There’s no dressing up a Heathen of Influence, so you might as well grab your best denim vest and join the festivities when Flashback throws down the proverbial metal-studded gauntlet.
A long, Sabbathy, drag off a perilously short cigarette, the Calgary-based outfit’s third LP burns from tip to filter with an arsenal of hemispheric headnodders.
Raised in the den of the Steppenwolf, the single “Widow’s Breath” is a sonic saga infused with a lust for life and liberty that would have Fonda and Hopper delivering drive-by high-fives from beyond the grave. Epic guitar swells and pounding percussion set the four-man warship a-heave as vocalist/guitarist Aidan Demarais’s commanding growl gouges through a sea of sludge.
The evil rip-chord chug of “Darkened Plague” recalls an outboard motor that runs on petrol and Pabst. There’s just enough time for a fat booty boogie guitar solo before all of the oxygen has been sucked from the room.
Forging a new mythos out of melody and madness, Flashback hurls venomous lightning bolts, navigates warp-speed tempo shifts and revels in dense mercurial meltdowns. From the harshly acidic “The Atomic Fog,” to the hair-toss gong-crash of “Fortune’s Guild,” and the Satriani honeybucket “Fortune’s Guild,” this old school hard rock outfit is clearly happy to flex its ample talent before stretching out for inspection like some fuzzy-lensed centerfold.
A double-barreled blast of unfettered prairie punk, the latest from these Siksika shredders touches down with the force of a trailer park tornado. Tearing a hole in the ozone, primary cut “Cloudeater” emerges from a dense fog of menacing reverberations with ill intent.
A spooky psychedelic tale that buzzes with old-school distortion, this devourer of smoke brandishes a blazing torch for the ghostly figure that haunted the band’s second LP, Dark Spirit. No lightweight contenders, they would give Alberta’s notorious grizzly #122 pause, landing blow after vision-blurring blow with ease.
Turning the other cheek with “Dreaming City,” the black leather-clad crew hits the b-side by running amok in an urban wilderness of their own making. Considered one of Alberta’s worst-kept secrets, the foursome proves to be surprisingly agile as they absorb and reflect heavily horrible influences like Motörhead and Forbidden Dimension. The second track’s fiery vocals scorch the Earth in anticipation of a magnetic storm full of percussive thunder.
Solidified by the grounding presence of recently conscripted guitar vet Craig Bear Chief, Iron Tusk is equipped to reach further and higher in leaving their claw mark on the Canadian music scene. Howling at the moon is only a mic check.
It’s a common condition among those who have been exposed to the Edmonton rock band’s wide-bottomed grooves and soulful vocals. Renowned for their thick curves and intuitive rhythms, the heavy blues-metal trio has eclipsed their local scene and grown in stature and repute on a diet of beefy riffs and Alberta rye.
Far from the desert canyons and rocky peaks pursued by their headbanging brethren, Black Mastiff is most at home prowling the urban landscape and exploring Edmonton’s dark underbelly. It’s where they found the inspiration for their latest album, Loser Delusions; its name a cheeky tip of the bandana to Axl Rose, reflecting Black Mastiff’s state of mind.
“It was first thrown out as a bit of a joke,” explains bassist Clay Shea. “We had a giggle and then we thought about it for a bit and it just kind of made sense to us, with the way the writing process had been going and our dedication to the process of getting together. Our drummer, Allan (Harding), had been living in Vancouver and we were just trying to stay motivated and were a bit delusional about the future.”
It was a trial and a test for the sludgy outfit, who’s self-titled debut appeared in 2011. Working on Loser Delusions, Shea and guitarist/vocalist Bob Yiannakoulias knew they had reached a crucial stage in the band’s development, a high watermark that would see the fuzzy entity sink or swim for its melodic life.
“We’re always going for it, but we had to work hard to make this one happen,” says Yiannakoulias of working long-distance. “It took a lot of motivation because that cathartic thing you get from going to practice, turning up the amps, cranking up, blowing through your songs and having those rewarding jams wasn’t there. Sometimes it was less fun, but we had to stay really focused, and keep our shit together, and put in that time. Everybody had to pretty much step up the level of dedication.”
And step up they did, creating their own record label Grand Hand, in cahoots with tourmates Chron Goblin, along the way. It was a decision that put them in charge of their destiny and once Black Mastiff had the leash in their jaws there was no restraining their artistic impulses.
“We never really lost control,” says Shea, “but I feel like this was all just about regaining control and knowing we can keep doing this. We’ve got the chops to keep doing what we’re doing.”
