My Just Deserve: Everything Hardcore, Emo and Alternative Music-related: punk

Showing posts with label punk. Show all posts

Saturday, 14 January 2023

Dead Tired

Photo by Nick Ball

Dead Tired are the more hardcore punk-influenced offshoot of vocalist George Pettit's Alexisonfire (alongside the other notable Alexisonfire offshoot, Cunter, who also have members of Moneen). Signed to New Damage Records, they take inspiration from everybody from Iggy Pop to D.R.I. The Hamilton, Ontario outfit has released 3 full-length including the avant-gardesque, bonecrushing 'Satan Will Follow You Home' from 2022. The band currently consists of Pettit (Alexisonfire) on vocals, Theo McKibbon on drums, Marco Bressette (Threat Signal) and Franz Stefanik on guitars, and Nick Ball on bass. Former drummer Chris Whetstone also plays in Born Wrong.

The band formed after Alexisonfire announced that they'd be going on hiatus, and they and released their debut self-titled album on April 7th, 2015. In the years following, while balancing other bands and personal life (including George becoming a professional firefighter), they would go on to release a handful of singles leading up to 2019's Full Volume.

Come 2020, where things would start slowing down, Dead Tired were featured in the Amazon Prime show 'The Boys' (Season 2, Episode 5) as a band performing live on stage. Just a fun fact about that show, it is completely filmed in Toronto, Canada, so it's nice to see them get bands that are local.

Fast forward to 2022, where they would hop on bills such as Past Present Future Fest and Anti-Fest, a festival/show held by punk rock act Anti-Flag, along with Cancer Bats and more. They also played a show with L.S. Dunes, which was their first show in 3 years.

With influences ranging from thrash metal and hardcore punk, to a more avant-garde "cosmic/noise punk" heavily influenced by the likes of Kyuss and Cave-In on 2022's Satan Will Follow You Home, Dead Tired is an essential band for any fan of any heavy Canadian band, whether it be Alexisonfire, Moneen, or Fucked Up.

Photo by Nick Ball

Below are some links in which you can support them by listening to their music or buying merch. Cheers!

Wednesday, 11 January 2023

Co Komono

Photo credit: Mikey Jablonski Photography

Co Komono

Co Komono is another band that is local to me, in the Winnipeg, Canada area. They are a 5-piece pop punk group who are influenced by a varied range of genres, including easycore, deathcore, indie rock and math rock. They have seemingly coined the subgenre term, called 'bummercore'. Active members are Jordan Skelly on vocals, Zach Skelly (also in Steady Glow and A Grizzly Fate) and Caitlin Brakel (formerly Epirus/Crisis Averted, currently also in Lowlife) on guitars, Nick Paluck (also in Jupiter Meltdown/Guilty Sleep) on bass and Liam Sewell (also in Jupiter Meltdown/Seweller/Guilty Sleep) on drums.

Co Komono was formed in late 2017 as a project between Zach, Liam (who went to the same high school) and Nick, under the name 'Memorial Brigade'. Derek Westra would join on guitar in early 2018, followed by Zach's 14-year-old sister Jordan, in the summer of 2018. Zach and Jordan come from a musical family, with their father Paul Skelly being the lead vocalist and guitarist of hard rock band X-Engine-X, who have notably opened for Godsmack on a Winnipeg date.

Memorial Brigade would play their first show in late 2018 and released multiple singles such as 'Kasper' in 2019. They would later release an EP called 'Fall of The Marginal' in 2020.
Despite the world as we know it changing around this time, they persevered and started writing more music for a possible full-length, which will be released this year. They played a few more shows under the Memorial Brigade moniker when live music returned in 2021, notably the Manitoba Loud Music Awards and Cowboys Emo Night, but announced that they would be changing their name to Co Komono in January of 2022.
In June of 2022 they announced that they would be parting ways with Derek Westra. Caitlin Brakel, who had been playing in Epirus and Lowlife at this time was announced as their new member.

Over their short career, they have played many stages big and small, including Bankside Music Festival (alongside previously mentioned X-Engine-X) and The Burton Cummings Theatre (TJ’s Gift Foundation’s Rockin’ for Choices concert). They are a local music scene staple and have been one of the tightest bands in the community - especially as of current.

