At Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2005 04:53:28 Mike wrote:

>Jamie-
>Thank you so much for that brief but enlightening post!!  You made my day.
>Now that I have all the Wackers CD's, I need something else to qwest ;-)
>I had no idea Painter was (were?) Canucks. I had heard they were from N.W.
>Washington or something.. damn what was in the water in Calgary?
>Painter is one of my favorite undiscovered bands.  But (obviously) I know
>nothing about them.  are the other incarnations really the same band or did 
>they
>have major personnel changes?  Can we find them (any of them) on CD?  hell,
>any LP's?   I've heard of Hammersmith and pershaps run across an album 
>once, but
>Qwest and Dan Lowe - absolutely no data.
>Jamie or other fans, can you fill me in?

After cajolling from Ralph Alfonso I went back and read my own biographies 
on Dan Lowe's material and I want to clarify. For one, Dan Lowe wasn't in 
Qwest....he was their producer for two albums in the early '80s. Those two 
albums ('Tampico Gold' and 'Dream Zone') were re-issued on CD in 1996 
through Pacemaker in Canada. The material is pretty standard issue AOR.

Now, the actual evolution of Painter goes like this:

In 1966 Dan Lowe's Calgary band Shades Of Blonde put out one single called 
"All Your Love". A shift in personnel resulted in a name change to 49th 
Parallel who were then signed to Gaiety Records in 1967 whereby they 
released a handful of singles (including the radio hit "Twilight Woman") and 
one self-titled LP. A switch to Venture Records in 1969 also produced 
several singles. Their entire output was released as a 'best of' by 
Pacemaker Records in 1995.

With the addition of Barry Allen on guitar and Herb Ego on drums they became 
Painter in 1971. They released a single on London, one on Randy Bachman's 
Molten Records and finally three on Elektra. The Elektra singles constituted 
the bulk of the self-titled debut in 1973. This album is NOT on CD.

With the departure of Barry Allen to MCA as a solo artist, Painter switched 
its name (and its style) to the heavier Hammersmith and signed to Mercury. 
They released an eponymous album in '74 and 'It's For You' in '76. These two 
albums have NOT been released on CD.

Hammersmith survived until Mercury dropped them in 1977 but by that time 
only Dan Lowe and bassist Roydon Morice remained. They formed a new 
incarnation called 451 Degrees which had synth added but still maintained a 
rock vibe. They released one album in 1980 on the Intercan label. It is not 
on CD.

With the departure of Roydon Morice, 451 Degrees added legendary Dr. Music 
pianist and producer Doug Rilet and changed the name of the group to 
Prototype. Lowe went back to Mercury and secured a deal with 
Mercury/Polygram and released their self-titled debut in 1983. The material 
again was very AOR with a keyboard base. Something akin to Saga without the 
falsetto vocal acrobatics.

This album was released on CD by Pacemaker about 3 years ago.

The problem with finding the three different Pacemaker titles now is that 
the label has been semi-inactive, and as an indie like my label they did 
very limited runs of all this stuff. I have the Qwest and 49th Parallel 
release, but the Prototype CD has eluded me.....and I even know the owner of 
Pacemaker....but even he has no stock around.

Jaimie Vernon,
Bullseye Records
http://www.bullseyecanada.com