Black Mastiff perform Fri, Oct. 11 at The Palomino Smokehouse (Calgary), Fri, Oct. 18 at Hard Luck (Toronto) and Fri, Oct. 25 at Temple (Edmonton).
Chron Goblin Dismantles the Past on New Album, Here Before
by Christine Leonard
Photo by Sebastian Buzzalino
Good fences make good neighbours, but if you’ve walked down the rambling alleys of Brentwood, Calgary in the past two decades, you might have caught drift of a hidden skateboard ramp and the band that dwells nearby like an ear-blasting company of trolls.
So the story goes, but no one knows the legend of this secret suburban shred-spot better than Devin “Darty” Purdy, aka lead guitarist to Calgary’s preeminent psych-metal outfit, Chron Goblin.
“The Brentwood Ramp, which has consumed the souls of many missed tricks, was built in 1997 by the City of Calgary and acquired by the Goblins in 2006,” says Purdy. “It was the main feature for many parties and band photoshoots and provided a great mental break from jamming. Unfortunately, termites got the best of it and we had to take it down this year, but its memory lives on!”
Purdy’s generosity in sharing his good fortune and square footage made the ramp a destination for members of Calgary’s skateboarding and indie music scene, just as his basement became the rehearsal room of choice for bandmates vocalist Josh Sandulak, drummer Brett Whittingham and bassist Richard Hepp.
“It formed a hub for weekly backyard skate sessions, barbecues and basement jamming. So many memories of watching some of Calgary’s finest skating the hell out of the ramp well past dark, wheels clacking and trucks grinding, people hollering and dropping off the garage roof into the ramp,” Whittingham says reminiscing. “The band photo in our album Life for the Living is an awesome shot of us sprawled out on a couch in the middle of the ramp with a million beer cans strewn everywhere. Also, those nasty maggots growing in the recycling!”
It’s enough to bring tears to your eyes. Listening to the group’s brand new release, Here Before, it’s hard to believe that six years have passed since that sofa-king-cool snap was taken of the ambitious young punks with their desert-rock-meets-thrash dreams. Having furthered the arc of their ascent with 2015’s Backwater, Chron Goblin are accustomed to challenging themselves to master new techniques, but it’s their interpersonal skills that have truly elevated their game.
“I think the only way we’ve gotten to that 10-year mark is by evolving our relationship as friends and as bandmates in terms of our communication and being crazy honest with each other. Probably more honest than we are with anyone else in our lives. That in itself has caused us all to reflect more deeply on who we are as people and what’s led to a maturing of our band,” says Sandulak.
Wild at heart, but growing wiser by the minute, Here Before delivers exhilarating maneuvers that come close to the thrill of pulling off rad stunts on the old Brentwood Ramp, but this round comes without the consequence of bruised up shins and beer can maggots.
Black Mountain Burns Rubber On High Octane Space Age Highway
by Christine Leonard
Hovering over your metropolis like a sleek black leviathan, Destroyer is but the latest vehicle of deliverance for Vancouver space rockers Black Mountain. Armed with digitized pop tentacles and pulsating with vintage video game vibes, the time-travelling album harvests riffs and rhythms from across decades and devices. Customarily nonchalant about their earth-quaking creations, founding guitarist/lead vocalist Stephen McBean and lynchpin/keyboardist Jeremy Schmidt, have always gravitated towards generating deadly sonic vortexes that defy chronological classification.
“We’re definitely in tune with our aesthetic pasts. I guess that’s pretty evident, just from what our preoccupations are,” says Schmidt of the new album’s retro-tronic soundscape. “I feel like the past is something that’s always revealing itself. Even though it seems like it’s all behind us, variations of it seem to be revealing themselves in the present and continuing to do so in the future all the time. So, to me, it’s like the past is an ongoing project.”
Crashing into mid-life with phasing synths set to stun, Schmidt and McBean hit the virtual reset button following the appearance of the band’s previous full-length release, IV (2016), leaving them alone in the cockpit for the first time in years. Approaching an age when a man’s thoughts might run to HRT and hot rods, the duo fixed upon the title Destroyer, a nod to the discontinued single-run 1985 Dodge testosterone factory on wheels.
“Steve is actually a new driver. He recently learned how to drive, so that kind of informed a couple of the ideas in an off-handed, casual way.”
The “Boogie Lover” persona that flows from McBean’s newfound sense of freedom comes through loud and clear on new tracks such as the easy ridin’ “Future Shade,” the power-mongering “Horns Arising” and the Manson-child recruitment anthem “Pretty Little Lazies.” Pieced together between their coastal outposts in LA and Vancouver, the resulting production carries the weight of Black Mountain’s ample experience and a burning thirst for untested waters.
