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Pkew Pkew Pkew: the sounds of finger guns

Felipe — Thu, 01 Sep 2016 15:28:04 +0000

Keepin’ on our Canada kick, Southern Ontario punks Pkew Pkew Pkew (to be pronounced as if you were animating gunshots with your fingers…) are all about having fun and being mellow, like most canucks (except when it comes to their tunes). The Pkew x3 frontman posted a Craigslist ad trying to find bandmates and only one dude replied; a guy who spent most of his time in a TV theme song cover band (TV shows like Pokemon… not Good Times or Friends). As their friendship “blossomed over a love of drinking and anime,” they literally ‘got the band together’ and started started travelling around Canada playing shows in “stupid small towns.” They consider their new album, out this summer, an eleven song anthology that blasts you through themes of failure, nostalgia, growing up, staying young, and getting really, really, really hammered. The Pkews have been compared to other party rockers and fellow canucks, PUP, and Diarrhea Planet (from Ca$hville, Tennessee). Fun facts a-boot Ontario: Toronto the 4th largest city in North America, gets around 300 days of sunshine a year, rivaling Denver. Ontario also boasts the worlds longest street (or at least kinda used to), Yonge Street. It starts at Lake Ontario in the east and runs north and west through central and northern Ontario for 1,178 miles to the Rainy River on the Minnesota border. They claim the world’s longest freshwater beach at 8.6 miles and North America’s shortest railway, at 3.3 miles (they are really struggling for fun facts :-/ ) Also, and way cooler, they had a place called Camp X: a spy school to train the Allies during WWII. The official name was Special Training School 103 (STS103 operated from 1941 to 1946, then continued on in other forms) and pupils included James Bond creator Ian Fleming and Roald Dahl (think James and the Giant Peach, The BFG (that’s the silly looking CGI movie that’s out now), and Charlie & the Chocolate Factory). Ends up Ronald Dahl, before inspiring every kids book and movie ever, was an ace fighter pilot and total badass. After being sent on a flying mission through Africa, later to be told was totally in the wrong direction – they sent him to “No Man’s Land – he crashed his out-of-fuel plane, fractured his skull, smashed his nose, and lost his sight. He dragged his body away from the burning wreckage and passed out in the middle of the rocky desert. Eventually he was saved, didn’t regain his sight for a while, fell in and out of love with a nurse in Alexandria (classic move), returned to dogfighting in WWII (not like Michael Vick), became a dope spy, yaddi yadda. Anywho, Pkew Pkew Pkew have nothing to do with any of those things, except for their name, and I have a new respect for children’s story writers.

Feli (& Steven Hyden) Say Listen

Grow up and Be Surf Dads

Felipe — Tue, 23 Aug 2016 20:13:11 +0000

Regina, Saskatchewan [SK is one of the giant provinces – in Canada – just north of Montana and North Dakota, in between Alberta (where Calgary is) and Manitoba (where Winnipeg is, like the Winnipeg Jets)] is the home town of dynamic duo Surf Dads, who have a new 4 track EP out called Summer Vacation. Throughout their new EP, Surf Dads echo little bits of Wavves (“Found Yourself in Thailand”), Japandroids (“The Way She Does”), and other genre stalwarts like Local H and Weezer. Regina (blossoming population of 250k) is an odd place to find your love of surf, but with one member living in Cali, and the other with his feet firmly rooted in the Canuck life, they’ve managed to pump out three EPs while basically not living even remotely near one other, let alone practicing, or anything – kinda like The Postal Service, except not famous, and with real instruments. Maybe one of them is the “surf” and the other is the “dads”…? Beats me. Or maybe they are the co-presidents of the Greater Regina Surfing Club and organize yearly trips to different locales like Costa Rica to catch waves, kinda like how Florida has so many snow ski club while being a zombie and gator infested swampland. With little to no info available I can invent just about whatever I want, but I bet one of those is pretty close to being right. Here are all four tracks from the Surf Dads EP Summer Vacation ripe for outside summertimeyness.

Feli Listens to all

PUP puns are pawful

Felipe — Fri, 10 Jun 2016 14:00:23 +0000

So PUP is a pretty cool band from Toronto. The four childhood friends originally named their band Topanga – yes, like THAT Topanga. They named their band after Boy Meets World… smh – but ended up changing it when they found out Disney was rebooting the franchise (some things should stay dead). Stefan Babcock, vocals and guitar for PUP, and yes, his real name, said his grandma used to tell him he was a “Pathetic Use of Potential”… and voila, PUP. Ugh, aren’t grandmas just the best? Inspiring us to be all we can be. Telling us to eat something, that we look hungry, then telling us we look fat. Not “are” fat. “Look” fat. Way worse. Where are my great grandkids? Why can’t you find someone nice? Are you EVER gonna settle down? Why haven’t you come visit me? You must not love me very much. Have you met my hair dresser’s granddaughter? She’s a little young for you right now, but in a few years she’ll be in college and just the right age for you to scoop her up. Thanks Nana. It seems Stefan really wanted to stick it to his grandma cuz his band’s new album The Dream Is Over is tight. Not only that, but the video they made for the track “DVP” is truly killer for anyone who played video games in the 80s and 90s. They play Music Hall of Williamsburg Sat. June 25.

That’s all Feli has to Say about grandmas