The Electric Cows: Winnipeg's mythical rock band is resurrected with new CD

The Electric Cows were Winnipeg's hottest rock band of the 1960s, but you've never heard of them because they didn't really exist.

The story goes that The Electric Cows were a garage rock band that succeeded The Dacron Sweaters, a doo-wop group led by Wayne Rizzuto. They played community clubs, dance halls — any gig an up-and-coming band could get.

They got their big break from Biff Harooba, an alcoholic quasi-celebrity with ties to local television and radio stations across the Midwest. If it weren't for the support of Harooba, The Electric Cows would have remained completely unknown.

The story is fabricated, but the music is real. Except, it wasn't recorded in the mid '60s by Wayne Rizzuto and his cronies. Winnipeg musician Paul Bond recorded more than 100 songs with various musicians as The Electric Cows through 1986-1988 and created the elaborate origin story.

The Electric Cows even starred in B movies, with Bond writing the screenplays.

"In my mind they were from, maybe in, some sort of alternate reality. It was intended to be pure 1960s-era music and tried to capture the sound of some of the more raw, underground 1960s garage bands," Bond said.

The songs were recorded using 60s-era gear, giving the true vintage psychedelic sound to the music. Their sound is diverse, ranging from bubble gum pop you'd hear on any diner jukebox in the '60s, to overdriven fuzz rock that redefined rock and roll in the era.

Bond released songs quietly to a select group of friends on mixtapes he would trade around. That's where Chris Jacques first heard the group.

"Paul and I had mutual friends, and one of them passed me a tape and said 'I think you'll really enjoy this.' I pretty much knew that it was not a real band, but I thought that they had performed at some time. So I thought I had missed them, but everyone missed them, because they never really played," Jacques said.

Jacques figured out who was behind the band, and contacted Bond about releasing the songs on his record label, Dub Ditch Picnic. They selected their favourites out of the 100-plus catalogue, and released a compilation, Wheatfield Fuzz.

"I'm not a great collector, I'm not a great archivist," Jacques said. "But I know there's some music that needs to be preserved."

They kept the myth going, with a story of the original master reels being discovered in a dusty box on Grosvenor Avenue in Winnipeg and remastered.

Bond was pleasantly surprised that someone was still interested in the project.

"I hadn't thought an awful lot about this project in 30 years. I was very happy Chris contacted me because I thought it would be cool if people heard this stuff, because it was fun to record."

The response has been good, with people around North America asking who the heck The Electric Cows were, and why they hadn't heard of them before.

Bond is toying with the idea of "getting the band back together," but for now is just happy to see people enjoying this secret project so many years later.

Whether you believe it's been 50 years or 30 since The Electric Cows last plugged in, their revival is hard-hitting, and brings a unique vintage to the current age of digital media and music streaming culture.

You can find the Wheatfield Fuzz CD in music stores across Winnipeg, or online at the Dub Ditch Picnic Bandcamp page.