“To me, the results sound like a progression,” Schmidt says. “The record fits well within the canon of everything else we’ve done. It seems similar enough to what we’ve done in the past to sound like a Black Mountain record and different enough that it sounds new.”
Determined to repopulate their psychedelic utopia with a fresh crew of supporting players, the long-time friends opened the studio pod bay doors to a brave new world of artistic possibilities on Destroyer.
“We’ve always liked the balance of female and male vocals. It adds a different kind of narrative and it creates a dynamic which I think is very appealing and very much a part of the band,” he continues. “One could say our ‘happy place’ is where the organic meets the electronic. It’s kind of like this yin and yang thing where the two sort of egg each other on. Blending artifice and things that people regard as being more organic has always been something of interest to me and the band. In a lot of ways, it’s the nucleus of our sound.”
Atomic poet/vocalist/keyboardist Rachel Fannan (Only You, Sleepy Sun), alt-metal drummer Adam Bulgasem (Almost is Nothing, Dommengang, Soft Kill) and bassist Arjan Miranda complete Black Mountain’s live invasion force. After a decade and a half as an insular entity, the influx of new contributors to their recording sessions has brought vital energy to Black Mountain’s monolithic stage presence.
“Stepping back and looking at the album, it’s obviously different than you imagined it might have been from the beginning,” Schmidt says. “Live we’re pretty true to the album, but we leave room in the recording, so we have the freedom to change things up. There’s always some headroom to interpret things as they start to take on a different life on stage. When we approach performing stuff it’s almost like we just listened to the record and thought ‘Okay, let’s be the best Black Mountain cover band we can be!’ Just kidding.”
The refuelled Black Mountain will cut a modest swath of destruction through Canada and the US this September. Keep your eyes on the skies as they make contact with Black Mountain Army converts at sightings scheduled to touchdown from British Columbia to Manitoba.
Black Mountain performs Saturday, Sept. 14 at the Vogue Theatre (Vancouver), Sunday, Sept. 15 at Distrikt (Victoria), Tuesday, Sept. 17 at the Starlite Room (Edmonton) and Wednesday, Sept. 18 at Commonwealth (Calgary)
Ascending from their role as local skatepark punks to that of Canadian psych-rock tastemakers, Calgary’s legendary curb-grinding garage band Chron Goblin isn’t the same old thrash ‘n’ grab outfit they once were.
Here Before, marks a deliberate recalibration from the hard-rolling crew as they crank the production values to eleven on volatile numbers like “Giving in to Fun,” “Slipping Under,” and “Out of My Mind.”
Singer Josh Sandulak’s raucous vocals and poetic lyrics are thrust into the spotlight as never before and his confident, yet bitter, mouthfuls come washed down with an unerring supply of acidic guitar riffs and dexterous rhythms. Haunted by a shared history and infectious back catalogue, the group navigates a jagged path through the dank underbrush on “Oblivion” before diving into the lazy river of the lumbering “Giant.”
Intricate, intentional and gritty to the bone, Here Before challenges the maturing quartet to supersede their former selves with dangerously divergent compositions; including eerie banshee ballad “Ghost” and pugnacious ripper “War.” The defining wallet-chain swagger, bluesy breakdowns and ballsy bravado that set them apart from day one may remain the same, but Chron Goblin’s best just got a whole lot better.
Yamantaka // Sonic Titan: An Explosive Force Of Nature
by Christine Leonard
Photo by Richmond Lam
Like the sound of the sky rending open, Toronto-based progressive art-rock collective Yamantaka // Sonic Titan enters the summer festival season. They are a musical meteorite streaking towards the planet’s surface and an explosive force of nature. The genre-bending experimentalists will be staging their psychedelic space-metal operas at Canadian dates including Yellowknife’s Folk on the Rocks, the River & Sky camp-out in Field, ON and Victoria’s Phillips Backyard Weekender.
Holding a mirror up to the status quo, Yamantaka // Sonic Titan appropriates elements of pop, rock and heavy metal and blends them through influences gleaned from Buddhist, Haudenosaunee and First Nations traditions, along with their own mixed Asian-European heritages. Embedded in manga art, video games and science fiction themes, their enthralling tracks are ablaze with socio-political commentary.
DIRT, their latest album released in 2018, is no exception. The album revolves around the story of abandoned turtle starship, Anowara, and the heroine Aentsik’s quest to collect the final remnant of arable soil. It’s the same edict the ecologically-minded band has espoused since the beginning: “If the trees die, we die,” says founding member and percussionist, Alaska B.
