Cindy Warren - Room Full Of Strangers (1985), I'd Do It! (1989)

Time for a guilty pleasure... as children of the 80's, we're total suckers for the new wave-leaning rock sounds of Cindy Warren. We've listened to her first album quite a bit since we got turned on to it - more than maybe we should admit. This is pretty good female-fronted rock that hits us somewhere between Joan Jett and Kim Wilde (admittedly, there's probably a lot of space between those two artists). Warren and her band played the usual venues around town for a couple of years before releasing Room Full of Strangers - and even got a spot on Home Cookin'.

The description on that video tells us that Warren also played a part in the 1982 slasher movie Boardinghouse - which we need to track down now.

Get Cindy Warren's LPs here.

Prototype - Prototype (1983)

We're back into Dan Lowe territory with the one and only LP from Prototype, the natural continuation of his work with 451°. We can put on anything by a Dan Lowe band and enjoy it - especially the excellent guitarwork. And, for this LP, the synth touches in tracks like "Video Kids."

Sadly, this was Lowe's last band recording - after the demise of Prototype he focused on recording work, building an impressive body of work with both his Q Sound contributions and helping make albums including Lewis' Romantic Times and George Fox's first LP.

Get the prototype here!

Cal Kellett - Cruiser (1986)

We featured Cal Kellett previously with the Calgary Flames-related "Red Hot" single; prior to that single coming out, Kellett put out this LP (which was preceded by a few singles that we've also posted already - this is getting confusing though).

Thanks to the ever-reliable James Muretich, we can tell you that (a) Kellett doesn't  just LOOK like Kenny Loggins, he kind of sounds like him as well, and (b) he was a very good car salesman.

Cruise on!

Starboy: An Original Musical (1983)

Starboy (or Star Boy, depending on where you're reading) was the brainchild of writer and director Randall Dark, and played at Loose Moose in 1983 (up in their awesome location just off McKnight Blvd NE - we spent many an evening there laughing ourselves to tears with their theatresports, but that's a story for another time). This soundtrack makes us wish we'd seen this musical in performance - the soundtrack is quite good, but it's hard to get a full flavour for the show without the full dialogue between songs. Reviews of the original run were positive, though:

And even James Muretich dug the score:

Get it here!

Charlene Prickett - Does Floors... And Aerobics (1983)

Though she was born in Arkansas, Calgary was where fitness guru Charlene Prickett made her mark, thanks to her long running TV show, It Figures. The show ran for over 20 years and was originally produced by Calgary 7 - but found audiences around the world. 

So you can imagine how excited we are to bring you this LP, with an hour's worth of workout material set to a driving disco beat (and a pile of great cover songs ranging from Yaz to Gershwin, from Queen to Handel... and a couple of original compositions by sax player and engineer Mark Holden). This came out a couple of years after Jane Fonda's workout record and before the advent of home video made the idea of a audio recording of a workout obsolete.

Feel the burn!

Ron Mahonin - My Love (1982)

We've had plenty of Heart Records' Ron Mahonin-related content over the years, so it's high time we presented his full-length LP (which includes many of the A sides of the singles we've posted). Though Heart Records put out a pile of 7" singles, they only released a handful of LPs - and if our understanding is correct, this one from their head honcho was one of their last releases. 

Get it here.

Sailcats - An Era's End? (1982)

Our summer intern was quite confused when they put this LP on the turntable in the CCPS offices; they think of the Sailcats as yacht rock (reservoir rock?), but the songs on this skew far more towards country rock. Seems like the Sailcats had a different sound going for them in their early days in Toronto - we would have expected the move to Calgary to make them more country-focused, not less. But that banjo on the cover isn't there just for show.

Sail on!

Various - Rocky Mountain Magic (1981), Up From The Basement (1984)

We've got a pair of compilation LPs today, one from Calgary (from XL radio) and one from Edmonton (from that city's K-97 station). We'll speak to the inclusion of the Edmonton comp first - Discogs suggests that the Tickets that kick off the A side with two songs is the same as the one that put out a 1980 single via Doug Wong Music. But Discogs' quality control can be downright non-existent, so we're taking that with a grain of salt. So we're also using the third track on this, Voice's "Lime," as a reason for posting - it's great early 80's new wave that we quite enjoy.

So the Calgary-focused Rocky Mountain Magic is the real reason for this post - we're not familiar with most of the artists on here, except for country rockers Sidewinder and keyboardist Ted Alexander (who played with Prototype, Qwest, the Sailcats and 20-20). As you might expect, this compilation covers a lot of genres in terms of genres, from soft rock to country to hard rockers. Singles' "She Don't Make Me" is the standout track for us - though we have no idea who was in the band, thanks to the lack of credits on the sleeve.

Get some Magic or head into the Basement.