August brings aftershocks with new bands releases and festival fun
With another successful folk fest behind us August delivers the aftershock: new bands! With the storm of innovative and exciting acts that’s been rolling through lately there’s bound to be a lightning bolt or two of inspiration to electrify our modest scene. Here are just a few bands that have been struck in such a way with some familiar though no less excitable artists to keep you in the loop.
Taking a riff-heavy approach to jangly 1980s and 1990s indie rock (think the Cure mixed with Sleater-Kinney) and adding a rhythmic edge of new wave and post-punk The New Danger Kids are making the university town of Lethbridge into the prize stallion of Alberta rock n’ roll. Charging out of the same gates as Endangered Ape Myelin Sheaths and The Moby Dicks the Kids’ melodic approach to the raw power of their Lethbridge counterparts is just as fist-pumping and twice as catchy. Recently returned from a year-long stint in Scotland sisters Kirsten and Brittany Griffiths spearhead the five-piece band using their long-time collaborative relationship as springboard for this new incarnation.
“We live together so it’s really easy to whip out the guitars and write songs” says Kirsten. “That’s just what happens. I usually write the original song but I don’t consider it a song until Brittany gets on it.”
Interested parties can catch the New Danger Kids with Puberty at the Marquee Room on Thursday July 30 or playing two shows the following evening Friday July 31. Earlier on they rock the all-ages friendly New Black Centre with Six Brew Bantha and The Neckbeards then speed off to the Stetson for a later set with Hunter Gatherer and Fox Opera .
If you haven’t quite had your fill of wildly talented people heartbreaking songsmith Markus Overland’s dirty-folk group Lucid 44 will be celebrating the release of an EP at the Marquee Room Saturday August 1. Expect to be swept up by the childlike madness of experimental duo Seizure Salad and the cooing of syrupy sweet pop hooks from Thighs as well.
Switching over to a gnarlier gear there’s a looming presence of another kind of danger kid on the block though this one is much more curious: taking members from Women lint and Beija Flor three-piece monkey is about to come down hard on the heads of the people with a sound that promises to combine math-rock hardcore and Sonic Youth-style noise freakouts. With no recorded material available to dispel the darkness around just what kind of hell these three might be raising the questions keep flooding in. Fortunately their many shows throughout August might shed a little light (or spread the darkness). The Marquee Room will host monkey on August 6 with This City Defects they play August 8 at the Distillery with Ripcase and Kill Matilda and finally on August 18 at Dickens pub.
Also this month — and also somewhat shrouded in mystery — is the Choose Yer Own Festival happening at various random locations throughout Calgary August 13-16. Well known in the all ages community for their many themed shows hosted at Emmedia The Summerwood Warren have organized an unconventional festival that will feature such wackiness as a show in a garage with a pizza oven an urban nighttime session of Capture the Flag a raft parade and a Daniel Johnston cover night under a bridge. Though the full artist lineup is yet to be announced word is that many of Calgary’s best and brightest have their little paws in this honey jar and with a guerilla-style approach to the activities it’s impossible to tell what might go down or up for that matter.
