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Defektors
with B-Lines, the New Values, and Dichotomy
at the Honey Lounge, August 14, 2008
Reviewed by Stephen Jersak

Chad Loewen’s inebriated dicking around seemed like a detractor in the moment, but really, it defined Dichotomy’s sound. Beats are non-existent, relentless runs of snare/hi-hat/kick smashes surrogating. Screams were squeezed through the sound system, coming out as bursts of white noise. The bass parts were ripped off from an alternate Ramones who went hardcore after Leave Home. Over top of all of it, Mister Loewen layered shitloads of feedback and distortion on his scrappy chords, before fucking around for 10 minutes, alternately annoying and entertaining. Did I like them? I have no idea.

From some niche of power-pop that collected the dust of hardcore until sometime mid-80s, the New Values played a solid set that didn’t betray their lack of shows. I wasn’t blow away, but it’s great that Vancouver has a fun new band that can cover Bad Brains without mangling the sound, or resorting to straight imitation. Expect to see them playing with the Tranzmitors.

Preluding their west coast tour, B-Lines kicked Vancouver’s ass with a fun set, full of catchy insanity. Jason figured out what’s going on, not repeating the Music Waste Thursday that frightened Bev Davies. Meanwhile, all the songs have sped up and developed more aggressive tendencies in the vacuum left by Norm’s power-pop influences. Ryan has been at his best at every show I’ve seen him play for months, getting closer and closer to full-tilt screaming as he jumps around and breaks glass.

Defektors showed off at the Emergency Room comp release and stole the show. They played another superb set, even if we couldn’t make out the vocals. It’s gorgeous art-punk in the vein of the Endtables, played over Evan’s amateur-but-appropriate beats. Look forward to their dual double-A sides from Hockey Dad and Nominal later this month, or whenever they finally get pressed.

B-Lines
with White Lung and Chris-a-riffic
at the Chez Nous Ballroom, July 19, 2008
Reviewed by Stephen Jersak

Chris-a-riffic opened the loft with his insistence that everyone was going to hate him and the idea of him opening for B-Lines and White Lung was ridiculous. He followed it up with a short set of delightful pop. The piano teacher neglected his casio, relying on a floor tom, some A Capella percussion, and audience participation to grind along beneath his clever lyrics and endearing voice.

The Victory Square Block Party is not White Lung’s element. I missed them at Music Waste, and their set at the Emergency Room comp release disintegrated as they were assaulted by the excited audience. It’s taken way too long to see them “properly”.

The girls kicked us in the shins with a quick, raucous set of some of the most aggressive and interesting punk I’ve seen. It’s catchy and attention-grabbing, and everyone knows how to use their instruments. They finished off their set with a song from their upcoming Deranged 7″, promising to be as excellent as their Hockey Dad debut.

With their line-up shuffle earlier this year B-Lines got aggressive and sloppy. They’ve cleaned up since, and re-calibrated the mix of punk and power-pop. They played a great set, jumping into songs with minimal hesitation, and Ryan screaming brains out. After a couple shaky shows, it’s great to see them tightened up without losing the attitude that spray-painted B-Lines on the living room wall and took credit for punk.

Beltline Therapy
the Dirty Dirty North
Demo 2008
Reviewed by Stephen Jersak

By the end, I forgot I was listening to music. I got caught in the excitement, and was singing along at that terrible volume that isn’t singing to yourself, but clearly isn’t intended for anyone else.

Dirty Dirty North aren’t treading virgin territory, but familiarity is nailed down to the table and prepped for reconstructive surgery. The progressions aren’t surprising, but distinct guitar, snotty vocals, and abusive bass congeal into a series of earworms, not unpleasant. Underneath and to the sides are unobtrusive, effective backups, and fast efficient beats. That’s it. Unspectacular, but not lacking.

Chatroom Therapist is a fun, solid opener, and was my favourite track the first time through (since revised). While maintaining the energy of the first couple song, Don’t Like Winter feels delicate at points, but the points’ll probably cut you.

When the first dirty mix came in, I instinctively reached for my record player to clean off the dust. The storm of Times New Viking-style fuzz lends some life and aggression, but Rolling doesn’t really need it. Beltline Therapist’s gut-punching opening bassline is even more vicious with the distortion, and brings the demo to an impressive close.

Annthronein
with Guests or something
at the Yale New Drama Room, May 8, 2008
Reviewed by Stephen Jersak Unpurpose

Drew Riekman is sixteen, and Guests (aka All In Red aka Rage Against the Machine) put on the most entertaining show I’ve seen at a high school in years. The obvious disciples of the.wpp are a two-piece that sounds like half of a four-piece, but they’ve got time to fill out, and for now they’re exciting. The entire set felt like something was going to happen, and then not a lot did, but that would be remedied with more vocals. The set climaxed as they pounded out two chords, filled the room with feedback, and distributed the drum-kit throughout the crowd, finishing a couple minutes after the power was cut, creating white teenage suburban tribal music that made my hands bleed.

