The Alibrary Experiment

When walking one of the quieter Vancouver streets recently, I spotted a bright cabinet by a driveway, labelled 'Alibrary'.

Vancouver people have a pretty good habit of leaving free swag in public places..but was this a whole cabinet of free books?!

Hell yes! Naturally I had to get in on this action and use it for an experiment. I decided to take a second hand book from my collection, write a note explaining what I was doing, and leave the book in this wonderful Alibrary. What book did I choose? Well...

Ok, so it won't be to everyone's taste, but I'm hoping whoever is willing to pick up a book of wisdom from Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson will be willing to drop me an email telling me when they picked it up, and where they are going to leave it when they are done with it, etc.

So.. I brought the book with me the next time I knew I would be passing the cabinet. What did I see waiting for me in exchange for my tale of the most electrifying man in sports entertainment?

Only four Calvin and Hobbes collections! This was the cherry on top of what was already a lucky day for me. I'm hoping I was owed some karma or something. If you didn't know, I love Calvin and Hobbes, but had to leave my collection at home, two years ago. What an amazing, unselfish act for someone to give such a generous gift to a stranger like me. I will of course be returning the collection to Alibrary before I return to Ireland.

As for The Rock book..only time will tell if I will be able to track its journey or not. I will however be adding more books to the experiment in the coming weeks.

Power Clown are an all clown Iron Maiden tribute band

They played with a gorelesque group...Sometimes there are no words...

Sum 41, Billy Talent and more, Vancouver, March 14, 2013

From the moment Deryck Whibley hits the stage, it is clear the diminutive Sum 41 singer has not aged well. But more on that later.

Taking our seats in the old person section, we did not have long to wait for this hockey arena show to kick off. And the time we had was filled with the running, slack-jawed commentary of two Canadian rednecks who were in the row behind us, every word coated in pot smoke.

Indian Handcrafts

Like an ugly, 'warts and all' music documentary at the Oscars, Indian Handcrafts both surprise and merit smatterings of applause, but really they are just tolerated rather than appreciated. Which is a shame as their slightly psychotic blend of blues, doom, hardcore, shrieks and indie was quite fun to behold. Never the type of music I would listen to at home, but good live music for a certain period of time regardless.

Hollerado

That guy...

More on par for the night these fresh faced guys have parent-and-teen-friendly good vibes as they cliche their way through some indie poprock.  It wasn't my thing but I can understand why the kidz might like it, especially if they have never seen an arena show before. The singer had a bit of That Guy going on, but hopefully the incident at the end of their set will make him reconsider his stage presence. In a preplanned move, the song built to an ending where he rebelliously launched his guitar a whole 4 feet in the air and caught it with the final cymbal crash. Pretty cool, eh? Unfortunately he caught it WITH HIS FACE, which caused the redneck to hoot and holler, and caused quite a bit of bleeding also I imagine. Still, chalk it down as a lesson learned.

Sum 41

Avert your eyes, children!

And so with little or no waiting around Sum 41 blaze into The Hell Song and damn, they are good live! I missed my chance to see them 8 or so years ago when they played Ireland and then they pulled out of a tour a year or so ago. The sound is impeccable, a wall of noise that is complemented by a sweet light show but there is something distracting that is gnawing away at my pure, unadulterated enjoyment of the moment.

What is it? Oh yes; the singer has a fat face so he looks like the novelty 'blow up head' part of New Found Glory 'My Friends Over You' video (1.26), topped with 'older lady trying to look younger' messy, crimson hair. This, coupled with his extremely camp onstage demeanor, and a speaking voice that sounds like the aural representation of a pubescent child with lung cancer, means the whole effect is that of an elderly drag queen who is influenced by anime. So in between killing it with a whole backpack full of hits, we were treated to the odd spectacle of Deryck c 2013.

Not that it took anything away from the performance. I was actually the happiest I've been at a gig of this sort in a very long time. It is not often that you can see a band a decade too late and still really enjoy the set. Of course they did ham it up, with Arena Rock fan interaction parts in every second song, but that was counterbalanced by them bringing up some kids on stage for most of the set and, well, sounding pretty damn good.

