Video-Johnny Paycheque on the way to the bank got stabbed and died (Live)
Live at the Barca Club in Winnipeg
Video – Who’ll Drop The Bomb
Video By Mike Maryniuk
Video – I See Greek Fire I Hear Robots VS. Machines
The Uniter Article on Mahogany Frog, Electro Quarterstaff and Ham – April 5th 2007
Sound test
Local prog rockers bring you their musical experiments
Aaron Epp
Mahogany Frog plays the Collective Cabaret on May 4th.
Mahogany Frog’s music has been described as progressive rock. So maybe it’s no surprise when guitarist/keyboardist Jesse Warkentin shows up to the interview wearing a shirt that says “I [Heart] Prague Rock.”
His band will play the Collective at the beginning of May with Electro Quarterstaff and Ham. Although the three bands are quite different in terms of genre, all three “challenge people’s ears a little bit, and give listeners something they might not always hear,” Warkentin says.
The “prog rock” label is one that reviewers have used to describe each of the bands. Originally conceived in 1998 as a psychedelic rock act, Mahogany Frog has spent four albums incorporating rock, electronica, jazz, late ’50s “ultra” lounge and ambient music to create their unique instrumentals. They are currently recording their fifth release with engineer Mike Petkau at MCM Studios. It will be released this fall.
Electro Quarterstaff released their first full-length album, Gretzky, on Willowtip Records this past October. The band’s three guitarists and one drummer line-up is “dedicated to the Almighty Riff,” writing thrash metal songs influenced by technical death metal, doom, grind and modern classical.
If one were to take the show at the Collective and play a game of “one of these things is not like the other,” Ham would be the one thing—they have a singer. Over the course of 11 years and five releases, including 2006’s Comrades Demand Conquest, the quartet has drawn from a wide-range of influences to create a sound they describe as “Zappa-meets-Povlo math rock.”
While all three bands create music many describe as less than conventional, they don’t do so in an effort to alienate listeners. If anything, the opposite is true. Warkentin describes his band as a group of “popular experimentalists.” In his opinion, a lot of music that’s challenging and obscure is written just for the sake of being challenging and obscure.
“Bands aren’t trying to make [experimental music] palatable,” he says. “I think you need to grip people before you take them for a loop, whereas a lot of bands just go straight to throwing people for a loop.”
Andrew Dickens of Electro Quarterstaff agrees. “You need hooks to draw and maintain people’s attention, or else they’ll walk out of the venue and never look back.”
For Ham, accessibility has come from writing cohesive, focused songs, as opposed to using every riff or idea they can come up with.
“We look at the song as one big vision, instead of many different small ones,” says singer/guitarist Jim Demos. “Our music has become more melodic for sure, but melodic in the Ham way. When you think about the song as a whole, it becomes more melodic. It becomes less about cutting and pasting.”
Pushing boundaries while grabbing the listener is key for all three bands. Another thing they have in common is a sense of humour.
“We don’t take ourselves too seriously,” says Dickens. Bandmate Drew Johnston agrees, citing it as part of the band’s appeal.
“I think people can relate to four guys having a good time, so even if they don’t like our music, we can get them in our corner, even if just for a minute.”
Demos says that Ham are deliberate about their music, but have fun at the same time.
“You can’t take yourself too seriously or you’ll get upset all the time,” he says.
Mahogany Frog will spend two weeks in April playing shows in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec. Warkentin is excited to play the Collective when his band returns to Winnipeg, as he has great respect for Electro Quarterstaff and Ham.
“They look like they’re having a huge amount of fun, and they’re not mean metal assholes,” says Warkentin, describing Electro Quarterstaff. And what about Ham?
“Their music is rooted in complete weirdness. They’re weirdos man, real weirdos.
“Just like us.”
See Mahogany Frog, Electro Quarterstaff and Ham at Collective Cabaret on May 4. Visit www.mahoganyfrog.ca, www.electroquarterstaff.com and www.hamtheband.ca.
Uptown Magazine article – January 26, 2006
A Streetbeatin Serving of Ham
Don Beat gets the lowdown on the new disc from the meat
Don Beat
As local legend would have it, during the pre-Ham-the-band days in giggy, piggy ’Peg, a wise friend of mine at the long-gone & legendary Alternative Cabaret during a Sunday social meat & eat did say to
another hungry pal filling his plate with pink pork by fork: “Hammin’ it up with the ham, huh ham?”
