ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT

Bigmouth Strikes Again: The Maynards Need Love Too

Kevin Lalonde, OP Columnist

lain W. Reeve, Kid at Heart

This week’s website: |

“Ab, childhood innocence. Remember

Girls never liked me when I was a teenager. Sure, I had a couple of girlfriends through high school, but by and large, I wasn’t such a hot ticket item with the chicks. So it was with a mixed sense of bitterness and joy that I recently listened to the latest effort by Halifax’s famed dance/rock band, the Maynards, titled Break Out the Make Out, recently released by King Amos Productions.

The band proudly describes their essence as a thematic holy trinity of Sci Fi, dancing, and shooting their mouths off. Not big fans of parallelism, sure, but they definitely make a great, poppy, upbeat and dancey rock album. Which is why BOTMO is such a wicked LP. For such a fun band to base an entire album (which only clocks in at around 25 minutes—the era of the two-minute rock song has returned) around the teenage ritual of making out, sex, girls and boys, and loneliness, it’s just too quirky to handle. Except it’s not. It’s perfect. It’s perfect dance rock. Fun, energetic, and catchy, with none of the riff-driven nonsense plaguing rock these days, Break Out the Make Out is one of the most enjoyable albums I’ve heard all year. Sure, it’s been a short year so far, but you know what I mean.

Rotating male/female vocals by guitarist Heath Matheson and bassist Kristina Parlee add an interesting feeling of dialogue that so often happens between boys and girls in their youth...

I’m sorry, I just have to. “Naked naked naked you were naked in my bed.” Goddamn that’s some catchy, catchy shit.

And that’s just a perfect example of what happens when you

listen to this album. Spontaneous booty-shaking to the hand-clap choruses of “Amherst Flight,” conversation-interrupting exclama- tions of “I think I just wanna score!” in “Naked,” or even just a funky rock-out to the bass-heavy chunks of “Hot Shane;” they’re all common occurrences when BOTMO pumps its lo-fi rock on your stereo.

And none of it’s really all that dirty either; despite the way I make it sound. It’s just...fun. It’s the kind of album I could have seen myself listening to on my discman as I sat alone in a corner at a party in high school as all the kids started playing tonsil-hock- ey all over the place around me. Either because I was chubby and lonely, or because I love the rock, it doesn’t matter. Each are excellent excuses to rock out with the Maynards. And frankly, anyone who can write a rock song called “Robots in Love,’ which is about, well, let’s just say robots need KY just like the rest of us...yeah, if you can write that, you rock. Go team Heath!

The only question that we’re left with after listening to Break Out the Make Out is: Do they rock live? I can imagine that they do; in fact, rock it east-coast style, but if you’re a fan of Pretty Girls Make Graves, the Sweet Tenders, or local rockers You Say Party! We Say Die! and want to check the Maynards out live, head to the Marine Club on Friday, January 20. Fun 100 support. Yes, and fun will be had by all.

Visit waw.themaynards.com for tour and music info. And some totally hot pics.

Right Hook: continued from pg. 7

a stagnant relic that does little more than create the illusion of parliamentary power when none exists in practice. It’s an ineffective, unusable cure that can’t

Left Overs: continued from pg. 7

tion to change laws to reflect religious views. And let us not forget Stockwell Day, who could well be our foreign affairs minister. Do you really want Canada represented abroad by a guy who believes man coexisted with the dinosaurs?

Add to this the smallest percentage of women and smallest percentage of ethnic minorities among major parties and it becomes clear this is not Canada’s party. Tax cuts over real program solutions, trade priorities over helping most citizens, religious doctrine over constitutionally protected human rights. My advice to voters is not to be swayed by the current appearance of the party. They may be honest about what they are saying, but let’s not forget what we already know about them. The Liberals may have been corrupt,

and the NDP may be inexperienced, but they are far better prepared to meet the needs of all of Canada.

even hope to address the root causes of judicial activism, much less the symp- toms. Even a broken watch is right twice a day, and Martin’s promise to overturn the notwithstanding clause is one of those rare moments for the Liberal Party.