Obviously I’m stoked to have a logo for The Obelisk on the poster for The Electric Highway 2023, to be held in Calgary, Alberta, later this month. Goes without saying. Honestly, even if this was just a Sasquatch and/or La Chinga show and I was asked to present it, I would, so yeah, there’s a lot to dig here and I’m pleased to be keeping good company, tucked away in the bottom right-hand corner well below the likes of Canada itself — I had no idea they gave grants for this kind of thing, but I’m not surprised; other countries don’t hate creative people nearly as much as the US seems to — and with 24 bands spread out over three days, there isn’t a doubt that state-support will be put to good and voluminous use.
The fest is March 23-25 — Thursday, Friday, Saturday — and along with familiar faces like Gone Cosmic and Black Mastiff, who were playing this thing when it was the Calgary 420 Fest, before it became The Electric Highway ahead of an ill-fated 2020 edition, there’s a bunch of bands I don’t know like Space Queen, Molten Lava and No More Moments, so you’ll pardon me if I have a bit of homework to do. Unfortunately, I won’t be in Calgary to see the fest in-person, but I’m happy and proud to support the work they’re doing and to take the poster below as a checklist of stuff to dig into.
So, off I go to do that, and off you go to the PR wire for the full lineup, links and so on:
Calgary’s The Electric Highway Festival Announces Lineup For Its Returns In 2023 – March 23 – 25
Full lineup can be found below.
3-day festival pass holders can pick up their wristbands at Dickens at any time during the event. Pre-order merch sales will also be available for pickup throughout the weekend too. Don’t be disappointed. Order your merch ahead of time.
The Electric Highway is a fully immersive festival experience and offers much more than just music. The festival also features an art and vendor exposition during all three days at Dickens, March 23 – 25, 2023.
Festival passes are on sale starting Jan 25th – 10AM MT; check www.TheElectricHighway.ca to purchase and for more festival information.
All tickets and pass holders will be receiving instructions by email on how to transfer their 2020 tickets for 2023 ones. As well, all vendors will receive an email to confirm their attendance. Anyone that cannot attend this year – both ticketholders and vendors – can transfer their attendance to a future year.
The Electric Highway looks forward to bringing this year’s festival to you, and can’t wait to see everyone in March!
Saturday, March 25th – Festival headliner: Sasquatch (Los Angeles, CA) with direct support from La Chinga (Vancouver, BC) Friday, March 24th – Headliner: Black Mastiff (Edmonton, AB/Vancouver, BC) with direct support from Gone Cosmic (Calgary, AB) Thursday, March 23rd – Headliner: HypnoPilot (Lethbridge, AB) with direct support from Citizen Rage (Calgary, AB) All other festival bands are: Brown Dwarf (Red Deer, AB) Buffalo Bud Buster (Calgary, AB) Destroy My Brains (Lloydminster, AB) Empress (Vancouver, BC) Father Moon (Calgary, AB) Garuda (Cranbrook, BC) Hombre (Calgary, AB) Iron Tusk (Siksika, AB) Molten Lava (Vancouver, BC) Musing (Calgary, AB) No More Moments (Siksika, AB) Owls & Eagles (Calgary, AB) Set & Stoned (Crossfield, AB) Space Queen (Vancouver, BC) Tebby & the Heavy (Edmonton, AB) The Astral Prophets (Calgary, AB) The Basement Paintings (Saskatoon, SK) The Sleeping Legion (Winnipeg, MB)
Ticket Information:
Advance 3-day Festival Passes are $75. Advance passes go on sale from January 25, 2023, until March 22 or while quantities last.
Regular Festival Passes are $95 at the door if quantities are available.
Posted in audiObelisk on January 26th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Calgary-based sludge rockers Owls and Eagles will make their debut on June 1 through Moments Records with the narrative album, Patience Vol. 1. You’ll find the first single from the record, “Enlightenment,” streaming on the Bandcamp embed below, and if you want to skip over the rest of my blah blah and just hit up the audio, I won’t be offended. I get it.
For those sticking around, a bit of context. Owls and Eagles is comprised of vocalist/drummer Mark Russell and guitarist/vocalist Ross Ferguson. Russell is the founding frontman of the crossover hardcore outfit Citizen Rage, whose latest EP, called simply Black EP and the band’s sixth such short release named for a color — in 2017, they put out five of them: Red, Blue, Yellow, Green and Pink — was issued in 2020. Making his first appearance in Citizen Rage on Pink was Ferguson. And he wasn’t the only swap-out in the band during those years either.
