July 30, 2008

Reflections Cabaret

By: Laura Beck-Mailman

Get Wrecked

If you’ve ever felt angry, hassled, drunk and alone with a mohawk on your head while all your friends sit around stone cold sober and listening to screamo and hardcore, then  Get Wrecked is for you. Composed of Clancy McDonald on bass and vocals, Don Hynes on guitar and vocals, and Tasha Gobeil on drums and, you guessed it, vocals, the members of Get Wrecked manage to have been involved in most of the significant punk bands that have wandered through the Halifax scene in the past few years. It boasts members of Gunt (McDonald) and the recently defunct powerhouse that was Rule of Thumb. (Gobeil)

While it’s pretty standard punk fare, with songs about drinking and social stigma, staying within the lines works well for Get Wrecked. The songs are catchy and a blast to sing a long to at the top of your lungs while pumping your fist. In a scene that is currently clogged with hardcore bands screaming about standing up for what you believe in, even if no one else thinks it’s right, Get Wrecked is a refreshing return to being yourself, getting loaded and telling the cops to get off your back. Get some of your aggression out in the pit when Get Wrecked tour through Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal in August. Check out the dates and listen to their tunes here: http://www.myspace.com/getwreckedpunx

Rockstorm

Sometimes it’s ok to just be a rock and roll band, and sometimes it’s freaking amazing to just be a rock and roll band. Rockstorm continues to prove this with every performance. With TJ Kavanaugh, Matt Gay, and Bruce Parks on guitar and Adrian Bruhm on drums -that’s right. 3 guitars and no bass, suckers- Rockstorm earns their name.

Rockstorm isn’t doing anything new or revolutionary musically, but they don’t particularly want to. Completely un-pretentious, which is a blessing in a music scene like Halifax’s, the foursome’s songs are fist pumping anthems about drinking, fighting and rocking out. And I mean rocking out. Whether Kavanaugh is two stepping, Parks is on his back on the stage, Gay is challenging audience members to games of black jack or Bruhm is turning himself inside out on the drums, they make standard rock and roll feel and sound so good, it must be bad. And let’s face it: if you can’t get behind a band who writes songs with choruses like: “I’m getting drunk! D-R-I-N-K-I-N-G!” and has their own intro music, you’ve got no soul left. Or you’re edge, in which case the former still applies.

Check out Rockstorm’s tunes here http://www.myspace.com/rockstormca and listen to the treble brewing.

By: Jesse Gainer

Hey Concert goers! That’s right, another article in under a month. I’m awesome.

On July 20th, Montreal once again played host to The Van’s Warped Tour. Looking at this year’s line up I knew this was not the festival from my youth. As someone who was introduced to Warped in its early years and as a fan of the skate punk and 3^rd wave ska bands that were the bread and butter of the tour, I was apprehensive about the increased inclusion of emo, alt rock, hip hop, and metalcore acts. Was the tour becoming just another grab bag summer festival, or was I just getting my camo shorts in a bunch? But hey, someone was stunned enough to give me a press pass and free tickets, so whining about the line up at a free festival would be akin to complaining about weak drinks at an open bar. Also, there were some acts coming to Montreal this year that I was really excited to see, mainly Pennywise, Every Time I Die, Protest The Hero, Street Dogs, and Reel Big Fish. I also got to check out Forever the Sickest Kids and Angels and Airwaves.

I arrived at Parc Jean-Drapeau at around 1:00pm with my trusty photographer (read: my wonderful girlfriend) and headed to the press center. This was my first time interviewing bands and not simply reviewing shows so while I was obviously a bit nervous, I was excited to get a sense of what Warped Tour veterans and rookies alike thought of the ever expanding purview of the festival.

Press Tent: an exercise in trying not to sound like a douchebag.

After heading to the press tent, I signed up to interview a number of bands. Like I mentioned, I was nervous. There was a possibility I was going to talk to some folks who got more than regular rotation in my lifetime playlist, and I didn’t want the most important question I asked them to be “Why are you so awesome?” or “Can we be best friends forever? Please?”. While waiting around and trying to get my head straight, I get a tap on the shoulder: “Hey, would you like to interview Mike McColgan from the Street Dogs?” Let me give you all some context so you can understand why I almost dropped a mad douce in my cargos; Before becoming the lead singer of the Street Dogs, Mike was the lead singer of a little band called the Dropkick Murphys. “Ah” you say “Are they a good band?” For the (hopefully) few of you out there having this thought, please follow these instructions.

