Edmonton Punk

7 and 7 is

Named after a song by Heart, 7 and 7 is was Edmonton's answer to art rock. All the members were well known in the Edmonton punk scene, particularly Lance who quit the Wednesday Night Heroes and Sean who used to sing for the ska band the Operators.

Anal Rockets

A very young band, these guys never got anywhere. My favourite picture of them is of the lead singer standing in the middle of a Wednesday Night Heroes pit on a Canada Day. I used it to make the flag logo pictured below.

Ass

The lead singer of Ass is one of my best friends in the Edmonton punk scene. We met at CJSR, the local volunteer community radio station, where he went by the name Anarchy Adam. The circle on his hand stands for Beer-Core, the exact opposite of the straight-edge X. I'm pretty sure Adam invented the circle, but not the term beer-core. He's an encyclopedia of punk music and extremely critical of any cliches. The band was kind of a tribute to an earlier Edmonton alcoholic band called L.A.M.S. who I never photographed.

Before Ass started playing regular shows, I saw them practice in Jebus' basement. Adam had the idea to pre-sell out and do an acoustic set, which is when he put on the sweater.

The guy on the left here is Eli, one of the city's main promoters in those days.

This picture became famous for how perfectly Adam's head blended with the disco ball hanging from the ceiling.

Adam stayed on my couch once and overslept a bit.

Banzai Babies

The Banzai Babies were a joke band started by members of the Wednesday Night Heroes and Wrekdefy. They basically dressed in ridiculous costumes and did their impression of Japanese punk. Lots of bad accents and insults about Shonen Knife. One of those things I'm surprised they got away with.

Blame-Its

The Blame-its were one of those bands that played house parties a lot. They were a mainstay of the Sandbar, a house rented by punks that was infamous for its underage drinking parties.

Brewkowskis

The Brewkowksis were a pop-punk band that deserved more of a chance than the Edmonton punk scene was willing to give them. Their songs were basically about beer and they seemed like good guys, but unfortunately pop and underground have a hard time existing together.

Brewtals

These guys were the hardest working and longest running surf/garage band in the city. They later became the Drastics.

Choke

Considered by some to be Edmonton's best band, Choke was certainly Edmonton's most well known and successful band at the time. Personally I didn't like them all that much.

Cleats

One Edmonton band that I really enjoyed, the Cleats seemed like a smarter approach to streetpunk than the Wednesday Night Heroes. They were great musicians and managed to put out a few releases from time to time. The bassist/vocalist Nik Kozub is Edmonton's best music producer, and built a studio in his basement. He produced some of the city's best recordings, but when it came to his band he became very anal, and it would take him years to master one Cleats song. They've been defunct for at least three years now while the guitarist Chris attended medical school, although they have a reunion whenever they can. There's still one EP we're all waiting for Nik to finish.

The image of Nik here was used on the Cleats' album cover.

One of my very earliest photos, possibly from the first gig I photographed. I was proud of it for a long time, and managed to get See Magazine to publish it with my article.

If they ever release a second album I want this shot on the cover.

This is in Chris' family's basement. The ceiling was pretty low, but a ton of people fit down there. Eric, the guy in the Police shirt, only joined the band for a few months at the end.

The guy feeding them the mic is Graeme from the Wednesday Night Heroes, who was close with the band.

I think this guy was Nik's dad.

C-Men

They're named C-Men. You be the judge.

Corb Lund

Alt-country comes and goes in Canada, just like folk rock. Corb Lund used to be the frontman of local band the Smalls, but he grew up and has been doing pretty well with alt-country.

Dancefloor Disasters

These guys were basically the Wednesday Night Heroes Junior. They played pretty well the same style of music, except they were all in high school. Because of their age they weren't very well received, but I don't know why because they were pretty good live. They released one EP on Longshot.

Dead Beat Dads

The Dead Beat Dads were one of the first bands I remember seeing when I was new to Edmonton punk. They used to play very technical rockabilly. Unfortunately, the lead singer worked in his dad's business and was away for most of the year, so they didn't have a chance to play much.