“I think we are concerned about the same things any reasonable person should be concerned with: anthropogenic climate change, plastic pollution, overuse of antibiotics, animal extinction, unsustainable agriculture, pollution, corporate and government surveillance Indigenous rights, human rights, transphobia, sexism, racism, homophobia,” continues Alaska.
“Our music is often interpreted to focus entirely around the cultural identity politics, but the lyrical content and themes in our art all deal with the suffering of living beings, environmentalism and the inevitability of death.”
It’s a tall order for humanity, let alone a fringe-dwelling Canadian rock band, but if anyone’s up to the challenge, it’s the self-defining, fire-spitting, world-shaking, dirt-venerating music collective and theatre company who has earned the surname Sonic Titan.
Yamantaka // Sonic Titan perform Thursday, July 11 at 9910 (Edmonton), Saturday, July 13 at The Palomino (Calgary) and Sunday, July 28 at the Phillips Backyard Weekender (Victoria)
From the opening rays of “Front Towards Enemy,” it’s obvious Baroness has risen from their own ashes and come to flourish in the aftermath of a tour bus crash that left the Savannah, Georgia-based heavy metal entity twisted and broken.
Leading the charge, guitar god John Baizley returns to the limelight with a fury. The subject of much interest and speculation, Gold & Grey presents a band that has been reinvigorated by the synergistic presence of incoming guitarist Gina Gleason.
Boasting 17 indefatigable tracks, the dual-toned album shifts smoothly between singles like the sinuous “Seasons” and the hyper-observant “Borderlines.” A naturally intense Baizley perpetuates his examination of the human condition with a long-absent sense of wonder and even enjoyment on “Broken Halo” and “Throw Me an Anchor.”
A gallery of layered vocals and intricate rhythmic patterns elevate “I Would Do Anything” and “Pale Sun” to a level of excellence commensurate with visual artist Baizley’s jaw-dropping album cover murals.
Tanked-up on an unfaltering lust for belting out high-wattage blues, the moonlight howlers who call themselves The Baseborn Band have been treading that fine line between boot-stomping Saturday night dance parties and Sunday morning comedowns since 2017.
Habitually feasting on the hair of the dog that bit them, boisterous lead singer/guitarist Lowell Van Carroll (Wolf Teeth, Insufficient Funds), metrognome/bassist Kuba Van der Pol (D.O.A., The Sweaters) and infernal combustion engine/drummer Dallas Lobb (The Electric Revival, Pervcore) dig deep to generate an impassioned autobiography of hard-rockin’ tunes.
“Some you’d listen to while your drunk and passed out in a ditch and others are ones that will get you movin’ and jumping around,” explains Van Carroll.
The Baseborn Band’s self-titled debut packs a whiskey and diesel wallop. It’s an impressive measure of the trio’s heavy-blues horsepower and burning appetite for staging roof-raising live performances. The album’s standout single, “Pray It Away,” expertly captures the essence of good intentions gone bad. Something the rough-and-tumble outfit not only identifies with but also readily confesses to in song whenever the opportunity presents itself! Channelling spiritual influencers ranging from Tom Waits to Motörhead, The Baseborn Band will school you on how to shake hands with your personal demons and tap into the potential of your inner Lemmy.
The Baseborn Band performs live on The Baseborn Band performs with Mammoth Grove, Denimachine, Bloated Pig and others at 420Fest on April 18 at County Line Saloon (Calgary)
Coming of age in an erratic era, vocalist Abbie Thurgood, lead singer of the breakout band Gone Cosmic, has found herself grappling with the same issues that confront other millennials facing their mid-twenties. Already an accomplished songwriter and recording artist by her teens, she had spent time honing her solo style and building up her musical I.Q. performing in acts such as The Torchettes. Yet she was still restless.
“I was going through a lot of changes during this time,” Thurgood confides. “My life completely shifted in every direction. My work, my love life, my band life – everything did a 180. I was going through this process of wondering why my brain was reacting to things and certain situations, why I was making the choices I was making and what’s bringing me to the point I’m at now.”
The stars aligned and Thurgood found herself in the enviable position of being presented with a body of deeply groovy instrumental compositions that was just begging for her vocal enhancements. The catch? These were no run of the mill verse-and-chorus rock songs. Amassed by the collision of veteran Calgary players, guitarist Devin “Darty” Purdy and bassist Brett Whittingham of Chron Goblin and drummer Marcello Castronuovo of Witchstone, Gone Cosmic’s lysergic catalogue ranges the interstellar abyss between freeform metal and heavy jazz.