Now, Citizen Rage are still active — they’ll play 2023’s The Electric Highway festival alongside Sasquatch, Black Mastiff, La Chinga, and others. Indeed, Owls & Eagles will play as well. All of this is to tell you that it’s probably fair to call Owls and Eagles a side-project, but as “Enlightenment” informs, it’s more than enough of a stylistic turn from the other band to make sense as its own thing. The six-minute-long track starts minimal and slow, a creeping intro with vague echoing whispers spoken over, unveiling its crunch-toned nod of a groove at 1:19 with a riff that reads like a declarative sentence. It comes on, sets up shop, and the roll it begins holds for the duration.
Russell and Ferguson share vocals in the verses and chorus, complementing each other not so much in harmony or direct call and response, but in dueling shouts into the proverbial void that remind a bit of Sweden’s Cities of Mars if more prone to a bit of barking by the finish. Their two-piece configuration gives an edge of rawness to their sound — producer Jamie Kovalsky at Prohibitor Studios also helmed Citizen Rage‘s Black, so there’s another thread linking the two bands — but that suits the sludgier vibe well and the echo on the vocals allows a sense of room to permeate just the same. It’s not a huge giant lumber, but neither is it in any danger of not getting the point across.
I haven’t heard all of Patience Vol. 1 as yet and honestly I don’t even know if it’s done, but “Enlightenment” came my way and I dug the groove and thought you might too. Simple as that. You’ll find the song and a bit more about it from the band below. Hope you enjoy:
Owls & Eagles on “Enlightenment”:
Our story starts with Patience realizing her home has become poisoned by hate, greed, and corruption. She makes a choice; she chooses to leave this place she has called home since birth. For once in her life, she sees everyone for who they really are, liars, cheaters, destroyers, killers of the land, pure evil at its fullest. She leaves and never turns back.
Produced and engineered by Jamie K at Prohibitor Studios Calgary. Artwork by Tannis Paige. Scheduled to release June 1st 2023 on Moments Records.
Owls & Eagles are: Ross Ferguson – Guitar/Vocals Mark Russell – Drums/Vocals
Recorded in 2020, the second full-length from Calgary heavy rockers Gone Cosmic, titled Send for a Warning, the Future’s Calling, arrives on Sept. 2 through Grand Hand Records. Premiering below, “For Sabotage” is the third single from the impending LP behind the opener “Crimson Hand” (which it also follows on the record) and the side B leadoff “Endless,” and it brings into focus the underlying progressivism of the band’s approach. Oh they’re a rock band, make no mistake, but if you take a listen to the King Buffalo-y guitar in “For Sabotage” or any of the three singles, more generally the message is there waiting to be heard — Gone Cosmic are the kind of band who blow other bands off the stage.
In 2019, the four-piece made their debut on Kozmik Artifactz with Sideways in Time (review here), and even two years after the fact, the urgency that they put into getting back into the studio for the follow-up resonates. Vocalist Abbie Thurgood is a classic heavy rock belter, and from “Crimson Hand” through the sci-fi funk of closer “The Future’s Calling,” her performance is likewise dynamic and forceful. To wit, the three-minute “To Refuse Compromise.” That’s it. That song is the sentence. But guitarist Devin “Darty” Purdy, bassist Brett Whittingham and drummer Marcello Castronuovo are more than a backing band to showcase the talent of their frontperson. It’s Castronuovo who fires the first shots, launching “Crimson Hand” with a drum fill that — once you’ve actually listened to the rest of what follows — is revealed as a signifier of intent. And whether it’s the buildup of “Envy Thrives” or the plotted post-apex comedown of “Causeway,” Gone Cosmic interpret progressive heavy rock as a means to generate movement, to energize and excite.
