For Those /\bout to Rock, !! Salute You!

Is playing in a band really all it’s cracked up to be in this town?

By Jay Schreiber

Ha you ever heard of the Karmachanix or Civil Ruin? How about Big John
Bates or SpréadEagle? If any of these names sound familiar, you might know a
thing or two about the Vancouver music scene. Oh, to be a struggling musician in
Vancouver.

To be a gigging musician in this city, you need to be prepared to dedicate
almost all your time to getting a band together and putting in lots of hard work to
get the group up and off the ground. In most cases, the scenario is the same: get
fans, get signed, get rich; but things don’t always work that way.

A big factor in achieving success as a gigging musician is the genre of music a
band plays. For example, Vancouver has a pretty good punk and metal fan base and
quite a few decent venues. The venues range from hole-in-the-wall crack shacks on
the Downtown East Side, such as the Balmoral, to larger stages such as at the Plaza
Club. The downtown core has a decent bar scene from Granville Street to Hastings,
but radio rock also thrives at places like The Roxy. Pop-rock bands can make it in
Vancouver based on their ability to impress Chad Kruger (head of 604 Records, the
Lower Mainland’s biggest supplier of Nickelback knock-off bands). Bands like that
are usually the ones that end up getting radio play—if they are of the chosen few.

This leads me to my next point: radio play. Most of the airwaves around the
GVRD are clogged with Top 40, soccer mom rock or lame music, promoting
Chad’s latest investment. Occasionally you will find a few good indie stations or
90’s alt-rock of yesteryear, but radio play is usually saved for the lucky few who
have been signed with a record company. In today’s high-tech era, demos, EPs and
MySpace help promote a band’s music more than any other medium.

Your band has to be good before any recognition comes, though. Practicing
is always time consuming and in the end, does it really pay off if your band flops?
There lies an intangible, endless black hole that makes up a lot of the work that
comes with being in a band. Practice spaces and recording studios such as Charts in
Burnaby or Bullies in New West are full of local bands that rehearse frequently and
gig very rarely; the start of what could have become something profitable usually
ends up not working out in the end.

The guys in local metal band, Last Suicidal Decision (or LSD) know exactly
what it’s like to be a struggling band in Vancouver’s music scene. LSD has been
around for the last six years and they’ve gigged all over Vancouver (including
the pleasure of playing the Croatian Cultural Centre). The band recently finished
up their full-length album and let me join them on the set of their music video

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shoot for their new single, “The Cell.” The song compares drug addiction to being
trapped in a cell, and features the band rocking out amidst a plot and storyline.

The group has had experience headlining Tom Lee Music Hall as a part of
the Supernova Battle of the Bands, which is where I remember first seeing them.
Before preliminary shooting began, I sat down with all the members of Last
Suicidal Decision to get their take on what it’s like being a rock band in Vancouver.

“It’s fucking
hard!” said Brad, lead
guitarist for the group.
“It’s hard to find that
spot on the edge where
you can do everything
comfortably.”

Brad relates his
style to that of Alexi
Laiho from Children
of Bodom and likes
adding complexity to
“shut up and listen”
riffs.

Pete, rhythm
guitarist for LSD,
grew up listening to
everything from Ozzy
Osbourne to Santana,
and eventually got
into punk rock and
grunge. Pete chose to
play metal because of
its diversity and his
ability to let out any
anger in a non-violent
way.

“I’m just sick
of seeing bands do
nothing on stage,” lead

 

Continued pg13