The Scope

Hola!

It’s been a while, and I think I’ve just about gotten over my post-vacation depression, although looking at that mountain of crap outside my window I don’t know if that will ever be the case. If you want to see what I was up to two weeks ago then look here and see why I’m bitter and miserable now. Anyway, I got a lot of stuff I’m planning on covering this month, but before I do that I should clear out some videos I’ve been sitting on for too long.

Since I started blogging and reviewing albums for The Scope a few months ago I’ve started suffering from this irritating condition called pitchforkshitbagatitis where I get so burned out from the relentless parade of indistinguishable, shitty new indie bands that I just want to murder things randomly. Lately they all seem to be in competition to see who can be the most watered-down, boring version of The Jayhawks possible, in hopes of getting prime rotation on CBC Radio 3 (fuck that station!)

This is part of the reason I take so much relish in going to acts like Wax Mannequin. Despite the best efforts of professional douchebag music snobs like myself, his work remains nearly impossible to categorize. It’s even impossible to come up with a short list of sort of similar artists.

From the mysterious and magical land of Hamilton, Ontario, Wax Mannequin has been spreading his scruffy, unabashedly melodramatic, throaty cabaret prog-punk-pop (that’s the kinda worthless genre description you get when you try to break down his music) for the better part of the decade. I remember first coming across his music back in 2003 when I used to terrorize the Zed TV website and I became pretty addicted to his song “Message From The Queen“. Since I moved to St John’s around the same time I’ve gotten the privilege of seeing him play here a few times.

I’m used to seeing him as a one-man band with a complicated looking soundboard pumping out backing tracks he would play along to. He would also be covered in roses, which he said “come out of my skin when I get excited. They are troublesome so I throw them to the audience, but it hurts and they keep growing back.”

On this most recent tour on the province he had no roses, sadly, but he gathered up a terrific backing band made up of all-star musicians from across Newfoundland. With Neil Targett and Paul Lockyer from Corner Brook (I’m from CB myself and Kuroda were a huge deal back in the day, if I had video camera/time machine combo I would go back and film them for the blog… I would do this after killing Hitler, naturally) along with Mark Bragg and Alison Corbett from ol’ Sin City. The show was deadly, and, as usual, I played the role of the dork at the front of the stage with his camera out throughout the entire thing. Here are the videos.

A classic Wax track: “Tell The Doctor” from his album “The Price.” “He cooks Christ’s medicine in his cock”… is that really what he’s saying?

This is my favourite song off his new album Saxon called “Something to Hide.” You can read my review of the album here. I liked it a lot.

And here’s two slightly mellower songs from Saxon in one video, “Broken Friends” and “End Of Me.”

Just because I bring the shows to you doesn’t mean you should stay at home. Get out of the house, you lazy bastards!

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