Sexweather - Sexweather (Review)

Sexweather – Sexweather (Review)

SexweatherCover.jpg

The first time I saw Sexweather live my first thought was “This is one of the worst bands I've ever heard.” By the end of the set I was loudly declaring to anyone who would listen, “This is one of the best bands I've ever seen in my life!” The potent combination that informed that performance – passion, skill and excitement that boarders on recklessness – oozes from every nook and cranny of the power trio's eponymous, self-titled debut. I've listened to Sexweather fucking countless times since its release last summer and I still get the feeling that it might all just fall apart at any moment. That is a truly beautiful thing in music and something that is generally only found in a live setting. Sexweather is a record that manages to capture that elusive feeling – a rare album, indeed.

Is the production? That's a big part of it, because the production here is truly phenomenal. The sound has an very deep, familiar warmth, and it's a bit rough; but it doesn't sacrifice modernity or cleanliness to achieve its decidedly classic sound. Sexweather is just, end-to-end, a really, really good sounding record. Immaculate production aside, this is all about the powerhouse collection of 10 songs that make this record.


The idea that a mini tour through Americana would come from the Canadian west coast in 2019 is kind of a baffling one, but here we have it. The album is an ode to the many facets of American music. There's a straight ahead 70s acoustic campfire singalong, “Wendy.” There's the really fucking good, laid-back jazz rap of “Musician.” The down and dirty blues-rock of tracks like “Golden Ticket” and “Black Bayou,” the latter of which is an especially sticky, sweet sludge for your ears. The hard-driving “Takedown” is perfect speeding-down-the-highway-at-night-with-a-cigarette-in-your-mouth music, and what, may I ask, is more Americana than that? Don't usually use the word “bratty” these days when talking about any kind of guitar-based music but “Punanawa” (which I just spelled correctly on the first attempt, thank you) is one of the straight-up brattiest songs I've heard in a long time and it's fun as hell.

Putting your biggest song at the end of the album is a thing I've missed in a lot of albums I've heard and Sexweather does just that as they close things off with “Abracadabra.” The hook on this song is absolutely ridiculous. Legit will be stuck in your head for days after just the first listen. Each member takes lead vocals. It's a little musical journey that feels like three songs in one. It's a lean 6 minutes but feels like a muscular 3.5. If any other song ended this album I would genuinely complain and it would ruin the experience. But another song doesn't end it. Sexweather ends with “Abracadabra” and as such, I can say this is one of the most genuinely pleasing albums I've heard in a very long time. This is a goddamned good record and one you should listen to.

Pick it up at Bandcamp.

5 Questions with Rags #47 - B.A. Johnston

B.A. Johnston is apparently some kind of Canadian folk hero. Every time I mention him, to people across various culture and genre affiliations, there is some kind of recognition. I've been criminally unaware of his presence until just recently, with the release of his fucking glorious new album Gremlins 3. The album is full of fascinatingly obtuse songs about doing whippits whilst working a grocery store, getting drunk on Sourpuss (That awful, awful “liquor” we all drank in our early 20s), getting drunk in a canoe, getting drunk on cheap beer, and slowly turning into his grandmother. The song that really grabbed me ears on the record was “No Wanna Shambhala,” a song about the confusing, wrecked feeling that comes at the end of a multi-day festival. It could be about any festival, really, as Mr. Johnston was so kind to offer up.

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1. What's the first album you bought with your own money?

The first album I bought with my own money was The English Beat – I Just Can't Stop It. I don't listen to it all the time, but I still have it. I listen to it maybe twice a year or something. It's kind of weird to listen to records you knew 20 years ago and you still know it perfectly.

2. When's the last time you did something for the first time?

I don't know. I'm very old. Hmmm...nothing's coming up...Cleaning a toilet a year ago. That might be the last new thing I did. It's not very pleasant. I always assumed they were just clean but then I looked at them more closely and there's stuff inside. I realized I have to clean them.

Wait, wait, wait. How did you get this far in life without having to ever clean a toilet? What kind of blessed life have you lived?

Roommates. Also, I pee perfectly into the centre so I never leave a mess, so I never thought it was my problem.

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5 Questions with Rags #10 - Chuck Robertson (of the Mad Caddies)

Confession: Second-wave ska music kind of makes me insane. I want to like it, I really do. Everyone involved with it seems pretty cool and people in the crowds are always jovial and peaceful, but man, something about it makes me want to punch someone in the face. And as a guy who’ll have a big puff and listen to Run the Jewels with no inclination to punch another face, this is really saying something. A couple of years ago the Mad Caddies, a band with 20 years under their belts and a total of zero listens from your truly, headlined the Victoria Ska Fest (the greatest music week on the Victoria calendar) and I was more than pleasantly surprised with what I saw. These cats rock and burn, throwing every genre scrap they can into their “ska” and making something honest and uniquely theirs. The good homey and frontman Chuck was super cool to oblige me with some time while he was waiting for his California hotel room to be ready.

1. What was the first album you went to buy with your own money?

It was at a place called Records, Etc. I think by the time I started shopping there at age 7 or 8 they still had records, but they definitely mostly had cassettes, rock ‘n’ roll posters and posters of Ferraris and stuff. The first tape I bought was Billy Idol’s Vital Idol, if you can believe it. <laugh> That was the first tape I bought with my own lawn-mowing money. After that it was all Guns ‘n’ Roses, Metallica, Poison, lots of glam rock.

Do you still listen to any of that stuff?

Well, a lot of that glam rock didn’t really stand up to the test of time except for Guns ‘n’ Roses and a few Motley Crue tunes.

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Who's your daddy? Hiram Biram's your daddy! (I talk to Scott H. Biram and he's as cool as I expected.)

I'd like to think I'm a good music fan. ​When I see a band I don't know opening a show I'm attending I try to familiarize myself with said band. Sometimes it's just another band, but in the case of G.Love & Special Sauce's show in Vancouver in March of 2012 the opener was Scott H. Biram. It was love at first hear. His music is genre-blending madness, crushing boundary lines all over the place. it was with furious energy that I started to devour his catalogue and in late 2012 I tracked him down somewhere outside of Phoenix for a chat about being a one-man band, religious imagery and his general bad-assery for one of my weekly columns. Finally the whole thing sees the light of day. I hope you enjoy it and find it as interesting as I did. Welcome to the First Church of the Ultimate Fantacism!

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