A little over a week ago I received an email from 1971. Or to be more exact, it was from "whatwas1971". I started to read the email, but I had to stop. I was in public and I was starting to cry. Not so cool. Later that night, when I was alone, I pulled up the email again and slowly read the first paragraph again.
"In February 2017 our bassist, founding member, and friend Cameron Glen Cranston suddenly passed away in Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre. He was 25 years old." ( whatwas1971)
After I finished reading the email I clicked on the link for their newly released video Anxiety (In the Depths of Northwestern Ontario) and fell in love with it. The music is haunting, dark and moody, and the video footage which was put together from their last tour spins a wonderful story of friendship and camaraderie. I'm sad that there won't be more of this music.
I needed to share their story with you. 1971 were Garrett Iverson, Jory Strachan, Cameron Cranston and Tanner Neil.
Cameron left behind a lot of people who loved him. He was close to attaining his Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science at the University of Winnipeg and he was an organ donor.
Music was his passion and he loved the time he spent playing with his band, 1971. They travelled to both coasts on several occasions, playing small clubs and private parties. It truly was the time of their lives! They made so many special memories that will live on forever. ( yourlifemoments)
I'll let the surviving members tell you their story. Thanks to Garrett, Jory and Tanner for answering my questions, I know it wasn't easy.
Questions and Answers with 1971
Q: Could you tell us a little bit about the history of the band, how you met and came together and anything else you think our readers might like to know? 1971 GI: We all grew up with an interest in punk rock and music in general. Cam and Tanner went to the same school and were best friends. They had a band called The Tossing Frogs. I remember seeing them play at the high school Jory and I went to. They were very much a garage/grunge band and no one was doing that kind of stuff at our age in our town that I knew of at that time. I was blown away! Jory played in a few bands before him and I started playing music. But we knew each other beforehand.
I remember running into Jory at a party and we talked about how much we were really into Attack In Black at the time and we've been playing music together pretty much ever since. Jory and I played music with Cam at separate times. Cam and I both worked at Safeway before we ever really did jam. I would run into him in the hallways at school and we would always talk about jamming. But we never would end up actually setting up a date or time! Eventually, one day we got off work at the same exact time and I saw him in his car. He popped his head out of the window shouting "Garrett get in!" "let's go get your amp!". Eventually, Cam, Jory and I got together to start this band called 1971. Tanner didn't come in and play until later on. But he hung out with us since the start of the band and we always felt that he was a part of it. We always talked about how one day he would come on the road with us and eventually that's exactly what happened!
Q: Facebook lists your hometown as Kenora but also says that you're currently in Winnipeg, what are you doing in Winnipeg?
1971 JS: We moved to Winnipeg in 2012. Kenora is a small town and we wanted to have the opportunity to play more and move on from our hometown, try something new, live in a city. I started studying at the University of Winnipeg. Garrett went to Winnipeg Tech to study carpentry and Cran eventually started studying at the U of W as well. I'm the only one living in Winnipeg currently.
Q: Please tell us about Cameron and your decision not to go on without him?
1971 JS: There wasn't really a question of whether we could continue without him or not. He was our best friend, our mentor. We just knew it wouldn't be right.
Q: Please talk us through the process of putting together the EP and the vinyl release?
1971 JS: We got back from a month or so tour of Eastern Canada in September of 2016 with plans of recording a full-length that fall/winter. We applied for some grants and recorded demos of Anxiety and The Manipulator for em. We took a little break after that. We found out we actually received a decent chunk of funding late November but didn't get back to work on the stuff until January. We already had all the songs written before that tour so we were doing some pre-production.
After Cran passed it took a week or so before we even thought about what we were going to do, other than break up. Cran always wanted us to release some vinyl (which was the plan for that album) so we thought we should put out the last material we had and do some vinyl. Honor a dying wish.
A huge group of us (the three of us and other close friends) drove in, flew in, etc. and lived at Cran and Janine's house in Kenora and hid from the world the month immediately after his death. Closer to the end of that period and after his funeral we spent a little bit of time in Winnipeg and finished the songs.
Our engineer J Riley Hill of Mortfell Recording really helped out in mixing the songs and taking them from demos to recordings we were really happy with.
Cran had recorded a short video of a guitar song he was working on, only weeks before his death, called Etinohah, we put on the EP as well.
When we brought the idea back to Manitoba Film and Music, who were one of the funders of the proposed album, they agreed to continue honouring the grant despite the drastic changes to the project. We're very grateful for that.
We ended up releasing the vinyl ourselves but our friends at Art of the Uncarved Block were interested in releasing a cassette of the project.
It's been a bit of a rollercoaster but we're really appreciative of the support and the interest we've been receiving in anticipation of the release.
Q: How can people get their hands on these?
1971: You can order the vinyl from our website www.1971canada.com, www.1971canada.bandcamp.com and cassettes from www.artoftheuncarvedblock.com.
Can you tell us about the video for 
Q: Anxiety (In the Depths of Northwestern Ontario)?
1971 TN: Something I'm really thankful for is the amount of the footage we managed to capture on tour. The video for Anxiety is made up entirely of video from the last tour, mainly from the time between shows - the endless hours on the Trans-Canada, the wonderful people we met along the way, the gorgeous and sometimes hostile Canadian landscape - beautifully edited by Ryan Steel and Jory. The response to the video in the lead-up to the vinyl release has been really nice, if bittersweet. If nothing else, I think of it as a memento of the best time of my life. I wouldn't have changed a thing.
Q: What are you all doing now?
1971 JS: Tanner currently lives in Vancouver with his partner Emily, and Garrett moved back to Kenora and is living with Janine, Cran's partner of 9, plus, years. I live in Winnipeg still. We have fairly busy lives. I run a small local booking company with my friend George called Yes Wave and are working on some stuff for this coming summer, and I'm currently playing in a few bands.
Garrett and I started a new band called Rust Owl that's also, in a way, a dedication to Cran, and I play in the Lucas Roger Band.
Garrett and Janine started a band called Twig and Garrett's currently recording some more solo stuff.
Tanner has some really nice guitar music up on his Bandcamp and "tunediggler" on SoundCloud and is doing screen printing.
Q: Is there anything else you want to share with our readers?
1971 TN: These final releases and shows I think will be a fitting tribute to our best friend. I want to acknowledge all of the work that Jory and Garrett put into this, and I'm looking forward to sharing the stage with them again.
1971 JS: Likewise. It'll be bittersweet. Thanks for sharing this time with us.
You can find 1971 here - Web / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram
No Matter Where You Go, There You Are - 1971
1971's final installment No Matter Where You Go, There You Are featuring the last recordings before Cam Cranston's passing will be available on 7" vinyl, cassette and digital download December 1, 2017. The EP includes the tracks Anxiety (In the Depths of Northwestern Ontario), The Manipulator and Etinohah.
Pre-Order from Bandcamp or Art of the Uncarved Block. ( 1971canada)