Send for a Warning, the Future’s Calling was produced and mixed by Josh Rob Gwilliam at OCL Studios, and what a task that must’ve been. Thurgood‘s voice is at the forefront — it could hardly be anywhere else — but to listen to the glorious punch of Whittingham‘s bass on “For Sabotage” or the centerpiece “The Wrong Side of Righteous” as Purdy‘s guitar weaves around it in Elderian noodling style, or the way in which Castronuovo‘s fill seems to roll downhill as “Endless” begins to move toward its payoff at around the 2:40 mark, and the balance of elements at play is striking. Understand, Gone Cosmic aren’t playing expansive, dug in progadelia for their own indulgence. The longest song here is the semi-titular closer “The Future’s Calling” at an airier 6:22, until the penultimate “Taste for Tragic,” the album shifts back and forth between three-minute and four-minute tracks, and for seven of nine inclusions, that pattern results in a raucous, largely uptempo rager.
But there’s no dumbing-down happening anywhere. Gone Cosmic aren’t trying to curb their impulses — again, the ethos “To Refuse Compromise” — so much as bring the listener to their level. And Send for a Warning, the Future’s Calling can be challenging to keep up with as it moves from one side to the other on diagonals, angular corners, forward thrust, reverse transwarp and all this, but the songwriting on the whole is no less a consideration than the instrumental contributions — vocals included — on which it’s built. Even as “Taste for Tragic” gallops to its finish to let the swaying shove of “The Future’s Calling” take hold for an early throwdown before the space-out begins, there’s intent if not staid poise — there isn’t really staid anything — and by the time the album gets to that point, you’re either on board with the band having earned enough trust to believe they’ll make it work, which they do, or you’ve already stopped listening and it doesn’t matter anyhow, except to say you’re missing out and it’s your loss, etc.
One way or the other, Gone Cosmic‘s 39-minute stretch on Send for a Warning, the Future’s Calling draws from multiple sides, and if I’ve focused on the progressivism above, it’s because that’s the underlying foundation, but be sure, there’s plenty of blues rock, psychedelia and outright heavy-heavy to go along with that, and the band’s sense of fluidity emerges from the interaction of elements, stylistic and practical, as they recast genre to suit their purposes. Is it the future? I don’t know. It’s born of the past but not hindered by sentimentality for it, and the command of craft certainly comes across as forward-thinking, but one generally thinks of the future these days as a dark and dystopian place — you know, like the present — and Gone Cosmic here are pushing a brighter but nonetheless realistic vision. I wouldn’t know the future if it punched me in the throat, and maybe that’s what’s going on with “The Wrong Side of Righteous,” but I’ll say that I wouldn’t mind if this was it.
Preorder link and sundry PR wire info follow the premiere of “For Sabotage,” which is on the player below.
Enjoy:
Gone Cosmic, “For Sabotage” track premiere
Abbie Thurgood on “For Sabotage”:
“We are constantly challenged by competitive societal attitudes such as ‘at all costs’ and ‘must win’ mentalities. ‘For Sabotage’ explores stepping outside of these norms and expectations that are ingrained in us encouraging the ability to see consequential thought processes and objectively view one’s path rather than being reactionary. ‘For Sabotage’ is a call to be more kind to oneself and to listen pursue and trust our own individual thought processes.”
Gone Cosmic – For Sabotage Written and performed by Gone Cosmic from album ‘Send for a Warning, the Future’s Calling’ releasing on September 1, 2022 Produced, Recorded, and Mixed by Josh Rob Gwilliam at OCL Studios in Calgary, Alberta, Canada Mastered by Brian “Big Bass” Gardner Art by Brock Lefferts Album release via Grand Hand Records. Copyright and Publishing 2022 Gone Cosmic Entertainment
Championed by a soaring songstress Abbie Thurgood (The Torchettes), whose boldly evocative tones recall Skunk Anansie chanteuse Skin and Alabama Shakes’ Brittany Howard, and accompanied by an agile and aggressive psych-rock outfit, composed of guitarist Devin “Darty” Purdy (Chron Goblin), bass player Brett Whittingham (Chron Goblin), percussionist Marcello Castronuovo (Witchstone), Gone Cosmic has carved out an expansive domain that stretches from sweltering Southern sludge pits to breath-stealing sonic spacewalks.
