Music Projects During the Schulz Motors Engagement #

I worked at Schulz Motors for about five years. During that time I was still trying to keep my music and recording interest alive. I am a little bit foggy on some of the timelines so hopefully they will flush out as I talk about some of the things that I was working on. One really interesting one that I skirted around with was trying to build a CD plant in Fort Assiniboine. Ft Assiniboine is very small, barely a village in size but it has a lot of crown land along the river banks and one requirement was access to a clean water source. For those that might not know, Fort Assiniboine is considered the oldest settlement in Alberta. This was the true Klondike trail, but it is funny how Edmonton celebrates the concept of the gateway to the north on the Klondike trail. I know the fur traders and miners came to Fort Assiniboine by canoe up the Athabasca and then by land from that fort. It was considered to be named the capital of Alberta as it was the oldest settlement.

At the time the CD was just in the early stage of becoming the future of consuming music. There was hardly anything on or even available for CD. Music was still being recorded on analog equipment (tape) and then would have to be converted to digital to land onto the CD. Very few people even had a CD at that time. However, this really looked good for the future as we could play music on the go which is really hard or impossible in some cases with a vinyl record, like in a car. There was tape but you couldn’t flip to the next song like you could with vinyl and CD’s had this capability and you could play it in the car.

We had the support of our MLA (Member of Legislative Assembly) as it would provide jobs in an area were there was no work other than farming. We would be able to lease some of that crown land but we would have to come up with a big chunk of money. We would need an investor, and the ones with pockets that deep I could not trust to even talk about this idea so it died there.

I do remember going back into Edmonton almost every weekend and trying to find some performers that I would like to work with. There were two that I remember from that period. One was Susan Whalen and I remembered her from the duo that she was in with her now ex-husband called “Just Friends”. Susan had an interesting story and I can’t remember all the details but she had a busted ear drum, something like that but could she sing. The thing is I don’t know what I was planning for Susan. I might have been looking for some songs as I don’t think she was a songwriter and by this time I did have a few that were contracted to my publishing company “Wild West Music”. I do remember her adorable kids and they really liked me. I went to her house one Saturday, and Wanda Norman, my girlfriend at the time came with me. The kids hijacked me and showing me their toys and I might have even read to them or something. Wanda got to visit with Susan.

I never did get anything happening with Susan production wise, but she did audition for Klondike Kate and she held that position for over two years. No one ever had that position for more than a year. Klondike Mike was always the same old guy. These two were the face of Klondike Days in Edmonton, the big fair. The requirements for Klondike Kate were pretty involved as she had to sing all those old gold rush bar songs and Klondike Mike just had to look pretty slightly smiling face

Another performer that I was working with was Sue Moss. There is some history with Sue, as we both went to Grant MacEwan in their music program. Sue was coming in as a Standup Bass player and I remember seeing her lug that big instrument was way bigger than she was. She used to be in a family singing group and they were in Barrhead the night that the Bowling Alley burned to the ground. They were next door in the upstairs of the movie Theatre which may have been were they were performing that night. She remembers these firemen coming in and out of the room that they were sleeping in but they weren’t getting to evacuate the room. She and her brother and sisters were all pretty young. Under her breath she vowed never to come back to this town.

Although Sue went to GMCC as a stand-up bass player, she started a band and she was the vocalist. We were looking at some material that we could record. I invited her to come out to Barrhead for a few days so we could put some things together. At this time Wayne Gretzky was playing in the Edmonton Oilers and his girlfriend was Sue’s younger sister, Vicky Moss. I let the local news paper know that I was doing some pre-recording work with Sue and that she was the older sister of Vicky who was Wayne Gretzky’s girl friend. They were more than eager to grant us an interview as I knew they would be knowing the Gretzky connection. Sue was not too happy with me about that but she forgave me and we had a really good interview and turned into a really nice story in the Barrhead Leader. I think this also opened my eyes in knowing how to get press attention. Nothing really happened out of that working session.