bewilderingly-folded j-cards for your tapes. So insane and bewildering that we can't fold it up again. If anyone out there knows how to fold this j-card up again, please let us know.

Please, Universal (or whoever owns the rights to this now), don't sue us!

Zoo Story - Sing and Play Their Hits in a Bathroom

We've been looking for some Zoo Story for a while, so thanks a gazillion to Blaine Kyllo for unearthing this. Zoo Story kick off the incredibly faulty CJSW/Saved by Radio compilation 90.9 With a Bullet, and a careful reading of the liner notes tells us that this band was brothers Jeff and Greg Kushner. Blaine seems to recall that Dianne Kooch was also part of this, can anyone out there confirm this? That 90.9 compilation is pretty much useless for any detail on the bands it includes. Plus, no Ninth Configuration, no Quitters (or even Straight), it's not in chronological order (Pussy Monster before the Vindicators - really?)... and track 14 on side 1 is pure shite.

Anyways, this is pure gold. Sloppy garage pop which does sound like it was played in a bathroom (the mix is all drums, bass and vocals - which works). This is our recommended download of the month. We're going out on a limb saying that, we know.

But you probably don't think much of these little write-ups anyways.

Kush - Peppermint (1995)

Another Jeff Kushner release, this one falls right between the two we've posted already. This one's more of the same psych-pop goodness. Big Bang Theory's Case Caulfield plays bass on this, Zuckerbaby's Reed Shimozawa contributes guitar. The four quick songs on this kind of leave us craving more.

Or maybe we're just craving a Peppermint Aero.

Jeff Kushner - Astray (1997)

A while back, we posted another Jeff Kushner tape. This is another batch of great psych-inspired pop that Blaine Kyllo was good enough to send our way. This is much more low-fi, which makes it a whole lot cooler in our books.

Get it here.

Mediaucracy - New Western Empire

This tape comes to us via Casey Lewis, without the jcard. We managed to steal the artwork from elsewhere on the interweb, saving us from the no jcard tag. But we still don't know much about these guys - the contact on the tape is Mark Vermin, who we think is/was/will ever be Mark from Inquisition/Martyr Index.

But we're a bit damaged after Sled Island. We're not sure about much right now.

Jigsaw - Melodiya Sampler

Ah, here's that other Jigsaw tape. Don't know why we didn't post it when Col. Cam Hayden passed it to us.

We were probably just being lazy.

Chapter 16 - Victimless Crimes (1997)

Here's another from Chapter 16, courtesy of Casey Lewis. We're going to assume this is the same lineup as the other two tapes of theirs we've profiled. We tried to read the booklet included with the tape to verify this, but we couldn't get past the anti-war on drugs/pro-NORML diatribe.

A crime, indeed.

Jigsaw - Jigsaw (1995)

A while back, we received (but didn't post for some strange reason) a two-song demo for this band. We didn't know much from that release (it didn't have a j-card, of course). But now, thanks to Casey Lewis, we have a full tape from these guys. Clayton Hayes went on to start up the Gigposters.com... and that's all we can pull together right now.

Get the full length tape here, while we go try to figure out what happened to that other tape.

Silent Terror - Cowcore

We can't quite put a date on this one, but we believe this is from some time in the mid- to late-80's. Silent Terror also appear on the legendary Calgary Compelation, We believe there's a link between this band and Six Feet Under, but we can't verify that right now - one of our favourite sources, the esteemed but neglected Punk History Canada, has taken its band info pages down due to hacking issues.

Get it here.