What’s going on with Annthronein? Predictable. Knee-jerk. Step one step two step the polka into power violence. Other bands. No one can ever fuck up The Witch, unless they really tried to. I wrote a real review; it got deleted. Cheers

You Say Party! We Say Die!
with the Doers, the Dirty Dirty North, WCB, and Velvamatics
at the McCallum Activity Centre, May 3, 2008
Reviewed by Stephen Jersak being increasingly obtuse

The Velvamatics are at a good start. That’s weird, ‘cuz I’ve been seeing them (not in this configuration) for two years and now they’re at a good starting point. It’s reasonable, they’re seventeen. Their garage rock climaxes at its noisiest, and with a few less repeats they’d be handling some nice fuzzy econo-rock.

Who are the WCB? It’s taken two years and no one knows. I think that means not anyone. Can I go now? 15 minute sets are not unreasonable. A TV show is the perfect attention span and the WCB seems to have an idea of when they’ll get boring. It’s beat time / quit the crooning.

8 hours from the Dirty Dirty North’s home is unabashed environmental devastation, and 10 hours in a different direction they got me excited with catch/dance/grime-y hooks and stage presence directly contrary to their concise line-up. It’s throwing new pickups on the guitar you buried in your backyard and scraping the filth off by playing fast and fun.

Hold on. Two Dead Milkmen covers? The Doers are really fun, and punk? They were always called acoustic punks, but now that they’re finally living up the punk, Shammy traded his acoustic for a nice hollow-body job and slide that makes sense. Without caring what people want to hear, they hand it to you. They’re five years old now. I had already seen them a few times when kids at Turd Ferguson were hiding their drinks from the most obvious cops ever, and I’m not convinced that they’ve ever been better than now. Gaiety is the best record they’ve released. The only thing even close is Plastic Bass, and a quarter of it ended up on the set list. The Doers are either perfectly self-aware, or luck out every night.

You Say Party! We Say Die! dished out new tricks that sounded like their appeal for a slot on No New York. They wouldn’t put it that way, but maybe they’re biting back against the accessibility of Lose All Time. I liked it more than the first time I heard Dancefloor Destroyer, but it sounds like a half-hearted dance-infused shot at something short of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. I don’t know what they want to be; they’re a dance-punk band, with some non-committal no wave being shoved in there. Prove me wrong. Ironically, their self-titled anthem ended up being easily the harshest song of the night. To go with it, Becky urged the guys to circle jerk around the girls, easily the most confrontational thing they’ve ever said, even unintentionally.

Tranzmitors
with Dateless, the Spinoffs, and B-Lines
at Pub 340, March 8, 2008
Reviewed by Stephen Jersak

B-Lines are victims of school and jobs. Norm’s last show was a spastic showcase of why they deserve to trash punk houses inter-continentally. It was brief and sloppy, and maybe the wildest I’ve seen them play. Ryan keeps getting more comfortable, scaling the balcony, swinging the mic, and smashing light-bulbs. Everything was on overdrive, and broken glass suited the attack of a band on its way to being one of Vancouver’s most exciting.

The Spinoffs are the Spinoffs. They’ve been around forever, and keep surviving on speed and familiarity. It wasn’t bad, but I got bored with six songs left.

Youth Conference 1997. Dateless don’t bother with any distinguishing marks, aside from a few tattoos that compliment the generic, out-of-touch pop-punk band image. They were kind of funny, mostly bad, and would have benefited from more tongue-in-cheek “oohs” and “na na”s.

The Undertones and Buzzcocks get invoked in descriptions of the Tranzmitors because it’s a fair comparison. They don’t have the string of classics to match the legends tête-à-tête, but they have a unique classiness that still maintains a lot of aggression. It’s a combination of the suits and the more substantial lineup, matched up with impressive musicianship and refined backup vocals. Singles Going Steady and the Undertones’ self-titled debut are closer to my heart, but the Tranzmitors make sense as an overdue next step.

Walls
with High Jinks, B-Lines, Ghost Dance, and War Hero
at Casa del Artista, February 16, 2008
Reviewed by Stephen Jersak

War Hero are obvious teenagers. There’s no reason that their hardcore-with-too-much metal isn’t on its way to being good. They were trying really hard, and if they cut back on distortion, the song about skateboarding was approaching enjoyable straight-forward punk.

Two years since their last show, Ghost Dad-nce is back. They played a tight, blistering set wedged towards the harsher side of the punk-hardcore divide. Darren is one of the too-few front-men who get that they should be insane. After four songs of wolverine-out-of-a-bag antics he was almost unable to speak thanks to lack of breath, the way it should be.

