Payback Time, stop drinking the Kool-Aid

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      You force the music section to listen to the Firm and we reward you with a Payback Time T-shirt and two tickets to a Live Nation club show of your choice taking place in Vancouver within the next four weeks. Here’s this week’s winning whinge.

      Dear Payback Time: Two questions: Who slipped you guys the Kool-Aid at the Mounties show, and do you have any more? Five guys on a stage squeezing out the most lacklustre vaseline crunch this side of the baby-changing room—I felt like I was watching a CanCon drama on a six-hour flight to Baffin Island. If you wanted to get your LP autographed, you could’ve sent them a patchouli gift basket instead of writing the review you wanted to see Pro tip—collabs don’t always work out. Even From Justin to Kelly had a happy ending. RIP to the ghosts of the great bands these chumps used to play in, and shame on you for buying into it.

      > Joel Jasper

      Gregory Adams replies: Dearest Joel—Judging by the online comments section for this piece, you’re not the only one who thought I wrote the review while under the influence, but the truth of the matter is I caught Mounties stone-cold sober. Frankly, I’m more paranoid about jotting down every detail of the night, from quips to song selections, than a burnout after smoking a badly ground bag of back-alley shake.

      As for Mounties, if the gossamer-threaded guitar lines and airy synth lines on “Tokyo Summer” seemed a bit too precious, there was still Hawksley Workman’s aggressively thunderous drumming to balance things out. Actually, I’ll take him hammering the kit with Mounties over his own glammed-out cabaret act any day. Though it killed maybe too much time with a listless mid-set jam, which I had mentioned, and the bulk of Ryan Dahle’s vocals were apparently dialled miserably low on the Commodore’s mixing board, Mounties still pulled more than a few memorable indie-pop moments out of a Pharrell-sized hat.

      If it wasn’t to your tastes, Joel, that’s too bad, but I left the show with my headphones on, listening to a couple more tracks before cranking out the review. Boy scout that I am, I waited until after I filed the piece before drinking deep on a expired packet of Purplesaurus Rex mixed with club soda and Bombay Sapphire in a crushed-peyote-lined tumbler.

      You can voice your impotent rage by snail mail or by sending an email to payback@straight.com.

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