A blood (orange)-scented breeze that bows the trees, Gone Cosmic chases the infinite haze from the skies and puts it right back in your eyes. Groove-mining breakdowns become the stuff of legend as the four pieces’ floor-thudding tail kick and hellfire halo holler originates a whole that is far more potent than the sum of its individual elements. Meet your new astromancers, the phase-shifting and hard-rocking force that channels the empyreal sounds of heaven on Earth. – Christine Leonard (Beatroute AB, Canada)
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 7th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
That’s some stomp in the leadoff track from Gone Cosmic‘s new album, Send for a Warning, The Future’s Calling. You can hear even in the snare sound of “Crimson Hand,” for example, that the band are trying to distinguish themselves, and that’s before you get to the fun of the start-stop solo in the second half of the hard-boogie, three-and-a-half-minute, got-no-time-for-your-nonsense rhythm. I guess the irony here is that the follow-up to 2019’s Sideways in Time (review here) was recorded in 2020, which now is the past even before it can come out heralding its warning about the future — do you think it’s about gas prices? — but that was going to be the case anyway, even if perhaps in other circumstances it wouldn’t have taken as long for it to get out.
So it goes. Note that like its predecessor, Send for a Warning, the Future’s Calling references time in the title if not mentioning it directly. Curious to hear how the rest of the record is produced and just how deep Gone Cosmic go in finding a niche for themselves. And also to see whether or not the album was held back in part so the band could tour and if, where, when that might happen.
Maybe asking more questions than I’m answering, but that’s hype in the age of no-sleep. The PR wire takes it from here:
Canadian hard blues rockers GONE COSMIC to issue new album “Send for a Warning, the Future’s Calling” this fall; stream new track “Crismon Hand”!
Calgary, Alberta’s psychedelic hard rockers GONE COSMIC announce the release of their new album ‘Send for a Warning, the Future’s Calling’, due out September 2nd on Grand Hand Records. Listen to their raucous new single “Crimson Hand.”!
About this new song, vocalist Abbie Thurgood comments: “People are complex entities on their own individual paths and it’s important to determine which people in your life may actually be a detriment to you. I have been in multiple situations where people have been very comfortable to take, so they took until there wasn’t much left for me to give. There’s an ignorance in these situations, on my part, in being too trusting and giving the benefit of the doubt. Crimson Hand is a reflection on these types of relationships and the importance of self-awareness and self-worth.”
Featuring nine progressive psych-blues anthems designed to upgrade your sonic synapsis. GONE COSMIC’s sophomore album “Send for a Warning, the Future’s Calling” was recorded in November 2020 at OCL Studios. It was produced, mixed and recorded by Josh Rob Gwilliam (Ghosts of Modern Man, JJ Shiplet, Michael Bernard Fitzgerald), and mastered by Grammy Award-winning mastering engineer Brian “Big Bass” Gardner (Dr. Dre, David Bowie, Outkast, The Melvins, Rush).
TRACKLIST: 1. Crimson Hand 2. For Sabotage 3. Envy Thrives 4. Causeway 5. The Wrong Side of Righteous 6. Endless 7. To Refuse Compromise 8. Taste for Tragic 9. The Future’s Calling
A blood (orange)-scented breeze that bows the trees, GONE COSMIC chases the infinite haze from the skies and puts it right back in your eyes. Groove-mining breakdowns become the stuff of legend as the four pieces’ floor-thudding tail kick and hellfire halo holler originates a whole that is far more potent than the sum of its individual elements.
Pivoting on the acute juxtaposition of Abbie Thurgood’s soulful vocals and the galvanizing dexterity of Devin (Darty) Purdy’s promethean guitar runs, GONE COSMIC’s sidereal style is emboldened by an equally accomplished and inventive rhythm section, comprising bassist Brett Whittingham and percussionist Marcello Castronuovo. Issuing a universal invitation to emerge from the suspended animation of quarantine and share in their lusty deconstructive discoveries, Gone Cosmic’s stunning future dispatches are set to transmute that which is set in stone back into primordial lava. Their debut album “Sideways In Time” was released in 2019 through Kozmik Artifactz.
Posted in Reviews on January 18th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
If you, like me, drink coffee, then I hope that you, like me, have it ready to go. We enter day two of the Jan. 2022 Quarterly Review today in a continued effort to at least not start the year at an immediate deficit when it comes to keeping up with stuff. Will it work? I don’t know, to be honest. It seems like I could do one of these for a week every month and that might be enough? Probably not, honestly. The relative democratization of media and method has its ups and downs — social media is a cesspool, privacy is a relic of an erased age, and don’t get me started on self-as-brand fiefdoms (including my own) that permeate the digital sphere in sad, cloying cries for validation — but I’m sure glad recording equipment is cheap and easier to use than it once was. Creativity abounds. Which is good.