1. Climb to the top of a large flight of stairs
2. Jump towards the bottom of the staircase, aligning your chin with the bottom stair
3. Recover
4. Go to a record store
5. Purchase the album “Do or Die” by the Dropkick Murphys
6. Listen to the record and bitterly regret your past ignorance.

Okay excellent, now that we’re all up to speed and know that Mike sang on what was, in my opinion, one of the best punk rock albums of the last 20 years you can all understand my aforementioned nervousness. I’d prepared questions for other bands, but I never thought I’d snag this guy for an interview, so I winged it and opened by asking him how the tour was going. “It’s pretty good. I mean, first and foremost, we’re grateful to be out here. I think for the most part, every show has been getting increasingly better, the pit gets better every day. We try to surround the house engineer with a circle pit every show. We’ve gotten great feedback on our new songs from our new release State of Grace (2008, Hellcat Records). People have been responding really good, even better then some of our older stuff.” I thought it was cool that Mike was so pumped to be out on tour. I mean, this guy has been living out of a tour bus for 200 days a year for 4 or 5 years straight, and he’s grateful to be on Warped Tour? “To be able to give 100%, you’ve got to be passionate about the lyrics and the music. You have to be passionate and sincere about what you’re singing about. That’s why we’re on tour 7 months of the year. If you’re not passionate, you can’t last.”

Then I ask Mike about his thoughts on the changing of the guard in terms of the line up of Warped Tour. I start by saying that there is increasingly a different sound at Warped than we were hearing 5 years ago and he cuts me off “I don’t think I would necessarily agree with that. If you look at it objectively from ‘95 till now I think Kevin Lyman (the creator and head honcho of Warped Tour) has his finger on the pulse of new music and what people what to see. Even back in 95-96 he was trying to bring hip hop and pop into the fold and not just have punk rock. I mean punk rock has always been the engine of the tour, with bands in 2008 like Against Me!, Street Dogs, and others. I think there has been a change in the sound in the sense that music continues to change and Kevin is aware of that. He wears a great A&R hat.”

Now you might be thinking; is Mike McColgan really going to dis the tour he’s currently on? Look, it’s extremely difficult for me to be objective because I respect the hell out of the guy, but the only vibe I got was one of absolute sincerity. Okay, now that I’ve puked all my first time jitters into the nearby water fountain, time to interview Keith Buckley, lead singer of Every Time I Die.

Keith Buckley was always someone I wanted to meet as he was the frontman and one of the founding members of arguably the most musically and artistically interesting post-hardcore bands currently playing today. Also, Every Time I Die has stood the test of time, playing together since 1998; a very long career as far as the genre is concerned. The reason ETID have remained so popular rests not only with Keith’s fascinating and complex lyrics, but mainly with the bold musical choices the band makes every time they go into the studio. Many hardcore, punk, metal, grindcore and metalcore bands follow the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” discography model. For example, if you liked Pennywise’s first self-titled record, you can go buy the other eight without worry. Keith and the guys took a very different path, incorporating a lot of new styles and sounds on every new record. Listening to their 2000 EP Burial Plot Bidding War( 2000, Ferret Records) and their newest record The Big Dirty(2007, Ferret Records), you might think you were listening to two different bands.

After asking about tour, and when the hell ETID was coming back to Canada (it had been a while), I asked Keith about the band’s progression and if he ever felt apprehensive about writing music that might be considered outside the metalcore/post-hardcore formula and alienating old fans. “Well, I think I was most nervous about Gutter Phenomenon (2005, Ferret Records) as that was a big departure for us, but it was received well. The new record, The Big Dirty, was sort of a regression and a progression for us in that while we were moving forward, we wanted to bring back some of the sound we had on Hot Damn! (2003, Ferret Records).”

Then I asked Keith the same question I’d asked Mike McColgan regarding how Warped Tour was changing. “I love it. It’s great to walk around and hear new stuff. There’s this band I heard today, Oreskaband, from Japan. It’s cool that you get to hear a bunch of new stuff like that.”