“It’s insane. I remember the first time I heard the basement demos. I ended up sitting there for five hours and breaking it all down song by song and making notes on where the deadlocks went into cool stargazy bridges,” she recounts in vivid detail. “All of the songs were a challenge. I love this style of music and I love the heavier stuff, but I’ve never written to it. I was like, ‘Okay, how do I completely step out of my element and throw myself into this?’ It was a matter of finding and placing the melodies, which came rather naturally despite the fact that it was all chaos!”
Taming the turmoil that boils beneath the surface, Thurgood’s agency over Gone Cosmic’s volatile atoms has resulted in a supersonic psych-rock synergy of controlled detonations and harrowing lyrical odysseys.
“I think the intimidation factor for me was that these are heavy, punchy, crazy tracks and coming from a doo-wop, soul and a little bit of rock background ultimately my voice wasn’t pushed to what it is now,” Thurgood observes. “It would be easy to get lost within what the instruments are doing, so it needed to have that powerful grasp. I started to do my best to go bigger and bring the power through the vocals and actually getting that attention because even though I was comfy, I know I have this growl and I have this intensity.”
Bottling that rocket-fuelled energy, Gone Cosmic ventured to OCL Studios in September of 2018, when the golden wheat of Earth was at its highest. There the quartet captured the eight complex and compelling tracks that make up their forthcoming full-length debut, Sideways in Time (Kozmik Artifactz), with the oversight of engineer/producer Josh Rob Gwilliam.
“It was the madness of the songs. It wasn’t formulaic. It may never be. It completely came down to the art of what we wanted to create. And it came through beautifully,” reflects Thurgood. “I was thinking ‘Okay. This is my genre!’ Even as a singer-songwriter back in the day when I went down to Nashville. People were asking ‘What’s your genre?’ I had no idea. ‘I’m not country. I’m not blues. I don’t know.’ So, this is the first time it works!”
Space out at Gone Cosmic’s album release party with All Hands on Jane and The Ashley Hundred April 12 at The Palomino Smokehouse and Social Club (Calgary), April 13 at Bohemia (Edmonton), April 14 at Bo’s Bar & Stage (Red Deer), April 19 at Amigos Cantina (Saskatoon), April 20 at German Club (Regina), May 3 at Wheelies (Victoria) and May 4 at SBC Restaurant (Vancouver)
A shimmering beacon amidst the dark matter of outer space, the latest track to be leaked from Gone Cosmic’s much-anticipated debut album, Sideways in Time, lands like a feather fallen from the headdress of Osiris. Rising from the frost-traced canyons of Mars, the sleeper hit gathers disparate elements from the realms of metal, jazz, psych-rock, R&B (and more) to form a blazing phoenix that streaks across the galaxy.
Flaming meteor and commanding vocalist, Abbie Thurgood describes the song’s whiplash-inducing orbit as “a throat-punching, face-melting, melodically-driven trip.” A soul-strafing tirade that “touches on the ultimate sacrifice and give-all nature that takes place for a loved one,” Gone Cosmic’s “Faded Release” is an offering fit for any stargate altar or playlist.
Gone Cosmic’s new album Sideways in Time will be released through the Kozmik Artifactz record label on April 12.
Melted Mirror Wrestle With The Strange Passage Of Time
by Christine Leonard
You know that recurring dream you have about playing full-contact laser tag with Joy Division? It’s about to come true! Sliding out of the shadows of the recording studio and back on to the neon dancefloor, where they belong, Calgary-based synth lovers, Melted Mirror are pleased to present a glimpse into the future with the release of their second full-length album, Past Life.
A glossy high-resolution follow-up to 2016’s Borderzone with its wandering stars and flying fortresses, Past Life crystalizes Melted Mirror’s dark charisma and cunning intellect into a collection of shimmering electro-pop tracks. Two years in the making, Past Life reportedly took Melted Mirror only two short days to record, thanks in part to the prowess of producer/engineer Nik Kozub (Shout Out Out Out Out).
“After our first album, a friend suggested we look into recording with Nik at The Audio Department up in Edmonton,” says vocalist Chris Zajko. “Between 2017 and 2018 we recorded a total of ten songs over three sessions and then narrowed it down to eight tracks for the album. The biggest challenge was simply trying to get everything done in the time that we had booked for the studio.”
Pressure makes diamonds and that’s exactly what the refractive trio, rounded out by synth player/programmer Cian Cocteau and guitarist Jeebs Nabil, has composed and delivered with the icy lustings of Past Life. One thing that technology cannot fabricate is human emotion, that essential element relies entirely on the organic beings at the center of Melted Mirror’s retrofitted motherboard.