Death by Dawn

These guys were sort of a novelty horror-punk band. The first time I remember seeing them, I was a "celebrity judge" at a high school battle-of-the-bands with Anarchy Adam. All the bands sucked, and then there was one rap group that did one cool song and one really really lame song. Then Death by Dawn came on, with Rahil the lead singer wearing a Confederate flag. He said "My skinhead friend gave me this--does anyone know what it means?" They did the funniest, best set of the day. We didn't have to bother convincing the other judges to vote for Death by Dawn, and they probably won a birthday party at McDonald's or something.

Drastics

Edmonton's always had the best punk scene in the province, but Calgary always beats us at surf/garage/rockabilly for some reason. For a long time there was only one creative group doing that sort of sound in Edmonton, focused around Jeff and his wife Matilda, who host a garage radio show on the community radio station CJSR. They started the Brewtals, and then later the Drastics. The Brewtals were a little more serious and a little less gimmicky, but the Drastics weren't a step down at all.

Felix Carter

This guy was the epitome of emo, before emo was popular. And then when it became popular, he pretended he didn't know what it is. Incidentally, he also pretended his real name wasn't really Bryan or something. Hell, this guy was emo; at the show in these photographs, I saw two people in the audience openly crying while he played. Basically this was just Felix messing around with a guitar and a four-track, but I remember it being pretty cool.

Here's Felix a year or so earlier, trying to look emo.

Fractal Pattern

These guys played very complicated emo-related music. Apparently they were considering touring Japan once.

Franklins

The Franklins were one of Edmonton's most unusual bands. It's hard to say what their sound was, but it was loud. The members were all friendly and I used to see them drinking in the Strat every Friday night.

Notice the little boy with the two punk chicks in the front row. You can see them making faces at me in a bunch of my photos.

The guy on the left side with his arms crossed is my friend Eric, who was one of the most recogniseable regulars at Edmonton punk shows. The first time I saw him, he was wearing a very nice suit at a Fishbone show. Some kid started bleeding everywhere and Eric brought the guy to the washroom to clean him up. First time I met Eric was a very small Mad Bomber Society gig at New City Likwid Lounge, my first no-minors show after I turned 18. Eric came over and talked to me, then he wandered away. I figured he'd lost interest, but he came back a few minutes later with a pitcher and some glasses for us.

The Franklins played a lot of house parties. This one is at the Sandbar. It must be New Year's.

Another house party.

Generation Condemned

I remember very clearly the first time I ever went to a punk show, I met these two guys named Brad and Chris who were talking about starting a punk band. They wanted to name it Special Guest, but gave up after they found out there's been a "Special Guest" in every city in the world. So they went with Generation Condemned. I didn't see them for a long time, and managed to get a couple pictures of them at their reunion show when suddenly we were all old fogeys in the punk scene.

Glory Stompers

These guys were a streetpunk band from before my time, and they all moved off to Toronto or some place. They did one reunion show in Edmonton in a tiny venue called the Shark Tank, which was the city's only all-ages venue. The problem was, it was in the middle of nowhere. This was their only successful show.

You can see a couple Wednesday Night Heroes on the microphone in back.

The Hills Have Eyes

I'm pretty sure these guys were a technical emo band, but I don't remember all that well.

Hi-Phoniqs

There was a moderately small urban music scene in Edmonton. Some of the stuff that were less stuck with genre conventions were pretty cool. Hi-Phoniqs had a pretty good take on soul music.

James T Kirks

The James T Kirks managed to get themselves onto an Edmonton punk compilation, so their name stuck around despite the fact I think they only had one song recorded. They were a pretty competent surf band that was overshadowed by later projects by the members, such as Les Tabernacles, Kasuals, and even the Rockin' Mexicans. These two pictures are from a reunion show.

