Sentinel sends you back in time

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This article was published 04/02/2022 (1520 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A lifetime of friendship and rock ’n’ roll music has culminated in an album 45 years in the making, for one band whose music roots started in a machine shed in Deloraine.

The story of Sentinel began with seven guys in junior high and high school playing at town fairs and school dances in 1977. Blair Bolduc on rhythm guitar, and Ron Murias on drums, met Clark Combs (saxophone, vocals), Steve Meggison (bass guitar), Al Manshreck (keyboards) and Guy Grierson (lead vocals) over the course of that year and soon brought in Don Calverley from Hartney to play lead guitar.

Starting out playing covers of Led Zeppelin, AC/DC and the Eagles, the band rehearsed out of a machine shed much to the chagrin of Deloraine residents.

“When we practised, they could hear us in town,” Murias said as he laughed.

“It was the first time it felt like a real band. Everything seemed to fall in place.”

Over the course of their junior high days, the band would travel to different venues in the Westman area, including a notable memory turned into an escapade at the Keystone Bar in Brandon.

What started out as a regular gig, turned into a scene out of “The Blues Brothers,” prior to that movie even existing. Bolduc and Murias were roughly 16 at the time, and underage to be let into the bar. With no picture IDs required in the late 1970s, Manshreck lent Murias his ID and the drummer was able to memorize his friend’s birth date and residence but struggled with the spelling of his last name.

“We were killing ourselves laughing,” Manshreck said.

“The bouncer told him get it memorized when you come back tonight.”

Following a rehearsal, the band got on stage and started their first set. The band had to rely on backup vocals from other members as Grierson was recovering from a wisdom teeth removal surgery. Manshreck recalled the group playing a country waltz, with one half of the room dancing and bikers at the other corner of the stage throwing beer bottles at the band.

“We got through that set, went back to the room and didn’t come back out again,” Manshreck said.

“It’s fun to laugh at it now,” Murias said.

By 1979, the members of Sentinel each started to go their own way. Grierson and Murias moved to Alberta, and became a geologist and wireless engineer, respectively. Calverley moved to Winnipeg to become a mechanical designer, Bolduc moved to Brandon to work in health care and Manshreck, Combs and Meggison all became farmers close to the Deloraine area.

Throughout the years, the guys in Manitoba stayed in touch and occasionally would get together to play, but it wasn’t the same connection they all shared in the late 70s. Flash forward to 2013, life for everyone in the band started to slowdown and through word of mouth, a reunion was organized by Bolduc to get back together shortly after Calverley’s 50th birthday.

Grierson and Murias flew in from Calgary, where rock ’n’ roll was rekindled once again for the band at a gig promoted by the Deloraine Ag Society. What began as a quiet spring night in Medora with a BBQ turned into an evening of music that stretched into the wee hours of the morning.

“Somebody got up and said let’s get going and play,” Murias said.

“Suddenly people started showing up. Guys dragging coolers, and it was a really good time. We went till it had to be three o’clock in the morning. We probably went a good five hours.”

Sadly, later that year, the band lost Bolduc who died from an illness. At the funeral, Sentinel members felt like it was time to fire up the band and start doing shows on a more regular basis like old times.

“Why don’t we just keep going, playing and hanging out?” Murias said.

“As much as Blair is not with us, it was Blair that got us back together,” Manshreck said.

“That was the TSN turning point, if we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it now.”

The band quickly started getting gigs right off the hop. Shows at the Deloraine Fair and Pelican Lake Campground in Ninette, led to more opportunities to play in the Westman region, Saskatchewan and Alberta.

Murias explained the band would meet in the summer to play in Calgary, and have a few shows lined up in the fall in Manitoba. Sentinel would continue to have two to three gigs booked each season during the year, and everyone’s schedule as they got older would allow for this to continue from 2013 on to today.

Shortly before the pandemic, the idea was considered to have a creative songwriting session in Scottsdale, Ariz. Grierson, who owns property down south, was able to host his fellow band members for a weekend of music in February 2020, which inspired Sentinel’s first-ever original recordings.

Entitled the “Scottsdale Sessions,” the band has just released a seven-track extended play recorded at OCL Studios in Chestermere Lake, near Calgary. Murias explained how for many of the guys, the recording, which took place in July 2021, was a brand-new experience over the course of one weekend.

“We had the whole band move in, like you hear about the old days when Led Zeppelin did that in a castle,” Murias said.

Recorded in two days, all seven songs were originally written and were released in January 2022. For Manshreck, the keyboard player never imagined the recording process could go as smoothly, based on the entire band not being able to practise together due to everyone living in different places.

“It was bucket list stuff,” Manshreck said.

“This was amazing for me, a very casual musician. You don’t want to let the others down. It was really great collaborating, right from when we put some original songs together. It’s always fun working with your best friends.”

The final track on the EP entitled “D-Zero,” is an instrumental recording that came from a session between Bolduc and Calverley. Murias explained that Bolduc had a setting on a digital pedal board called D-Zero that created a crunchy guitar sound. After reviving that sound for the album with new drum sets, what came next was a memory the band won’t forget.

“When you hear the end of the track, Don had captured audio of Blair speaking, he’s laughing and talking about starting over a verse, and we left that in,” Murias said.

“It was our ode to Blair.”

Now when they get together for new shows, the band will play its new recordings and still mix in classic rock covers from Bachman-Turner Overdrive, AC/DC and newer material from Foo Fighters.

Murias chuckled as he tried to recall how the band got its name.

“I think we misspelled it in the early days,” Murias said.

Originally thought of as a creature guarding a castle, it was Bolduc’s sister that designed the logo in 1977.

Sentinel plans to continue touring across the Prairies and is looking forward to more shows down the road.

To listen to “D-Zero” and more of “The Scottsdale Sessions,” check out the group’s YouTube channel.

»jbernacki@brandonsun.com

»Twitter: @JosephBernacki