“It sounds silly, but when you’re recording by yourself, you may not have that many resources or fancy equipment, but you generally have the luxury of time. You have time to try things that may or may not work, or play around with parts, or leave and come back to a song the next day,” Zajko intimates.
“Past Life refers to the idea that we are all part of a vast continuum that is largely beyond our choosing and control. Since we can’t choose where and when we are born, our world is an inheritance of history from the multitude of ‘past lives’ of the people who lived before us. We try to claim an ownership to something that is our own and permanent, but really, we’re all just passing through.”
The Vandits Vanuary Fundraiser is Generating desert heat in the heart of winter
20 January 2018
By Christine Leonard
Show a little class and stand by your van.
Once a year Calgary’s legendary Vandits Van Club throws an epic camp-out under the wide prairie skies. Raising a stage and riding the lightning to a remote rural location in central Alberta, the cadre of van-enthusiasts pack their coolers with ice and their impromptu grandstand with a procession of daring musicians drawn from miles around. Vantopia sets the tone for the summer to come and leaves attendees with ringing ears and visions of tornadoes dancing in the rearview. We asked Cory Martens, vice president and founding member of Vandits VC, and owner/operator of Twinbat Sticker Company, for the low down on the motor club's upcoming Vanuary fundraiser in support of Alberta’s own desert rock showdown.
BeatRoute: Who are Vandits VC? Vandit Cory Martens: Vandits VC are a van club from Calgary. We only like vintage vans, beer, and rock ‘n’ roll.
BR: How did The Palomino Smokehouse become the de facto hangout for Vandits VC? CM: The owner, Arlen (Smith) and I go way back. We got to talking a bunch of years ago about how we both had just acquired boogie vans. We decided we should drive them together. The rest is kind of history. I don’t exactly know how we got to 16 members! Just rad people buying rad vans, I guess. Aside from basically being our clubhouse, The Pal is just a bitchin’ venue.
BR: What’s the deal with the Vanuary Fundraiser show? CM: Vanuary is our Winter Van Jam…sans vans. We like to keep the vanning spirit going even in the winter by getting club members and other buddies to learn a bunch of vannin’ tunes. It’s always a riot. It also acts as a fundraiser for Vantopia. This year we have Electric Owl, Riff Pigeon (a Woodhawk redux), RAW, Buffalo Bud Buster, 2/3rds of Nothing, Stab Twist Pull and a special Vandits VC Supergroup (think Denim Machine meets Chron Goblin)!
BR: Tell us about the Vantopia event that the Club puts on at the start of summer.CM: Vantopia is our gigantic annual blowout. Three days of partying in the country with a tonne of vans, bands and beer. We usually have around 20 bands from all over to provide the soundtrack to partying in your van. We’ve noticed that over the years the number of tents has greatly diminished, while the number of vans has increased significantly. Last year we had around 80 boogie vans. It seems our message is being heard!
BR: What do you have in store for Vantopia in 2018? CM: This year will be number six. This year we’ve already confirmed a bunch of bands that are gonna blow some people’s minds. Also, Matchstick from Custom Vanner Magazine will be coming all the way from Los Angeles again this year to MC. That's always a riot. Our goal is for everyone to have a safe time partying their brains out.
BR: So, how does one become a “Vandit”? How do I know if my van is worthy?CM: Our members are mostly just a bunch of best friends that happen to own vans. As for what a sweet ride looks like, I’ll tell you what we don’t hate: side pipes, a jacked-up booty, and mag wheels. No VW, no FWD.
BR: My Grandparents are touring the Baja in their RV. How does joining a Van-Club stack up in terms of the ultimate retirement plan? CM: Are you asking if there’s money in vanning? Hahahahaha. Well, there isn’t. But who’s to say you can’t quit your job, sell your house and live in your van? No one.
BR: Other than attending the Vanuary show, how can people support Vandits VC and Vantopia? CM: Buy our stuff, our merch game is strong: http://vanditsvc.bigcartel.com/
Vandits VC Vanuary Fundraiser in support of Vantopia 2018 featuring:
Electric Owl, Riff Pigeon (a Woodhawk redux), RAW, Buffalo Bud Buster, 2/3rds of Nothing, Stab Twist Pull and a special Vandits VC Supergroup happens January 27 at The Palomino Smokehouse (Calgary)
“Stand by your Van” a short documentary video from Vantopia 3.
CM: “It’s a pretty decent representation of what goes on there.”