Lots to do today and it’s early so I might even have time to get some of it done before my morning goes completely off the rails. Only one way to find out, hmm?
Quarterly Review #11-20:
Emma Ruth Rundle, Engine of Hell
It’s not inconceivable that Emma Ruth Rundle captured a few new ears via her previous LP and EP collaborations with New Orleans art-sludgers Thou, and she answers the tonal wash of those offerings with bedroom folk, can-hear-fingers-moving-on-strings intimacy, some subtle layering of vocals and post-grunge hard-strumming of acoustic guitar, but ultimately a minimal-feeling procession through Engine of Hell, an eight-track collection that, at times, feels like it’s barely there, and in other stretches seems overwhelming in its emotional heft. Rundle‘s songwriting is a long-since-proven commodity among her fans, and the piano-led “In My Afterlife” closes out the record as if to obliterate any lingering doubt of her sincerity. Actually, Engine of Hell makes its challenge in the opposite: it comes across as so genuine that listening to it, the listener almost feels like they’re ogling Rundle‘s trauma, and whatever it’s-sad-so-it-must-be-meaningful cynicism one might want to saddle on Engine of Hell is quickly enough dispatched. Rundle was rude to me once at Roadburn, so screw her, but I won’t take away from the accomplishment here. Not everybody’s brave enough to make a record like this.
Released in November, Lost Horse Returns of its Own Accord isn’t even the latest full-length anymore from the creative ecosystem that is T.G. Olson, but it’s noteworthy just the same for its clarity of songwriting — “Like You Never Left” makes an early standout for its purposeful-feeling hook and the repeated verse of “Flowers of the End in Bloom” does likewise — and a breadth of production that captures the happening-now sense of trad-twang-folk performance one has come to expect and leaves room for layered in harmonica or backing vocals where they might apply. A completely solo endeavor, the 10-track outing finds the Across Tundras founder taking a relatively straightforward approach as opposed to some of his more experimentalist offerings, which makes touches like the layering in closer “Same Ol’ Blue” and the mourning of the redwoods in the prior “The Way it Used to Be” feel all the more vital to the proceedings. More contemplative than rambling, the way “Li’l Sandy” sets the record in motion is laden with melancholy and nostalgia, but somehow unforgiving of self as well, recognizing the rose tint through which one might see the past, unafraid to call it out. If you’ve never heard a T.G. Olson record before, this would be a good place to start.
Formerly known as Haast’s Eagled, Welsh four-piece Haast make a strikingly progressive turn with Made of Light, what’s ostensibly a kind of second debut. And while they’ve carried over the chemistry and some of the tonal weight of their work under the prior moniker, the mission across the seven-track offering is more than divergent enough to justify that new beginning. Cuts like “A Myth to End All Myths” and the from-the-bottom-up-building “The Agulhas Current” might remind some of Forming the Void‘s take on prog-heavy or heavy-prog, but Haast willfully change up their songwriting and the execution of the album, bringing in vocalist Leanne Brookes on the title-track and Jams Thomas on nine-minute closer “Diweddglo,” which crushes as much as it soars. The central question that Made of Light needs to answer is whether Haast are better off having made the change. Hearing them rework the verse melody of Alice in Chains‘ “We Die Young” on “Psychophant,” the answer is yes. They’ve allowed themselves more reach and room to grow and gained far more than whatever they’ve lost.
Have riffs, will groove. So it goes with the debut EP from Stockholm-based unit Dark Ocean Circle, who present four formative but cohesive tracks on Bottom of the Ocean, following the guitar in more of a Sabbathian tradition then one might expect from the current stoner-is-as-stoner-does hesher scene. To wit, the title-track’s starts-stops, bluesy soloing and percussive edge tap a distinctly ’70s vibe, if somewhat updated in the still-raw production value after the straight-ahead fuzz of “Battlesnake” hints toward lumber to come in its thickened tone. “Setting Sun” feels more spacious by the time it’s done, but makes solid use of the just over three minutes to get to that point — a short, but satisfying journey — and the closing “Oceans of Blood” speaks to a NWOBHM influence while pairing that with the underlying boogie-blues that seemed to surface in “Bottom of the Ocean” as well. A pandemic-born project, their sound is nascent here but for sure aware of its inspirations and what it wants to take from them. Sans nonsense heavy rock and roll is of perennial welcome.