Sha-la-bam! So to muzak market came the hammies, the hemmies and the ha ha hawies. And lo, an idea of the bored came upon the creative of them:
Singer/guitarist Jim Demos (ex-bassist for Hellinacopter, current bassist for National Monument) explains that his band Ham is whatever you want it to be after detailing the creative kitchen origin of the band’s meaty moniker to moi in a very pleasant tone.
“Me and Pauly (lead vocalist/guitarist Paul Lafreniere) were playing in another band, called Billy, at the Rollin’ Stone Cabaret at jam night a long time ago,” Demos details. “And Paul came up with the name. ‘Let’s call it Ham.’
“It came to him because he was at work cooking and some cook said to him, ‘You know, Paul, you’re a good ham.’ We’ve had a bunch of meanings for it. Later we were into Ham as the second son of Noah. We were on that trip for a little while, but then someone asked me if we were a Christian band. We’re not.”
Jam on, jambon! It’s Ham’s 10th anniversary! See the same supersonic Hams who opened for the Pixies at the Burton Cummings Theatre play the Pyramid Cabaret on Jan. 28 with Medicine Missile, DJ Squint and Hot Live Guys.
Thee happy-birthday Hams will also celebrate the release of their third album, Comrades Demand Conquest, at this gig. Demos sez if U buy the new disc U get into the show for free. U Streetbeaters should slice into www.hamtheband.ca for more.
“Our first show was on Nov. 20, 1995, but we’re celebrating it in January. It was at the Franco-Manitoban Cultural Centre. I think it was during the Festival du Voyager. That was interesting because we had a horn section. We had a trumpet player and a trombone player. They practiced with us a lot, but they only played the one gig.”
The current Ham lineup features Demos (say it anyway U want) and Lafreniere with Devin McCracken on bass/vocals and the soon-to-be-departing Brad Piggot on skins.
“This is our third album coming out. The new songs are still a little more dissonant, but with songy changes, and there are more vocals on the new ones, too,” Demos says of the CDC CD before dicing into Ham’s recorded juice.
“We recorded our second album, Embassy de Volcanoes (2002), in Nevers, France. Our first CD was Boreal Imbroglio (1999), and we had two other cassettes before that. The first was a four-track demo recording called Word up From the Mothership (1996), and then Kneel Before Pachacutie (1997).”
Demos says Ham will perform new cuts Ministry of Truth, Sun Worshipping Thoughts Rise Above Her Head and Who Dropped the Bomb? at the Pyramid.
“The new songs on the album sound like the retaliation of a thousand starved and sex-deprived barbarians,” he adds before informing that he posted that very description on Ham’s Myspace Blog.
“One comment about us that I said, that Devin said was good was, ‘You either love it or hate it; if you hate it, you’re just going to love to hate it.’”
Ham it up!
Streetbleats — Thar she blows! If U need another sand-bagging tidal wave of sutured experimental sounds, experience The Floods on Jan. 28 at The Annex, 594 Main St. It’s a self-described “12-movement work of art; exploring site, sound, image and randomness featuring: fletcher pratt/karl ponto/sam koulack/greg hanec/nathan zahn & sarah-lynne otsuji.” Doors R at 9:30 p.m., experimentation undamns at 10:30 p.m…. Like a virus they attacked! Those busy kids over at the 3rd Generation crew have planned a gaggle of all-ages CD-release gigz to cele-flaunt the release of yet another 3rd Gen compilation disc. This one’s got 36 bands, and it’s dubbed We Don’t Die, We Multiply! Day 1 features The Farrell Bros., The Brat Attack, JAW & SPRC at the WECC on Jan. 28 at 7 p.m. Day 2 has High Five Drive, Burden of a Decade, The Perms, Doc Brown, 3 Day Binge, Angel Lust, Abstract & TNF hitting the Fort Garry CC on Jan. 29 at 6 p.m. The higher ticket price gets U Streetists a free comp CD.
Got some news to bleat? No attachment treat! Keep it textly sweet! Fire tips to Don at Street Beat! Streetbleep@ hotmail.com.