Unbelievers studio 3 session

I have spent the last few days doing all sorts of research on this little known band from here called Unbelievers. They have five recording, but the recent one that came out last year is the one I am most familiar with. Initially, Unbelievers were a band that reminded me of X-Ray Spex and Vice Squad. I ran into Keiran the bass player while looking for everybody before the session and he was telling me that not too long ago he was rehearsing with Vice Squad. Just a weird coincidence. Keiran has been playing for the Unbelievers for the past six months but even newer to the line up is Johnny, the drummer. This band is Jenn’s vision and she has worked with members of Screeching Weasel and the Queers on their first recording. She has even joined the Queers on stage for a version of “Punk Rock Girls?. In the interview we talked about bands like Josie Cotton, the Muffs, and the Ramones as inspirations. In studio 3 I was reminded of the singing style of the Bayonettes and Zoe’s love for the Avengers.

 

Daihbid James had interviewed Jenn Unbe on Moondog Ballroom before and it being a Tuesday night Daihbid was at the station when the band arrived. They got to play catch up while we got to setting up.

As the band warmed up and went through the set we started getting takes of the song that the band were not entirely happy with. The set featured songs from the latest release which included:

1. Real Slow Hand
2. I Don’t Like You
3. Hangover Song
4. Puppy Lovin’
5. Apathy
6. In the Crowd
7. Wedding Song
8. Wish I was that Girl
9. Cuz I’m a Creep

There was also some new unreleased material which included:

1. Sumo Tsunami
2. Wasted Youth
3. Home

After 34 takes we finally had everything recorded and we had run out of time. Then we made Jenn recorded some IDs for the station and the show. These are what we came up with…

1. Cuz I’m a Creep CIUT ID
2. Wedding Song CIUT ID
3. Wedding Song lyrics CIUT ID
4. 21 CIUT ID
5. Real Slow Hand EXD ID

 

Remarks about how hard Johnny hits those drums were going back and forth which is a common description, but the proof was in the pudding. After the session the interview studio was covered in drum stick pieces and shredded wood bits that looked like a wood chipper had been at work earlier.

This session was videotaped by Aldo from Punks ‘n Rockers. Here is a medley of a few songs from the session.

Screamin’ Sam and the Problems studio 3 session

This guy is a legend in this city. And I am not even sure what to call him. In Treat Me Like Dirt he is listed as Sam Ferrera, Sam Sinatra, and Sam Vincent. What do I call this guy? The answer is he answers to Sam. He is such a down to earth guy. I run into him putting change in the meter on the way to the studio. He is on a first name basis with everyone he comes into contact with. This is the guy who made up half the rhythm section for the most notorious punk band in Toronto the Ugly. This is the guy who became the only other credible line up for the Viletones. This is the guy Steve Leckie wrote a song about in 1999 in an attempt to woo him back. This is the guy that Mickey Skin and Nora Currie and Zero send shout outs to when they are on the show. People love him because he is a great bass player.

But people also love him because he is a humble guy. He understates his accomplishments when asked about them directly. So much so that people like Steve Koch and Cleave Anderson feel the need to speak up for him as by way of context to help understand why he is so important in the scene. His band played the next closing of the Horseshoe Tavern in 1980 for which a riot broke out when they played “Wild and Free”. His band opened for the Dead Kennedys back in 1981. They also played with the Professionals and it is rumoured that Paul Cook attempted to help himself to Tony’s drum kit and almost got away with it. But these historic incidents don’t seem to be of concern to Sam. Making good music does. In 1988, the band released a single titled “Not too safe for Love”. You can read and listen to the single at http://www.mocm.ca/Music/Title.aspx?TitleId=318290. In 1996, the band released a CD called “Dust”. Many of Toronto’s first wave of punk musicians have been in this band and we try and get to the nitty gritty of who played when. You can listen to the interview here. There is a second part to the interview as well.

Sam put together a band based on one of the later line ups which featured Steve Koch on guitar, his Rattlesnake Choir partner John Borra, and Cleave Anderson on drums. Sam still plays his hollow body Hofner bass which has a violin quality to it. It is a difficult bass to play but that doesn’t hold Sam back. I was pretty amazed by some of the things he was playing. We were treated to four songs from the band’s back catalogue.

