Thunder from the Underground
Don Beat shares fond street-level memories from 2005
Don Beat

This week I’ll swappity exchange the usual Street Beat lowdown about the very unusual happenings in our amazingly unpaved street-level muzak gravel fling, and I’ll gushily gush instead — with pointed observational underpinnings — about what made 2005 so extremely juicy.

So here it is in all its no-particular-ordered magnificence — some of the top Streetbeatin’ situations this year, whether it be the Multiple Partners opening for Neil Hamburger or Venetian Snares, Diademegon or Under Pressure slashing thru yet another meaty set. These following four moments made my and many head(s) spin:

1) Quiffs destroy live and make a record, and it’s a damned great one at that — They started off as a joke band. That mutated into a very unfunny, crappy, seen-it-and-heard-it-before mix of cover-song ineptitude ad nauseam, with a weird blend of self-penned hopelessness. Then front-gal shrieker/guitarist Erica Jacobson left town and thankfully returned with a heightened sense of shock irony.

This plus hard-hitting newish drummer Alana Mercer, with a solid core of zanyish playing from bassist Meghan Flett & guitarist Gil Oswald all helped to jell and congeal a tighter and ballsier Quiffs’ sound. It’s captured for all of U to gasp to on their debut self-titled disc — which has not left the indie-radio charts since being foisted in late August on a very skeptical-as-usual local-music intelligentsia.

All stand aghast. Their live show is even better, as was proved at the recent Juliet and the Licks gig at the Pyramid. Quiffs blew ’em away.

2) Ruffnecks add new member and explode 10 fold! — A year and a half ago the Roughnecks were at a crossroads. They had lost their bassist and had almost fallen apart until bassist/vocalist Norm Simm joined up. The respelled Ruffnecks released their debut disc in May and have been playing almost every other week, barrelling along like a keg o’ Standard streakin’ down Garbage Hill ever since.

They added production guy/multi-instrumentalist J. Tode a few months back, their Albert gigs have become world class, and they’ve had some indie-label interest, too, but selfless guitarist/vocalist Ben Giroux says the band is too crass for most imprints thus far. That’s not surprising with a real snotty band such as the Ruffnecks. The aura that attracts label folk is the one that eventually repels them, and it can hang the band in the end.

In October and early November the Ruffnecks had great success with two gigs Norm put on at the Red Road Lodge. Their obliterated opening set for Nashville Pussy at the Pyramid was a sober eye-softener. J. Tode’s string solos are exhilarating flirts with disaster and pedestrian charm, and Pat Dunce is like nobody else — and that’s just the way it should be. It’ll be interesting to see what they’re going to do to outdo themselves in 2006.

3) Reclaim the Streets 5: Scott Turner and the Red Road Lodge — It was a celebration of the maintenance of individual freedom organized by Cal 3 Records co-owner Scott Turner, and it marked the fifth time the young entrepreneur put on this festival that was founded purely as a positive outlet for Turner’s own frustration after being knocked around by thugs while walking down a Winnipeg street. The gig went off without a hitch at the hitherto unlikely venue of the New Occidental — since revamped, ultra-amped and indie-stamped as an all-ages artists’ haven called the Red Road Lodge. The creed is: No booze just street beatin’ dues with a creative muse.

The event featured a real wild bill of The Resistance; Quiffs; the original lineup of The City Champs; Burden of a Decade; The Squareheads with The City Champs’ drummer, who has since joined the ’Heads; Hollowground; a rare gig by the amazing Reality’s End; First Strike; 1920; No Foolin’; Under Pressure; Insaniacs; Shock ’Em Dead; The Detentions and MurderDeathFight. Plus, at the Collective: KENmode, Mung and Mandatory Death. Concurrently at Mondragón the fest featured Pipi Skid, John Smith, Gruf the Druid and the Break Bread Crew. There were a bunch of out-of-town acts as well, and all shows cost only a measly buck to get into and there were organized safe-walks to the bus stop after each show. Un-Be-Lieve-Able!

4) The first Summer Solstice Sircus celebration at St. Norbert Ruins — Those never-say-never experimentalist-noise-as-ambient-art music cronies known as The Absent Sound have a brand new album out on No List Records, and I’ll blather more about that in an upcoming S-Beat, but for now I wanna harken back to mid-June and presently explain about their debut Summer Solstice gig at the Ruins.

It was a beautiful moonlit night, and the sound system kinda stunk — no matter what Hi-5 Greg did to tweak the PA, them vocals were cracking and popping. But the sets turned inside out by Pipi Skid with Gruf and DJ Hunnicutt, Ham, Mahogany Frog, and The Absent Sound were other-worldly and strangely reminiscent of that long-lost local love: Corefest!

The Ruins gig was a success on many levels: the crowd was peaceful, the security was polite, the hospitality was fine, and the music was inspiring. In fact, the still of the night might have brought out the best of all the acts, and those Fire Pixies were hot stuff as usual. U can catch an indoor reprisal of another Sircus at a different solstice when The Absent Sound, D. Rangers, Pete Samples, National Monument and a tidal wave of costumed others have their druthers at the Pyramid when the ElementSircus rolls onto the club’s sand-filled stage on Dec. 21.