Floridian three-piece El Castillo self-tag as “surf Western,” and yeah, that’s about right. Instrumental in its 19-minute entirety, Derecho is the first EP from the trio of guitarist Ben McLeod (also All Them Witches, Westing), bassist Jon Ward and drummer Michael Monahan, and with the participation of McLeod as a draw, the feeling of two sounds united by singularity of tone is palpable. Morricone-meets-slow-motion-Dick–Dale perhaps, though that doesn’t quite account for the subtle current of reggae in “Diddle Datil” or the somehow-fiesta-ready “Summer in Bavaria,” though “Double Tap” is just about ready for you to hang 10, even if closer “Hang 5” keeps to half that, likely in honor of its languid pace, which turns surf into psych as easily as “Wolf Moon” turns it toward the Spaghetti West. An unpretentious exploration, and more intricate than it lets on with “El Norte” bringing various sides together fluidly at the outset and the rest unfolding with similarly apparent ease.
Listening to “Hunted,” the 22:53 leadoff from Tekarra‘s two-song long-player, Kicking Horse, it’s hard not to feel nostalgic for standing in a small room with speaker cabinets stacked to the ceiling and having your bones vibrate from the level of volume assaulting you. I’ve never seen the Edmonton, Alberta, three-piece live, but their rumble and the tension in their pacing is so. fucking. doomed. You just want to throw your head back and shout. Not even words, just primal noises, since that seems to be what’s coming through on their end, so laced with feedback as it is. Coupled with the likewise grueling “Crusade / Kicking Horse” (23:11), there’s some guttural vocals, some samples, but the overarching intention is so clearly in the tune-low-play-slow ethic that that’s what comes across most of all, regardless of what else is happening. I’d be tempted to call it misanthropic if it didn’t have me so much pining for the live experience, and whatever you want to call it there’s no way these dudes give a crap anyway. They’re on another wavelength entirely, sounding dropped out of life and encrusted with cruelty. Fuck you and fuck yes.
It’s been the better part of a year since 1782 released From the Graveyard, and I could detail for you the mundane reason I didn’t review it before now, but there’s only so much room and I’d rather talk about the bass tone on “Bloodline” and the grimly fuzzed lumber of “Priestess of Death.” An uptick in production value from their 2019 self-titled debut (review here), the 43-minute/eight-song LP nonetheless maintains enough rawness to still be in the post-Electric Wizard vein of cultistry, but its blowout distortion is all the more satisfying for the fullness with which it’s presented. “Seven Priests” sounds like Cathedral played at half-speed (not a complaint) and with its stretch of church organ picking up after a drop to nothing but barely-there low end, “Black Void” lives up to its name while feeling experimental in structure. Familiar in scope, for sure, but a filthy and dark delight just the same. Give me the slow nod of “Inferno” anytime. Even months after the fact its righteousness holds true.
Alpha Waves is a sonic twist a few years in the making, as Fever Dog transcend the expectation of their prior classic desert boogie in favor of a glam-informed 10-track double-LP, impeccably arranged and unrepentantly pop-minded. A cut like the title-track or “Star Power” is still unafraid to veer into psychedelics, as Danny Graham and Joshua Adams, but the opener “Freewheelin'” and “Solid Ground” and the later “The Demon” are glam-shuffle ragers, high energy, thoughtfully executed, and clear in their purpose, with “King of the Street” tapping vibes from ELO and Bowie ahead of the shimmering funk-informed jam that is “Mystics of Zanadu” before it fades into a full-on synthesizer deep-dive. Does it come back? You know what, I’m not gonna tell you. Maybe it does and maybe it doesn’t. Definitely you should find out for yourself. Sharp in its craft and wholly realized, Alpha Waves is brought to bear with an individualized vision, and the payoff is right there in its blend of poise and push.
Led by Chris Jude Watson, the dronadelic outfit Black Holes are Cannibals may just be one person, it may be 20, but it doesn’t matter when you’re dealing with a sense of space being manipulated and torn apart molecule by molecule, atom by atom. So it goes throughout the 19-minute “Surfacer,” the 19:07 title-track of the two-songer LP accompanied by “No Title” (20:01). At about eight minutes in, Watson‘s everything-is-throat-singing approach seems to find the event horizon and twists into an elongated freakout with swirls of echoing tones, what seem to be screams, crashing cymbals and a resonant chaotic feel taking hold and then building down instead of up, seeming to disappear into the comparatively minimal beginning of “No Title,” which holds its own payoff back for a broader but more linear progression, ending up in the same with-different-marketing-this-would-be-black-metal aural morass, willfully thrown into the chasm it has made. You ever have an out of body experience? Watson has. Even managed to get it on tape.