1. Been So Long
2. Oh Oh Oh
3. Live for Today
4. Another World

Sam also did some IDs for us:

1. Been so long CIUT ID
2. Live for Today EXD ID

The session was recorded by Ian Wilkinson and video taped by Aldo Erdic of Punks and Rockers.

Hormoans studio 3 session

The Hormoans are a punk band from Brampton that have been around for quite a few years. The band has a lot of material to pick and choose from. They are also some of the nicest guys I have met. The band draws on influences from a wide variety of punk and I heard influences from post punk bands like Gang of Four and Joy Division and the Summer of Revolution sounds of Rites of Spring and Fugazi. The lyrics focused more on the personal (relationships). Ian Wilkinson recorded the following songs for our show:

 

1. Murdering the Queen

2. Off Shore

3. Casualty of Worship

4. Hormoans

5. Drago

6. Crowbar

7. Get Gone

8. Made of Stone

9. Quick are the Dead

10. Kids Suck

11. Punk song

12. Shark

13. Knifed at Gunpoint

14. Doc Brown

 

The band also made a number of IDs for the station:

 

15. ID 1

16. ID 2

17. ID 3

18. ID 4

 

And we also had a chance to speak after the session.

 

Punks and Rockers caught the session on video and here is an editted clip.

 

Burial Permit studio 3 session

Burial Permit are a new power violence band, although they toy with descriptors like metal violence and the ungrindliest grindcore band. D'Arcy brought them to my attention last year just after they released their 5 song demo on bandcamp. At the time I knew that Spencer from Direct Approach had formed the band and had switched from bass to singer in this new band. Spencer has a theatre background and has learned how to sing from the diaphragm. Good thing because there was still a voice at the end of last night's session. That is particularly remarkable considering they did most of their songs more than once and they played a show the night before. 

I also knew Lautaro from Total Trash. Both bands had played in Studio 3 before, although Total Trash recorded in the old studio. I learned that Total Trash broke up or morphed into a new band called Home Invasion. I should also mention that Lautaro and Spencer have five other bands outside of Burial Permit and  to with each other. They list them off in the interview. 

Spencer warned me that we needed to do some work with Lautaro's set up. They had to bring a separate amp for pedals and sound effects that would become a big part of the song "Sleep". Lautaro was creating a layer of noise using guitar pedals, an old school portable tape recorder (old technology), and a cell phone (new technology). The cell phone was the first as in instrument for these sessions. Lautaro was wearing a Column of Heaven shirt and he talked about them as being an influence on the band's sound. Column of Heaven have adopted the sound and atmospherics of the early industrial scene and morphed it into their power violence influenced meanderings which also channel Man is the Bastard. Spencer spoke of the two bands as being peers in the Toronto scene. 

With regards to the song "Sleep", the guitarist Luciano, contributed by playing the guitar with a drumstick like it was a slide pick on the fret board's but not in the country and western application of the style.  It was to layer noise in a droning song to resemble pain. 

Luciano is Lautaro's younger brother. And the drummer, Thomas, is Spencer's cousin. The band is made up of a set of relations. And many great bands are built around families. Think of Devo who are two sets of brothers (Bob Castle, RIP). I have been reading about No Means No and the Wright Brothers who have made thirty years of great music. There is lots of promise for this band and the chemistry between them allows for creative dialogue to evolve. 

Luciano is an original member. Spencer is the self designated band leader. Lautaro is the most recent addition  not playing on the original demo. Thomas is the youngest and plays one of the most elaborate drum kits to ever set up in Studio 3. Spencer joked that Thomas plays the Neil Peart (Rush drummer) set ups. There was an extra floor tom, a double bass drum pedal, and loads of cymbals some of which were stacked on top of each other and others which had holes cut in then resembling Swiss cheese. Thomas also had a great story about being tutored by the drummer from Cryptopsy at drum camp over the summer. Thomas used to play in a prog metal band and Burial Permit is his first introduction into the punk world. 