B-Lines are improving, and Ryan has definitely slipped back into the craziness that accompanied Fun 100, especially compared to the nervous early B-Lines shows, and even as recently as a month ago. It’s a shame this was Norm’s second last show*, he writes catchy songs, plays guitar really well, and has a nice repertoire of sixties hits to fill in the awkward unplanned breaks caused by amps and drum troubles.

*Norm’s last show with B-Lines is March 8th at Pub 340 with Tranzmitors and other cool bands. Go!

I was bored by High Jinks. They sit in the recesses of hardcore farthest away from the aspects I like. They did a fun cover of Beastie Boys’ Sabotage that extended my patience long enough for their set to end.

Walls (link?) are all-over-the-place exciting. They have a phenomenal fifteen minute set, spread over forty, ensuring I slipped into a trance for most of it.

You Say Party! We Say Die!
with the Doers, Fake Shark Real Zombie and i/i
at Ukrainian Hall, January 25, 2008
Reviewed by Stephen Jersak

Are there still all-ages shows in Vancouver? The Emergency Room doesn’t count; letting anyone in doesn’t make it All-Ages. Kyle and Kohl’s final show reminded me that I really do hate teenagers. The media glorifies us, but really, we’re idiots.

You don’t have to temper ambition with ability, but restraint is a must. i/i would be kind of cool with a bit of trimming, but their songs don’t make sense stretched over seven minutes. Five minutes even would be reasonable, but there’s not enough content to justify a half-hour set with only four songs. Sonic Youth curbed the market of messing with guitars twenty years ago, and your awful noises were an after-thought short on sadism.

Fake Shark Real Zombie is the Iggy Pop of your suburban mall, brought to you by GameBoy. It lapses into self-parody almost immediately, and then slips further into 12-year-old wish fulfilment, complete with spitting, make-up, and hands-in-pants. They’re cheesy, catchy, and annoying as hell. Henry Rollins likes them. So what?

I used to see the Doers all the time. In the nine months since the last time I saw them, Shawn Maxey / Don L’Orange went electric, and it was a good idea. They sound as fantastic as always, and Gaiety is the best thing they’ve put out since Plastic Bass.

You Say Party! We Say Die! is sliding backwards. They haven’t been this sloppy in years, and as they get less punk, it gets more distracting. Thankfully, they’re still a good time. Launching into the Gap, everyone rushed the stage, which was cool for the forty seconds everything stayed plugged in for. The crowd was removed from the stage, and the set continued for the semi-deflated crowd. The crowd started chanting Midnight Snack as the band left the stage, to my surprise. That’s what you want for your encore? Really?

The Evaporators
at HMV, January 25, 2008
The Evaporators
with B-Lines, the Elixxxers, and Lala
at Seylynn Hall, January 26, 2008
Reviewed by Stephen Jersak

HMV is a great venue when you like luring kids past endless piles of over-priced CDs.

The Evaporators played a way-shorter-than-normal set, with smart choices for temp drummer Shawn Mrazek. Mrazek’s past encounters with metal legends mercifully provided Nardwuar with the one bit of banter that wasn’t meticulously rehearsed.

Somehow, I’ve never been to Seylynn Hall, but it’s been a long time since it was getting visits from Death From Above 1979 and… Three Inches of Blood? Thee too-cute indie-pop of Lala was my introduction. Theme bands come with a wealth of easy material, but it’s only fun for about 10 minutes, unless you’re really good, but they why did you start a theme band?

I thought that real-live ska bands were extinct! Obviously they’re not; they’re decaying in suburban halls. The Elixxxers‘ boring songs, unnecessary drum rack, and lack of future are crushing evidence that surviving ska bands need to be removed from the musical gene pool for everyone’s sake.

North Van kids are Chilliwack kids with money and clean clothes. The other distinction is that the more privileged suburbanites backed off when Ryan started swing the mic around. As good as B-Lines are, the first two thirds of there set was painful, with the crowd cleft in half as Ryan panted, out of breath from screaming and trying to fill the space. The kids compliantly pulled in for Busy Man, immediately obvious as what should have started the set. The final few songs were amazing, making up for the lacklustre build-up.

The Evaporators are getting old. Staleness is setting in after doing the same thing for years. Nardwuar has everything memorized, and as great an entertainer as he is, everyone in the crowd has it memorized too. The new album was far from their best, and the highlight of the set was definitely the older, punker stuff. They’re still fun, but between the stagnance and the sloppiness, I wasn’t impressed. In the future, the Human Serviette needs to be more confrontational during I.D.N.M.F.T.T.M.W.M.F.A. Those skinhead dicks were asking for ridicule.