Joey and the Instapunks

I'm not sure if these guys ever played a show for money. At least one of the members lived in the infamous Sandbar (pictured in the background), the best place for underage drinking. The band frontman was nicknamed Hillbilly Idol because of a loose resemblance with Billy Idol. Here he is signing a skateboard deck to be given away at a party.

Apparently on a drunk night out they stole a sign from an A&W. There it is up on the wall of the Sandbar, whispering evil thoughts to Hillbilly Idol.

Kasuals

A side project for Les Tabernacles, the Kasuals were the city's most well received pop-punk band. They tried to get the message across that pop-punk isn't necessarily a bad thing, and undid a lot of the damage done by crap pop-punk like Sum41.

Here's Liam manning a very inactive merch table. Don't worry, there was a very good show going on and everyone was up watching the band.

For a while, A&B Sound was booking punk shows on weekend afternoons. I only ever saw two, and they were low attended, but hilarious.

Kate's Turn

My ex-girlfriend was best friends with this guy. Shortly after, they kicked him out, so this is all you get.

Krazy 8s

These guys played greaser-style rockabilly music, but I didn't see them that many times. I did an interview with them once and managed to get a couple funny promo pictures, which is interesting because usually I suck at this type of photography.

Les Tabernacles

These guys became one of Edmonton's most successful bands. They were a bit more rock and a bit less punk, and all of them were committed to music. Every girl had a crush on the bassist Al.

This picture is one of my oldest. These two guys, Rob and Ted, are brothers.

Rob was actually a very hardworking promoter.

Liam didn't wear pants that fit, even with belt.

Lord Anus

Probably Edmonton's worst band. But I loved them because they were funny guys, and both times I saw them play I took great pictures. They released an album of terrible oi songs that were so bad we were convinced they were parodies ("Oi! Oi! Oi! Kill the pigs!").

The first time I saw them play, they were the opening band at a hall show. It just so happened light was coming through the windows and hitting the stage, creating an interesting effect. I was really proud of these unusual pictures, and I know they didn't like having to squint while onstage.

The second time I saw them play, it was Halloween 2002. I guess a punk worked at Value Village, and they managed to book a gig to play inside the store. At another Value Village the Franklins, a much more credible band, was playing, but Lord Anus doesn't play all the time, so I headed right there.

This is a pretty fair representation of the crowd they pulled. Because of the kids, they omitted all the swears in their songs. They did a great Halloween-themed cover of "Where Eagles Dare" by the Misfits, with the lyrics "I ain't no gosh darn son of a witch!"

Lost Action Heroes

Edmonton has had a pretty strong ska scene, and it's always been hard for ska-punk bands to find acceptance there. The band that came the closest was Lost Action Heroes, painfully named after their interpretation of Arnold Schwarzenegger's accent. They didn't make it out of the suburb of St Albert, and eventually resigned to playing "rock with horns."

Mad Bomber Society

For a while, these guys seemed like they could be Canada's best ska band. They were a lot more traditional sounding than Montreal's biggest band the Planet Smashers, and had their act together a lot more than the Kingpins. But for some reason Stomp Records (owned by the Planet Smashers) refused to put out their album. Mad Bomber Society missed their big chance and failed to make an audience outside the province. They're still around but their sound has changed as band members came and left.

Originally their lead singer was Mal, but he left and formed the psychobilly band Wrekdefy. They were stuck without a singer, so lead guitarist Rich took over and basically kept doing it. Eventually MBS became Rich. He was much older than everyone else in the punk scene, and ran a great independent record store next to Victoria High School, the city's art school and training ground for Edmonton's punk scene.

For a while, my friend Eric played keyboards for them. He would later go on to play in the Operators, Cleats, and Our Mercury.

They played a great show in the Royal Canadian Legion once, and I guess they have bingo there.

Want to know why they called the trumpet player Four-Finger Mike? Here's why.

Jay, the drummer, later joined the Wednesday Night Heroes. You wouldn't believe the things I've seen hanging suspended from his nipple piercings.