Lots of these songs are the first times they are being committed in a studio. Some of these songs are re-recorded with the current line up. There is a YDI cover and a couple of improvised IDs. All of this was recorded and mixed by Ian Wilkinson from Big Brother. The songs are:

1. Writhe
2. Calloused
3. Less than nothing
4. Burial
5. Failure
6. Meat
7. Cycles
8. Privilege (which is now being called Willful)
9. Stray
10. Sleep
11. Out for Blood (YDI)
12. Truth
13. ID 1
14. ID 2

A video mix was edited together by Aldo from Punks and Rockers which will be posted up here soon. 

VCR studio 3 session

These studio 3 posts as of late have been pre-occupied with bad weather and tonight is no exception. A multi-waved snowstorm is to begin at midnight tonight, or so I keep hearing on the weather reports. At least it is not as cold as it has been. But I am still concerned about where I am meeting VCR. Fortunately two members played in Wrong Generation and have done a studio 3 session, so Matt and Scott know where the tower was on Tower Road (there are two). And I didn't recognize Scott with his hair so short. It was shoulder length the last time he was here. Still has the same baby face. As introductions are being done I learn that the keyboard player, Erica, just learned the songs over the last three days. The regular keyboard player goes to school in Montreal. That sounds like Julian from the Wastoids.

Having keyboards is unusual and we have only ever had a band with keyboards a few times with Tijuana Bibles and the Diodes and maybe Simply Saucer (although that might have just been a theremin). Anyway I wasn't sure what the sound was going to be like. I didn't need to worry because VCR rocked. And not just in some poor excuse for an adjective way. The band really pulled from garage rock inspirations citing some of Jay Reatard's projects as well as some bands from the current New York scene like Hand Wood and the Hammerheads or Coachwhips. I certainly heard a hi energy style of rock 'n roll that fuelled bands like the Mummies and New Bomb Turks. Scott was singing and playing guitar and really played up some of the drama. He is great at hyping a moment and helps you get right into their sound. There is neat interplay between him and Matt which is heard in the intro to "Scream". And he sounds like Doc Dart from the Crucifucks when he is singing.

The band also wore costumes. So the front line (Scott, MacKenzie, and Erica) sported bright red VCR shirts complete in the Blade Runner font. Scott had a bandana made out of police line tape. Mackenzie wore one of the brightest multi coloured dress I have ever seen. And Erica sported a mullet wig on top of her shoulder length hair. But Matt was the highlight nuzzled up into a yellow hazmat suit (can someone say Devo) and his hi hat was topped off with a rubber skull just waiting for a Shakespearean soliloquy.

The band played the following set of originals:

1. Pizza Party
2. Think Twice
3. One Trick Dog
4. BDSM
5. Fake Freaks Fuck Off
6. Dirty Girl / City Boy
7. Scream

VCR was also very good at doing IDs for the station and the show:

8. BDSM ID - The girls did a play on the Poly Styrene intro to "Oh Bondage".
9. Pizza Party ID - Matt does a British snooty accent with a dedication to D'Arcy.
10. Muzak ID - Matt played elavator music while Scott did his best New Yorker impersonation.

Wrong Generation had to play a show on Sunday so we did the interview after the session.

Aldo from Punks and Rockers caught the set on tape even though the lighting was a bit absent.



Speaking of tapes, VCR have a demo that you can download at their bandcamp page.

The Rezentments - Studio 3 session

It's beginning to feel like every Studio 3 session happens on a day of an extreme cold weather alert. It was bone shattering cold when I found the rest of the Rezentments in Jay's van. Jay is the drummer and has done a Studio 3 session with Spoiled Rotten. He didn't recognize the new location because he didn't realize we had to move from the house on St. George.

Ian Wilkinson, from Big Brother, was doing sound again and was waiting when we finally luged up the equipment. I should have taken a picture of Chris Crash's amp. It had an amazing leopard print which reminded me of the best punk dye job I envyed growing up. Maybe Chris did too. It was awesome looking.

 

I have never met Chris before, but his legend is large having played in many bands such as the Plague and Slander and the Hammer Boys and now Steel Town Spoilers. He also runs a punk store in Hamilton called Crash Landing. They have a facebook page if you are trying to track them down. Chris was good enough to talk with me when I was doing research on Slander and he has amazing stories so I was excited to meet him in person. I was not disappointed.

Jamie Problem had wet my appetite about his new band (The Rezentments) when he came in to be interviewed about Problem Children. And as he belted out songs I could hear some of the PC melodies and optimism in a shitty story. All lived experiences.