Billy Talent

I've always meant to listen to Billy Talent a bit more, I've never heard a song of their that I didn't like and I've actually known them for a long time, maybe 10 years or so. This tour seems to be a BIG DEAL to them as they're doing coast to coast of Canadia, playing arenas, using big screens, nice looking sets and recording the whole thing. They took about 2 months to set up, with a huge curtain covering the activity behind. Then, the guitarist with the weird hair and the singer with the weird hair started the set by themselves IN FRONT OF THE CURTAIN. It did of course drop as the band kicked into the song and everyone cheered but I dunno, seems like they're still figuring the process out!

Five songs in, it becomes clear that I don't know a lot of BT songs and after a good opening, I'm beginning to lose a little interest. But hey, I'm getting old and I had work that day... This isn't really a discredit to the band, they gave it their all and I was kept entertained by the cool camera that was in the mic stand and gave really unique shots of the action. The band deserve major props for staying together for 20 years and I'm pretty sure they started in their mid teens, which makes it even more impressive. The fans seemed suitably whipped up into a frenzy and there was barely a note out of place during the entire set.

Again, it was a case of DAT VOICE in between songs and during the screechier parts of his range. But it is unique vocal experience and one that has gotten BT to where they are today, so who am I to judge, except a slightly cynical music lover with slightly damaged eardrums.

Vancouver Gigs: Dear Landlord w/The Murderburgers and more

I can't keep up with the amount of gigs here. This was in a great little venue called The Media Club that was like an Irish sitting room with a small stage and dancefloor area attached.

After some initial concern that there was no sign of Dear Landlord merch/band members we shuffled up towards the stage to watch The Hextalls, a band from (according to their bookface) nearby Surrey Kamloops* (wherever the hell that is) who were playing their first gig in two years. The band were a curious affair, they had the look of a band that formed in school because it seemed like a fun idea. Friends who weren't punk enough for a punk band, metal enough for a metal band, or who just became a band because they knew each other and played the necessary instruments. Maybe I'm wrong, it just remind me of some early bands I was in.

Except unlike some of my bands, these guys had their shit together, with a (mostly) tight sound and nice vocals. Their lyrics were NOFX-esque, which sounds good except writing a song about how it's the opening song of your new album works better when you have a huge discography and thousands of fans but what harm. Having said that, if you measure how 'punk' a band is by how little fucks they give about what anyone thinks, then The Hextalls are punk as heck. They sweat, laugh, sing, and in some cases haphazardly tumble through their setlist and have some quality songs to back up their wise-cracking stage banter and unconventional looks. I mean they don't even have any mohawks..Still though, if you like fun, melodies and punk rock about drinking and regular dumb shit then these guys are right up your alley and I'm hoping to check them out again. Click their name up there ^^^ for their bookface where you can listen to songs and read more about the Surrey vs Kamloops debate.

Next up were The Murderburgers from Scotland. While it was nice to hear some Western European jokes, their set was kinda ruined for me by the Scottish Situation, some BEEFCAKE dude who looked like he was from joisey shoah but was loud and from Glasgow and had no idea of personal space or his own strength...They play fast fast fast punk rock that is angry and melodic and breakneck and breathless.All the songs kinda merged into each other though.

Dear Landlord took to the stage with very little fanfare and gave a lesson in getting the job done live. Nearly every song was played to precision and the three vocalists and instruments were barely distinguisable from how they sounded on CD. The most noteable thing besides the masterclass in having your shit down as a live band was the clusterfuck of a crowd. It was like the worst all ages battle of the bands crowd you've ever seen. About 5 people stood directly in front of the stage, maybe 12 young lads stank and push moshed all over the floor behind them and then everyone else stood towards the back and sides.

Was I uncomfortably close to them? Perhaps..

Most notable was the HARDCORE kid with the backwards baseball cap and wifebeater who kept trying to stage dive on top of about 3 people and the sweaty Rancid t-shirt guy who kept grabbing the mic and trying to stage dive on top of about 3 people... Then there was also the Asian kid who kept trying to stage dive..well you get where I'm going with this.

Dear Landlord, to their credit, battled on even as people trampled over their gear, grabbed their mics and generally sweated all over them. I think they were probably a bit disapointed that they came up to Canada to play to such a strange and small crowd. And they must be sick of playing their one album (and two or three other songs) at this stage. Maybe time to hit the studio again lads! Personally, I had a great night. The Hextalls were a fun new find, Dear Landlord were really good live and the crowd provided entertainment for all.

*Oh, and by the way, Kamloops looks amazing, hook me up with a tour if you guys are actually from there. Plus when I did a google image search this was on the first page of results -

Ain't no party like a Kamloops party!