One time at a Sandbar party, Rich didn't like me taking his picture. He actually hit me with this bottle. After that, it was on: I was going to show the world what a horrible person he is.

Here's a picture of me with hair fighting against Rich and his bottle.

Rich even attacked one of the Slackers when they came by.

Mad Banger Society

Another staple joke band, Mad Banger Society was a side-project of Mad Bomber Society. It was a chance for the members to play music that's the exact opposite of their usual stuff. The Bombers' bassist Jay was lead singer.

Mark Birtles Project

These guys started playing power-pop near the end of my life in Edmonton. The first time I saw them, they amazed me.

Mercy Fight

Mercy Fight was some younger, less experienced kids. They were one of those bands that would play one ska song, then one punk song, then one surf song. They were nice kids.

Metallica

There was this insane Mormon dude who entered the punk scene around 2001. He was really crazy about surf music, and I mean really crazy. He developed what he called "guerrilla punk," which is basically setting up in a random place and playing til the cops stop you. One time they played in front of a convenience store, and another time they set up in the Students' Union Building during exam week, when the place was packed with students who were studying for exams.

Blair went to prison for a few months once for punching a professor. Apparently they collided while they were swimming, and Blair called the prof a fag, so the guy pushed him. Blair sent him to the hospital with one punch, and the judge sent him to the remand center. He was bailed out by all the Mormon leaders of the city vouching for his good character. When he came out he was even weirder than before.

He sent a demo of his band to the real Metallica, who responded as you can imagine. This article was written by my friend James; every other interview Blair did he pretended to be crazy just so they wouldn't be able to quote him.

They played a gig in an A&B sound, where Blair managed to get Anarchy Adam to touch his guitar.

They asked me to make a banner for them, so I came up with this alternative spelling of their name.

First time I saw them play, I was shocked when Blair left the stage, and a minute later this dude grabbed the mic. Yes, that's Blair still.

Misdemeanor

Misdemeanor started between three childhood friends. When they were 14 or so, they started a very young punk band, which got them a bit more press than an Edmonton band is used to. In these pictures, they're a lot more grown up.

Moneyshots

The Wednesday Night Heroes had yet another side project, the Moneyshots. This one had Graeme on guitar and Todd, the WNH drummer, on vocals. Here's a little riddle for you: one of them is straight-edge, and the other is not. Looking at these pictures, can you tell who was totally plastered?

Morellos

I think these kids set the record for youngest band in Edmonton. Their average age was something like 14.

Nevertheless

Edmonton's punk scene has always been pretty apolitical, so it's ironic that our most political band was totally instrumental and never sang on their songs. Nevertheless' music was very technical hardcore, but didn't really fit any of the cookie-cutter definitions of the genre. The three guys in the band, Ed, Leith and Sean, were very cool to hang around with.

Actually, I knew Leith, the bassist, when I was a very young kid. We figured out later that we'd all lived in the same neighbourhood after a reunion over 15 years in the future.

All of Nevertheless was obsessed with skateboarding. Pretty often their drummer would be in a cast.

Anyway, they had a gas mask.

Open Wounds

Open Wounds were kind of a rock band formed around Fat Dave, an Edmonton punk who always seemed to have a lot of infamy around him. He started a couple record stores in the city that failed, but got a bit of attention for his attempts at such a young age.

Operators

Possibly my favourite live band in Edmonton's history, the Operators rose out of the ashes of an earlier ska band called the Clones. The two talented members of that band formed the Operators, who started playing simple traditional ska and went through a very unique evolution. They eventually quit because they were pissed off that ska-punk had taken over ska music. I was with Brad, the guitarist, the night I saw his heart broken by ska.

At their peak, they played one show in a small cafe called the Sugarbowl. Not really a good place for an active show.

The Sugarbowl became so crowded, people were outside dancing.

This guy started dating my ex-girlfriend a week after we broke up.

There's Eric, who was also in the Cleats at the time.