Chris had played in a band called the Hammer Boys with Ham'r Mark and they seem to be the core of the band. Mark brought in Mayhem Mark and you can hear the story as better told in this interview we did afterwards. The song "Anxiety" reminded me of "What we want is free" by Articles of Faith. The gang vocals remind me of Sham 69. There are metal flourishes throughout and the song "Dick" approached grind speeds. The band makes the case that they are a mixed bag of influences. The band is working on a studio recording, but here are some songs recorded at CIUT's studio 3.

1. Anxiety
2. Somedays
3. Friendly Fire
4. Hey Pig
5. Piece of Me
6. Photo Bomb
7. You Got Two
8. Crowd Control
9. Barton Street Hag
10. Yer What's Wrong
11. Dick
12. Try

The band also did some IDs for the show and the station based around their songs.

13. EXD ID
14. CIUT ID

And Aldo from Punks 'n Rockers video taped the session.

IDNS Studio 3 session

Matt joked about it being the coldest night of the year. It was pretty damn cold. Seems like a lot of Studio 3 sessions happen on bad weather days. To paraphrase DRI "I'd rather be recording". There was ice everywhere and trying to carry heavy amps over ice was a bit unnerving, but we did get all the equipnent upstairs. Sean, the singer was the only person I had not met before. Daren, the drummer, was in with Make No Gains not that long ago.  Matt had recorded with End Program at the St. George location and Preston did the same with Murdersquad T.O. So some of this was afamiliar and some of this was new. There was some nerves and there was some hearing issues, but as everyone thing was tweaking the session came together. 35 takes produced 11 songs. Ian Wilkinson did all tough work of sifting through all the takes. Here are the finals for you to hear or download:

1. Systematik
2. Without Warning
3. Destroyer of Worlds
4. Global Abuse
5. Eat. Shit. Die.
6. Consumption of Mass Quantities (C.M.Q.)
7. Mental Torpor
8. Unconscionable
9. Apotheosis of Carnage
10. Hierarchy of Power
11. Ad Nauseum

Please note that if you go to the archive.org page there are various formats for these songs.

I also asked Sean to do IDs for the station based on their songs so here they are:

12. CIUT ID
13. EXD ID

They stuck around to answer questions afterwards and you can hear the interview or check out the radio show where it is altogether.

Here is a video clip of the session filmed by Aldo from Punks `n Rockers:



To get in touch with IDNS you can reach them through their bandcamp site at http://idnscrust.bandcamp.com/. There is a contact section on the bottom right hand corner.

Dead Mouth studio 3 session

 

Dead Mouth are a band from Toronto that have been around since 2010. The band features members of some bands like Teethmarks and Black Faxes. They are pretty amazing and cover some of their influences like Agnostic Front, S.O.D., and Integrity. Although they take some of the heaviness from this scene they approach things with a critical mind which is refreshing to hear in a time of never ending whitewash. This is a session recorded by Ian Wilkinson in CIUT's studio 3. Here are the songs recorded:

1. Why Should I Care?!
2. Dead
3. Through Being Cool
4. Hipster Holocaust / Years and Years
5. Pull the Plug
6. PTS to SP
7. Losing Control
8. Everest
9. Iron Fist (Motorhead) - This took three takes and was done as a request because the band had just played a Motorhead set at the Punks is covers series
10. Victim in Pain (Agnostic Front)
11. Milano Mosh (S.O.D. from NYC)
12. Hipster Holocaust EXD ID
13. Losing Control CIUT ID
14. Losing Control CIUT ID dub

The band features Jesse Robinson on vocals, Martin Poulin on guitars, Dave Fenton on bass, and Joe Drebit on drums. They have two releases up on bandcamp which you can find at http://deadmouth667.bandcamp.com.

Punks 'n Rockers has captured a medley of songs from that session. They have a blog that you can go and see past sessions found at http://punksandrockers.com/blog/.

