THE BON plays as part of the Frantic City Freakout (Static Electricity CD release party) at the Garrison (1197 Dundas West), Friday (June 10), 9 pm. See listing.
Classy Craig Daniels has been making a rock ‘n’ roll racket in Toronto for a long time.
Co-founder of the Leather Uppers, whose 1994 debut, OK, Don’t Say Hi, Daniels is a garage rock classic, was also known as The Crippler, singer for the lucha libre-inspired Tijuana Bibles.
When both bands called it a day (the Bibles will soon reunite for a benefit show), it was only a matter of time before Daniels popped up with something new. That something is the Bon. Formed in 2008, the Bon – which also includes the Pete Gleeson, Bradley Reinhardt and Tim Alchin – are playing shows and revving up for the release their first album, Static Electricity (Boppa Do Down).
Prior to the Bon’s two upcoming shows, we sat down and asked Daniels some questions about record labels, rock ‘n’ roll and what it takes to be so classy.
You were in two bands (Leather Uppers and Tijuana Bibles) that were active for a long time. How does it feel to be in a relatively new band? What did you learn from your previous experiences?
As much as I love the projects I’ve been in, I really needed to feel I was doing something a bit different.
The guidelines for what a band does can be set pretty early into their life span, so we’re trying to keep things open within a certain spectrum. For instance, we have some songs like Miss October and Whammy with much longer song structures than anything I’ve been part of.
Miss October is a mini epic with a hug intro and long ending. It even has “whisper singing” on it! That’s my new obsession, by the way. In the studio, the rest of the band had to ask me to rein it in and just sing normally as there was too much whisper action going on. Maybe when the deluxe edition comes out in 20 years, all the whisper singing from the cutting room floor can be re-added.
The previous bands taught me a lot about a lot of things, like that European tours are basically one long drinking contest and horse meat is pretty good.
Who produced your album Static Electricity?
I’d had great results with studios here in town, but I’d been using the same ones over the last ten years and it was time for some fresh horizons. That’s why when Ian Blurton reminded me that Adrian Popvich (who played guitar in Tricky Woo) had a great studio in Montreal, I thought that would work fine for us. Some of our new material had some passages with crazy double guitar stuff and I knew he would understand what we were doing right away, not water it down or anything like that, and also have an ear for the more tuneful moments.
The biggest by-product of recording in Montreal (other than great breakfasts at Bagels Etc. every morning and beers at Casa del Popolo every night after recording) was that it forced us to focus harder than we had before. I feel that this first album is really going to be how people judge us, so it’s really important.
We also recorded a few extra things here in Toronto with John Critchley. We thought the songs could use a few accents here and there, so Kristina Ileana Koski (Planet Creature, Saffron Sect) played some flute, keyboards and did a bit of singing on the album.
Static Electricity is being released on Boppa Do Down records. Can you tell us about that?
Boppa Do Down is Tim Hanna’s label. He also owns Frantic City books on Ossington and the new Frantic City Records store on Queen St. right above Hits and Misses.
Tim is a great guy with similar influences to me – a big garage-head who loves all kinds of stuff from hardcore to whatever and came up with a lot of the same music as we’re similar ages.
He put out a few singles, like 70s TO punks Tyranna and current surfers the Von Drats, as well as our first 7″. He also puts on shows, like the Cynics last fall and this mini one-night festival we’re doing our CD launch at, the Frantic Freakout. I guess what sets Tim apart is that as much great stuff as there is going on in the city music-wise, he still feels that there are some things he’d like to see done his way with bands he likes.
Does it ever get tiring being so Classy?
It does sometimes like when you’re putting the garbage out and you remember you’re in your underwear.
More on point, at our most recent show somebody was trying to school me “that in England, garage is electronic music,” they thought the gig “was going to be a punk show, but the bands were all weird rockabilly” and “that Jay Reatard died, you know!” Putting on my best elder statesmen face, I tried to take it in stride. I don’t know if that’s class or not, but it felt like the high road to just smile and say “Oh, really? Interesting!”
