This is the perfect acid-fried, garage-pop, speed-trip for your summer! Four jams in seven minutes, oodles of reverb on the vocals, drums that sound like Chuck Biscuits backing Dick Dale and some truly killer guitar playing! This band has been at it for a few years and they always rule! You can download the individual tracks on the bandcamp... ohh, just got to track three and it's a fucking anthem! this band is too good!
Full disclosure, I'm not very "cool" in the traditional sense of the word. I wear the same thing almost every day, I don't party (unless getting drunk in a park counts), I watch Two and Half Men reruns and I work the counter at a gas station that belongs to a billion-dollar corporation.
Having a job like this means I get (have) to interact with the largest possible cross-section of people in this city. Entitled people who yell at me when their credit card is declined, angry people who threaten me through bullet-proof glass when I'm working the night-shift, smokers with no patience for my attempts at small talk and the worst: people who refuse to follow instructions clearly written on the pumps so they don't have to talk to me. Those are just the assholes though. One bright spot is the location. We're right next door to one of Vancouver's busiest and most-popular rehearsal spaces so I get to talk gear and music nerd stuff with the occasional stranger. One such stranger I've become acquaintances with is a man named Bubba.
Bubba walks with a cane, has a massive mane of greying hair and a beard to match, always buys orange juice and has Sleep and Winter patches on his vest (A+). I assumed he just lived in the area but one day he came in and had a bag from a nearby music store with some swank new mics in it. I asked him about recording and that got the ball rolling. Bubba is the singer for an awesome new hardcore band here in the city and their name is Write Off. This is straight up, in your face 80's styled hardcore with modern vocals that remind me of Look Back and Laugh. The real spike in this punch bowl is that the guitars are tuned to drop-D, something totally foreign to retro-hardcore, and it adds a subtle modern touch to the music that sounds slightly unlike anyone else currently playing this style. Anyway, Bubba gave me the demo the other day and it kills. Ten songs in nine minutes. Enjoy!!!
p.s. the above video is Write Off jamming in their rehearsal space!
Sightlines are a local pop-punk band featuring the songs of Eric Axen (also of Hermetic and formerly of Painted Youth, who have both been featured on the blog before!) and this is their first EP! It smokes. Not "smokes" in the "riffage" or metallic sense of the verb but more in the sense that this is 100% efficient and catchy pop-punk that wastes no time fucking around, unless that fucking around constitutes fun. Also this is not the cheesy, leather-jacket-ramones-shirt-pink-converse kind of pop-punk but more like Eric's Trip trying incredibly hard to sound like Jawbreaker. Anyway, the songs rule and will be stuck in your head just like a new crush.
So You Think You Can Sleep are a fantastic band from here in Vancouver that I have absolutely loved ever since I first saw them a few years ago. Very catchy math-rock-emo styled guitar playing, some trumpet, dual male-female vocals and Aaron from Bad Fate (Vancouver's secretly-best drummer!) laying it down masterfully on the kit. Musically, this is the intersection between Cap'n Jazz and American Football... just with really political lyrics. You can listen and then download...
Eric Axen is a good dude, and all the bands I'm aware of him playing with are great. From Hermetic, who just released their debut LP (peep their bandcamp) to Sightlines, Paper Lanterns (he only played guitar for them on their last show. Whatever...) and finally: Painted Youth, who easily land in my top 3 BC bands ever. Loud interesting punk with great lyrics. I wish I got to see them when I was younger, I wish I got to see them at all. (Keep your ear to the ground about the possible Alf House anniversary reunion...)
Photo by Erin Green
Because I don't want to throw Hermetic's brand new album online for free, here is the Painted Youth discography as complete as I have it. Apparently there are a few splits floating around. A 5 song demo and their full album, which never got released, unfortunately.
Cruuuuushing local (Vancouver) blackened crusty doomy sludgey metal... I'm not well versed in metal sub-genres or culture or whatever but I'm sure Cam or probably anyone else on the blog would be able to give you a better (or more concise) classification of their sound. I've posted this with permission from their singer Roger, a great dude. There are only 13 more copies of their LP left (according to their bandcamp) which you can order through that site. I think. Snatch them up before they tour Europe (!!!)
Most Vancouverites will know of Chad Loewen through his output in In Stride.
"Come on you stupid fuckers... Bow to me!"
But since their offical "break up" in 2005, he's gone on to preform in many stylistically diverse acts. Citizen Grade, Dichotomy, and most recently Consequence Crew.
Though one has gone on without much recognition: Romantika.
Chad does vocals, "two Australian hippies" did vocals and bass and drums, Daniel from Siren Songs, and Daryl from Lush Veg played guitar.
Its really groovy, Eastern European style punk. Think Anders Angest and Svart Framtid with a goth tinge.