Snake Charmer studio 3 session

Tonight represents the return of Studio 3 sessions after a couple of months of them not coming together. Tonight also represents the return Ian Wilkinson, who recorded many sessions for us over at the old St. George location. This studio is a very different set up as sessions now take place in the broadcast studio thanks to the re-location of live programmers for a three hour period down to the map room studio. We have to move furniture around so that we can record in what is our week night and week end studio. The drum kit goes in the interview studio, the guitar amps get squeezed into the production studio, and everyone else stands in the main studio. Mics run to all the various instruments in a desperate attempt to capture a sound. But the equipment we use now is different then what ian is used to. And he lets me know a few times as he is nervous about figuring it out. I am too especially given how many times Ian brings it up. But he is able to get a sound although Snake Charmer's session does have the guitar very low in the mix. This was one of the lessons learned from tonight's session. But overall I am pleased with what we have. I feel it is comparable to other recordings Snake Charmer have done and I hope they are pleased as well.

This is the second try and recording Snake Charmer. We had to abandon a session last year around the same time due to Kelsey's hectic school schedule. This year everything seems to work out. I have met Kelsey when he came in for the Born Wrong session. I had also double checked with him when I ran into him at this year's Not Dead Yet at the show where they opened up for Left for Dead. And Kelsey had also sent me an e-mail so we were both working to make this session happen.

I met up with Ian to show him the studio and get him started on figuring things out. Then I ran downstairs to try and find the rest of the guys who I have never met. I was hoping that Kelsey would be with them. He wasn't. But as I looked through parked cars I noticed this guy with a few band buttons on his jacket lapel. I took a chance and knocked on the window asking him if he was in Snake Charmer. He was. This was Daniel and he played guitar. Tanner (bassist) and Ryan (drummer) had gone to look for the studio and had found it when Daniel got in touch with them. They came back to the van and we carried up some equipment. Daniel had also heard from Kelsey that his train had come in and he was making his way towards the station.

Just as we were getting upstairs, Aldo from Punks n Rockers had arrived. Everyone is unpacking and I am trying to give me attention to Ian so we can figure out the mic positioning and the how we can record this. He had levels, but no playback so we went with that. Jonathon helped us by e-mail to figure out some things.

And we had at it. The sound check had Daniel playing some more metalic riffs that reminded me of my old band Countdown to Oblivion.

The first song attempted was a song called "Don't Touch Me" which is a song about America although Kelsey described it as a song about trying to screw the Statue of Liberty. I am not sure how literal to take that description. This is where I reminded of how great of a drummer Ryan is. I saw Snake Charmer at Not Dead Yet in 2012 and had the same recollection during their set. I was further impressed by Kelsey's manic pace during the set as he took over the dance floor or tried to encourage people to take up the space.

Snake Charmer attempt two songs that run into each other known as Part 1 and Part 2. Working titles no doubt. These songs remind me of the Cursed. We come back to the songs. They are different songs and unconneted thematically. There is an interview the band does after the session where I ask them about all their songs.

The next song we get to is "Identity Crisis". Again I think back to my first band One Blood where I wrote a song called "Mid Twenties Crisis" which essentially is the same idea.

"I'm not responsible, You're not responsible" was written about Kelsey's frustration in dealing with OSAP, which is the province funding agency for tuition. When I learn it is about OSAP I think that CIUT is based on the University of Toronto campus and an expression like this is so suited for this campus broadcaster.  

A song about the frustration of activism inspired by the Arab Spring is next up. This is the song "Self-Immolate" which is also found on the new ep. And the ep just came out, which has an association to Andy Stammers and the Spearhead sound. But that is another story shared in the interview.

The next song starts out with Kelsey sending a fuck you out to Vic Toews. The song is called "Ball and Chain" and I came to find out that the song is about the omnibus privacy legislation that the Federal Tories tried to ram through with the line "If you don't stand for this legislation then you stand with the peadophiles". These dramatic and ridiculous comments are commonplace with the Federal Conservatives which may explain why the Prime Minister tries not to let his folks speak.  

Throughout the interview Kelsey made references to places in Hamilton that have similar names to places in Toronto. One of them was the song "Nothing West of Queen Street" which explains the divide in Hamilton that defines the city's industrial past.

"Snake Charmer Death Cult" also known as SC DC and I like the fact that it resembles AC DC.

The band gets talked into doing "Codex" which reminded me of DRI. Then the band goes and does a cover of "Reagnomics".

