Jul. 14, 2004 - Issue #456: Metallica

Music Notes

Sympathy for the Devilsplender Devilsplender • With the Northern Pikes • Sidetrack Café • Fri, July 16 For the better part of a year, local rocker Devilsplender spent hours toiling away at his home studio on what was to be a double album. It could have been his definitive musical statement! A work of genius! A sonic gift to Edmonton and the world! Yes, it could have been magic. But that was before the computer died. “I lost a year’s worth of work,” explains the man himself over a crackling cellphone. “Everything was gone.” However, instead of throwing in the towel and setting his studio on fire like Lee “Scratch” Perry, Devilsplender licked his wounds and got back on the horse. Not only did he assemble a crack back line, including drummer Sandro Dominelli and bassist Greg Johnson, but he also reconvened to Wolf Willow Sound, where he and his good friend Johnny Blerot began re-crafting the lost material. “If anything, it forced me to be less experimental and ended up making the project a more full-on rock record,” Devilsplender says. “It was nice to have a second set of ears. I learnt so much from going back into the studio. Just to have great mics and preamps and all-around better gear helped too.” The sessions have also forced Devilsplender to refocus his live show. Before, his live material was often drastically different from what he released on record, but with the new lineup hashing things out in the studio, apparently the project is more focused than ever. “I used to write everything in the studio,” the man explains, “so it was almost impossible to play everything live in the same way.” Accordingly, the band will use Friday’s opening spot for the Northern Pikes to unleash the new lineup (which is rounded out by Eric Newby and Jay Carend) and debut some of the new material. (JS) The fission musicians Atomic 7 • With the James T. Kirks and Escalator • Sidetrack Café • Sat, July 17 Although they sound like a team of superhuman mutants out to save the world, the Atomic 7 are actually an instrumental trio out to save a forgotten genre. Started a few years ago by guitarist Brian Connelly of Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet fame, Atomic 7 wants to free the dancefloor from the tyranny of lyrics once and for all. Born and raised in Edmonton, Connelly has called Toronto home for the last “zillion” years, so he’s excited to bring his new project out west for the first time. According to him, Atomic 7 and the Shadowy Men are both part of the great tradition of instrumental pop music that was all the rage during the late ’50s and early ’60s before being virtually forgotten overnight. “There were 50 instrumental bands in every town,” Connelly says, “and they’d just do the hits of the day for dancers. It’s a really social form of music because it’s basically dance music and mood music. Then the Beatles came along and ruined it all. After that you couldn’t get a job playing instrumental music, so you had to write your own stuff.” Atomic 7 has just released En Hillbilly Caliente, their second full-length disc, on Vancouver’s Mint Records, and it’s a kicker. With snappy titles like “Bury My Foot at Wounded Mouth” and “The Wreck of the Dick Family Wiener Boat” it’s clear that Connelly doesn’t need words to create groovy emotions. “As a listener,” he says, “you get involved because so much of it is mood music, so it does things inside your head that sorta excite the imagination and you draw on your own stuff. So the listener is actually part of it. If four people listen to it, two might get it or get really excited about it, but it all depends on your own musical past.” Even though Atomic 7’s go-go/surf/boogie music could put a smile on anyone’s face, its instrumental nature still relegates it to the underground. Which is fine by Connelly, who tends to ignore the mainstream himself, figuring that if something’s good, sooner or later he’ll be made aware of it. Like when he “discovered” OutKast. “I’d never even heard their name before,” he says, “and then they were on Saturday Night Live or something doing their big single and I’m going, ‘Well, this is a pretty good band. I think these guys are kinda interesting. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll go out and see if I can find their small, independent record.’ And the next day I opened the door and—holy fuck—there’s OutKast posters on my lawn, 30 cars driving by playing [‘Hey Ya!’]. It’s the biggest song on the planet and I’d just completely missed it.” (PD) Winning the battle, losing the war? Portal • With Dead Ring • Red’s • Sat, July 17 Let’s face it: “battle of the bands”-type competitions and radio talent contests are a total waste of time. Sure, there’s the odd example of a band like Silverchair who struck gold after winning one, but for most, the whole practice can seem pretty pointless. Not only does losing one of these things really bite, but sometimes even winning one can suck. Not to get too negative, but take local rockers Portal as a prime example. Despite snagging a stack of free studio time after winning a local band battle last year, band frontman Kenton Thomas says, the sessions (which resulted in their CD The Vast Expanse Diminishing) were a little disappointing. Apparently, with a limited amount of time in the studio, Thomas and his bandmates were forced to cut corners and compromise their sound, an intricate blend of electronic, industrial and prog-rock flavours. “I for one just wasn’t very happy with the way parts of the project turned out,” Thomas says. “I don’t think the album had enough levels—we just didn’t have enough time and money to get in all the details.” A perfectionist? Perhaps. But in an effort to capture the band’s true vision, Thomas resolved to refocus the songs into a live/remix project, which he hopes will finally do the material justice. Saturday’s show at Red’s will double as a recording session for the project’s live segment, with the remix side of things continuing at Thomas’s home studio. “Most of this stems from my own obsessive need to get things back to where I think they should be,” he says, “and at the same time give our fans something to sink their teeth into until we can get a new album out.” (JS) Fine and dandy The Fine Options • With Champion, Alberta and No Hands • New City • Wed, July 21 Good things really do come in small packages—and cheap ones, too. After releasing their debut full-length Outer Space last year, Victoria natives the Fine Options borrowed some recording equipment and put out the White Rose EP for a grand total of $300. It’s the sheer excitement of playing their spacy rock music that’s motivated them since the beginning, and guitarist Colin McKill says that despite a few moments that still make him cringe, the EP is still a solid if disjointed effort. The songs waver between the insanely catchy “Jettison Into Space” and the just plain weird “Talkin’ Baliwood Samurai Ninja Massacre.” The cohesive collection of dark rock tunes on their new as-yet-unnamed EP, however, speaks to a growing maturity. “This new EP,” McKill says, “is the songs we actually wrote as a band after being on a couple tours and figured out the music that sounded the best that the four of us were capable of making.” At first, McKill thought it was funny when people thought there was actually more than one band on Outer Space because the songs sounded so different from each other, but then he realized adopting a signature sound could work to their advantage. “I started to think about the different bands I really liked,” he says, “and realized it wasn’t the worst thing in the world for somebody to hear a song by a band and be able to immediately identify it as that band. That’s not being predictable; that’s being unique, which is great.” While McKill is proud of everything the Options have accomplished on their own, they’ve also been sniffing around for some label interest to make their lives a bit easier. “We’d be thrilled, obviously, to have somebody help us,” he says, “and maybe make it so I don’t have to make fucking lattes anymore.” (PD) Big John Bates and the Voodoo Dollz • Sidetrack Café • Thu, July 8 • reVUE Like a good, stiff gin and tonic, the sounds of rockabilly and the titillating sights of burlesque were made for each other. Seeing the fishnet-clad Voodoo Dollz strut their stuff while Big John Bates makes sweet, sweet love to his guitar brings the best of both worlds together. With visions of Bettie Page and hot rods fornicating in their heads, the sweaty dancefloor denizens undulated along to Bates’s tiki-tiki-flavoured rock explosion. Not only do the Dollz bump, grind and even rassle to the music, they don’t miss a beat while pouring Jägermeister down the band members’ throats. ’Course, if every band brought a lovely and talented entourage like that along with them, people’d start getting bored with it. Then again, probably not. (PD)

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