Co Komono is simply put, a talent powerhouse. The experience they have between all their former and current bands - e.g. Epirus, Jupiter Meltdown, A Grizzly Fate - makes the band super tight, very unique to the scene and is a pleasure to watch live. They have big things including a full length coming in 2023. I would like to thank Jordan Skelly, lead singer of Co Komono, for helping me write this.

Below are a few links in which you can use to support them, and follow their consistent posting schedule where they will be announcing new shows and music very soon.

Here is one of their awesome merch designs designed by Tengkorak Kucing.

Jeromes Dream

Credit: Johnathan Velazquez Photography

Jeromes Dream

I would imagine Jeromes Dream has a better writeup on Sophie's Floorboards than I could ever do justice, but if it isn't already clear enough - Jeromes Dream is one of the most unique sounding bands of the past 30 years, in my honest opinion. You have to understand, at the time they were coming up (the late 1990s), everybody was trying to sound like an Earth Crisis or a Hatebreed - but Jeromes Dream was NOT trying to emulate absolutely anybody (in the words of Jeff Smith)
Jeromes Dream is a band I hold in serious HIGH regard as one of the best creators of heavy music of all time as far as sounding nothing like their contemporaries go - along with Touché Amoré, Full of Hell, Converge, Lightning Bolt and any Mike Patton project. The thing is that, unless you were part of the very niche late 90s-early 2000s screamo scene, you may have no clue who these guys [Jeromes Dream] are, or at least have no idea what their music sounds like past my constant rambling about them. Seriously, Jeff Smith is one musician I'd love to interview.
Jeromes Dream is Jeff Smith on vocals and bass, Eric Ratensperger on drums and Loma Prieta's Sean Leary as a guitarist after their reunion in 2018. Nick Antonopoulos was their guitarist for the band for the majority of their career but parted ways recently. Initially formed as a 3 piece in Connecticut, they were active from 1997 to 2001, and again from 2018 to the present. Members now live in California and Connecticut.

With that said, what am I talking about? Surely this band can't be more special than Orchid, I Hate Myself, Indian Summer, Heroin, Antioch Arrow, etc, right? The issue is I don't how to explain it, but Jeromes Dream just really resonates with me differently, not to say Orchid doesn't (and the Orchid/Jeromes Dream split is BADASS, by the way), but it's just a different feeling for me. It really feels like I'm saying a whole lot of nothing, so I'll get into the tofu of it. On their early material, Jeff Smith has a delivery that I can only call a 'high pitched chicken shriek'; Jeff Smith screaming at the top of his lungs with some emotionally straining, angry, traumatic lyrical content to boot. See: the lyrics to 'It's More Like A Message To You'

"We had one night, not enough time
We all make mistakes, there's nothing I can do
It's just a part of life, welcome to my life. This is me."

On the bands' "later" material, specifically 'Presents' (their last album before their breakup), the instrumentals are far more mathcore and post-hardcore influenced, and Jeff Smith completely changed his vocal style to a rawer, more abrasive "shout" (think of Converge/Lightning Bolt vocals) and his lyrical content about... a lot of stuff. I can't quite tell what but it's definitely interesting. That's another thing that kept me hooked about this band, was the mystery of their lyrics later in their career. Here's one of the most enjoyable sets of lyrics, from the song 'Double Who? Double You!'

"Georgie's girl likes to fuck!
She loves it! Really does!
Her green grass is blue-green, green grass.
Doin' the Dew Dude's dew dude!"

Jeromes Dream has released 4 studio albums (3 if you don't include the remaster of Presents that was released in 2021), with much of their discography produced and engineered with Kurt Ballou from Converge. They have also released many splits (notably with Orchid and Usurp Synapse). Everything they recorded up to their 2001 breakup is on a compilation entitled "Completed 1997-2001", easily found on streaming services and Bandcamp, give that a listen if you can. It starts off with Presents and goes into their earlier stuff, into some unreleased material. There are quite a few mathcore and screamo-influenced gems which helped pave the way for a lot of other chaotic bands in the 2000s-2010s, having themselves been influenced by these kinds of bands that came before them, e.g. Garden Variety, Shellac, Sleepytime Trio and Honeywell.

Jeromes Dream are the result of three emotional, traumatic east coast kids who just wanted to make some chaotic music to get their stress out. They have persevered through failing relationships and a "sudden" break-up - as Jeff Smith puts it - but with the addition of guitarist Sean Leary, they continue to tour to this day, supporting post-hardcore bands Pianos Become the Teeth and Touché Amoré as of recent - bands that they themselves influenced.