There are some station IDs that the band did and MP3 files for all of the above those can be saved over at https://archive.org/details/SnakecharmerStudio3Session.   

Here is a video clip shot by Punks 'n Rockers:

Sluts on 45 studio 3 session

 

It was a training day for sure. Marie came by from a co-op down in Riverdale to witness a session in action. Candy was down to figure out how to handle the video gear when Aldo is away for the next session. Thankfully she brought her camera with her because these are all her shots. I knew Shawna from the Arson session, but I didn't realize that I had also seen her play in Spotty Botty way back when. Sue Brazen, also known as "Powerpipes"for her ability to sing without a microphone had played in previous bands and her siging style reminds me a lot of Dan from the Black Donnellys. Kreag Deezkust used to play in a band with Shawna and has been a fixture in this band for a while now. And Matt Frazer answered a Craigslist ad for a drummer and got the spot when he answered correctly to the question "Are you a slut?" They refer to Matt as "Sticks". Matt is a long time listener to CIUT and Mods n Rockers in particular. Maybe he will start listening to this show.

Anyway to complicate things we were also expecting Ruidosa Inmundicia to come down and record some songs if they could make it away from their gig at Parts and Labour. Luckily that didn`t happen because we wound up being pressed for time. Unfortunately it didn`t happen because how many times do you get to record a band from Austria with a singer from Chile. Jonathon Hawkes was our sound engineer after doing a day of audio work already. He was pretty knackered, but that didn`t seem to affect the sound. The session got started late but we were able to record everything and finish on time.

We recorded the following songs:

1. Hung Up Drunk

2. Waltz Me Dirty

3. Go Away

4. (I Like you so) Let`s Party

5. 123 Dunn

6. From Home

7. Banging the Hammer

8. Traffic Cop

9. Crazy Train

10. Brown Liquor

11. Problem

12. Bored (The Troggs)

13. Flipping the Bird

 

We also recorded a bunch of IDs but you have to listen to the show to hear those, which is found on the next radio show post.

 

 

 

The band has an 'ep' which is really a digital download of a recording called "Steeped in Semen`` up at their bandcamp page.

 

Aldo and Candy videotaped the set for Punks and Rockers which will be posted up here in a couple of months. Check back.

 

 

Smooth Brain studio 3 session

Smooth Brain are a new band from Cleveland with a more garage influence to their sound. The band has just released their second ep called “One of Them” so much of that was recorded in this session, but it was a year ago in August when their first ep came out which was called “Fleas”. Both eps can be downloaded from the band’s bandcamp (smoothbrain.bandcamp.com/‎) page.

This was the first out of town band to play in studio 3 since we have moved into the Tower Road studio and that has more to do with the limitations on the use of the studio. The old St. George house gave us the flexibility of 24 hour access. And this band warned me ahead of time that they were going to be running late which had me nervous the whole time. And with the construction going on Tower Road I paced back and forth trying to find the band for an hour. But finally they pulled in on Hoskins, I spotted the Ohio licence plate and knocked on the window to introduce myself. I hurried them along as we were already behind the gun on time. Fortunately, Jon Hawkes had set up mics and the space so we were ready to go.

The band knocked out a set of material which involved the following list of songs:

1. One of Them
2. Dum
3. The Freezer
4. Mean Chimp
5. Living Room Cop
6. When I’m With You
7. Pointing At Me / Freaker Party
8. Bone 2 Pick
9. Ramones cover
10. EXD ID
11. CIUT ID

During the set I noticed that the band reminded me a lot of the Vapids. Then I realized that they shared a bass player lead singer format, but this is more coincidental. Nathan is also the band’s principle artist, and by that I mean, he draws a lot of the band’s artwork. He has a Robert Crumb influenced style and is responsible for both ep covers. But you can check out his artwork at http://www.nwardcomics.com/. Nathan’s brother, Jim plays guitar with their friend Mike. And the drummer is Kev who informed me that he used to play guitar in 9 Shocks Terror. That floored me. 9 Shocks is a band I love. The fact that he is playing a different instrument in this band is equally puzzling.

This session was videotaped by Aldo from Punks and Rockers. Below is an edit of some of the songs mentioned above.

We spoke about the band afterwards in an interview.