Next up were Rody Walker, Tim Millar, and Arif Mirabdolbaghi of Whitby, Ontario prog metal/mathcore outfit Protest the Hero. Now, for those of you who haven’t heard of these guys yet, go check out their MySpace. No really, I’ll wait. Oh, good, you’re back. Awesome right? Even if metal is not your thing, we can all agree that these guys are extremely talented musicians. Do you want to know what else is pretty awesome? These guys started playing together when they were about 13. The only thing I could commit to at that age was being afraid to talk to girls and beating Mario Bros. 3. (Update: I’m close, only used one magic flute) Anyway, while the members of Protest the Hero are youngins’ as far as Warped is concerned, they’ve been playing music for a good long while and have done the festival a few times over the years, so I wanted their opinion on the current state of Warped Tour. “I like the tour a lot but I definitely miss the older stuff like Bad Religion and NOFX” said Rody “It’s cool that it’s diversifying. One would hope that it is diversifying because people are listening to different types of music, but it’s more likely that it’s being done for profit.” “Now you see all the kids walking around with shopping bags. It’s like a bazaar without the drugs.” added Arif.

After PTH left to go get ready for their set, I spoke with Jason and Joey LaRocca of The Briggs, a great LA punk band that has been on the Warped Tour in 2002, 2004, 2007, and obviously, this year. As a group whose sound was reminiscent of Warped Tour’s past, I knew these guys would have an opinion of the festival. “The tour itself this year is evolving quite a bit. It started out pretty differently a month ago. Now that Pennywise and Bouncing Souls are here today, there are a lot more punk kids out here. It’s very similar to the past with the variety, but now there is a majority of the minority sounds from the past are now the majority. I mean, it’s good for them, but it kind of sucks for us.” Said Jason. “Exactly, punk bands are kind of few and far between, but it’s gotten so much better with the addition of Pennywise and Bouncing Souls.” Added Joey.

As you may be left thinking that up until this point I was simply trying to interview bands of which I was a fan and attempt to elicit the “Yeah, stupid new kids. Back in my day we played punk rock uphill naked in a razorblade storm. And we liked it.” response, I thought it was only fair to talk to a band that was part of the new sound of the tour. As much elitist venom as I might spew at certain bands and certain styles, that type of subjective criticism really doesn’t hold a lot of weight as it eventually boils down to “I just don’t like that music. I miss the old music.” to which the appropriate response is “Well, bully for you. I’m sure you’ll recover.”

I was introduced to Kyle Burns, Caleb Turman, and Austin Bello from Forever The Sickest Kids, a power pop band from Dallas, Texas. FTSK’s single “Hey Brittany” became an internet hit and shot the band to major label status. I asked the guys what they thought about the new sound of Warped Tour. Austin: “A lot of new bands are using the internet to get their music out there and I think Kevin (Lyman) wants to bring out these types of bands as it will bring out more fans, so this will make the festival more diverse.”

I believe it’s fair to say we reached a pretty acceptable consensus; Warped Tour 08 is not like Warped Tour 95, and yes some of us miss the old days when the festival was 90% punk rock, but times have changed and new music is a good thing. While I know there are many of you out there that would support a perpetual tour of NOFX, Lagwagon, Guttermouth, No Use For a Name, The Casualties, etc… , there is an unfortunate reality we need to come to terms with; we’re getting old, and have you seen how many 16 year old kids there are out there?! A Lot! For the Warped Tour to continue, evolution is necessary and this means adding new, popular talent that will bring out fans year after year. This is nothing groundbreaking; music has been doing this since some caveman beat some rocks together and a fellow caveman commented “Man, Grul was doing much better stuff 5 years ago, and he only used one rock.”

The question I put to the bands was one about music, but could have easily been interpreted to encompass the debate about how supposedly corporate the festival was getting year after the year. While this argument has probably been going on since Warped tour #2, I think it’s pretty naïve to not ‘get’ that one of the major goals of a festival presented by a leading skateboard shoe company is to be profitable. I also don’t think this necessarily clashes with the concept of the festival: bands need exposure to survive and hence need to tour and touring costs money. If it is the argument of purists that capitalist enterprise strips Warped Tour of its punk rock integrity then they are entitled to such an opinion, but to them I say….well, I don’t know if I can say it here as this article will hopefully run on some larger, PG sites. As a clue, my response involves two words; the first dealing with a sex act, the second is the opposite of “on”. If we follow the puritanical punk rock argument to its logical conclusion, a career in punk rock is ill advised, as the first dollar you earn instantly gets you kicked out of the cool kids club. I know this is a little black and white, but I like those colors.

