THE WICKED AWESOMES! with GIRLS ON STILTS and ULTRATHIN at the Velvet Underground (510 Queen West), tonight (Thursday, August 27). $5. 416-504-6688.
Edmonton’s the Wicked Awesomes! aren’t answering the phone, and I can’t really blame them. After all, the young buzz band are about to play their first show in Brooklyn, hipster capital of the world, so they can be forgiven for forgetting to charge their cellphones.
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When we touch base the next day, guitarist Tyler Harland is apologetic but clearly having too good a time to worry about blowing off interviews. The band’s oddball combo of new wave, punk rock, psych and garage – as heard on their upcoming Punk Holograms full-length (Psychic Handshake) – has come together at just the right moment. Music bloggers are tripping over themselves to figure out how such a cool band can be from Alberta, of all places.
“Right now, the scene in Edmonton is pretty good,” Harland says. “There are a lot of straightforward pop/rock bands, but also really good noise bands. Because Edmonton is a smaller city, all the bands kind of stick together, regardless of what they sound like.”
Not long ago, their mix of dark Joy Divisionesque dissonance with reverb-drenched psych grooves would have been a tough sell, even in Brooklyn. But with the critical success of similar acts like San Diego’s Wavves and Toronto’s Little Girls, ears have opened up and music journalists have started throwing around the term “weird punk” in reference to a whole spectrum of strange DIY rock acts.
“A bunch of bands fall under the whole weird punk umbrella that don’t really sound alike at all.
“I guess it’s cool that the term came about, and that bands are playing together that might not have before. But I think getting lumped in with thathas more to do with what label you’re on or who your friends are than what you sound like.”
benjaminb@nowtoronto.com