Ancient Heads Studio 3 session

 

I first heard about Ancient Heads when Demolition were in to record a session. Singer, Nathan Simpson, came in for the session and did some covers with

Demolition. Afterwards he told me about this well kept secret that took their name from a Beyond song. I was stunned that someone knew who Beyond was. At the time the band featured Matt La Forge on guitar and Jason O'Young on drums. I knew Jason from sessions with the Kill Decibel and Urban Blight, but his reputation proceeds him and he is a great guy to boot. Jason had already recorded a demo tape for the band called "Demo 2012, Volume 1" which is a three song recording of some old school sounding straight edge. Since then Emmett Morris from Demolition was recruited to play bass. After much tooing and froing with schedules and a prevously cancelled session this recording finally came together. The band was practised and Nate had even worked out introductions for each song. That was a first. Jon Hawkes recorded the session and the songs recorded include:

 

1. Intro for Old Dogs

2. Old Dogs / Movng On
3. Intro for Another Way
4. Another Way
5. Intro for Outrage
6. Outrage
7. Intro / Waste of Life
8. Waste of Life
9. Intro for Identity Shift
10. Identity Shift
11. Intro for Take Control
12. Take Control
13. Intro for No time for you
14. No time for you / Fight Back
15. Intro for For My Brothers
16. For My Brothers
17. Hip Hop ID
18. One Take EXD ID
19. Another Way ID
20. Ancient Heads ID 4

Aldo from Punks and Rockers also captured the session in video format, which will be uploaded soon.

Make No Gains studio 3 session

Make No Gains found their way to the local pub at Hart House and I just happened to find them while scouring the area not realizing that the playing field parking lot, which is the usualy meeting place for bands for these studio 3 sessions, was behind a construction fence. We lugged amps and equipment from Hoskins up to the 3rd floor and everyone was in good spirits, but Daren the drummer warned me that he had to be out of there early because he was jamming with his new band IDNS after the session. I was thinking this was going to be impossible to get done in a short period of time, but then D'Arcy showed up and he had seen the band at La Fraction's show a few weeks earlier. D'Arcy said the band is super tight and he would be surprised if they needed to do multiple takes of any songs.

Make No Gains are originally from Halifax but moved here because Cole, the singer and guitar player, got a job out here. The band came in tow, which is pretty incredible to do.

When we get upstairs, Vince (the bassist) realized he left his patch chords and guitar strap back at the rehearsal space. We found a patch chord and he sat down and played for the session even though he wanted to get up and move around. He made due.

The band has just recorded nine new songs with someone from End Program (R.I.P.). But these songs seem like they are on their recent recording "Power". Jonathon Hawkes enginneered and mixed the session which includes the following songs:

1. Dark Days
2. TV
3. Take Pause
4. Place Holders
5. Noose
6. Funeral Pyre
7. Born Alone, Die Alone
8. Dark Days, ID 1
9. Dark Days, ID 2
10. Funeral Pyre EXD ID

I tried to get the band to do a Cure song or two but they were pressed for time, Cole's voice was giving out, and they were just happy doing their own material.

Punks and Rockers put together a medley from this session of a couple of songs so you can witness the mayhem as it is played live.

Anti-Vibes studio 3 session

Tonight was a pretty eye opening session with a new local band that took me by

surprise. The band features Claire Whaatever on vocals, Sean Kennedy on guitar, Cam Hulbert on bass, and Clay Wilson on drums. The band embodies a pre-Damaged era Black Flag evidenced by a cover in the below set. They also employ some free spirit noise in the vein of Rudimentary Peni. The sum results in a heavy and punishing punk beat that backs unique twists on some traditional punk themes. Recorded by Jonathon Hawkes, this session includes the following songs:

1. Laughter House
2. Souled Out
3. Growth Hormone
4. War, On Drugs
5. Sex Doll
6. Tele-Evangelist
7. Amateur Eye Surgery
8. Marky Mark
9. Agent Cooper
10. Slaughter Track
11. Fix Me (Black Flag)
12. CIUT ID
13. CIUT ID 2
14. CIUT ID 3
15. EXD ID

We are honoured to be the first to record Anti-Vibes and you can download the session at bandcamp.

There is also some video which was filmed and editted by Aldo of Punks and Rockers.