Mike used to be a drug dealer when he was in high school, I think. How did he get away with it? His dad was vice principal.

When Ian joined the Operators, he was just a normal kid who liked drums, but he quickly became one of the coolest drummers in the city.

Eric was an engineering student, like quite a few Edmonton punks.

Our Mercury

There used to be a pretty straightforward streetpunk band in Edmonton called Misdemeanor. One day, they all grew up and decided to make a serious band, so they renamed themselves Our Mercury and started playing different music. And it worked, and they've had quite a good thing going.

Paragon

After I saw Metallica play once, this weird band called Paragon took the stage. The bassist/singer was this giant fat guy, and their music was best described as D&D-core. I wish I could see them play again.

Radio City Riot Squad

These guys used to be a big deal in the Edmonton punk scene, and after their breakup they had an annual reunion show. This one was at Spruce Avenue Hall, where you can see some of the advantages of a hall show. There's no stage, so the audience can get as close as they want to the band.

Al was also in Les Tabernacles.

Liam, singing into the mic, was the lead singer of the Kasuals, and guitarist of Les Tabernacles. The guy with long hair and glasses is Rob, the singer of Les Tabernacles.

The band managed to keep playing through this onslaught.

Riot 99

I'm going to count these guys as an Edmonton band, even though they're from Toronto or some such crappy place, because they chose to come to Edmonton to record in Nik Kozub's studio. They asked my sister Annan to come in to do "vocals" for one song, and now if you listen to "I Just Wanna" you can hear her fake an orgasm.

They thought it was pretty good.

They played a great show in New City Likwid Lounge.

I was the first to ever notice the lead singer looked slightly like George W Bush. Drew didn't like that.

Take a look at all those tattoos. Right in there, Drew has a tattoo in Japanese that says "I want to suck your cunt." His thing is he will approach a Japanese girl and say "Do you like my tattoo? It says 'Happy New Year'" or something. At that time, it had never worked.

Rockin' Mexicans

Rockin' Mexicans, or is that Drunken Mexicans? It was always hard to tell. Basically it was Rob and Ted Wright from Les Tabernacles wearing sombreros and playing music together. They only did it for special occasions, such as their birthdays.

Six-String Rebels

I don't remember these guys all that well. They could've been out-of-towners.

The Skinny

Edmonton's top girl band. I always had bad luck trying to catch their shows. For some reason this is my most enduring picture of them.

Souljah Fyah

They were a very rootsy reggae band that managed to find some footing among the punk community from time to time. The guy in this photograph was a CJSR DJ who I ran into quite a bit, named The Original Tribesman.

The night of these photographs, I met a white power skinhead for the first time. He showed up knowing there'd be skinheads at the gig, but he didn't know what was in store for him. I actually brought him inside and sat him down while Souljah Fyah was setting up, and watched as he started becoming more and more paranoid. "That guy's weawing a tuwban!" "That chick is bwack!" Before the band started, he freaked out and ran for the door.

Southside Riots

The Southside Riots were part of a younger group of kids who came to the punk scene en masse, probably from one of the suburbs like Sherwood Park or something. They played pretty decent surf music, and are still around.

DJ Spilt Milk

Yes, a DJ picture, so sue me. This guy was friends with a lot of my friends and I knew him through CJSR. He actually brought his DJ act to Korea once and did a show at that place across the street from Skunk.

Stillframe

I can't say I remember these guys well.

The Taken

These guys did horror rock music. They were kind of in a part of the punk scene I didn't know that well. The lead singer had started a record store called Hexed that persisted for a long time.

Too Little Too Late

One night I stopped by Orange Hall when there was an emo show. Apparently this was the reunion show of a band called Too Little Too Late who I didn' tknow much about. They put on a pretty good show and I got some pretty good photos.

Tosspots

Or was that Hit n Run? I got these pictures when they were called Tosspots but they changed it later. They were a pretty middle of the road streetpunk band, but they were good people.

