Lethbridge record company Norwegian Blue Records is spreading the word about Lethbridge’s multi-talented music scene by releasing a 14 track cassette compilation, “The Windy Rock” compilation — a play on Lethbridge’s wind.
It features 14 unreleased songs from 14 Lethbridge based original modern rock bands.
“We had a three point mission,” said Norwegian Blues Records president Tyson Wiebe.
“The first was to get bands in Lethbridge to colla
borate. The second is to get the music to as many people as possible and the third is to show Lethbridge is a hotbed of music for Alberta,” he continued.
The Windy Rock compilation has a limited run of two hundred tapes with a download code “for those who are afraid of ’80s technology,” according to Wiebe.
Each band receives 10 copies of the cassette to do with as they wish. The remaining 60 copies will be sold through independent music store Blueprint and through the Norwegian Blue Bandcamp website http://norwegianbluerecords.bandcamp.com/yum.
“ We wanted to do a limited run so we could sell all of them rather than having boxes full of them in our homes, Wiebe said.
Bands on the compilation include popular local bands Advertisement, betterhalf, Cosmic Charley, Lustre Creame, Mormon Girls, Planet Telex, Seven Foord, The Palmers, the Dirti Speshuls, the Ruby Plumes, the Void, Classette, the Darby and Joan Club and Jesse Northey, a former Lethbridge resident who has since moved to Edmonton.
“Classette are a new band who haven’t played a show yet and it is always great to have Jesse Northey. And this is the first new Darby and Joan Club song since they called it quits a year ago,” Wiebe said.
“ We want to get the word out that Alberta music isn’t just between Calgary and Edmonton. I think the stuff we have going on here is among the best in the country,” Wiebe continued adding mainstream media and Alberta alternative press like Beatroute and Ffwd magazine in Calgary usually miss Lethbridge acts.
Local cartoonist Eric Dyck created the cover art for the compilation.
Response has been so great to the idea that Norwegian Blue has already collected four or five songs for the next Windy Rock compilation.
“ We’d like to have it out with all different bands in September for the next Love and Records ( Local radio station CKXU’s big annual record fair in Galt Gardens, Sept. 13),” he said.
“We may expand a bit so it is a southern Alberta compilation including bands from Coaldale and Taber,” he said.
They decided to release the compilation on cassette for several reasons.
“Cassettes are unique. And we could do smaller runs of cassettes and get a deal on them. If we went with CDs, we’d have to do runs of 500 to get a deal,” he said adding the end game for Norwegian Blue is to be able to release vinyl.
“ Vinyl is a lot more expensive because it is an oil based product,” he said.
“ But they are out in time as school is out and bands are touring for the summer, so they can get seeding,“ he said.
The cassettes are being produced by Montreal company Amtek.
“We worked with them for the Mormon Girls cassette. They were the first company that came up when I googled cassettes,” he said adding the only other company that would have done it was based in the United States
“We wanted to keep this Canadian, he said adding it would have also been expensive to ship the finished products from the U.S.
“ Norwegian Blue wants to do anything we can to help local bands from getting them gigs to releasing putting them on a compilation,” he said.
The Windy Rock compilation will be available April 15.