As zestful as a slice of well-seasoned za, the saucy foursome known as Pizza Bath enjoy the hell out of a good kitchen party. Punching upwards with a frantic and fraught punk rock sound, vocalist/guitarist Sean Hamilton, guitarist/vocalist Eric Andrews Svilpis, bassist/vocalist Gavin Howard and drummer Fergie McLean recall the thirsty days of yore when garage jams and Hot Pockets ruled the suburban wasteland.
“We all play in a lot of bands,” Hamilton acknowledges. “Pizza Bath emerged as a project out of Rockin’ 4 Dollar$ at Broken City. I had all these punk songs I’d been writing while on tour drumming for Miesha and the Spanks and I just wanted them to have a purpose. Eric helped me put together a band that was only supposed to learn like four songs, but it just sounded too good to not pursue and put some energy into.”
Pouring their collective steam into a fully-loaded EP seemed like the right direction to head in, and they got down to pounding out some speedy but generously proportioned tunes.
“The goals and values of Pizza Bath stem from the lyrical content,” he elaborates.
“We wanted to be fun and goofy, but then have a much darker message in our portrayal of what life means and what our role in the world is. What we try and promote through our lyrics and real-life actions is just a willingness to become better; in everything we are and through all of our failures. We want to grow and learn to be the best versions of ourselves with each new experience.”
Salvation is where you find it. And in the case of the not-so-flippant-after-all Pizza Bath, a compelling melody, unguarded confession or even a decisive downbeat can all illuminate the path to a more fulsome experience. Proof that the group’s philosophy isn’t hopelessly mired in glutinous psychoanalysis and sadness, Pizza Bath always makes short work out of providing audiences with a cheesy good time.
“Don’t get me wrong, Pizza Bath is a lot of fun and games. That’s important, as well,” Hamilton affirms. “If you aren’t actively trying to enjoy life, then I’d like to meet up, give you a high five, and try to explain that if this blip of an existence isn’t the coolest thing in the universe, I don’t know what is. But, we do acknowledge the darkness. Because if you don’t see the desperation in life, you might be missing out on living a little bit of it.”
Pizza Bath will celebrate their EP release show on Saturday, Feb. 17th at Nite Owl (Calgary) with Abductees, Old Wives and All Hands on Jane. Abductees will also be releasing a new recording that night!
Delhi 2 Dublin serve up tasty sub continental turntable/tabla pop.
What happens when you slam together all of the most visceral dance music you can find? You get Vancouver’s Delhi 2 Dublin, a world-binding fusion of Bhangra, hip-hop, Celtic reels, and electronic. That’s exactly the kind of spicy Canadian Masala that the five-piece have been serving up since the group’s inception at the Vancouver Folk Festival over a decade ago. Following that fateful meeting, tabla player and beat wizard Tarun Nayar, dhol/dholak virtuoso Ravi Binning, and vocalist Sanjay Seran, have been steadily churning out groove-filled albums, including the bombastic ‘We’re All Desi’ (2015), and bringing electro-clash dance parties to festivals around the globe.
“The whole ‘Where do we fit in?’ thing has been really hard for us,” says vocalist and lyricist Sanjay Seran.
“It’s a blessing and a curse. We fit everywhere, so we’re able to take a lot of gigs and we’re always booked. And, we’re grateful for that, but the curse is not fitting here, there, nor anywhere. It’s a constant battle. We’re coming up on 12 years as a band in March and the core of the band is still together and getting along.”
The same identity crisis that makes their offerings so unique as feeds back into the band’s own internal culture.
“We’ve done a lot of self-reflection and soul-searching about the confusion of being born in Richmond,” Seran continues.
“It’s a pretty affluent suburb of Vancouver, which means I grew up pretty sheltered, yet I grew up as a Brown kid born there. I didn’t experience a lot of racism, but most of it had to do with the embarrassment of hiding my culture – from the smell of the cooking to the clothing. So, you’re walking through life, trying to figure out who you are.”
The journey of unraveling that age-old mystery has revealed some important truths to Delhi 2 Dublin. And while their mid-career identity crisis is not entirely resolved, the turntable-and-tabla outfit has emerged from the conversation with a renewed sense of purpose.
“We do have a lot brewing under the hood. We’re hard at work on writing a new album right now and we’re stoked. We’re scrambling like mad to get a single ready to drop in February, but otherwise, we’re working on trying to get the best songs we can,” says Seran, who welcomed violinist Serena Eades into the trio’s touring compliment.
“Lately, we’ve been honing in on the idea of ‘Sub-continental Pop.’ Delhi 2 Dublin really resonates with this. We spent a bunch of time talking about and I feel like we’re more focused than ever.
