If you watched Canada’s MuchMusic in the late ‘90s, chances are you may have been a fan of Winnipeg’s tragically underrated act Transistor Sound & Lighting Co. thanks to their instantly memorable Anyways/Mayonaise video.
While the band may have been one of the few major label signings in a post-Nirvana world from the River City, delays, internal label shakeups and a lack of marketing focus probably cost the group a shot at the recognition they deserved. Despite the framework for their debut being in place early on when they were signed, the slow roll of BMG Music and its new offshoot Vik Recordings from 1996 with a hard-to-find 7” to the release of their self-titled debut in 1998 would be difficult to recover from. Despite hitting the road and playing with a whose-who of Canadian indie rock at the time (Hayden, Treblecharger, Duotang and Sloan), any momentum the group had built up never materialized in a way that would provide longevity for the group that some of their peers enjoy to this day. Even more unfortunate, the debut seems lost in licensing limbo and unavailable on any of today’s streaming services outside of fan uploads on YouTube. To this day, their show with Duotang and Hayden at the Royal Albert Arms ranks in my Top 10 Shows of All Time.
