NIGHTTERRORS

Sleep is for the weak

The path a band takes to get to a particular line-up is like a fingerprint stamp on a crime scene. Just dig into its origins and each one is unique in its own way. Some come together as an act of faith, others are constructed carefully piece by piece and some are made up of old schoolmates. Nightterrors’ development was marked out along a trail of chance and circumstance.

PIGGY

photo by Ira Hunter

Musical matchmaking: Is Ange the one for Piggy?

Finding a lead singer that fits your local band sometimes is like trying to find a boyfriend or girlfriend in Vancouver: it sucks. The Craigslist Musicians section is the equivalent of Plenty of Fish and both can be a waste of time. You are better off having a friend set you up. That’s what happened for Piggy, formed in late 2010 by Ron Reyes (Red Kross, Black Flag) on guitar and Craig McKimm (Econoline Crush, Little Guitar Army) on drums, and Lisafurr Lloyd (Little Guitar Army, JP5, East Vamps) on bass. They were three lead singers deep into it by 2014 and the position – like some people’s love life – seemed like a revolving door until one of Piggy’s former lead singers mentioned Ange (Lesbian Fist Magnet) as a possible match for Piggy. This is just a good reason to stay friends with all your exes.

SUBCULTURE JULY

Well, well… It seems every time you turn around the various levels of government find a way to stick it to the commoner … Christy Clark’s provincial Liberals’ latest favour for the people is called ‘Happy Hour’ … Now I’ve seen people prematurely rejoicing before realizing that it turns out to be just a cleverly-disguised liquor minimum price increase … I bet they’re backslapping up a storm in the legislature, now that they can spin this as a non-taxation cash grab …

These new minimum prices are at least 10 cents per ounce higher than any other Canadian province … Per ounce! The average beer is about 12 ounces … That’s a $1.20 price hike per beer higher than anywhere else in the country … This is outrageous! … This means that every bar that had cheaper beer prices below five dollars per 20 ounces of draught, now is forced to raise their prices … Of course, the talk about the measurements is in ounces, when most Canadian fluids are marked in millilitres to add to the confusion …

RITUAL DICTATES

Shimona Henry photo

Brothers In Blood

As side projects usually go, the musicians involved with them tend to steer toward the goal of getting a well-needed break from their bandmates. So, it may seem odd that two members of 3 Inches Of Blood, Justin Hagberg and Ash Pearson, would team up together and start a side project of their own. The fact that they are in the same band together played a major role in this project coming to fold.

FASHIONISM

Laura Murray photo

Your new Friday night

“FASHIONISM is basically the bubblegum glam of the early '70s played by people who like late '70s UK punk so much that it has poisoned everything we do in the best possible way,” said Robin Schroffel from the new band Fashionism.  Band members include Jeffrey McCloy (Tranzmitors, New Town Animals),  Josh Atomic (The Jolts), Alex Angel (Thee Manipulators, New Town Animals), and Robin Schroffel.

If you are new to the music scene here, the above paragraph just mentioned the top three of the finest Friday night local bands that Vancouverites have enjoyed over the past 10 years. There has been a sore lack of this danceable sound in the music scene here since the break-up years ago of thee Manipulators, the TVees, the Zip Guns, and Pretty Vanilla. And as a result, dancing gave way to moshing as music moved into the post punk sound and snore. Fashionism threatens to bring it all back to the music that will move your ass (unless it’s in a cast) with such style that will make even the dud of your group put on a clean shirt or a suit. No more post punk B.O. - it smells like a supergroup to the rescue.

GOLERS

in ‘n’ outlaws - Independent

Holy Christ! Vancouver metal veterans, the Golers, have unleashed something fierce with their fourth release. Chock-full of fourteen unforgiving face mashers that lash out with vigor,  in ‘n’ outlaws is full bore from the get go. If you are fans of their past work then this album is right up your alley. If you aren’t familiar, this is a good one to start getting into them. They remain the kings of Canadian crossover music.

This record comes at you with a mish-mash of metal genres thrown into an inbred stew cooked just right. Take the blackened metal of “Behind the Sun”, the explosive punk fury of “When Shit Goes Down”, the old school thrash of

TOONED & REMEMBERED!

The world lost a punk pioneer

Captured by illustrator Dan Harbord, he pays tribute to Dave Gregg, a former member of D.O.A., The Real McKenzies and Groovaholics. His soulful rhythms will be missed.

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

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 ...

NECK OF THE WOODS

No Bush League Here

Call it a Craigslist miracle! It’s not as if Vancouver metal band Neck Of The Woods came together easy, but it came together nicely. Searching for prospective band members via the musicians-wanted classifieds is always a daunting task for any band. Drunks, addicts, flakes, ex-cons, too-good-for-this, and useless-at-that can make it a torturous process. Managing to avoid all that – Neck of the Woods arrived on the local metal scene in 2012.


Neck Of The Wood’s guitarist Dave Carr has been in various projects over the years. The frustration of short-lived bands had set in so he proceeded to find players for something new. Ads were placed and many answered.

OFF!

Showing the kids how to get OFF!

Try to imagine John Lennon fronting the Beatles and the Stones, and, then, a few years later starting a band with Mick Ronson, Dennis Thompson and Dee Dee Ramone – just because he felt like it.  Put the CV of Keith Morris in perspective here for just a second and connect the punk rock dots a bit to see that the man has had, and is having, a pretty good run as a driving force in some of the most all-time relevant A-List West Coast Punk Rock Combos.  As a founding member of both Black Flag & the Circle Jerks, he's hit the highest highs of the rock and roll life and it's excesses, then almost kicked more bucket than ass before his resurgence as a pissed off force/freak of nature sporting even more mojo in his mid-50's than he had as a trailblazing hyperactive twenty-something.

REBEL SPELL

 photo by John Marshall @ The Grosvenor in London

Getting Serious with Todd Serious from the Rebel Spell

Getting to interview Todd Serious from Vancouver’s most political punk band The Rebel Spell is rare these days but so are their shows in Vancouver now. “It's hard. I miss Vancouver a lot but then it's so much more awesome when I get here. It's constantly changing, definitely moved out of the pseudo-commercial venues it was in.”

February 2003 was their first show ever, so they just passed 11 years as a band. Asking Todd about his latest concerns, he responds with, “Honestly, I'm working hard to resist falling in to a nihilistic mental state. I feel really overwhelmed with the trajectory of society. And I'm sure a lot of people feel that. But I think it's super important to maintain a positive outlook. Remember that even though the big picture is really bleak, individuals like you and I, and everyone, can make a difference day to day in just keeping things a little bit better. And really, that's what's within our power so we should strive for that. And I'm striving to keep it positive in an overwhelmingly negative context. My friends go that way, I go that way. Support each other, because that's all we've really got.”