Did you know Vancouver has an Abbey Road? Not the road itself but a recording studio of that size. And with some of the prestige as well! I want to introduce you to GGRP Sound, in this exciting entry of What Makes Music?

So, back in the late 60’s a bunch of self proclaimed “out of work musicians” came together to produce jingles for companies. And immediately struck gold when they made a jingle for Rice-a-roni, which I believe I was able to find online, however, it was completely indecipherable. But what little bits of melody and lyrics I was able to pick out, were pretty catchy, and that quality would not go unnoticed. Well, it would go unnoticed by Rice-a-Roni who stiffed them on payment, but that’s besides the point.

In the 70’s they built Little Mountain Sound, a recording studio. This was the Abbey Road and a host of famous bands made some fantastic albums here. Aerosmith made Get A Grip, Motley Crue released Dr. Feelgood, and our very own Bryan Adams made Reckless. I mean come on! That’s awesome! Stars upon stars came through here, and did great work on their way through. But that’s not the end of the story here. GGRP continued advertising in the background. Well technically the foreground. Advertising was what Little Mountain was all about, the music was just because they had extra space, and a reputation for good acoustics.

But one of the most lasting impacts Little Mountain made, was the iconic three tone chime from the Skytrain. They had made such a splash that the hot new travel of the future went to them to create the sound that would haunt the dreams of generations of commuters.

But enough about the history, although its fascinating, at least to me and hopefully to you. But lets talk about the space. The studio doesn’t do as much music making as they used to. But still work on commercials and podcasts and the like. As well as jingles! So even after losing the studio in a game of Texas hold’em, (I mean its more likely that the Texas hold’em was more a “formality” than anything but its more exciting to pretend) they retained their identity and continued to make commercial jingles. And hey, they’re catchy, they do a good job.