Lethbridge post-punks maintain breakneck pace
On the title track of her 1968 album Loretta Lynn advises “You better move your feet/If you don’t want to eat/A meal that’s called fist city.” The country-and-western icon sounds upbeat — relaxed even — as she strums and sings along to the jangly tossed-off tune yet the tension at the heart of “Fist City” is clear as day.
Now 40 years later an up-and-coming rock band from Lethbridge Alta. has nicked the song title for its moniker. Musically there’s a world of difference between Lynn’s classic C&W and Fist City’s riotous in-the-red post-punk blitz yet there are shared characteristics giving the group’s name choice a sideways kind of sense (on top of the fact that it simply sounds badass).
First and foremost is the powerful female factor provided by Fist City’s twin sister nucleus of Kirsten and Brittany Griffiths. Trading off speak-sing vocals in the style of Scottish art-punks Life Without Buildings they permeate the band’s razor-edged rave-ups with an XX chromosome stream of consciousness. Second is the menace swept under the carpet in much of Lynn’s music but flipped directly in listeners’ faces as this southern Albertan quartet tears into its tunes like a kid on Christmas.
“Sometimes when we play live Kirsten says we start our songs too quickly and that she needs more space to breathe in between” chuckles guitarist Evan van Reekum. “Personally I have a blast. I like getting tired during shows and getting sweaty. We usually hand the set-list-making duties to our drummer because he’s really good at it and we’re just up for whatever.”
Like its name the genesis of Fist City also comes with a storied history. The Griffiths girls have been playing together for years in projects such as the Sabretooth Tigers the Danger Kids and its second incarnation the New Danger Kids. Meanwhile van Reekum and stick-man Ryan Grieve first teamed up as members of ever-swelling Lethbridge garage rock monster Endangered Ape before splitting off into side-projects like Amelia Earhart Radians and a short-lived incarnation of the Moby Dicks. Now that they’ve re-formed like Voltron this arrangement of members blends varying approaches with years of experience to create explosive chemistry.
“A lot of it has to do with the timing” van Reekum says. “Endangered Ape took a lot of punches with touring and played a lot of really awful shows but eventually started to make a name for itself. Now hearing that band’s name associated with Fist City has probably helped us out.”
“Musically the New Danger Kids made really shoegazey pop music while Endangered Ape was really oppressive and heavy” he continues. “We’re kind of merging the two styles. Kirsten is totally self-taught plays in weird tunings and that’s just the way she writes. It’s up to me to add some edge to her songs and for her to add something nice to what I write.”
Hot on the heels of an inaugural 7-inch for Edmonton’s Pop Echo and a cassette for Calgary’s Bart Records Fist City recently released Hunting You its debut album proper. This time the imprint on the back reads Cleveland’s Dead Beat Records. It’s only the most recent out-of-country signing for a Lethbridge act following a string of vinyl offerings from Myelin Sheaths the Moby Dicks and Ketamines on labels like HoZac Southpaw Odd Box and even Austria’s Bachelor.
“There are pretty key Lethbridge people like Paul Lawton (Myelin Sheaths Ketamines Mammoth Cave Records) and Jeff King (the Square Waves) who are extremely talented and have spent a lot of time here” says van Reekum. “It’s just now starting to break. Initially with Endangered Ape Paul caught onto something new and exciting that people really liked. That made it easier for us to start playing this kind of garage rock and easy for audiences to relate. I always hear people referencing the ‘Mammoth Cave sound’ that lo-fi thing we do here.”
And 2011 looks bright for Fist City as well with an upcoming 7-inch split with Vancouver’s Timecopz plus tours to both coasts including a dip down to Cleveland to meet the folks from Dead Beat. However perhaps most exciting is a slated recording session with Can-punk luminary Don Pyle former member of Crash Kills Five Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet and King Cobb Steelie.
“He’s a punk hero” van Reekum concludes. “I can’t wait to meet him.”