Check out photos from Warped as well as a number of other summer concerts at the TiBconcerts.com Facebook group: http://www.new.facebook.com/profile.php?id=509967334#/group.php?gid=2401267312&ref=ts

Written by Captain Morgan
40 Bands. 4 Stages. 2 days. This was Osheaga 2008.
First off, a big thumbs up to the folks at GEG who put this event together. I know it’s their job but it was a job well done. Cheers!

Day1: No weather delay here, folks. Getting wet is fun. Just ask Iggy and the Stooges who just killed it live. From “GO” it was full throttle, high energy, shitload of nerve, classic Iggy. The combination of punk rock with heavy metal in a garage rock band vibe kept the audience in high gear for the whole set.
More pictures of Iggy and the Stooges at Osheaga.

Switching gears…Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings. “The Queen of Funk” is the perfect title as they transformed Osheaga into a Soul Bowl for a full set plus 2 encores. If you couldn’t feel the thick funk, the deep soul and incredible range…you must be dead.
More pictures of Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings at Osheaga.

Brings me to the last show of the night The Killers
I didn’t think much of The Killers beyond consistent sound and good instrumental but seeing them live got me a bit more inspired. I’m not ready to commit to being an actual Killers fan but I wont roll my eyes when someone tells me how awsome they are. Then again, I still get pumped when someone plays Kick Start my Heart from Motley Crue so WTF do I know.

Between the rain, the mud, the blood and the beers my attention span was limited. I definitely don’t want to discount the other events during the first day of Osheaga including Cat Power, N.E.R.D, Metric, Plants and Animals, Luke Doucet and the White Falcon and more…

Stay Tuned for Day 2 and feel free to add your comments, photos, feedback or tel us about your Osheaga experience

Hello Faithful readers! Yes, it’s me, I’m back after about a 3 month hiatus. I apologize for the long break between posts, but I was slightly busy being a rock star.
Alright, down to business: This past Sunday I attended the Montreal stop of the Van’s Warped Tour. For those of you who’ve not heard of the festival, it got its start in 1995 as a tour combining skate punk and 3rd wave ska bands, as well as extreme sports such as skateboarding and BMX. Over the years, the festival has picked up a lot of steam and now includes sometimes over 100 bands per stop and now features punk, ska, hard rock, metal, post-hardcore, power pop, hip hop, metalcore, and emo bands. Although I could lapse into a vast diatribe regarding the increased “buffet-style” the festival has taken on, I’m going to reserve that bit of ranting for next weeks article (Oh that’s right. Two articles, two weeks. What’s up now?). This article will focus solely on reviews of the bands I got to check out this year. IMPORTANT: Click on the band name to read each individual review! Pennywise, The Street Dogs, Every Time I Die, Forever the Sickest Kids, Protest the Hero, Bouncing Souls, Reel Big Fish, and Angels and Airwaves

So some of you may be wondering which band I was referring to when I mentioned the one terrible act I forced myself to sit through. Well, this is the last band I’m reviewing so if you’ve properly deduced that it was former Blink-182 headman Tom Delonge’s trainwreck of a “musical group” (notice the quotation marks. This means I am mocking them), you would indeed be correct. Angels and Airwaves were the closing band of the festival and were, by far, the worst thing I have seen on stage since I was forced to attend my nephew’s Christmas play (Don’t worry Billy, you were great). Jesus Tap Dancing Christ, Tom, what the hell happened to you? I’ve heard more inspired music from the ringtones on my cell. Yes, I know your first full length album We Don’t Need To Whisper went gold, but there is an obvious explanation for that: Every girl who was a fan of Blink-182 in the mid nineties wanted to have sex with you. Time passes, you’re still Tom Delonge, and these women’s desires haven’t changed. I’m sure you could release an album of vocal tracks where you repeat “Hi, I’m Tom Delonge, and you’re cute. Do you want to go on a date?” And it would fly off the shelves. Seriously man, just give Mark Hoppus a call, patch shit up, and record another Blink-182 record.
So there you have it! Another year, another Warped Tour. Check out next week’s article where I discuss the changing musical landscape of Warped Tour and interview Mike McColgan from the Street Dogs, Keith Buckley from Every Time I Die, the guys from Protest the Hero, The Briggs, and Forever The Sickest Kids!