What is one supposed to say to paying tribute to Lemmy Kilmister and Cliff Burton? Careers have been made on far less original fare than the two homage tracks that comprise Sonic Wolves‘ It’s All a Game to Me EP, with “CCKL” setting the tempo for a Motörheaded sprint and “Thee Ace of Spades” digging into early-Metallica bombast in its first couple minutes, drifting out for a while after the halfway point, then thrashing its way back to the end. Obviously it’s not the same kind of stuff they were doing with their 2018 self-titled (review here), but neither is it worlds apart. The basic fact of the matter is bands pay tribute to Motörhead and Metallica, to Lemmy and Cliff Burton, all the time. They just don’t tell you they’re doing it. In that way, It’s All a Game to Me almost feels courteous as it elbows you in the gut.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 12th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Calgary, Alberta, two-piece Drug Sauna allegedly recorded their late-2020 three-song EP, 2% Saunic, in their van. Is that true? Does it matter? Maybe, and no, in that order. The resultant in-your-head claustrophobia of the eponymous “Drug Sauna” brings enough ultra-stoned consciousness consumption that, wherever it was made, it was made well to suit its purposes. Likewise, opener “Space Druggin'” (get it?) and the closing take on Nazareth‘s “Razamanaz” are no less nod-melting, the twisted low end of bassist Deano and the raw drums of Cory hypnotic despite their lo-fi presentation even on the uptempo finale.
The Dregs Records, who it would seem have an affinity for that which may have emerged from an especially dank humidor, has signed the band to release 2% Saunic on tape, which, yes, should fit its fuckall nicely. Preorders are open as of today and run until March 15, and to be on the safe side an April 1 release date has been set.
The announcement follows here. I leave you to it and wish you well:
Drug Sauna – The Dregs Records
The Dregs Records is stoked to welcomes Calgary’s dirtiest duo, Drug Sauna, to the family. After seeing a one-minute video in 2019 of these pasty party animals Shane (of TDR) fell head over heels for what the band was all about. They truly capture the sense of freedom of the hesher lifestyle.
We have a few projects lined up for 2021. First up is getting 2% Saunic on cassette tapes. With boogie vans pre loaded with them suckers, it seems like a total no brainer. There will also be a special “doom” edit of their Nazareth cover Razamanaz exclusive to the tapes. This run is limited to 100 units and will be split between the band and label and will be released on April 1.
Are they using that date as a joke just in case there are delays due to covid? You’ll have to wait and see!
Pre orders start today and will ship once they are received. By their calculations this could be mid March (wink wink). Pre Orders end March 15th and the fashionably late will have to wait to party till the actual release date in April.
Posted in Features on April 24th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
The statistics of COVID-19 change with every news cycle, and with growing numbers, stay-at-home isolation and a near-universal disruption to society on a global scale, it is ever more important to consider the human aspect of this coronavirus. Amid the sad surrealism of living through social distancing, quarantines and bans on gatherings of groups of any size, creative professionals — artists, musicians, promoters, club owners, techs, producers, and more — are seeing an effect like nothing witnessed in the last century, and as humanity as a whole deals with this calamity, some perspective on who, what, where, when and how we’re all getting through is a needed reminder of why we’re doing so in the first place.
Thus, Days of Rona, in some attempt to help document the state of things as they are now, both so help can be asked for and given where needed, and so that when this is over it can be remembered.
Thanks to all who participate. To read all the Days of Rona coverage, click here. — JJ Koczan
Days of Rona: Turner Midzain of Woodhawk (Calgary, Alberta)
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How are you dealing with this crisis as a band? Have you had to rework plans at all? How is everyone’s health so far?
We’re dealing with it the best we can. We had to unfortunately postpone a lot of touring, which is the only real way a band like ours makes any money. We also had a couple of members laid off amidst this.
We’re trying to rebook our Canadian tour for August, but we’re being cautious as it could get cancelled again depending on the circumstances. But other than that, we’re all healthy and talk every day.
