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Album Details

• Artist: Various Artists
• Album: 90.9 With A Bullet: 20 Years of Calgary Music on CJSW
• Label: Saved By Radio
• Year of Release: 2005
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: dscanland on 2005-09-02

If you live outside of Canada (let alone Calgary) you probably won't have any clue on CJSW. This is the local University radio station that has indeed been on the air now for over 20 years and Saved By Radio has decided to celebrate Calgary music with an anniversary album for CJSW featuring bands to grace the Calgary scene over the last 2 decades. I have almost been in Calgary just as long (feeling old right about now) but a bunch of the earlier material I am hearing for the first time. And you always tend to miss some worthy bands in a two decade retrospective even with the two discs. The album starts out with a band called Zoo Story with quite a gentle rock song. Gravity Thugs pick things up a lot with "Take You Down". And I've heard a lot about The Golden Calgarians but "7 Inches to Heaven" is the first time I have ever heard the band. On the first disc, Rabbit Has Brain is one of the unheard highlights. Included is a song called "Sad Season". Some of my favorite past Calgary artists are on disc one (Red Autumn Fall, Fire Engine Red with the pop masterpiece "Shank Pony"). Oh, a lot of the content sounds dated on disc one but that's because it is indeed dated. Many of these songs never saw release on CD before now.
But it is the second disc that I really connected with just because I was familiar with most of the artists here. Calgary's beloved Primrods (the one's who almost made it big on Geffen) open disc two with "Barbet Lad". The Puritans, Huevos Rancheros and Wagbeard are all here. One that got my interest up was The Dudes. Haven't heard them before but the song was very interesting ("They're A Comin'"). The shortlived Reverie Sound Revue even make an appearance as well as up and comers Chad Van Gaalen and Hot Little Rocket. Of course there are some important bands missing like Skin Barn (one of my all time favorite Calgary bands) or Jonestown Punch but how can you possibly fit all Calgary bands of the past 20 years onto two discs. You would need a complete box set.

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