CINDY LEE – WHAT’S UP WITH THAT INSERT PHOTO?
If you’ve got ears you’ve probably heard the new Cindy Lee record “Diamond Jubilee” which came out last month to much acclaim. The Cindy Lee Diamond Jubilee tour with Freak Heat Waves was to land in Montreal on May 18th. The show has been cancelled.
Everything about “Diamond Jubilee” is mysterious. The Cindy Lee character themselves is a persona of Pat Flegel, a musician from Calgary best known for the guitar slang in the acclaimed band Women. The music is haunted and huzzed out and oh and there was no PR campaign – which we here call “the Montreal special”…and it’s not on any streaming platforms. But the mystery that CKUT’s Music Department really wanted to unlock was the record’s cool (virtual) insert which features a photo of a specific Calgary Light Rail Transit station taken with a Canon Powershot S70 – the best handheld digicam ever made. (How do I know…I don’t but that photo quality is unmistakable). Anderson station is located in a part of Calgary called Southwood.
Why is this the insert to Cindy Lee’s “Diamond Jubilee”? And what’s up with The Anderson Light Rail Transit station in Calgary. Music Department asked a few people from Calgary…
Madeline – local journalist:
You’ve heard of a face only a mother could love… It was truly a delight to discover the insert for this album was a simple, unadorned snap of Anderson LRT station. A sight only a Calgary kid could love.
Jack – local powerviolence singer:
I lived on the other side of Anderson from the station so getting there required going over an overpass and then down this long dark spooky corridor behind the bus garage which I SWEAR was haunted and where we would often get chased by teenagers. One time we all went to see ‘the grudge’ at Chinook mall on Halloween and on the way home a couple of the teenagers who regularly harassed us came running out of an alley behind the station screaming that they had seen a moose. There was in fact a moose in the alley.
Jesse – Vancouver based journalist
I grew up in the North West of Calgary in a very quaint neighbourhood that is literally called Mount Pleasant. Anderson Station is in the other corner of the city, across from Southcentre Mall, but I have definitely spent time on that platform during treks out to Value Village or the West 49 skate shop where I worked in high school. The architecture at Anderson Station is weird, imposing, and beautiful, much like some of my favourite Montreal train stations, so I’ve always appreciated it as a unique, eye-pleasing public space in a fairly non-descript part of town.
Download the album (and its wonderful artwork) here.
