Tag: Punk Rock

[From the Archives] From Baseline to Big in Japan – Tennis Pro, The Interview

Big in Japan
VOD (Amazon link)Big in Japan

By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

Originally published in 2015 on Vivascene
This interview I conducted has since disappeared.
Revised edition June 2019

Ask any musician, and you will hear that breaking into the music scene is tough. To get the recognition that matters is even harder. Seattle-based band, Tennis Pro, found that they had to take their act to another country because in the good ol’ United States of America, their local music scene was quite stagnant.

“I think that Seattle, after the 90’s explosion [with grunge music], has struggled to find its identity musically,” said drummer Sean Lowry. In his opinion, the city had fallen into a melancholy folk-rock wasteland.

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Supernatural Sounds to Rock Out To for Halloween

Big in JapanBy Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

Music and All Hallow’s Eve—throughout the years, many bands have offered hits like the Monster Mash or solo acts, featuring Thriller. They are goofy fun. With rock musicals, they go the extra mile and tell a story. I made a list years ago of productions that one can see theatrically, but I got to wondering: what about those albums that do not have a stage show attached to it?

Listeners can listen to one track or hear the entire album to understand each song in a  greater context. This list I offer is certainly worth cranking up the All Hallow’s Eve season, especially for those in the mood for something slightly different from the mainstream. In no particular order:

Iced Earth
Night of the Stormrider (1991)

Heavy Metal dominates this list for good reason. It’s the perfect musical genre to tell recount tales of the occult, especially with the type of sonic melodies heard. It’s not to say other genres or the music of Mozart can not do the same; the composition of how the notes are organized, the way the lyrics are presented and how it works in harmony (or disharmony) says everything.

When the story focuses in on a man feeling betrayed, that is the making for a decent plot. He’s turned his back on Faith, and the elemental forces of hate use him to destroy the world. In the case of Amadeus (the movie deserving honourable mention in this list), Antonio Salieri did everything he could to torment his foe but ended up haunted by his deeds instead.
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Nanaimo’s The Body Politic News, Music Videos and More

The Body Politic
By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

Nanaimo’s punk-rock band The Body Politic has definite plans to continue touring following the release of their latest album, Contr:addiction. After a small and successful Vancouver Island run last month following the launch on November 17th, plans are not being stalled as Christmas nears. A larger show to play throughout Canada is planned and it should start as early as Spring 2018. For people who can not wait, the holiday season is here to offer to those rockers a digital download of this album. Holiday shoppers can ‘Send as gift’ this album on their webpage here.

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Examining the Juke Joints with Danger Boys: Punks in Osaka, a Preview

Trying to discover this Japanese punk rock scene has been described by some music journalists as hard to penetrate and it’ll take a documentary like Danger Boys: Punks in Osaka to penetrate.

Danger Boys DVD

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

Murahachibu and Zuno Keisatsu are two Japanese punk rock bands who helped form the punk rock music scene during the 70’s. Although the former shifted focus, and the other remained, to consider how their sound evolved to what is heard today, trying to discover what works has been described by some music journalists as hard to penetrate and it’ll take a documentary like Danger Boys: Punks in Osaka to break down this scene.

Theis world, according to a 2014 article in the Japan Times, is “notoriously difficult to penetrate. What’s there is said to be tucked away in the basements and upper floors of anonymous buildings, often in seedy parts of town, where the neighbours will be less likely to raise complaints against noise and loitering, with websites that update schedules only a few days before the actual events and that rarely link to any of the artists performing, live venues are like a hidden world open only to those who know the secret handshake.”

Seattle-based pseudo-punk band Tennis Pro entered this realm when they hit the road less travelled to gain recognition in their documentary Big in Japan (2014), but to penetrate Japan’s current scene within a world buried in another one is just as tough to uncover. Enter Danger Boys: Punks in Osaka, a documentary by Nick Romi (director) which is set to release December 11, 2017. This video can be pre-ordered at foreverunholystore.bigcartel.com and early birds will get a limited edition poster for a fantastic price of $10. This video will also be available on select streaming video services on the same day.

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Punk Rock’s Legacy is Defined with The Damned, A Documentary Review

thedamnedposter
now available for purchase on AmazonBig in Japan

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)
To be published in an upcoming issue of Absolute Underground Magazine 

The Damned: Don’t You Wish That We Were Dead is a fascinating documentary that looks at the rise, decline and resurrection of the United Kingdom’s seminary lords of the punk rock scene. They helped give rise to it mid to late 70’s, and the people they influenced included Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders — who played with The Damned albeit briefly before finding her own road to success.

Although I would have liked to hear more from her brief stint, many well-known names were interviewed about the influence this band had back then. They were very introspective. Appearances from Billy Idol, Lemmy, Son Letts, Nick Mason of Pink Floyd, Mick Jones of The Clash and Clem Burke of Blondie are just some of the names who lend their insights to what this group represented. Although they never attained the global success that bands like the Sex Pistols attained, that may be in part to the image the founding members — Dave Vanian, Brian James, Captain Sensible and Rat Scabies — wanted to project. They seemed rather schizophrenic early in their inception.

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[VFF ’16] “Forever is [Not] a Long Time” to see The Smalls Reunited Documentary Review

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

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Victoria Film Festival 2016
Fri 12th 6pm
Sun Feb 14, 4pm
The Vic Theatre
808 Douglas St,
Victoria, BC

In 2014, the Albertan punk-metal-country band The Smalls reunited for a true farewell tour and for directors Trevor Smith and John Kerr, they nicely captured the rawness and love Western Canada has for this group in their documentary The Smalls: Forever is a Long Time. Through candid interviews with the band and industry observers, viewers come to understand where each member has come from, where are they now, and why they decided to perform one last time. Whatever the reason was behind the break-up, the explanations are alluded to instead of spelling it out point-blank.

This documentary does not focus on the negative. It sweetly looks at the positive. This product also nicely works as a primer to those who have not grown up with The Smalls. Not everyone was exposed to their music when they were at their height in the 90’s and to follow the scene means being a die-hard enthusiast.

In what this movie presents is a very great look at their work from their rise to their sudden disappearance in the scene. A few conversations include why they did not do as well in Eastern Canada, and as for whether they had a world-wide influence, that’s for the fan to decide. Not every detail is spelled out for viewers to take note of, but at least in terms of how they ended it, the framing of this narrative is on the nose. The Smalls were indeed a phenomenon and when the music ends, what they have given are fantastic, lasting memories. That’s no easy feat.

4 Stars out of 5