TOONED & REMEMBERED!
ZERO BOYS!
Midwest punk rock legends come full circle
Okay – what single spark connects the punk rock dots to make this unimaginable equation from lying somewhere between the Twilight Zone and some LSD-fueled kid's rambling hypergraphia? First, let's take the way-back machine for a ride to Indiana circa fall '79, pick up some teenaged compadres and form a legendary and pivotal punk rock band called the Zero Boys. In rapid succession, release two seriously incendiary records (Living in the 80s & Vicious Circle) before blinking and tour North America holding their own live with heavyweights including the Dead Kennedys and Minor Threat. Then, return home to helm landmark releases by Toxic Reasons, Sloppy Seconds, Raw Power and help to define a signature “midwest” sound that's uniquely tight, crisp and (gasp!) cerebral.
BOG
Ain’t Nothing But A Swamp Thang
Five months ago vocalist Johnny Matter pulled a bit of a shocker when, true to his promiscuous band swapping ways, he abruptly left Vancouver metal upstarts Anion (after five years and almost directly after their debut album was released). After hearing Matter was a free agent I was rather excited when I was invited down to his jam space to check out his latest project and Vancouver’s newest band called BOG. Matter has always been in some seriously heavy hitting bands over the years. Not only that, his production company, Apocalypse Sunrise, has produced some of this city’s finest underground music festivals over the last five years. Matter gets around and is well versed when it comes to the ways of extreme music. The band came together amazingly a mere month after Matter’s exodus from Anion. So I went in with high expectations.
WALL OF SOUND - MAY
May music news and gig announcements
There is a new garage rock outfit The Bad Beats in town with Adam Payne (x of the Hathaways), Cam Alexander on vocals, Jon Card on drums, Randy Rudland on bass and Sylvia Lim playing keys. Check out “It Breaks Me Down” as fans of rock’n roll may dig this.
WTCHDR
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| Ted Reckoning photo |
Seek Help Now
Don’t let the grim sounds of WTCHDR fool you because they are really a bunch of swell guys. They really are. But if you dig into their second full length record Triumph and Despair (released April 2nd) you may get a bleak, ominous feeling inside your wretched stomach right off the bat.
With lead off track, “The Pilgrimage”, laid down like a stone blanket on a bed of nails Bending dissident chords, doomtastic guitar squeals, is completed with a deranged mad man on vocals.
If you dive even further into the lyrical content you will not see any light or a tunnel - just a big cave in of agony and feelings of helplessness.
SUBCULTURE MAY
Man, this great city just sucks sometimes ... Every time I hear about a D.I.Y. attempt to contribute something edgy and different, like clockwork, they get bombarded with the dog and pony show of red tape ... It makes me shake my head ... Having waded through the double whammy of also having the same slumlords on top of it, I can relate ...
This sounds suspiciously like the soundproofing farce of 5 years ago, that seemed mandatory for only certain parties ... How are the existing businesses in the D.T.E.S. able to be operating without mandated upgrades from grid electrical wiring ... Does BC Hydro expect that the building will still be standing after the bigwig real estate roulette table is spun ten stories high on that block ... This seems to be a feeble attempt to thwart the potential of anything positive happening at that address, when they'd actually prefer making the building slowly rot into another convenient plot of community gardens that stretch to the next shuttered property ... There must be a need to keep up with the condo Joneses that are lurking across the street ...
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