Let me be completely honest with you; I never really got into Reel Big Fish when they popped onto the ska scene in the nineties and knew about as much as every other yahoo who liked their cover of A-Ha’s “Take On Me” so I wasn’t totally amped to see them as one of the closing acts of Warped Tour. I’d like to take this opportunity to formally apologize to the band. These guys reminded everyone why 3rd wave ska shows were a good time: energy, goofiness, bouncy horn-driven fun, and a thousand kids skankin’ in the pit. Lead guitarist and vocalist Aaron Barrett was electric and showcased his impressive guitar chops (this would be separate from his impressive mutton chops). Although rumors circulated that Barrett had recently recovered from a serious drug addiction (I cannot confirm this) he seemed on top of his game.

The Bouncing Souls, like Pennywise, are one of the seminal bands of the nineties punk rock sound. What set this band apart from the get go was its light-hearted, fun-loving lyrics accompanied by equally fun, major chord punk rock. Lead singer Greg Attonito seems timeless on stage, ripping through crowd favorites “Hopeless Romantic” and “East Coast! F&#$ You!”. They played to what seemed like the largest crowd of the day, and there wasn’t a single person who wasn’t singing along. Greg also wins the Best Dressed at Warped Tour award.

Whitby, Ontario’s Protest the Hero stood out as the most technically accomplished band of the festival. Now, that might not be the bomb of the century when we’re discussing a punk rock festival, but I entreat you all to check out their MySpace and take a listen. Independent of whether their brand of metal is or is not your thing, you can hear that each member of the group is extremely proficient in their respective discipline and write music intended to get the crowd moving. I was kind of shocked that Warped put PTH on the small Ernie Ball stage instead of one of the main stages, especially for a Canadian stop on the tour. No matter, the guys put on an excellent show and thankfully focused on tracks from their new album Fortress, which I believe is their strongest recording to date (Look, I know they only have one other full length, so you can hopefully interpret that I just liked Fortress more than 2005’s Kezia.). Rody Walker, the group’s lead singer, is a great showman, bringing tons of energy to each track and a good dose of humor between songs. This was the first time I’d seen Protest the Hero live and my major concern was that they would have a difficult time reproducing the extremely complex music from their recordings, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that they were up to the task even with the sound issues inherent to playing outdoors. Rody, if you’re reading this; great show, man, but when are you dropping another episode of Cheese and Crackers?

Now most people who know my particular taste in music and my raging musical elitism, rivaled only by that of the tightest-jeaned of indie rockers, would expect my review of Forever The Sickest Kids to be a full out lambasting of this power pop group from Dallas, Texas. However, this is not what I am going to do. FTSK play fun pop-rock music that borders on bubblegum, but demonstrate actual musical skill, and they avoid that whole “I’m so broken and dark inside” faux-heartfelt Emo crap. The other reason I’m holding
back the Hater-ade is that the three members of the band whom I was able to meet, Austin Bello, Kyle burns, and Caleb Turman, were seriously nice dudes who were just happy to be out playing. So while I might not go out and pick up their new record, 2008’s Underdog Alma Mater, this doesn’t mean you should not. Also it is important to note that these gents had a brigade of 14 to 16 year old girls screaming at near Beatles frenzy for their whole set. Their tour bus must be good times.

You know if I keep reviewing bands I’m a fan of, this whole article is going to boil down to “Dude, the whole show was awesome. You should have been there.” Well, too God Damn bad. I was only willing to sit through one band that I couldn’t stand, and we’ll get to them later. For now, on with the praise-fest!
Every Time I Die are a metalcore/post-hardcore band from Buffalo, New York, and have done the Warped Tour a number of times. What I’ve always liked about ETID is that they take a lot of chances musically, and consequently each new album has a very unique sound (more about this in next week’s article when I interview Keith Buckley, the lead singer). During their set, I was glad that ETID spread their set across their discography, although I was disappointed that we didn’t hear more (if anything) off of their first full length album Last Night in Town. Overall the set was great, with tonnes of stuff from their newest album The Big Dirty and an excellent choice of “Floater” for the closing number, a track from debatably their most popular record, 2003’s Hot Damn!.