The original incarnation of The Road was Conrad Helten, Greg Helten, Mark Rogers, myself (Trevor Rogers) and James Shannon. Ivan Allan eventually took over from James on drums. We practiced out in a barn behind a church in Ladner.
We played fairly often at clubs and events in and around Vancouver in the early nineties: The Town Pump, 86 Street, environmental events, university campuses, the Gulf Islands…etc
Over the years we performed with dozens of local and touring acts: Roots Roundup, Jazzberry Ram, The Grames Brothers, Noah’s Great Rainbow, Widespread Panic, The Wallflowers, The Spindoctors…etc
We even played with my current band, the Clumsy Lovers at an after hours booze-can at 4 A.M. somewhere in Gastown that was only accessible through the back alley. Who would have thought that I would still be recording and touring with them 15 years later?
The later edition of The Road was Conrad and myself, Doug Woods and Glenn Kruger or Eduardo Ottoni on drums. We continued to play until 1994 or so until Jimmy quit, Joey got married and everyone else got interested in other things that life had to offer, musically and otherwise.

Recordings:
Back in the day, it was rare to meet a local band with a CD. Cassettes were still the currency. We only officially released 2. The first was recorded in 1989 at Blue Wave Studios and featured the following songs:
-Let them know
-The nation is calling
-Rain
-The dream
The second was recorded by a guy named Benny a few years later in an old house on the West side of Vancouver on 2-inch reel-to-reel tape. The songs from that session were:
-The answer
-The dirt I dig
-24
-Got to get ready
-Talk to me
We also recorded a few dozen songs with a guy named Dave in a home studio in East Vancouver, and a half-dozen more with legendary Vancouver producer Cecil English who had worked with No Means No, D.O.A and Jello Biafra among many others. These recording haven’t surfaced yet but I’m pretty sure they are in a box somewhere.
Most of our energy was put into practicing and playing live. All the money, and there wasn’t much, was put into the band “fund” for future recordings. Unlike today where anyone with a laptop and a microphone can record a decent sounding album, in the early nineties studio time was expensive and out of reach for most bands. It was quite common if you did have the money to record only 3 or 4 songs. A “demo” as it were.
We would have them for sale at shows, but demo cassettes were mainly recorded for promotional purposes to get gigs, local radio play and for trying to land that elusive record deal. I always carried one with me to pass on to other musicians to network. I gave one to Greg Keelor of Blue Rodeo once. Who knows, maybe he still listens to it on his Walkman when he is cutting the grass.
The recordings sound dated for sure, but there was a lot of good energy in the room whenever we would get together. The Vancouver music scene at that time was friendly and inclusive for the most part. It was a real community. Some bands got popular for a while and some still are, but most performed for a few years for the sheer love of it before fading into musical obscurity.

Trevor
www.trevorrogers.ca
vancouvertrevor@gmail.com