Finally, we feel like we fit into this weird world we’ve been juggling. Everything’s getting better and better. Maybe we were ahead of our time. I will reflect on that.”
Delhi 2 Dublin perform at Block Heater on February 16 (Calgary).
Portland’s favorite shoegaze quartet honing their craft over the holidays
Sometimes the best thing about traveling abroad is when you finally get back home and can sleep in your own bed again. That couldn’t be truer for Portland’s Red Fang. Having just returned from a month-long run through Europe in support of their latest album, Only Ghosts (2016, Relapse), guitarist/vocalist Maurice Bryan Giles, bassist/vocalist Aaron Beam, guitarist David Sullivan and drummer John Sherman genuinely enjoy kicking back with family and friends over the holidays. But, true to the anthemic stoner rock band’s virile nature, just four days into their sojourn Giles is already thinking about mixing business with pleasure and getting the pack together to make fresh tracks in the studio.
“I’m feeling reinvigorated and looking forward to digging back in, but it’s just a matter of discipline,” says Giles. “We try to take advantage of our downtimes and do things creatively and differently.
Bulldozing their way through the songwriting and production process like a moose in a headshop, Red Fang has produced a quartet of thunderous LPs since its inception in 2005. Renowned for the heavy hooks and ominous overtones displayed on their self-titled debut on Sargent House in 2009 and subsequent releases, Murder the Mountains in 201.1
Whales and Leeches in 2013 (both on Relapse Records), the vulpine outfit is actively reaping, and savouring, the fruits of their labours.
“We’re all in our forties, and have been in this band going on thirteen years, and it’s still really mentally engaging for us because we share a lot of influences musically, but also our tastes extend in very different directions. There are certain traps and pitfalls that we tend to fall into, so whenever we can do something outside of our usual thought process I think that’s where the good stuff is coming from.”
More than just a bunch of hard-partying, beer-quaffing hooligans, Red Fang have proven themselves as cunning songwriters and string-slingers. Still, their ears are always to the ground. Because, according to Giles, the next great riff might be lurking right around the corner!
“The guys are always surprising me, and over the years, I’ve learned to trust them.
For example, in the middle of “Wires” there’s a quiet sort of breakdown, and we called it the Spaghetti Western part. At first, I thought, ‘What in the hell is this? This is ridiculous!’ But at some point I was like, ‘Well, I’ll try it.’ And I learned it. And it grew on me like a fungus and now I just can’t see that song existing without it. So, the things that are outside of my comfort-level are the things that ultimately give me the most joy in the long run. To me, it’s fun when something’s like ‘Ick!’ initially. I kind of like that.”
Pushing past the yuck-factor has yielded impressive results for Giles and company whose music videos have put their sludgy melodies on the map. The ultra-violent shorts built around “Prehistoric Dog”, “Blood Like Cream”, “Shadows” and other viral video ventures have singled Red Fang out as perpetrators of the most entertaining headbanger daydreams on the planet. We’re talking over ten million views here, dudes.
“The credit for the majority of our videos lies with Whitey (McConnaughy), the director. He’s just a super motivated guy who’s really passionate and creative, so he’s always coming up with ideas and occasionally he’ll call us to see if we’re interested. We’ll just laugh our asses off and say, ‘Hell, yeah! We’ll do that!’ None of us consider ourselves actors, we’re more re-actors. He doesn’t really have to tell us what our motivation is beyond ‘Drink beer!’ We’re just lucky to have him. I’d say that his videos are a large part of the reason that people know we exist, which is nice.”
Prepared to deliver a tidy cross-section of their piledriving library on their upcoming North American tour, Red Fang feels a stronger connection to their audience than ever. The scene-stealing foursome may have displayed (and destroyed) their living rooms for the camera, but the magnitude of that explosive exposure is secondary to the soulful unveiling that occurs when Red Fang opens up on the stage.
“The videos are a great reflection of our sense of humour because we never wanted to be, and never could be, a band that walks out of the fog and flexes our muscles,” says Giles. “We’re just not those guys. And no one would believe it if we tried. But the music is very much from the heart with us. It’s still a riff-driven band, but when it comes down to the vibe I want it to mean something because we’ve got to go out on the road and play those songs hundreds and hundreds of times. That’s why I’m really excited about the new songs. It’s the most modern version of the musical headspace we’re in these days and we hope that the crowd is along for the ride.”
Red Fang performs Jan. 16 at the Rickshaw Theatre (Vancouver) and Jan. 18 at the Big Winter Classic Festival (Calgary)
