Hail to the Comp!
Winnipeg Riot! set to become a piece of Winnipeg’s music history
Don Beat

“You know that spark you get when you watch Night of the Living Dead or Spider Baby or Dr. Strangelove, or when you listen to the Weirdos or Zolar X?” asks musical genius/Umpires and Horribles vocalist Andy O.

“I hope that’s some of the drive behind keeping everything going in music. I was lucky enough to jump on this musical roller coaster in the mid-’80s. It was here long before me, and I hope it’ll still be rolling long after.

“The real flashy melodic stuff today lacks originality and imagination. It lacks that spark that I’m talking about. If that kind of spark or excitement was easy to attain it wouldn’t be so great! Give me a rickety old roller coaster any day — one with bolts that need tightening.”

The rail-track-sparking Midnight Show by The Horribles kix off the Winnipeg Riot! compilation album, and if any of U Streetbeaters have seen The Horribles perform U know what Andy O. is talking about. Energy! Hi-energy, kick-ass rawk!

“I turned 32 last week, and I’ve never touched a drop of alcohol or drugs, and that feeling you get from seeing a good band or a great movie is what it’s all about,” Andy sez. “I hope that’s what some people got from seeing The Horribles play.”

About a hundred and eleventeen weeks ago I was sportily spouting that we needed more local compilation albums to document the past and current Winnipeg waves of underground noise, p-rock ’n’ roll and whatever the hell else U genre-mulching Streetbeaters wanna dub the stuff U just gotta hear ’n’ see to help pass the time.

Since then the 3rd Generation Crew has released two comps featuring local and out-of-town Canadian bands — these are fine, but they don’t focus on Winnipeg chiefly, so my wish was only partly granted.

Now along comes the eagerly anticipated Winnipeg Riot! album that attempts to both foist the past and document the present crop of rawkin’ bands that usually gig(ged) at the Royal Albert. Indeed the album’s cover art depicts a frightening interior view of that real venue’s pillar-blocked stage from the bartender’s perspective.

About half of the 18 bands on the release are either on hiatus or defunct: Horribles, Mohosimrots, Switchblade Sisters, Squareheads, Fever Breaks, Buried in the Backyard, Sleepless Knights, Surfadelics, Turnbull AC’s and — Eeeeghad! — Dead by Dawn (or Kyle & the Slaughters). The others are either outgrowths of these or are influenced by ’em to an obvious degree.

Just like anything anywhere, it’s hard to totally see eye-to-eye with choices on the album, and when I yammered with Riot! compiler/artist Darren Merinuk about this last summer, he told me he included the first 18 bands that agreed to be on the thing. He also explained that the project was supposed to be an LP’s worth of local bands that would also be released as a CD. That’s why Winnipeg Riot! clocks in at a little over 40 minutes instead of double that amount.

Any way U slice ’n’ dice it, all these bands — ’cept the globe-gallopin’ Farrell Bros. — are seeing worldwide release on disc for the first time!

Since the LP project was scrapped, we are left with a short disc that serves as a fine calling card for the bands on it that are still gigging regularly: Insaniacs, Quiffs, Farrell Bros., American Flamewhip, Hot Live Guys and Rockadoras. The disc is also installment uno of what could probably end up being a series of Winnipeg Riot! volumes. Merinuk told me that there could easily be a Vol. 2 on the California-based Dionysus Records should sales merit it, so those of U bewildered by the acts chosen for the initial disc should get ready to either participate or moan about Vol. 2.

Better yet, do yer own comp — cuz we need more!

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