Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Valley Boys 12"

The VALLEY BOYS are a new band although they have been functioning as a group for a couple of years. But as a current line up the band is relatively new. Matt, formerly of the School Jerks, is the driving force behind the band. He is the principal song writer and the guy who has brought this group together. Matt brought in Jon from Brutal Knights after they had broken up but while Hassler was being formed. It is that fast paced garage that Jon brings to the sound. Jon also convinced a boyhood friend Kalle to play drums. This is the first band that I know Kalle for. Jimmy Vapid recorded these two sessions out at his new place in Oshawa and in the process convinced everybody that he could play bass for them. It's not like they needed convincing. But these recordings represent the band before Jimmy was on bass just knob twiddling of the production sort.

Matt loves the Modern Lovers so they start out this release with a cover of "Modern World". Has anyone been paying attention to that contest that is trying to get "Roadrunner" as the official state song for Massachusettes? The sound comes across like the TV Freaks meets MC5. Matt's vocals are similar to Dave's, but there is a fuller sound to the Valley Boys which comes from having two guitar players. Some of the songs like "Feeding Time" are so primal which works for this song. It is a song that repeats and is just pounded out but really gets into your psyche. Matt has a lot of observations like the pharmaceutical industry creep into life with the outrageous "Side Effects" that they can have on a person. And "Shooting Politicians" is about the incident with Gabrielle Giffords that happened in the States. The song "Auto Pilot" feels like how I get through many days and I take it as a statement on how life can become monotonous.

This recording is a collection of two different sessions but it sounds like one. It was originally released as an on-line demo through their bandcamp site, but Cut the Cord has pressed it as a limited edition 12", which I understand is sold out in the black vinyl and there are limited copies of coloured vinyl that can only be ordered through the label at this time. The songs on this release are as follows:

1. Modern World
2. Eyes on Fire
3. Feeding Time
4. Feels like shit
5. Pills
6. Rich Kids
7. Side Effects
8. Auto Pilot
9. Shooting Politicians
10. Fired

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