can't wait for this!

Thanks again to everyone who came out for this one. We managed to raise $1200 for The Safe Amplification Society. Can’t wait for the 25th Anniversary party…

Oh, and a big thank-you to Gerald Deo for these photographs. He’s great!

Here is an 8x10 glossy for Carolyn Mark, circa her Party Girl Mint debut time.

In the photo are Garth Johnson and Tolan McNeil, her two bandmates at the time.

Longtime Carolyn pal and Victoria-ite, J. McLaughlin — and a few years after these photos were taken, the artist who created the cover for Carolyn’s Nashville tribute album —  was the photographer.

The small bottle of Perrier Bill is drinking came from the tiny kiosk on the front landing of the Dominion Building, where Jasmine and Diamond, two incredibly friendly people (Were they a couple? We never found out.) sold their wares: cigarettes, junk food, and lottery tickets. But there was only one of them at a time, I seem to remember, because the miniscule space inside the kiosk could not permit more than one person.

Their operation was very non-self serve: You came up to their small window, and they would go fetch the various things for you, including going into their full-size fridge for drinks and sandwiches.

We went down to see Jasmine and/or Diamond on a daily basis, on our way in, and during the work day, to get cigarettes (back when we smoked. At one time, we smoked in our offices, and in the public halls, in the washrooms, and on the stairs, and in front of the building — all at various times were permitted or at least tolerated; there were even ashtrays on every floor by the elevators. Alas, none of that is allowed anymore, so the building has a nice smoke-free smell, save for the wafts of pot smoke coming from, well, we don’t know where exactly), small packages of Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies, potato chips, chocolate bars, bottles of Perrier, and pop. We were such great customers that they started ordering in stuff just for us, because we were exhausting their stock.

Given the time of year right now, I am also reminded of the various Remembrance Days observances at Victory Square, and how much grief the kiosk was given by remaining open during the ceremonies.

I don’t remember when exactly Jasmine and Diamond packed up and left, but the space has been vacant for maybe twelve years? Just recently, in the past few months, the space was refurbished into a huge display case for Army & Navy, to publicize the Army & Navy Express store that moved into the spot that used to be Met Home and, before that, Bassix Record Store. Wellies for $30!

One of the side effects of having spent so many years at a campus/community radio station was seeing the incredible number of promo packages that would arrive.

When we visited the tony offices of Lookout! Records on that big meeting junket to Berkeley, and were invited to go for a walk to their p.o. box to pick up the day’s mail, we had no idea how much mail they received: they had two packed p.o. boxes’ worth of mail, plus there was more mail being held behind the p.o. box counter. Come to think of it, maybe they asked us to tag along to the p.o. box because they needed the extra hands to lug all the mail sacks back!

Similarly, during our stint at CiTR 101.9 fM UBC Radio, thanks to the wonderful promotional value of all the Discorders we mailed out on a monthly basis — at its peak to over 1000 to record labels all over the world, costing maybe $1500 in postage each time, if not more, if I remember correctly — and our incessant early morning phone calling to all the eastern time zone labels (to take advantage of the off-peak long distance rates) and letter writing, we received mass quantities of promo packages from all over the world.

One thing we noticed: virtually all of the promo packages arrived in brand-new mailers, whether they were the #00, #0, #1, #2, or #3 size.

So what we did with Mint Records 1.0 was go to our friendly friends at Budget Printing, and got some crack ‘n’ peel stickers made.

Then we approached the CiTRs and Discorders, asking them for their used mailers. We later asked our friends at CBC Radio 3 for them, and they were especially enthusiastic in supplying us with boxes of mailers. Thank you very much CiTR, Discorder, and CBC Radio 3!