Vancouver gigs: Strung Out

This one time at a Strung Out gig, I got dumped on stage after crowdsurfing. But more on that later...

I've kind of missed out a bit on Strung Out to be honest. Don't get me wrong, I've loved every song of theirs that I've heard but through my own fault I hadn't tracked down their albums until lately when I started properly listening to their later albums. When I saw they were playing here in Vancouver I jumped at the opportunity. Only problem was they were playing two of their earlier albums in their entirety. Joke was on me.

After some bewildering walking around in circles I found the venue, which was a rectangular underground place, at the back of a building, wedged between a Honda dealership and some other warehouses. In the queue I got talking to a guy called John whose family had been run out of Galway generations ago. Both John and I had resigned ourselves to having a quiet drink on our ownsomes and were delighted to have someone else to get merrily drunk with. John recommended me a horrible dark beer but made up for it by later recommending the beer-choice of hipsters, PBR, which was cheap and in can form.

Precursor

First off, perfect name for an opening band. Secondly, great band (more on that later). Thirdly, I've only just looked them up on Facebook to see they are made up of ex members of Daggermouth, The Fullblast and others?! Whaaaat?

So now I feel slightly foolish for thinking of them as a start up band. But let us move on. Precursor combine vocals that are melodic but gritty reminiscent of early Rise Against, Bouncing Souls or a more intense version of Polar Bear Club. They play punk rock with some fiddly bits and some nice drumming. (Again, with their history this is no surprise).

Looking back, it was clear that they know what they're doing (the singer DID say they had been around in bands for ages...) they were tight, the songs well crafted and their gear and sound were far better than any opening act I've seen in a long time. Check Precursor out on Facebook.

Handguns

I have 'defended' pop punk for about 10 years now. I don't mean it in the Man Overboard way, just in that I try to call people who hate on Blink 182 but will swear blindly that Fall Out Boy are a great band who write pop songs but play their own instruments and that makes it ok. Don't both bands do that? And aren't both bands pretty sweet? Handguns however are one of the pop punk bands that give pop punk a bad name. They are essentially the 'that guy' of pop punk.

Firstly, there's the high-pitched whiney vocals. Again, I'm someone who has listened solidly to Tom Delonge for about 12 years now and I've also enjoyed the occasional Set Your Goals song. But this, no.

Then there's the acting and dressing like the most SWAGMERCH of hardcore dudes. Stomping with a backwards baseball cap and stick your mic in the face of one of the three fans you have up the front who are fistpumping with their mouths open. Without actually really adding very much hardcore to your music. I'm not quite sure why this annoys me but it does. I mean, at least Daggermouth had the music to backup the hardcore influences.

Derp! DERP! HERP! DERRRRRP!

 Such Gold

This photo needs it's own post. So much lol.

While this almost definetely makes me a hypocrite, I quite like Such Gold! I know, they fall into the same DUDE HARDCORE INFLUENCED POP PUNK BRO style as the lads above, but I think they pull it off better and have some great songs. On the night I felt that the two backing vocalists actually sounded better than the main guy but otherwise they sounded good.

While they are expanding their influences (which should be a good thing), I think the first two EPs may be my favourite Such Gold. The strongest songs from their EPs went down the best on the night and I hope that they have upped their game for the album so that they don't end up being a 'singles' band. You know, they might be on your mp3 player, but it's just one or two songs.

Strung Out

Put simply, Strung Out are one of the most talented punk bands in the world and probably the most technically gifted punk band I have ever seen live. In a scene that is predominantly made up of young guys pumped up on angst, hormones and whatever stimulants they can get their grubby little hands on, Strung Out stand out live the scarily fit 65 year old at the tennis club.

Storming through Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues and Twisted By Design with barely a pause for breath Strung Out leave pretty much everyone in their sweaty wake and are still having fun after all the years. The set is metaphor of their career, notable for musical prowess, energy and stamina. To be honest the crowd started to wilt towards the end but that's understandable for the sweatbox that is the Biltmore. I took up residence by the bass speakers on the floor at the side of the stage and it was pretty sweet to watch the band at work from that close. Oh yeah, and I was onstage briefly when I was unceremoniously dumped there after a brief crowdsurf. After the gig, and after a bit of walking around in a bewildered daze I got a taxi with my new friend and headed for home. Good times.