What are the quarantine/isolation rules where you are?
No groups over five [as of April 6]. But honestly a little too relaxed for the situation. Other provinces in Canada have locked down or shut down more business and limited outings, but it seems like bigger heads in Alberta are a little more concerned about other issues other than the pandemic…
How have you seen the virus affecting the community around you and in music?
Definitely. Most of our peers had to cancel tours or shows. Also, most of them aren’t rehearsing the way they used to. So I think it’s putting a strain on artists in many ways. But we’re a resilient community that will prevail. Like a lot of us, we fear the toll it will take on the music venues all over the world that are closed and have no funds to maintain existence without any revenue.
So I hope as many as possible stay open. But we’re unlikely to see a resurgence of patrons rushing to the pubs or venues as this pandemic settles. So even if a venue is able to reopen, it may not have the same income it used to.
What is the one thing you want people to know about your situation, either as a band, or personally, or anything?
If you can support artists or local businesses in your city, do it. Walmart will be fine at the end of this. But your local economy and business owners are going to take the biggest hit. Donate where possible, and buy local. Support where and when you can. Be nice to one and other. This sucks and we’re all going through it together.
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 2nd, 2020 by JJ Koczan
When you’re doing it right, you put out a record, then you tour. Sometimes you tour first. That’s cool too, so long as you tour again later. Point is, if you’re going to be the kind of band who tours, you frickin’ get up and you tour.
That’s what Woodhawk are doing and while I’m running my mouth in generalizations, I’ll say that I have no idea why more bands don’t tour Canada. Yes, Woodhawk are from Calgary, so its home turf, but why the hell aren’t more acts from the US hitting Sudbury? Or Winnipeg? Or Saskatoon? I see lists of shows from bands in the States and they play the same room three times in a year? Why not go see someplace new? Meet new people? Who maybe haven’t already seen you three times? Go tour Canada, is what I’m saying. Whether you’re Canadian or not. And hell’s bells, tour Mexico too.
Woodhawk head out supporting later-2019’s Violent Nature (review here) beginning March 26. Dates follow here, courtesy of the PR wire:
Riff Wizards WOODHAWK Announce “Violent Nature Canadian Tour”
New Album “Violent Nature” Out Now
Calgary’s riff wizards Woodhawk announce they will be trekking across Canada once again in support of their latest album “Violent Nature” released this past November. The tour will kick off in Vancouver on March 26th and wrap up in Nelson, BC on May 23rd (dates listed below).
The band comments:
“We’re thrilled to be hitting the road in Canada again. This will be our largest Canadian tour yet, going from coast to coast. Always happy to get to some new places and meet some new people, and return to our favourite places. We were thrilled with how well our latest record ‘Violent Nature’ did in Canada, so it only felt natural to roll into as many cities as possible. See you at the gig!”
Woodhawk – “Violent Nature – Canadian Tour” March 26 – Vancouver, BC – The Astoria March 27 – Victoria, BC – Upstairs Cabaret March 28 – Kelowna, BC – Doc Willoughbys April 1 – Calgary, AB – Ship and Anchor April 2 – Lethbridge, AB – The Owl Acoustic Lounge April 3 – Regina, SK – The German Club April 4 – Winnipeg, MB – The Handsome Daughter April 6 – Sudbury, ON – The Asylum April 7 – Windsor, ON – Phog Lounge April 8 – Hamilton, ON – The Casbah April 9 – Toronto, ON – The Monarch April 10 – Ottawa, ON – House of TARG April 11 – Montreal, QC – Turbo Haus April 14 – Quebec City, QC – L’Anti April 15 – Saint John, NB – Taco Pica April 16 – Fredericton, NB – The Capital Complex April 17 – Halifax, NS – Gus’ Pub April 18 – Moncton, NB – The Caveau April 20 – Oshawa, ON – TBD April 21 – Sault Ste Marie, ON – Loplops April 22 – Thunder Bay, ON – Black Pirates Pub April 23 – Brandon, MB – The 40 April 24 – Saskatoon, SK – Amigos Cantina April 25 – Edmonton, AB – The Aviary May 22 – Invermere, BC – Ullr Bar May 23 – Nelson, BC – The Royal
WOODHAWK: Turner Midzain – Vocals, Guitar Mike Badmington – Bass, Vocals Kevin Nelson – Drums
