10 Awesome bands we met on tour, Northeast USA, spring 2012
NoTe: as always all of my top 10s are non-hierarchical!
Always ready to achieve the unlikely, if not the unseemly, I again embarked on a fun filled tour in the US this spring. If ya hadn’t noticed, it’s increasingly harder for bands to cross the border, but intrepid li’l old us make the journey yet again. From the perspective of a Canadian band, playing a tour in the DIY basements, warehouses, galleries, lofts, nooks and crannies is probably the most fun you can have on tour. As always, we were stunned by the plethora of amazing bands we played with, the great crowds and generous, hospitable people who gave us a mattress, some gas money and some pretty crazy mosh pits! Here are some rad bands we met, just another example of the radness that pours continually from the DIY scene! Thanks to Everyone that made our tour ( LEAMERS and our touring partners CRABE ) so damn fun!
The Terribles (Worcester, Mass)
The Terribles are this incredible and enigmatic trio from Worcester Mass. They are connected to a bunch of other, equally virtuosic, prolific and blissfully strange projects like the glam-punk Styk and Dungeoneers. Boasting a sizeable catalog of CDR releases, the latest being the beautifully packaged Inspired By A Larger Than Life Robotic Abraham Lincoln, Terribles simply own, peeling off lo-fi anthems with abandon. Their songs move and shake in unexpected directions, never losing a cheap hardcore propulsion, the roughness and immediacy of everything belying the sheer ability of these kick ass musicians. Terribles are anything but! Try to make sense of/peel some tunes off their site here: http://www.terriblesgramandgazette.com/
Downtown Boys (Providence, RI)
A smaller group that calved off the mighty and infamous What Cheer? Brigade the 18 piece brass behemoth from Providence, RI , Downtown Boys have enough energy to seriously rupture even the hardest cynic’s night with gleeful abandon. Earnest, over the top and fun as shit, boasting a double sax attack over a power trio with frontwoman Victoria giving everything like she’s channeling HR circa 1981. Full on fireworks of sweaty positivity is the Downtown Boys’ steez and you should get some.
CreaturoS (Cambridge, Mass)
I have expressed my love for CreaturoS in this column (as well as the earlier band/juggernaut of Spenser and Noah ‘s earlier Cambridge, Mass based band http://www.bigtakeover.com/recordings/doomstar-rainbow-bloodsucker-ep-independent! Fans of pure, uncut OUT garage psych are going to trip balls on their upcoming release on pRIMORDIAL sOUNDS , you can buy the prerelease of this masterpiece for a cool 1000$USD on their bandcamp.
The Sinbusters (Lowell, Mass)
Filthy as fuck, hard noise boogie rockers The Sinbusters scream out of the mean streets of Lowell, Mass, jamming a tsunami of perfect rock before them. Everything you look for in rock is there, gnarly, screaming riffs pushed distortedly over the red line but resting firmly on the hot coals of sheer ability. The Sinbusters are a rock n roll party fresh out the can!
Mutant Genes (Queens, NY)
Based in Queens, and sporting an international crew of punx, Mutant Genes are doing what needs doing, playing no bullshit, knife-sharp hxcxpunk that is rooted back in the past while sounding fresh and fucked up. Great energy, great musicians and they put on a truly wild show.
Lady In The Radiator (New Brunswick, NJ)
Aside from having some of the best merch I’ve seen on the road, New Jersey’s Lady In The Radiator have something really special and unique going on.. there’s a post-rock skein over everything that culminates in some rad hard riffs that break down into some psychedelic prog blissouts there are equal parts Mogwai and early Genesis in their music, which I completely twig to and love.
Spirit Animal (Philadelphia, PA)
These kids are full of joy, cranking out some gutter-dirge metal of the happily no-fi style. This is how I love most of my heavy music, DIY recordings cranked out in dank basements and evil corners of the city. It reflects on what is one of the many aspects of metal, it’s not virtuosity it’s a roughly strummed killer riff that bobs you and your friend’s heads and nothing more. Spirit Animal’s CD came with a plastic gorilla and a rolling paper! Nice!
Justice of the Unicorns (Brooklyn, NY)
Awesome psychedelicomedic rock band from Brooklyn pairing the talents of magician, food blogger and mashup maker Jason Lam and angler/shredder Russel Grey. They have a poignant and understated approach to their songs, which are also biting and sarcastic and a funny distillation of private reveries blended with pop culture meme-psychosis. Emphasis on fun! We had a wicked last show with them, even though we were loony and tired from the tour.
Philippe Petit (Marseilles, France)
Speaking of Eraserhead references and heavy psych, the mind trip didn’t get any furthur out there than the set of sound artist (and member of Faust!) Philippe Petit, thrown down to a hodgepodge of diverse bon vivants and music lovers at the start of our tour. Philippe petit gave a mind-warping sonic voyage to the crowd that blended perfectly with the garage rock and un-wave fuckery that was on the bill at the amazing http://www.119gallery.org/ in Lowell Mass. A true sonic psychonaut, Philippe petit remains firmly on the punk side of the EA/noise fence, preferring to throw down with the kids and go on tour than trap that unbridled experimental joy in the more “serious” world of academy-cized EA.
Arvid Noe (Allston, Mass.)
These bad boys from Allston have a tremendous and terrifying sound, a bit creamy a bit mathy but totally enveloping and brain-saturating. Just ‘core enough to inspire some asymmetrical pogoing, you should head to their bandcamp and download everything now.