Here's their singer stuffing her face at Jebus' birthday.

Transylvanians

These guys didn't stick around long, but they were around long enough for me to get this freaky picture.

Wednesday Night Heroes

The best band in the city, and arguably the best band in Canada, the Wednesday Night Heroes started in the '90s as a high school joke band. Early on they played pretty standard "oi" songs, but soon they wore out that joke, which is why after that the word "oi" could never be taken seriously. They mix a good part of that music with streetpunk a la the Casualties and even straight-edge hardcore bands. You wouldn't think it but the lead singer Graeme is straight-edge.

The guitarist dated my sister for several years.

Lance later left the band to form 7 and 7 is.

Todd had a side project called the Moneyshots, where he would get unbelieveably drunk and spend half the set lying on the floor, too drunk to stand.

Here's Graeme recounting Edmonton of his first tour through the US.

An ancient picture.

The Wolfnote

The Wolfnote was a special band. Their influences ranged from hardcore to screamo to horror punk to miscellaneous, and they were great to see live. Also great recorded. Travis, the lead singer, is quite a guy.

Wrekdefy

Edmonton's main psychobilly band, Wrekdefy started when singer Mal left the Wednesday Night Heroes to start his own band. Their golden age was when he had Rahil from Death by Dawn and Konrad (later in the Wednesday Night Heroes) accompanying him. After they left, it was clear most of the talent in the band went with them.

These two guys tried to replace Konrad and Rahil after they left, but didn't have enough time to get good.

Here's Graeme from the Heroes goofing around on their stand-up bass.

Scene people

I got this picture of Liv and Eli, the promoting team who created Black Dot and brought a lot of great bands through the city. Liv later moved to Winnipeg to work for a record label and Eli moved to Toronto to work for an even bigger label.

This guy was in a band but I forget the name. The girl had a huge crush on Jebus for a long time and he never caught on.

Outside at a show. I think this is the show where "To Serve and Protect," the Canadian version of "Cops," showed up to film us.

Probably the worst designed Christmas candles ever. Who wants to see Santa bleeding from a headwound as the red wax on top melts? Well, I enjoyed it.

This girl was nicknamed Crazy Jenn. She was fun to hang around with but every girlfriend in the city hated her. She had a major crush on Les Tabernacles, Jebus, Leith from Nevertheless, and anyone associated with any of them.

Crossing the river late one night after a Reverend Horton Heat show. I think the person in the picture is my friend Greg. It took us about two hours to walk a 30-minute distance that night.

One summer I planned a weekly soccer game on Saturday. The only stranger who showed up was Larry, who quickly became a good friend with all of us. It later turned out he was 14. Let's just say there are a lot of Edmonton punk chicks who are unwittingly now sex offenders.

I met Powermann in school, when he started to show up wearing a superhero costume and was pretty messed up. Over time we became very good friends. I was shocked and very proud, years later, when his street performing paid off, and he joined the Jim Rose Circus and toured the world as a travelling freak. You can actually read a brief account of his origin story over here.

The guy on the left was one of my closest friends for a while. He started a two-piece art-rock band called Vertical Struts that I never managed to see live. The guy on the left was a cartoonist for the university newspaper. He did a cartoon about their friendship, and asked me to take some photos of them modelling for camera frames. You can read the strip down at the bottom.

There, that looks a little more inviting, doesn't it? My ex-girlfriend would kill me.

Here's the comic he made.

Good ol' Jebus. He was one of the top promoters in Edmonton, and today he works for a club bringing bands to Edmonton, as well as managing the Wednesday Night Heroes. Plus he does a popular punk radio show on CJSR with Anarchy Adam.

These are the old banners from my old sites. The angel statue was done by Jebus' mom. We call it the Masturbating Angel because it's holding a sword with the hilt positioned opportunistically.

This old banner is not that different from my current one.

I was doing an article about Jebus for one of his shows, and we wanted to get a picture of him looking saintly.

Here's a closer look at the Masturbating Angel.