music, music, music...

***EDITED POST***

one of the things i like to do when i travel, is buy cds from local bands. for me, it's way better than a t-shirt.

my first local purchase was the latest cd by the now defunct band, fake cops. it's called "thundertheft". their first ep also qualifies as one of my all time favourite cd titles... "absolutely your credit is excellent but in a certain way we also need cash" (you can download a track here). i bought that cd on another trip to calgary a few years back when i went into sloth and basically said, sell me some good local stuff. i was saddened to hear of their demise a few months back, and even considered coming out for the show at broken city. plus they were playing with the neckers who i've been wanted to catch for awhile (more on them down below). i don't really consider them punk rock but everyone else seems to so i guess maybe they are. anyways, i knew i wanted to buy this cd from the opening seconds of the cd. you can go to their myspace page and download a bunch of songs. including my favourite, the opener 'better call a priest'.

next up, was a trip to sloth and a purchase of the neckers first ep "a whole mess o' trouble" (you can download stuff here.) one of my many musical weaknesses is garage/punk so the neckers fit right in. apparently billy hopeless from the black halos have declared them his favourite calgary band. it's ok, but i prefer their next cd, their first full length much better. if you like this kinda of stuff, go to their site and download 'don't wanna worry' from that album. i need to see this band live!

one of the many things i love about sloth, is that every time i go there, i get a free cd. they always seem to have some label sampler and unlike the majority of samplers i have received in my lifetime, they are actually really good. the one i got this time was a vice recordings sampler. i haven't listened to it yet, but it looks good. bloc party and the boredoms are a couple of the bands on it. (ps i am listening to it now and i am totally digging it. you can learn about it here).

last of the local cds i bought was greg (name witheld) "passage". this one is in the singer/songwriter vein. it's a bit more rockin' than his first cd, but i have the same issue that i had with his first one. the vocals. i've seen him live and vocally, he's quite strong. but on cd, they come off really weak and tinny. i didn't really get the first cd until i saw him live and heard what the songs really sounded like. so, this only gets a so-so rating. "dissolve" would be my favourite song off the cd. you can listen to it on his myspace page if you are interested.

i also finally made it up to melodiya records. i've been meaning to check out them out for awhile now. it's a very cool little indie store. i was first introduced to them as a label. a label which they have recently re-activated for the vinyl version of chad vangaalen's skelliconnection.

we were walking near stampede and some stampede yahoos say to us... there's a hoedown going on. whatever. then we get to the station and oh, there is a hoedown going on! i don't know who they were or if they were a real band or what, but they were pretty cool to watch. especially from high up.

i did manage to catch a couple of bands this time out. as mentioned, we went to the castle pub. it was 'fuck the stampede' night. total hardcore night. we caught a band called 'epidemic' whose bass player totally fascinated me. he'd obviously trained on an upright bass or cello, because all of his finger and hand work was based on that. he even had the neck up a little. the next band was calledy 'dry fisted' . more hard core. here's the deal tho', the show cost us 8 bucks. for four bands. we only saw two, but that's four bucks per band. i felt that since neither band sucked, i got my money's worth. i also wanted to pick up a 'fuck the stampede' button but the kiosk people left super early. i can't understand why as it seemed like they had tons of stuff left over.

for the second stampede in a row, i tried to see the smokin' 45s. for the second year in a row, i failed. however, they are coming here in august and i will attempt to see them once again.

i wanted to go see this band called 'cowpuncher'. but my friend took me to the wildwood instead of the ironwood. totally different areas of town. so sadly i missed them as well.



next up, stampede!